My Side of the Story - Part 2

 

Mom’s memory brought all kinds of memories to mind, and I need to get this stuff off my chest. Basically, if you’ve read the first part, then you’ve read about what turned out to be symptomatic of a two-part problem. Since then, a few more pieces of the puzzle fell into place.

Sometime back, we all caught a whole lot of misery from the Myst fandom, with little to no apparent explanation. Eventually, we found out a good bit of what happened.

Long story short, we found out that some of Dad’s closest relatives were behind so much more of the trouble we endured than we’d thought, both online and in the real world.

Essentially, the bulk of the problems that began when Dad’s father stopped a theft at a naval base would have faded away long ago, if it were not for Dad‘s hypocritical relations. 

It turns out that one of his parents, both of my uncles, at least one aunt, and several cousins were actively slandering Dad because somebody injured him when he was a tiny baby. The truth came out when the doctors started asking questions when Dad collapsed, nearly dead, in 2004.
Basically, someone severely injured his insides when he was less than three months old. According to the doctors, no matter how it happened, that injury would have bled for a long time afterward. It would been impossible for any caretakers to miss the damage.
Actually, one uncle was a bit shocked. “But I thought you had healed long ago!”, he said to Dad when he visited him in the hospital.
One doctor was literally shaking with anger when he told Mom. As a result, the surgeon in charge of Dad’s care started vetting who was allowed near Dad and actually set guards who backed Mom up. They advised Mom to be extremely careful about who was allowed near him while Dad healed up. Mom was of course approved right away, and so were William, Grandma Anne, and I (all people who did not hurt Dad). However, the staff kept a tight eye on any other biologically-related visitors.

For a long time prior to that horrible day in 2004, Dad’s closest relatives kept calling him all kinds of horrible names. They called him lazy, but he may have tried the hardest of them all. They called him a hypochondriac whenever he had trouble, but it turns out he was more stoic than any of his siblings.
As for calling him crazy, they just didn’t want anybody to believe him whenever his body was about to break down. He’s easily the sanest, bravest, and kindest of the lot. Mom says she got the best of those brothers. :)

Years before any of us knew any of this, however, we thought their hostility was just a case of us needing to prove ourselves. That’s often how they couched the abuse.
For a long time, we all held out hope that we might finally be accepted if we found out just what these jerks wanted. Now? We know there was no win condition for those games. Not for us. Not for anyone. Not even for them. People like them are never satisfied.

How does all this connect to Mom’s time in the Myst fandom? Here’s how.

Many years back, Dad and his siblings were required to bring their spouses and children to the annual Christmas gathering. My folks and I dreaded these events because we knew we were in for so much grief.
Every time we went, Dad, Mom, William, and I were told repeatedly that everyone would have been better off if we’d never been born and that we didn’t “deserve” anything, not even the food EVERYONE ELSE was invited to eat, not even the presents specially sent FOR US, or even the fruits of our own labor. One year, one of my cousins actually took away my things right in front of me, saying that I “didn’t deserve them”. Her mother actually APPROVED her greedy behavior. (Mom and Dad were able to get some of the stuff back) My cousins kept trying to make me and my then toddler brother (who was adorable and sweet) William cry.

No matter what gifts we brought, we were chewed out for it. Handmade? “That’s so cheap! Why wasn’t it store-bought!?” Store-bought and actually pretty valuable? “You didn’t put ANY thought or heart in to this. It’s not expensive enough! Why isn’t it handmade?!” Many of the handmade things took Mom MONTHS to make (they were things like ornate embroideries and carefully painted objects). It took Mom and Dad MONTHS to save for the store-bought presents. We did our best, but it was never enough.

One year, Mom tried something new, something that would have gone over well in most families back then.
Mom saved up and bought several of them each a copy of Myst. It was still fairly recent, she loved the game, and Mom hoped they’d have as much fun playing it as she’d had.

Unfortunately, they decided to be nasty to us all again. Poor Mom got the whole “It isn’t good enough!!” spiel. They talked about how they’d just throw the games away or sell them… before going back to bullying us and each other.

Eventually, Dad put his foot down, saying that if all they were going to do is bully and threaten then we did NOT need to be there. Finally, his dad agreed. We found out later that their holiday gatherings broke up from then on. I shouldn’t be surprised since those lunatics also frequently bullied each other, if we were not present.

Before we faced that’s how they are, we’d tried to win them over. We hoped that if they got to know us, they’d understand that we’re actually pretty friendly. Every time we invited them to one of our celebrations, they’d either refused to come or worse, came by and acted like a bunch of malicious drama llamas. We’d honestly hoped that if we were patient, love would win, but not in this case. There’s no seeing eye to eye with someone determined to devalue you.

Ever afterward, we’ve avoided those relatives as much as possible over the years (except for Dad’s parents), thinking that would solve the problem. We honestly thought they just didn’t want us around, because we were also told to stay away whenever they couldn’t have one of their abuse-fests without looking bad. As a result, they never got to know us at all.

We didn’t know these horrible people chose to lie in wait for Mom to appear in the Myst fandom. These ingrates used something Mom loved that she shared with them to hurt her. God will help me forgive them, but I am not going to forget it.

It took time for us to take in just how bad the situation really was.

As a result, what happened later was a shock.

Fast forward a few years.

Mom entered the Myst community for the first time in the summer of 2000. At first, things went okay. Then, a few months in, people warned her, saying they were hearing weirdness from people claiming to be related to us. (that line often warns us that Dad’s insane relatives have been by)

People let us know Dad’s creepy relatives were slandering us. Unfortunately, there was a LOT of evidence to back that claim.

The evidence included finding a username used to hassle Mom that went straight back to where one aunt worked and one cousin went to school. Later, the two jerks admitted to it… before trying to gaslight Mom and me into thinking they hadn’t done anything wrong.

We’d all found what looked like one or more of the relatives pretending to be Mom, Dad, or me on multiple occasions. On closer inspection, we even could tell who it was in many cases.

I mention this because early on, people were acting as though Mom had been online at times when everybody here knew she hadn’t been and because we later found other cases where someone impersonated one or more of us to cause trouble. It looked as though someone had been picking fights in her name. At this point, you can probably tell what I’m wondering.

Another piece of evidence was the contents of the so-called Vault. Remember, I mentioned in an earlier blog a folder full of lies? Both it and the contents of the Vault were roughly the same thing, as far as we could tell.
Eventually Dad found out that both turned out to be little more a than a compilation of the crazy relations’ delusions.

This is why none of us were impressed by the Vault. It was not a trump card. It only held stuff that could get its holders into serious trouble with the law. (eventually that stupid folder got the guy carting it around into trouble with the cops. It held things only the cops were supposed to have as well as a ton of easily disprovable lies about Dad and other people). Losing that thing was the best thing that could have happened for its “keepers”.

Basically, our tormentors’ “proof”… was their slander. Easily disproven slander, at that.

The final proof came when one of the relatives told people that Mom was somehow “stupid” for having given them the game in the first place. Just, yuck.

It was the same horrible stuff those nutty relations did locally. Same mess, another day, as it were.

Dad kept losing jobs because his brothers had been going around to his jobs and falsely accusing him of some truly evil things. People alerted Dad to their treachery.

Mom and I would think we found folks to hang out with. Churches, community events, you name it, we’d be okay for a little while, until suddenly somebody would announce that they’d HEARD about us, often citing said delusional relations as their source, or someone who’d been talking to those delusional nuts. The reason was usually that one of the relatives, usually one of my crazy uncles or aunts had lied about Dad and us AGAIN.

There is something I need to point out. One uncle in particular likes to accuse other people of having his bad habits.
He likes to accuse people of lying, and he doesn’t seem to be able tell the truth. Seriously, we found this out the hard way. He claimed he wasn’t visiting our home town, but then bragged about hunting nearby. We’ve actually seen him in the neighborhood many times too. He’d claim he’d done something only to say that “he’ll get around to it.” He never does, unless there are consequences waiting.

He likes to accuse people of being drunkards, but he’s lost his license before because he caused a horrible accident while drunk driving. Not to mention, no matter what’s going on, he is always drinking something alcoholic. ALWAYS. The worst part is he gets nastier whenever he drinks. He starts threatening people, making MORE nasty remarks, and if he gets drunk enough… Let’s just say the booze does nothing to help his attitude.

He accuses people of theft, but we found out fast we can’t trust him anywhere near Dad’s belongings. This uncle and his girlfriend are not allowed into the garage or the house, because of a few past incidents.

This is the same uncle who growled that Dad didn’t “deserve” or “need” to know what had happened to him after the doctors revealed the truth. He said, “Nobody was supposed to tell you anything!”

This has been an ongoing problem. The crazies have made a bad habit out of picking fights and lying about us all for as long as any of us can remember. They have told themselves that we’re somehow subhuman and don’t “deserve” basic human rights like life, health, happiness, the fruits of our labor, or even our own innate talents. All because someone hurt a little baby and blamed the injured baby.

There was also a financial incentive to the madness too. Someone kept trying to frame Dad and had gotten Grandfather to promise to cut Dad out of the will if he was ever convicted of anything. Dad did NOT deserve this. He’s easily one of the cleanest living people I know.

As long as we’re trying to be the best people we can be with God’s help, then YES, we do deserve happiness. We deserve to enjoy life and not be falsely accused by crazy people. We deserve peace and fellowship. We deserve respect and kindness. We do not deserve to be abused over someone else’s guilty conscience.

On a more positive note, more and more people have been seeing through our would-be tormentors. We’ve also been seeing indications that other people are telling them no whenever the lunatics try to cause trouble.

Life is finally calming down, at least a little.
In recent years, there have even been indications that people are telling them to stop being so nasty to us and to each other.

Looking back, it becomes evident that God had our backs. I am also grateful for the surgeon and his colleagues who saved Dad’s life and helped us understand something no-one else could or would explain. I am also grateful to God for the various books and other resources that helped us understand what we were facing and how to move past it.

All storms end, and I can finally see the sunlight poking through the clouds of this one.