Chapter 20

The next morning, June looked at the clock as she got up. She had been forcing herself to eat at every meal, though she hadn’t been hungry for days—really weeks, if she thought about it. She could make herself eat, but she couldn’t force herself to sleep. The clock read 6 a.m.—a good sign. She had gotten a solid six hours of sleep. Deciding to track her sleep, she started a Google document, just to be safe, and logged the last few nights she could remember. She wished she’d thought of this earlier.

It was a big weekend at work. The Google Cloud Project that several teams had been working on for over a year was making the big leap, starting at 7 a.m. June was on the call bright and early, listening in all day, monitoring the progress, and sending updates to stakeholders.

In the middle of the day, Donna texted her. Apparently, Don had found some woman on YouTube who posts a video every Thursday, and this week’s video was about getting triggered. The first thing the woman said was that she wasn’t talking about PTSD triggers, but basic anxiety triggers. Donna explained that Dorian had asked her to reinstate the same practices in her life and that she needed to write them down because she wasn’t processing them in her head the way she should.

June watched the whole video, but something about it felt like it was only scratching the surface. She couldn’t quite articulate why, but she felt it. It was like picturing a lifeguard in a rowboat shouting through a megaphone at a drowning person, telling them to correct their stroke instead of throwing them a lifebuoy. She hadn’t been diagnosed with PTSD, but something told her that this video wasn’t going to help her snap out of it. She texted Donna back, saying she was working on the same things, which was true. She just wasn’t ready to share her own process—yet.

The Google Cloud Platform cutover didn’t go smoothly on Saturday and bled into Sunday. Despite this, June still managed to get six hours of sleep, thanking her lucky stars she was no longer on the software engineering side of things—those guys hardly got any sleep at all. June asked Hadrian to pick up Evvie from the birthday party while she prepared for the long haul. Sunday afternoon, there was a decision point on whether to roll back the changes.

By Sunday afternoon, despite several significant outstanding issues, the team decided not to roll back. There would be several weeks of critical care needed to fix all the problems, with manual patches for some clients until permanent solutions could be implemented. June felt relieved. Although it wasn’t going to be easy, at least they were moving forward.

All weekend, June reread her last reflections over and over, tweaking them each time. She also combed through more email history, trying to wrap her head around how she had spent six long years in a relationship with Donna. How could she have been so blind? It was mind-blowing. She just couldn’t fathom it. June kept thinking it must be a PTSD trigger—that she had to be blowing it out of proportion. She must be missing something.

June knew Donna was a good person. She simply couldn’t believe that Donna had manipulated her to the extent she felt manipulated. She couldn’t trust her own judgment, her own intuition. It still didn’t add up—not rationally.

As June went through her usual routine on Monday morning, she noticed a slight panic rising within her as the time approached for her session with Solin. Despite having spent the weekend rereading and refining her reflections, she felt an inexplicable nervousness. It had been a long time since June had allowed herself to be fully vulnerable with someone, and now, just moments away from logging into the video session, she felt the familiar tension in her chest.

She glanced at her reflection on the screen. Her hair was a little messy, and as usual, she wasn’t wearing any makeup. It had been over a year since Solin had seen her in person, and for some reason, June felt a sudden urge to appear put together. She didn’t want to give Solin—or anyone else—any reason to think she was losing it. There wasn’t much time to do anything about her appearance, though, so she ran her fingers through her hair, smoothing it out as best she could, and took a deep breath.

When the video session started, Solin’s warm smile greeted her, and immediately, June felt some of the tension release. Solin had always had that effect on her—gentle, nonjudgmental, and comforting. June made herself go through the usual small talk, just to ease into the conversation, before asking Solin if she’d received the email with the reflections she’d written.

Solin apologized, saying she hadn’t seen the email yet but assured June it would be appropriate to share the document with her if she felt it was helpful. Feeling reassured, June took another deep breath and told Solin that she’d actually started a new document, and that was what she wanted to share today.

With a slight shake in her voice, June began to read aloud the words she had written. The reflection, the truth she had been wrestling with for so long, spilled out in the way she had practiced. Yet, hearing it out loud, in the presence of someone else, gave it a weight she hadn’t expected. It made it real. She could hear her own fear, her frustration, and her confusion between the lines as she read, but she pushed through. Solin listened patiently, nodding, her expression one of gentle understanding.

June continued, relieved to have finally begun the conversation she knew she needed.  Solin had always been a safe space for her, but this was different. This felt like the beginning of something new. Finally, June was ready to confront the truth and the questions that had haunted her for so long.  She began to read:

March 27, 2022, 3:30 PM - Conclusions on Reflections - and More Questions

When I have dinner with Donna, I am triggered and struggle to regulate. The intensity of her clearly visible pain from our “breakup” triggers me—I strongly dissociate. I feel lightheaded, floaty; things look golden, I feel a little high, like I’m only partially present in the current moment. I struggle to feel fully in my body. It’s hard to think straight. I’m trying to maintain the boundary that I want—just friends. I don’t want to be more than that. I need a close friend, like sisterhood. But her desire to be more feels like she wants to possess me, own me, make me primarily hers. Over the past six years, her intention seems to have shifted from wanting a girlfriend to make out with to grooming me to be her eventual full-time lover, her plan B after Don dies so she won’t be alone.

I feel like she’s using me as her escape hatch, so she can have a lover to dream about, fantasize about, and hold onto for hope in the future. It helps her feel less trapped in a life where, despite her struggles with general anxiety disorder, she’s the rock for everyone else in her immediate family and Ron’s family. They give her nothing in return, no support, no help. She feels trapped in a marriage with a man with whom she has no real intimate connection (according to her, they only have experiential intimacy, lacking intellectual, emotional, and sexual intimacy).

She uses me without reciprocation. She doesn’t “feel me” and has actually said she likes that. She claims to be an "empath" but can’t feel me—and LIKES that? WTF. She says she only “feels me” when we are physical—holding hands or kissing. After all these years, yes, it turns out that she does want to have sex with me. She feels what she wants to feel when we’re physically “connected.” If she could really feel me, she’d feel my hesitation, my discomfort, and oftentimes, my absolute disgust. She’s free to live in her one-sided fantasy.

I’ve tried subtle hints: expressing my constant conflict, telling her I feel imbalanced in the relationship, consistently saying that I feel bad that she’s “more into me than I am into her.” None of it has changed anything for long, and I haven’t had the courage to set and keep boundaries. That feels terrible. It's heartbreaking.

What’s worse is that now she’s playing the victim, as if I led her on this whole time, never giving her any clue that this relationship wasn’t right. She claims she’s always been consistent—which is partly true. The insinuation, then, is that I’m the one who hasn’t been consistent—which is also partly true.

I haven’t been consistent with my boundaries. But I have been consistent in saying I wasn’t “all in” on the romance. I was consistently fickle about letting her kiss me or hold my hand. I rarely initiated those things, and when I did, it was to "get it over with" because I felt the inevitable would have to happen. I was consistently hesitant to “go there” romantically. This is what I’d call “manufactured consent.” I was “all in” on the friendship part but inconsistently told her “no” and then relented to her consistent need for connection through “human touch,” even when it didn’t feel right to me. I was consistently telling her I was “okay” when I wasn’t.

When I expressed discomfort, she immediately turned it around, crying, asking if I ever loved her, or saying outright, “I don’t believe you.” She covertly called me a liar or a manipulator, as if I led her on and was now cutting her off. She didn’t seem to care about my wellbeing or mental health. It was all about her, her pain. And then I felt guilty for hurting her, doubted my own feelings, and reversed course. I’d reassure her I was okay and try to meet her needs. I blamed myself for not being emotionally available to her, for not giving her the “human touch” she needed. I felt like the “bad guy,” and she was the victim.

I actually feel angry when she asks, “Did you ever even love me?” It makes me want to shout, “NO, I didn’t, you self-centered clueless freak.” I don’t mean that. What I mean is that I loved her as a friend, but not romantically. I’ve tried telling her this in the past, but it didn’t work. To her, either I love her or I don’t. Friendship means nothing.

I just want a friendship. I don’t think she knows what it means to have a true friend—someone who loves you, not romantically but in a meaningful way, through ups and downs, good times and bad, with give and take. I don’t think she’s ever had anyone in her life she felt she could depend on. I’ve tried to be that for her, but it keeps blurring into something more than I’m comfortable with.

After dinners with Donna, my dissociation passes, and then I feel panic, fear, anger—fight or flight. My chest is tight, my heart pounds, I can’t focus or think straight. I can’t sleep, and I’m afraid. I focus on my breathing, try to be mindful, present in my body. I put my hand on my heart and solar plexus, breathing in compassion and breathing out intention. I try to dissipate the tightness in my chest throughout my body. But it doesn’t seem to be working…yet. I keep trying. Sleep is the key. The more I sleep, the better I feel the next day. It takes a few days for the cycle to dissipate.

Strange Dream – Is There Meaning?

Before the dream, the night of my dinner with Donna, I woke up hot and sweaty in the middle of what felt like a low-grade panic attack. I couldn’t regulate myself with mindfulness techniques. My heart pounded, my thoughts raced. I couldn’t sleep for two hours. When I finally drifted into fitful sleep, I had a vivid dream:

I’m walking down an unfamiliar street, barefoot. I feel my feet on the cold concrete sidewalk with each step. I’m pushing a stroller, but there’s no child in it. I feel lost and confused. 

Suddenly, I’m looking at a cell phone screen. There’s a flash of a baby, who looks like me as an infant, beaten up—cuts and bruises. I’m filled with dread. Was that baby me? Then, the video switches to me as a toddler with my toddler brother, sitting on a bed, smiling at the camera. We look well and happy, but the dread intensifies. Then, I see a carpet being ripped up, revealing shredded padding, but I can’t see the floor beneath. I wake up, feeling dizzy. The feeling passes when I realize it was just a dream.

Processing After Being Triggered

After I’m triggered, I become obsessed with figuring things out—finding a label, a root cause. I want to know how to fix it. Fix me, fix everyone I love—my kids, my husband, and Donna.

I barely function through this post-trigger phase. At work and home, I’m minimally engaged, but I’m intensely reflecting, writing, analyzing, between meetings and responsibilities. It feels like a dangerous balancing act. I can’t keep it up for long. The cost of switching contexts is high, and it’s hard to get my head back in the game after crying and reflecting. When I write or reflect, I start to dissociate or panic. I have to pull myself out to focus on work, pick the kids up from school, make dinner, and tend to their needs. It’s good that I pull myself out. Being with my family brings me back to the present. The present with my family is good. I belong here.

Strangely, I don’t feel like I have to fix my sister. She’s okay, even though she has issues. She has her life with Sean and her kids. She’s strong and centered. OMG, I realize—I did something good! (I’m crying now.) I was able to save her from the trauma I experienced. I wasn’t perfect, but I did more right than wrong. She’s okay, she’s safe, loved, and strong. She has connection, sanity. She’s living her best life. I love her so much. Saving her saved me.

But Donna never had that. Her sister was only four years older, and when their parents were gone, her sister did horrible things to her. Yet, her sister could also be loving at times. Donna tells these stories with levity, but I feel deeply sorry for her. Maybe that’s why I want to be like a sister to her—to help, not hurt.

But Donna turns into my father by trying to sexualize and romanticize my desire to help. I offer friendship, sisterly love, even motherly compassion, and she rejects it. She undervalues those things, turning them into something else—kissing, holding hands, romantic gestures, ultimately sex. After the initial experimentation, I realized I didn’t want that. I told her clearly in 2016, but since then, she’s slowly manipulated her way back to what she wanted all along, and I let her. How messed up is that?

The Mouse Dream from 2018

Donna turns into my father by romanticizing my desire to help, which is why the vampire mouse in my dream represents both my father and Donna. Am I the victim? Or is the mouse? In the dream, I’m responsible for the mouse. It’s my

pet, my responsibility. But because I forgot to feed it, it’s starving. When it bites me, I freeze—I don’t want to hurt or kill the mouse, but I also want to protect myself. That’s when I wake up—and dissociate in real life. I don’t know what to do when Donna goes for blood when I offer her water.

I told Donna about the mouse dream in 2018 before I “flipped my lid.” I was hyper-aware of her microexpressions—her lip quivering, her eye twitching. She was afraid. When she asked who the mouse was, I said I didn’t know, but I think I did. Now, I absolutely know.

Where Does This Leave Me?

I feel emotionally manipulated into having my boundaries crossed. That’s what’s triggering me. But am I really being emotionally manipulated? Every article I read about manipulation has a clear perpetrator and victim. Am I the victim, and Donna the perpetrator? That thought is triggering. Something tells me Donna and I are, at different times, both the perpetrator and the victim. Where does that leave me? Confused. I need outside perspective—Solin, Laurie. I need help to regulate.

Is Donna emotionally manipulating me on purpose? Does it matter? It does if she’s toxic for me—if she won’t accept responsibility for her part and make changes. If she can’t stop trying to pull me back into meeting her needs for romantic connection and emotional stability.

Do I need to protect myself further while I process this? Should I stop having dinners with Donna for a while?

As June read through her thoughts and reflections, she could feel herself getting dizzy. Time was running out in her session with Solin, and she needed an answer to the question gnawing at her. The biggest question, the one that had to be answered now, was whether she should cancel dinners with Donna for a while. Was she getting triggered by Donna? The end of the session was approaching too quickly, and she still hadn’t reached a conclusion. Panic welled up as Solin began to wrap things up.

“Please, wait,” June pleaded, her dizziness worsening as the words on the page blurred before her eyes. “I have to get to the last part, the last question. I need your help. I’ll skip ahead.”

“Should I cancel my dinner with Donna this week?” The very thought of canceling dinner filled her with terror, and she didn’t even know why. She wanted Solin to give her the green light, but she also feared what that would mean.

Solin, however, remained unusually calm—almost disinterested—and it baffled June. How could she be so relaxed when June was on the verge of a breakdown? Could she not see the panic on June’s face? Was she really that oblivious? June was stunned.

Solin tilted her head from side to side, giving off a vague yes/no/maybe gesture. Finally, she responded, “Yeah, I think maybe putting dinners on pause indefinitely might be a good idea. The most important thing, I think, is to just stay in your head. Your head, not hers. Okay, I really have to go. I’ll talk to you next week!”

And just like that, Solin was gone. June was left alone, feeling utterly deserted, overwhelmed by a sense of sheer terror. She knew what she had to do now: cancel dinners with Donna. She spent the rest of the day trying to force herself to think of anything else, desperate to calm her racing mind. That night, just as she was about to settle the kids down and get ready for bed, Donna texted her, asking how her day had gone and whether the Google project was stabilizing. June decided not to engage. She was too consumed by dread about the upcoming conversation.

When all you know is fight or flight, red flags and butterflies all feel the same.

- Cindy Cherie

Vincenzo Coccotti : ...your son, the cowboy, it's claimed, came in the room blazin', and didn't stop 'till they were pretty sure everybody was dead.

Clifford Worley : What are you talkin' about?

Vincenzo Coccotti : Talkin' about a massacre. They snatched my narcotics, hightailed it outta there. Woulda got away with it, but your son, fuckhead that he is, left his driver's license in a dead guy's hand.

Clifford Worley : You know, I don't believe you.

Coccotti : That's of minor importance. What is of major fucking importance is that I believe you.

True Romance (1993)

Father Karras: Well, then let's introduce ourselves. I'm Damien Karras.

Demon: And I'm the Devil. Now kindly undo these straps.

Father Karras: If you're the Devil, why not make the straps disappear?

Demon: That's much too vulgar a display of power, Karras.

Father Merrin: Especially important is the warning to avoid conversations with the demon. We may ask what is relevant but anything beyond that is dangerous. He is a liar. The demon is a liar. He will lie to confuse us. But he will also mix lies with the truth to attack us. The attack is psychological, Damien, and powerful. So don't listen to him. Remember that - do not listen.

The Exorcist (1973)