I think the reason nobody can figure out that one big horrible thing is because there wasn't one. Chris and Sky went through every one of the 80,000 texts & chats. They don't know why he was so angry. Travis told Taylor what he wrote in the epic -angry, and told him that he was furious with JA for hacking into his FB account. Taylor didn't seem to think Travis' anger was out of proportion for "just" being hacked again. I think that's because Taylor understood the bigger picture of what Travis was going through.
The DT isn't wrong in saying Travis was depressed in early 2008, and remained so at least up to several weeks before he was killed. His friends are on record saying they knew this, and were concerned about him.
I won't repeat what I've posted before about his financial stresses, but they were very real and very pressing in early 2008 on through the spring. Not being able to make mortgage payments would be stressful for anyone, but I bet for Travis it was more and worse. He had bought his house just 2 years prior, after transforming himself from an indebted 80 hour a week wageslave to a very successful entrepeneur in the span of one single year. He bought his BMW in the same year. He viewed it as a symbol of his success. He was on top of the world.
Two years later. JA had destroyed his BMW. He'd spent all the $75k he took out in equity and was scrambling to refinance his house so he could afford his mortgage. He knew and his friends knew that he had let PPL business slide. In his last journal entries he writes of having to focus more, work more, earn more. That wasn't about getting further ahead. It referred to catching up and stablizing financially.
Finances and faith. Travis loved his religion and depended upon his faith. Friends say he lost his Temple Recommend - for the second time- in late 2007. The loss means he must have gone to his Bishop. Whatever his Bishop told him, and no matter that Travis clearly wanted to make things right, the loss must have contributed to his depression. He was struggling on this front too.
By May 2008 JA had been destroying his soul piece by piece for a year. Travis told Taylor that he HATED himself for being intimate with JA after she moved to Mesa. Hated. Despised himself for lacking the self control to make it stop. Felt guilty that he wasn't being fair to her either. That was in 2007.
A year. A year during which Travis could not escape her, not even in his own house, his own bedroom. A year of not being able to write a word she didn't see. Not online, not at his desk, not even in his personal journal.
And beginning in fall 2007, the complete violation of his privacy extended to the women he dared to text or date. Lisa. The *advertiser censored* letter, the spying, the slashed tires, the home invasions, the intercepted texts meant for Lisa. The loss of Lisa.
Being 30 and feeling enormous pressure to marry. Searching. Wanting a wife who shared his own deep faith and commitment to the Church. But, the loss of his TR. But, JA, who wouldn't relent.
Then Mimi. From his journals it's clear that she was never going to be the One for Travis. But that misses the point. He was excited about taking her to Cancun, happy that she was willing to take a look at him as a prospective husband. Two weeks later she told him never mind, just friends. Travis was devastated. He also found out from Mimi that she never received an important email he had sent to her.
Another intercepted email to another potential girlfriend. The possibility that Lisa had spoken to Mimi and warned her- about JA. The loss of Lisa. Travis wrote weeks before his death his realization that he loved Lisa. He was trying hard to win her back. Whether or not he would have continuing pursuing Lisa also misses the point.
Mid-May 2008, Travis was beginning to understand how much damage JA had done.
ETA...just lost 20 minutes and the rest. That's what I get for writing a book instead of a post.
. Tomorrow.
