First Two Chapters of my Memoir For Your Reading Pleasure

 Post Traumatic Stress Queen

Chapter 1

When I began using the site, the internet was new, and I was an immature young woman who didn't know what she wanted from life. The site was called AdultFriendFinder; it was in the late nineties to early aughts. I lived in Texas and was lonely and tired of going to the bars. The friend who told me about it didn't prepare me.

I never met anyone when I used it in Texas. Are you kidding me? I was such a scaredy cat. However, I did peruse a lot of profiles and chatted with other users. I closed that account sometime before I left Texas and moved to Michigan. I didn't think of the site again until after I remarried and we started having trouble. Thus began my descent into the more salacious part of my life on the site. Not that I was innocent—oh no. Living near an army base with a bunch of bars? I was perhaps one of the most sexually active women I knew. I could write a whole book about my late twenties. Believe it or not, I'm not here to write porn. I gave that up years ago. Shall we say I met a lot of people, had a lot of fun, and fed a horrible habit of avoiding my problems for far too long.

If you didn't guess from the title, I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. However, my current therapist calls me the Post Traumatic Stress Queen. My childhood was rife with one traumatic event after the next. Not that I will get into it too deeply, but context is one key to understanding. Speed round: I was molested by my stepgrandfather from age 5 to 12. My mother committed suicide when I was 13. My father remarried less than a year later. My older brother molested me when I was 14-16. I married at 18. My father died when I was 21. My brother stole the insurance money. Get the picture?

My mother's suicide was the earthquake that shattered our family. My father's remarriage less than a year later was the betrayal that made sure we'd never piece it back together. My sister never recovered. My brother never recovered. None of us were the same.

I spent much of my early twenties in and out of mental hospitals. The psychiatrists never made me feel better. Eventually, I gave up on professional help for years and tried to find my own way to cope. At that time, I chose sex.

I never really grew up, failed to take responsibility for anything, and was generally a quite miserable person who used sex to help me feel better. Temporary fix—of course it never took. Sex doesn't do anything but help you connect with other people in one minuscule way. It could never repair the hole my childhood caused in my soul.

I had no idea that this site—this place I'd stumbled into looking for connection, for escape, for anything to fill the hole—would eventually become the place where I'd find my voice, lose everything, and then negotiate my worth with the CEO who'd tried to silence me. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Chapter 2

I sat at my computer, staring at the Google Meets link. Jon—the CEO. The man I'd called a loser three months ago when they'd banned me. The man whose company had exiled me and three others, severing over twenty relationships I'd built over years.

He wanted to talk.

My cursor hovered over the link. Part of me wanted to delete the email, block his address, tell him exactly where he could shove his olive branch. But curiosity won. I clicked.

His face appeared on screen—geeky-looking, just as I'd imagined. With a serious expression that softened when he saw me. Not what I expected from a CEO of a multimillion-dollar dating empire. 

"Hi, Debbi."

"Hi, Jon."

He was cordial. Disarmingly so. No anger, no defensiveness, no corporate double-speak. Just a guy who wanted to have a conversation.

"I want you to know," he said early on, "that the things people say about me don't bother me."

The loser comment. He was talking about the loser comment. I'd called him that in my anger, in my hurt after the ban. And here he was, telling me it didn't matter.

I didn't know what to say to that. Part of me wanted to apologize. Part of me still meant it.

"I'd like you to come back to blogging," he continued. "Back to the community."

There it was. The ask. The reason for this call.

"No."

The word came out before I could second-guess myself. His eyebrows raised slightly, but he didn't interrupt.

"I prefer the freedom of blogging offsite," I explained. "I'm not getting as much attention, sure. But it's the connections that matter to me, not the follower count."

It was true. My independent blog didn't have the reach that AdultFriendFinder did. But I could write what I wanted, how I wanted, without worrying about reviewers denying my posts. Without someone deciding my voice was too loud, too critical, too much.

"The site disrupted three months of relationships," I continued, feeling the anger rise again. "Relationships I'd built over years. When you exiled the four of us, we were devastated. We were angry. Do you understand that?"

"I do," he said simply.

We talked more. About my evolution on the site, how I'd gone from pornographer to real person, from performing to being authentic. About the heart attack that nearly killed me, the therapy that was helping me heal, the garden that grounded me.

The conversation meandered. I found myself relaxing slightly, though I kept my guard up. This was still the CEO who'd approved my ban. This was still the company that had hurt me.

"I'd like to offer you a job," Jon said finally.

A job. Not just "come back to blogging." A job. Working for them. For him.

The irony wasn't lost on me. Three months ago, they'd silenced me. Now they wanted to pay me.

"I'll think about it," I said.

And I meant it. I didn't say yes, but I didn't say no either. The door was open, just slightly.

When the call ended, I sat there for a long time, staring at the black screen. My reflection stared back at me—purple hair, tired eyes, a woman who'd almost died and decided to stop pretending.

What had just happened?

The CEO I'd called a loser had offered me a job. The company that banned me wanted me back. They were asking, not demanding. They needed something from me.

I thought about the three months in exile. The emails from friends on the inside, worried about me, angry on my behalf. The devastation of being cut off from people I'd grown to love. The slow realization that maybe I was better off without the site.

But I also thought about what I'd lost. The community I'd helped build. The Friday Farm Day posts that made people smile. The Court of AFF Opinion silliness. The teasing wars with my UK professor friend. The connections that had meant everything.

I opened my email and scrolled through the messages from those three months. Evidence of what they'd taken from me. Evidence of what I'd survived without them.

Jon had said he'd follow up. Ali would call about specifics.

I had time to decide. Time to figure out if going back was surrender or strategy; ask myself if I could work for people who'd hurt me; or if this was a chance to change things from the inside.

I turned around and looked at Nick, who had been lying on the couch the entire meeting. The look of utter shock on his face matched mine.

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know yet”

I knew I'd take Ali's call when it came. I knew I'd listen to what they had to offer. Because maybe, just maybe, there was something here worth exploring.

Or maybe I was just curious to see how far they'd go to get me back. Then, there was also the possibility I was being manipulated.

Whatever the answer, the conversation wasn't over. It was just beginning. This is pre editor. The editor doesn't start her work until October 10. Oh yeah, did I tell you I already have an editor and a lawyer to protect myself?