Thursday, February 01, 2007

How the hell do I deal with this one?

Someone in my family is having a baby. This is AWFUL news. This child is unplanned. The parents are not married (which I realize isn't the end of the world, but from what I hear, they're not even all that stable), only one of them is working and one of them is a pedophile.

I know he is, but my family is in utter denial. They have been for years. So family members have taken to happily e-mailing/calling to tell me about this baby. I yelled at my mother when I spoke to her today. Now I don't do that. I do not yell at my mom. I do not curse around my mom. Yet today, when she acted out-right giddy about the whole disaster, I went off. She then insisted it was no business of mine what they decide to do (they're keeping the baby). I yelled, "When they're introducing a new little fuck-up into the world, it's all of our business." I apologized as soon as the word was out of my mouth, but I meant it.

This guy's grandfather abused his father, so his father abused him and waged war against my whole family (tried to kill us all and almost succeeded more than once), and then, of course, he went on to be abusive.

A family member sent me a happy e-mail saying she predicted a boy. My first thought was, "I sure as hell hope so." This guy likes little girls. I'm talking LITTLE. I refused to leave him alone with my 4-year-old cousin when I saw how he reacted to her. But then I started thinking about the cycle. If it is a boy, chances are we'll just be releasing another psychopath into the world who will abuse more people.

I cannot put into words how much I hate this person. I try desperately not to hate anyone, but I realized long ago that if he was to die, I would not only be relieved, but absolutely ecstatic. I know that sounds awful, but I won't apologize for it. If he was dead, he couldn't hurt anyone else. If he was dead, I wouldn't have to worry about him reproducing. His mother got pregnant with him when she was young and unmarried. She got married, had the baby and kept him. I know I have some readers who would never ever agree with me on this, but I wish with all my heart that she had had an abortion. The cycle could have ended there.

I'm at such a loss right now. I have so many emotions that they're leaving me numb. I want to cry. I want to scream. I want to run the hell away. I spent a portion of the night in bed with the girls last night. How the hell do I protect them? Not only do these evil people exist, but they keep reproducing either biologically or through the people they abuse (often, those people are one in the same). We can't run away from it. How can I protect my kids from it?

And now we have this latest disaster. What am I supposed to feel? How the hell can I deal with these emotions? Do I even want to? It just seems like it would be so much easier to be numb. How the hell do I get my husband to understand that I need him right now? How can I tell the family to STOP FREAKING E-MAILING ME SONOGRAM PICTURES? How do I get my mom to understand that this is NOT good news and I don't want to happily chat about it? If I just jump in the car and drive, how far will I get before it all hits me?

3 comments:

tg said...

Oh, heavens, my friend. That is awful news, and ITA with you. I don't know how you deal with it, honestly. I don't know how I'd deal with a similar situation. Well, other than the superficial initial beer and chocolate reaction. It seems like honestly telling them not to talk to you about this issue is a good first step, even though it's not working yet. You may just have to keep repeating yourself over and over.

Anonymous said...

There are some (myself included) that would tell you to report the abuse. You have to do everything you can to protect the child, especially if the mother is unwilling or unable to.

Good for you for what you said to your mom. That was both hard and brave.

A completely shitty situation. Completely.

Reiza said...

Pammer,
The family does know about some of the same inappropriate instances that I'm aware of. They just don't believe they were this guy's fault. It's really a blame the victim mentality.

I've told my mom about the 4-year-old cousin. She rolled her eyes at me.

FTR, one of my sisters had a family member make an advance at her when she was a kid. My mom, to this day (35 years later), doesn't believe her because, "She was a chubby thing. Why would an adult want anything to do with a fat kid?"

Yes, that is seriously what she told me.

Yeah, that's what I'm dealing with here.

I do have one family member who doesn't know what we know who would completely believe me, but he's the father of the little girl who was abused and he would seriously kill the guy. I'm not being dramatic here. The girl's father seriously would try to hurt the guy and then it would tear the whole family to pieces.