I saw something that a child should never see. I witnessed something that a child should never witness. And I had to say no to something a child should have never been put in the position to have to say no to. And when I told the one I should have been able to tell, I was dismissed and hated for having told.

And decades later, after their deaths, I had to endure another person attempting to make me feel guilty for having told the very person I should have been able to tell—someone who saw and witnessed those exact same things, who knew personally that I was telling the truth, but tried to make me feel guilty for how things played out.

Such is, I would say, a story that is practically as old as time. Sadly, a story of the golden one and the scapegoat.

Yet, in fairness to the golden one, the golden one was raised, encouraged, and taught to treat me this way. The golden one never endured the additional trauma that fell on me. The very person I should have been able to trust for protection not only failed to protect me from the secret, but failed to protect me from physical and verbal violence, encouraged it, and even joined in with another brand of torment.

And while the golden one was not protected from the secret, the golden one kept the secret—safely protected in every other way by the one who should have protected us both.

My trauma did not start with the secret. The secret simply escalated what was already there. From my earliest days, the mistreatment was a constant presence, coming from all three of them. The secret itself took place in two distinct phases—beginning when I was just 12 years old when I saw and witnessed things no child should see, and culminating around age 14 when I had to stand firm and say no.

When I said no, I was the one who stopped it. Yet, instead of being protected or acknowledged, I paid the price from that point forward as if I had done something wrong. The trauma I had already experienced in that home was heightened tremendously—continued by all three of them until the day I was kicked out of my home at 19 years old, an event that all three of them took part in, and an event that also resulted in me being fired because I worked for the violent one.

Left simultaneously without a home or a livelihood, the other two had stoked the temper of the violent one to drive me out. Yet, the violent one was the only one of the three who ever felt any true guilt for what was done to me—living with that clear, heavy guilt right up until death, never realizing that the event was manipulated by the other two, and never knowing I had asked to come home the next day and was explicitly told no by the one who should have protected me. In truth, the one who should have protected me could not have cared less whether I lived or died.

Five months later—after being homeless, living with someone else’s family, securing a new job, and saving up money for my own apartment—I was asked to go back to work at the job I had been fired from, being told I was needed there. Yet, I was never asked to come back home. I did go back to work there.

In truth, I believe the violent one was mentally ill, seeing me as an extension instead of as an individual. Yet, enough was expressed to me over the years to know there was tremendous regret, heavy guilt, and a total lack of understanding of why this person did what was done to me. I became the very person the violent one turned to later in life, when facing going under the knife for a four-way bypass surgery—sharing things with me, concerns and fears that I never repeated to the other two. I knew in my heart that even though this person had done some of the worst things that could ever be done to me, in this person's own way, within what this person was capable of, I believe this person did actually love me and felt great remorse. However, this person was never able to tell the truth to the one who should have protected me, nor was ever able to stand up to that person to stop the continued wrongdoing that was done to me right up and through both of their deaths. And sadly, participated in the final wounding—a betrayal I knew was coming before I was even out of my twenties because of something said to me back then. It was confirmed after the second one died, when the final slap was spelled out in black and white: "my daughter Debra is to receive nothing." A final slap that to this day I do not know who it hurt more—me or the violent one. I simply could not imagine having to die with that on your conscience—knowing what you have done, and knowing you let someone you love, who you did such wrong to, get punished by the one who should have protected her, knowing you actually participated in that punishment because you did not have the courage to tell the truth.

As for me, while it did not hurt as much as I had previously thought it would, it still hurt to know they both went through with it. But I take comfort in knowing it did not hurt me in the way it was intended to hurt me. The intent was for it to upset me because of the monetary loss. What was not factored in was that it was never their money that I wanted. And if I could not have from them what was truly important, then I did not want their money.

After being kicked out, the physical and verbal violence from the violent one ended. But the cruelty from the other two continued—stopping only with the death of the one who should have protected me, the year following the death of the violent one, and by me walking away from the golden one once and for all.

The golden one had the power as an adult to finally do right by me after the deaths of the other two—to stop this person's own cruelty and to correct the injustice of those wills. But the one of the three of them who outlived the other two, could have finally done right by me, but chose not to.

The two who died one calendar year appart never knew that to me, their value was worth so much more than money. And I cannot help but wonder if the golden one will one day die that exact same way: believing money is the ultimate value in life, never knowing or feeling true worth, and never realizing how genuinely I loved cared for this person. —If this golden one had simply chosen to make things right with me, acknowledge the truth, set the outcome of the wills right, and then expressed to me a real need for the money that would have come to me, I would have told this person to keep it. And this person would have given me something that I could have held on to for the rest of my life, the knowledge that one of them finally did right by me. The knowledge that to one of them I was finally a scapegoat no more.

Debra...