DD lit a fresh cigarette off the cherry of the last butt, and took a drag. It hung in his mouth as he adjusted his tie.
He drummed his fingers on the bar to the tune of the jazz playing from the front of the place and glanced at the collection of bottles, and mirror behind them reflecting the rest of the bar.
In the reflection; Slick. Covered in blood, suit rumpled.
Naturally.
He turned around beckoning the grimacing Slick toward him. “C’mere.”
Slick grumbled, but obliged, and DD wiped blood off his face with a napkin.
“trauma dumping” joins the ranks of serious words like “gaslighting” and “pedophilia”– that suffered from people applying them to broader and broader situations, watering them down until they become completely meaningless.
I think that in real life…. Relationships r like . Your partner WILL ‘trauma dump’ on you. You will have to perform ‘emotional labor’ for your partner. Your partner will make mistakes. You will also do all of these things. The very nature of love is irrational and problematic and difficult …. To expect a relationship to be free of these things is strange to me…. The point is that your relationship to that person is ultimately worth it, and worth growing with them, helping each other, seeing the worst parts of another person and being able to love them anyway
