all the pieces

one of the problems with prolonged or repeated trauma is the inevitable blending together of memories and your brain hiding some of the worst ones from you to protect yourself. into the little tupperware container and into the back of the mind they go.

then one day, you’re getting ready for work on a random wednesday morning and a news story pops the seal on that little tupperware container and all the memories come back out, separate, individual, all the small pieces that make up the bigger label that went on the container.

this particular box is a pretty dusty old one. one would think the layer of dust would mean the issue has solved itself. undisturbed means it's fine, right?

apparently not.

this morning on the news, october 21, 2026, since the headlines change by the minute and even a big news story slides into obscurity in the length of an egg timer, a female is running for an elected position. her male opposition ran a tv ad featuring the woman’s estranged mother stating the female is a liar.

sure. whatever. political theater. family issues. not the first time it’s made the news.

this story though. this story.

WHY was the mother estranged? her husband was convicted, not accused, CONVICTED of rape. of the female running for office. when she was a child. the state stepped in. the children (there was a sibling) were removed from the home. the mother stayed with the husband. all this information has all been forced into public knowledge as the result of this ad. the mother in question? has been estranged since the incident. the “liar” the mother refers to in the political ads? her own 12 year old daughter who was brave enough to speak about the abuse.

this woman, YEAR and YEARS later is still clinging to the fact that her own daughter must be a liar instead of admitting a man, convicted by the courts multiple times for being a rapist piece of shit, is indeed, a rapist piece of shit. enough to put that fucked opinion into a television ad.

the woman running for office faced the assault, the betrayal of her mother, the life changes that resulted from the loss of her childhood, and now, again, is being assaulted and attacked using the same abuse all over again. every shithead news pundit with some shitty hot take. every extremist nutjob with no conscience. every fuckhead abuser trying to protect themselves or another abuser.

what does this have to do with my wednesday morning and the tupperware spill?

my abuse is old. my mother has been dead to me for years. i’ve sorted and worked through and dealt with all the pieces in this container…all…but

well…fuck.

i forgot about a few pieces.

why does everyone know about this news headline? the woman’s opponent used it against her. everyone now knows about the abuse because another man used it to abuse her with.

the same thing happened to me.

i clearly remember the LAST time i told my mother about what happened. i haven’t talked to her since.

a few weeks ago, i remembered the first time someone else said something- my mother had been called to the principal’s office in jr. high because friends had reported concerns. i wasn’t allowed to be friends with them anymore after that. 

this morning i remembered the first time i told my mother about what happened, and further, WHY i had to tell her.

i was already out of the house. well past jr. high. i was already away from all of it. no one needed to know.

i only ever told one person about everything. i was married. i trusted my husband. right?

then we separated. i was pregnant with my second kid. my husband told me the only way we could live together again is if i told my mom everything.

he used it against me.

i had to choose: my husband or my mother. the family i was building or the family i had.

i told my mom. she said, “what do you want me to do about it, it already happened.”

i didn’t know. i didn’t have an answer for that. but it satisfied the requirement for my husband and we moved back in together (which lasted one more year before i left for good).

i stuffed it back down. i did my part. i spoke up. i had told people. they didn’t know what to do. i didn’t know what to do. so nothing got done.

years later, divorced, single parenting again, i had moved to a bigger city, my kids were growing. things stayed in tupperware boxes. life went on.

one day i got a call from daycare about my youngest son.

the problem when nothing happens is people think they got away with it.

my son had started showing behaviors and saying things about, “...well, papa said…”

THE FUCK YOU SAY?

i had very, very many unkind things to say to my mother. her response, “...abusers don’t change sexes. it doesn’t make sense if he abused you that he would go after a male now.”

ARE. YOU. FUCKING. KIDDING. ME???

i cut contact. i tried to be kind to my kids: you know when the teachers and the doctors tell you if anyone is bad or mean to you or touches you in a way they’re not supposed to? papa is one of those bad people. we have to stay away from him. i didn’t want to make it scarier than it already was.

my mom called me a liar. still tried to contact my kids. i spent years sending back christmas presents and birthday cards. it is, to me, extremely inappropriate for a child to get a gift or card from a pedophile. i know, me and my extreme takes.

i was disinvited from family events. i was disinvited from holidays. i was being too rigid. i was being too extreme. my dad and my brother are cops. they will make sure nothing happens. why am i being so stubborn and rebellious?

TOO. FUCKING. LATE.

then my dad died.

i only had one parent left.

maybe i was being too rigid. maybe i was being too extreme. it’s my mom. she’s all i have left.

so i went to a therapy session with her.

she told the therapist, “...do you hear her? she just makes stuff up in her head.”

the therapist looked at her, “Do you understand what you just said about your own daughter?”

i told my mother that day she’s dead to me. in the parking lot of the therapist office.

“I need you to understand, I understand the full weight and impact of the words I am saying. I just lost my father. I have no mother. I am an orphan from this day forward. You are dead to me.”

so she added my kids on facebook. and bought them plane tickets to go see her. she told them how crazy i am. what i liar i am. about how the abuse that had happened to me had actually happened to them and i was just lying about it. she got both my kids to turn against me.

she can’t *actually die* fast enough.

she continued to run a home daycare for years. they hosted numerous foreign exchange students.

after the last time i confronted her, her husband went before their church to confess his sins. then they changed churches. to a church in a different town. then they moved across the country.

over time her story went from “it happened, what do you want me to do about it,” to “you make up stories in your head.”

my ex-husband used it against me.

my mother used it against me.

the abuse is one thing. you think you got away from it. you think you mostly recovered as much as you can from it.

then these fuckers come along and just double down. and that part is the part that my brain tried to hide for a long time.

as usual, i don’t know the point. maybe just putting all the pieces together in order for the first time. seeing all of them, in one place, in order.

it’s breathtaking when you recognize the full scope.

the healing struggle makes a little more sense.

spitball take: working through it as we go, what if finally being able to see all the pieces as one whole picture is what it takes to finally let that go? get that tupperware box out of storage, stop taking up brain space?

i can look at the whole thing. all the ugly pieces. all of them. yeah, it was that bad. for that long. yeah, they are that mean. yeah, they are that terrible. no, it isn’t just you. no, there’s nothing you could have done to deserve it, you were a child. you were right to protect yourself. you were right to protect your kids. you didn’t know what to do, but you tried to do something.

be who you needed: this is one more piece of why i believe women. this is one more reason why i will stand with a woman ten toes down when she needs me. i will stand in a hospital room with you. i will stand in a courthouse with you. i will stand in the damn uhaul rental office with you while we get a truck to get away. i will hug you and listen to you and cry with you and BELIEVE you. 

and now i can throw that tote away. i can see the bottom. it’s emptied. i know it. that’s enough for me.

tonight i’ll burn a candle. i’ll let out the tears i’ve been holding since this morning. i’ll release it all. maybe, finally, for the last time.