Something's Wrong With Amy

When I was married to my first husband, I had to deal with a level of crazy from his parents that I wasn't quite prepared for. Not fun crazy; scary crazy. The kind that doesn't know they're totally nuts. Worse, the kind that think they're completely normal, and everyone else is less smart, less successful, and less sane. The crazy in denial.

As it happens, that level of insanity was just a warm up, a jog in the park, compared to the full out sprinting marathon of absolute lunacy that I have experienced over the last two years, and the last week in particular. 

The unfortunate thing is that I KNEW it. That saying, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me" completely applies here. Something happened years ago that caused me to say, "What in the world? No really, what in the world??" But time marches on, and you convince yourself that maybe you were wrong, maybe you overreacted or misunderstood. 

I wasn't, and I didn't, and I didn't. 

Perhaps it's because deep down, I want to believe that people I've known half my life really can't be the way they seem. They really can't be the way they act. They really can't be what they really are.

I suppose that's a part of me that's crazy in denial. 

Then it begins, the signs that you were right all along. It starts before your second wedding:

"How dare you have a gay man speak at your wedding? I remember when you were a good Christian."

"How dare you be pro choice? I can't believe we were ever friends."

"How dare you voice your opinions on my facebook page, and how dare you back the opinions with facts? Fake news."

And the straw that ripped the blinders off:

"How dare you tell my children you disagree with me?" (These are midteen children, fyi)

It was here I finally spoke up: 

"When your children told me they have to dress modestly to 'avoid tempting men to rape and assault them,' I told your children that I disagree, and while modesty is important, the way they dress is NOT an invitation for someone to rape and assault them. I had no idea that crossed a parenting line."  

"Well, it does. How dare you manipulate my children that way?"

How dare I...manipulate...children...by telling them that I disagree with the rhetoric that certain clothing choices are an invitation to assault?

That explosion you may have heard is my brain breaking at the level of ignorance and disrespect I had to process. That's not even the worst of it, really, but what is the point of hashing it all out?

So I shut it all down. Don't worry about me crossing parenting lines again. I intend to stay as far away as humanly possible. Unfriend. Delete. Block. Shame on me for being fooled twice. 

Yet they insist, "I love you."

If those are not the three creepiest words to come out of the mouth of someone who has done nothing but manipulate and belittle, I don't know what else would be. 

You love me? You question my integrity, you question my faith, you question my character, and you accuse me of manipulation...but yeah, you love me? 

Don't use words you can't possibly understand, dear. 

It irks my sense of justice that my only recourse is silence. You cannot reason with someone like this. They are unapologetic; willfully ignorant; dangerously degenerate. 

Trump really is a stable genius by comparison, if that gives you a better picture of the depth of my feelings. 

Silence. Prayers, too. God save the children.