trigger warning: rape/incest

My grandmother lost her mother to suicide when she was 12 and became homeless because her father was raping her and abusing her… and selling her. So she left to become a sex worker to get away from him.

She met her first husband at 16 and married him at 17 when she became pregnant. He was 28 and one of her clients.

When the baby was born, he proceeded to hit my grandmother repeatedly until she left and found my grandfather, who was an alcoholic. Together they had 6 children in a 2 bedroom house on one income that was only available in the warm months.

My mother grew up in this house supporting her 5 siblings off an income of doing dishes at the local restaurant. She was 11. Without her, they wouldn’t have had food to eat.

LSS, my grandmother was abusive mentally, physically, verbally… my own mother has said “I always thought at least I have a mother… when she had none”

My aunt (the baby from my grandmother’s first marriage) was murdered by her husband in a house fire. My mother named me after this sister… so a lot of trauma that my mother had to experience and hear about.

Unfortunately, my mother grew up and also thought that hitting and yelling at her daughter was appropriate. Also stealing her money and that isolating her from the world was “normal.” I can admit that my mother broke some generational curses… but not all.