So… I’ve not been sure what to write about, everything has been insane lately.

Remember how I said last year was rough? Well this year is already looking to be a close second, though, at least currently, I’m not jobless and my car is working, so two things are off the list. I hope it stays that way.

However, family drama is never far away.

My dad’s mother passed away in February, and my mom’s mother, who we live with, has steadily worsening dementia, and we just found out, her diabetes has gotten worse to the point where she now will need insulin (it was type II, before, so we thought diet would keep it under control, but it’s not working.)

Also in February or early March, my mom’s felon brother, who has been out of prison for about 6 years, but still in Texas, called up my sister and asked to speak to our grandma.

She told him, so he says, that we weren’t letting her drive (she’d just lost her license) and wouldn’t show her the letter from the DMV (we’d showed her multiple times and she said she couldn’t understand it), and weren’t taking her to medical appointments (actually Mom had just refused to take her to the doctor to ask about the DMV notice, since we’d already been to the doctor for her check up.)

So he gets on the phone with my mom, (who he once knocked unconscious as a young adult, and did many other horrible things to her before that), and begins cussing her out, calling her names I can’t write and threatening to come and evict us from the house, that he does not own, if we don’t give him proof we’ve been taking care of our grandma. Namely the DMV notice about her losing her licence.

I did some digging today, and found out both him threatening to evict us and demanding that confidential document, (which is considered confidential by our state because it involves mental and physical health), are illegal activities.

Especially since our grandma does not want us to move out, despite what he claims. We’ve asked her and she says it’s fine for us to live here–and we’re now taking care of her 24/7 bent the four of us. Making sure she takes her meds, gets to the doctor, gets exercise (when we can), gets food since she wont eat anything but snacks if we don’t cook for her and persuade her to eat, and also making sure she gets to visit our aunt, her only other family in our state.

Oh, and we’re helping pay for her bills. And now her car, that she can’t even legally drive anymore.

And my mom is doing all her finances, since she can’t remember how to do it herself now.

My uncle accused us of neglecting her. Him, the deadbeat son who pity pleaded our grandma into giving him her trailer and truck, for free. And has always mooched off her. Also who has hit her in the past, which I only found out in the last month.

Yes, sure he’s so worried about her safety.

Our aunt, who he’s also been violent too, says she feels sorry since our grandma is his last person who actually cared about him–but even our grandma doesn’t want him to visit, since she thinks he’s better off in Texas, and honestly, he stresses her out, and now that she has dementia, any stress really shuts her down.

Now, that, and he’s a convicted felon for…get this, pedophilia, and for assaulting someone who tried to stop him from dating their under-aged daughter…not the first time he was violent with people outside the family too.

Somehow, he avoided jail time in our state for many offenses, but leave it to Texas to finally call someone out on their bull crap. He was in prison for decades, and it was totally deserved.

That being said, you’d think that my mom filing a restraining order on him would be seen as way overdue by our judges.

Nope.

A judge today, somehow, looked at this convicted felon/abuser/pedophile, and then looked my mom in the face and told her she thought we were “biased against him” and that him cussing not only my mom, but also me and my sister out, over the phone–which she had a recording of that she played in court– was just showing his “humanity” because he cared about my grandmother.

And yes my mom submitted statements that he’d abused my grandmother in the past.

. . .

The judge threw out the recording of the threats as evidence because she told me since I didn’t ask for his consent to record him, it was illegal.

We live in one of the three states where that’s illegal, which I didn’t realize. Almost any other state, we could have nailed him with that.

And even in our stupid state, it’s not always illegal. I looked it up. There is an exception clause, which is if there was extortion, threats, or violence, the court can rule it was justifiable. Especially if the person knew there were other people watching or listening, which, as I told him we were there, he did know.

Since he was trying to extort confidential documents from us, by threat to come and throw us out of the house, that I repeat, he does not own, yes, he was extorting us.

So, had the court chosen to use the exception clause, I was totally valid in recording him. But the problem is, it’s a matter of interpretation of the court for that clause, so while they can choose to recognize it, they don’t have to.

My mom had already submitted a transcript for the conversation, so I don’t even know why the judge used the recording, since we were told it couldn’t be submitted.

I don’t know how after hearing it though, and reading the transcript, where he clearly extorted us, and hearing my answer that I recorded him because I thought he was threatening us– she could conclude that I was the one violating the law.

Then my uncle accused me of snatching the phone away from my grandma (which didn’t happen, I asked for it and she gave it to me) and the judge looked at me and said “because that’s elder abuse.”

I wanted to scream at her.

I told her, rightly, that I didn’t remember snatching the phone away, only him asking to speak to my mom and me giving it to her.

My sister confirmed that I didn’t do it.

And, I thought…with his history of using my grandma, how is taking the phone possibly more elder abuse than his actions anyway? Even if I had done it, which I didn’t.

But she didn’t ask me to explain what happened.

Instead, she asked me if I drove my Grandma’s car, which we’re making payments on.

And yes, she knew my grandma cant’t drive it anymore.

I said I had never driven it, which I never have. Neither me nor my sister have, only my mom used it a few times to take my Grandma to appointments, which is a service to her since she has a hard time driving.

We all have our own cars we use for our needs, but the judge never asked us that question.

She asked if I pay rent, I don’t.

My grandma doesn’t pay for their house either, she has a reverse mortgage because of other family members who left her in debt thanks to not telling her their medical expenses. We’re the only ones who’ve ever lived with her (other than my aunt maybe), who’ve cleaned, cooked, and helped her pay for stuff. We don’t even pay rent, but we pay for other stuff and earn our keep. We cleaned her house, maintained her yard, and took care of her dog before it had to get put down.

We do everything for her now.

Even if we were using her car for ourselves, which we aren’t, it might be considered fair trade for doing all the other things we do.

Does the judge ask this? No.

My uncle had accused us of elder abuse, and clearly, she was looking for ways to make him right. She didn’t ask for more details about how we take care of our grandma, though my mom submitted proof that we do take her to appointments.

Nothing.

She then dismissed the case, and denied us our restraining order.

Also she wanted my uncle to record any future conversations with us to “protect himself.”

Yes… she told the felon to protect himself from the 3 law abiding citizens. Two of us haven’t even had a parking ticket, let alone any misdemeanor.

And we’re all women, and he’s a violent, older man with a criminal record of using guns on innocent people.

Who currently is off parole, meaning he can drive out here, and bring a gun.

But hey, why bother with those little minor details? She wasn’t even willing to look at that part of the story, my mom said.

I’m…amazed as this jduge.

Even if she threw out the case as not having enough evidence, which for a domestic abuse charge, was possible, she could have warned my uncle to avoid any future misdemeanors because of his actions. She could have made it less obvious she didn’t believe us… she could have, I don’t know, at least asked if he’d sign a non-official agreement to give us space, which she did with a different case about a restraining order that day.

She did none of that.

She basically gave him a free pass to keep calling my grandma, who won’t even take his calls, and that’s not because of us. She wasn’t doing it before this whole debacle happened. She only even talked to him at all be my sister put her on.

And this is how he thanked us. By cussing us all out and threatening to evict us.

I repeat, it’s illegal to threaten that and use it to extort information out of people, when you don’t own the house they live in. Even if my grandma wanted us out, the local sheriff would be responsible, not my uncle.

The stupidity of this judge is something else.

And the worst of it is, if he does come out here, it will be her fault.

Of course, we’ll press charges if he does anything, but if he hurt one of us before that, I would find that a tough thing to forgive our court system for.

And I’m sure you, the reader, will think we have more than enough reason to be worried about it based on his history. But somehow, the judge, who hears this crap every day, doesn’t think so.

Only in a blue state, am I right?

Some silver lining, I suppose, is that this is the first time anyone in my family ever went this far to stop my uncle. He’s never faced any consequences for anything. My grandma basically even covered for him in the past.

She doesn’t approve of his behavior, but she doesn’t punish it.

Now he knows that we will document and report his behavior, so even if he technically got away with it this time, he shouldn’t risk pissing us off again. Next time, we’ll be more ready for it.

Also, I highly doubt even a judge in this state would let him go after a second offense, if there was already a restraining order request on file.

It’s still idiotic he was let off the hook this time at all, given all the reasons to rule in our favor, but it does make a statement to him.

While he’s no doubt not going to stop trying to harass us in some way, he probably will be more careful.

And I doubt he’ll show up here in person. If he does, he’ll have to behave.

We do have a cop who lives next door, and security cameras, now, so if he does anything to us, people will know. We’ve told the cop about our situation, and our other neighbors, so if they hear screaming or yelling or anything, they will know the reason for it. My family is pretty quiet, so that would be very weird for us and would be bound to draw attention.

We do have a case number with the police as well, in case he repeats this behavior.

Even with that, we don’t feel perfectly safe, but if he does anything to us, he will go either back to jail, or at least, back into being no-contact.

Still, I really wanted him to get officially punished, because I told him on the phone, that I didn’t like how he talked to my mother, and he cursed me out for that and then her again.

And seeing the near breakdown both my mom and my sister had after that conversation was enough to piss me off.

I’m not normally the type to retaliate against people, but when you mess with my family’s safety, you get my wrath.

I’ve learned to be tough because of crap like this.

My uncle is worse than my dad, my dad at least kept his distance after a while without us having to resort to the legal system. And my dad only ever threatened to hurt me badly, he never actually hurt me that bad. He didn’t threaten mu mom at least, though he did yell at her.

He could have been worse, I now see…but that doesn’t make his behavior okay. Less bad is still bad.

He’s been civil to us though, for a while now, and we occasionally still talk, though it’s only for emergencies now.

My uncle is another story. He’s always been a bully.

His father was one too, but that is no excuse. I don’t bully people, though I was treated the way I was by my dad.

And even if my uncle could claim he has issues because of his dad, that in no way means he can’t control himself about cursing out woman and hitting them till they get knocked unconscious. There’s a clear line between anger issues, and domestic violence.

I don’t justify having anger issues anyway. I had anger problems too, but I worked through them to become self controlled. It wasn’t easy at first since I grew up with an angry, out of control person, but I kept trying and with a lot of prayer, and some good advice, I got myself in check.

So it’s not like you can’t choose to be better than your parents.

My uncle is just a bad person, and always has been. He uses everyone around him, but he can play the sad, lonely son when he needs to, which he did, for the court.

I find it unbelievable that the judges, who see abuse all the time, can fall for this garbage, but I know it works a lot more times than it should.

I know judges aren’t always fair, but it seemed so clear cut in this case, we thought no one could miss it.

We could appeal, but appeals rarely ever work in cases like this. We’d need more evidence.

We’re hoping now that we won’t need it. It may be, now that he knows we’ll do it, he won’t risk it. Depends on how rational he is now. No one who knows him is very sure of it, which doesn’t fill me with confidence.

But I would like to think, even if he’s stupid, he won’t want to go back to jail when he’s already in his 60s.

Maybe that’s why the judge feels sorry for him, because he’s too old, and she thinks he’s not a threat… but anyone with a weapon could still be a threat.

My sisters and I are pretty smart about not putting ourselves in dangerous situations, but we can’t always be around and we’re not strong enough to fight him off. Even if he didn’t have a weapon. My dad was older too when he hit me, but I could still tell he was more than strong enough to kill me if he wanted to.

You know, not to be that woman, but I wonder if men really realize what it’s like to be a woman and know that every man you know, almost, could kill you easily if he wanted to.

Men, they have range, you know. They might meet maybe 50% or more of other men who could kill them with their bare hands, number might be higher to lower depending on the man’s fighting skills and size and strength.

Women, we have chances of overcoming less than 1% of men. They’d have to be disabled, unusually weak, or we’d have to be much taller and stronger than the average woman.

My sister is pretty tall and strong for a woman, she might be able to beat a shrimpy guy, but any normal sized guy, she’d still be too weak.

I’m glad not all men want to hurt women, but I think more men should understand that we can never be sure of that until we know the guy well.

Even then, my dad would act normal to other people, and only show that violent, scary side to us, to people who could escape him. My uncle was similar, though sometimes that side came out even around outsiders, as I said.

That’s the scary part. You don’t know a man till he’s had you at his mercy.

I’d urge other women to pay attention to how men act when they have you at their mercy or in their debt in any way, even if it’s not physical danger.

Not every man will beat you up, of course…but every man who bullies you in one area, will in another, in my experience.

If a man never bullies you, then you can be pretty sure he’s safe.

It’s all about power. Even verbal manipulation is a form of power, so it’s a turn off to me when men do that, even if I think they wouldn’t take it to the next level–because, then how can you know? It started off verbal with my dad, and then it got worse…because if you don’t stop it early, they will push your limits till they cross over a line.

Then they always act surprised when you snap. He always did.

He even told my aunt he thought we’d always let him get away with that stuff, before we kicked him out.

I come off, I’m told, as intimidating. As harsh, sometimes. As combative (not always that one, but sometimes.)

I look at my life, and I want to ask people… what do you expect?

I am not a mean person. I’m actually usually very considerate, and polite, and I try to be kind and generous also.

Yet, people don’t like to get close to me. One woman said I give the impression that I let people get away with stuff to a certain point, but then I don’t. Which is accurate.

No guy around us ever messes with me, or my sisters.

And I know it’s because of me, because sometimes people say things to that effect. They just know, you don’t mess with Natasha’s family.

I get messed with, I get mistreated by people, because I take it more for myself then I do for my family…but no one messes with them, usually.

I think I go too far, honestly, defending them.

But no one defended me when I was being pushed around, abused, and neglected, by my family.

Or picked on by other people, over and over again, because I didn’t know how to stop it.

I was always a fighter, but I didn’t have the tools to fight back enough to get it to end.

I felt like today, maybe I should have been more prepared.

But once I looked up the law on it, I realized the judge really was in the wrong. Sure, some of it was up to her discretion… but she had plenty of reason to use that exception clause, she chose not to, and to suspect us, the people who documented everything, of elder abuse.

And my uncle, who couldn’t bother to follow through on calling his mom in as a witness, she chose to believe was the one telling the truth.

Unbelievable.

She even admitted that maybe, she could accept the stories my mom told about this happened, but…it wasn’t enough.

See, you have to wonder.

It’s not like we’re trying to send him to jail. I might understand hesitating to send someone to jail without enough hard evidence.

But just to keep him from harassing us further? And his mother, who is not able to even appear at court since she can’t understand the proceedings of it anymore? Like… he already lives in another state, is it really going that far to stop him from visiting us?

It’s not like she’s ruining his life, here, if she takes our side.

That’s what boggles my mind. There’s nothing to lose on his part, except the right to talk to his mother, who doesn’t want to talk to him and doesn’t take his calls, so nothing changes for him.

It’s just him being mad that he’s being told no. It’s not about real change happening.

And though we told our grandma what happened, and added his number to her contacts, he’d already changed his number since the last time he called her, so who knows how long that will last?

He’ll probably blame us for her not answering, but we never stopped her from doing it. Until he threatened us, we never took any steps to stop him at all, other than to stop him from moving in with us while my sister was still a minor and he was a convicted pedophile… which I think was kind of well within my mom’s rights to be worried about.

The judge seems to think we’re taking advantage of our grandma by taking care of her. My grandma can’t afford in-home care, we’re her best option right now.

We hope maybe to get some kind of care for her if she gets any worse, since it might be beyond our abilities, but even then we’d have to do it for her, she wouldn’t do it herself.

In fact, she’d be dead if we didn’t live here, because we help her eat right and she would have died from blood sugar problems by now if we hadn’t taken the steps we did last year to start controlling her diet and medication more.

My uncle, if he came here and kicked us out, like he threatened, would not take care of her. He’s never taken care of anyone. She’d die for sure.

If the judge were to approve of that, she’d be responsible for that death.

Luckily, that’s very unlikely to happen. That’s a different court hearing, and I doubt he’d win that tone. We’re planning to document stuff more so he won’t have the slightest chance of it, but, we shouldn’t even have to do that. The whole thing was so stupid.

I wish we could do something else, but we can’t, right now anyway. Can’t even afford a lawyer.

Or finances are very tight, we’re still paying off car repairs, and other debt. Most of which we only went into because we had no choice. We live simply, and even then, expenses pop up that we can’t predict, like new health concerns for our grandma, or new car repairs. Also my dad just ended up in the hospital after falling off a ladder, meaning he can’t send my mom his support checks for a few months at least.

So…great.

Seems like whenever we plan to try to get ahead, something else happens.

We’re still praying and hoping for a way forward. At least, we’re not down yet, even if we’ve taken a lot of hits.

Well, that’s it for now. Stay honest–Natasha