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umbrisanimussempiternam · 4 years

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Creature of The Night

I have always been a bit of an insomniac, but ever since something happened recently in my life - or rather, I was told about this thing - I have been getting less and less sleep at night. I work sporadic hours ever since this pandemic started and I know that isn’t helping things. I am not as busy as I once was, which I often mentally complained about. I now regret all those mental complaints - maybe all that activity would finally give me some peace and quiet inside my head. I work a job that had me going literally 24/7 and now due to pay/hour cuts, I am finding I have more time than I know what to do with. I guess that’s why I am writing here - to have some kind of outlet into the internet where no one knows who I am and what I am about to write in this post.

I can’t not talk about it anymore - it’s been slowly choking me.

To start, a little background/history. I have always had a rocky relationship with my mother. Actually, that’s putting it delicately. My relationship with my mom was TERRIBLE for several years. It has only recently (round about three-ish years) been getting better. I guess it makes sense - that was around the same time my mom’s second-eldest sister died. It hadn’t taken too long, only about a year and a half for her cancer to consume her. My mom’s eldest sister died a little over a year after that and my grandmother (my mom’s mother) a year after her. I guess you can say that all of those deaths in the family have been forcing us together. I must say, they did a better job at helping us communicate than my mom when she would literally lock me in my bedroom with her and make me stay there until we solved whatever was going on. Great parenting, mother.

But I digress and now I know the “reason” behind the bad parenting and all of the hard times we had.

The fourth of July of this year was when my mom told me. I am still having a hard time processing it over two months later. For reference, I won’t use real names, but I will use random letters to the key people involved.

My “uncle” - J

My aunt (my “uncle’s” wife) and my mom’s eldest sister - R

My grandmother - L

So, fourth of July rolls around. I usually would have been out with friends on that day, but due to the pandemic, I decided to go to my parent’s house to visit my mother (my father was working that day) and my cat. We got to talking like we do a lot more of now - those deep talks she would always have with my sibling that I would be jealous of, but never wanted to partake in. We got on the subject of healing the family. It’s been quite broken with all of the recent deaths and all of the things people somehow never say until it is too late.

For another little tidbit of backstory, you should know that my mother and her siblings were all abused by their father - L’s husband. Mentally, emotionally, physically, and yes - sexually. L had six kids and nowhere to go, so she began to work night shifts at an office, leaving her kids with that horrible man. My mother was six the last time her father sexually abused her. He was a drunk, a low-life and I am glad he is dead so that I don’t ever have to try to forgive him for what he did to my family.

When my mother was just turned seven; she, her brothers and sisters and her mother all moved away from him. But the damage had already been done. R couldn’t have anyone touch her for the pain that she would feel everywhere - a burning sensation that spread from the inside-out. My mothers brothers all had resentment towards L, my mother’s second eldest sister had resentment towards everyone, but they stayed in each other’s lives. I cannot say if that was for the worst or not.

My mom was twelve years younger than her eldest sister - R. Right around the time they moved away from the monster that was their father and husband, R was proposed to by J. Even though R couldn’t be touched, even though she probably could never bare their own children, J married her. Everyone thought of him as the most amazing, perfect man for marrying R. They lived in a little house in Northern California, went to church every weekend, and my mom would go to visit them every summer.

Every summer. It all started when she was nine. I can only imagine - though I wish not to - what J did to her. You see, since he couldn’t get his nut out with his wife, he assaulted my mother. Every summer she went up there. For weeks on end, she was at his mercy - a nine-year-old girl who only knew to turn to her mother for help. When my mother finally told L a couple of years into the abuse, she was informed that it must have been her own fault. L chose this monster - the second one in my mom’s short life - over her. All because L liked J and couldn’t imagine him as the no-words-in-the-human-or-heavenly-or-down-in-the-depths-of-hell-languages kind of man he really was.

L knew what my mom had gone through with her ex-husband. J knew what they had all gone through and my mother was not an exception. J knew what had happened to her already in her short life and decided to go and do it anyways. Repeatedly. For YEARS!! I cannot fathom how my mother is still alive. More so - I cannot believe HE is.

No one knows but these few people - L (who as stated before, is now dead), my mother, my father, me and (obviously) J. I have not the strength to tell my sibling - who by the way has been suicidal for years. Telling them now... I don’t know what that would do and I will not let myself be an only child. No way in hell.

I grew up with J around me. I can’t tell you how many times I was in the very house - the very ROOM - my mother was assaulted in. Now I know why my sibling and I never went up north without one or both of my parents there. My parents never left my sibling or myself alone with the man and it never registered in my mind until my mother told me about all of this. He was a man that I trusted, a man who I thought to be amazing for loving my aunt even though he could never be with her the way he probably wanted to. R, he respected. Her sister, not so much. It’s a mask that I hope to one day rip away and show the world what he truly is.

There is just one roadblock in all of this. Well, two, really. My cousins. See, what I haven’t mentioned before is that R and J adopted two kids. The reason I have stayed silent this long is because... well I don’t know how it would feel in reality, but I can only imagine the pain of knowing the man who raised you - the man you trusted - was a child molester and rapist. A man who affected forever how my mom, my sibling and myself see the world. I can’t. But someday I’ll have to explain to my family why I can never ever go to a gathering he will be attending. Why I could never look J in the eyes again without imagining my mother’s face as a child reflected in them. I would throw up on him. I feel nauseous as it is just thinking about J now, even with him over a thousand miles away and not having seen him in over a year and a half.

One of the reasons my mother didn’t tell her family was because she knew how it would destroy her sister and it probably wouldn’t have turned out good for my mom back then. It definitely would have divided our family between those who wanted to stay close to L and those who would have stayed by my mother’s side. The second reason ties into the first. My mom thought - and still thinks - since L didn’t validate her story or pain that no one else would believe her. And who could blame her?! Her own MOTHER didn’t give a rat’s ass about her pain - didn’t believe her. The one person who was supposed to love my mom and protect her no matter what had failed her. Again.

The reason I won’t say anything yet breaks down into two things as well. The first is that my mother isn’t ready. God, it’s been 40 years and I don’t blame her at all for not being able to process what happened to her. The second reason is that I know what it will do to my family. Most, if not all, will be on my mother’s side now. That’s part of the problem though. I know what it would do to J’s kids - my cousins. I don’t care that they are not technically blood relatives, I would protect those two with my own life. The eldest is already worried about being the “black sheep of the family” even though there is nothing they have done that will ever come close to earning them that title. I can’t think of what this will do to them - both of them. I am scared they would feel ashamed to show their face to our family again. I can’t go the rest of my life without seeing them.

So for now, I don’t really have a choice. I will have to wait until the day of justice finally dawns upon J.

The absolute worst part about this for me? I don’t know what to do until then. Actually, I don’t know what to do even after that. I don’t know how to move on, how to let go - how to SLEEP. I can’t even sleep at night for Christ’s sake!! It evades me now more than ever. I constantly feel like when I turn my light off and roll over; close my eyes - I will feel someone grab me from behind. J is an all consuming entity now and I don’t how to expel him from my waking or sleeping mind.

If there is one point I want to make with this post - it’s this.

Trust your kids.

Put your biases aside and believe them when they tell you they are in pain. L HATED and blatantly showed her dislike for my father even though he did nothing and has done nothing but love and cherish my mother. Not once has he hit or abused - emotionally or physically. However, L adored J and she showed it openly. I cannot fathom what makes a mother choose someone else over her own child, but I am here now telling you it’s possible. So please, I implore of you, if any child comes to you with pain - any pain - help them for God’s sake.

I ask this of you because the reverberations of neglect have rippled through my mother and passed into me. I know how it feels and I would not wish it on my worst enemy.

Well, maybe J.

#blog #familyblog #pain #abuse #lifeis #complicated #anonymous #familylife #stop #hurting #children #family #life #is #messy #lifeismessy

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