The most wonderful and horrible thing happened today. Ace got to see my family's mocking disregard for me live and over Skype. Was all he could do not to say something, but i didn't know at first if he had even clued in on it. I lived 36 years with this kind of treatment that it just seems like normal brutality, or that I'm being too sensitive and perceive everything as a hit (as I grew up being told I was - hell, I even got it in March when I went home for a visit). But if my practical, suffer-no-fools, enabled by the Patriarchy (even as he was raised by a hippy mother who gave him a conscience, he cant help it that a 6'5" Scotch-Irish lumberjack dude gets peoples instant respect) hard working, pretty-much straight edge husband could see what they did to me, it means at last someone saw it! Someone saw what rips my heart, deflates my spirit and, worst of all, makes me second-guess myself into oblivion. Someone saw it, and now I am not just believed, but loved, supported, and fought for even more. That was the wonderful part. Now, what to do about this family..."dynamic"... My daughter will know challenges and dark nights in her life, but she will NEVER feel this kind of beaten down.
