𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬 & 𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐀𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬

8. Abuse

I never thought I'd be talking about this, if I'm being honest. I guess I just never found it to be a part of my story that I wanted to share. In fact, I've been nervous about even posting all of this. But I decided, if it would help people then maybe it is best to share it. First of all though, I'll start at the beginning.

It was winter of 2016 when my grandmother passed away unexpectedly and tragically. She'd had health problems but nothing major, nothing life-threatening. So when she passed it was a shock for the whole family. We never saw it coming.

It all hit my hard and it was something that I struggled to cope with. But it was made worse by the fact that I never got a chance to properly grieve that loss when both my mother and I immediately had to take care of my disabled grandfather because her brother refused to help. The only time he ever cared to show up was actually the day she passed. Even then, he went through the house and stole whatever he wanted. To this day, we still don't know what all he took.

Life was really hard in those days though and it only became harder when I found out something that my grandmother never told me - and now I really wish she had. It's something I had to find out the hard way though...

My grandfather was abusive. Verbally-abusive, that is. And he had been abusing her the whole time they were married (nearly 50 years). I can't completely imagine what that must have been like for her - but I got a pretty good idea of it.

For the next year-and-a-half, my grandfather abused me. And my mother.

He was cruel, demanding, controlling, manipulative. Every time, my mother did something to help him, all he would do was complain and take it out on her about how bad his life was.

We'd go over to his house to clean and bring groceries twice a week or more every week. Nothing you did for him was ever good enough - unless of course it was done by his other relatives. Because he never cared about the family he had with my grandmother. Except for maybe his son who never bothered to visit him anyhow.

No, for those family members he'd do anything for them. Even gave away a family heirloom to one of his nephews after I'd expressed interest in it one day to him. I was his own granddaughter but that really didn't matter, I suppose. As long as it went to a male relative, he didn't care what happened to it. It's no surprise that he believed in a male-dominated world.

I fell into a really bad depression that year. I hated my life, I hated everything. My only escape was my writing - I carried a notebook around with me everywhere. I took it to his house, to write in when my mother didn't need my help and I could catch a 2-minute break - I took it to waiting rooms when he had doctor's appointments and even the long months of going back and forth to the hospital once his deteriorating health had finally forced him there.

He got worse in those days though. Those days, he would tell the nurses that he didn't have a family, that he had no one. And when my mom called him out on this, he just denied it...before starting to say the same things over again.

I felt so alone in those days and I don't know what I would've done if I hadn't had my mom that helped me through all of it. I'll always be grateful for their support those days, no matter what.

But even with all of that, I still was so depressed - so many nights, I would just cry myself to sleep. From missing my grandmother but also because of what my life had become and the loss of a relationship I never thought I'd lose. I looked up to him so much, I idolized my grandfather - he was everything to me. And then to be just tossed aside like I meant nothing hurt me more than words can say.

I began to hate him in those days which only made me hate myself because what kind of a granddaughter feels that way towards a grandparent?

I pushed so many people away, I internalized everything and whenever I was asked how I was doing, I'd say I was fine. But I wasn't, not really...

Honestly, I felt so worthless back then. I won't say I tried to commit suicide because I didn't. But I'll say it like this - if I had died in a car accident the next day, I wouldn't have cared. Because I didn't feel like I had anything to live for anyway.

That is another thing that kept me going though - the feedback from my readers, knowing there were people who actually cared whether I was here or not and that somewhere, to someone, I was actually making a difference. So I always held onto that and kept diligently writing, to escape and to feel wanted. In a way that I didn't feel otherwise.

2017 was truly the darkest time of my life I've ever experienced. And truthfully, there are large chunks of it that I no longer remember - it was all so traumatic that my mind just blocked it out. All that really remains are scars of abuse and the overwhelming grief of losing my grandmother, one of the only people I felt who really knew me.

In the spring of 2018, my grandfather passed away from health issues. The last time I saw him, I tried to talk to him but he ignored me. That was the very last time...my last memory of him.

I hate myself for saying it but it was a relief once he was gone. Yet even then, it was so hard to go back to the way things used to be - because truthfully, the abuse and depression changed me a lot and I was no longer the girl I used to be. Sometimes I miss her still...

Still to this day, there are family members who believe he was just the kindest person, their favorite uncle/relative. They all believed the lies he told about us and by consequence, we aren't on speaking terms with most of them. No one believed the horror of it or what truly went on. I can't even blame them though because I believed it too for so long before I lived through it myself.

He did go through depression on the end because he hated his life, too. After being put on a ventilator at one point, he even demanded my mother bring him a gun because he wanted to kill himself. But most of his depression was actually caused by the fact that my grandmother was no longer there to take care of him. He even said that by her passing away first, she had "messed up his plans". But I know that his depression was not what caused him to treat me and my mother the way he did.

And there is such a split in my memories of the person he was in the beginning and the person he was in the end. I can't understand how the grandfather who would sit and watch Wizard of Oz with me and eat graham crackers and milk could also be the grandfather who ordered me around, abused me and told me I should die young. I don't even refer to him as my grandfather anymore though whenever I refer to him at all - just by his first name.

I haven't 100% recovered from the trauma of what I went through. It left me with a lot more trust issues than I already had plus an unhealthy fear of becoming attached to people. Because what if it happens again? Or at least, that's what my mind tells me. I still sometimes wake up from nightmares of him being alive again, abusing me. It's also why I have a hard time getting close to people and being my completely real self with them. I know when I talk, sometimes I deflect too much, I'm not good at being personal. After everything, I pretty much live with my guard up. It's something I try to do better with but it's still a work in progress for me.

But in the end...

I'm an abuse survivor.

And maybe the "surviving" part of that is all that really matters.

Next up, I'll be talking about hydrocephalus, a chronic neurological condition that's not near as known as it should be, hopefully to get that condition some more awareness. I hope y'all will like it when I post it :)