Family Memories And A Downward Spiral

Where to start. It's been a really rough week filled with tears and overwhelming emotions. We have a family facebook group on messenger where we post news everyone needs to know. The topic of family tree …. who's who …. came up and with it some painful memories and new information. Whenever the 'stepmom' comes up in conversation, so too does the memory of how awful she was to her step children (of which my mother was one) and her own children. One of my cousins disclosed that in addition to being physically abusive to them, she also withheld food and other resources. Particularly to the stepchildren. She would put out food but the stepchildren were not allowed to partake. And now at 90+ years of age, and in a nursing home suffering from dementia, my uncle Danny is asking “is this food? Is this for me? Am I allowed to eat this food?” I find that absolutely heart wrenching. It made me so sad. I also learned through this particular discussion that my mothers younger brother Joe who disappeared decades ago and no one knows what happened to him, suffered from severe depression and was hospitalized more than once. He also tried to take his own life more than once.

The conversation triggered some of those parallel lives emotions for me. My grandfather didn't intervene to protect his children from their mom/stepmom. In my life my father didn't intervene to protect me from my mothers verbal and psychological assaults. Relatives saw what was happening to my mother and her siblings, but didn't save them. Neighbours and school teachers must also have known what was going on, but no one stepped in to help those children. And that paralleled my life too. No one stepped in to help me. Surely teachers must have been able to recognize a child in need of help? I know now that at least two aunts 'saw' me and how I was treated, but were unable to help. Perhaps no one was 'able' to help my mother and her siblings .

I was overwhelmed with sadness. So much pain in my family history (on the Irish side). So much sadness, poverty, depression, addictions stemming from stepmom and her abuse of our parents. It's affected three generations. My moms. Mine. And right down to my cousins son who died from an opiod overdose last year. And it likely goes back even farther. Who knows what stepmoms life was like. What baggage she brought to the table. She too might have been the victim of abuse, and carried it down the line. I know from stories I was told growing up, that Margaret (that was stepmoms name) did not have the life she thought she was marrying into. She was of an age that was teetering on the dreaded label of “old maid” or “spinster”. Which wasn't very old in those days. And my grandfather was thought to be a “good catch” because he had his own business/factory. So assumed to be more well off than others. My grandfather married Margaret just six months after my grandmother died. Part of his motivation to remarry was that he needed someone to look after his five children. I'm not sure where they all were during the six months after their mothers death, or if they were around to be seen during my grandfather and Margaret's courtship, but I get the sense that although she knew she was taking on five children, the reality of that fact may not have fully hit home until after she was married and moved into the role of stepmom. She was also probably not expecting to be living in poverty given that she married a man that was thought to be financially stable. But like most Irish men of the time, my grandfather drank away much of his income. So in an effort to understand her frustrations that manifested in abuse of her children, I can feel a smidge of compassion for what led her to be who she was. I'm not defending her. You can't defend the indefensible. But I can be open to the societal and personal contributors that led her to become the abuser that she was.

There was a lot of emotion flying through the conversation and some resistance to stories shared. And that was also triggering for me because it made me realize that there are people even in my generation, who would sooner sweep the stories under the rug. People for whom downplaying the severity of the abuse inflicted on our parents is their way of coping. And this means that I will never be free. I won't be able to share my story for fear it will offend someone. I feel it would be rebuked as a lie because the truth of it would be too hard to accept. And all of the aforementioned triggers sent me into a downward spiral which lasted over a week. I was't even able to write this entry . I was non-functional for a week. Crying off and on all day, everyday.

There are other details that I can't remember right now. When I feel I have the mental energy to go back, I will.