How He Got His Way You're given two choices, choice A and choice B. Both choices are a lose-lose situation, but choice A appears to have the less desirable outcome. Choice B, the slightly more desirable option, is associated with trying to leave the situation or doing something in your favor. Although the person presenting these choices will deal consequences for any choice chosen, they will actually deal a harsher consequence for choice B. In your standpoint, you are made to believe that choice A will deal a harsher consequence solely for the sacrifice it requires to carry out the choice. On the other hand, you assume the emotional labor of choosing choice B because of how simple the option seems to carry out. You are thus psychologically manipulated to choose choice A, being the choice in the choice-presenter's favor, and not in yours.

May 24th 17 When people talk about something breathtaking, it's never about suffocating. My whole body throbbed and ached and weeped. The lovebites, just like the necklace and his clothes, seemed to be yet another property-mark. Clouded with mental illness and trauma, he was beyond my worst nightmares. Now people with DID trigger me. Sometimes my eyes become a theater screen and I'm sitting behind it.

April 13th 17 April 13th 17 My ability to articulate and recall is deteriorating, and it's bittersweet.

March 19th 17 March 19th 17 There are times where I'm in deep contemplation of my trauma. I ask the question "Why?" To everything I recall in search of some sort of deeper meaning or clearer answer. I use things I know and am able to determine to get to things I don't know the answers to, like the origin of Steve's behavior. Marcus said it was that his coworkers introduced him to drugs, but I just can't fathom how drugs can teach someone how to abuse people within a couple swigs, puffs, injections, or bites. I get confused, because Marcus said that his father used to be a good man, eliminating all possibilities of it running in the family. I was naive at the time. I didn't understand why he couldn't just prolong his daytime behavior.

March 12th 17 March 12th 17 I just don't think he knows. I don't think he knows what he did. And I really wish I could tell him, but I can't. I'm afraid of re-opening that door, and I know I won't be able to say what I want to say and leave because I know him, and he won't let me revert to being non-verbal with him that abruptly, if ever. If I tried talking, I'd be a fly over a Venus fly trap; He would refuse to let me go. I just wish that there was a way I could indirectly show him all my relevant journal entries filled with things I've been able to recover from my memory and from old storage apps, the full scope, ranging from the last entry I remember documenting before everything was obliterated, to the shimmer in his eyes. An ultimatum, in a way. I feel like he's too mentally ill to be able to process that if I were to ever do such a thing. He must have PTSD. Whether what he told me about his past was a complete hoax or a clear truth, something to that effect must've happened to him that made him the person he is. Listening to metal bands with gruesome lyrics, threatening to shoot up the school, the suicide threats and the threats of dialing 9-1-1, all show that something's up. Nobody's born like that. After telling my friends about the incident involving the so-called schizophrenia, they began to reference it as a claim, rather than an actual possibility. Because, like I said before, the incident occurred more similarly like DID, I did research that concluded how many doctors misdiagnose their patients with DID, with having schizophrenia. Both disorders have some common ground, which leads me to believe that, if it was true that Marcus was taking medication for schizophrenia, that he wasn't lying when he explained that it helped "quiet the voices". Why I immediately assumed the incident was acted out was for the following reasons: 1. I was told, and was able to determine for myself, that he sometimes fibs. Whether it's to make something sound more interesting or more dramatic, or to win someone's attention and affection with a lie, it had occurred. 2. I thought someone, being either friends or even his family, would have told me what I'm dealing with. I didn't expect to date him and then months in, him himself have to tell me "Oh, by the way, I have 'schizophrenia'.". I have also hypothesized that he has Borderline Personality Disorder. For the clearest evaluation, I'm going to give reasons for most prevalent symptoms, based on witnessed examples of such behaviors. They are as follows: • A pattern of intense and unstable relationships with family, friends, and loved ones, often swinging from extreme closeness and love (idealization) to extreme dislike or anger (devaluation) • Impulsive and often dangerous behaviors, such as spending sprees, unsafe sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, and binge eating. • Recurring suicidal behaviors or threats or self-harming behavior, such as cutting. • Intense and highly changeable moods, with each episode lasting from a few hours to a few days. • Inappropriate, intense anger or problems controlling anger • Having stress-related paranoid thoughts. • Having severe dissociative symptoms, such as feeling cut off from oneself, observing oneself from outside the body, or losing touch with reality.