Why do monsters exist? More often than not, they come from broken homes themselves. Guess its one of those nature versus nurture things, only I think it’s a little of both.

Alicia is a sensitive soul. Just like mother and I. She gave me a glimpse into what my future would look like if I ever decided to get married and have children. When I saw how miserable she was, I vowed to never marry, much less have children. Alicia suffers from Anxiety, although she won’t admit it. It’s a family thing, we deny those things exist. I am the first, and only member of our family to seek help and I’m looked down on because I take medication for it. I have no idea how these people have survived that long without it. Aunt Alicia clearly suffers from social anxiety. I recognize dissociation when I see it.

Abusers always know how to get to the weak ones, and that’s how she ended up with Joe. Joe would get angry over the smallest things. Everytime he started yelling at her, I’d take the kids into another room and turn on the TV so that they wouldn’t hear it. I’d been here before and I knew how much that affected me, so I wanted to keep them from it as much as I could.

Grandma would visit to help Alicia with house duties while she worked. Like grandpa, she was a huge believer in marriage. So she didn’t really say much when they fought. Except on one occasion.

Joe had come home from work drunk and was already in a bad mood. Alicia asked if he’d driven home, and that’s all it took. He grabbed her by the neck and slammed her into the ground. We were all there, including grandma. It came out of nowhere. I didn’t get a chance to take the kids out of the room. Grandma was aware of the arguments but this was new to her. She pushed him off of her and said, “you can’t do that. I know this is your house but I’m not allowing this shit. You need to leave.” And so he did.

Alicia got up, adjusted her clothes, wiped her tears and went into the kitchen to fix us all a plate of food, as if that never happened. Her and grandma went into another room, and I heard Alicia tell grandma she was gonna ask for a divorce. Grandma didn’t agree with the violence but also didn’t believe in divorce so she made Alicia feel like it was her duty to stay. And so she did.