A story about a soldier who went off to the war of love and came back with Relationship PTSD.

I’m really enjoying the writing process. I’m enjoying learning language and how to use it to communicate with people. I was very apprehensive about starting a blog, or writing anything, due to some traumatic experiences from times where I attempted to share my writings with people. Most of the feedback that I’ve received that has caused me to not want to write came from the people I allowed to manage my career. I allowed people who couldn’t do what I can do to tell me I wasn’t good at what I was doing. Every time I say what I allowed them to do to me out loud, I become so enraged with disappointment to the point I can’t stand myself. I developed PTSD from lack of constructive criticism. Anytime I would believe in myself, comments made to me from those who have managed me come up and make me second-guess myself.

“It’s 8:46 PM on a Tuesday, and I’m sitting in my hot-ass apartment in Van Nuys, California, listening to “War of the hearts” by Sade. This is my third attempt at writing a blog this week. I went to sleep last night around 5:30 AM and forced myself to stay asleep as long as I could. I finally gave in and got out of bed at 11:23 AM. I did my morning ritual of dropping off some overnight urine in the toilet. I walked through my apartment in search of anything I could do that would distract me before I begin to write whatever this is I’m about to write. Most of the time, I like to write with some sort of music, something preferably without lyrics. After a few minutes I got up and walked away from the computer because nothing felt right.

I finally decided to fix myself something to eat around 12:30 PM. Once I was done, I made a few phone calls and searched the web for shit that I didn’t need. I went through my Apple TV and noticed that my mentor, who I’m sharing an iTunes account with, had purchased “Looper” starring Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. I’d seen it before, but I turned it on anyway because it’s good, and I eventually succumbed to the -itis and fell asleep on the couch. When I woke up, I felt like I was trying to get over a hangover. I’m struggling today to say the least.

I get off my couch, and I do a little cleaning up in hopes of getting the juices flowing so I can write whatever it is that wants to come up out of me.  I get a flicker of an idea, and I tell myself that if I fix myself something healthy to eat, the rest of the idea will reveal itself. I’m determined to drop some weight and get healthy during this pandemic, so I do my best to stick to my guns by making myself a healthy smoothie. 

I no longer have PTSD from being afraid to write anymore. I had to overcome that PTSD of writing in order to be able to write. With that being said, I do have PTSD in other areas of my life. I believe I suffer from Relationship PTSD.  I know some may think I’m joking, but I do believe that Relationship PTSD is a real thing. There should be a support group for people who have recently been broken up with. Who are we to decide what deserves an audience and what doesn’t? Anyone who has suffered trauma should be given the opportunity to heal. There isn’t a Relationship PTSD group out there, but I will create one.    

When traumatic issues from previous relationships come up in new situations, I become triggered. That trigger causes an anxiety in me that leads to questionable behavior, which may make someone not want to be in a relationship with me. A part of that behavior is simply me subconsciously trying to protect myself from having to go through that uncomfortable feeling again.“ Now to the blog.

One of my biggest fears when I was younger was the feeling of not believing I was enough for the person I was in a relationship with. At any point, if someone did something that made me feel as though they were insinuating I wasn’t enough, I would become triggered. Depending on how significant the trigger was would affect how I would respond.  

In 2006, I started putting together a war journal. The timing of the universe is so funny. As I’m mentioning my war journal, “Soldier of Love” by Sade comes on. It’s funny because I feel like I’m a soldier of love. I’m at war with whether or not I should fight or give up as I face overcoming fears, handling uncomfortable truths, and learning heartbreaking lessons about love. People tell me that I should write a book, and I am. Due to the current climate, I’m not able to perform as a comedian anymore. As much as I want to write a book, I would like to be paid for writing a book. I’m just being vulnerable and sharing with you my reservations. Each week I struggle with what I should give away for versus what I believe I should be compensated for. 

I’m going to share an injury from my war journal of love.   

This story is about an incident that took place on the battlefields of high school. In the tenth grade, I had fallen for someone I thought I was in love with for a few weeks. When I was younger, I would fall in love fast. I was eager to find anyone who wanted to team up with me, and we would just look after each other. For legal reasons, I will call this woman Charlie to avoid using her real name. I gave her the name Charlie because her actual name was also unisex.  

I had fallen for Charlie hard and fast. I loved how she appeared to be able to see past how socially awkward I was enough to give me a chance. If you asked the cool kids in high school about me, they would probably say I was corny. I made a great deal of quick offbeat jokes that you probably wouldn’t get unless you watched cartoons or cared about sci-fi or fantasy. I wore Looney Tunes socks and caps with propellers on them. I was really into cartoons.

I was a short, skinny kid with a boyish face who probably looked like a Black version of Doogie Howser, MD. I wasn’t very muscular, so the idea of dating me for protection was out of the question. If you were into me, you had to like me for me and accept the fact that we both could be kidnapped at any moment and there was nothing I could do about it. Most likely, I would get taken before the girl. I leaned into my humor as if it were a superpower. I felt like if I could make a girl laugh, she wouldn’t have time to think about the important things that I lacked, like strength and money. I can’t speak for all men when I say this, but I’ve always believed that one needed those qualities in order to have a woman.   

I was in shock that she even gave me the time of day. I must have been really feeling myself to think I had a shot with Charlie. She wasn’t one of the popular girls, but she had dated a football player, which gave her a little boost on the popularity meter. She was my height, maybe a little taller. Her body was more developed than mine, which was out of character for me. I rarely would approach women the same height as me, and the thought of talking to a taller woman was out of the question, unless she acted first. When I got older, I didn’t let the height issue bother me as much. I took taller or bigger as a challenge. I most likely suffer from some sort of Napoleon complex.

I also trauma-bonded with her when she told me that the same football player who had given her that extra bit of credibility used to beat her. This activated my superhero trait of always feeling the need to save someone. Sadly, if a woman told me she had been through any type of trauma, I would turn up the love to full blast. When Charlie told me that the football player used to hit her, it made me want to be with her even more. I made myself believe she was sent to me to love and protect, but that was not the case.

I wanted this young woman to feel so much love from me that she would never feel alone or ever want to leave me feeling lonely. It was that classic high school love you see between teens in coming-of-age films. I was Mr. Let-Me-Show-You-How-Good-I-Can-Love-You. I would walk her to every class, despite the fact she was in the advanced classes that were on the opposite side of the campus from where my classes were. Maronzio “The Super Lover” didn’t care. Our school had two bells. The first bell was to let you know you had two to five minutes to get to your class. The second bell was to let you know you know that you were late if you were not in a classroom when it went off. 

I would get her to class right as the first bell would ring, and I wasn’t leaving until I got my kiss. That’s the reward I would receive for walking her to class. She knew once we arrived at her class that I was waiting for my kiss so I could sprint like a bat out of hell to get to my class on time. I would wait for my kiss even when I knew that I had less than a minute to get to my class. She would flirtatiously tease me and build up so much anticipation before she finally kissed me. It was torturous, but I think she did it for effects. Whatever the reason may have been, it wasn’t going to change my mind about waiting for her affection. As soon as Charlie kissed me, I would take off running like I was The Flash with my face covered with her red lipstick, which had me looking like the Joker. I refused to wipe it off.   

It was hard to get to class on time when one of the rules was no running in the hallways. I had to be fast and clever in order to get to class promptly. I learned which hallways were okay to run through in order to avoid teachers. I also knew which hallways I could run down where teachers didn’t give a fuck about school policy because they had basically checked out and worked on autopilot. Ironically, that’s how some Black people drive when they don’t want any trouble from police. I emulated Indiana Jones as I slid into my classroom right as the teacher was shutting the door at the sound of the second bell going off. That was my everyday routine and part of the reason why I believe I couldn’t gain weight. I had burned at least three thousand calories in between classes. Not to mention my metabolism was higher than a giraffe’s attitude.   

The real coming out party for our relationship was a school dance. We danced and kissed the entire night. Charlie didn’t dance with anyone else, other than her girlfriends, and I didn’t dance with anyone else either. I simply waited for her to finish so I could go back to dancing with her. That’s all I wanted to do, and the other kids at the dance knew it, too. Everything was going smoothly. We would sit on the phone and talk all night then we made out all day and talked on the phone again all night, pretty much the description of any high school relationship. We talked about sex like kids do. I never really thought it would ever happen. 

As much as I would talk a big game, the thought of having sex was the most terrifying thing to me. A few years ago, J Cole came out with a song called “Wet Dreamz” that made me relive this moment. I was so self-conscious about being naked. I knew my body wasn’t something women would fantasize over. I’m willing to bet all the money I’ll ever make that back then no woman ever watched me as I walked to the bathroom and thought to themselves, “Look at how muscular he is.” I was still waiting for puberty to hit me in certain places. Gray sweatpants would have done nothing for me in high school.

Every day I would wake up to see if any areas on my body had more hair than the day before. I didn’t want to be naked around anyone until the hair I was waiting for showed up. As bad as I wanted hair on my body, I probably would have ordered some from Amazon, if it had been an option at that time. Hair was something I identified with as being a man. My father was a very hairy man and so were my uncles. There were some kids at school that had as much hair as grown men, like my father, which made me question what their parents were feeding them.

I did my best to avoid being alone with Charlie, but she was persistent, and I was curious. I one day I called Charlie’s bluff about having sex. I didn’t really want to, but I felt I needed to act as though I wanted to in order for her to feel like I was really into her. I thought I was doing what I was supposed to be doing.

One night, before we hung up the phone, Charlie said she would ride my school bus home with me so we could make out after school. That triggered something in me. I couldn’t explain it. I just knew the idea of her riding home with me so we could be alone wasn’t what I really wanted. I didn’t get a drop of sleep that night after our talk. I lay in bed torn between trying to figure out how to get out of having her over and practicing how I was going to do something with her that I had never done before. I’m sure I got my mattress imaginary pregnant a thousand times from imaginary sex. The next day in school I spent most of the day trying not to blow my chances. My body had other plans. My stomach was in fucking knots. My nerves felt like they were rioting. I didn’t have anyone to talk to about what I was going through. I didn’t really have any friends I could confide in who could make me feel better about my situation. I was afraid if I told anyone that I was nervous about having sex, then everyone in the school would know by lunchtime, and it would be the talk of the day. I imagined myself walking into the cafeteria and everyone becoming silent for a moment then bursting into laughter at me for being afraid. I said, “Fuck that.” I was already dealing with the fear of standing naked in the middle of the cafeteria, and I wasn’t about to add people knowing I’m afraid to have sex to my already long list of fears. I’m so thankful we didn’t have cell phones when I was in high school. I can only imagine the amount of text messages we would have exchanged before it was time to go home. When the final school bell of the day rang, I thought I was going to die. Charlie was looking for me so we could catch the bus. We finally caught up with each other, and that was one of the longest bus rides in the world.

The kids on the bus kind of knew what was up. Charlie didn’t normally ride our bus, plus she was sitting next to me. No one said anything openly, just murmurs of lusty teenage gossip. The bus let us off, and we walked to my house. That also happened to be one of the longest walks of my life. I was trying to stall so we wouldn’t have time to do what I thought I wanted to do, but really didn’t. When we got to my house, I did a quick cleaning job. I cleaned out some papers and moved some clothes around, as well as threw all the dishes in the dishwasher. These were all things my mother would normally ask of me, but I would wait until five minutes before she got home to do them. My mother’s house would look like Hurricane Katrina had blown through when everyone was done getting ready in the morning. I behaved like a bachelor who wasn’t used to having company over. I then had to find something to do with my younger brother. I wasn’t about to make out with this girl while my brother was in the house. I made an executive decision and gave him permission to go outside. That was like giving him candy.

We sat on the couch and made out for almost two hours. To this day, I don’t think I’ve ever kissed anyone for as long as I kissed her, unless it was a girl on her period. That’s all I attempted, until she came out and asked, “Is this all that we are going to do?” When she questioned me, the internal riot in my stomach started again. I said to her, “I just wanted to take my time and not rush you.” Charlie quickly let me know that I could put that theory to rest. “You’re not rushing me; I want it,” she said. 

I ignored her request by acting as though her words turned me on so much that it made me want to kiss her even more. I rushed her and attempted to kiss her passionately and tell her that the aggressiveness turned me on. As Maury would say, “That was a lie.” It didn’t turn me on at all. In fact, I was scared shitless. Charlie finally got fed up with me and said she had to go. I pretended I was about to make my move, but she wasn’t having it. She told me she wanted to leave. I did my best to pretend I was disappointed that she was going. “Fine, I’ll walk you home.” That was the second longest walk of my life. I knew she was angry with me, but how was I supposed to tell this girl that I like and don’t want to lose that I wasn’t ready to have sex? Especially after I had told these Paul Bunyan-sized tales of how skilled I was in the bedroom. I tried to make small talk, but she didn’t want anything to do with me. She behaved as if she paid for everything on a date and didn’t get any sex for all her time and effort. Even my go-to jokes that got her to like me were not landing. I walked with her halfway to her house when she turned to me and said, “I’ll walk the rest of the way by myself.” It was the summertime but the amount of frost on her words almost gave me pneumonia.   

To say I felt pathetic would be an understatement. I don’t know what’s worse than feeling pathetic, but I’m sure I discovered it on the walk back home. Our relationship was never the same. We argued on the phone for two nights straight about how I wasn’t aggressive about wanting to have sex with her. It’s not that I didn’t want to have sex with her, it was just at the time I was more interested in loving her and keeping her safe. Based upon the effects from my unaddressed childhood trauma, I didn’t know any other way to express that, other than with promises of sexual fulfillment.

When you tell someone that you love them, sometimes you have to explain what that means. Simply saying, “I love you” isn’t enough for some people. Some people need details with the words you say to them. The shit hit the fan when she told me over the phone one night that she liked someone else. “What happened to liking me?” I thought to myself.  When she said that, it felt like someone had snatched my heart out of my chest and stabbed me with a stick. Another lump developed in my throat. I had trouble breathing. I had to fight the tears and the subsequent quiver that was affecting my voice. I went silent for a few minutes until she said, “Are you there?” and I had to snap out of it. Charlie began to explain that she liked me, but she also liked someone else. She explained that she wanted to be fair before she made a decision about who she was going to be with. I wanted to scream as loud as I could, “WHAT ABOUT ME ISN’T ENOUGH!?” I was having a hard time understanding why I was getting fired from a job that I loved.

I felt like complete shit, but I sat on the phone with her and had the conversation she wanted to have. Charlie said to me, “I’m going to make a list of pros and cons for each of you to help me make my decision.” It wasn’t until years later that I realized how ridiculous and totally demoralizing it was that I sat on the phone with a girl as she decided my fate. Despite how insulting it was, I was out to prove that I was a good guy. I was so determined that I believed it was okay to stay on the phone with her as she sat there making a list of reasons why she should stay with me or be with the other guy. When I think about it now, I don’t know how I was able to live with myself. “You’re funny, there’s no question about that,” she told me. Even though that was a given, I was glad she at least acknowledged it. I didn’t see the point in her mentioning that I was funny if she didn’t value it enough to keep me. “You don’t have a car, and he does.” That’s when I was reminded again that in order to be with certain women you have to have things. I added a car to the list. “He’s a junior, and you’re a sophomore.” And that was when I learned that women like older men. “He has a pass to leave campus during school because he’s older and has a car.” And I also learned that women like men who can take them places.

Even I was impressed with all the things he could do, but I still felt I was the better choice. Then she started listing things I had no control over. She told me that she liked that he was taller than her. I was so annoyed by that. I know she had seen the same milk commercials that I was seeing. I thought to myself, “If she would just be patient, I will grow.” She pointed out that he was light-skinned. I couldn’t do anything about that. I could get darker, but I didn’t have Michael Jackson money to become lighter. Famous men at the time, like R&B singers Al B. Sure and Christopher Williams, were considered goals. Then she said, “He also has experience.” That meant she wanted to have sex, and he was the man for the job. Once Charlie was done making her list, she said to me that I was a nice guy and we could still be friends. I didn’t want to be her friend. Hearing that is the worst thing in the world. 

It was like that time when I tried out for the basketball team but didn’t make it, and they offered me a job as the equipment manager of the team because I was a hustler. I proudly told them no. Getting offered the equipment manager job was a cute way of saying, “Be the guy that goes to get equipment for people we think are better than you.” I thought to myself “What kind of sick person offers that job?” Charlie was one of those people. She was offering for me to be her equipment manager. We broke up that evening. That night, I cried myself to sleep as I thought about what school I could transfer to before the next morning. The next day at school I saw Charlie walking down the hall with the new guy, and he gave me a smug look to indicate that the better man won. I felt like shit for weeks. I had no one to talk to about what I had gone through, except for the person who caused it. Charlie would call me periodically after we broke up just to tell me about her new relationship and how she wasn’t enjoying it as much as she thought she would. I didn’t want to be rude, but I really wanted to ask, “What the fuck do you want me to do with that information?” I never said it; I just listened. I needed a shot of whiskey after every conversation with her.

None of my friends were mature enough to talk to me about it. My father wasn’t the easiest person to talk to, so I didn’t even bother running it by him. My pride wouldn’t let me tell my mom. I was too cool to let my mom know that I was in pain, and I couldn’t tell her I had a girl over after school; she would have murdered me. I’m still not sure if my mom would have been more upset with me for having a girl over or having a girl over while our home wasn’t presentable. My mom despised people seeing her house messy. So I never talked to anyone about my embarrassing short-lived relationship. I simply suppressed my sadness and humiliation. A few weeks, later the guy Charlie left me for dumped her for a girl who was a senior. Hearing that he left her made me a little happy, but a part of me wanted to comfort her. Despite what she had done to me, I still felt bad for her. I never dated anyone at my high school again.

I haven’t felt as though I was in competition with another man since 2006. That was the last time I was in a relationship with someone who I allowed to make me feel as though I wasn’t enough. Looking back, I never should have felt like I was in competition with anyone. However, that incident from 2006 put me in a position where I will not fully give myself to anyone because of the PTSD from that relationship. I really believe we all should go through some sort of debriefing and counseling after each break-up to make sure we don’t take old issues into new relationships. There should be programs to help people handle triggers they may have developed from trauma in previous relationships so that they can function in new relationships. 

Don’t be ashamed if you have to get help to get over a relationship. Love is war, and there’s nothing you can do to prepare yourself for it. See you on the battlefield.

I write as a form of healing for myself and others. If you enjoyed what you read, “tip the writer” by donating to Venmo or zelle @maronziovance or Cashapp $Gift2MaronzioVance