The times, they are a-changin’.

It’s been a minute. What’s new and exciting? This was the question I asked my kids when they came home from school, back when they were small. It’s the question I ask my grandson now. I rarely ask it of myself, as I’m well aware of the changes as they happen.

We’ve had all kinds of change here on my version of Walton Mountain this past summer. My daughter and two grandchildren moving into my house has been the biggest one. This is a big change for all of us, in fact.

I realize how quiet my life has been, even with the addition of the dog. The level of ambient noise has increased significantly. It’s also much easier to keep a clean and tidy house when almost no one lives here. I retire all my smug over the easy organization.

It’s a bit chaotic here these days with me moving many of my things to make space – I sprawled – and much packing and setting up left to do. It’s not been the priority. My daughter has been busy with forms and affidavits for social services and the police, busy working on obtaining a Protection Order and criminal charges.

She has been successful on both counts.

Kids like to undersell things to their parents. “I didn’t want to worry anyone,” is a mantra I well remember. People in abusive relationships are conditioned not to talk about Bruno as well. They can even come to feel “equally” guilty if pushed to defend themselves, or if they start acting out in response to abuse.

There are a plethora of articles about this kind of behaviour by victims – ‘reactive abuse’ is the terminology, though I don’t love the naming. A better term is ‘reactive defense.’

“Reactive abuse is a victim’s way of self-defense against the overwhelming injustice their abuser is doing to them. Their defensive reaction does not put the victim on an equal par with the abuser or transform them from victim to abuser.”

It was bad.

The social worker we contacted after my daughter ended the relationship and moved her family back home with me described the situation she was in as “dynamite.” Highly volatile and likely to escalate to further violence.

This is not my story to tell, so I will be circumspect with what I share, but I will tell you this: studies show that when intimate partner violence escalates to strangulation, the risk of death becomes high.

My daughter had described to me some of the behaviours she’d been experiencing, but she limited herself to areas of mental abuse. She didn’t share much about the physical abuse, and she underplayed the degree and scale. This is common for victims in abusive relationships. I was horrified by what I was hearing. I wish I’d known to push for more.

I wish I’d pushed harder for her to sever all ties back in the spring when she began to confide.

I didn’t push hard; I waited for her to be, as she put it, “ready” because I didn’t want to upset her or rock the boat. I didn’t push until my grandson came to me last month. I have all the regret.

Stop blaming mental illness.

When there’s a mass shooting in the USA, the people there who oppose gun legislation are quick to suggest mental illness as a cause. Violence isn’t evidence of mental illness. That’s a hard thing for people to believe. In fact, studies show that people with mental illness are most likely to be the victims of violence, not the perpetrators.

People have this same belief about domestic abusers and intimate partner violence – that those who act in this way must be mentally ill in some fashion to behave as they do. Once again, for those in the back, horrible behaviour isn’t, in and of itself, evidence of mental illness.

I’ve lived with mental illness for much of my life, and I’ve not committed violent crimes – though occasionally, menopause rage looks to change that.

We don’t like to face that truth, that sometimes, other people are just awful. Not mentally ill, just horrid.

Finding stability

My daughter’s recovery from this will take years. The immediate concern is paperwork and bureaucracy, which is a big component of even this. More court applications are pending, and additional work with social workers is forthcoming. Applications for financial assistance for counselling via Crime Victim Services also need to be completed.

There’s also the normal bureaucracy associated with moving – forwarding the mail, updating the driver’s license, and changing the address and contact information everywhere. I help where I can, but independent to a fault is a family flaw. There’s also value in accomplishing some of these things alone. Abuse steals from you your sense of self and independence – getting things done helps bring it back.

I will be navigating her journey as well as the changes to my life. There has been much chaos in my life and environment for the past month, challenging for someone who thrives on routine. These changes are permanent for the foreseable future, and that will take some mental adjustment on my part as well.

One can’t have one’s things “just so” when children are involved. I don’t believe in keeping the house pristine and off-limits to the short people who live here. That’s why god invented gates. I don’t enjoy closed doors very much, so gates it will be. Doors make me anxious. I don’t even have them hanging on the bedroom closets.

Unfortunately, baby gates are annoying to use. They seem to require too much in the way of finesse and patience, and those aren’t qualities I possess in abundance. I refuse to accept that it’s a “me” problem – I’m an adult, I should be able to work a gate.

Post-script.

Things started to get chaotic back in June. This has been the summer of change, and the summer of change didn’t see a lot in the way of new books and movies. It didn’t even see much in the way of rereads and rewatches. My available time is less when there are grandkids in play. My available time is less when my kids are in trauma.

Reading definitely took a hit. It’s more work than watching, and my brain’s been tired.

The “new to me” I consumed was a mixed bag. The big stand-out was Marvel’s Thunderbolts*. I’m all-in on recommending that movie to everyone, and that hasn’t happened in a while. I’m usually selective with my recommendations – I never recommend horror to my dad, for instance – but this film’s a Frank’s Red Hot – good for everyone (assuming they meet the age requirement, of course.)

Summer 2025 – July and August – Movies I Watched, Books I Read

(header image: University of Rochester)

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