So. There’s been no calls from my parents or sisters at all for Thanksgiving: no invitations to come down, no calls to say “Happy whatever” — in the past, they’ve usually been the ones to call, since they get free long distance via their cells phones. It’s their house, their meal, they issue the invites. Last year, this year? Silence.
It’s been over a year since they last bothered to call. I think they left a brief message on my answering machine a day or so after my knee surgery in February. That’s been it. Nothing else.
The current cold-shoulder freeze-out bullshit started last year, when #MeToo was going strong, when Dr. Christine Ford had the guts to stand up and call out that POS Kavanaugh for sexually assaulting her. All the shit, all the harassment, all the death threats she got — she stayed calm, she held to her story, she dealt with it. It inspired thousands of others to come out with their stories, to stand up & say “It happened to us, these are our stories, we believe her”.
My father — the Trump supporter — posted a Facebook meme demanding that Ford “apologize” for her actions.
He. Demanded. That. An. Assault. Victim. APOLOGIZE TO HER ASSAILANT.
Yeah. I didn’t let that sit. I unloaded at that point. I told Dad point-blunt that I’d been sexually assaulted, too — by my first boyfriend, a guy that Dad had liked, because the asshat had enlisted in the Armed Forces (Navy). The son of a bitch tried to rape me. If it hadn’t been for his parents being upstairs, for his mom calling his name for something — it would’ve been rape. As it was, I followed him upstairs, I faked being sick in front of his parents, I asked to be taken home, and the bastard had the balls to joke about my being “frigid” as he started the car.
I said nothing. I was raised in a conservative, sheltered, strict Catholic family. I’d heard the BS that Dad had spewed about a couple other situations in my high school class. If I’d said anything at the time, I knew I wouldn’t be believed. There had been no actual “rape”, no solid evidence, only the SOB’s word vs. mine.
This was back in the mid-1980s. Attempting to report or file charges against any rape or sexual assault was a fuckin’ joke. You weren’t believed; your entire sexual history & every last aspect of your behaviour & dress & actions would be dragged before the court & mocked & belittled & used to prove you were “asking for it”.
So seeing that fuckery on Dad’s FB? Hell fuckin’ YES, I unloaded. I told Dad every last bit of what happened. I asked him if he expected ME to apologize to that SOB for assaulting me & how DARE Dad demand any assault victim apologize to her attacker.
I asked him if that’s what he would say if his granddaughters were raped & tried to press charges against their attackers.
Silence. No response. And that silence has now lasted over a year. I’ve been cut-off & cold-shouldered. No thanks for the baked goods I sent last year. Nothing.
Fuck them & the horses they rode in on. I’m done. I’m so fuckin’ done.
Across The Shadows 