The Jean series is a long-form personal narrative presented here as a structured case narrative. Each chapter has been separated for readability and linked as a continuous series.
Series contents
About this narrative
The series describes childhood abuse, family conflict, abduction, coercive control, neglect, and the long after-effects of those experiences. Readers should expect difficult subject matter throughout.
Jean
Jean was born in a small town on the East Coast, one of several children in a middle class family with parents who worked their entire lives in local factories. She was of average intelligence, but most importantly for her future endeavors, she was physically attractive. And it was on her physical charms that she capitalized.
She quit high school before graduating. She was the "pretty-pretty princess" a cheerleader, a homecoming queen, but High School was a mundane experience and it seemed certain someone well off would come along and support her in the style she believed she should become accustomed to.
Enter my father. He was a handsome man, with incredible charisma. He was in broadcasting school and planned on a career in radio. He was just coming out of a failed marriage that had been underscored by a terrible family tragedy. The final divorce decree was not finalized in the courts when Jean insisted they get married.
Jean knew about his soon to be ex-wife, and didn't care. In a card she gave him just prior to thier marriage she wrote "I don't care if the divorce isn't final, I want to be your wife now". I grew up believing that card was simply a statement outlining how much she loved the man. In later years, I revised that opinion to believe it was an ultimatum. Jean wanted what she wanted, and she wanted it now.
That simple card, with that note in her handwriting, had my father remembered he had it, would have played a pivotal role in his life and the lives of the children he had with Jean. But such things rarely happen the way they are supposed to.
My father and Jean eloped shortly after. Jean wanted to be out of her parents house, and this was the opportunity.
My father's divorce in Arizona was finalized shortly after.
Things didn't go quite the way my mother expected. And one day she simply packed up her things and left for California, what she probably percieved as the land of the rich and beautiful people, to stay with a friend. My father would have had a simpler life, and much less pain if he had simply let her go. But he followed her West, were they soon reconciled.
Having been forced to abandon his job at a radio station to follow her ( something that would be repeated again later ), he found work in a new career. The next few years were difficult. There was a miscarriage, much drinking, and much fighting. In 1964, Jean delivered my father his first son.
Things still did not go smoothly in their marriage. Jean wanted the world, and my father tried to give it to her. He worked endlessly, often two or three jobs, to try and give her the lifestyle she believed she deserved. And when things didn't go her way, when she didn't get what she felt she deserved, she was vicious. She would act without thought of consequences.
At one point, during a domestic dispute, she called the police. When things didn't play out her way, when her story of physical abuse was not beleived (since there was not a mark on her, since it was a fiction she created) she had the officers follow her into the bedroom were she opened a nightstand drawer and pointed out that my father was in possession of a small bag of marijuana. Later, the story would evolve, and she would tell family and friends how it was "just laying around for the kids to see." And in the sixties, possession of even the most harmless recreational drugs was not the slap on the hand it is now. The consequences for my father could have been severe. This kind of behavior was not just an aberration with my mother, it was a pattern and a symptom of her mental illness. Consequences be damned, she was going to win, no matter what the cost.
Early Memories