Chapter 17

As June juggled her busy routine the next day—waking the kids, reminding them to wear green for St. Patrick's Day, making sure they had breakfast, working all day, picking up the kids, dropping some at home, grabbing snacks for others before theater rehearsals, rushing back to make dinner, then picking them up again—she noticed a hardness forming in her heart toward Donna.

June sensed that Donna was biding her time with the friendship boundary, and subtle clues were already emerging that Donna might not intend to honor it for long. But June worried that this suspicion could be her mind playing tricks, the classic paranoia associated with bipolar disorder. She felt torn, unsure of what to do. She wanted to trust herself—her intuition, her gut feelings—but her entire life had seemed like a constant lesson in doubting her own instincts.

She remembered something she used to do when she felt this way, many years ago. It had started when she was approaching ten years old. She would write. At first, it was to her diary, but soon it evolved into letters to imagined friends—fictional confidants who she believed would understand and care for her without judgment, who would offer empathy and support. As a teenager and young adult, she had continued to write, purely for reflection and for herself. It had been a lifeline during pivotal moments in her twenties, too. But for some reason, after she became serious with Hadrian, the habit had faded.

Sure, she had written and then deleted many unsent, angry emails to Hadrian when upset, but she hadn’t thought of those moments as journaling. Maybe, in a way, they were. Perhaps that’s what she needed now—an outlet to let her thoughts flow freely, without judgment or anyone else’s eyes. June needed to get her thoughts out in the open, to lay them bare so she could examine them without filters. She needed to fully explore the history between herself and Donna before she could make a final judgment on whether Donna could be trusted with this, the last—it had to be the last—friendship boundary.

The next morning, after her usual call to set direction for her work team, June opened a Google Document and titled it, Free Flow and Reflections on History with Donna. She began by addressing her words to Donna, letting her thoughts and feelings flow freely onto the page.

March 18, 2022, 9:22 AM - Reflection Starts

You frequently say you want semantic unification. Shared meaning. You've asked for brutal honesty. But I didn’t give that to you. I softened my answers. I tested you slowly with requests for friendship first, to slow things down, to take it easy. You responded with panic and immediate withdrawal, without questioning or trying to understand or show empathy for how I might be feeling. Your focus is intensely on your feelings, your reality, you.

I complied—softened, backed down, gave in. I met your needs and gave you what you really wanted... not brutal honesty. You asked for it, but then hinted at how devastating it would be for you, how you’d "survive" or "get through it" or "be okay." I think you've known from the beginning—always known. But you never want to accept it. You temporarily accept a boundary, but in your...

June paused here, skimming back through emails to find context again around that one email proof that she had tried to set a friendship boundary in the past, the Reframing email. It didn’t take long—she found it easily: June, 2016. But she hadn’t yet delved into what had happened before and after that moment at any depth of detail, nor had she looked closely at the details of how the boundary had been broken over the years. She realized just how many times she had tried to set that boundary, only to have it crumble again and again.

She glanced at the little scrap of paper where she had outlined a vague timeline and decided to start from the very beginning, February of 2016. She recalled the early hints of her hesitance about the relationship and Donna’s responses to those hesitations.

With that in mind, she returned to her free flow:

3/24-3/31 - Intimacy Discussion

You asked me what my needs were for intimacy—and when I told you, you totally freaked out. I backtracked, softened my answer to fit your needs. There were no true/false questions then, were there? No. Absolutely not.

Something felt out of order. June was getting confused about the timeline, the storyline—everything. She began cutting and pasting, rearranging, trying to make sense of it all as she referenced her timeline and cross-referenced it with her growing sense of outrage over the struggles of the past years with Donna.

She’d had a relatively light workday, with very few meetings and tasks to focus on. So, she dove into her free-flow writing, barely stopping for lunch or bio breaks. A couple of times, she nearly didn’t make it to the bathroom in time, having held it until the last second.

By 3:30, she had written what had morphed into a letter to Donna, a brutally honest expression of how she really felt. She wanted to keep going—it felt all-consuming—but she had to stop to pick up the kids from school. She felt dizzy, shaky, confused, and angry all at once. But she was focused. That much, at least, couldn’t be denied, she thought, as she rushed out the door to get the kids.  The letter she left blazed across her computer screen read as follows:

Donna,

I’ve literally driven myself crazy trying to figure out how to be with you, in balance, where we are both honestly and truly satisfied.

Was I manipulating you? Or were you manipulating me? Both? It can’t be neither... I know that. What a mess.

Fierce Self-Compassion: The Hindu Goddess Kali - Master of Death, Time, and Change

When I let my inner Kali out, this is what she says to you:

You frequently say you want semantic unification. Shared meaning. But in my experience, in my relationship with you, what you really want is for my meaning to align with yours—for me to give up my truth in favor of yours. Well, I’ve had enough. I am done. I own me. If that hurts you, makes you uncomfortable, devastates you even... maybe you ought to re-examine your role in all of this. You’re not the victim. You are the aggressor. Yes, I said aggressor—you gaslighted me. You did this so effectively that you conditioned me not to call you aggressive when you were. I had to find a nicer word—you’re "assertive." You did this so effectively that I had to change my gaslighting label and half-jokingly say, “quit bullshitting me,” when I was really confused and disoriented by you.

You’ve asked for brutal honesty, but I didn’t give that to you. I softened my answers. Tested you slowly with requests for friendship first, to slow things down, take it easy. You responded with panic and immediate reference to the utter devastation you would feel—no questions, curiosity, analysis, understanding, or empathy for how I might be feeling. Intense focus on your feelings, your reality, YOU. What you should do, how you should act, how you could “meet my needs”—but really, it was an exercise in uncovering how to emotionally manipulate me.

I complied, softened, backed down, gave in, met your needs, gave you what you really wanted... not brutal honesty. You requested brutal honesty but covertly warned me how devastating it would be for you—that you would “survive,” or “get through it,” or “be okay.” I think you’ve known from the beginning—that you’ve always known—that it wasn’t right, that you weren’t getting the truth. But you never wanted to really hear or accept the truth.

You temporarily accept a boundary (but in your heart, you don’t)—you wait patiently for me to let my guard down. You test those boundaries with little hints of boundary-crossing to see how I react. If I don’t call you on it, you go further, and further, and then it’s a request to hold your hand—oh so innocent, not romantic or sexual (sarcasm). Then somehow, it’s back to kissing and romance, and we are no longer “just friends,” even though I’ve repeatedly told you I don’t feel that way. I consistently revert to trying to be what you want and need—a romantic partner. So, you can say, you never crossed my boundary “without my permission.” How convenient. Manufactured consent. I need to remember: Nobody can manipulate me without my consent and cooperation. I own me.

If I call you on it when you cross my boundaries, you are “devastated,” and you make me fully and painfully aware of how devastated you are—while at the same time saying, “don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine, I will heal.” Then you respect the boundary... for a while. Then the boundary testing begins again... and once again, my vulnerability—my extreme compassion for others to the point of self-sacrifice—is exploited, and you get what you want. You crossed my boundary again, but again not “without my permission.” How convenient. Manufactured consent. I need to remember: Nobody can manipulate me without my consent and cooperation. I own me.

But a romantic partner is not what I need. Since that doesn’t conform to your needs and desires, you don’t believe it. And the pattern continues. After six years—six fucking years?!—I’m ready to break the cycle, to stop this insanity. That’s why I nearly had a psychotic break trying to set this fucking boundary! That’s how difficult, confusing, and self-defeating it has been in the past to try to set this reality, this boundary, with you. Now you want to know if I’m “unfriending” you? The answer is no—not unless I have to. I am prepared to unfriend you if you cannot honor this boundary. If you cannot let go of your romantic notions about me. I will call out every attempt at testing this boundary. Every. Attempt. I am not in love with you.

“Emotional manipulators can undermine your sense of who you are and even make you doubt your own sanity. Remember: nobody can manipulate you without your consent and cooperation. Maintaining emotional distance requires awareness. You can’t stop someone from pushing your buttons if you don’t recognize when it’s happening.”

—A quote from TalentSmartEQ.com, Article: “9 Signs You’re Dealing With an Emotional Manipulator”

Is this true? Is this what’s been happening to me? What happened to ME?

It was Friday—girls’ night. June pried herself away from her reflections and picked up the kids from school, where they immediately started begging for more Play-Doh and a new toy called Orbeez. June liked it when the kids stayed off their electronics and instead used their imagination to create things, so she happily obliged. When they got home, the kids wanted Tandoori Terrace again—another girls’ night with Indian food, June thought. Fine with her; she could eat Indian food every day!

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was their movie of choice, one they had on DVD and often watched in the car while June was driving. The movie served as background noise at best, as the kids busied themselves with making Play-Doh figures and playing with Orbeez. They could never just sit still and watch a movie, it seemed. At least they were all getting along and playing together. June half-watched the movie, like the kids, and turned to her phone for entertainment, scrolling through Facebook.

Donna texted to check in, saying she was watching videos, making a fire, and dancing to music. June asked what song was playing. Donna replied with Regulate by Warren G—a song June liked too! Donna had always loved rap and hip-hop from the 1990s; it was practically all she listened to. She was sad that her husband, Don, wasn’t a fan. In her circle of friends, family, and colleagues, few shared her passion for that genre of music.

June liked it fine—it brought back fun memories from those days—but it wasn’t her favorite. She remembered Donna mentioning at their last dinner that her therapist, Dorian, had recommended dancing to help combat the depression she’d sunk into since the "breakup." June could hardly consider it a breakup. To her, it was the same relationship, just without the hand-holding, hugging, and kissing. Donna and June had never really gotten into what she would consider a sexual relationship. But June didn’t argue with Donna anymore; she simply responded to Donna’s little happy dance GIF with a simple, “Nice!”

It felt strange, this new feeling of not feeling sorry for Donna. This sense of anger and outrage that Donna hadn’t respected her boundaries, and that maybe it wasn’t all June’s fault that Donna was depressed and upset about the end of their romantic connection. Perhaps it wasn’t her fault at all, and June was beginning to confront that truth through her writing. She wasn’t ready to say it out loud yet. No way. She knew she had to keep her truth quiet for a while until she was certain.

Earlier that afternoon, just before she picked up the kids, Donna had mentioned she had an appointment with Dorian later to work through some of her feelings. June didn’t ask for details; she didn’t want to know more about Donna’s emotions. She was still trying to shake off the guilt of denying Donna romantic access. She couldn’t understand why being platonic friends was such a big deal for Donna.

By about 10 p.m., June was ready for bed. After cleaning up from dinner, putting away the leftovers, and getting herself ready for sleep, she left the kids to their usual Friday night shenanigans in the living room until they exhausted themselves. She had brought her laptop upstairs from the basement office and revisited her free-flow and reflection writing, tweaking and clarifying her thoughts, filling in gaps where she had left off before picking up the kids. Finally, she ended her free-flow and reflection exercise with a concluding paragraph.

You say you don't trust me. You don't believe me when I say I only love you as a friend—that I'm not attracted to you, that I don't feel romantic with you. But what's more important is this: I don't trust you to respect my boundaries. I don't believe you can be a friend without all the romance. Bam! Guess what? I am a factor in this equation.

All your past words about appreciating individuality and unique perspectives—your actions show you really appreciate co-dependence. You want to know what my needs are until they don't match what you're willing to give. Then, if my needs don't fit, suddenly you're devastated, you're the victim, I led you on, made you believe in a mirage.

You fucking manipulated this whole thing by exploiting my kindness and vulnerability, while at the same time making me feel like I'm not vulnerable enough, not open enough. No wonder I need to protect myself—with a tiger like you, I have to, or risk giving you more information that you would use to manipulate me.

June went to bed realizing that this reflection was bigger than she had thought. It was time to wrap it up, though. She had to figure it out and move forward. Something about this reflection felt unfair. She knew Donna wasn’t a bad person. She was a good person, and only a bad person would be this manipulative, this much of a schemer.

June didn’t want to hate Donna—she just wanted to find peace with her, to find a relationship they both could enjoy together. June felt certain all the rage and anger were more related to the past than to the present, and she didn’t want to unleash a fury she couldn’t control. She needed to maintain control. She didn’t want to hurt anyone. Her pain was too big for anyone to handle; it was too big for her, even, she suspected.

Tim Lockwood: [sighs] Look, when you... when you cast your line... if it's not straight, um...

Sam Sparks: Oh, for crying out loud.

[Sam puts Flint's Monkey Thought Translator on Tim's head]

Tim Lockwood: [in a robotic voice] I'm proud of you, Flint. I'm amazed that someone as ordinary as me could be the father of someone as extraordinary as you. You're talented, you're a total original, and your lab is breathtaking. Your mom, she, uh, always knew you were going to be special. And if she were alive today, she'd tell us both: I told you so. Now, uh, look, when I take this thing off, and... you hear me make a fishing metaphor, just know that fishing metaphor means...

Tim Lockwood: [Tim takes off the Monkey Translator and speaks in a normal voice] I love my son.

Flint Lockwood: I love you too, Dad.

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (2009)