When PTSD Causes You to Obsess Over an Abusive Former Friend

I sink into my seat, embarking upon a journey that will take me from Lynnwood, Wash. to Seattle. As the 512 bus screeches to a halt near the university, I contemplate the school’s upcoming lecture on disability. “I cannot muster up the reserve to register,” I sigh, clearing my throat of a winter’s cold. “Sandy will be there,” I gasp in terror. I’m sure of it. A former friend in politics, Sandy took advantage of my generosity until I had to ghost her when she wouldn’t stop exploiting both me and my labor.

• What is PTSD?

“Maybe Sandy won’t be present,” I attempt to convince myself. Yet, I yawn compulsively in futile attempts to breathe free of her torment, as I tell myself that the universe will not allow us to occupy the same space at the same time. My inner battles amount to what little ability I have to exert control over the psychic pain. Sadly, sabotaging self-talk about Sandy is all that remains, at least for now.

The north Seattle scenery fades out of memory as my trauma is reified. The heart falling through my chest and emerging underneath me, dripping with blood on the sofa. The perspiration flowing off my arms like water gushing from a faucet. Past post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has confirmed the risk is too great, that no quantity of alpha-blockers will allay the nightmares. A healthy dose of benzos may provide a temporary balm, but it is just that: temporary.

The permanence of Sandy’s gaze shakes me to my core. My trauma renders her a phantasm next to me, a familiar face among strangers on the bus. There is little of Sandy left, save my futile attempts at comprehending the tension between her pretense at friendship and her utter betrayal. I am a spinning ball of raw emotion, and I can hardly take it.

From beneath flashbacks from gaslighting sessions my ribs crack, my fragility from the last one being the impetus for never again being in her presence. After all, I won’t soon forget the betrayal I felt when Sandy embarrassed me in front of my friend, her veneer of innocence a convenient cover for her internal venom. But how can I stop participating in the nightmare from which I cannot escape?

I shiver in terror. “Is there something about me that is defective?” I wonder, buried knee-deep in doubt in the disability section of the bus. “I am weak, I swear; I don’t deserve to succeed,” I persuade myself. That is until I acknowledge that Sandy’s greatest gift is knowing how to exploit my trauma, and my worst of talents is in allowing myself to be subjected to her.

Cue contemplation about moving across the country, where there are exactly zero Sandies. Yet those thoughts are interrupted by the intrusion of doppelgängers, separated from Sandy by a few thousand miles, but fundamentally the same people.

“How will I ever triumph over Sandy?” I muse. She has started to live inside of me, and with each successive PTSD episode, I breathe life into her. Sandy is a real person, yet I have made her into an apparition, a shady figure I contemplate when my thoughts run rampant on cross-county bus rides — when again trepidation wins out over the present moment.

Sandy is the shadow of my self-doubt, the bane of my shattered dreams, the taunt of a future in politics I know I deserve, yet because of her treachery, I shall never see. No matter how I try to dodge her, there Sandy is; she simply won’t be conquered. Not only do I have to escape the Sandy inside the bus, I now have to evade the one who watches over my shoulder at all times, ready to pounce with each breath I take, until I master my trauma for good.

With the help of a psychologist, I’ve experienced marked improvement over the past few years, yet I still stare transfixed out the window of the bus, hoping, waiting, praying for an end to my PTSD. I prepare to disembark, yearning for a future where I may enjoy the present — the scenery, the sights, the sounds of the bus and of life as a whole, sans dissociating due to Sandy.