Lauren the Ross Dresser ,The Seriously Screwed Up Idaho Trip and getting drugged by family…(Might as well visit the Bobbit’s;p)

I left my old home state years ago and moved to another more diverse place. (Thank God, REALLY.). I have to admit, I was glad to live so many states away from my family. There was always some drama going on in my family that someone just HAD to inform me about to get my blood boiling, and I had told myself I had moved beyond that. To say that I was relieved to be living so far away is an understatement.  

But years later my sister who is the "fixer" in the family invited all of the sisters to her home. I lived a LONG ways away. But, I bought a plane ticket, feeling VERY apprehensive (I should have followed my gut that was SCREAMING "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING??? YOU REALLY WANT TO PUT YOURSELF THROUGH THIS AGAIN???")  but...I went.

I met Ava at the airport and went to her house. I was talking to her but felt my old self bubbling to the surface. That scared me to death. To my old self, talking to my family felt like sticking a finger into a light socket hoping not to get electrocuted.

Here I go...AGAIN!  Jumping into the shark tank!

A day or 2 into the trip I asked Lauren if we could go to Ross

I had wanted to go to Ross, and since I was stuck without a car (Another GLARING mistake on my part) she brought me. Talking a mile a minute and walking even faster she actually came into the dressing room to DRESS me. I was Laurens personal little DOLL. She would put my clothes on over my head, then actually take them off, like I couldn't do it myself, or wasn’t capable of doing it fast enough for HER. SO bossy.

I decided then and there she was never taking me shopping again.

(On a funny side note...she’s taken my daughter and bought her all kinds of stuff, including a beautiful dress. When I asked my daughter if she tried to dress her she said no, so I guess she’s graduated to outside the door:P) lol

The more I talked to to my sisters, the more apprehensive I became. I would tentatively stick my foot in the water, (How cold was THAT water?)  Saying something very quietly, starting a sentence but never being able to finish it because they both would start talking. They would run me over like a train whenever I started. They talked and talked in the front seat, and as usual, I was the invisible man. (ER…woman)

Their kids were a whole different story. I had a really good time with them. They were the only thing that made the trip feel like it wasn’t a total loss. I had a feeling I came out as the cool aunt, (One of them actually said that to me) but I kept getting strange looks from my sisters whos only acknowledgement of me was one of disgust.

The first night as I got ready for bed my sisters were dancing around to some song or something, at least I remember some such thing. I was in my pajamas and with typical Heidi zeal decided to throw myself into the malay with total abandon, ripping my pants:p .

With any of my good friends, we would have been hysterical by then…after all, I was the life of their (party:p

I bent over and did a little curtsy, showing off the new hole, and all I got was blank stares.

I was completely out of my element. Shot down.  Butt naked. lol…Ok, not really BUT I may as well have been with the looks I got.

And it brought me back to a memory. All of us in the back yard, my sisters in a dog pile , one right on top of the other.  I stood off a ways, trying to get the guts up to join in, but the minute I jumped on, they all walked away in disgust.

WHY oh WHY did I ever go?

That old familiar feeling in the pit of my stomach was back. The one where it felt like there was a giant, LONELY hole there any time I was around my old family. I had a NEW family and I wanted to go home to my husband where I didn’t HAVE to prove anything, where he could give me a hug and tell me everything was ok. The place where I KNEW that I REALLY had a family.

But for at least a few days, I was STUCK there.

I just wanted to just curl up in a ball and disappear.

The next day, we were talking (All of us were together) and one of my sisters sons asked me “Why did you break Aunt Laurens finger?”  I was shocked when he said that, in front of everyone.

WHY would he do that? We hadn’t been talking about it or anything else like that. I had talked to him a lot, had a good time with him (Even teased him the way Aunts do) and his cousins and the only thing that I could deduce about that is that, we had a good time together, if I was such a cool Aunt it made no sense that I would do something like that so he brought it up. I started to tell him what happened (Lauren had her hands around my throat at the time and I had to PRY her hands from around my throat. If her finger really was broken it wouldn’t have happened if she didn’t have her hands around my throat!)  I tried to respond to that question and Ava (His mother) shut me down and wouldn’t let me answer his question.

After that it only got worse.

I was staying in her home and had no way of going anywhere else.  I went for a walk  around her neighborhood hoping I wouldn’t get lost but trying to think of ways I could find a way to get to the plane that would bring me home and just STAY in the airport until it was time, but there was no way to get there.

Late that night, ( I waited till everyone was asleep. I hoped he was still awake, and he was) I went into her son’s room and told him the truth. I thought he deserved at least that much.  I didn’t know how much they had poisoned him against me over the years, I hadn’t been visiting. And after this, I promised myself I would NEVER go there again.

 The next day I was to go home. I can’t even say how excited I was to get out of that place. I went about my business that day and later Ava offered me something to drink in a tea cup.

Suddenly I was very, VERY tired. I couldn’t even keep my eyes open I was so tired. I went to lay down, and almost MISSED MY PLANE!  Ava had to wake me up and drag me, sleepy eyed and drowsy, to the airport I barely made the plane but thankfully, gratefully, I was on my way home.

The more I thought about it, the more furious I was. I was not a wallflower. I was not to be stepped on.  I would NEVER be swept under the rug again and I was going to speak up! Burning bridges? Damn the consequences… I was going to bomb one.

I wrote a LONG scathing letter. (My husband had some things to say too- And he helped to temper the message) I laid it out point blank. I let her know I would not contact her and that any contact we had was OVER. As far as I was concerned, a new chapter had begun in my life and they (The entire family) were not a part of it.

Then the emails began. Over the YEARS, many, MANY  emails from Ava.  So many times I wanted to just block her, but I didn’t. The emails came, many sounding phony and not from the heart to me, many times I just rolled my eyes, deleted them and went on with my life. Then an email or two started to sound more sincere and I didn’t delete them. Many emails later I emailed her.

Then she came to visit, and ended up calling my home her sactuary. Well, that was good.

When things were hard sometimes she would call me, and we would talk for a long, long time. But there were times that I would be interrupted and started to feel that old bubble from hell  come up from the pitt of my stomach again. That “What you’re saying isn’t important enough for me to hear you “ feeling. I shrugged it off again and again until I finally told her about it. I think she tries hard now to listen a little more.

One day she called me just literally sobbing. What in the  hell?? What was wrong now?

I’m trying to remember the way she put this, I was so shocked when she told me.

“I drugged you”.

“You What”?

“I drugged you”.

I started laughing. I didn’t know what else to do. It was so absurd.

My own sister, doing that.

(There was a story I was told a while back about my mother doing something like that to her, interesting parallel, I thought.)

Then she hastened to tell me that when she had given me that herb tea that it had actually been something that was meant to calm a person down because she thought I needed it. My thought was, “What gives YOU the right, a person who really doesn’t know me, to give me something like that, especially when I think I’m just fine the way I am and don’t need any kind of drug” ( I avoid drugs like the plague. ) She said it was herbal, but I have read up on herbs and they can be just as lethal and just as dangerous as any drug.) All I remember is I was absolutely out like a light, stone cold out. And it was lucky that she could wake me up so I didn’t miss the plane.

After she told me, my thought was , when people dehumanize someone over the years, you stop looking at them as a person, you start looking at them as a thing you can do anything to, even without their consent. (And I think of Hitler, and the Jews,or the people at Abu grey where we tortured people on a strange parallel)

One of my sister’s friends said to not tell me, but I am glad she did. In my OLD family it was more important to look good than be honest.

She could have left the lie, but to her credit, she didn’t. I haven’t seen that kind of honesty and true remorse from ANYONE in my family.
I love her for that.

I’ll tell you one thing though. I am NEVER going back to Idaho. :p