That was in another country
Jan. 16th, 2019 09:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smokingbootGot into an online argument with some mediocrity yesterday; a mistake not only because it was a waste of time but because they brought up a connection to a person I have sort of tried to forget. It affected me far more than all the other virtue honks sent my way in the conversation.
Long ago, there was a man with whom I had what can best be described as a platonic love relationship. The friendship exploded and while neither of us behaved well, to my own credit I tried to mend it but he was not having that. His motives, I think, were less pure than mine at that point, but it didn't matter. He wanted it to stay broken so it stayed broken.
It was a horrible, bitter thing, far more traumatic than any romantic break up I have ever known and it had long lasting effects, emotional and social.
Many years later, during my attack, pretty much everything in my head stopped except being entirely in the moment of the fight. And he, like many issues and subjects I cared about, suddenly fell away like paper soldiers off a child's table. They didn't exist, there was nothing there. I was in the real.
The effects remained, a bizarre benefit of PTSD and disassociative fugue. I made my peace with those I could, knowing that any day could be my last, ready to die. For him, I knew honestly I had tried my hardest long before any of this, and it was OK that there was nothing else to be said. There was a momentary glitch; a friend had a birthday camping in a field. I went to it, and there he was. I noted how hard he tried to avoid me, and appreciated the gentleness behind the act, even though I knew he would be doing it for reasons of his own embarrassment; the man had spent years bad-mouthing me. His most often used quote pertaining to me was 'That was in another country: And besides, the wench is dead.' Quoting Marlowe to diss your enemy is the kind of class I can respect, and as prophecies go, it's the only one guaranteed to come true if you wait long enough. But of course it doesn't work quite so well in the modern world when your enemy narrowly escapes being raped and murdered.
It didn't matter, we are all done, and have been for nearly 20 years.
But yesterday, just for a moment, something was not all done.
Long ago, there was a man with whom I had what can best be described as a platonic love relationship. The friendship exploded and while neither of us behaved well, to my own credit I tried to mend it but he was not having that. His motives, I think, were less pure than mine at that point, but it didn't matter. He wanted it to stay broken so it stayed broken.
It was a horrible, bitter thing, far more traumatic than any romantic break up I have ever known and it had long lasting effects, emotional and social.
Many years later, during my attack, pretty much everything in my head stopped except being entirely in the moment of the fight. And he, like many issues and subjects I cared about, suddenly fell away like paper soldiers off a child's table. They didn't exist, there was nothing there. I was in the real.
The effects remained, a bizarre benefit of PTSD and disassociative fugue. I made my peace with those I could, knowing that any day could be my last, ready to die. For him, I knew honestly I had tried my hardest long before any of this, and it was OK that there was nothing else to be said. There was a momentary glitch; a friend had a birthday camping in a field. I went to it, and there he was. I noted how hard he tried to avoid me, and appreciated the gentleness behind the act, even though I knew he would be doing it for reasons of his own embarrassment; the man had spent years bad-mouthing me. His most often used quote pertaining to me was 'That was in another country: And besides, the wench is dead.' Quoting Marlowe to diss your enemy is the kind of class I can respect, and as prophecies go, it's the only one guaranteed to come true if you wait long enough. But of course it doesn't work quite so well in the modern world when your enemy narrowly escapes being raped and murdered.
It didn't matter, we are all done, and have been for nearly 20 years.
But yesterday, just for a moment, something was not all done.
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}