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Dasca's Apartment- Aftermaths are Messy

Posted March 19, 2023, 12:15 p.m. by Lieutenant Tandra Mika (Counselor) (Lucas Foxley)

Posted by Captain Eela Dasca (Lt. Governor) in Dasca’s Apartment- Aftermaths are Messy

Posted by Lieutenant Tandra Mika (Counselor) in Dasca’s Apartment- Aftermaths are Messy

Posted by Captain Eela Dasca (Lt. Governor) in Dasca’s Apartment- Aftermaths are Messy
Posted by… suppressed (3) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)

“So then, you said you felt he was jealous, but what about his behavior was manipulative?” Mika asked.

~ Mika

Eela held her mug tightly and then sighed before taking a sip. “The withdrawal of our usual communication. And communication that lacked affection and positive emotions. A lot of our messages were him expressing concerns…” Eela shook her head. “No, not concerns, judgements about things happening for Jour and I. Even if I could explain them, I wasn’t given the benefit of the doubt. Like he didn’t trust me with our own son. And Jourin knew all this was going on too. He has my empathic abilities and then I was on the defensive because I know for a fact that Cory would complain to Jourin about how I how I was being a mother, even though Jourin was doing great! And thriving as much as ever.”

“So for six months all he really ever expressed to me was disappointment and as soon as we were back in the Alpha Quadrant”-she snapped her free fingers-“everything was magically fine once he rejoined us on the ship. Like he hasn’t spent six months criticizing every parental decision I made.”

~Eela

Mika nodded, that made sense. “Alright, let’s stick that one on the list and move on, just for now. I want another example. Let’s see if we can find a pattern. If there is a pattern, and we find it, we can unravel it.”

~ Mika

This is where she got into tricky waters, because Eela was less certain about some of it. That was the trick, wasn’t it? He could cast enough uncertainty and never have to take responsibility. And if she had actually seen his behaviour as manipulative, she would have never tolerated that. Ever. But there was an easier example. Eela set her coffee mug on the table and rested her left arm on the back of the couch, gazing out the windows onto the patio full of plants growing.

“The other day when he was here in the apartment, after he… grabbed me and I told him very clearly to let go or I’d do it for him, I told him that I was done with him, that there was no place in my life for him. That I never wanted to speak to or see him again. I had always assumed that we’d cross paths after the divorce because we have children together and a grandchild. But there was no way in hell I’d allow it after he proved once and for all that I was not safe around him.” Eela turned her gaze back to Tandra. “And you know what he said to me? That he knows he just crossed a line but we have a family together! As if that was justification enough for me to just brush the fact that he grabbed me hard enough to leave bruises later.”

~Eela

Mika watched quietly as she considered the question. Her next example was another very obvious example of manipulation, something very, obviously clearly in the wrong. “It wasn’t justification, there is no acceptable situation to lay hands on you in that way.” She thought a moment, and then looked at Eela. “I don’t mean to make you relive it, but I want to know specifically what he said. Then let’s go back to the first example, when he questioned your decisions and pulled away from you. I want you to think about the similarities in what he said and did in both. Were there similarities in how he manipulated you?”

~ Mika

Her gaze returned to the windows and for several long moments she said nothing. “It’s the flip flop. When Cory showed up here and I went down to the lobby to find out what the hell was going on, he was happy to see me. The same man who less than two years ago when we separated, when he basically kicked me out of our own home, loathed me. Yes, we had had a calm and normal conversation the day the divorce decree came in, but that was an anomaly. He could never hide his feelings from me in person, so I noticed those changes acutely. But this sort of him flipping the script on me and acting like everything was just fine happened all the time Tandra, even before my accident. I don’t even know if he knew he was doing it, if it was intentional, but it puts me on the defensive because I don’t know how to read the situation between us, and then I doubt my own instincts.”

~Eela

“That flip-flopping is characteristic of a certain type of manipulation. Essentially, it’s ‘I’m going to be nice when things are going acceptably to me, but when they don’t, I’m going to withdraw my affections, I’m going to be cold, I’m going to be difficult.’ It’s a kind of control. Whether it was intentional or not, it had the same effect: you now doubt your judgement, your instincts.” She sat back, thinking, and then spoke again, “So why does it seem like you’re holding back? Even now it strikes me that you are doubting your perspective and your instincts about these events. This is what his manipulation has done. Here, in the privacy of our sessions is the place to say and feel and judge whatever needs to be said, felt, judged, and together we can see if it’s accurate and justified but we can’t do that if you’re not expressing it.”

~ Mika


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