Triggers
I still deal with triggers all the time. These triggers bring me straight back to the narcissistic rage and tirade of Tracy on 7/1/10.
When I’m learning the Greek phrase for “I don’t understand” on my language learning software, it’s hard to type the words because I begin hearing, “You’re too stupid to understand!”
When someone says “F–k off” to some other person, that’s a trigger to Tracy telling me to f–k off, which I did not deserve. Which was she herself being a b**ch and not bothering to find out the truth before raging, and not bothering to even try to be diplomatic to the person who had gotten her out of financial and other jams time and time again.
“Oh baloney” because when my husband stuck up for me and said that Richard had kept saying different things all the time and it was very confusing to me, she said, “Oh baloney.”
“So be it” because that was her response to taking a break, followed by “Have a nice life,” rather than, “Oh, what a good idea.”
“99%” because she and Richard both claimed that 99% of people would react even worse than she did, that she was somehow going “easy” on me.
Cthulhu references bring it back because Richard had this online Cthulhu persona for games.
“Harsh words” because Richard minimized Tracy’s foul, outrageous, filthy, abusive words to me as “some harsh words.”
It was horrible, horrible, and such innocuous words and phrases bring it all back again when I’m trying to move past the pain of being ripped to shreds for no reason, with no justification, and of my own best, closest, most trusted friend, stabbing me in the back.
It wasn’t physical violence, but it was psychologically, emotionally and verbally just as violent as any beating.
The gaslighting, control and psychological bullying come back again because of so many triggers. I don’t know how the heck to disable these triggers.
They also make me very angry because I wouldn’t have these triggers if Tracy had acted like a decent human being instead of an out-of-control witch, if Richard had acted like a true friend instead of a fake, cover-your-own-butt friend. Yet people don’t understand why it’s so nervewracking to see them show up at church or some other place.
The worst part is knowing they probably think they have the moral high ground. I certainly sensed it reading Tracy’s messages to me. It just makes you want to scream at them,
NO! YOU DO NOT HAVE THE MORAL HIGH GROUND! ABUSE IS WRONG! I DID NOT DESERVE ANY OF THIS! WHAT YOU’VE DONE TO ME IS WRONG! HOW YOU TREATED ME IS WRONG!
I mean, how can they have the moral high ground? Not only did they bully me, but Richard now has a criminal record in this state for abusing one of the kids.
But of course, try to say any of this to an abuser, and you won’t get what you wanted. Just more abuse, probably.
By the way, you can tell how badly this has affected my psyche by the use of profanity (even blocked out) in these blog posts. Profanity is so highly uncharacteristic of me that I can only bring myself to post it blocked-out. But all the crap I’m dealing with is so soul-crushing that euphemisms just don’t cut it.