I awaken to the pungent smell of the cellar. Strong, moldy and damp. My nose starts to hurt. I instinctively try to wipe my nose, but remember we're not suppose to touch our faces. I itch my head instead. My hair hasn't been washed in a month. It feels awful. I wonder if it will fall out. I think about being a girl and how I couldn't wash my hair only once a week. Being here so many memories come rushing back, so much the same, so much planned once again. Only this time is different. This time I know, this time I can finally face it all armed with the truth.
It's gotten next to impossible to go into the house now. I'm basically confined to the room in the garage. It smells like old, rusty cars—exhaust and engine oil. I had been going into the house about once a week to shower, get tap water to wash with and to empty the small bucket I use to toilet in, but even these things were getting to be a problem. Getting my packages, mail and other questions about essentials has been an increasing problem also. The few times I have been in there the violence and being attacked just makes it harder and I've come to see there is no sense talking about anything that we all understand now. We all know. All the lies continue to unravel each day, but their pretending continues. Communication was always a problem, but because I didn't know what was going on the Gaslighting stayed hidden. There was always an excuse, always a way to justify and blame. It was always my fault. They were all together, it was me that was wrong. Of course, they all agreed whenever I attempted to clarify or ask questions about anything.
The dirty quilt I have smelled of mold and dampness and was making me sick. I use to do laundry once a week and had a new washer and dryer before all this started. It along with so many other of my personal belongings was in the Storage unit that was deliberately seized. I was threatened right from the start everything would be taken "auctioned off." My ex would watch those Storage war shows along with the seedy ones about how someone killed their wife, all the time. My skin feels itchy and red from being dirty. The sweat starts to cover my neck and back as the anxiety takes over. The metal springs in the bed are coming through and I know I better get up or the pain will be worse. I want to sleep a little longer, but know that it will just make me sicker. I'm tired and feeling sick, but I get up. Hoping again today, I don't get sick. It gets harder and harder to sleep at all now.
The smell waifs up my nose and is now even stronger—I can't breathe. I worry about the virus now more than ever each day. The air is thick and musty—stagnant. Full of dust and mildew from the cellar right outside the door. My mother has taken to leaving it open now. "To air out the cellar," she says as she checks the cellar each morning and dinner time. She says this each time outside the door as she calls the dog. Another game she plays—I'm her dog. I have always been a dog to her. I have to check the sump pump, she says to herself. References to dogs and their abuse is another thing both her and my ex share. There is always water in the basement, she says and she has to check it each day. I know not to say too much. There are problems with the Tap water here also and problems with the basement. I don't question any of this because if I do, she just gets violent. Everyone has been in and out. No one practicing "Social Distancing" worried about disinfecting or the Pandemic. If I ask or saying anything, the violence starts. It's a hoax that only people like me are worried about.
I owned numerous houses for over 20yrs, all maintained and in excellent shape from the work I did, but that is of no consequence. Having any water in the basement isn't good, I never did. Even in Winter, she was checking, which seemed odd. How could there be water in the basement, the ground is frozen? Something seems wrong. Breathing in this type of air isn't good either, but like everything else, if I say anything, I'm ungrateful and might get punched in the face again. She has already hit me numerous times, then calls the Sheriffs and tells them I'm the one with the problem—the one who is violent! She has even flung herself on the ground and told them I pushed her down. My 1/2 sister giving them some long-winded story about how I'm incompetent and going through a divorce and shoved her down. The first time I heard them do this I was astounded, but now know the games they are all playing. Like the bag of pills, my 1/2 sister brought up one day after having just come from the pharmacy. Telling me it would be to everyone's benefit if I just went on medication, got "Disability" SSI, and thanked my mother for being so good to me. We could be the "Psycho-Sisters," she said. She "needs her pills," she said. "She knows she is Bipolar!" As she proceeded to tell me stories of how violent she is off her medication and all the fights she has been in. I sat astounded. I haven't seen her in 20-years and had no idea how violent she was.
I sit in the chair in the room to steady myself. Everything smells of the cellar. I feel the hives starting on my skin crawling up my back. I feel like I'm going to throw up. I have already had a couple bad bouts of sickness, food poisoning, and diarrhea from having no refrigerator. Things aren't fresh, go bad. I can't go to the store as I need to. I think before this started about the 6-7 refrigerators I had. The courts and Judges giving my ex everything. Each rental had one, the Lakehouse, the one-family—all new. All the washers and dryers too. My ex use to get food-poisoning every year after he went to Canada snowmobiling. I made sure everything was fresh all the time. We never ate left-overs. I cooked and baked from scratch, kept a garden and we ate very healthily. I was told growing up it was because I was so "High and Mighty!" The way I wanted to eat was always a problem. It was the first fight that my mother and I had once I was here in the garage. I can't eat her cooking. I need my own food. We don't agree on how things are prepared and how things should be cooked. I learned the hard way that I have to eat a certain way. Food and cooking are some of the most loving, intimate things you can do with someone—breaking bread. I don't agrue about it anymore. I can't eat old food that has been in the freezer for years, left out, sitting on the counter for days on end.
I was often made to eat things that made me sick. It wasn't the kind of items. The only food item I'm not crazy about is liver. It was the way they were prepared. My mother would claim she was too busy and it didn't matter to leave things out. My stomach is sensitive. I can taste the mildew or mold. It's also why I baked from scratch. I could taste the chemicals in prepared foods and preferred fresh. Even mostly eating raw at times now. But this was cause for violence. I was often deliberately made to eat things that were old just to prove that I was not going to think I was so special. "You should be glad you have food at all!" she would say. To prove her point she would leave things out all the more. I would often throw up and gag. Things were put in the refrigerator unwrapped, not sealed or left out.
The door slams, loud like thunder a couple of times, and she ascends the stairs making sure to stop and linger outside the door to this room. She coughs a few times before slamming the outside door, which threatens to open this door and then she leaves. I have put a couple of boxes in front of the door to keep it shut from opening, but the gusts of air come through the bottom anyway. This has been her routine lately. I'm cold and hot now all day, sweating as my body temperature struggles and tries to regulate the temperatures between the outside and inside. Between the outside dampness, the cold of the cellar and the stagnant air in this room. There is no flow. There is no way to control the temperature or airflow from a room that was made from some plywood in the garage she used to use. Now mainly storage for all the things my 1/2 sister said she hoards, collects from the garbage or others give her. Like all things, she makes sure she is also even in control of the airflow in here.
It's hard to breathe. It's still too early to open things up. I did Spring cleaning on all my properties over 20-years, kept a garden and vacation property here on the lake. Knowing from experience how opening things too quickly can result in broken pipes. It seemed so nice one year that we turned on the water early only to have a pipe break. It was old anyway, but I learned that it's deceiving to think that because it's sunny, Spring is here. Even if the calendar tells us it's Spring, it is often better to wait a couple of weeks until May. The snow was late again this year and there are still traces of it on the lawn. With the ongoing threat of the Corona Virus, we are told to stay inside, which is prudent, especially because of how cold it still is. Stay inside, wash often, practice Social Distancing. None of which is being done here. People go in and out, and all of them leave often. It's not my job to tell adults how to live, but that should go both ways. I didn't ask to come here. I never would have. We all know that this was done on purpose. I don't need to ask anymore—we all know.
No one is going to tell my mother what to do, certainly not me. Most especially not me. It's been this way since I was a child. When I talk about any of it lately—I'm threatened. It's only gotten worse as more and more lies come to light. Increasing levels of violence have made it impossible to even talk about being 6-feet apart. Boundaries were always a huge problem. We're in the middle of a Pandemic, but she sees no reason to let up on the continual abuse, bullying, and hatred that has become constant here. "Get out then," she says. "Go walk the streets!"
"Why did you come here?" she angrily says. "No one wants anything to do with you!" I know she knows I had no place to go. It was not because I was "Incompetent" like they keep telling people. It's not the first time I have been forced to stay in her cellar. I was thrown out after I was lured home in my 20's after leaving at 17, putting myself through college and living on my own. At 17, along with all the other times, she told me to not let the door hit me in the ass. "The door swings both ways!" she would say. She often would communicate in these short, abusive phrases, but as a kid, I just took them for things your mother says. I see them in a different light today. I see the little girl I was struggling to understand, terrified and having no place to go. Being told I would be put in Foster Care was a constant way to keep me from asking her anything. "Be glad I didn't put you in Foster Care!" she would say. I know today the only reason I wasn't was because of my Grandmother.
My job had ended. My mother, and my cousin who was my best-friend at the time, convinced me to come home. College was never acknowledged and me living away was usually made fun of, especially building a career and living on my own. I didn't care about "Family" and was selfish and thought I was so smart, they would say. I was looking down on them just by going to college, having my own apartment and working. I was constantly teased about being out partying and out all the time. I never really was. I did go out, but often just a few hours on a Friday night to get dinner with my boss. We would eat, discuss work, and have a couple of pitchers of beer. Generally, we would be home by 11pm and rarely did we have more than 2 pitchers. If we did have that 3rd one, we would both laugh vowing next time we wouldn't because it was too much. I would usually have to work weekends and it was a pain to be tired and to be hungover for work. I never liked it and rarely did it.
As the years went by it wasn't just partying, I was accused of, it was going out to meet guys. "Getting drunk and picking up guys." Today we call it Hooking-Up. Going out was always about guys. I loved to dance and going out to dance was also done, but going out at all meant having sex, something that was always insinuated. Slut-shaming was constant, but we didn't have a name for it then. It was just another way to dismiss my life, invalidate it, and generally make me feel guilty for having a life different from theirs—how dare I do this. I was often then having to feel sorry for them because having children was much harder than building a career, putting a roof over my head, and asking them for nothing. I also had a boyfriend so their gossip wasn't taken seriously, but little did I know it went way deeper. No one ever visited, they were too busy. If I wanted to see anyone, I was the one to pay for the gas, phone calls, and trip home. It was my responsibility to drive the hour home to visit, not theirs. I tried to see everyone at least once a month, but often they were too busy. I was often told I "didn't care about Family!" and was selfish. I often felt guilty and when I expressed some of that sadness and tried to explain that work demanded my time also, I was told that I was depressed. Most family members didn't work. They had children and stayed home or were on Welfare. Most of my Mother's friends were also on Welfare.
Only now, did I have a name for all the years I was told behind my back I was a "Drunk Slut,"—I never knew. Only now do I have a name for the diminished way I felt, the slutty references, the denial of who I was. Slut-shaming was around long before we had the word for it. The euphemisms that define you in such a negative way even when you aren't engaging in the said behaviors. I never shamed any of them for having more partners than I did. Being poor, being different, not part of the group-think could get you labeled a "Slut." In my case, it was so devastating it was also family that did the slut-shaming, but ever so subtly. My choice to not have children was constantly tormented. How dare I not have them, even though my mother told me all the time, children ruined your life, "don't ever have them!" How dare I want to be successful at something, live on my own, have an apartment, be successful. If you did, you were a Slut! I never had a date in High School, so I wasn't sure why this was inferred all the time. None of them worked. All were taken care of, but my work was always a problem. My liking to work was even more of a problem. I loved creating and being an Artist, being paid for my photography was even more of a dream come true. I knew growing up what the expectations were, not only from my family, but School, and various others I came into contact with. Welfare kids amounted to nothing, were always in trouble and didn't do well in school—everyone knew that. It was just a given. Arguing about it only got you called out. Called-out to fight. Called-out if my grades were good. Called-out if you asked or answered too many questions, did not play along with being stupid, in trouble—no good, were too smart.
I was not considered like the other girls in my family. Taken me all these years to understand why. I spent many years blaming myself and trying harder. Shrugging off the contempt, ridicule and ass-busting I endured. Trying to be as good as the other girls that were just naturally approved of. Called on to answer, given rides, help, and accolades just for showing up. In my heart, I generally liked the poor kids I met in the welfare groups whenever we had to go to get some free stuff or stand in line at the Welfare office. I felt blessed that I could pull off being like the "regular kids." Do well in School and have manners. Welfare kids often were unattractive I was told, could not speak well and generally didn't do well in school. School came easy for me and I didn't take this lightly. My Grandmother was a constant source of support, if I questioned my ability to do well, get an education or have a decent life. "Class is born," she would say. Often remarking how those that were so dismissive of me were actually the ones with so little class. Class to her was very important. Manners, Education and Reading were the things she talked to me about all the time. She never spoke badly about any family members, even though they ridiculed her all the time. She was a constant target of their gossip and put-downs, even from my mother. She struggled with my mother all the time and it was only towards the end of her life she came to see that the hate would never go away. She came to some understanding as I have done recently. When you finally know the truth about someone and you can deal with it. The lies give way and you see them clearly.
My Grandmother only completed 7th grade, but read all the time and did very well for a woman of her generation. She was smart and was a target by family also. My mother would often say we both thought we were so smart and laugh with her friends tormenting us about how we might be "book smart," but we had no common sense. It never made sense to me because my Grandmother did have a daughter, was a mother, but was never accepted either. I always knew there was more going on, but as a girl I loved them both and just thought that having only one was easier than having 4 children. There was always a way to feel sorry for them. They never felt sorry for me or my Grandmother, but when your young you don't question those things. I often felt alone and would read. I liked to read so I just accepted being different. Having my Grandmother always made it easier. She balanced the violence in a way that once she was gone I had no idea would get even worse. That once she was gone it would be me all alone and not as my Mother said would be her. "You're all alone now," she would say in that faraway voice like she was talking to herself. I know now she was not talking about her being alone, but me. They were all going to make sure of it.
This was also my cousin, my best friend at the time. Pregnant at 16, she was always taken care of by the "Family." I was told how I thought I was "grandiose" for leaving, going to college. Because her sister was a Jehovah's Witness, I was often accused of being the "Prodigal Son." Lectures came often about God's wrath and not forgiving. About living a selfish life on my own. Their brother molesting me being one of those things that I had to forgive. Boys will be boys and making a big deal out of it just showed how selfish I was. It proved that I was "dirty." He had just "gotten fresh" was all. I was often told that I just wasn't as clean. This was another ongoing joke that grew more vicious as time went by.
Diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder this cousin often made things like baths a way to be cleaner. I would no sooner have gotten out of the tub from having taken a bath and be told she was cleaner. When we were girls this was often funny. I was told, of course, she was "only joking." She would ask me to go to the store numerous times, "don't tell," she would say. I would often go 3-4 times before she could go outside and play or hang-out as we got older. Bottles of shampoo, conditioner, things for her hair. Washing was constant so as not to be dirty. I was just selfish whenever I didn't want to go to the store for her—selfish and dirty. The selfish part I didn't care about, but I knew I was not allowed to take baths at home too often, so I would comply if she would imply being "dirty." How could I really disagree? My hair was often greasy and I was not allowed to do my laundry too often. I had usually 10-12 loads per week as part of my chores. I was always hanging out clothes. My mother often remarked she hated dryers, but she never was the one to hang the clothes. Winter was the worse. Then there were sheets, towels, and other items, so doing my own any more than every couple of weeks was a problem. I just accepted going to the store for her, not wanting to seem dirty and being able to use the bathroom as long as I wanted was nice. She could be in the bathroom constantly. It was just her and her brother and mother.
My cousin's life was far more important than mine anyway. Of course, once she got pregnant at 16, the amount of deferring she required was endless. I never did anything right in her eyes. The family rallied around her and gave her whatever she needed. My being in college was ignored. To make up for it she would continually have to borrow my clothes. She would return them ruined and if I complained it only showed how selfish I was. She was a "Mother," after all. She didn't cook or do housework and would often complain about it. How much she hated to cook and do housework was an endless source of discussion. She was only 16 and was being denied going out. How sad she was about it, but then would accuse me of being the one who was depressed. I wasn't really depressed, but had a hard time visiting her and being told we couldn't go out. She would often insinuate that her husband thought it best she didn't go out with me. I thought it was not going out at all, but then she would brag how she went out with other girlfriends because she was depressed and her husband would give in. It was around this time the subtle hints of slut-shaming had started.
Her ongoing OCD was never talked about. It was a secret. She was in many ways just like my mother and I learned to feel sorry for her and try to make her happy by doing the things she wanted. She was my best-friend after all and would often say that. Over the years, I realized that I had never really been considered family even though we were. She cared more about "Family" then I did and the proof was they all loved her and not me. I never really understood why. It was always just because of my Grandmother and my parents being divorced, she would say off-handedly. Her family just didn't like my Grandmother, they "didn't see eye to eye," she would say. Because I loved my Grandmother this was often given as the reason. My Grandmother and I were too close. There were so many of them, their family was large and there was only me and my Grandmother, but it didn't matter. They had decided. Loving my Grandmother was just part of the problem. The lines having been drawn a long time ago. Of course in the early years, always teasing that if you made too much of these things you were "too sensitive" not able to take a joke. You had to learn that "ass-busting" was just part of being a family. I was usually always the target of the ass-busting. I know now it was verbal and emotional abuse, but as a child I only wanted my family to love me and to fit in. It always felt awful, but without a name for something it didn't seem real and it was always easily dismissed. There were always more of them than me.
Of course, I agreed to move back home after long conversations about coming home from both of them—my mother and best friend. My job ended and not knowing at the time, I had lost my job due to the trouble they had caused. Friends of friends in a small town. I would come to see that jobs I held and lost were to be a part of the trouble they would continue to cause as the years went by, but at the time it was just another reason to blame myself and not feel good enough. I would often be doing really good at work, only to be called in the office and told because of downsizing, reorganizations, and restructuring they would have to let me go. It was the night before I was to move back home that I called my cousin only to be told after a few minutes she had a knife, had been arguing with the girl upstairs all night, who was always drunk and she was going out of her mind. By this time, she had a second child, a little boy, and things weren't working out, she had said when I had previously visited her in the hospital when he was born. This "party girl" upstairs was making constant noise, was keeping her up all night, and she didn't think it was a good idea if we were friends anymore because I was selfish. "Your so selfish and all you do is think of yourself," spending your time sitting around listening to rock music and with that she hung up the phone. I sat dumbfounded looking at the boxes I had packed, ready to move in the morning.
I moved in the morning. No one spoke to me when I got home. No one spoke to me all Summer. I was to bunk in with my 1/2 Sister who I thought of as just my Sister until recently. Back then I never made the distinction these were 1/2 siblings and their family 1/2 relatives. The complexity of our relations was always a source of abuse. I look back now and know I never should have come home, but the guilt and needing answers to so much won out. It was about 2-months before I was told to leave. My mother and brother were paying on a house together by this time and they both thought that I wasn't "getting along!" I had been paying both of them some rent, buying groceries, and paying for things. I gave my 1/2 brother money for his windshield he broke and money for the beer he bought for the party he usually held each weekend. None of this mattered. Another cousin was looking for a place to live and was moving in. My stuff was still in the cellar and that's where I spent the last few weeks before getting a small apartment. Summer had just about ended and no one was speaking to me. In the Fall a couple friends from High School asked me to go out.
I went out a couple times with these girlfriends and one night, my ex-husband showed up. He and his friends cornered me by the bar pretending to bump into me. Actually, he wouldn't get out of the way and I asked him if I could get by. He pretended he didn't know me. I really didn't know him either, but then asked if he knew my cousin. He looked familiar. He said he really didn't see my cousin, didn't know he had a "little cousin." I knew a little something of my cousin's best friends because his sister, my then best friend, liked to spy on them partying. They were older and this had been going on since we were kids. She would brag how they liked her, had met them in his wedding, and just generally thought it made her important to hang around his older friends. By this time, I had no idea the kinds of drugs they were doing or how much my living away and going to college was hated, especially because by this time, my cousin was moving from Coke to Heroin, both of these cousins were Divorcing and money was becoming a problem. I didn't know they knew who I was and that the night I met my ex was all set up, as so many things I was to learn were.
"That's the past, just let it go!" I had grown up hearing this and being told repeatedly this whenever I asked any questions about what was going on. Things even as current as an hour ago were the past. Whenever we moved I learned to let it go. We moved often. Whenever something was ruined, I had to let it go. Whenever there was no money, I didn't have what I needed—I was told to let it go. It's the past, there is no need to talk about the past—it's over! let it go. If I persisted the violence would start. I would be accused of back-talking and this was reason to tell me, I'll give you "something to cry about" because that's what I was doing—crying over spilt milk. My mother was not going to do anything about whatever it was I asked about or needed. I had learned young not to ask her for anything. The only one I could ask things of was my Grandmother and I mostly didn't ask her either unless it was extremely important. I learned to do without most things. Either improvising or just plain not having. By the time I met my exhusband I had already been admonished to forgive, let it all go! Family was talking to me again and setting me up with this new boyfriend they all liked and knew—don't live in the past!
I got up and tried to think about what I was going to do. Like I had been doing every day since I got here. I was now living on GoldFish crackers and ramen noodles, but they were gone and the few boxes of pasta I had required water, which was getting harder to get. I had a microwave, but getting water was becoming a problem. I was told now I had to walk to the local store and get water. There were 4-cars here, but my mother wasn't going to get me water. I had been only asking to use her car once a month to get groceries, but I knew she would eventually deny me that too. Who was I to eat the way I wanted. Food had been an ongoing issue since I was a kid, especially now that I was a Vegetarian. As I came to see how similar her and my ex-husband were I came to see how they had conspired all along. I felt violated in ways I was just beginning to understand. The sick, crawling feeling about people having no boundaries. The inability to say No, do what you needed to do, and generally just be yourself. The violence from both of them growing worse over time. The minute ways they needed to control every little thing in my life.
"Go walk the streets!" was another phrase I was hearing constantly. Hurled at me all the time now, mirroring the constant accusations that I was a prostitute and had been one all along. This had started when I had been violently arrested out of our 20yr home and put on the street and told by my ex-husband that "nothing was mine!" Told again when he had me arrested out of our Lakehouse 3yrs later telling the State Police I was a "mentally ill prostitute," who was "Schizophrenic and Bipolar and might start the Lakehouse on fire!" The neighbors yelling the same. Then calling the Sheriffs numerous times when I tried to stay there as the Divorce was going on. One was there all the time, watching me from the neighbor's place. He seemed like their personal body guard. By this time, I was being prevented from staying in any of our properties and being evicted from every place I rented by his friends, our families and their cronies. Stalking me where ever I went making the same horrible accusations that brought the Police and neighbors to allege the same. None of which was true, but it hasn't stopped. Propositions from a couple Sheriffs also started when they told me they had "intelligence from the Police" in the next town over that I was a Prositute and if I was "taking new clients" they could help me out. When I tried to report them for sexually harassing me I was told that I was a "drunk" and couldn't report. This of course was all "on file at the Police station." Cops my ex seemed to know took his word for everything and ignored me whatever I said these things were lies. They would laugh, telling each other that I didn't understand. They had no idea what I was talking about, it was "all jibberish!" That I had always been a prostitute, a maid, a whore according to the friends, family and people my ex-husband and family knew and now supposedly the police.
I didn't have much water but made a cup of coffee. It was a small thing, but comforting. One of so few things left that I can comfort myself with and have some degree of normalacy. I often wake and I'm surprised my dog Bentley is not here. Not having to feed, take him out, brush him, and have his little face tell me good morning. Our routine, one of the many things destroyed. I think of him often and wonder where he is. The horrible abuse and threats of being told he would be used as "bait" continue to bring me pain each day. The horrible way this was done. The sadistic way I was told each step of the way how things would be done and were. The disgusting way at every turn the power of these people had to be made known. The horrible way my dog was taken.
The coffee pot and cup are dirty. This room and everything in it is filthy. I think of my Grandmother and know she would be beside herself. She warned me the last time I saw her before she passed to be careful, but I don't know if she really knew how horrible these people we called family could be. How horrible my mother, her daughter could be. She was horrified when my mother put me on the street, but she usually tried like I did to forgive. She struggled to understand in the same ways that I have over the years. We often didn't have the words for things that went on. Close to her death, my Grandmother had enough with me being put on the street and left me all her things, including her new trailer. She spoke in knowing, but we knew to call someone evil is difficult. I don't think she was ready, but she was close. I have no problem now. I sit here each day wondering if I will survive this. I was told that they would make it so I could not get out. My life has been so ruined, I know they might be right. I was told that every detail, every possible combination would be destroyed. When a group of people has 20-years to plan, plot, and scheme, it's not hard to figure they could probably make your life a living hell, especially people who have intimate access to every part of your life. We are only now coming to know the horrible way coercive control, gaslighting and ongoing psychological Domestic Violence impacts a victim. The insidious way to destroy a person—slow, sadistic murder. Slow Motion Murder they call it.
"You're just like your Grandmother," they would torment. As if this was some horrible attribute. She wasn't perfect, but I never had a problem being compared to her. She loved me and I loved her. She didn't abuse or bully me. She didn't gossip about me or use violence to get her way. She didn't humiliate me or invalidate me. "Let it go," my mother would torment whenever I asked why she talked about my Grandmother. "You like everything just so, just like her" was all she would say. I did the bulk of the housework and chores. My mother, 1/2 brothers and others in the house couldn't be bothered. I was a person who liked everything just so, miss high and mighty and therefore it was my job to clean. My mother didn't like to be home, never wanted children or to be married and she liked to be on the go. I got so I preferred to be alone. The house was quiet when they all left, the abuse would stop. I would get the house all clean, and do my Art. Not seeing any of them in 20-years brings it all back, everything is the same, most of it even worse. Not seeing them the past 20-years, I wasn't able to put it all together. I accepted no one came to visit, not even for the Holidays. Whenever I asked there was always some excuse. There was always something I did wrong, too high and mighty, too smart for my own good. They were too busy. Their children and the grand-children tell me the same now. I wouldn't treat a dog like this.
"You don't get along," my ex-husband would say. As the years went by, the teasing turned to outright accusations that there was just something wrong with me. You need to "learn to get along," he would say teasingly, implying his family was old and I was young and had to learn to deal with the old people. This came to include the way I treated my family and everyone else. After telling him when we met I didn't see my cousin all that much, he had molested me, he said that because he was into Heroin he didn't see him that much either. We were both better off, he said and my cousin was more to be pitied for "using the merchandise." I didn't quite know what that meant, but the coke they were both using and selling became according to my ex-husband far more for my cousin than for him and they no longer hung around. Being molested by him, was just another one of those things. "He had problems," he would say, but as the years went by he would ever so slowly start to suggest so did I, we were family after all.
My cousin had introduced us. We met out one night, my ex-husband pretending he didn't know about me, but my cousins invited us both to a party the next night. It had been all planned. I would come to see he knew about me all along. All friends since they were kids, they all knew about me from the start, had planned the party and knew how they were all going to use me. Because I always felt ignored I had no idea the extent of what they knew or how they had planned all along to set me up. Both using and dealing drugs at the time, both looking to make more money. "He likes money," my cousin telling me at that first party, implying he was a good guy who worked hard. I had no idea he had already been a drug-dealer for the past decade. "A little Coke in the '80s" he would say, turned into a lot more than that as the years went by. By the time, we divorced they had been slapping 8-balls on the dash of his car and making lots of money, he said. So many things revealed for the lies they were. The downpayment for our first house together was paid for by the sale of my Grandmother's trailer she had given me and his money I know now came from his drug sales, but at the time everyone told me he was "the working man" because he worked all the time.
The stories got bigger and bigger as the abuse got worse, more things were revealed as the marriage was ending, by that time he didn't care. By that time, their plan all laid out. After all the years of not hitting me, he was raising his fist more and more. Threatening me one time and almost suffocating me by grabbing me from behind and squeezing until I could not breathe and almost passed out. Things had been all planned from the start. I read recently you sell a drug once, but a person you can sell over and over. My ex-husband often talked in later years of opening a "Gentleman's Club" there is money to be made in that, he would say. This was around the time I had started my Graphic Design business. I thought he was kidding, but things were getting increasingly so abusive, I look back now and see how everything was made to look other than it was. It had been a game all along.
The coffee tastes good in spite of the dirty cup and coffee pot. Slowly the pieces come together. I can't wash, I hate being dirty—unclean. I use to love Spring cleaning. I would wash all the mini-blinds, get the garden ready, organize everything, then go to our Lakehouse and do it all again. I never complained, I was so happy to have my home, to have a safe place, never knowing that one day I would be confined back to where I never wanted to be again. My every move controlled, abused—hated. Back once again in my mothers house scared to death to be on the street—homeless. All done on purpose once again. Her and my ex-husband plotting it from the start. Telling me each step of the way what they were going to do to me as it all got underway—20-years of lies and deception.
I think about using the bathroom. Going to the bathroom in a bucket is getting to me. I never had bladder infections, but now they are constant. My health insurance gone. Courts made sure to take it when I wasn't there and without a job I can't afford anything. I had just remolded both of the bathrooms at the house we lived in 20-years, so happy with how they came out. Humiliating me now about using the bathroom was always an ongoing taunt growing up also. I thought I was "high and mighty" my 1/2 brothers also in on the fun. There were never locks and the door could be opened at a whim, so being too long would get them to bang on the door, walls or call me names about being in there too long. Oftentimes it would take quite a bit of time to clean it before using it. No one cleaned up after themselves because that was my job. My ex-husband also never cleaned and I entertained his mother and her sister every holiday, cleaning up and serving them also. I struggled with Acne and Irritable Bowel growing up. Mostly because of the stress and abuse. I had to make sure I was never in the bathroom for too long.
"You don't have acne scars?" she said surprised. It was the first thing this cousin said to me after she saw me the first time in over 20yrs. I remember her being able to go to a Dermatologist and it was a big deal. Like the Summer she went to the Foot Doctor and we couldn't go swimming all Summer. I ended up not going, it was selfish of me if I thought otherwise. The Dermatologist could not help me anyway, she said. We didn't have the money and I was told the reason I had Acne was because I was wearing makeup. I suffered until I was 27yrs and finally went to one. My Acne cleared up in a few months. The Doctor, a kind man who felt bad I had waited all those years. It had been so easy to clear why did I suffer so long? It's painful how child abuse hurts long after you leave in ways you don't fully understand until your older. The losses that you don't think about. So many things others take for granted. Acne like everything else was my fault. Around that time, I was also able to eat the way I needed and my irritable bowel had been gone since College too. I was exercising and I was pretty healthy by then. I had no idea that the obstacles I thought I had overcome were just beginning again. Only this time even worse. The family that never wanted me was continually stalking me setting up new schemes and difficulties for me. Things that were the same as how I grew up, only this time were going to be even more horribly worse.
I have started once again to have Irritable Bowel pains and problems. It left when I got on my own, eating healthy, excercising, mindful eating, but once married it came back, again leaving when I was on my own again. Now it's back. I know for sure abuse has something to do with it. After owning 5 properties and 6 bathrooms, before this started, I have no shower, sink or even a toilet now. I have a bucket. There was a porta-potty in our attic we had used on our boat, but like everything else, I was put on the street with nothing. Judges fawning all over my ex and remarking how much power he had. The porta-potty was taken, along with everything else household related. All done on purpose. My inability to have a washer, dryer, kitchen, bed or anything else remotely human. If I complain, they pretend I'm starting the violence and call the Sheriffs. All the violence I endured is my fault. The Smear-campaign, Gaslighting and abuse continues. Calls to Child Protective Services now about me not being able to be around children are one of the other covers for all the years no one visited. All these people and not one visited. Told they have to keep their children away from me. The lies now becoming so ugly, so monsterous—evil. But then, they always were.
I have my coffee and begin to write. It's awful. My hands don't want to move on the page. I feel dirty and ugly and in pain. I miss my dog so much. I miss my life, my home, my books and photographs. I miss my business, my car. I miss who I was—I miss me. I don't miss being married. I think of the 20-years of my Journals they stole in the Storage unit. I know now because it was all proof. Proof of the domestic abuse, gaslighting and deception I suffered in my 20-year marriage—all planned. Proof of all the ugly lies and deceit. Proof of the sadistic games they all got together to play.
My writing was always my friend and my ex-husband hated that I wrote all the time. By the time the marriage ended he would fly into a rage about it. Today I know why. Writing continues to be a friend, confident and a blessing and is there for me once again. Only this time the truth will be heard. This time I'm not going to just let it all go. This time the past has a rightful place in my life. This time for once I will tell my story, talk about my feelings, hurts, disappointments and the lies that almost killed me. This time it is going to be about me. This time it is not all in the past to be ignored, dismissed, denigrated. As I write, little bits of hope peek through. The truth of what I endured and continue to are horrible. I sit amazed they all got away with this. I'm still fighting for my life every day. In this Pandemic, so are others now. I think of the truth and how it can often take time. Criminals are so deceitful. Laws take more time to catchup.
I will continue to tell my story. I will continue just like they have all continued to tell the ugly lies they have all made up and continue to tell about me. All of which has made it impossible to live my life, having destroyed so much of it. The ugliness that has me confined in a dirty garage, abused each day as I was so many years ago as a child. By the same mother who once again never wanted me and continues to pretend to be the victim as she did all those years ago when I was a little girl. The same generational Judges doing the same to me they did all those years ago when I was a child and I was not allowed to see my Father. Only now I know the truth. I know it was never because I was not good enough or loved. My father did love me and so did my Grandmother. It was my mother that never did and continues to do the same she did to me as a child along with other so-called family members that I know today were never family! I want others to know. Abuse is not about you not being good enough, it's about abusive people that abuse. It's never the victims fault. Today I know that. The little girl that I once was is loved and vindicated. The woman I am today continues to tell her story in the hopes others can be free of this awful type of abuse. Just like I try each day to find the way out—in many ways I have! Each day I write, each day my story comes together, the missing pieces of the things they lied about, the things I was denied, the hate, abuse, and deception, come to light. In so many ways, I have found the way out. I have the truth now. I have survived to tell others about it also. We will all as time goes by end the abuse. We will End It! People are not things. People are not objects to be exploited. Today I keep writing and one day will finally be free of this kind of hell.
It's gotten next to impossible to go into the house now. I'm basically confined to the room in the garage. It smells like old, rusty cars—exhaust and engine oil. I had been going into the house about once a week to shower, get tap water to wash with and to empty the small bucket I use to toilet in, but even these things were getting to be a problem. Getting my packages, mail and other questions about essentials has been an increasing problem also. The few times I have been in there the violence and being attacked just makes it harder and I've come to see there is no sense talking about anything that we all understand now. We all know. All the lies continue to unravel each day, but their pretending continues. Communication was always a problem, but because I didn't know what was going on the Gaslighting stayed hidden. There was always an excuse, always a way to justify and blame. It was always my fault. They were all together, it was me that was wrong. Of course, they all agreed whenever I attempted to clarify or ask questions about anything.
The dirty quilt I have smelled of mold and dampness and was making me sick. I use to do laundry once a week and had a new washer and dryer before all this started. It along with so many other of my personal belongings was in the Storage unit that was deliberately seized. I was threatened right from the start everything would be taken "auctioned off." My ex would watch those Storage war shows along with the seedy ones about how someone killed their wife, all the time. My skin feels itchy and red from being dirty. The sweat starts to cover my neck and back as the anxiety takes over. The metal springs in the bed are coming through and I know I better get up or the pain will be worse. I want to sleep a little longer, but know that it will just make me sicker. I'm tired and feeling sick, but I get up. Hoping again today, I don't get sick. It gets harder and harder to sleep at all now.
The smell waifs up my nose and is now even stronger—I can't breathe. I worry about the virus now more than ever each day. The air is thick and musty—stagnant. Full of dust and mildew from the cellar right outside the door. My mother has taken to leaving it open now. "To air out the cellar," she says as she checks the cellar each morning and dinner time. She says this each time outside the door as she calls the dog. Another game she plays—I'm her dog. I have always been a dog to her. I have to check the sump pump, she says to herself. References to dogs and their abuse is another thing both her and my ex share. There is always water in the basement, she says and she has to check it each day. I know not to say too much. There are problems with the Tap water here also and problems with the basement. I don't question any of this because if I do, she just gets violent. Everyone has been in and out. No one practicing "Social Distancing" worried about disinfecting or the Pandemic. If I ask or saying anything, the violence starts. It's a hoax that only people like me are worried about.
I owned numerous houses for over 20yrs, all maintained and in excellent shape from the work I did, but that is of no consequence. Having any water in the basement isn't good, I never did. Even in Winter, she was checking, which seemed odd. How could there be water in the basement, the ground is frozen? Something seems wrong. Breathing in this type of air isn't good either, but like everything else, if I say anything, I'm ungrateful and might get punched in the face again. She has already hit me numerous times, then calls the Sheriffs and tells them I'm the one with the problem—the one who is violent! She has even flung herself on the ground and told them I pushed her down. My 1/2 sister giving them some long-winded story about how I'm incompetent and going through a divorce and shoved her down. The first time I heard them do this I was astounded, but now know the games they are all playing. Like the bag of pills, my 1/2 sister brought up one day after having just come from the pharmacy. Telling me it would be to everyone's benefit if I just went on medication, got "Disability" SSI, and thanked my mother for being so good to me. We could be the "Psycho-Sisters," she said. She "needs her pills," she said. "She knows she is Bipolar!" As she proceeded to tell me stories of how violent she is off her medication and all the fights she has been in. I sat astounded. I haven't seen her in 20-years and had no idea how violent she was.
I sit in the chair in the room to steady myself. Everything smells of the cellar. I feel the hives starting on my skin crawling up my back. I feel like I'm going to throw up. I have already had a couple bad bouts of sickness, food poisoning, and diarrhea from having no refrigerator. Things aren't fresh, go bad. I can't go to the store as I need to. I think before this started about the 6-7 refrigerators I had. The courts and Judges giving my ex everything. Each rental had one, the Lakehouse, the one-family—all new. All the washers and dryers too. My ex use to get food-poisoning every year after he went to Canada snowmobiling. I made sure everything was fresh all the time. We never ate left-overs. I cooked and baked from scratch, kept a garden and we ate very healthily. I was told growing up it was because I was so "High and Mighty!" The way I wanted to eat was always a problem. It was the first fight that my mother and I had once I was here in the garage. I can't eat her cooking. I need my own food. We don't agree on how things are prepared and how things should be cooked. I learned the hard way that I have to eat a certain way. Food and cooking are some of the most loving, intimate things you can do with someone—breaking bread. I don't agrue about it anymore. I can't eat old food that has been in the freezer for years, left out, sitting on the counter for days on end.
I was often made to eat things that made me sick. It wasn't the kind of items. The only food item I'm not crazy about is liver. It was the way they were prepared. My mother would claim she was too busy and it didn't matter to leave things out. My stomach is sensitive. I can taste the mildew or mold. It's also why I baked from scratch. I could taste the chemicals in prepared foods and preferred fresh. Even mostly eating raw at times now. But this was cause for violence. I was often deliberately made to eat things that were old just to prove that I was not going to think I was so special. "You should be glad you have food at all!" she would say. To prove her point she would leave things out all the more. I would often throw up and gag. Things were put in the refrigerator unwrapped, not sealed or left out.
The door slams, loud like thunder a couple of times, and she ascends the stairs making sure to stop and linger outside the door to this room. She coughs a few times before slamming the outside door, which threatens to open this door and then she leaves. I have put a couple of boxes in front of the door to keep it shut from opening, but the gusts of air come through the bottom anyway. This has been her routine lately. I'm cold and hot now all day, sweating as my body temperature struggles and tries to regulate the temperatures between the outside and inside. Between the outside dampness, the cold of the cellar and the stagnant air in this room. There is no flow. There is no way to control the temperature or airflow from a room that was made from some plywood in the garage she used to use. Now mainly storage for all the things my 1/2 sister said she hoards, collects from the garbage or others give her. Like all things, she makes sure she is also even in control of the airflow in here.
It's hard to breathe. It's still too early to open things up. I did Spring cleaning on all my properties over 20-years, kept a garden and vacation property here on the lake. Knowing from experience how opening things too quickly can result in broken pipes. It seemed so nice one year that we turned on the water early only to have a pipe break. It was old anyway, but I learned that it's deceiving to think that because it's sunny, Spring is here. Even if the calendar tells us it's Spring, it is often better to wait a couple of weeks until May. The snow was late again this year and there are still traces of it on the lawn. With the ongoing threat of the Corona Virus, we are told to stay inside, which is prudent, especially because of how cold it still is. Stay inside, wash often, practice Social Distancing. None of which is being done here. People go in and out, and all of them leave often. It's not my job to tell adults how to live, but that should go both ways. I didn't ask to come here. I never would have. We all know that this was done on purpose. I don't need to ask anymore—we all know.
No one is going to tell my mother what to do, certainly not me. Most especially not me. It's been this way since I was a child. When I talk about any of it lately—I'm threatened. It's only gotten worse as more and more lies come to light. Increasing levels of violence have made it impossible to even talk about being 6-feet apart. Boundaries were always a huge problem. We're in the middle of a Pandemic, but she sees no reason to let up on the continual abuse, bullying, and hatred that has become constant here. "Get out then," she says. "Go walk the streets!"
"Why did you come here?" she angrily says. "No one wants anything to do with you!" I know she knows I had no place to go. It was not because I was "Incompetent" like they keep telling people. It's not the first time I have been forced to stay in her cellar. I was thrown out after I was lured home in my 20's after leaving at 17, putting myself through college and living on my own. At 17, along with all the other times, she told me to not let the door hit me in the ass. "The door swings both ways!" she would say. She often would communicate in these short, abusive phrases, but as a kid, I just took them for things your mother says. I see them in a different light today. I see the little girl I was struggling to understand, terrified and having no place to go. Being told I would be put in Foster Care was a constant way to keep me from asking her anything. "Be glad I didn't put you in Foster Care!" she would say. I know today the only reason I wasn't was because of my Grandmother.
My job had ended. My mother, and my cousin who was my best-friend at the time, convinced me to come home. College was never acknowledged and me living away was usually made fun of, especially building a career and living on my own. I didn't care about "Family" and was selfish and thought I was so smart, they would say. I was looking down on them just by going to college, having my own apartment and working. I was constantly teased about being out partying and out all the time. I never really was. I did go out, but often just a few hours on a Friday night to get dinner with my boss. We would eat, discuss work, and have a couple of pitchers of beer. Generally, we would be home by 11pm and rarely did we have more than 2 pitchers. If we did have that 3rd one, we would both laugh vowing next time we wouldn't because it was too much. I would usually have to work weekends and it was a pain to be tired and to be hungover for work. I never liked it and rarely did it.
As the years went by it wasn't just partying, I was accused of, it was going out to meet guys. "Getting drunk and picking up guys." Today we call it Hooking-Up. Going out was always about guys. I loved to dance and going out to dance was also done, but going out at all meant having sex, something that was always insinuated. Slut-shaming was constant, but we didn't have a name for it then. It was just another way to dismiss my life, invalidate it, and generally make me feel guilty for having a life different from theirs—how dare I do this. I was often then having to feel sorry for them because having children was much harder than building a career, putting a roof over my head, and asking them for nothing. I also had a boyfriend so their gossip wasn't taken seriously, but little did I know it went way deeper. No one ever visited, they were too busy. If I wanted to see anyone, I was the one to pay for the gas, phone calls, and trip home. It was my responsibility to drive the hour home to visit, not theirs. I tried to see everyone at least once a month, but often they were too busy. I was often told I "didn't care about Family!" and was selfish. I often felt guilty and when I expressed some of that sadness and tried to explain that work demanded my time also, I was told that I was depressed. Most family members didn't work. They had children and stayed home or were on Welfare. Most of my Mother's friends were also on Welfare.
Only now, did I have a name for all the years I was told behind my back I was a "Drunk Slut,"—I never knew. Only now do I have a name for the diminished way I felt, the slutty references, the denial of who I was. Slut-shaming was around long before we had the word for it. The euphemisms that define you in such a negative way even when you aren't engaging in the said behaviors. I never shamed any of them for having more partners than I did. Being poor, being different, not part of the group-think could get you labeled a "Slut." In my case, it was so devastating it was also family that did the slut-shaming, but ever so subtly. My choice to not have children was constantly tormented. How dare I not have them, even though my mother told me all the time, children ruined your life, "don't ever have them!" How dare I want to be successful at something, live on my own, have an apartment, be successful. If you did, you were a Slut! I never had a date in High School, so I wasn't sure why this was inferred all the time. None of them worked. All were taken care of, but my work was always a problem. My liking to work was even more of a problem. I loved creating and being an Artist, being paid for my photography was even more of a dream come true. I knew growing up what the expectations were, not only from my family, but School, and various others I came into contact with. Welfare kids amounted to nothing, were always in trouble and didn't do well in school—everyone knew that. It was just a given. Arguing about it only got you called out. Called-out to fight. Called-out if my grades were good. Called-out if you asked or answered too many questions, did not play along with being stupid, in trouble—no good, were too smart.
I was not considered like the other girls in my family. Taken me all these years to understand why. I spent many years blaming myself and trying harder. Shrugging off the contempt, ridicule and ass-busting I endured. Trying to be as good as the other girls that were just naturally approved of. Called on to answer, given rides, help, and accolades just for showing up. In my heart, I generally liked the poor kids I met in the welfare groups whenever we had to go to get some free stuff or stand in line at the Welfare office. I felt blessed that I could pull off being like the "regular kids." Do well in School and have manners. Welfare kids often were unattractive I was told, could not speak well and generally didn't do well in school. School came easy for me and I didn't take this lightly. My Grandmother was a constant source of support, if I questioned my ability to do well, get an education or have a decent life. "Class is born," she would say. Often remarking how those that were so dismissive of me were actually the ones with so little class. Class to her was very important. Manners, Education and Reading were the things she talked to me about all the time. She never spoke badly about any family members, even though they ridiculed her all the time. She was a constant target of their gossip and put-downs, even from my mother. She struggled with my mother all the time and it was only towards the end of her life she came to see that the hate would never go away. She came to some understanding as I have done recently. When you finally know the truth about someone and you can deal with it. The lies give way and you see them clearly.
My Grandmother only completed 7th grade, but read all the time and did very well for a woman of her generation. She was smart and was a target by family also. My mother would often say we both thought we were so smart and laugh with her friends tormenting us about how we might be "book smart," but we had no common sense. It never made sense to me because my Grandmother did have a daughter, was a mother, but was never accepted either. I always knew there was more going on, but as a girl I loved them both and just thought that having only one was easier than having 4 children. There was always a way to feel sorry for them. They never felt sorry for me or my Grandmother, but when your young you don't question those things. I often felt alone and would read. I liked to read so I just accepted being different. Having my Grandmother always made it easier. She balanced the violence in a way that once she was gone I had no idea would get even worse. That once she was gone it would be me all alone and not as my Mother said would be her. "You're all alone now," she would say in that faraway voice like she was talking to herself. I know now she was not talking about her being alone, but me. They were all going to make sure of it.
This was also my cousin, my best friend at the time. Pregnant at 16, she was always taken care of by the "Family." I was told how I thought I was "grandiose" for leaving, going to college. Because her sister was a Jehovah's Witness, I was often accused of being the "Prodigal Son." Lectures came often about God's wrath and not forgiving. About living a selfish life on my own. Their brother molesting me being one of those things that I had to forgive. Boys will be boys and making a big deal out of it just showed how selfish I was. It proved that I was "dirty." He had just "gotten fresh" was all. I was often told that I just wasn't as clean. This was another ongoing joke that grew more vicious as time went by.
Diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder this cousin often made things like baths a way to be cleaner. I would no sooner have gotten out of the tub from having taken a bath and be told she was cleaner. When we were girls this was often funny. I was told, of course, she was "only joking." She would ask me to go to the store numerous times, "don't tell," she would say. I would often go 3-4 times before she could go outside and play or hang-out as we got older. Bottles of shampoo, conditioner, things for her hair. Washing was constant so as not to be dirty. I was just selfish whenever I didn't want to go to the store for her—selfish and dirty. The selfish part I didn't care about, but I knew I was not allowed to take baths at home too often, so I would comply if she would imply being "dirty." How could I really disagree? My hair was often greasy and I was not allowed to do my laundry too often. I had usually 10-12 loads per week as part of my chores. I was always hanging out clothes. My mother often remarked she hated dryers, but she never was the one to hang the clothes. Winter was the worse. Then there were sheets, towels, and other items, so doing my own any more than every couple of weeks was a problem. I just accepted going to the store for her, not wanting to seem dirty and being able to use the bathroom as long as I wanted was nice. She could be in the bathroom constantly. It was just her and her brother and mother.
My cousin's life was far more important than mine anyway. Of course, once she got pregnant at 16, the amount of deferring she required was endless. I never did anything right in her eyes. The family rallied around her and gave her whatever she needed. My being in college was ignored. To make up for it she would continually have to borrow my clothes. She would return them ruined and if I complained it only showed how selfish I was. She was a "Mother," after all. She didn't cook or do housework and would often complain about it. How much she hated to cook and do housework was an endless source of discussion. She was only 16 and was being denied going out. How sad she was about it, but then would accuse me of being the one who was depressed. I wasn't really depressed, but had a hard time visiting her and being told we couldn't go out. She would often insinuate that her husband thought it best she didn't go out with me. I thought it was not going out at all, but then she would brag how she went out with other girlfriends because she was depressed and her husband would give in. It was around this time the subtle hints of slut-shaming had started.
Her ongoing OCD was never talked about. It was a secret. She was in many ways just like my mother and I learned to feel sorry for her and try to make her happy by doing the things she wanted. She was my best-friend after all and would often say that. Over the years, I realized that I had never really been considered family even though we were. She cared more about "Family" then I did and the proof was they all loved her and not me. I never really understood why. It was always just because of my Grandmother and my parents being divorced, she would say off-handedly. Her family just didn't like my Grandmother, they "didn't see eye to eye," she would say. Because I loved my Grandmother this was often given as the reason. My Grandmother and I were too close. There were so many of them, their family was large and there was only me and my Grandmother, but it didn't matter. They had decided. Loving my Grandmother was just part of the problem. The lines having been drawn a long time ago. Of course in the early years, always teasing that if you made too much of these things you were "too sensitive" not able to take a joke. You had to learn that "ass-busting" was just part of being a family. I was usually always the target of the ass-busting. I know now it was verbal and emotional abuse, but as a child I only wanted my family to love me and to fit in. It always felt awful, but without a name for something it didn't seem real and it was always easily dismissed. There were always more of them than me.
Of course, I agreed to move back home after long conversations about coming home from both of them—my mother and best friend. My job ended and not knowing at the time, I had lost my job due to the trouble they had caused. Friends of friends in a small town. I would come to see that jobs I held and lost were to be a part of the trouble they would continue to cause as the years went by, but at the time it was just another reason to blame myself and not feel good enough. I would often be doing really good at work, only to be called in the office and told because of downsizing, reorganizations, and restructuring they would have to let me go. It was the night before I was to move back home that I called my cousin only to be told after a few minutes she had a knife, had been arguing with the girl upstairs all night, who was always drunk and she was going out of her mind. By this time, she had a second child, a little boy, and things weren't working out, she had said when I had previously visited her in the hospital when he was born. This "party girl" upstairs was making constant noise, was keeping her up all night, and she didn't think it was a good idea if we were friends anymore because I was selfish. "Your so selfish and all you do is think of yourself," spending your time sitting around listening to rock music and with that she hung up the phone. I sat dumbfounded looking at the boxes I had packed, ready to move in the morning.
I moved in the morning. No one spoke to me when I got home. No one spoke to me all Summer. I was to bunk in with my 1/2 Sister who I thought of as just my Sister until recently. Back then I never made the distinction these were 1/2 siblings and their family 1/2 relatives. The complexity of our relations was always a source of abuse. I look back now and know I never should have come home, but the guilt and needing answers to so much won out. It was about 2-months before I was told to leave. My mother and brother were paying on a house together by this time and they both thought that I wasn't "getting along!" I had been paying both of them some rent, buying groceries, and paying for things. I gave my 1/2 brother money for his windshield he broke and money for the beer he bought for the party he usually held each weekend. None of this mattered. Another cousin was looking for a place to live and was moving in. My stuff was still in the cellar and that's where I spent the last few weeks before getting a small apartment. Summer had just about ended and no one was speaking to me. In the Fall a couple friends from High School asked me to go out.
I went out a couple times with these girlfriends and one night, my ex-husband showed up. He and his friends cornered me by the bar pretending to bump into me. Actually, he wouldn't get out of the way and I asked him if I could get by. He pretended he didn't know me. I really didn't know him either, but then asked if he knew my cousin. He looked familiar. He said he really didn't see my cousin, didn't know he had a "little cousin." I knew a little something of my cousin's best friends because his sister, my then best friend, liked to spy on them partying. They were older and this had been going on since we were kids. She would brag how they liked her, had met them in his wedding, and just generally thought it made her important to hang around his older friends. By this time, I had no idea the kinds of drugs they were doing or how much my living away and going to college was hated, especially because by this time, my cousin was moving from Coke to Heroin, both of these cousins were Divorcing and money was becoming a problem. I didn't know they knew who I was and that the night I met my ex was all set up, as so many things I was to learn were.
"That's the past, just let it go!" I had grown up hearing this and being told repeatedly this whenever I asked any questions about what was going on. Things even as current as an hour ago were the past. Whenever we moved I learned to let it go. We moved often. Whenever something was ruined, I had to let it go. Whenever there was no money, I didn't have what I needed—I was told to let it go. It's the past, there is no need to talk about the past—it's over! let it go. If I persisted the violence would start. I would be accused of back-talking and this was reason to tell me, I'll give you "something to cry about" because that's what I was doing—crying over spilt milk. My mother was not going to do anything about whatever it was I asked about or needed. I had learned young not to ask her for anything. The only one I could ask things of was my Grandmother and I mostly didn't ask her either unless it was extremely important. I learned to do without most things. Either improvising or just plain not having. By the time I met my exhusband I had already been admonished to forgive, let it all go! Family was talking to me again and setting me up with this new boyfriend they all liked and knew—don't live in the past!
I got up and tried to think about what I was going to do. Like I had been doing every day since I got here. I was now living on GoldFish crackers and ramen noodles, but they were gone and the few boxes of pasta I had required water, which was getting harder to get. I had a microwave, but getting water was becoming a problem. I was told now I had to walk to the local store and get water. There were 4-cars here, but my mother wasn't going to get me water. I had been only asking to use her car once a month to get groceries, but I knew she would eventually deny me that too. Who was I to eat the way I wanted. Food had been an ongoing issue since I was a kid, especially now that I was a Vegetarian. As I came to see how similar her and my ex-husband were I came to see how they had conspired all along. I felt violated in ways I was just beginning to understand. The sick, crawling feeling about people having no boundaries. The inability to say No, do what you needed to do, and generally just be yourself. The violence from both of them growing worse over time. The minute ways they needed to control every little thing in my life.
"Go walk the streets!" was another phrase I was hearing constantly. Hurled at me all the time now, mirroring the constant accusations that I was a prostitute and had been one all along. This had started when I had been violently arrested out of our 20yr home and put on the street and told by my ex-husband that "nothing was mine!" Told again when he had me arrested out of our Lakehouse 3yrs later telling the State Police I was a "mentally ill prostitute," who was "Schizophrenic and Bipolar and might start the Lakehouse on fire!" The neighbors yelling the same. Then calling the Sheriffs numerous times when I tried to stay there as the Divorce was going on. One was there all the time, watching me from the neighbor's place. He seemed like their personal body guard. By this time, I was being prevented from staying in any of our properties and being evicted from every place I rented by his friends, our families and their cronies. Stalking me where ever I went making the same horrible accusations that brought the Police and neighbors to allege the same. None of which was true, but it hasn't stopped. Propositions from a couple Sheriffs also started when they told me they had "intelligence from the Police" in the next town over that I was a Prositute and if I was "taking new clients" they could help me out. When I tried to report them for sexually harassing me I was told that I was a "drunk" and couldn't report. This of course was all "on file at the Police station." Cops my ex seemed to know took his word for everything and ignored me whatever I said these things were lies. They would laugh, telling each other that I didn't understand. They had no idea what I was talking about, it was "all jibberish!" That I had always been a prostitute, a maid, a whore according to the friends, family and people my ex-husband and family knew and now supposedly the police.
I didn't have much water but made a cup of coffee. It was a small thing, but comforting. One of so few things left that I can comfort myself with and have some degree of normalacy. I often wake and I'm surprised my dog Bentley is not here. Not having to feed, take him out, brush him, and have his little face tell me good morning. Our routine, one of the many things destroyed. I think of him often and wonder where he is. The horrible abuse and threats of being told he would be used as "bait" continue to bring me pain each day. The horrible way this was done. The sadistic way I was told each step of the way how things would be done and were. The disgusting way at every turn the power of these people had to be made known. The horrible way my dog was taken.
The coffee pot and cup are dirty. This room and everything in it is filthy. I think of my Grandmother and know she would be beside herself. She warned me the last time I saw her before she passed to be careful, but I don't know if she really knew how horrible these people we called family could be. How horrible my mother, her daughter could be. She was horrified when my mother put me on the street, but she usually tried like I did to forgive. She struggled to understand in the same ways that I have over the years. We often didn't have the words for things that went on. Close to her death, my Grandmother had enough with me being put on the street and left me all her things, including her new trailer. She spoke in knowing, but we knew to call someone evil is difficult. I don't think she was ready, but she was close. I have no problem now. I sit here each day wondering if I will survive this. I was told that they would make it so I could not get out. My life has been so ruined, I know they might be right. I was told that every detail, every possible combination would be destroyed. When a group of people has 20-years to plan, plot, and scheme, it's not hard to figure they could probably make your life a living hell, especially people who have intimate access to every part of your life. We are only now coming to know the horrible way coercive control, gaslighting and ongoing psychological Domestic Violence impacts a victim. The insidious way to destroy a person—slow, sadistic murder. Slow Motion Murder they call it.
"You're just like your Grandmother," they would torment. As if this was some horrible attribute. She wasn't perfect, but I never had a problem being compared to her. She loved me and I loved her. She didn't abuse or bully me. She didn't gossip about me or use violence to get her way. She didn't humiliate me or invalidate me. "Let it go," my mother would torment whenever I asked why she talked about my Grandmother. "You like everything just so, just like her" was all she would say. I did the bulk of the housework and chores. My mother, 1/2 brothers and others in the house couldn't be bothered. I was a person who liked everything just so, miss high and mighty and therefore it was my job to clean. My mother didn't like to be home, never wanted children or to be married and she liked to be on the go. I got so I preferred to be alone. The house was quiet when they all left, the abuse would stop. I would get the house all clean, and do my Art. Not seeing any of them in 20-years brings it all back, everything is the same, most of it even worse. Not seeing them the past 20-years, I wasn't able to put it all together. I accepted no one came to visit, not even for the Holidays. Whenever I asked there was always some excuse. There was always something I did wrong, too high and mighty, too smart for my own good. They were too busy. Their children and the grand-children tell me the same now. I wouldn't treat a dog like this.
"You don't get along," my ex-husband would say. As the years went by, the teasing turned to outright accusations that there was just something wrong with me. You need to "learn to get along," he would say teasingly, implying his family was old and I was young and had to learn to deal with the old people. This came to include the way I treated my family and everyone else. After telling him when we met I didn't see my cousin all that much, he had molested me, he said that because he was into Heroin he didn't see him that much either. We were both better off, he said and my cousin was more to be pitied for "using the merchandise." I didn't quite know what that meant, but the coke they were both using and selling became according to my ex-husband far more for my cousin than for him and they no longer hung around. Being molested by him, was just another one of those things. "He had problems," he would say, but as the years went by he would ever so slowly start to suggest so did I, we were family after all.
My cousin had introduced us. We met out one night, my ex-husband pretending he didn't know about me, but my cousins invited us both to a party the next night. It had been all planned. I would come to see he knew about me all along. All friends since they were kids, they all knew about me from the start, had planned the party and knew how they were all going to use me. Because I always felt ignored I had no idea the extent of what they knew or how they had planned all along to set me up. Both using and dealing drugs at the time, both looking to make more money. "He likes money," my cousin telling me at that first party, implying he was a good guy who worked hard. I had no idea he had already been a drug-dealer for the past decade. "A little Coke in the '80s" he would say, turned into a lot more than that as the years went by. By the time, we divorced they had been slapping 8-balls on the dash of his car and making lots of money, he said. So many things revealed for the lies they were. The downpayment for our first house together was paid for by the sale of my Grandmother's trailer she had given me and his money I know now came from his drug sales, but at the time everyone told me he was "the working man" because he worked all the time.
The stories got bigger and bigger as the abuse got worse, more things were revealed as the marriage was ending, by that time he didn't care. By that time, their plan all laid out. After all the years of not hitting me, he was raising his fist more and more. Threatening me one time and almost suffocating me by grabbing me from behind and squeezing until I could not breathe and almost passed out. Things had been all planned from the start. I read recently you sell a drug once, but a person you can sell over and over. My ex-husband often talked in later years of opening a "Gentleman's Club" there is money to be made in that, he would say. This was around the time I had started my Graphic Design business. I thought he was kidding, but things were getting increasingly so abusive, I look back now and see how everything was made to look other than it was. It had been a game all along.
The coffee tastes good in spite of the dirty cup and coffee pot. Slowly the pieces come together. I can't wash, I hate being dirty—unclean. I use to love Spring cleaning. I would wash all the mini-blinds, get the garden ready, organize everything, then go to our Lakehouse and do it all again. I never complained, I was so happy to have my home, to have a safe place, never knowing that one day I would be confined back to where I never wanted to be again. My every move controlled, abused—hated. Back once again in my mothers house scared to death to be on the street—homeless. All done on purpose once again. Her and my ex-husband plotting it from the start. Telling me each step of the way what they were going to do to me as it all got underway—20-years of lies and deception.
I think about using the bathroom. Going to the bathroom in a bucket is getting to me. I never had bladder infections, but now they are constant. My health insurance gone. Courts made sure to take it when I wasn't there and without a job I can't afford anything. I had just remolded both of the bathrooms at the house we lived in 20-years, so happy with how they came out. Humiliating me now about using the bathroom was always an ongoing taunt growing up also. I thought I was "high and mighty" my 1/2 brothers also in on the fun. There were never locks and the door could be opened at a whim, so being too long would get them to bang on the door, walls or call me names about being in there too long. Oftentimes it would take quite a bit of time to clean it before using it. No one cleaned up after themselves because that was my job. My ex-husband also never cleaned and I entertained his mother and her sister every holiday, cleaning up and serving them also. I struggled with Acne and Irritable Bowel growing up. Mostly because of the stress and abuse. I had to make sure I was never in the bathroom for too long.
"You don't have acne scars?" she said surprised. It was the first thing this cousin said to me after she saw me the first time in over 20yrs. I remember her being able to go to a Dermatologist and it was a big deal. Like the Summer she went to the Foot Doctor and we couldn't go swimming all Summer. I ended up not going, it was selfish of me if I thought otherwise. The Dermatologist could not help me anyway, she said. We didn't have the money and I was told the reason I had Acne was because I was wearing makeup. I suffered until I was 27yrs and finally went to one. My Acne cleared up in a few months. The Doctor, a kind man who felt bad I had waited all those years. It had been so easy to clear why did I suffer so long? It's painful how child abuse hurts long after you leave in ways you don't fully understand until your older. The losses that you don't think about. So many things others take for granted. Acne like everything else was my fault. Around that time, I was also able to eat the way I needed and my irritable bowel had been gone since College too. I was exercising and I was pretty healthy by then. I had no idea that the obstacles I thought I had overcome were just beginning again. Only this time even worse. The family that never wanted me was continually stalking me setting up new schemes and difficulties for me. Things that were the same as how I grew up, only this time were going to be even more horribly worse.
I have started once again to have Irritable Bowel pains and problems. It left when I got on my own, eating healthy, excercising, mindful eating, but once married it came back, again leaving when I was on my own again. Now it's back. I know for sure abuse has something to do with it. After owning 5 properties and 6 bathrooms, before this started, I have no shower, sink or even a toilet now. I have a bucket. There was a porta-potty in our attic we had used on our boat, but like everything else, I was put on the street with nothing. Judges fawning all over my ex and remarking how much power he had. The porta-potty was taken, along with everything else household related. All done on purpose. My inability to have a washer, dryer, kitchen, bed or anything else remotely human. If I complain, they pretend I'm starting the violence and call the Sheriffs. All the violence I endured is my fault. The Smear-campaign, Gaslighting and abuse continues. Calls to Child Protective Services now about me not being able to be around children are one of the other covers for all the years no one visited. All these people and not one visited. Told they have to keep their children away from me. The lies now becoming so ugly, so monsterous—evil. But then, they always were.
I have my coffee and begin to write. It's awful. My hands don't want to move on the page. I feel dirty and ugly and in pain. I miss my dog so much. I miss my life, my home, my books and photographs. I miss my business, my car. I miss who I was—I miss me. I don't miss being married. I think of the 20-years of my Journals they stole in the Storage unit. I know now because it was all proof. Proof of the domestic abuse, gaslighting and deception I suffered in my 20-year marriage—all planned. Proof of all the ugly lies and deceit. Proof of the sadistic games they all got together to play.
My writing was always my friend and my ex-husband hated that I wrote all the time. By the time the marriage ended he would fly into a rage about it. Today I know why. Writing continues to be a friend, confident and a blessing and is there for me once again. Only this time the truth will be heard. This time I'm not going to just let it all go. This time the past has a rightful place in my life. This time for once I will tell my story, talk about my feelings, hurts, disappointments and the lies that almost killed me. This time it is going to be about me. This time it is not all in the past to be ignored, dismissed, denigrated. As I write, little bits of hope peek through. The truth of what I endured and continue to are horrible. I sit amazed they all got away with this. I'm still fighting for my life every day. In this Pandemic, so are others now. I think of the truth and how it can often take time. Criminals are so deceitful. Laws take more time to catchup.
I will continue to tell my story. I will continue just like they have all continued to tell the ugly lies they have all made up and continue to tell about me. All of which has made it impossible to live my life, having destroyed so much of it. The ugliness that has me confined in a dirty garage, abused each day as I was so many years ago as a child. By the same mother who once again never wanted me and continues to pretend to be the victim as she did all those years ago when I was a little girl. The same generational Judges doing the same to me they did all those years ago when I was a child and I was not allowed to see my Father. Only now I know the truth. I know it was never because I was not good enough or loved. My father did love me and so did my Grandmother. It was my mother that never did and continues to do the same she did to me as a child along with other so-called family members that I know today were never family! I want others to know. Abuse is not about you not being good enough, it's about abusive people that abuse. It's never the victims fault. Today I know that. The little girl that I once was is loved and vindicated. The woman I am today continues to tell her story in the hopes others can be free of this awful type of abuse. Just like I try each day to find the way out—in many ways I have! Each day I write, each day my story comes together, the missing pieces of the things they lied about, the things I was denied, the hate, abuse, and deception, come to light. In so many ways, I have found the way out. I have the truth now. I have survived to tell others about it also. We will all as time goes by end the abuse. We will End It! People are not things. People are not objects to be exploited. Today I keep writing and one day will finally be free of this kind of hell.
#EndItMovement ~ original artwork using the EnditMovement logo.
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