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Mom

Manti Te'o

Saturday, Jan. 26, 2013 - 10:52 a.m.

By now most of you reading this will have heard about the story of Manti Te'o and the person who he thought was his girlfriend.

And if you have seen my blog from the very beginning, you'll see that a nearly-identical series of events is what happened to me a decade ago, except I was lucky enough to figure out what was happening before my predator could pretend to die off and substitute one of his family members as an affection surrogate.

If I hadn't had my friends and family around me during my teardown and reconstruction, this would have been a far longer and more difficult process.

---

At various instances with my friends and in my usual online haunts, I've referred to Manti Te'o's self-admitted scam artist, Ronaiah Tuiasosopo as an abuser. And the reason I use that word is because that's exactly what happened -- abuse. Ronaiah Tuiasosopo deliberately and repeatedly chose to engage in predatory and systematic ongoing emotional manipulation and deception that, near the end, also involved sleep deprivation and false claims of hospitalization and medical procedures.

What -should- that be called? "Teasing"?

And as for the recent images of Te'o that have been appearing, it's entirely possible that Manti Te'o looks so furtive and wary because what he's going through is akin to post traumatic stress disorder. He's probably decompressing in the same way as a person who has managed to break free from a cult. Lots of people who disengage from psychologically abusive relationships have felt this way.

If one person did this to him, with no help from anybody else (and I believe that's the case, despite the rumors of a female cousin being involved in the deception), then that one person is a lying, mentally ill sociopath who needs a whole lot of help for a very, very long time.

---

If Ronaiah Tuiasosopo were any kind of decent human being, by now he would have already called a press conference, insisted on a meeting with Manti Te'o, apologized to the man directly for the deception, assumed full responsibility for all of his lies, and demonstrated the voice to Te'o directly so that all doubt would be removed and that Te'o's healing process could begin as soon as possible.

Instead he's scuttled over to the Dr Phil show.

I'll bet you a jillion skillion dollars Ronaiah won't allow himself to be seen doing the voice on the Dr. Phil show. Then he'd never be able to do it again to people under any circumstances, and that's too much for this damaged person to be able to give up.

I'd love to be proven wrong, though.

---

As is the case with all healing processes, and in particular instances of PTSD -- it's a journey that only one person can make. Yes, there's absolutely help and love and support and understanding from others, but when it comes down to it, only Manti Te'o understands what Manti Te'o has been put through.

So to anybody who has been making fun of this man? It's like blaming a rape victim for dressing provocatively.

Manti Te'o has been abused in exactly the same way that I was abused by my own predator.

All right, that's it. See you next time.

---

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