2015
2015 has been a strange year for me. 6 Funerals have passed which placed me directly in a room with my abuser.
This is different from the monster that yelled at me back in January that I placed in a previous post. I have not, will not, and do not plan on ever speaking to that monster again. I have no reason and no ties to it. It is gone.
This post is about the abuser I grew up with until I was able to escape when I was 14 years old. At the funerals we sat talked indirectly about the abuse. The person wanted to me to listen and hear the words that were said.
The person sat across from me with remorse, sadness, shame and stated plainly that the choices made were life ruining and if given the chance again those choices would not have been made. It was stated that one of the abusers parent aided and assisted in the drug trafficking, alcohol distribution, obtaining heroin, cocaine and crack. The abuser did not know at the time (1950’s through the 1990’s) that the parent was corrupting, altering and ruining the family.
The Parent
I found out more about the parent of the abuser. I knew the parent well. I was abused by that person as well. The parent was a user and abuser also. In addition to mental illness that went unchecked. Its evident now that the parent had a serious problem and more than likely knew it. The parent purposely introduced my abuser to alcohol at age 12. By age 15 (in 1960) my abuser was an alcoholic and intravenous drug user all at the hands of the parent.
Throughout the Years
Through the years several people told my abuser to stop the drinking and drugs. My abuser always went to the parent for confirmation. The parent refuted all claims that anything was going wrong and supplied not only my abuser but the whole neighborhood with drugs and alcohol. My abusers parent was the neighborhood drug dealer along with my abusers grandparent who also was mentally ill. My abuser would actually leave our house half way high and drunk and would be “cracked out” upon return.
The Abuse
My abuser was physically, emotionally, verbally, and mentally abusive towards me, however, my abuser states that the parent did more than that to them as a child. As much as I didn’t want to feel anything, that broke me to hear this. My abuser grew up in a highly toxic poisonous environment believing that the warped and twisted behaviors in the house were normal. Only after losing everything in the 80’s, house, family, cars, jobs, and respect, did my abuser have to admit that the parent and grandparent were incorrect. Not only were they incorrect but they were mentally ill. Most children of mentally ill parents don’t know that mommy or daddy have a mental illness. Children do not think that way. My abuser loved and trusted the parent and grandparent like all kids do.
The Remorse
After 6 funerals and seeing 6 people in coffins, urns, and everything else my abuser, who is almost 80 years old, has come to terms that life is very short. The realization that over 50 years of life has been wasted by #1. Drugs and #2 a bad parent has set into the mind. The person looked truly sorry for the mistreatment of me and my siblings back in the 80’s.
Making Amends
Did I receive an apology? Hell to the no! However, the abuser has been trying to make amends here lately to those who suffered at their hands. After our talk and me understanding that the abuse is a sick “family tradition” we had to take a look going back to the mid 1800’s. Somebody with mental illness hooked up with another mentally ill being producing the grandmother in the late 1890’s, who then produced the parent in the 1920’s, who then produced my abuser in the 1940’s.
Could the abuse have been prevented?
Mental Illness is quite different from a sane person who knows they are doing wrong. Mentally ill people never think they are mentally ill. Even if a diagnoses is written in bold black letters on a pristine white piece of paper they will never believe they have a problem. In addition to the parent and grandparents mental illness they also suffered from a severe case of Narcissism and had traits of Sociopathic behavior. The kicker is, in the 1940’s, in the south, for black people, there was no help. The only help was the church and all they would do is pray about it. So no, the abuse could not be prevented. Instead it was accepted as the norm.
Why did I sit there and listen to my abuser?
In my whole life I have never seen remorse in my abusers eyes. I’ve never even seen a sign that sorry was even possible. Forget that person admitting they made any mistakes or did anything wrong. For the first time in my life I saw something different in the eyes, heard something different in the voice, and picked up on remorse. A seriousness and nervousness over a conversation with me about things I never would have known had I not been told. I was generally interested in what words were needing to be said.
So what now?
The parent made sure that the person was destroyed. For what reason? Who knows other than somebody was born crazy in the 1920’s. Each day that goes by that I allow distance between me and that person the parent wins. In many ways the parent is still controlling the person from the grave. I can’t allow the parent to win. To counteract that I must contact the person and speak to them. I’m still coming to terms with all of this new behavior and accepting the words and images that the person realizes that the choices made were not prosperous. Further more I am at ease hearing the person admit that errors were made from the parent and grandparent in regards to them. I do see the behavior changing for the better and a totally different person is emerging.
Conclusion
It is what it is. It was what it was. They finally learned from their mistakes. Maybe I can learn from them.
TheHealingProject 