QTing because it'd be derailing--I don't know if I can articulate how much this piece means to me as a Tallahasseean. https://twitter.com/whyaredads/status/1318918325259350021

I was born at TMH 1984, and grew up with the "my cousin's friend's sister" stories whispered under the sleepover blanket tents any time I had slumber parties with non-LDS friends. I loved those scary stories but always hated hearing about Bundy.

Up to a point his movements reminded me of my mom; Oregon to Washington, Washington to Utah. The brown VW bug my parents had until the bottom rusted out and they had too many kids to cram into it safely.

My parents moved here from Illinois in 1976 and my dad was worked his way through FSU as a janitor. A close friend was murdered by her husband, but it was ruled heart failure. My dad gave up on being a marriage counselor and got into computers.

We didn't talk about domestic violence, or violence against women, aside from vague warnings and the Mormon standard emphasis on chastity and only dating inside the church. But that just made me curious about violence, and what made people violent.

Ted Bundy felt too much like a real person than a monster, starting with that association with the same journey my mom took, and then hurting girls who were students at the same school my dad went to, the same school that you can't get away from in almost every part of town.

I mostly roll my eyes if my spouse (a librarian working in the State Archives) mentions yet another person coming to the RA Gray to ask for everything they've got on Ted Bundy. "Herman is a wonderful mastodon skeleton in the museum downstairs, go meet him instead." I think.

Because, if I'm really honest, what Sarah Marshall has to say about mental illness generally, and here more specifically about Ted Bundy, is so perfectly aligned with how I've thought and felt about it, that it makes my heart ache a little. Maybe a lot.

It's a deeply hurtful, confusing thing to grow up with "Men want to hurt you and you can't stop them, but you have to love them and trust them anyway. If you choose poorly (it's always your fault) it's better that you die and stay innocent forever."

It's easier to stay in that space and tell yourself that any disconnected or angry feeling is unequivocally evil and should be rejected. If you examine those things in yourself, you can embrace them. But you are then confronted with the same complexity in others.

The violence of his actions are frightening, but I think a life without compassion scares me more.