My Dear Cousin - Another Car

25^th May 2021

My Dear Cousin,

 

As I recall, I have now written to you about all the events of my family life ending with the three gifts I rejected from (Yule), his mother, and his sister. I have to remind you at this point that everything that was ever given to me by my family was at some point used as leverage to force me to do something I didn’t want to do.

I recall (Pony Girl) bringing up every dime she could remember that my old man had ever given me. She couldn’t remember that she had gotten more than eighty thousand dollars from the man at this point, and the last time I had accepted anything from the family they had harassed me about it until I was too depressed to go to work.

I calculated something like fifteen thousand dollars in lost wages from that, but I’m sure if I had mentioned that they would have said it wasn’t their fault. That was my family for you. They did whatever they wanted to me, and I was just supposed to take it without complaint. I defend myself in any way, and I’m the villain.

In any case, the old man got on another of his legal drug benders and wound up in a manic state where he was just spending money like it was going to go bad in a week and this led (Pickle) to come to me and say that I could have my (Pony Girl)'s old car as she was getting the old man’s SUV now he was getting a new one.

“I can tell your answer by the look on your face,” he said seeing how I felt. Her car was a Saturn SC2 and where as it was in better shape than the Saturn SL2 they had tortured me over the thing had problems I didn’t want to inherit. I recall that the sunroof was no longer working, and they had needed to do work on the power train.

At some point after that I asked for money for college which I was promised but never got. The old man once again said he would give me money and never did then he got himself a second SUV instead and when he found himself in a ditch with blown out tires he stopped doing whatever drug he had been taking as of late and (Pony Girl) became his power of attorney.

They returned the second SUV, and I got nothing, as expected, I never got anything from that old man that was of value.

I do recall at some point (Pickle) telling me that (Pony Girl) had said she took all of the old man’s money and put it in her bank account so that I couldn’t ask for what he had promised me ever again. This is felony larceny by the law, but I guess it doesn’t work that way once you have power of attorney.

Best,

 

Richard Leland Neal

My Dear Cousin - My Body Shut Down

6^th May 2021

My dear cousin,

As we have established, by the age of fourteen I had lost my mother, was living in a slum suffering abuse on the regular, and my old man was only a part of my life on weekends. It should be no mystery as to why I had trouble in high school. I had problems and when problems go ignored they just get bigger and bigger until they force you to do something about them.

My body shut down, and I was having trouble with my grades. I remember vomiting every morning and asking the old man to take me to a doctor, but he refused. I couldn’t concentrate on most of what I was reading and had trouble holding my hands up to type.

I once mentioned to the old man that I had setup my keyboard in such a way as to make it more ergonomically sound, but my hands hurt when I typed. He sat me down and said “I’m tired, my back is hurting, I’m worried about a fight I had with my wife…” and so on. I asked him what his point was and he said I complained too much.

He labeled me a hypochondriac and the whole family called me a hypochondriac for more than ten years after that. Hypochondria being a real medical condition were a person feels bad and believes themselves to be ill were no cause can be found I asked to be treated for my problem.  You treat hypochondria like you do depression, they could be just the same thing, so I asked to see a psychiatrist. The old man said “it’s all in your head” and refused to take me.

I did participate in sports in high school. I fared as well as anyone who is dangerously depressed, but the teams I played on were so small they couldn’t practice without me. Years later my old man would mention that I passed my sports physicals as evidence that nothing was wrong with me. I reminded him that the doctor had ordered a blood test, and he had refused to take me. 

I nearly flunked out of school my third year. The old man screamed and screamed, and insisted I was just lazy. That was his Modus Operandi, he would first laugh at my problems, and when they didn’t go away, he would then scream at my problems. Never did he try to resolve them in any meaningful way. 

Two weeks before I graduated high school I got my last check from the government. Survivors benefits from my mother’s death.  That same day I got a job. After that, well, that’s for my next letter.

Best,

 

Richard Leland Neal