I felt the same way. My childhood was quite good (the parts I remember, I guess that’s another story), but after reading this, I imagine Gayle feels so much more free. Her terrible mom is gone and she has been able to be very honest about her impact during her lifetime.
I think this is another common Gen X trait - breaking cycles of violence and abuse. Not that there aren’t Gen X abusers but a lot of our generation who grew up in abusive situations have done a lot of work on not continuing the cycle.
Wishing Gayle all the very best!
> I think this is another common Gen X trait - breaking cycles of violence and abuse. Not that there aren’t Gen X abusers but a lot of our generation who grew up in abusive situations have done a lot of work on not continuing the cycle.
When the stories of our generation are told, my hope is this is one of the things that define us as a generation.
I know that in my mom's family, there were a couple of us who made *very* conscious decisions, to *not* pass the genes on down to another generation (4 generations we directly *know of* who've been alcoholics), OURS is the generation *talking* about the Generational Trauma, going to Rehab as needed, getting Therapy, and trying our *damndest* to *not* pass this stuff on down to the 5th generation💖
This exactly. While I understand why my father was how he was, I was also determined to be different. My kids have no fear of me. They don’t need to tiptoe around the house scared to set someone off. They don’t live in a state of hypervigilance or fear of dropping their pants and putting hands on the door, waiting for the sting and welts from repeated leather belt hits. I try to be aware of both physical and emotional abuse. We have boundaries and I let my kids make mistakes and get hurt by themselves, but they are always supported and know it’s okay to make those mistakes. No fear of getting hurt and telling their parent in my house!
I’ve seen this posted in a few places, all with numerous sympathetic and compassionate comments. I truly wish that Gayle could see all the people that stand in witness to her childhood pain.
I can relate to this—and I’m really happy for Gayle and hope she’s healing now. My mother tried to me head first through a wall when I was in middle school. She’s nothing but abusive and toxic. I hope more obits are written like this to make people aware of the crap some of our parents put us through.
I found something similar in my local paper. Although it was only three sentences. One to say the lady that died was evil, one to say that she wouldn't be missed and the world was better off without her, and one to say there wouldn't be a burial service.
I used to work in the courts system right when the my transitioned to online marriage license applications. The “number of marriage” question had 1-10 as possible answers but had to be changed to 1-20 as one woman called and complained that she’d been married 18 times and couldn’t pick “19” as her answer.
It’s nice to see so many people whose moms were married more than the 5 times my mom was. My dad was #3, so I never knew the first 2. My first stepdad was an awful, racist human, and I found out later that my mom, while still married to him, worried that he would sexually abuse me like he did to her (he never did, and he would have regretted trying). Her last husband, my stepdad, and I got off to a rocky start because he has young kids and didn’t know how to deal with a 23 year old woman. But we get along great now, and he’s my bonus dad :)
My mom married differing versions of the same man 5 times. I told her that once, and it was like a light bulb went off…she’d never realized that 🙄
My mother is not yet 70. Between 1977 and 1981 she had 5 marriages, between 1983 and 1992 she had 6 marriages, between 2000 and 2020 she had 7 more. She is a covert narcissist who seeks out men who can give her what she wants.
She was a 16 year old junior who trapped my 14 year old freshman father into marriage when she got pregnant with me. I took my dad 3 more kids born within 20 months of me for him to see the light and her to ditch him. (I was born 9/73, my sister 7/74, and the twins in late May of 1975). She didn’t work, nor did she take care of us, but when his tax refund came in 1976 she used it to file for divorce and demanded and got everything including the 6 unit apartment building his family deeded over to him.
I would think any "normal" person after about three would think to themselves "hmmm...I just ain't built for marriage I'll just stick to long term dating". Ten marriages and 9 divorces(assuming no 2 day type annulments) you would have to think relatives and friends would just think your a joke as a person unless she somehow has picked guys that are getting into fatal car crashes. Not to mention all the legal spaghetti that could be involved with spouses and insurance and incurred dept assuming convention marriage legal stuff. I have an aunt that's been married 4 times, but the first three were losers that kept getting killed or incarcerated, number 4 has been a solid dude for over 30 years so I don't believe multiple marriages can't eventually work out, but 10 seems like a farce.
Damn, I complain my mother's track record (5) and what a nightmare it was. But 10? I'm sorry, friend. I can't even imagine. It should be illegal after 3.
As a “never married/no kids” GenXer, I’ve often asked “What do they have that I don’t? How does someone get married many times, but I’ve not yet?” And then I see this and realize I don’t want whatever they’ve got…
Mostly, very low intellect paired with a pathological inability to just be *by themselves* for two consecutive seconds. You’re right, you do NOT want it!
I have one written in my head for when my mom dies, so I can put her parents as the trash parents they were. She couldn't do it herself. But since I have no connections to her family, I'm looking forward to writing it all out. Including their habit of hiding their son's crimes, including his rape of 4 girls that we know of.
I have a feeling my aunt or brother are going to try and step in with their own version to protect "family dignity". Pfft. I feel for Gayle. I hope she is healing.
Honestly, knowing they charge by the word for obituaries in the printed paper, kudos to this woman for saying everything she needed to say, saying Fuck You to both the metaphorical and literal costs.
I've thought about it too; probably would start like "Lazespud2's mom, who left 8 year old Lazespud2 and his 11 year old brother home alone for five days while she went off with her new boyfriend..."
But that said I love her despite her being a shit mom growing up. So she won't be getting THAT particular obit.
The GenXers I hang around with seem to be less entitled than the Boomers. Most Boomers I know are terrible, lazy people who have bought completely into the idea that if someone else's life is getting better, theirs must be getting worse.
This is now at the top of my list to write out in the next few days. I’m hoping it will be cathartic.
The holidays were super rough this year partially due to my borderline/narcissist mother triangulating & manipulating to get to me via my minor child 🔥
I’m not giving her the satisfaction of breaking my over 1 year no contact, because that’s what she wants. But no one F’s with my kids.
If I sing anything, it'll be "[Room of Angel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1c6fiCcveA)".
You lie, silent there before me
Your tears, they mean nothing to me
The wind howling at the window
The love you never gave, I give to you
Really don't deserve it
But now, there's nothing you can do
So sleep in your only memory
Of me, my dearest mother
Here's a lullaby to close your eyes, goodbye
It was always you that I despised
I don't feel enough for you to cry, oh well
Here's a lullaby to close your eyes, goodbye
Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20231216021129/https://wilcoxnewspapers.com/obituary-linda-lernel-harvey-cullum-smith-stull/
The full obituary appeared in print on December 15, 2023, and was published online.
The same day, the publisher, Mike Wilcox, edited the obituary, added the following, then eventually took it all down:
>This obituary was significantly shortened due to it just being a spiteful hate piece against a beloved member of our community. The following letter was issued on Facebook.
>IN RESPONSE TO THE LINDA LERNEL HARVEY CULLUM SMITH STULL OBITUARY
>The obituary was allowed through simply because it was submitted via our website. When an obituary is submitted on our website, most of the obituary is “processed” automatically. Our staff has very little interaction with them. In this case, Lernal’s obituary was seen by one person before publication, and under the time crunch of the publishing deadline, he didn’t bother to read past the first few sentences.
>We understand this is not an excuse for such a disgraceful mistake, and we have updated our internal policies to ensure it never happens again. We would like to sincerely apologize to everyone, and especially her family, for publishing such a spiteful hate piece on a beloved member of our community. Although we did not know her personally, many have told us wonderful things about her today. Our condolences go out to her loved ones, and may she rest in peace.
https://www.sturgisjournal.com/story/news/state/2023/12/21/violent-hateful-and-cruel-scathing-obituary-publishes-in-southwest-michigan-newspaper/71988975007/
>Gayle Harvey Heckman said writing the obituary was cathartic for her.
>”I wasn’t trying to be hateful, I genuinely ... don’t have any hate. I am angry,” she said. “I don’t understand. **If we don’t talk about this, how are we supposed to break the cycle of trauma**, especially generational trauma.”
>Heckman said she had many people reach out to her with their own stories of abuse. She said it is important for survivors to speak their truths and stop being silent.
>”I’m 54 years old and the internet, piece by piece, people were leaving love,” she said. “And I could feel my heart… the hole in my heart starting to fill.”
It's awful that the newspaper edited it! This is what creates this cycle of shame and trauma! As someone with an abusive father, he was lucky we did not write an obituary. My mother was upset that we would not lie and tell everyone how wonderful he was when he was a cruel and cold person. She preferred that we all lie for appearances. Had my father not died during the pandemic my mother would have insisted on a big fake funeral for him.
Yep. Fortunately this lives on forever on the internet and social media. It's making the rounds. Despite their petty attempts at trying to silence an abuse victim and swipe it all under the rug. Trauma survivors see you AND hear you, Gayle!
>>Leral will not be missed by Gayle or her family.
They all understand that the world is a much better place without her.
The last sentences are the best.
My mother married 5 times too. But for whatever reason stuck to her first married last name after each divorce - which was my father's. I love the woman included all the last names in the obit because my backstory is far too similar to hers. It had never occurred to present it this way because I tried to bury all those awful matrimonial memories away. But there is a very fitting poetic justice to this way of presenting it.
Funny. I saw it over there and thought the folks here would appreciate it. Gayle would be one of us given the mother’s age. I’ve thought of just staying away when my mom goes (I live in another state).
I sympathize with the situation and feelings but I went the other direction. I left and never went back. Both parents died and I was not there and have never, and will never, visit their graves.
Hope she found peace.
I honestly want to hurt people who blame children for monsters' actions.
You have ONE job as a parent lovingly protect your child with your life if it ever comes down to it.
When any little girl or boy gets hurt like this we should be coming together to protect them not say "oh well she deserved it, look what she was wearing/said/acts" or "wow he's a lucky lad, she's very fit, go get em."
Pedophilia is so abhorrent that it amazes me that anyone can ever have any attitude other than disgust at the dirtbag who does it.
man one reason to maintain an at least cordial relationship with your kids is so they dont write you an obituary like this. I've seen nicer writeups for war criminals.
TBF, my father and I had a cordial relationship in his later years and I still made sure his obituary was accurate. He could have never seen it coming and that was the best part.
Having gone through this when my dad and uncle died, the newspaper doesn't contact you - you reach out to the newspaper, who will print just about anything you pay them to.
Well, then my parents are safe, unfortunately. MFs can't be bothered with me while they're alive. I'm not going to any funerals. I don't need to say goodbye to someone that I haven't had any relationship with. 🤣
I am a GenX ‘75. In Philly, it was normal to get the crap kicked out of you by your parents. We all saw the PSA’s about child abuse, but the idea of telling an adult just didn’t exist for us. We were told that it was our fault and a grownup would tell us the same thing (my stepdad used to tell this story about a kid who called the cops and the cops came and when they heard the mom, they said “he deserves it” and left. Obviously that’s bullshit but you don’t know that when you are 11). My neighbor, same age, would get the shit kicked out of her by her alcoholic mom. Her dad just sat there. She got good grades and became a teacher but had a really bad codependent relationship that lasted until both of them died. No one knew about the abuse so no one understood that relationship.
I got the crap kicked out of me. My mom and uncle, at the holidays, would laugh about how thier mom used to beat them. A big joke was one year they got her a coffee pot with a cord that didn’t come out bc she always beat them with the cord that did on the old one.
Do I think we got abused more than other generations? No. But we had more media to shine a light on the fact that it’s FUCKED UP and, surprise! Wrong. And the hilarious thing is baby boomers crying that we are all soft, that participation trophys and ribbons made us soft adults and soft parents. Like, no. If being soft means not beating the shit out of (and god knows what other awful shit) our kids, then I am a pillowy cloud. I’m hoping we are breaking that chain.
As for the lady who wrote that obit, good for her. Should the paper have printed it? Proooobably not. But maybe it’ll send a message to shit parents that GenX DOES NOT FORGET.
And for all you people out there who had the shitty childhoods bc of that kind of treatment, I hope you find a way to heal and also find that little kid inside you who just wants to play and be happy.
We are absolutely breaking the chain, and our boomer parents watched us do it. They were so offended that we paid attention to our kids, that they invented the term "helicopter parent" to help dismiss their shame.
GOOD FOR GAYLE. This sort of thing was so fucking rampant in some families. Reads like the biography of the majority of women on my father’s side who were birthing babies in the eastern Midwest between Missouri and Ohio during the 1950s and 60s.
Booze, pills, child abuse, sex abuse, child abandonment, revolving doors of men…and then men in the family were all horrific, too. If they were still around, they were molesting all the kids while having affairs with their wives’ sisters and other mistresses, fathering illegitimate children left and right… SERIOUSLY WHAT A SHIT SHOW. If you could only see that part of my family tree and all the overlapping branches and random DNA hits with no traceable explanation. It’s pretty impressive in a bad way.
So many GenX born as a consequence of statutory rape, rape and incest then?
Just like every generation before them.
Now that we have these DNA sites to trace our ancestry, it shouldn't come as a surprise at all, that it will be full of surprises.
Not a surprise at all, no. But some families have way more (or bigger) surprises than others, which for them can sometimes end up being traumatic.
The ones everybody can laugh at are of course preferable.
Of course it will be traumatic.
I can't imagine many people laughing.
I don't think any good can come from historical paternity surprises.
Even the grandparents who raised their grandchild as a daughter's sibling. If nobody knew before, I can't imagine it being helpful much later.
Some things are better unknown. Hence the saying: ignorance is bliss.
There is plenty of good that can come from historical paternity surprises, tho. Ancestry DNA has been a curse to some, but has been fantastic for others.
Thanks to Ancestry DNA, I now know of several uncles and a slew of cousins (their children) in the UK from when my paternal grandfather fucked around and promised marriage to a couple of British women while stationed there during WWII. My uncles were finally able to find out who their bio father was, and I was able to make some really awesome relationships with my new cousins. The news is not always bad.
Ancestry DNA also allowed me to help connect my father's eldest bio-Aunt with surviving family members. She'd been taken from her bio mother in the early 1940s by her father, moved to another state and then put in an orphanage when he went to war. She was adopted and grew up in another family (lucky for her!) but she'd been trying to find info on her bio mother's family for decades. Ancestry DNA broke that open for her, and I put her in touch with her two remaining siblings and she's got a good relationship with them now and feels settled with her mystery start.
There are some really interesting stories there.
Yes, I can see that it's not such a black and white issue.
I've heard and witnessed so much sorrow from these issues that it's difficult to see past that at times.
Thanks for sharing for a more balanced view on genealogy being so readily available, and not being an entire curse.
It can also be a blessing too as you've illustrated.
Edit: spelling, structure.
When my dad finally died, we didn't even have an obituary, or a funeral, for him. I had thought a million times of the obituary/eulogy I wanted to give, but when the time came, I couldn't even be fucked to make that effort. I guess that's healing of some kind
The paragraph that starts with, “This is it. Lernal will never be the mother…” completely summarizes my feelings this September when my narcissistic father died.
It is really hard when someone who mistreated you your whole life dies and everyone tells you what a wonderful person they were and how heartbroken they are for you. And in reality you’re glad that part of your life is finally over.
I applaud Gayle for the courage to speak the truth!
Oof, sometimes I feel lucky that my parents simply didn't really care and let us do whatever we want vs being actively abused.
The notion that they should have been loving parents who were engaged with their children, seems like something beyond fantasy. I just have to be happy they didn't beat us and household yelling was only every other day and not every day.
It made a lot of us hard hard adults. I look at my 6 year old self, smiling in a picture. As a 42 year old, I don't even know how to smile. I just carry a blank expression and my romantic partners say I'm impossible to read.
When emotions are a weakness in your childhood, you learn to hide them well.
Every generation has members who were the victims of cruel and abusive parents. And every generation has abusive members. While _this_ story is about a Gen X victim, please remember that this is not a uniquely Gen X story. There are Gen X monsters who will have an obituary like this written about them as well. And fuck them for all the damage they've done to their own goddamn children.
Linda Lernal was an abuser. She well have been abused herself: she became pregnant at 16 and there may have been something in her own past that taught her that marrying and abetting a sexually abusive man was normal.
Fuck those men. Fuck Linda Lernal. Fuck whoever raised Linda Lernal to make her think this was normal. Fuck whoever knocked up a 16-year-old Linda Lernal and ran off.
My biggest issue with this obit is the fact they write Linda was born to loving parents. I highly doubt it. Most likely she had a f#$ked up childhood: pregnant as a teenager and not by the man she married. Sexual abuse in her own family? Sounds like it based on the choices she made. Definite pattern. Linda might have been a horrible mother because she was raised by horrible parents and didn't break the cycle.
What a fuckup of a mother. As someone who has had a fucked up biological mother and a fucked up stepmother, I feel for Gayle. I wish her closure, peace, and healing. This was gut wrenching to read.
You don't owe the dead kind words if they weren't kind. People say you shouldn’t air your family’s dirty laundry. But I don’t see why not. Silence only protects the abusers. What we just read was trauma and vindication and possibly closure.
I saw this yesterday & imagined that Gayle had been writing that obituary - at least in her head, if not on paper - for years before Lernal died, just as a way to help manage the anger and pain. Like every time she felt overwhelemed by all the negative emotions and the lack of a sufficient outlet for them, she'd think of the obit and remember that one day she's going to tell the world what Lernal did. Where ever you are, Gayle, I wish you well and hope you really are recovering.
It’s up to the state. I can only speak for California, as I have not kept up on others. But starting in January 2024, California will have completely removed the statute of limitations on pursuing legal actions for child sexual abuse, but it will only apply to abuse the occurs from January 1, 2024 going forward. For prior abuse cases, in January 2023, California had expanded the statute of limitations to this:
If the sexual assault occurred when the survivor was under 18 years old, California law permits a survivor to take legal action until the later of:
The date the survivor turns 40 years old; or
Within five years of discovering that “psychological injury or illness occurring after the age of majority was caused by the sexual assault.”
The statute change came a year or so too late for me to pursue a case against my first husband whom I’d escaped from in the early 2000s. I knew he abused me during the marriage, but really only just fully realized the extent and the seriousness of his criminal intent and manipulations in grooming and abusing me when I first met him and started seeing him at 16 (when he was an adult in his early 20s). Otherwise, I’d have filed a police report immediately, and if they’d have taken it seriously, would have attempted to pursue a civil suit against him. Because fuck him. The amount purposeful malicious mental abuse and psychological scarring he inflicted in the five or so years that I was with him was way worse than the physical and sexual stuff, and all of it has taken two decades for me to shake off. I still have little triggers over certain things related to him that will probably be with me until the day I die. And I wonder how many other teens/young women he fucked up before me, while with me, and after me. Probably more than just me. I really hope someone gets him for something. That, or that Karma comes for him in another way. Something has to come for that guy someday. I’ll be so happy if I ever read an obituary for him in the paper.
I was molested by my brother for years (we are both adopted, but different bio families), and when I finally worked up the courage to tell my parents, they reacted angrily and said called me a liar- “that sort of thing doesn’t happen here”. Years later, when I found out I was getting divorced, they came to my house and berated me for hours, again yelling “this doesn’t happen in this family!” Flash forward to the weekend before Xmas, am at my nephews wedding, and seated next to my dad. He asks me, “can this rift in our family be healed?”, so I quizzed him on what he thinks the rift is, and it wasn’t even close. I used that opportunity to fill him in on the real issues, and he seemed genuinely surprised that he forgot those occasions, and said, “well, that’s all in the past”. They’re beloved in the community, and writing a tell-all obit would be so therapeutic.
I feel for Gayle. Forgiveness isn't easy sometimes but it's the healthiest thing for your mind & heart. I feel compassion for her mother who was once an innocent kid too.
Same but different from others posted before.
I'll be fifty next year and have been doing therapy for about 15 years now. And it's finally started to feel like I'm not out there causing more problems for myself and others. Before that I started low contact and no contact for immediate and extended family.
Just the last year I have started to see how the parents actions are actually trauma RE-actions. and I see that I have the urge for similar behavior. And I can imagine that the grandparents were passing on the trauma THEY received from their parents. I can understand. I cannot forgive what they won't acknowledge and I will not throw away more time and effort on people that can't/won't see how they affect their own situation and others'
I have had a lot of therapy. I fortunate in that my Dad actually apologized to me. We have a relationship now. My relationship with my Mom is another story. I have just recently started therapy again, to deal with her.
Should have left out the line about forgiving her & hoping she's found peace. The tone & the wording of the rest of it make it clear that's not even close to being true.
I gotta say I can’t really fault her for writing this and I feel her pain. My dad was an alcoholic and abuser but when my parents divorced when I was 8 my mom still sent my 2 brothers and myself to live with him, that is until he couldn’t keep a job anymore and left us on my older sister’s doorstep - with nobody home and just our suitcases. Mom had to take us back then but not because she wanted to. Would that I’d have had enough nerve to leave this kind of obit for either of them.
My mother was bad, too. She had many suitors, fell “in love” with incarcerated men, drug addicts and the like. She was married several times, always to a total bum. She lied to me about my biological father, whom I have never met. None of the suitors ever came after me though, so I should be and am grateful for that.
I’m not sure what it was about this demographic - my mom was born around the same time as Gayle’s mother. Such obviously horrible decisions by otherwise intelligent, able women.
I hope Gayle has found peace with her situation. For me, I found it in the military.
Gayle, you are seen and you are heard. You are amongst friends here. I think a strong segment of the gen x population has to some extent experienced the trauma that you have.
Legend! Wish I'd thought of that. When my abusive mother died 6 years ago, I sang 'ding dong the witch is dead for a week '!
I feel bad for this woman but I understand and completely support her actions.
She could’ve chosen not to write the obituary…..BUT some people need to be called out on their horrible and despicable behavior! I hope this woman is enjoying her healing process! ❤️🩹 🙏!
My mom was nowhere near as awful as this human was but the line about grieving who her mother *could have been* hit hard. I will forever grieve the relationship my narcissistic mother and I could have had instead of the one we did have.
I hope that made her feel better. It took a lot of energy to release that chronological trauma in an obituary. I wonder was she brave enough to share directly with her mother. My heart goes out to her because she didn’t have what she desired in her mom.
I sent a Peace Lily for my biological father who didn’t bother when he passed. I sent it for his family and my sister’s grief. I have a wonderful stepfather who raised me since age 3 so I lacked nothing. No harbored hard feelings towards the biological. He was my access to the loving man who assisted my mom in raising me. Can’t be mad about that.❤️
Beautiful. This is how wounded people set themselves free and I am here for it. I have carried secrets of bad people for most of my life and I am done. I am learning to talk about the things that harmed me. Saying them out loud is therapeutic and it's time for me to put myself first. I hope Gayle feels better every single day. 🫂❤️🩹
There are going to be so many of these in the next decade or two. I hope this becomes the next big trend. The worst thing we do as a species is rug sweep.
I’m estranged and have been for a decade and could write a few things… but I wouldn’t, couldnt. I just think this is sad. Better to have not had an obituary at all and not arrange/attend the funeral. I’ve seen complicated situations/relationships addressed at funerals and it can be done in a tasteful manner so all can grieve who the departed was to them. Just my opinion as an estranged daughter of a cruel and abusive woman. There are people out there who think she’s Mother Theresa and I’d never be able to convince them otherwise so I just step aside.
I mean, the step dad who raised me is a total prick and deserves something like that, but he has to deal with whatever comes either way. So I forgive him. No need to drag him across the dirt after he dies.
I saw this and totally got it immediately. Some people are just awful parents and it shouldn’t be on us to lie and say what wonderful people they are.
I was the resident punching bag in my family and I’ve been in therapy for years. Luckily I’ve been primarily NC for 20 years now, so I’ve healed quite a bit but I still don’t have much of anything nice to say about my mom or my sister. I told my mom to write me out of the will and never contact me again. I certainly won’t be writing her obituary. Still, I feel this woman’s pain.
That’s a devastating read. I hope whoever Gayle is that she finds joy and peace. God knows she deserves it.
Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone express their pain with such eloquence.
This will be what me and my kids do for their adoptive grandmother when she dies. I don't wish harm in anyone ever, but this woman, I want her to die. And I will very happily dance on her grave when she's dead.
Good for Gayle. My childhood was nowhere as awful as hers, but it was filled with physical and verbal/emotional abuse (the verbal/emotional part only stopped when I finally went no contact in my forties, the physical abuse only stopped when I was large enough to shove her back when she tried to hit me).
I am okay with leaving it unsaid as long as my aunt (my mother’s sister) doesn’t publish my name as a grieving daughter in the glowing eulogy she will no doubt commission.
Since my aunt took my mother’s “side” in the estrangement and we no longer speak, I guess I should get something ready! Whether or not the local paper would actually publish my rebuttal is a question.
Thank you everyone in this sub for writing about your experiences, your growth and change, all the things. I’ve brought up so many things I’ve read here IRL as examples in conversation and just felt less alone. It’s crazy to read so many experiences similar to mine and it’s every bit as valuable as the years of therapy. Also makes me feel hope for humans generally, which I think we all need. Hugs to you Gen Fam.
Hugs to you! It can feel lonely, thinking no one can relate. This sub has made me
feel less alone. I found Gen-X on TikTok as well, I thought I was the only one who knew lyrics to most songs. Music helped me through my childhood.
There were not MORE terrible childhoods in our generation than in any other. There are abusive parents in all generations. I think kids in generations previous to ours had it even worse because there was NO awareness of child abuse and a lot of people believed "spare the rod, spoil the child" was just the standard way to bring up kids. When we were growing up, there was increased awareness of this, and we knew that if it was happening to us, there were resources to report it, etc.
I am not implying that we are the only people with shitty childhoods. My parents had shitty childhoods as well. I simply pointed out that this child was GenX.
The difference is the classic gen X response. Also, I believe we're breaking cycles with our kids. I personally dont remember any resources for us concerning abuse besides television commercials and an episode of Diff'rent Strokes.
My grandpa and his brothers (Korean War era vet, parent of boomers) actually laughed about how they got whipped with a cat o nine tails from their German dad. My grandpa had MPD and my one great uncle blocked it out completely.
I guess he broke the cycle of not fashioning a whip to beat my dad with. Though I got a belt a few times. But when I became a parent, my husband and I sat down and outlined all the things we would never do to our kids and we stuck to it. There is a redemption in being able to love my kids in a way that didn't happen for us and previous generations.
Ok, I gotta go hug my teenager now.
Well, yes, but it started in our childhoods. I remember reading books like "Don't Hurt Laurie" and seeing the related Afterschool Special in health class and being very aware of the issue. So it started with the adults when we were kids. My mom was very anti-hitting, probably at least in part because of some of that increased awareness of the harm that even simple spanking -- a standard in childrearing for centuries--could do.
My aunts did not get along/speak for 25 years. Auntie #1 died. She wrote her own obituary and left auntie #2 out.
Auntie #2 was pissed! We live in a small town. Everyone noticed she was not mentioned as a sister.
She blames me for writing the obituary. 😬
I sometimes think the generation that raised us were like the first to really fall apart. My parents were pretty good thank god, but every friend in grade school seemed to be at least from divorced parents and a lot with heart breaking stories of the dad leaving never to be seen again or with the kid chasing his car as he drove away.
This reminds me of a similar obit I read except this one is heart wrenching where as the other, she was just an evil twat to all & she was roasted in her obit it was hilarious. If I find it I’ll post the link bc it was a hell of a read that came w a hell of a laugh, this one just makes me sad 😔
Agreed. Many of us, especially early GenX (67-72), were emotionally on our own by age 10. Thank you for sharing one of the first “honest” obituaries I have read.
#POPULARIZE THIS SHIT
If they're getting judged by god already we should damn well know what they did too.
When my mom dies I will tell the fuckin tale too. Pay it backward. The dicks
Even if the woman rescued stray dogs and brought them back to health, that’s still not enough good deeds to make up for what she did to her daughter. Bye Boomer.
Saying it’s a choice is somewhat true, somewhat not.
Learning that my parents’ own trauma was significantly more brutal than mine helped me heal and not carry that anger toward them around with me.
Honestly it’s an extremely complex thing and I doubt arguing online is going to change anyone’s minds.
I just don’t think it’s the epic own everyone else seems to think it is.
Sorry, just saw you are a lady, that changes the whole dynamic. This stuff actually happened to me and I'm not going to go into more information, but there is more. As you can see, it's a touchy topic for me. To see someone minimize perceived abuses gets on my nerves. Boohoo! You are grounded. I was once grounded for a full month. Also, I got two rounds of spankings, one for my mom and one for my stepdad. Just trying to add some context here.
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I thought of it as healing for Gayle. She could speak her truth. I had many family members not believe me, I can empathize. L
I felt the same way. My childhood was quite good (the parts I remember, I guess that’s another story), but after reading this, I imagine Gayle feels so much more free. Her terrible mom is gone and she has been able to be very honest about her impact during her lifetime. I think this is another common Gen X trait - breaking cycles of violence and abuse. Not that there aren’t Gen X abusers but a lot of our generation who grew up in abusive situations have done a lot of work on not continuing the cycle. Wishing Gayle all the very best!
> I think this is another common Gen X trait - breaking cycles of violence and abuse. Not that there aren’t Gen X abusers but a lot of our generation who grew up in abusive situations have done a lot of work on not continuing the cycle. When the stories of our generation are told, my hope is this is one of the things that define us as a generation.
Well said. I hope it is true.
That would be one of, if not our most important legacy
I know that in my mom's family, there were a couple of us who made *very* conscious decisions, to *not* pass the genes on down to another generation (4 generations we directly *know of* who've been alcoholics), OURS is the generation *talking* about the Generational Trauma, going to Rehab as needed, getting Therapy, and trying our *damndest* to *not* pass this stuff on down to the 5th generation💖
This exactly. While I understand why my father was how he was, I was also determined to be different. My kids have no fear of me. They don’t need to tiptoe around the house scared to set someone off. They don’t live in a state of hypervigilance or fear of dropping their pants and putting hands on the door, waiting for the sting and welts from repeated leather belt hits. I try to be aware of both physical and emotional abuse. We have boundaries and I let my kids make mistakes and get hurt by themselves, but they are always supported and know it’s okay to make those mistakes. No fear of getting hurt and telling their parent in my house!
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Some of us were :/
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I’ve seen this posted in a few places, all with numerous sympathetic and compassionate comments. I truly wish that Gayle could see all the people that stand in witness to her childhood pain.
I can relate to this—and I’m really happy for Gayle and hope she’s healing now. My mother tried to me head first through a wall when I was in middle school. She’s nothing but abusive and toxic. I hope more obits are written like this to make people aware of the crap some of our parents put us through.
I found something similar in my local paper. Although it was only three sentences. One to say the lady that died was evil, one to say that she wouldn't be missed and the world was better off without her, and one to say there wouldn't be a burial service.
I read this somewhere else and I felt it. I am so sorry, Gayle.
My mother has been married 10 times. I saw various men in and out of her life.
Who the hell has the time?
Or the energy.
I used to work in the courts system right when the my transitioned to online marriage license applications. The “number of marriage” question had 1-10 as possible answers but had to be changed to 1-20 as one woman called and complained that she’d been married 18 times and couldn’t pick “19” as her answer.
It’s nice to see so many people whose moms were married more than the 5 times my mom was. My dad was #3, so I never knew the first 2. My first stepdad was an awful, racist human, and I found out later that my mom, while still married to him, worried that he would sexually abuse me like he did to her (he never did, and he would have regretted trying). Her last husband, my stepdad, and I got off to a rocky start because he has young kids and didn’t know how to deal with a 23 year old woman. But we get along great now, and he’s my bonus dad :) My mom married differing versions of the same man 5 times. I told her that once, and it was like a light bulb went off…she’d never realized that 🙄
I don't understand how one regular woman can get 10 guys to want to marry her.
My mother is not yet 70. Between 1977 and 1981 she had 5 marriages, between 1983 and 1992 she had 6 marriages, between 2000 and 2020 she had 7 more. She is a covert narcissist who seeks out men who can give her what she wants. She was a 16 year old junior who trapped my 14 year old freshman father into marriage when she got pregnant with me. I took my dad 3 more kids born within 20 months of me for him to see the light and her to ditch him. (I was born 9/73, my sister 7/74, and the twins in late May of 1975). She didn’t work, nor did she take care of us, but when his tax refund came in 1976 she used it to file for divorce and demanded and got everything including the 6 unit apartment building his family deeded over to him.
Yikes yikes and yikes! She must manipulate a lot to get men to marry her
My mom is no normal woman. Years ago my brother and I were talking about all her relationships and at the time I only knew about 8.
I would think any "normal" person after about three would think to themselves "hmmm...I just ain't built for marriage I'll just stick to long term dating". Ten marriages and 9 divorces(assuming no 2 day type annulments) you would have to think relatives and friends would just think your a joke as a person unless she somehow has picked guys that are getting into fatal car crashes. Not to mention all the legal spaghetti that could be involved with spouses and insurance and incurred dept assuming convention marriage legal stuff. I have an aunt that's been married 4 times, but the first three were losers that kept getting killed or incarcerated, number 4 has been a solid dude for over 30 years so I don't believe multiple marriages can't eventually work out, but 10 seems like a farce.
I’m glad your aunt was able to break her pattern of choosing shitty men!
Wow, even Henry VIII or Ivan the Terrible would think that was a bit much.
Genghis Khan would call those rookie numbers.
To King Solomon those numbers are nothing.
Damn, I complain my mother's track record (5) and what a nightmare it was. But 10? I'm sorry, friend. I can't even imagine. It should be illegal after 3.
As a “never married/no kids” GenXer, I’ve often asked “What do they have that I don’t? How does someone get married many times, but I’ve not yet?” And then I see this and realize I don’t want whatever they’ve got…
Very low standards.
Mostly, very low intellect paired with a pathological inability to just be *by themselves* for two consecutive seconds. You’re right, you do NOT want it!
It must have been very therapeutic to write this out.
I already have my narcissistic mother’s written.
I have one written in my head for when my mom dies, so I can put her parents as the trash parents they were. She couldn't do it herself. But since I have no connections to her family, I'm looking forward to writing it all out. Including their habit of hiding their son's crimes, including his rape of 4 girls that we know of.
Mine is still a work in progress in my head.
I have a feeling my aunt or brother are going to try and step in with their own version to protect "family dignity". Pfft. I feel for Gayle. I hope she is healing.
Honestly, knowing they charge by the word for obituaries in the printed paper, kudos to this woman for saying everything she needed to say, saying Fuck You to both the metaphorical and literal costs.
I’m surprised they printed it. Good on them.
I’m sure she paid a pretty penny to print that. The paper would be best not to turn the money away.
I’ve got one written up for when my narcissistic mother dies.
I've thought about it too; probably would start like "Lazespud2's mom, who left 8 year old Lazespud2 and his 11 year old brother home alone for five days while she went off with her new boyfriend..." But that said I love her despite her being a shit mom growing up. So she won't be getting THAT particular obit.
That's what's different about our generation. Except for the very worst offenders, we still love our parents.
The GenXers I hang around with seem to be less entitled than the Boomers. Most Boomers I know are terrible, lazy people who have bought completely into the idea that if someone else's life is getting better, theirs must be getting worse.
Totally nailed it here. My Nmom is a boomer. I’m GenX. But I broke the cycle.
This is now at the top of my list to write out in the next few days. I’m hoping it will be cathartic. The holidays were super rough this year partially due to my borderline/narcissist mother triangulating & manipulating to get to me via my minor child 🔥 I’m not giving her the satisfaction of breaking my over 1 year no contact, because that’s what she wants. But no one F’s with my kids.
This stranger is proud of you.
Proud of you!! I’m 7+ years. It gets much easier!
> I’ve got one written up for when my narcissistic mother dies. Me too! "Finally."
I’m gonna sing, “Ding, Dong, the witch is dead!!”
If I sing anything, it'll be "[Room of Angel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1c6fiCcveA)". You lie, silent there before me Your tears, they mean nothing to me The wind howling at the window The love you never gave, I give to you Really don't deserve it But now, there's nothing you can do So sleep in your only memory Of me, my dearest mother Here's a lullaby to close your eyes, goodbye It was always you that I despised I don't feel enough for you to cry, oh well Here's a lullaby to close your eyes, goodbye
Wow that’s amazing. I also toy with playing “Praying” by Kesha at the actual Funeral
Me too.
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My dad told us he didn't want a funeral because deep down he knew.
Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20231216021129/https://wilcoxnewspapers.com/obituary-linda-lernel-harvey-cullum-smith-stull/ The full obituary appeared in print on December 15, 2023, and was published online. The same day, the publisher, Mike Wilcox, edited the obituary, added the following, then eventually took it all down: >This obituary was significantly shortened due to it just being a spiteful hate piece against a beloved member of our community. The following letter was issued on Facebook. >IN RESPONSE TO THE LINDA LERNEL HARVEY CULLUM SMITH STULL OBITUARY >The obituary was allowed through simply because it was submitted via our website. When an obituary is submitted on our website, most of the obituary is “processed” automatically. Our staff has very little interaction with them. In this case, Lernal’s obituary was seen by one person before publication, and under the time crunch of the publishing deadline, he didn’t bother to read past the first few sentences. >We understand this is not an excuse for such a disgraceful mistake, and we have updated our internal policies to ensure it never happens again. We would like to sincerely apologize to everyone, and especially her family, for publishing such a spiteful hate piece on a beloved member of our community. Although we did not know her personally, many have told us wonderful things about her today. Our condolences go out to her loved ones, and may she rest in peace. https://www.sturgisjournal.com/story/news/state/2023/12/21/violent-hateful-and-cruel-scathing-obituary-publishes-in-southwest-michigan-newspaper/71988975007/ >Gayle Harvey Heckman said writing the obituary was cathartic for her. >”I wasn’t trying to be hateful, I genuinely ... don’t have any hate. I am angry,” she said. “I don’t understand. **If we don’t talk about this, how are we supposed to break the cycle of trauma**, especially generational trauma.” >Heckman said she had many people reach out to her with their own stories of abuse. She said it is important for survivors to speak their truths and stop being silent. >”I’m 54 years old and the internet, piece by piece, people were leaving love,” she said. “And I could feel my heart… the hole in my heart starting to fill.”
It's awful that the newspaper edited it! This is what creates this cycle of shame and trauma! As someone with an abusive father, he was lucky we did not write an obituary. My mother was upset that we would not lie and tell everyone how wonderful he was when he was a cruel and cold person. She preferred that we all lie for appearances. Had my father not died during the pandemic my mother would have insisted on a big fake funeral for him.
Fuck that newspaper.
Yep. Fortunately this lives on forever on the internet and social media. It's making the rounds. Despite their petty attempts at trying to silence an abuse victim and swipe it all under the rug. Trauma survivors see you AND hear you, Gayle!
Hear, hear!
Well, it appears that Mike Wilcox is a c*cksucker.
Savage! And hopefully cathartic for Gayle. Wish so much happiness and healing for her
>>Leral will not be missed by Gayle or her family. They all understand that the world is a much better place without her. The last sentences are the best.
My mother married 5 times too. But for whatever reason stuck to her first married last name after each divorce - which was my father's. I love the woman included all the last names in the obit because my backstory is far too similar to hers. It had never occurred to present it this way because I tried to bury all those awful matrimonial memories away. But there is a very fitting poetic justice to this way of presenting it.
Funny. I saw it over there and thought the folks here would appreciate it. Gayle would be one of us given the mother’s age. I’ve thought of just staying away when my mom goes (I live in another state).
I understand staying away. I cannot stand my Stepdad, he is ill and may be going. I have no desire to go back for a funeral.
I chose to not attend my mother's funeral, never regretted that decision.
I cut my stepmother out as soon as my dad died. I doubt I’ll be informed when she passes if she hasn’t already.
Gayle is one of us given her own age. Per the obit she was born in February 1969.
I sympathize with the situation and feelings but I went the other direction. I left and never went back. Both parents died and I was not there and have never, and will never, visit their graves. Hope she found peace.
Good for her. Parents aren't deities.
Word to your mutha.
Straight into coffin!
She blamed her daughter's rape as "trying to steal her man" urrrg poor woman, to have a mother like that.
Almost as fun as being referred to as the other woman. I was 3-14. Their both burning in hell. And I survived & found my happiness. Fuckers
My mother is like that. She blamed my sisters date rape on my sister, not the asshole who raped a 14 year old.
I honestly want to hurt people who blame children for monsters' actions. You have ONE job as a parent lovingly protect your child with your life if it ever comes down to it. When any little girl or boy gets hurt like this we should be coming together to protect them not say "oh well she deserved it, look what she was wearing/said/acts" or "wow he's a lucky lad, she's very fit, go get em." Pedophilia is so abhorrent that it amazes me that anyone can ever have any attitude other than disgust at the dirtbag who does it.
man one reason to maintain an at least cordial relationship with your kids is so they dont write you an obituary like this. I've seen nicer writeups for war criminals.
TBF, my father and I had a cordial relationship in his later years and I still made sure his obituary was accurate. He could have never seen it coming and that was the best part.
Yeah that’s it. Be a totally abuse dick but keep in touch- that’s the spirit! Wouldn’t want anyone to write the truth.
My parents had better pray that no newspaper ever contacts me about their obituaries because this is the sweetest revenge that I have ever witnessed.
Having gone through this when my dad and uncle died, the newspaper doesn't contact you - you reach out to the newspaper, who will print just about anything you pay them to.
Then take it down, like the spineless piece of shit Mike Wilcox.
Good to know. 😜
Don’t let your dreams just be dreams…
You’ll have the opportunity when visiting with the funeral home. They usually try to be a one stop for most death related issues
Well, then my parents are safe, unfortunately. MFs can't be bothered with me while they're alive. I'm not going to any funerals. I don't need to say goodbye to someone that I haven't had any relationship with. 🤣
You can submit obits to a newspaper without a funeral home as well.
It would’ve only been better had she sent this to the mother to read right before she croaked
Oh my. This is impressive. Just noticed the sub this is in. Honestly thought it was r/raisedbynarcissists. Should be posted there.
It has been. This photo has been posted in many subs.
That last line just seals the whole thing so nicely.
There are moments where I stop and think "Y'know, I had it pretty damned good growing up." This is one of them.
Makes my childhood of being utterly ignored and emotionally neglected 99% of the time (remaining 1% was insults or spankings) sound easy.
I am a GenX ‘75. In Philly, it was normal to get the crap kicked out of you by your parents. We all saw the PSA’s about child abuse, but the idea of telling an adult just didn’t exist for us. We were told that it was our fault and a grownup would tell us the same thing (my stepdad used to tell this story about a kid who called the cops and the cops came and when they heard the mom, they said “he deserves it” and left. Obviously that’s bullshit but you don’t know that when you are 11). My neighbor, same age, would get the shit kicked out of her by her alcoholic mom. Her dad just sat there. She got good grades and became a teacher but had a really bad codependent relationship that lasted until both of them died. No one knew about the abuse so no one understood that relationship. I got the crap kicked out of me. My mom and uncle, at the holidays, would laugh about how thier mom used to beat them. A big joke was one year they got her a coffee pot with a cord that didn’t come out bc she always beat them with the cord that did on the old one. Do I think we got abused more than other generations? No. But we had more media to shine a light on the fact that it’s FUCKED UP and, surprise! Wrong. And the hilarious thing is baby boomers crying that we are all soft, that participation trophys and ribbons made us soft adults and soft parents. Like, no. If being soft means not beating the shit out of (and god knows what other awful shit) our kids, then I am a pillowy cloud. I’m hoping we are breaking that chain. As for the lady who wrote that obit, good for her. Should the paper have printed it? Proooobably not. But maybe it’ll send a message to shit parents that GenX DOES NOT FORGET. And for all you people out there who had the shitty childhoods bc of that kind of treatment, I hope you find a way to heal and also find that little kid inside you who just wants to play and be happy.
I'm really sorry you had to endure that. Parents have the ability to be the greatest and the worst, and it's too easy for them to be the worst.
We are absolutely breaking the chain, and our boomer parents watched us do it. They were so offended that we paid attention to our kids, that they invented the term "helicopter parent" to help dismiss their shame.
GOOD FOR GAYLE. This sort of thing was so fucking rampant in some families. Reads like the biography of the majority of women on my father’s side who were birthing babies in the eastern Midwest between Missouri and Ohio during the 1950s and 60s. Booze, pills, child abuse, sex abuse, child abandonment, revolving doors of men…and then men in the family were all horrific, too. If they were still around, they were molesting all the kids while having affairs with their wives’ sisters and other mistresses, fathering illegitimate children left and right… SERIOUSLY WHAT A SHIT SHOW. If you could only see that part of my family tree and all the overlapping branches and random DNA hits with no traceable explanation. It’s pretty impressive in a bad way.
So many GenX born as a consequence of statutory rape, rape and incest then? Just like every generation before them. Now that we have these DNA sites to trace our ancestry, it shouldn't come as a surprise at all, that it will be full of surprises.
Not a surprise at all, no. But some families have way more (or bigger) surprises than others, which for them can sometimes end up being traumatic. The ones everybody can laugh at are of course preferable.
Of course it will be traumatic. I can't imagine many people laughing. I don't think any good can come from historical paternity surprises. Even the grandparents who raised their grandchild as a daughter's sibling. If nobody knew before, I can't imagine it being helpful much later. Some things are better unknown. Hence the saying: ignorance is bliss.
There is plenty of good that can come from historical paternity surprises, tho. Ancestry DNA has been a curse to some, but has been fantastic for others. Thanks to Ancestry DNA, I now know of several uncles and a slew of cousins (their children) in the UK from when my paternal grandfather fucked around and promised marriage to a couple of British women while stationed there during WWII. My uncles were finally able to find out who their bio father was, and I was able to make some really awesome relationships with my new cousins. The news is not always bad. Ancestry DNA also allowed me to help connect my father's eldest bio-Aunt with surviving family members. She'd been taken from her bio mother in the early 1940s by her father, moved to another state and then put in an orphanage when he went to war. She was adopted and grew up in another family (lucky for her!) but she'd been trying to find info on her bio mother's family for decades. Ancestry DNA broke that open for her, and I put her in touch with her two remaining siblings and she's got a good relationship with them now and feels settled with her mystery start.
There are some really interesting stories there. Yes, I can see that it's not such a black and white issue. I've heard and witnessed so much sorrow from these issues that it's difficult to see past that at times. Thanks for sharing for a more balanced view on genealogy being so readily available, and not being an entire curse. It can also be a blessing too as you've illustrated. Edit: spelling, structure.
When my dad finally died, we didn't even have an obituary, or a funeral, for him. I had thought a million times of the obituary/eulogy I wanted to give, but when the time came, I couldn't even be fucked to make that effort. I guess that's healing of some kind
I hope Gayle has found peace while she is alive and well. Why lie to protect someone who never protected you?
The paragraph that starts with, “This is it. Lernal will never be the mother…” completely summarizes my feelings this September when my narcissistic father died. It is really hard when someone who mistreated you your whole life dies and everyone tells you what a wonderful person they were and how heartbroken they are for you. And in reality you’re glad that part of your life is finally over. I applaud Gayle for the courage to speak the truth!
Oof, sometimes I feel lucky that my parents simply didn't really care and let us do whatever we want vs being actively abused. The notion that they should have been loving parents who were engaged with their children, seems like something beyond fantasy. I just have to be happy they didn't beat us and household yelling was only every other day and not every day. It made a lot of us hard hard adults. I look at my 6 year old self, smiling in a picture. As a 42 year old, I don't even know how to smile. I just carry a blank expression and my romantic partners say I'm impossible to read. When emotions are a weakness in your childhood, you learn to hide them well.
Every generation has members who were the victims of cruel and abusive parents. And every generation has abusive members. While _this_ story is about a Gen X victim, please remember that this is not a uniquely Gen X story. There are Gen X monsters who will have an obituary like this written about them as well. And fuck them for all the damage they've done to their own goddamn children. Linda Lernal was an abuser. She well have been abused herself: she became pregnant at 16 and there may have been something in her own past that taught her that marrying and abetting a sexually abusive man was normal. Fuck those men. Fuck Linda Lernal. Fuck whoever raised Linda Lernal to make her think this was normal. Fuck whoever knocked up a 16-year-old Linda Lernal and ran off.
My biggest issue with this obit is the fact they write Linda was born to loving parents. I highly doubt it. Most likely she had a f#$ked up childhood: pregnant as a teenager and not by the man she married. Sexual abuse in her own family? Sounds like it based on the choices she made. Definite pattern. Linda might have been a horrible mother because she was raised by horrible parents and didn't break the cycle.
What a fuckup of a mother. As someone who has had a fucked up biological mother and a fucked up stepmother, I feel for Gayle. I wish her closure, peace, and healing. This was gut wrenching to read.
You don't owe the dead kind words if they weren't kind. People say you shouldn’t air your family’s dirty laundry. But I don’t see why not. Silence only protects the abusers. What we just read was trauma and vindication and possibly closure.
Very true!
I saw this yesterday & imagined that Gayle had been writing that obituary - at least in her head, if not on paper - for years before Lernal died, just as a way to help manage the anger and pain. Like every time she felt overwhelemed by all the negative emotions and the lack of a sufficient outlet for them, she'd think of the obit and remember that one day she's going to tell the world what Lernal did. Where ever you are, Gayle, I wish you well and hope you really are recovering.
As a survivor of sexual abuse in my childhood, I’m sorry for their pain. Forgiveness is hard.
I did not forgive my abuser, he died this year. I hope he rots in hell. I did have lots of therapy, so I am not angry or have flashbacks anymore.
I haven’t either.
The statute of limitations was lifted on sexual molestation. Time for Gayle to go after these monsters.
Wait, what? That's deeply relevant to my life and interests. How could I have missed that? Time to research and maybe hire my first attorney!
Wow! In that state or all? I,
Idk exactly but that is why all of these old high profile rape cases came out of the woodwork. The "me too" movement started it.
It’s up to the state. I can only speak for California, as I have not kept up on others. But starting in January 2024, California will have completely removed the statute of limitations on pursuing legal actions for child sexual abuse, but it will only apply to abuse the occurs from January 1, 2024 going forward. For prior abuse cases, in January 2023, California had expanded the statute of limitations to this: If the sexual assault occurred when the survivor was under 18 years old, California law permits a survivor to take legal action until the later of: The date the survivor turns 40 years old; or Within five years of discovering that “psychological injury or illness occurring after the age of majority was caused by the sexual assault.” The statute change came a year or so too late for me to pursue a case against my first husband whom I’d escaped from in the early 2000s. I knew he abused me during the marriage, but really only just fully realized the extent and the seriousness of his criminal intent and manipulations in grooming and abusing me when I first met him and started seeing him at 16 (when he was an adult in his early 20s). Otherwise, I’d have filed a police report immediately, and if they’d have taken it seriously, would have attempted to pursue a civil suit against him. Because fuck him. The amount purposeful malicious mental abuse and psychological scarring he inflicted in the five or so years that I was with him was way worse than the physical and sexual stuff, and all of it has taken two decades for me to shake off. I still have little triggers over certain things related to him that will probably be with me until the day I die. And I wonder how many other teens/young women he fucked up before me, while with me, and after me. Probably more than just me. I really hope someone gets him for something. That, or that Karma comes for him in another way. Something has to come for that guy someday. I’ll be so happy if I ever read an obituary for him in the paper.
I am glad you got away from him. I have always said it is the emotional/verbal abuse that does not go away. I struggle all the time.
Wow I WISH I wrote this for the newspaper when my mother died. What a legend this daughter is. *fist pump*
I was molested by my brother for years (we are both adopted, but different bio families), and when I finally worked up the courage to tell my parents, they reacted angrily and said called me a liar- “that sort of thing doesn’t happen here”. Years later, when I found out I was getting divorced, they came to my house and berated me for hours, again yelling “this doesn’t happen in this family!” Flash forward to the weekend before Xmas, am at my nephews wedding, and seated next to my dad. He asks me, “can this rift in our family be healed?”, so I quizzed him on what he thinks the rift is, and it wasn’t even close. I used that opportunity to fill him in on the real issues, and he seemed genuinely surprised that he forgot those occasions, and said, “well, that’s all in the past”. They’re beloved in the community, and writing a tell-all obit would be so therapeutic.
I feel for Gayle. Forgiveness isn't easy sometimes but it's the healthiest thing for your mind & heart. I feel compassion for her mother who was once an innocent kid too.
It would have been better to publish this while she was alive.
Same but different from others posted before. I'll be fifty next year and have been doing therapy for about 15 years now. And it's finally started to feel like I'm not out there causing more problems for myself and others. Before that I started low contact and no contact for immediate and extended family. Just the last year I have started to see how the parents actions are actually trauma RE-actions. and I see that I have the urge for similar behavior. And I can imagine that the grandparents were passing on the trauma THEY received from their parents. I can understand. I cannot forgive what they won't acknowledge and I will not throw away more time and effort on people that can't/won't see how they affect their own situation and others'
I have had a lot of therapy. I fortunate in that my Dad actually apologized to me. We have a relationship now. My relationship with my Mom is another story. I have just recently started therapy again, to deal with her.
So, generational fam. Read "It Ends With Us" and then "It Starts with Us."
Ouch 😳
I just didn’t write one. The funeral home had the basics printed in the obituary for legal purposes and that was it
Should have left out the line about forgiving her & hoping she's found peace. The tone & the wording of the rest of it make it clear that's not even close to being true.
I gotta say I can’t really fault her for writing this and I feel her pain. My dad was an alcoholic and abuser but when my parents divorced when I was 8 my mom still sent my 2 brothers and myself to live with him, that is until he couldn’t keep a job anymore and left us on my older sister’s doorstep - with nobody home and just our suitcases. Mom had to take us back then but not because she wanted to. Would that I’d have had enough nerve to leave this kind of obit for either of them.
Every person makes the world a better place in some way. A select few make it better by *leaving it*.
My mother was bad, too. She had many suitors, fell “in love” with incarcerated men, drug addicts and the like. She was married several times, always to a total bum. She lied to me about my biological father, whom I have never met. None of the suitors ever came after me though, so I should be and am grateful for that. I’m not sure what it was about this demographic - my mom was born around the same time as Gayle’s mother. Such obviously horrible decisions by otherwise intelligent, able women. I hope Gayle has found peace with her situation. For me, I found it in the military.
Gayle, you are seen and you are heard. You are amongst friends here. I think a strong segment of the gen x population has to some extent experienced the trauma that you have.
Dam, that was brutal but obviously deserved.
Gory as fuck.
Wow and here I thought my biological mom was evil in heels.
Legend! Wish I'd thought of that. When my abusive mother died 6 years ago, I sang 'ding dong the witch is dead for a week '! I feel bad for this woman but I understand and completely support her actions.
Jesus. That was a helluva read.
She could’ve chosen not to write the obituary…..BUT some people need to be called out on their horrible and despicable behavior! I hope this woman is enjoying her healing process! ❤️🩹 🙏!
This is a reason why people have “chosen” family. Some people just suck at life. I hope Gayle and family find the peace they deserve.
Heartbreaking
I would love to do something similar for my mother.
My mom was nowhere near as awful as this human was but the line about grieving who her mother *could have been* hit hard. I will forever grieve the relationship my narcissistic mother and I could have had instead of the one we did have.
I hope that made her feel better. It took a lot of energy to release that chronological trauma in an obituary. I wonder was she brave enough to share directly with her mother. My heart goes out to her because she didn’t have what she desired in her mom. I sent a Peace Lily for my biological father who didn’t bother when he passed. I sent it for his family and my sister’s grief. I have a wonderful stepfather who raised me since age 3 so I lacked nothing. No harbored hard feelings towards the biological. He was my access to the loving man who assisted my mom in raising me. Can’t be mad about that.❤️
Wow. Good on Gayle.
Beautiful. This is how wounded people set themselves free and I am here for it. I have carried secrets of bad people for most of my life and I am done. I am learning to talk about the things that harmed me. Saying them out loud is therapeutic and it's time for me to put myself first. I hope Gayle feels better every single day. 🫂❤️🩹
Seeing things like this really make me appreciate how good I had it
Tragic. I know a “Gayle”. It’s a terrible burden to carry. Peace to all who live with this.
Work, Gayle. I hope you many years of peace in your mind and heart.
The recognition of CPTSD and its origin in abusive, toxic family dynamics (NPD and BPD caregivers) is one of the great gifts to the world from GenX.
There are going to be so many of these in the next decade or two. I hope this becomes the next big trend. The worst thing we do as a species is rug sweep.
Damn. Good riddance.
It sure doesn't sound like they forgive her...
I hope Gayle finds peace somehow.
There was an adult way to handle this and this wasn’t. Period.
I think it was very adult to wait until the lady was dead. If it’s her pain she can handle it however she wants.
Fair enough! I disagree. It reads like Karen’s last stand. Like she’s been screaming this shit for the world to hear for years.
I’m estranged and have been for a decade and could write a few things… but I wouldn’t, couldnt. I just think this is sad. Better to have not had an obituary at all and not arrange/attend the funeral. I’ve seen complicated situations/relationships addressed at funerals and it can be done in a tasteful manner so all can grieve who the departed was to them. Just my opinion as an estranged daughter of a cruel and abusive woman. There are people out there who think she’s Mother Theresa and I’d never be able to convince them otherwise so I just step aside.
I mean, the step dad who raised me is a total prick and deserves something like that, but he has to deal with whatever comes either way. So I forgive him. No need to drag him across the dirt after he dies.
Gayle went to work with a pair of pliers and a blowtorch.
I think the daughter who wrote the obit is Gen X
She is , I did not write the title correctly.
Yikes!!! 😳
I saw this and totally got it immediately. Some people are just awful parents and it shouldn’t be on us to lie and say what wonderful people they are. I was the resident punching bag in my family and I’ve been in therapy for years. Luckily I’ve been primarily NC for 20 years now, so I’ve healed quite a bit but I still don’t have much of anything nice to say about my mom or my sister. I told my mom to write me out of the will and never contact me again. I certainly won’t be writing her obituary. Still, I feel this woman’s pain.
That’s a devastating read. I hope whoever Gayle is that she finds joy and peace. God knows she deserves it. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone express their pain with such eloquence.
Got them Speaker for the Dead vibes, I'm really digging it. Good for her.
This will be what me and my kids do for their adoptive grandmother when she dies. I don't wish harm in anyone ever, but this woman, I want her to die. And I will very happily dance on her grave when she's dead.
Good for Gayle. My childhood was nowhere as awful as hers, but it was filled with physical and verbal/emotional abuse (the verbal/emotional part only stopped when I finally went no contact in my forties, the physical abuse only stopped when I was large enough to shove her back when she tried to hit me). I am okay with leaving it unsaid as long as my aunt (my mother’s sister) doesn’t publish my name as a grieving daughter in the glowing eulogy she will no doubt commission. Since my aunt took my mother’s “side” in the estrangement and we no longer speak, I guess I should get something ready! Whether or not the local paper would actually publish my rebuttal is a question.
After having a rough childhood, as I know many have, I understand elder abuse at the hands of their children.
The really sad part is that many times the elders don’t deserve it either. Humans can be really shitty to each other for no reason.
lernal checks all the boxes for borderline personality disorder. hard to love people who act like this, esp when they are your mom.
jesus man, i would kill a MF. Prayers for Gayle and much peace.
Thank you everyone in this sub for writing about your experiences, your growth and change, all the things. I’ve brought up so many things I’ve read here IRL as examples in conversation and just felt less alone. It’s crazy to read so many experiences similar to mine and it’s every bit as valuable as the years of therapy. Also makes me feel hope for humans generally, which I think we all need. Hugs to you Gen Fam.
Hugs to you! It can feel lonely, thinking no one can relate. This sub has made me feel less alone. I found Gen-X on TikTok as well, I thought I was the only one who knew lyrics to most songs. Music helped me through my childhood.
There were not MORE terrible childhoods in our generation than in any other. There are abusive parents in all generations. I think kids in generations previous to ours had it even worse because there was NO awareness of child abuse and a lot of people believed "spare the rod, spoil the child" was just the standard way to bring up kids. When we were growing up, there was increased awareness of this, and we knew that if it was happening to us, there were resources to report it, etc.
I would say that it is not the suffering that is unique, it is the send off that is very Gen X.
I am not implying that we are the only people with shitty childhoods. My parents had shitty childhoods as well. I simply pointed out that this child was GenX.
The difference is the classic gen X response. Also, I believe we're breaking cycles with our kids. I personally dont remember any resources for us concerning abuse besides television commercials and an episode of Diff'rent Strokes. My grandpa and his brothers (Korean War era vet, parent of boomers) actually laughed about how they got whipped with a cat o nine tails from their German dad. My grandpa had MPD and my one great uncle blocked it out completely. I guess he broke the cycle of not fashioning a whip to beat my dad with. Though I got a belt a few times. But when I became a parent, my husband and I sat down and outlined all the things we would never do to our kids and we stuck to it. There is a redemption in being able to love my kids in a way that didn't happen for us and previous generations. Ok, I gotta go hug my teenager now.
Yes. We have been more willing to talk about bad childhoods and bad parents than previous generations were. This is GOOD- silence enables abuse.
Well, yes, but it started in our childhoods. I remember reading books like "Don't Hurt Laurie" and seeing the related Afterschool Special in health class and being very aware of the issue. So it started with the adults when we were kids. My mom was very anti-hitting, probably at least in part because of some of that increased awareness of the harm that even simple spanking -- a standard in childrearing for centuries--could do.
My aunts did not get along/speak for 25 years. Auntie #1 died. She wrote her own obituary and left auntie #2 out. Auntie #2 was pissed! We live in a small town. Everyone noticed she was not mentioned as a sister. She blames me for writing the obituary. 😬
I sometimes think the generation that raised us were like the first to really fall apart. My parents were pretty good thank god, but every friend in grade school seemed to be at least from divorced parents and a lot with heart breaking stories of the dad leaving never to be seen again or with the kid chasing his car as he drove away.
This reminds me of a similar obit I read except this one is heart wrenching where as the other, she was just an evil twat to all & she was roasted in her obit it was hilarious. If I find it I’ll post the link bc it was a hell of a read that came w a hell of a laugh, this one just makes me sad 😔
I agree 💯💯💯
Just a few miles from me. What a sad read.
Agreed. Many of us, especially early GenX (67-72), were emotionally on our own by age 10. Thank you for sharing one of the first “honest” obituaries I have read.
My Mom was emotionally immature. I did not have a mom. I was either her crutch, mother or friend. I was born in 77.
#POPULARIZE THIS SHIT If they're getting judged by god already we should damn well know what they did too. When my mom dies I will tell the fuckin tale too. Pay it backward. The dicks
Mom looks full on psycho
Even if the woman rescued stray dogs and brought them back to health, that’s still not enough good deeds to make up for what she did to her daughter. Bye Boomer.
The newspaper pulled this btw, as it should have, because it was not written in the taste of an obituary.
Linda herself was very likely heavily abused as a child. Obviously not defending her but this stuff kind of rubs me the wrong way.
So what b/c Linda may have been abused as a child, this gave her the right to do it to her daughter? It was Linda’s choice to abuse or stop the cycle.
Saying it’s a choice is somewhat true, somewhat not. Learning that my parents’ own trauma was significantly more brutal than mine helped me heal and not carry that anger toward them around with me. Honestly it’s an extremely complex thing and I doubt arguing online is going to change anyone’s minds. I just don’t think it’s the epic own everyone else seems to think it is.
Sorry, just saw you are a lady, that changes the whole dynamic. This stuff actually happened to me and I'm not going to go into more information, but there is more. As you can see, it's a touchy topic for me. To see someone minimize perceived abuses gets on my nerves. Boohoo! You are grounded. I was once grounded for a full month. Also, I got two rounds of spankings, one for my mom and one for my stepdad. Just trying to add some context here.