My maternal grandmother derived pleasure from gifting. That was her thing. I think it was her way of justifying her presence in a room, as if presence necessitated presents. Because she wasn’t “good enough.”

Have you ever felt that way?

I have. And it’s lonely. Grandy Lynn, the grandmother I’m telling you about, had it tough her whole life. For example, there was one day a lady asked her dad (my great great grandfather) why she’s never seen him hug his daughter like he hugs everyone else. And you’ll be shocked at what he said:

He said, “That’s because I only hug pretty girls.”

Who says that? About their own daughter.

So she spent her entire life falling over herself to please him (she never would). I don’t know much more about her backstory than that, other than she married my grandfather who was a charismatic H.S. football coach, and spent a whole lot of time in hospitals. She had a host of real and imagined health problems. I wonder what drew my grandfather to her. They owned a shoe store together. Apparently she was a phenomenal cook, but she rarely was home or had the energy when she was.

Anyway.

My grandfather passed away well before I got to meet him. He had pancreatic cancer and my mom would drive ten hours one way just to spend each (or every other?) weekend with him, seeing him reach closer to the comfort of death every visit.

I wonder the depth of feeling my grandfather felt then. The grief. She had been the one in the hospitals for so long, yet he was the one who died first.

That was in the 80s, I think. Then in the late 90s (98? 99?), she met someone new. He was charismatic and maybe attractive for an old guy. I don’t know. To me, he looked like the devil in a frog costume.

No one seemed to know exactly how they met, but there this man was! He made her feel seen. But do you want to know what I remember?

I remember staring hard at a very-80s ceiling the first time he raped me.

I was five. That’s when it started. He would stay with our family — my dad, mom, and brother — always bringing a trunk-load of gifts Grandy Lynn spent all year buying. Isn’t it funny how I don’t remember a single one? Is that normal? Do you remember all the gifts your grandma got you as a kid? Please let me know. As I write, I realize I’ve never thought of this.

That said, I do remember two things the man who would end up being my step grandfather bought.

One: A big stuffed purple cat that wasn’t snuggly and had weird yellow eyes.
Two: An industrial trash can. I could pick from a green or red one … I chose green. It was a darker color, and that was a terrible mistake.

My family’s front yard had a big slope. I wish I could show you a picture, but the ground was highest at street-level and lowest at our front door. This man would have my brother and I get in our trash can “toys,” roll down the hill, and then be met with tickles. Lots of tickles. The kind that don’t stop, that are innocent enough to be done right in front of everyone.

** Before I go on, I am omitting my brother’s presence from the rest of this story. His experience is not mine to tell. **

So I would laugh and laugh and laugh. I didn’t want to laugh. I couldn’t breathe. I laughed and said stop over and over. But it didn’t matter. He didn’t listen. He probably got a kick out of doing something he fetishized over so publicly.

And in private? Well, I don’t remember much (thankfully). But my body does. All I remember is memorizing the ceiling. And being trapped, in all the ways a person can feel trapped. Oh, and also the sound of footsteps, his shadow, the slow creak of the door as he entered my room and told me if I wasn’t a “good girl,” he would take away all of Grandy Lynn’s new presents.

It was a relief when my mom told us one day he wouldn’t be coming around anymore. She asked me how I felt about him, which I thought was weird. I shrugged. I said he was a “nice” man.

So “nice,” in fact, that the reason he stopped coming around was not because he and Grandy Lynn were getting a divorce. Nope! One of my uncles apparently called my mom at work and told her to search his name under the sex offender registry.

Grandy Lynn “met” him while he was in prison for child molestation. They were pen pals, he was a con man, and he conned her — an already extraordinarily vulnerable woman — into marrying him, letting him near our family, and putting his name on the house she had already finished paying off.

The house became his when Grandy Lynn died in the early 2000s. I was 11. I hadn’t seen my step grandfather in awhile, but of course he was there at my grandmother’s funeral and of course my mom was watching him like a hawk and of course the second she didn’t, it happened again.

It was a weird feeling when I came back to school and our class got the mandatory sex talk. My family church’s youth group leader also made every topic, it seemed, about the dirtiness of premarital sex. So you have to understand … when it comes to religion, I struggle. Remind me of Job’s hurdles all you want. Lend me your verses. But I was a little girl who could hardly process what happened and here these people were, describing the act but forgetting the part about your body being crushed by the weight of an adult 60 years your senior.

So … what am I trying to say here? I had to get this out of my system. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I still can’t forgive my dead grandmother for letting him anywhere near me. Past trauma doesn’t excuse bad behavior. I’ve also been the toxic one in friendships — romantic or otherwise — because of layers of hurt (and ADHD tbh … I struggle with answering texts, even when they’re important …)

So, is this just a long-winded way of saying “go to therapy”? “Talk out your life”? Maybe. My mom didn’t find out I was molested until I was 18. I had written a letter, accidentally left it on the coffee room table, and she found it. My body morphed right back into a 5 year old when she approached me about it. I covered my ears, shook my head, rocked back and forth and said, “lalalalalalala.” At 18! I know this is something that happens with survivors of c-PTSD. But wow.

Talk to someone. Get help. This May is Mental Health Awareness Month, but it shouldn’t just be a month. It should be more normal to be open about our “stuff.” Even right now, on my own blog, I feel like I’m “trauma dumping.” But why? You can read my story or not. That’s your prerogative. My hope is that this post reaches someone out there who gets it. If we raise our voices, maybe we won’t feel so alone.