Context: I've been to counsilors and talked with them about Lyndsay's behaviour in arguments and they've straight-up referred to it as emotional blackmail and manipulation. I already know she's like that, but today through the self-talk, I realized another way she guilt-trips.

Now, I've called her out on her false accusations when she throws her temper tantrums in arguments, but I've always wondered about it. Like, what the hell is going through her head, y'know? And what is it doing to me?

Some answers I've come up with: she's paranoid up the ying-yang. She wants to write her life starring herself as The Helper who "just wants to help", but ohhh~ is surrounded by manipulators and other meany-meany heads who want to "'make her' feel like the 'Bad Guy'".

Okay, I'm starting to get off the point, so I'll just cut to the chase: Through burying people under accusations, she's putting them in a Guilty-Until-Proven-Innocent position, so they have to bend over backwards with words and actions to 'prove' the terrible things she's accused them of aren't true.

Of course, nothing I did ever worked, because she'd just accuse me of those same things in another argument all over again.

I remember one time during the last summer I was with her where she just straight-up told me that she has no faith in me, and I think that's when I started giving up. I just avoided her as much as I could and if I found myself stuck in a conversation with her, I'd just nod along. I can remember a couple of times I did speak up, but I felt like I had to carefully choose those moments. Any time, she could just say "Okay, get out of my house" and then I'd be homeless. I finally got a paying job and was trying to save up money to move out, so I had to be careful.

It doesn't matter what I say, do, or accomplish, she's chosen to see me as a terrible person - whether she admits it or not - and wants to prove it not just to herself to stroke her own ego, but prove it to me myself.

God, I wish I made this connection a little sooner. Woulda liked to have added it as a point for that reply to her email back in March. Yeah, she wouldn't have believed me, but getting this pain out of my system to the person who caused me that pain would have been nice. Who knows, though? I might get another chance.

Now that I took some time to do that, it's time to get on with the day. I'm still trying to do the Fuck-Feeling-Sorry-For-Myself challenge, so I'll get onto that now to help me climb back to the present.