They didn't want us to remind them of what we saw growing up. They pretended as if things hadn't happened. They changed the subject, acted busy, or walked away. Some of them stopped talking to us and got other relatives to distance themselves from us. The truth hurt and it still hurts for many! We were there when their parents and grandparents did their dirt or we heard about it. We were told to keep our mouths shut, to pretend as if nothing happened, and to "mind your business!"
When I grew older, and I got opportunities to talk with family members and friends, who had witnessed and/or experienced their share of abuses, they didn't hesitate to come clean after certain people had passed away. They knew they had been gaslighted and threatened into submission. They reasoned it was best that people didn't know about their loved ones being hurt by favorite relatives. However, I wasn't one for letting it all just wash away especially when some people were still being used and abused!
The younger generation must know and in some cases the police needed to know. What was going on in darkness for some kinfolk, came out into the light! It was a divine occurrence for some of us to be used by the almighty God to sound the alarm on family abuse. We needed to do what needed to be done, expose the abusers both dead and alive!
The generational lies, secrets and coverups concerning screaming matches, physical violence, adultery, molestation, stealing, and more didn't have to keep going on! If certain relatives truly knew about other relatives, they would not subject their own children and/or grandchildren to more abuses! The truth-seekers and tellers in the family uncovered who had been raped, who had been beaten by a spouse, who had an addiction, who had been in jail, who wasn't someone's child, and on and on. I wrote Genealogy X to help family and the general public uncover their personal family histories.
There were financial, emotional, physical, sexual, and spiritual abuses that were generations deep! Some family members thought that it was just their family that had their share of pain. Others had assumed that beloved relatives were being treated special, but they were really being abused. We falsely assumed that because some kinfolk had good jobs, nice homes, and what appeared to be a close-knit family that they were okay, but that was far from the truth!
As I write, I think of some of my younger relatives who have been fed narratives that are totally false about some of us and our situations involving parents and grandparents for fear that one day we might meet. Their strategy was to make their own children oblivious to the facts so that they wouldn't believe anything we had to say when we finally got a chance to talk.
I had been ill-informed about a number of relatives because other kin had their own personal grievances about my family members. The twists and turns of how some abusive relatives wanted their truth to be portrayed would at times drown out the real truth! No matter what some of these liars came up with, what they didn't know, was I didn't forget. I held on to what I saw and heard no matter what threats were made against me!
You have to be passionate about the truth and rise above the hurt if you truly want to be free! You have to be the one that is determined to stand even when everyone else chooses to sit. You can't be suffocated by so many so-called "good" memories that others share with you that you can't recall what happened to you. It's unsafe to forget and foolish to hang in the presence of someone abusive!
Being that so many kinfolks had explosive temperaments around me, I learned to just do what I was told when I was young, but when I got older, I questioned what they were doing and saying and got into my share of trouble because of it. Even though, I learned what not to say or do around certain relatives, I still held on to what I knew and that was I didn't want anything to do with these people. There was something wrong with some of their minds. They were not, dare we say it, normal.
What was strange was for some of us, we ended up in the arms of what was familiar. We didn't feel normal around normal folks. We felt comfortable around the users and abusers--too comfortable; therefore, we fell victim to them later in life. I recall how I saw something in the way that some of the men I dated behaved that made me feel at home. I would learn the hard way that what drew me to them was familiarity not necessarily common interests and appeal. The "familiar" or "you remind me of..." almost cost me my life with one man.
The same behaviors that we had grown accustomed to growing up, have a way of showing up in our relationships and friendships with others. It is up to us to recognize abuse for what it is, it hurts, manipulates, lies, cheats, steals, beats you over the head with a bible, chases you like a dog in heat for sex, and so on. Abuse is evil and it is there to destroy you!
We remember and we don't let abusers forget!
Nicholl McGuire is the blog owner and the author of Say Goodbye to Dad, She's Crazy, Socially Sweet Privately Cruel Abusive Men and Tell Me Mother You're Sorry
