Status Updates From Trzy wdowy

“She always thinks of the nice reason why people do shitty things. It’s like my mom used to say. You want to know if someone’s a bad person? Don’t listen to what they say, don’t think about how they make you feel. Look at what they do.”

“How the abuse she suffered growing up drew her to a controlling kind of husband. It’s hard for her to be open about these things. Seems to have done her good, too, cause now that she speaks about them, she’s not carrying them on her shoulders any longer, hiding who she is.”

“Sometimes I go out to the tree. People know not to bother me there. It’s a little space for myself. Funny thing is, now I have that private place, I don’t feel so inclined to keep my guard up all the time. It’s a slow process, but I’m learning to be more open.”

“With Jo one to be frustrated with, there’s nothing to disguise all the thoughts in my head. Truth is, I swapped out drugs for an addiction to something else. Love. Religion. I never really changed what was underneath. The problem, the hard part, is you. What you become because of it. That mix of hardness & neediness. Pull me close, push me away.”

“Institutionalized sociopathy.. it happens in young or second-generation cult members. People who are still laying down formative emotions. The human mind will adapt to most any situation. If it has to, it will learn not to register so much empathy. IE. Young men in bad neighborhoods, where gangs or the mob are prevalent. It’s survival. You simply have to shut some things down.”

“You can quit thinking I had some black-widow plot or get ahold of the money our husband didn’t have. In case you’d forgotten, the person who paid most of our bills was me. You’re welcome, by the way.”

“But I just can’t do normal. It freaks me out worse than anything. The thing with growing up, with half an eye on danger the whole time, is when the danger goes away, you’re kinda left with nothing. It makes you twitchy. Just got so sick of thinking all the time. About what to look out for, who was gonna come through the freakin door.”

“All that feels like it happened to somebody else now. Like I can’t even get myself to feel how I felt. But you know what I can remember? The drugs. That mad, desperate life where nothing mattered.”

“…withdrawal. When you regularly flush the human brain w/ unnaturally large quantities of chemicals, it takes time to rebalance. Sometimes the rebalancing is never quite complete. You bend the receptors.”
“Some have reported deleterious side effects including severe headaches, involuntary muscle spasms, poor sleep & diminution of cognitive faculties like memory, concentration & decision-making abilities.”

“… your upbringing at the Homestead might have had an effect on your memory. When members take part in a prolonged mediation or prayer. It changes the brain.”
“Constant prayer releases chemicals. It’s a reason why victims stay in cults for so long. They become addicted. A little like drug addicts. There are side effects…”

“I couldn’t even really tell you what I was saying. Only I enjoyed saying it loud. I’m not one for even raising my voice as a rule. Girls are seen but not heard, the way I was raised.”

“When I was a little girl, my mother told me your head is a bunch of boxes. The way to get through hardship is to stay in one box.”

“Compartmentalization. You learned to compartmentalize. It kept you safe.”

“Pretending everything is fine. It’s, like, her superpower.”

“Even weirder than that, she kinda sucks you into it. She’s like a repression tornado, scooping up any feelings in her path.”