MJ calls what happened to her in Zion national park “small ‘T’ trauma”. She knows women have experienced worse from their partners. But she still feels the anger of being left behind on a hike by her now ex. “It brings up stuff in my body that maybe I have not cleared out yet,” she said.
Five years ago, MJ and a new partner – he was not exactly her boyfriend, and the pair were not exclusive – traveled from Los Angeles to Utah for an adventure getaway. MJ, who is 38 and works in PR, was looking forward to exploring Zion’s striking scenery; its vast sandstone canyon and pristine wading trails were on the list. But on the morning of their big hike, MJ was not feeling well. She could not shake the feeling that something was “off”; indeed, MJ would learn on this trip that her partner was seeing other women.
As they made their way up Angel’s Landing, MJ’s partner started walking faster than her. “I could tell it was getting on his nerves that I was slow,” she said. “I was like, ‘Fuck it, just go ahead of me.’” He did without hesitation.
When she caught up at the top of the mountain, they took a picture together. Then her partner hiked down the mountain with a woman he had met on the way up, leaving MJ to finish by herself. They broke up shortly after that trip. (MJ asked to be referred to by her initials for the sake of speaking openly about a past relationship.)
Last month, MJ opened TikTok and heard the phrase “alpine divorce”, a label she now attaches to her experience in Zion.
It isn’t that you disagree with me, loads of people disagree with me all the time, and I can count on one hand the number of people I have suggested therapy to.
I promise you, I know you don’t believe me, but I am trying to help you.
No. What you are doing is assuming the moral high ground under the guise of ‘therapy’. It’s shitty and manipulative and if you had any legit knowledge of therapy you’d know that it’s an incredibly shitty thing to do to another person.
Because you are tying to ‘win’. You want to feel ‘big’. And in order to do that you need to put me down and tell me that I’m flawed and awful and only ‘therapy’ will heal me. You are stoking your own ego by creating a narrative where you are wise and helpful and I am sad and ignorant and can’t see the error of my ways that you can. Because apparently you have some sort of deep insight into me based on a handful of internet comments you dislike…
Does it occur to you how ridiculous and arrogant that might be?
I’m sorry you feel that way, but your feelings are totally valid. I promise, I’m not trying to win, and I don’t think any of those negative things about you, I’m just talking to you, man to man. If it helps we can take this discussion to DMs.
Dude, you’re not my therapist and you aren’t going to be. Your need to assume that role is pretty fucked up. But I’m sure you don’t see it that way.
From where I stand it sounds like you are the one with unresolved issues that needs to project them onto others under the false presumption this makes you a ‘good’ person.
Not any different than a Karen who thinks they are ‘protecting’ the neighborhood when the verbally assault and threaten kids for riding their bicycles on the sidewalk because it is ‘dangerous’ for them, that is the ‘energy’ I am getting from your routine here.
You are assuming a self-appointed role based on a fiction in your own mind that has no basis in a greater reality or context, but is a projection of your own egotism about yourself and your ‘story’ being generalized to other people you know nothing about.
I know I’m not, and I’m not trying to be, I’m trying to encourage you to seek out a therapist yourself.