One of the things that makes me really excited to be a blogger is the flags in my stats. I have people reading from places that are close to me (Wheaton, Reston) and places that are so far I have no idea where they are. For instance, I do not have a lock on Indian geography, and I am more popular in India than any country in the United States.
It’s probably Aparna’s doing. š
But that’s assuming that Aparna lives in India, and most of what trips me up in my stats. I have been making assumptions on who is reading based on my stats, and I need to stop. It only drives me crazy, it does not help anything. I’ve been defaulting to just looking at stats in my web app, because the web app cannot get as granular as who is reading by city.
I forgive myself because I am just so human. But that does not mean I do not need to change. Part of my growth and development is not appealing to any one geographic area, but writing to the whole world at once. That strategy seems to be working, because I am not popular in the United States by a large margin. Really, the only thing that puts me over the top in the US is that I live here, therefore most of my ads are going to be targeted here.
However, you would be surprised that my US stats are often beat out by India and the UK.
Remembering that I have fans all over the world is remembering that I have a bigger mission than just “blogger.” That I want to spread some good in the world, so what am I going to write about there? I could cover hundreds of topics, and I will. Right now, I am digging myself out of my own hole so that I can rejoin the land of the living.
There’s a few things I could do right off the bat that would help. I could change my master password on everything, because it means I have to type Aada’s name fifty times a day and enter her birthday backwards on my tablet.
Aada’s real name makes a banger of a password in haxxorspeak, so I’ll be sad to lose it. But I think that choosing a new master password so that I don’t have to think of her even incidentally is best. And somebody else’s birthday will make just as good of a passcode on my phone/tablet.
These are the things that will change me the most fundamentally, because I know they are adding to me thinking of someone who no longer wants me to think about her. If she did, she would have come to me long before now.
So in moving on, I’m trying to think of the things that would help me the most immediately, These seem like such small things, but that’s why they’re so important. It is reinforcing my connection to Aada to have to type her name and her birthday all the time, and I want to stop those thoughts cold.
I want to stop all thoughts of her cold, because she asked for it and now it’s something I want, too. I do not want to be as unstable as I have been the past 12 years, and anything I can do to promote that is the only thing that matters.
Aada says that Michael knows nothing, that I have lives in my hands if I out her. I think that was a scare tactic, and we’ll see how many lives for which I’m actually responsible going forward. Women in their 60s aren’t operators, according to popular legend.
I am still in the space of thinking I have betrayed my friend and my country, so I’m not feeling so hot. But when I get into that space, Michael reminds me that I retook my own agency, I stopped accepting Aada’s lies as the truth, and I refused to be manipulated any more than I already had been. He’s got his work cut out for him, but he’s the type of friend that’s willing to do it. He’s been invaluable to my Cognitive Behavioral Health group by being in touch with my counselor when he sees that I need work.
It’s the kind of friend Aada said she would be, but just never had time. All of her lies put this into sharp relief, because I know that she did not want to see me suffer because of something she said. She did not show up when my mother died, even though she said that she wanted to and regretted it later. What I know for sure is if her mother had died, there wouldn’t have been anything that kept me away from her, that nothing would be more important in my world, so wondering why she was so avoidant is no longer a mystery. She had no plans to tell me how deep the lie really went.
Michael thinks that this lie ruined her first marriage because my former father-in-law got tripped up in it as well. That we were all living in service to this lie while worried about the wrong person.
Judging from the little bit that I know Mummo, she would not have wanted our care and connection, anyway. That it was too much for her to think about us worried about her. So, I don’t think that I should feel guilty that the care and concern did not go to the right person.
But did it really go to the wrong person? If Aada was the one that needed it so bad she was willing to lie to get it, I don’t think that my affection was poured down a hole. I have to write it off as a fan being so impressed that she got off on the wrong foot with me, and never went back to correct any of it. She just kept digging us into a more and more secretive hole without footholds to find our way back up.
It bothers me that both Aada and Michael are so resolute in their stories. That I have to choose who is telling the truth. I had to choose Michael because he uncovered two lies Aada told me that unraveled the whole sweater.
Therefore, when a lot of me hopes that Aada was telling the truth, Michael is right there to keep deprogramming me.
It was all just so real.
Now, choosing what’s real is easier. There’s Aada, whose story was a complete fake, and then there’s everything else. If I go towards Aada, I am choosing to be gaslighted. If I go towards my group, I am asking for their help in remaining stable.
It is my opinion that Aada will stick to her lies and remain angry at me that I exposed them. That is okay with me, because I do not want to be in a relationship with anyone that tries to control me. Her control was so tightly wound that I still feel the ties that bind, and Michael is right to use the word “deprogramming.” For every lie that Aada told, he has a real answer.
It makes me wonder where I’ll be in five years, when the pain of all this has finally passed. I know that I will never be able to talk to the real Aada, because I do not think that she has enough emotional bravery to sit down with me and admit how bad things really got.
Because what if the lie is so ingrained she’s lying to herself? How much of her story does she actually believe? How many people has she puffed herself up for to make herself seem more important?
She scared me so bad that I’m constantly afraid that I’m going to get her fired, as if I had that kind of power. If I do, I shouldn’t. Aada clearly needs help, not a comeuppance.
It feels good to say that Aada needs help because I’m tired of being the only one who is dealing with their mental health in an actual setting prepared for it.
I was hospitalized twice, so I’m hoping that Aada will realize that being hospitalized isn’t that bad a deal. You get better.
Bipolar with psychotic features might even be an appropriate diagnosis for her.
Stories That Are All True 