The Grandmother

Some things I remember vividly others I cannot recall a bit. They say that's normal with Complex - Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, along with the other horrible symptoms. So I guess I'll be writing this in short snippets of what my life was like back then, the stories that stick out in my head.

I was eighteen that year, the year I bought my first house because of someone else's guilt and the year I received my high school diploma. This year was the worst year of my short life. I'd met a guy we'll call Dean for the sake of the story. He was fine the first month or so then one day he snapped. Then a few months later when he was in a predicament and I was planning on buying my first house he scammed in on the idea along with his parents. He'd gotten into a fight with his stepdad that ended up physical, just as many of his mom and stepdad's fights were. So I ended up going in half's on a small house in Buhl with his parents co-signing and putting the down payment on the house.

We'd been there about seven months. The abuse started again immediately after moving into the house, but crazier than I'd ever taken, the first was one thing. But this kid was punch yourself in the head crazy, tell "you if you try to call the cops I'll shoot you, your dog, all the cops I can take down and then myself same will go for your family." I was scared shitless pardon my French, but I was stuck with someone who should be in a nut ward, in post secondary college through my high school and had no clue or tools on how to get out of a relationship without being killed or my family killed or hurt. So now that your semi up to date on where was at in life I can go on with this short piece of the story.

Dean's mother and grandmother had come over to play cards, as we often did. His grandmother was a sweet stern lady. We'd only made it through one hand of cards when I said or did something to set him off. He grabbed my wrist and twisted it back, with me trying not to alarm his ma and grandma. But his grandma told him that she was completely mortified at what he was doing to me and that she wouldn't sit there with him treating me that way. She said she was completely ashamed of him. I sat back in my chair and just cried I couldn't help it, when he beat me he'd beat me harder if I cried so I cried in the safety of his grandma. She stood me up, held my hands tight with love combined with fear and said "I feel so sorry for you.' Then walked out of the house, with Dean's mom scrambling cursing at her mother saying she gets like this and she's just being melodramatic. But deep down she knew what he was doing just like his grandmother did. My tears just ran harder down my cheeks. I'll never forget that woman for being so strong and standing up to her own flesh and blood unlike his mother who would defend him until the end. She knew what was happening to me and knew how badly I was suffering.

As soon as she shut the backdoor he was on me like flies on shit, screaming at me telling me I was no good piece of shit and to do that in front of his grandma, was I happy now? Then into a violent flipping of me backwards off the couch I'd retired to cry on, I landed directly on my head. Crushing my neck and hitting my head hard off the floor. He'd just started yelling at me for crying still, while pushing me back down and kicking me over when his ma walked back up the steps. I wrapped a blanket around myself and hid in the corner of the couch. She'd forgotten her keys.

But she saved me from more beating at that current moment. I remember my head like pulsing but not hurting, and I was much more worried about my neck afraid to move it. He came back still pissed and threw stuff around the house. Then turned back to me, told me "I was a baby and I needed to just get over it, it didn't hurt." He was right it didn't hurt right then because of the huge amount of adrenaline in my body, neither he nor I knew that was that it would literally hurt physically years later.