I am damaged goods.

I met a woman at a restaurant last night.  This was the first circumstance I've had in the last two years that could conceivably be called a "date."  We spent three hours together and I enjoyed it…nice to learn about someone new, share some good food, and talk a bit about how the future might be better than today.

Thank you, Nancy. 

It never occurrs to me that I could possibly be attractive to someone else.  If there were any of those vibes, I could not see them.  I am damaged and I am not attractive.  I do not deserve to have my needs considered by another human being, and I'm certain no one will ever care about me enough to imagine what my needs might be. 

(I have only one need now.  I need to be safe. I don't expect to feel satisfied today, or perhaps ever again.  Despite all my mental health work, I am no closer to a goal of safety today than I was when I had my trauma-induced crash in 2022.  A crash that was decades in the making, but deferred by false images of a successful marriage and my own feeling of being part of a community.  That community never valued me, knew me, and they did not lift a finger to care for me when I fell. 

I'm still flat on my face, guys.  Not the gutter.  More "supine in the middle of a flat desert with no shade, no water, and no line of sight beyond the infinite sand."

I think I might have had some swagger earlier in my life.  I was a good skier, and I started two successful businesses.  I supported partners who loved me (not my life partner, who has genetic narcissistic personality disorder, according to the textbooks).  

She moved to Montreal to join a polyamorous club, and didn't want me involved.  And then she dumped me when I got angry.  Then she dismissed me as a coke addict. 

Through therapy and many other modalities, I know that she actively stopped the pretense of being interested in my needs, started complaining about me whenever I wasn't in the room, and was insulting regarding my pain, by 2010.  She left in 2012 for five months, and then again in 2022 for 10 months.  

Then she came back again! I guess she sensed the carcass wasn't completely dead, and besides she needed our joint assets because hadn't secretly taken enough previously to fully support herself (true…she only borrowed a couple hundred thousand dollars without disclosing).

That lasted five months.  I was terrified every single moment, and was told I was a failure every day, in her yawns.  In her joy at kicking a dead dog.

Then she left for the third time, never to be heard from again.  With a love like this, not hearing from her is exactly like sleeping in bed with her every night for 28 years.  You won't feel better when you wake up in the morning, with love like this. I never did.

I long for a sympathetic, concerned listener.  I do not need a judge. 

(That's all you are, honey. 100% your dad.  Your mom could not distinguish the disregard and disrespect she experienced from both of you.  You discarded her, discarded so many others, discarded your life partner, and I'm sure you've discarded many others since you joined Caroline in Montreal. I wonder how many of your current community recognize that you're already discarded them. They deserve it, right honey???  You're 100% certain we all deserve the pain you hand out like street heroin.) 

Now I am ugly and deformed.  My PTSD would not be worse if mortars had exploded next to me.  A mortar explosion lasts for seconds, and changes you forever. You are either dead, injured, or traumatized.  There is no other option...

I withstood direct daily friendly fire--in my home, in my bedroom, during meals--for 28 years.

PTSD is an illness caused by trauma.  It's serious.  I have no option but to live with my trauma, since I'm currently alive.  But:  

• I will never be safe.  
• I will always recoil at any noise.  
• I will never have a meaningful love or mature friendship again.
• I will never get into bed with another person.  
• I am in pain and I worry what will happen to me should I experience even a single mortar barrage from the next sadist.