The Return in Journal

I didn’t meet with C.’s wife before my trip to Portland because the pain was too raw for her. We exchanged a few messages - both of us supportive and kind. During a last-minute appointment my therapist squeezed in, I sobbed for her. Even when I was with C., I always sensed she’d been trapped by this predator in a longer con than he had trapped me for. It was a cathartic cry for all women hurt en masse by men. I had mistakenly thought that my relationship with him freed her - he had claimed she was finally moving on from their divorce when she found out about me (all lies) - and because 2016 was my suicidal plummet into Hell, I thought I deserved him (wryly thinking that at least one of us was free).

There were red flags in her messages that indicated her caving into that classic systematic abuse program - where he confesses just enough to break her down into a lonely, panicked state, only to feed her soft, caressing lies to cushion the blows. There is little anyone can do to enable a quick escape. I know what it’s like to be weakened by an abuser, to be brought so low that you’re willing to accept false but familiar comfort. My hope is that when she bolsters up enough strength over time, even if it takes years, she will be able to escape the cycle of abuse.

My trip to Portland was perfectly timed, as I needed a break in environment to shatter the intense PTSD memories dragged to the surface. My best friend’s son just turned four. We went to OMSI and he built a giant fort house with three girls. At home he showed me his massive collection of toy cars, most of them vintage from papa’s childhood, and when I didn’t recognize the General Lee he made papa pull up clips from The Dukes of Hazard on YT. He’s growing up surrounded by a lot of love.

My best friend and I had some alone time shopping at Division Street (stationery store and clothing boutique) and enjoying delicious food (Stella Taco). Every time I experience the aesthetics and quality of life in Portland, I fantasize about moving there. But my heart’s so firmly rooted in the Bay that it may take the impossibility of affording rent to finally trigger a move. We shall see once I get my degree.

I flew back on Saturday, feeling depressed and out of sorts. I had contracted a minor cold, and later discovered I had skipped a day of meds, so it made sense that when I took a nap, I had terrible dreams. It was night-terror-ish, cast in that half-awake state, and involved discovering my father’s double life and his secret other daughter, and dying in a tsunami. I’ve experienced dying quite frequently in my dreams - from being shot, drowning, and burning up in a car crash - and it’s all similar in feeling - an intense body pain that increases then decreases. When I awoke I had a sobbing fit. There is some real-life basis for suspecting my father of a double life, and of course there’s a lot of resentment over his complete emotional absence from my life that led me to the classic daddy-issues descent into a life of trading sex for love. Some of the protectiveness I feel over C.’s wife and his daughter is the projection of my own pain onto the imagined future of his daughter - I don’t want anyone walking the same hard path I did.

I must let the past go and move forward. And direct love and healing toward myself.