“She trained me from the time I was little,” I say. “She was always the victim, everything bad that happened in her life was someone else’s fault—especially mine. And the thing that makes me angriest is that it fucking worked—I still feel guilty. Every time I ignore her emails or block her calls, I feel guilty. Rationally, I know she’s the fucking worst and I don’t owe her anything. But the emotion is still there, because she conditioned me like a rat looking for pellets. She pressured me and manipulated me and fucked with me every day of my life until I got away from her.”
