Sometimes I wish I’d found time/bothered to find a way to upload my diary-x archives.
Here’s the summary though. My grandfather sodomized Lynn over a chair at his house, as well as committed other acts of molestation on it. It was the chair in which he sat, and drank, every night.
In 1992, I/Teresa told my parents about the molestation, at least, in vague general terms. Their response was both the right one – I mean, they did believe her, right away – and a bit odd, because it turned into huge family drama that lasted a few months and then – ended. They confronted my grandfather about the abuse, and he admitted to it and said he had “done much worse,” which they took to mean in his life. Then they more or less cut contact for a while until he was very sick.
When my grandfather died, my parents brought a lot of his remaining furniture up (he’d downsized some in the meantime). Including this particular chair. And after a couple of years they moved it into their home.
At that time I told them that he had sodomized me over that chair. (It had a matching ottoman.)
And that I would not be coming into their home while the chair was there.
It stayed for over a year and a half. During which time I met my parents at restaurants and in malls, and stood on the threshold, but never entered the house. Finally they moved the chair. And, I thought, got rid of it. The ottoman though, did stay in the house. Creepily.
So that’s the backstory.
This morning my mother called out of the blue to talk over her latest house decorating plans. Note that it is getting close to Christmas, season of fucked family stuff. During this conversation my mother dropped that her plans for the living room include getting that chair (and another from the set) recovered and put back in her living room.
Wow. Just wow. And me without my regular therapy appointment.
omg.
that they would bring it into the home at all is absurd but this really takes the cake.
omg.
tell them if they want a chair that bd we’ll host a fundraiser to get them a brand new one, if that one gets to be set on fire.
They just spent in the neighbourhood of $20,000 on renos. It’s not a money issue.
no it’s not a money issue – it’s an attack on you and your family.
it’s an attack on your family because they (she?) are/is using your natural desire to share your family life with them as leverage to see if you’ve changed your mind yet/ will succumb to pressure yet.
There’s a fundamental childish power struggle going on – as to what response you will make I do not know. Thea says to return to not past the threshhold rule. Calypso says to speak directly to the chair whenever it is in your sight no matter who is present in the room – to refer to it constantly as ‘the molestation chair’ or ‘the sodomy chair’ and to say regularly that it is very painful to look at it and be reminded of the past etc.
I’m with Thea, but Calypso’s idea is interesting.
just jo & trouble sends her thank you for comforting words about her job
Oh I’ve just re-read the last bit – so it’s not certain about the chair coming back – your mum might have been fishing to see what you’d say.
I guess you need to tell her clearly AGAIN that nothing has changed and that you will not enter their house if that chair is there. I guess.
god.
calypso
It’s fairly certain it will be back. Those are good ideas! I’m still mulling. I agree with you, or at least that subconsciously some of that is going on – the other pieces being, likely, Xmas related. Sigh.
Wow, there are whole strata of history here that I don’t and can’t understand. Even so, I’m semi-with Calypso above–though I’d go about it differently. If it were me, I’d probably bring a near-future phone or email conversation around to her redecoration plans and say in that calm-but-firm way that sounds so good in rehearsal and so strident when I use it in reality ‘Yeah, not bringing my kid around the sodomy chair. Even apart from when it was there once before and what that meant to me then, I could never really believe in my heart that Noah was safe when such an ugly piece of history was there in the living room.’
Now, mind you, having said that to my mother, she’d then burst into tears and tell me again how she never wanted to have children and it’s time for me to be an adult and a mother without her, but that’s my mum and our ugly dynamics.
Still the point is the same. I can’t see how you would ever feel comfortable with the notion of N. climbing all over that chair, be it never so reupholstered, and if your mum doesn’t get that at least you would have said it clearly and out loud?
so if its not a money issue (tho you could say that your friends are so adament about the chair in support of you that they are willing to finance a chair burning) then its a definate ass issue and you have the trump card. You wont come over and their grandchild won’t come over until it is gone. period end of story. also i’d ask for proof that the chair is gone, sold to a second hand (shown a reciept) or a pic of charred remains.
this is absurd, it is emotional abuse. She knows better and she is still being an ass.
youre strong enough to hold her to what ever limits you set.
out of curiousity wha is her jusification for pulling this?
That is beyond sick. How in the hell could ANYONE be THAT insensitive?????? I agree: Noah is the trump card, and they’ve forced you to play it. I think a serious discussion as to why they appear not to give a good goddamn about your feelings in this, is also in order.
I sincerely hope you don’t develop any guilt about whatever actions you choose to take. Noah deserves an emotionally healthy life, and it doesn’t sound like your family wants to provide that.
I’m with Polly. I’d make a /huge/ stand. If you have to go in the house, I would make them as uncomfortable as the chair makes you. “Oh look! That’s the chair that I was anally raped on! It’s amazing how new fabric makes all the pain go away! Oh wait! It doesn’t!”
Actually, I’d be tempted to say that none of my family is going in the house again until the chair is gone. I might go so far as demand that the chair be given to me. After all–you fucking earned it and should be allowed to smash the thing with an axe.
Wow. Just wow.
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