Hate is Taught

Something happened the other day that blew my mind!

We drove into the village of La Jolla and passed her old apartment on Torrey Pines Road, the home where she was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon. Casa del Lido, corner of Torrey Pines and La Jolla Village, it’s been there forever. At the stoplight directly in front of the building, my daughter now 9 says she has memorized the tile pattern, which is where her big brother used to live with a big sigh.

My husband and I kept our thoughts to ourselves and just let her reminiscence about her childhood memories of her big brother. She had been there several times with him to meet their senior dog years ago and pick up her big sister. I filed it away in my head, hoping to remember to write it down and remember to write about it. I also wanted to talk to my husband about it.

That is one of the traumas my brain took that is residual along with many of the injuries I got, my body will never be the same, but I’ve learned to be okay with this. My brain pretty much always forgets things I say I will or want to remember. Fantastic news tonight, I remembered!! Yeah, your brain does heal, it takes a lot of concentrated effort, proper rest, diet, and lifestyle. But it does heal. My brain keeps on getting better and better. It’s taken more than five years, but it’s happening.

The problem with brain trauma, whether from blunt trauma or biochemical from stress, you do not realize how messed up your brain is until it isn’t. I would not have awareness right away of all the things I would forget. Eventually, I would, but I would never really have held myself accountable to remember better. But once you do, you start questioning your ability. You notice things like less sleep will definitely impact your performance, so plan accordingly!

I digress. We were talking about my daughter, who is now almost up to my chin. She’s so big. I am loving being her mom, so grateful I am still here to be this to her. She has no ill feelings about that apartment building. I remembered to talk to my husband about it tonight. I am so excited about this!!! Something is working better over here if I can remember, and I am up past 11 pm. He was in the same place as I am. We want to throw up when we see it, but how our daughter not having those same feelings feels so good. Proud Momma moment.

Hate is taught. The mother of my stepchildren, to this day, tries to teach her children to hate us. I fear their son having grown up in their toxic soup one day, and we will be watching out for him our whole lives against him. No other human has been taught to hate us more than him. I hope that the older siblings stay close to their younger ones to keep this under control.

Immediately after this happened this woman sunk her teeth into my stepson’s girlfriend, the first time we saw her was a month ago on my stepson’s birthday, she stayed away for almost five years. Imagine. Now my stepdaughter is somewhat back in our lives, and we learn she has a boyfriend. Guess what, he blocks me on Instagram. I am the person that is wrong in his book, and he hates my husband. He doesn’t even know us. All he knows is what he has been told. My guess is he has been told some not very nice things and a whole bunch of lies.

But the other problem is these people now standing against us are hateful and aggressive towards us, so I am fearful of their son coming from an angry Portuguese hot-tempered man—also coming from a man that is mean to animals, especially senior animals. We had so many text messages from my stepdaughter about her old dog was treated, then they got another dog, and she heard him getting beaten by this man. She listened to this animal crying behind a closed-door whimpering after getting hit by this man. Hate and aggression are taught.

Despite being accused of exposing our children to this trauma by the perpetrator of this domestic violence while we were healing our daughter does not know because if she did, she would not have good feelings about it. I never want her to think anything but pleasant thoughts about her brother when she sees it. She will eventually know, but I don’t think it will change because her brother’s mother has never been a part of her life and will never be. She tried so hard to be “friends” with me, and it was just so odd.

But can we pat ourselves on the back or what? We were so present and conscious about protecting our kids after being pulled into this nightmare by that woman. They were priority number one. They were exposed to domestic violence. Children that experience this do not escape unscathed no matter what. She, my stepdaughter, heard her mother hurt me. My daughter heard me but was very young. It may or may not come up for her, but it will come up for my stepdaughter. Much later in life, it does for everyone. Usually, in your late twenties, you start to face the demons in your past.

It was such a thing to ponder. My daughter’s innocence surrounding these dark feelings we have when we see anything reminds us of the kids’ mother now. If my daughter understood that her brother’s mother almost took her mother away from her, she may not feel warm and fuzzy about that building where they lived.

The good news is we are doing an excellent job of not influencing her about this. She will grow up one day and make up her mind about how she feels about all this. Lucky for them, we are loving, kind people that would not burden a child with such dense information. Although she did school me and said Momma, I was there; I know you were hurt. But she doesn’t connect her brother and sister to it. She thinks I am their mother and they came from me, don’t you love kids?

Today is hard for us as we are trying to build a family unit again. Still, with the current people involved in my husband’s kids’ lives, their partners, there is damage done that no amount of counseling can undo—anyone who speaks to the woman that strangled me ends of hating me. Same goes for close friends of this woman, like Debbie Beacham in La Jolla the first female world surfer. Debbie was at the hospital with us during the birth of my duaghter and never talked to us again after this happened. Anyone who Debbie talks to about us block and hate us. Adult bullying at it’s finest.

It brings back to shaking our heads about it. People actually believe that the emergency responders, police, criminal court judges, prosecutors, family court judges, doctors, court mediation counselors, neurologists, doctors, pediatricians, reunification therapists, and trauma therapists were all wrong. All these people are wrong; we snow jobbed all these people. What did we pay them off? While taking on $100K in debt from all this. Really?

Hopefully, this helps someone out there. Healing from Domestic Violence takes a lifetime and I am not sure you every fully heal to be honest. It’s like a mirror shattered it will never go back together. You have no choice but finding a new normal, a new life. It’s hard but it’s possible.

#really #lies #domesticviolence #generationaltrauma #healing #family #stepfamily #strangulation #tbi #ptsd #cptsd #familymatters #trauma