Characters in life are usually easily categorized, and those in my narrative are not really different. Most live in a dichotomous world of good or bad, fall into an active or passive role, and they either offer up life lessons or are vapid because they add little to the overall quality of a storyline. Some are like beautiful foliage in gorgeous hotel lobbies, they look really good, but require too much attention to thrive and really just take up space.
While I have taken liberties to obfuscate dates, locations, and other identifiers, the preponderance of the information, and events in my story, are quite real. The people are all real; not one is a fake lobby plant. And they know who they are; some of them manipulate their way through life thinking I’m still the same Stuart. That I can still be silenced by fear and embarrassment, their thinly veiled threats, or their misguided notion that I will just fade into the background. I did that for years.
Mostly, though, these people haven’t seen my evolution. The breakdown in my mind, the arduous steps taken to clean out the mental cobwebs, and the slow emergence of an overhauled me. The new me that was discovered by Dr. Davis is slowly being rebuilt with the help of Dr. Mandolin. After so many doctors, therapists, prayer groups, and medications, I have given my brick-by-brick rebuild to Dr. Mandolin. The Stuart under construction is emboldened by a different worldview and lacks the fear that previously coursed through her. She’s not afraid anymore and she needs nothing from anyone. The absolute worst things that could be done to me have already happened.
Before my mind betrayed me, I was a predictable force to be reckoned with. Regardless of my position in active or reactive mode, my moves were based solely upon the people in my midst. I never did anything purely for myself; the idea that I had self-directed agency and autonomy were foreign concepts. Nothing was ever done proactively for or in my best interest; everything was a response based on my position relative to others and the potential for harm. And, frankly, I preferred to be considered a bitch because it reduced my long-term risk of getting hurt. Lower exposure. Fear defined my life, and I was afraid of so much.
For those that were welcome in my world, I usually fell on the side of being way too nice, placating anyone on my radar. I found safety in numbers and craved acceptance, which I thought translated to loyalty. Loyalty meant peace, or so I thought. Once anyone made it into my inner circle, I’d go to the mattresses without thought. Even in the face of betrayal, protect your inner circle at all costs.
As stories and life go, things change. Especially when you are dealing with a mercurial diagnosis like cPTSD. She is a disease hiding in the recesses of the mind, with a willfulness all her own, and she remains largely misunderstood by the medical establishment. Worse yet, she is the newer sibling to the much better-recognized PTSD. That said, it’s about damn time society takes note of the slow and lasting damage done to kids at the hands of their parents and loved ones. cPTSD is real.
This diagnosis is new to me, but its symptoms and the path of carnage left in its wake are not. I have been told for years I had depression, anxiety, panic, and the kitchen sink, but nothing helped. Literally nothing. I think I always knew something else was there, but nobody could fix it so I just accepted my reality. And my reality was shaped by what others believed to be wrong with me. I was broken.
But, themes and people central to life’s storyline usually evolve into something completely new, including me. My formal diagnosis in 2023 serves as the line between the old and new me, and it marks a formal change in my entire world. While having a correct diagnosis didn’t change my symptoms, it significantly altered my perception of the world. How I viewed myself changed drastically. So, too, did my relationships, how I approached treatment, wellness, boundaries, and more…almost on a dime. Every relationship is now assessed based on whether or not it adds joy and happiness. People that brought any level of toxicity to my world were gratuitously cut off; many deserved ties to be severed years prior. I just never had the guts to do it.
I became relentless in the pursuit of what happened to me as a child. I started to see my peculiarities, opinions, actions, and more as a byproduct of what I have endured. It’s the single biggest blessing and curse I have ever experienced. It has taken a ton of self-given grace, for the first time in my life, to begin this process and stick with it.
Big changes really throw a reader for a loop, and also those who happen to be living the events in real life. Rarely do characters remain completely stagnant, unchanged by aspects of a story line. I don’t know why I expected that I’d never change; maybe it’s because I never did. I feel like I sat in the background of my own existence, utterly useless to the main plot, inconsequential to other important characters, or events. In my mind, I was an oddity, because everyone in my midst evolved in response to the world around them; I just never did. Maybe I was a plastic lobby plant.
Part of my hardwiring is a constant scan of the horizon for warning signs; I’ve learned to assess people and situations with lightning speed, and I have razor-like precision in my assessments. I know this about myself. And yet, if I’m so good at identifying bad people why did I always end up getting hurt? This perplexed me for decades. Until my diagnosis. That 5-letter acronym rocked my world and explained so much. I learned that trauma actually changes your brain, especially the kind that is endured over and over, starting in childhood. Permanently.
The problem lies not with my assessment of others or situations, but with my actions; I could never neutralize or separate myself from threats because I didn’t act timely. To do so required me to forego rumination. I’d get locked in my head and look at a particular situation from every possible angle; paralysis by analysis. And this isn’t a blessing or a gift from the divine. It is something victims are groomed to do. It took Mick years, but he eventually taught me to disregard my own instincts in certain, but very specific, settings. To debate myself over what I knew to be true. Why? Because it buys abusers time; it bought him time. Once taught, Mick knew that my schooling would kick in, quite predictably, and I’d follow the well-established pattern he’d mapped out in my head. He groomed me, the masterclassman that he was, and I’m a fucking expert at second-guessing myself thereby granting others priceless time. Mick was a major benefactor of this strategy.
In truth, I’m no different than the millions of other abuse victims. We all live in an exhausted state of hyper-vigilance because we spot threats a mile away. Warning signs go off in my body before I make the cognitive connection that harm is on the horizon. I do not know if this is true for everyone like me. But to act upon any of these warning signs required an internal fight to shut off the voices and the grooming, and these things have taken up permanent residence in my head. Even with decades of therapy under my belt, shutting off that soundtrack is damn near impossible. And while trauma-focused therapy is new to me, therapy to deal with shitty parents isn’t. Grooming is grooming regardless of the context.
All of this said, it seems fitting that you formally acquaint yourself with Number 3. She is the poster child for what happens when you do exactly what your tormenter wants you to. Her transgressions progressed because I was successfully groomed. Not one warning light went off in my head, I never saw her as a threat, and I welcomed her into my life…for the entirety of my life.
Number 3 was Pearl’s best friend, her husband was Mick’s. Our families met because the guys worked together on power lines after their respective discharges from Vietnam. This means that Number 3 has been a constant in my world, to varying degrees, for decades. She knew Pearl and Mick before I was conceived, and was there for my birth. Despite being a few years older, her two children were like siblings to me and we played together all the time. Pinkeye sleepovers and chicken pox parties cross my mind when I think of the stupid things we did together as kids in the 80s.
Number 3’s family was my extended one; they were present at birthdays, trips to Pizza Hut, barbecues, bowling Tuesdays, and summer evenings at the amusement park. Yet her involvement in so many snapshots of my history remained benign in my mind’s eye, wholly unnecessary to any recount of my life events because she was quiet. Made no noise, stirred up no shit. Number 3 shows up in more memories than not and yet I disregarded her entirely. Aside from the fact that she is patently unremarkable, my relegating her to third-class carriage actually allowed her to become the giant barnacle, glomming onto my life’s hull and sailed in the shadows, just below the surface, attached to every aspect of my life. I know she had Mick’s help, but she deserves her own recognition for being manipulative, conniving, two-faced, and a thief. Incidentally, she’s also a twatty friend. She betrayed Pearl and there’s no return from that. Not ever. You never leave a sick friend. It’s taught in Basic Humanity 101, a class she never took.
That said, I didn’t recognize or appreciate the damage she caused until just recently. She was completely unremarkable because I trusted her, and I thought both of my parents did, too. And since she never actively harmed me, I didn’t pay enough attention to her details. I missed every warning sign. All of them. Incidentally, this is why victims often go solo…it’s just easier. We can’t trust others, even those we really thought we could. And sometimes we cannot trust ourselves.
There were clues, and tons of them. Everywhere. It sickens me to think back on all of them. I bumbled through life blind to what everyone else had to have seen. But, when bad people depart to meet their maker, those stuck on this rock are left to sift through the rubble. Once Mick died, the stories started adding up, quickly. People came out of the shadows to speak their peace. I realized Number 3 has characteristics of being a covert narcissist, and a damn good one. She had been plotting and maneuvering her way through my life and decimating those I loved most. I was collateral damage, so was my sister, my mom, and, to a degree, Number 2. I’d like to say that Number 3’s existence is reminiscent of Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction, but that gives her far too much credit, power, sophistication, and brain cells. In truth, she is nothing more than a very lucky, but highly manipulative idiot.
She watched events unfold, sometimes even silently instigating them, until circumstances ripened for a significant shift in her role. Looking back, with my eyes wide open, there were constant reminders. Little innuendos left by Pearl, blatant, billboard-worthy comments made by Number 2. Neighbors commenting on her and my dad’s whereabouts…at the same time. Remember, Pearl and Number 2 were sisters, which means Number 2 knew Number 3, quite well. Think about this for a moment. Pearl is my mother, and her sister is Number 2, and her best friend was Number 3. She saw my father chew through my mom, abandon me and my sister, chew through Number 2, and she willingly attached herself to him. It is disgusting.
I began piecing clues together, slowly and tearfully, after Pearl died. But I was reluctant to accept the truth because I still second guessed myself. I questioned every ounce of her ethics and character for marrying her best friend’s ex-husband. But I didn’t have reason to deem her manipulative and conniving. Yet.
When Mick died a decade later, I just needed to take the damn red pill already and enter the matrix of my life. When I did, the ah-ha moment hit me over the head and I’ve not been the same since. In my case, Number 3’s complexities, deceitfulness, motives, and flaws became so glaringly obvious as to render me utterly useless for months. It was as if the bedrock upon which my childhood was built formally cracked and splintered in every direction imaginable. Everything that I thought was, wasn’t. But, even then, I couldn’t connect her to the really bad shit in my past. At this point, she just happened to be stupid enough to fall for Mick.
My realizations came in the way of conversations with friends and family, journals, and good old fashioned detective work. Some of the most fruitful sources were old neighbors from my Wonder Bread world and the few neighborhoods where Mick and Number 2 lived. I found people that lived on Number 3s street, friends of her ex-husband, former co-workers, talked with my father’s family, got recounted events from Number 2’s journals, had numerous conversations with her daughter (my cousin), reached out to some of my father’s friends from his days in gunsmithing school, and his short stint in community college. I have had marathon-length conversations with my younger sister. I continued my excavation with public records requests, copies of divorce proceedings, and more. It took some tough cracking to get the old eggs to bust open, but once they did…
It’s odd, really. Number 3 didn’t change at all. But my understanding of her did, cataclysmically. In playing stupid, she looked stupid. Ergo, everyone deemed her stupid. Funny thing, Mick even called her stupid behind her back…a lot. I never considered her an actor viable for a starring role in my life because it was already a shitshow and the playbill was full. No cast needed; auditions closed. The problem is, she instigated a lot of the shitshow and seems to have been a headline cast member for decades. Only her name was printed in invisible ink. Some might say that’s credit to her intelligence but it’s not. She is moderately street-mart but she is determined as hell. But even then, the word smart connotes positive undertones. She does not have the intelligence to be considered conniving. Regardless, smart people do not deceive their friends, watch children suffer, willfully hop in bed with abusers, and more.
And there is no possible way she missed the abuse. No chance whatsoever. I could not move past this simple fact but I had no tangible connection between her and the atrocities of my youth.
The thing is, characters, real and otherwise, are evolutionary in nature; stasis is not a mode for living because it is wholly incompatible with life. It also makes for a really boring narrative and world. This woman remained benign for nearly five decades of my life. But that is only because I let her, and it was a stupid move on my part. I cannot be blamed for misperceptions as a child, but as I aged, I should have caught on.
Unfortunately for her, I have Pearl’s instincts and inductive reasoning skills. Once I accepted my past, my mind opened up. Incidentally, I’m not afraid anymore, though I do scare easily. I refuse to take no for an answer when I know the yes exists. And trauma therapy has taught me one thing…the mind is a very powerful tool. It holds onto shit like Ross and Monica’s grandmother did with all the pink Sweet’n Low packets in Friends. The durable memories, especially those that do the real damage, find the deepest places to hide. I just had to be brave and stealthy enough to outmaneuver my brain and find that which I had no proof existed but felt deep in my gut. I needed to open my mind and let the cards fall where they may.
Fortunately for me, I have my own, personal ambush predator and I see her every Tuesday. Dr. Mandolin is like a great white shark with pearls. Ambush predators are atop of the food chain for a reason; they outsmart everyone because they have patience. They wait, watch, and then strike. Dr. Mandolin’s prey are her patients’ perpetrators, the evil people that harm those she works tirelessly to heal. She sees things I cannot or refuse to, pushes me when I want to give up, and offers grace when it becomes too much. If I’m honest, my shark in pearls is the most caring and affectionate entity I have ever known.
Dr. Mandolin has slowly and methodically dove with me to the deepest corners in my brain. Never hurried, slowly swimming alongside and guiding me through my deep-water terrain, where she can see nothing, lacks familiarity with everyone and everything. She is armed with only a lightning fast intellect and years of training to navigate. Incidentally, she’s also a badass scientist. She won’t admit it but I know she sees patterns across abuse victims. It’s how science works. I haven’t a clue what we will find when we talk.But I trust her implicitly. She is the eyes as we glide through my murky waters.
Have you ever watched a great white shark swim and hunt? It’s a sight to behold. Their movements are graceful, rhythmic, mesmerizing. And, despite knowing the carnage that is about to occur, you cannot look away. They are masters of the ocean, eyes black and focused. Dr. Mandolin is deft and purpose-driven. I’m just the little fish swimming next to her, following along as she leads me through my brain. Her voice calm and soothing, directions clear. Hitting blockade after blockade, for months, she finally found a brainy place to sit quietly as I recounted the same event dozens of times. To be clear, she pushed me and it has been agonizing, but not in a cruel or inhumane manner.
Without making any waves, she honed in on it. A little morsel of information wafted in front of her, just waiting to be devoured. She calls it a hot spot…a place in the mind that appears like a void to most, but is actually the brain’s way of hiding the really bad stuff. I kept getting snagged on recalling events…confusion, frustration, anger. Remember, the human brain is her office, playground, object of fascination. It’s her life’s work. Most wouldn’t have noticed it, but sharks aren’t apex predators because they lack strategy or perceptive abilities most cannot even comprehend.
She’s able to outsmart my enemy because she does not know them personally, she’s not burdened by the memories. Incidentally, my perpetrators are counting on the old, fearful Stuart. They never saw Dr. Mandolin coming; she embodies a patience they never knew existed, were never prepared for. My strength is an extension of hers, on loan every session…just like my brave. Without her, I’d have caved months ago. The mean people in my life may have banked on my silence and fear, but they didn’t know about my shark with pearls.
My swimming buddy also loans me her teeth. Dr Mandolin has witnessed me tear into this memory like nothing I have ever done. It made me rage cry, vomit, disassociate, and more. But, there he was, Mick, hidden deep beneath the surface. He was there for one of the single worst experiences in my life, perhaps orchestrating it. I’m not sure, and I don’t know that it matters; he didn’t stop it and that’s the problem.
Linked to this string of events is Number 3, and while this memory doesn’t star her, the connections to Mick and to other horrors from my past are absolutely undeniable. Because of this deep dive, nearly 4 months on repeat every Tuesday, I can finally see her for who and what she is. She is evil. Pure, unadulterated evil.
Number 3 was around for The Purple Flavor, Pearl’s trips to the “insanitarium” when I was a kid, the aftermath of my trips to visit my father’s family, my mother’s many mental health breakdowns, Mick leaving us homeless and without food, my father grounding me from talking to my mom and locking us in our rooms, the times Mick took my Christmas presents away because I wasn’t a good girl, the birth of my sister, the wreckage of my parents’ marriage, the courtship and marriage to Number 2, their disastrous ending, and so much more.
Number 3 witnessed it all, never interceding, never standing up for my mom, for me, or my sister. That’s fucked up. She may have truly hated my mom, maybe they weren’t even friends and my memories skewed by parental posturing. She might have also detested Number 2, who knows? But there is absolutely no excuse for turning away when children are being abused or neglected. None whatsoever. And that is what she did. For decades.
She met with Mick weekly, “for coffee” and they’d go unavailable for hours at a time…while my father was married. Or had obligations to be at his children’s [insert activity here]. I once walked in on her and my father in their undergarments, I must have been 8 or 9, and she was “teaching him to do laundry” as they giggled like brainless, high school assholes. This occurred while he was married to my mom and she was off in a mental institution. My mother was so sick and I was a child; my dad capitalized on the opportunity to play with Number 3 while she was still my mom’s friend. In my mother’s home. And she fell for it, played along. Stay classy, Number 3.
Mick was chewing his way through my mother’s mental health and mine; he was physically, emotionally, financially, and sexually abusive and Number 3 chose him…sit with that for a moment. You have no idea the horrors that Mick unleashed, but she does. She witnessed it all – either first hand or its aftermath – and then, after decades, she married him. Never once doing the right thing. She remained his steadfast friend, companion, enabler, and biggest supporter while he abused his wife, and neglected and abused his children.
Do not think for one second that Number 3 is also a victim in this story. She is not.
I once said there are three types of people in this world: abusers, those who stand by and do nothing while abuse happens, and those that would take a bullet to stop it. But, alas, I was wrong. There are four. Number 3 falls into that fourth category, and it is the worst and most insidious of them all. This group is defined by people that embolden abusers, stroke their egos, and then look the other way at the expense of others’ wellness and for their own personal gain. These members justify their behaviors when confronted, playing coy or stupid, yet they repeatedly sit silent in the face of horrific atrocities. People in group four have very dirty hands but play innocent. Theirs is an outsourced evil. These are the worst people society has to offer.
When I finally accepted the truth, her role in my mother’s emotional unraveling, her manipulation of the events surrounding Number 2, the irreparable damage done to me and my sister, my world stopped and it hasn’t looked the same since.
She’s likely happy with the reverberation through my life. But she hasn’t met the new Stuart.
