my history, pt 1

my history is greatly fragmented. it's defined by events nobody wants to truly talk about or wrestle with, and so nobody has. i honestly might as well be standing on the patch of dirt where faye valentine stood, looking at everything that remained of who she was and where she came from.

there really is no easy way to start this story. the main problem with a format like this is that you, the reader, want the blood, guts, gore, drama, the action. but i, the writer, also need to account for the fact that you might not want to get slammed in the face with an immediate description of incredibly traumatic events. these sentences are quite literally just meant to give you time to mentally breathe in and out before attempting to chew and digest the reality of my life.

so, with that said: my history is fragmented because it is suffused up and down with sexual violence. i honestly think you'd be hard pressed to find someone whose entire existence is as completely defined by sexual violence as mine is, and that includes literal victims on the epstein list. if that raises your hackles, it should! but it's not something i say lightly.

this clock starts around the 1950s, with my mother's father (my maternal grandfather). nobody knows for sure, but it is largely suspected that my grandfather was raped by his older brother as a child. i'd just like to really hone in on this simple fact: nobody knows for sure, but it is largely suspected. let's just assume that's true. my grandfather's entire existence was defined by incest that was simply allowed to happen by the adults and the larger community around him.

fast forward to january 3rd, 1968. my mother is born to my grandmother and grandfather, at the time the youngest of four, all boys. my mother would get a younger brother, mike, in 1969, and then my grandparents stopped having children. her oldest brother, paul, is 6 years old, and has likely already been beaten multiple times by my grandfather. at 15, he will rape my mother for the first time.

if you did the math, you arrived at 9 years. my mother was 9 years old the first time she was raped, and it was by her older brother. this did not just happen once, and my uncle was not the only perpetrator: my grandfather also raped my mother, repeatedly, as a child. the first time it happened with my uncle, she was cornered in the bathroom. when it was over, she fled the house, ran right past a police station to the most logical place an abused girl would run to: her mother's work.

but there she did not find any relief, any succor, any support of any kind. because you see, by the time my mother had been raped, my grandmother had spent 15 years denying the abuses her husband doled out to his children. today, in 2026, my mother is 58 years old, and she has spent her entire life trying to forgive the child who ran past a police station and straight into the arms of her enabler. my grandmother died in 2022, and she went to her grave actively denying any of this ever happened.

i was born to my mother on august 12th, 1987. we lived with my grandmother for a period of time when i was very young, and i even met my grandfather a couple of times. but my mother by and large raised me by herself. and, while she did her best, she was not at all capable of being the parent i needed, not at all. not remotely. i love my mother dearly, but i also greatly resent the things that she cannot provide for me, things many people take for granted.

that, truly, is the basis of this blog. using words to attempt to paint a clear image of the smoking crater i find myself standing in, where my foundation was supposed to be.

thanks for reading, part 2 soon.