I’ve been reading Penelope Trunk’s blog for a while now. She’s a former professional volleyball player with Asperger’s Syndrome who runs a career advice blog. She’s pretty crazy, by her own admission, and her posts tend to have headlines like “Resume Advice You Never Hear” but end up talking about how she spent two weeks in the ER because the hospital wouldn’t let her take her newborn into the psychatric ward. I read her blog because she has an interesting perspective on job searches and the like, and also out of a prurient interest in her private life, which she is happy to write about in great detail. She’s written (obliquely) about some sexual abuse at the hands of her parents, and more directly about her unstable relationship with a man she lives with on a farm in Wisconsin. She calls this man the Farmer.
I don’t know how much of what she writes is true and how much is not. Penelope has taken to posting photographs of her life on the farm that give her stories some credibility, but the way that she writes, you know that you’re only getting one side of the story — and maybe not even one entire side. She will often give an alarming detail but not enough to really understand what is happening. For example, why did she smash that lamp over her head? Or did she? For all her openness, I don’t think that Penelope is a truth-teller; as a casual reader, I can’t tell if that’s a deliberate strategy or a side-effect of a broken brain. And for all I know, she could be telling the unvarnished truth. Her name is not even Penelope. I find it frustrating, but her commentators eat it up. I eat it up too, frankly.
In the latest craziness, she posted a photograph of a bruise on her naked hip, and stated that the Farmer had slammed her into a bed post. The picture is also a pretty good shot of her naked legs and rear end. (This was under the typically oblique title, “The Psychology of Quitting.”
After this post, her comments section exploded, with a war between the “Get Out, Now!” brigade and the “It’s Not Your Fault, I Love You” alliance, along with the usual trolls. A couple of her commenters even called the police (from wherever they were), and the police apparently went to the farm. Another commenter is apparently a neighbor, and reported seeing the lights from the cop car.
And what is my take on this? As I said, I can’t know how much of what Penelope writes is true, whether that picture is real, whether she’s asking for help or not. Certainly, a blog post is not the most direct method of asking for help. If she isn’t asking for help, what is she doing? Creating drama? Driving blog traffic? Performance art? Trying to turn the world against her boyfriend, while at the same time becoming a martyr? Or is the whole thing a massive fiction?
Penelope followed this all up with a post defending (?) women who don’t leave their partners after domestic abuse. She concludes with: “And that’s why I’m staying with the Farmer.”
And I’m left with a question — what was this?
It’s so weird, especially since she followed it up with the post scolding the commenters who told her to leave her partner (complete with stories about how her mother deserves some of the beatings she got from her father). I think if she makes it a habit to overshare and engage in TMI in her blog, it’s a bit rich to then scold people for having opinions about what she should and should not do.
Yes, the original was confusing, and the followup is weird and inconsistent. That’s our Penelope!
[…] not going to link to it, but I’ll link to this article about it. And I’ll also link to a post I wrote about her back in 2012. At that time, I decided that she was (and apparently still is) a very effective […]
Can I simply say what a relief to uncover somebody
who truly knows what they are discussing on the web.
You definitely understand how to bring an issue to light
and make it important. A lot more people need to look at this and understand this side of your story.
I can’t believe you are not more popular since you certainly have the gift.