In high school I had many different friends from varying clichés. One such group of friends I met through my ex boyfriend Chris. It was a group of guys that all skated together. Even after Chris and I broke up, I remained friends with a number of the guys and even went on to date a few as well. One of them stood out from all the rest and his name was Kane. Kane and I were friends for a long time until one day we began to see each other differently. He was much different from the other guys from “The Crew”. He wasn’t very talkative, he was kind of shy and he seemed to keep a lot of things to himself. His Dad had died when he was young as well, though I can’t remember exactly what from. He didn’t really like to talk about it. I wasn’t used to someone like that at all. I usually dated guys that were more emotional than me and weren’t afraid to express their feelings to me. Kane was like an onion with many layers that you had to slice through to get to the core, his heart. When we started dating I would get frustrated and angry because he wouldn’t open up. He was more into doing things that didn’t require talking, as much as I liked him and wanted to do these things, I also felt I had a brain in my head and could use it from time to time. He would reassure me of how I felt when I got angry but at that time it was like I needed something more than what I was getting.

At a rave on New Year’s Eve 1998 I met my first mature love. I met him through a friend of mine, Zoey, that I went to the rave with. We were both on ecstasy but I knew instantly
there was some sort of chemistry between us whether it was platonic or not. His name
was Thomas. We had drug induced conversations and by the end of the night I gave him
my phone number for some reason, maybe it was fate. I did have a boyfriend at the time, Kane. He was a good guy and I liked him a lot but he wasn’t filling the emotional void that I was desperately looking to fill at the time. I needed to feel wanted and cherished. I’m not sure if Kane did or not but he wasn’t emotionally there like I needed him to be at the time. Three weeks after meeting Thomas we began dating and Kane and I were over after only three months but we still remained friends, and would continue our back and forth, push-pull relationship until he died. Thomas was different. He came from a dysfunctional family as well. Both of his parents at the time were in rehab for heroin use and even though he was 17, he was living on his own, well with roommates. This was a good thing but also not such a good thing. It gave me a place to go to escape the hell that was my home life, but it also provided an unsupervised place to do drugs and lots of them.

I know I’m taking a step backwards here but my relationship with Kane wasn’t over yet. Thomas and I were together for 5 years on and off and a lot of that off time was with Kane. Before Thomas and I even got together we became friends fast. Kane would even go with me to hang out with him and drop X. I’m sure this bothered Kane but I felt this gravitational pull towards Thomas that I never felt before. Nine months into Thomas and I relationship something happened between my mother and I that I will go into further detail about later, but I had to move out of my mom’s house and had nowhere to go. My Aunt Lindsay stepped up to the plate and drove down from where she was living now in Ponte Vedra Beach and took me in. Again all this will be explained later, but while I was up there Kane and I kept in contact through AIM and phone. He even sent me a valentine’s day card. I did end up back in South Florida, I had my GED and a driver’s license and wanted to start college. I needed to be back south even though my Aunt helped me out tremendously and to this day can’t thank her enough for what she did for me. I felt I needed to be back down south where all my friends were and start school. Kane was there when I got back of course. We spent many nights driving down A1A listening to music and talking about life. While I was gone he bought himself a motorcycle and sometimes come over to visit me on it. I didn’t understand this new obsession of his and why he and his friends were riding them. I wouldn’t get on the bike with him even after he would plead with me. Ever since I developed panic disorder, again I’ll explain later, what would seem like so much fun to me before was terrifying now. Kane and I would make plans with our friend Drew and his girlfriend who happened to be my best friend in high school at one point. We went to the beach and kind of coupled off. While we were walking on the beach, Kane would bring up why we weren’t together, why was I so hesitant to kiss him and all I could come up was confusion. I knew how I felt about him but at the same time I was in contact with Thomas at the same time and cared for him too. Kane didn’t take my explanations lightly and disappeared. It took the three of us a couple of hours to find him randomly walking the streets near the beach. The last time he and I hung out we made plans to watch the movie Detroit City Rocks with Drew and Sam at his house. When the movie started I remember him holding my hand and he continued to hold my hand throughout the entire movie. I haven’t seen that movie since that night and to this day I can’t bring myself to watch that movie. If I see it on the channel guide I avoid it like the plague. I’m the same way with the song November Rain by Guns and Roses because of my dad.

I don’t remember how long it was after that night we watched the movie when I was told Kane was in the hospital. It could have been the next day or a couple of days later. He was riding his motorcycle in a parking lot, hit a speed bump and was thrown from the motorcycle and hit a light pole. When I was told of his accident he was in the ER in critical condition. When I got to the hospital and saw him I couldn’t believe what I was looking at. He was in a coma with a breathing tube covered in bruises, scrapes and cuts. His abdomen was covered since most of the trauma was there since he hit the light pole in that area and was internally bleeding. He had to have surgery to try to stop the bleeding. I was at the hospital everyday he was there and unfortunately that was only seven days from the time of the accident until his heart stopped on June 12, 2000. I wasn’t there when he died, I was at home sleeping when I got a knock on my window from my buddy Drew waking me up to tell me the news. I felt my heart-break again. It wasn’t a new feeling but the wounds and scars of the past that were still inflicted on my heart weren’t ever healed, and the new rip I felt that second burned inside me like someone poured alcohol unto a fresh-cut. I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that I would never see or talk to my Kane ever again.

On May 4, 1998 my Popop died. He was my mother’s father. He was 69 years old.
Throughout his life he had suffered three heart attacks and had a pacemaker placed in
his chest sometime in his sixties but that wasn’t what did him in. He later developed  throat cancer. He had to have part of his tongue removed and his illness wasn’t a long one. I wasn’t there when he died but my Memom, (my mom’s mother); my Aunt’s Lindsay and Ellen and my mom were there. He died at home. A bedroom in the house was set up like a hospital room to make him as comfortable as possible, (this was the same setup that my father got when he died). I was told that the night he died my mom had one of her drunken rages and threw a glass at her sister Lindsay’s head and tried to leave but Lindsay hid her keys so she wouldn’t drive drunk. They had to lock her out of the bedroom where my Popop was in a hospital bed clinging to life. She wasn’t in the room when my Popop took his last breath because she passed out on the concrete floor in the garage. My grandparents lived in Jacksonville Beach and the family wanted my Popop to be buried back home in Pennsylvania. The funeral was held in classic Irish catholic style with bagpipes at the cemetery and all. Later that night, I had two of my cousins with me, and we stayed at my Mom’s best friend’s house since they were out-of-town. I felt it appropriate to get into the huge liquor cabinet and drink myself almost literally to death and was found in the shower on the floor the next morning with alcohol poisoning. I don’t know why I felt this was such a good idea at the time; maybe it brought back too many memories of my father’s funeral. After that experience I didn’t touch a drop of alcohol from the ages of seventeen to twenty-one.

Things at home were anything but stable. My brother was out of high
school, in college and working full-time keeping himself out of the house as much as possible. I on the other hand didn’t have a car or a driver’s license and ended up quitting my job at the mall since my mom’s license was suspended. The abuse was escalating. I think it was at this point that I reached a breaking point. When she started to hit me I couldn’t restrain myself anymore and started hitting her back. I was angry. I felt the need to defend myself since I felt I couldn’t count on anyone else to anymore. My mother had alienated herself from her side of the family, so there was no contact. I couldn’t talk about what was happening to my dad’s side of the family, it felt like treason in some weird sick way.

Life at home was getting harder and harder to tolerate. I didn’t get a car when I turned 16, my brother did, the day he turned 16.  I even managed to get a job at the mall and showed up to work hung over or did drugs in the back room just to get through it. Therefore, my mother was responsible for taking me to and from work and she resented me from taking her from her drinking time to come and pick me up when the mall closed. One night she picked me up from work very drunk and very angry. She yelled and screamed at me telling me I was an inconvenience to her and how much I was a piece of shit. When I got into the car I heard a voice in my head say “put on your seatbelt”. When were only three blocks from home and stop at a stop sign at a major road, she turned to me and said “ I’m going to do us both a favor and kill us both.” She gunned the gas and before I knew it we collided with another vehicle. I don’t know how much mom was able to back up and pull away making it back to our house and the car in the garage. I was just in total shock, knowing if I didn’t wear my seatbelt I would have went through the windshield. About 20 minutes later there was banging at the front door, it was the cops. My mom yelled at me not to answer it and hide. When nobody would answer the door, two cops started to come through the back yard with flashlights. I was so scared I didn’t know what to do. Imagine almost the entire back of your house is made a sliding glass doors, except for the kitchen which had a big sliding window above the sink. If cops are using flashlights to look through the windows there is only one place to hide. I got down on the kitchen tile and put myself into the fetal position for what seemed like hours.

One night a friend was driving me home and we turned onto my street I saw the police
and an ambulance down the road. It didn’t take me long to realize it was front of my
house! When my friend pulled up to my house it was like everything was going by in
slow motion. People going in and coming out of the house, I was shocked. I suddenly
ran into the house to see my mom on a stretcher. I started screaming “what’s going on?
Is she okay?” nobody was giving me any answers. My brother finally came up to me
and told me that mom was drunk and was talking about taking her life. He found her
an hour later on the floor with a bottle of pills, what pills I don’t know. They took her
away and everyone left. I felt so numb. I had to feel something, something other than this
nothingness. That night I called some people and scored some cocaine for the first time. I
was up all night doing lines of coke in my mom’s bathroom.

Journal Entry: May 27th 1998

I don’t have a fucking family. I fucked things up with my dad’s side and my mom
fucked things up with her side. My mom and I got into a huge argument last night. She
said she hates me and doesn’t want me around. My mom doesn’t know the heartache she
has caused me.

The Rave scene in the 90’s will never be replicated. It was a magical utopia of music, lights and drugs. The music was much different from the music I was used to. The sound of pulsating techno music and beats that you could move to felt liberating. Everyone that went to these parties was friendly and preached about “PLUR”, peace, love, unity and respect. It was an underground culture that accepted everyone and allowed you to be as different as you wanted to be. Fiona and I started going to this small club in Fort Lauderdale called Club Soda. This place is became my playground and is where my designer drug experiences started. Fiona and I decided to take acid there one night. It was our first time. We bought what we’re called gel tabs in the girls bathroom. When the drug started to take effect I remember us looking at the things around us and just laughing. Everything became that much more intense, the strobe lights, the music and even people. We had so much fun I remember us having laughing fits. Even when we left for the night we decided to get taco bell. As we went through the drive through we couldn’t even order we were laughing so hard.

It wasn’t long after this that I tried Ecstasy. I was scared at first but once it hit me it was like I was seeing the world through rose-tinted glasses. I never felt so much love and optimism in my life. I could connect with anyone and anyone could connect with me, as if we were one. I made friends every night on and off the dance floor. I never felt unity like this before or after. I wrote a paper in high school about it that would better describe my experiences.

The flashing lights shooting from the ceilings of the club mesmerized my eyes. My ears were pounding with the sound of the drum-n-bass from the speakers. My chest was throbbing with adrenaline that was never so intense before. I saw people dancing so soulfully on the dance floor. They were hugging and talking to each other, like they had so much love for one another. Kids were packed next to the speakers trying to sit up against them and feel the thumping bass pulsate through their bodies. I wanted to feel that same pulsating feeling the way they did.
My friend Fiona, who came with me, looked at me, and I knew we were feeling the same thing. Instantaneously we made our way to the dance floor and let our minds and souls be set free. Everyone dancing seemed so uninhibited, like they were part of the music pumping into the air. I started to move my body, and I felt as if the music had taken over me and I was a slave to it. I never felt so alive, boundless and careless of what was going on in the world around me. I knew from this moment on that this was my happiness.
Still to this day I feel the same feelings that I possessed that night. What I did experience was my first rave, the first night of a new way of life. I know when people hear the word “rave” they think of a bunch of high school kids packed into a crowded warehouse on drugs with pacifiers in their mouths. It’s a lot more than that to me. The rave scene is a culture in its own. The people that it consists of are just like people of any other culture, unique and different. We all have our own beliefs, religions, morals and values. The only thing we share is the dream to bring together everyone to unite for a better world with the sound of music.
I know everyone has his or her own opinion about the rave culture, and most of it’s bad. The scene gets its bad name mostly from the drugs that are very lavishly sold and used at raves. Yes, drugs are a part of the culture, but not everyone is there for that reason. Most people who believe in the scene feel the same way I do, but of course there are going to be people out there that come to these raves and make us look bad.
Drugs are really the only negative aspect of the subculture. It’s not even that they are negative; I feel that it is the mentality of the people that use them. Some people take the drugs there to feel as if they are one with themselves and everyone else there. Others just take them there because it the only place where they can go to feel free to take them, where they won’t get caught and nobody really minds either, since it’s accepted. I guess there shouldn’t be any right or wrong reason to take drugs but the reason for taking them for personal growth is more a part of the real culture, than taking them for self-mutilation.
Another part of the scene is the people. When I went to my first rave, I made so many new friends in a matter of five hours. Usually people that you meet at raves are the nicest people that you have ever met in your life. I think the reason for this is because, that is the only place they can go to, to get away from all the troubles in their lives and just feel like themselves.
Another reason I believe this to be true is because it is the only place that everyone can be accepted with no questions asked. Inclusion is central to the rave scene. Unlike stereotypical high school cliques that group kids of similar grade point averages and socioeconomic status, this group includes all kids affluent and poor. You usually can’t find that stability at a Marilyn Manson concert.
That brings me to one of the most important parts of the rave subculture, the music. The music in general is called ‘techno” but has as many different sounds as any other music on the billboards today. The variations of the music are based on how fast, slow, instrumental, how it is ‘mixed”, and if there is anyone singing in it. The names of the different types are jungle ambient, trance, acid rock and house. Instead of everyone crowding a stage of rock stars at a concert, everyone spreads out around a stage with a “DJ” ‘on turntables. At a rave, the DJ isn’t a superstar, he just like everyone else. The value of the music is essential. If there were no music, what would bring us together?
Where the value for this music came from the people. The people of this culture, like any other culture, wanted to bring everyone together with a different rhythm and beat. Music starts where words end. People can better express themselves with music. The people of this culture decided that they would better express themselves with this music. They felt that it was an expression in some way.
Because of all this, I think I got so swept away with the ambiance of peace and acceptance. Before I started going to raves, I did feel accepted, to a certain degree, but I never saw one place that had so many different kinds of people. It’s like a bunch of different cultures melted and sculpted into one big one. I’ve met people who were from Latin, Italian, Canadian, European, catholic, Jewish, Wicca, and other descents I’ve never even heard of.
The value of escape from the real world is essential in the rave underworld. At one point in time someone must have gotten tired of feeling like they weren’t accepted and not living up to the standard of being “cool”. From there a bunch of people realized that they felt the same way and decided to do something about it. They wanted to escape from the ignorance and discrimination of society. They created an environment that included everyone and brought people together with the same idea. That same idea is, P.L.U.R, Peace, love, unity and respect. In this atmosphere, there will be a sense of peace and understanding for those that didn’t feel understood. There would be a place that everyone could go where they felt loved. There would be a place that everyone was united and one with each other. There was a place that everyone deserved the same respect as everyone else.
Soon after that I’m sure raves began to catch on and develop into a bigger part of society and become a part of it. Not only in America do we feel this way, but all over the world as well. In every city in the world you can find ravers, with the same attitudes and desires. They have the desire to feel a part of something. Why and when this unique desire came about is unsure, but it’s here, and we have to fulfill it. My experience with this concept is simple. I wanted to go somewhere that made me feel a part of the atmosphere, somewhere I could escape my mom and my school work. I wanted to go somewhere I could just be me and not have to worry about anything.
To sum up everything l have said, I can only find that on a flyer that someone gave to me at a rave once. It explains how I feel about the culture and what I feel that I have gotten out of it. It must sound kind of silly, but there is a lot of meaning and purpose in the rave subculture, and this is a summary of the meaningfulness.
“We have locked into the energy of our universe. We have found the power and the vibe. We dance on this vibe and our dance spreads unity, happiness, and peace. Now that we behold the ultimate understanding, we need to strive to spread the energy until it encompasses our universe. Strive for utopia, open the closed minds, and spread the love. If we are united, we can utilize the energy to reach our goals, welcome new people, give them the vibe, spread the energy to them, for it is not ours alone. Reach out to your world, share your understanding and together we will dance into a new realm of happiness.”

By the time I turned 15, I was so depressed that I actually tried to kill myself by taking
half a bottle of my mom’s prescription antidepressant Wellbutrin. She refused to take her medication because she was “fine”.  It made me so sick I thought I was going to die. I must have spent an entire day in the bathroom vomiting.  when my mom asked what the hell was wrong with me, I told her what I had done and she was angrier with me than concerned. She figured it was easier to pawn me off to a psychiatrist. I hated it. I didn’t want to talk about my feelings and what was going on in my life, I wanted to be left the hell alone. I guess the doctor thought “well let’s just give her some pills and see what happens.” I was put on Prozac, Effexor and ironically, Wellbutrin. Let’s just stay I didn’t stay on any of them long enough because I thought I found something better. I discovered that cutting myself was a good way to help alleviate the immediate pain I was feeling. I couldn’t tolerate the emotional and mental pain I felt and became desperate to find ways to numb them. I was also becoming very sexually active, not that I was just sleeping with anyone, they were  boyfriends, I just seemed to have shorter relationships than before. I was usually the more experienced one and loved to capitalize on that fact. I even had some friends that called me the De-virginizer since I took at least seven guys virginity between the ages of thirteen and seventeen. I wasn’t afraid of sex or shy about it either, it was just something that I did like drinking, smoking or taking drugs. It was the start of my impulsive behavior that would rear its ugly head for years to come that I would remain oblivious to. I also discovered the rave scene and along with it acid, ecstasy, cocaine and ketamine. I was going out every weekend and sometimes during the week and always getting high. My mom was all consumed by her break up with Peter to really give a shit about what I was doing, She was a mess. While we were living in that crap apartment I don’t even remember seeing much of her much during this time. She was in an alcoholic coma and I was too busy getting my tongue pierced and finding my next high. When I was still living at Peter’s house I rekindled a friendship with a girl I went to Lutheran school with, Fiona. She had her driver’s license and off we went from one adventure to the next. She told me about these parties called Raves where you could dance all night. The moment we walked into the club after paying $10 to get in I felt so free and loved by everyone, probably because they were all so high. When I moved back into our house in Boca Raton, raves and drugs were at least a 3 night a week habit.

Before my sophomore year we moved into my mom’s fiancé house. You know the one who had a son that I lost my virginity to, yup that one. It wasn’t so bad, they had been dating for almost three years and I was beginning to like him. He lived in another split-level house with the master bedroom next to the kitchen and the other three bedrooms on the other side of the house. My room had a sliding glass door to the backyard again like the house we bought in Boca. Parents never learn. My mom and her fiancé Peter also bought a house together in Lake Placid, Florida as a summer or getaway house. Peter owned a boat and he took all us kids wake boarding and hydro-sliding. My mom seemed to be calmer while living with Peter, or at least she didn’t seem to need to beat up on me as much anymore. Life for me seemed to have its own personal ups and downs. I was still with Chris even though we saw each other less. Peter lived two towns south of Boca Raton and Chris and his mom ended up moving into a house 20 minutes north of Boca. We didn’t even go to the same school anymore. Besides the fact, my mom insisted I be put on birth control. She took me to her gynecologist, who happened to be an old man with a chip on his shoulder. He did a pap smear which I felt to be the biggest personal infringement ever. I know I was sexually active since the age of 13 but these were consensual and my peers. Not some old man with hurtful metal instruments and a look on his face like he enjoyed torturing me. After he examined me I was brought into his office so he could tell me about STDs and how he delivered a baby to a 13-year-old mother. Through the eyes of a fifteen-year-old it might have seemed worse than it actually was, I just remember it being unpleasant.

We lived at Peters house for maybe eight months before something happened and I wasn’t even awake for it. I slept through the whole thing! I would give anything to be that deep of a sleeper today. I woke up for school like any other day. I made my way through the living room and once I turned into the kitchen I stopped dead in my tracks. There was blood everywhere! On the walls, the cabinets, the counters, the fridge, the tile floors. This was an all white kitchen so the blood was even more illuminated by the morning sun. Was someone murdered?  I went into their bedroom seeing more blood as I made my way over to my mom who was still in bed. She had blood on her and Peter was nowhere in sight. I asked her what the hell happened and all she said was were moving.

I’ve been told a couple of versions of this story. My moms, my brothers and my Aunt Ellen’s who had a conversation with Peter after we packed up and left but I think I know the complete story by connecting the dots myself. My mom was still drinking every night. Peter didn’t drink, he was actually on the wagon. I’m sure they had a fight and my mom was egging it on like she always did. He probably pushed her away from him because as you know by now my mom was a physical person. In her alcohol induced Brain she probably took it as him being physical with her or she just wanted an excuse to run to my brother and tell him that he hit her. That is exactly what she did, she ran and told my brother that Peter hit her and my brother being the overprotective teenage son wasn’t going to let that happen. So my brother goes and confronts Peter and a fight ensues. Peter’s son Jacob heard what was going on and decided to get involved. There you have it, a two on one beat down. Except my brother best the shit out of both of them. Peter’s face was bloody and bruised and Jacob had a broken arm. I don’t think my brother even had a scratch on him. Never underestimate the love of a son for his mother.  We had
to move into a two bedroom furnished dump of an apartment for months until our house was vacated by tenants that were renting it out.

I met my first high school boyfriend Chris the summer before starting high school. I was 14 and he was 16 and he had a car! My best friend Anne and I were outside my house and saw him and his buddy inline skating down the street. We starting talking and that night I didn’t end up coming home until 2 am. We talked about everything and anything. At some point we ended up at the beach and I remember clearly him asking if he could kiss me. I melted. From then on we were inseparable. Our relationship wasn’t perfect by any means. By this time in my life my anger was uncontrollable. I would lash out at my boyfriend Chris mostly; I wonder where I learned it from?

In the fall I started Boca Raton Community High School. It was much different from my previous school. There was a shit ton of kids and the school at the time seemed so big. My first day of school it rained all day and I had to take the bus. My first class was PE. I don’t know about anyone else but I’ve never been a morning person and the last thing I wanted to do was change into PE clothes and be active. This school had block scheduling, which meant that you had four classes a day 90 minutes each. In January when I came back from Christmas break I had four all new classes. I think this was supposed to set us up getting used to a college schedule. All I knew was that 90 minutes seemed like an eternity. Since Chris went to the same school we got to hang out during lunch. I even learned that the seniors got to leave after lunch if they had enough credits not to have a fourth class for the day. I took full advantage of that situation. Chris had the car, I had the ideas. It was the prefect escape. Blend in with the seniors to the student parking lot and book it!
I also started experimenting with drugs and alcohol at this point. The first time I got drunk was at a house party. I drank so much that I fell into a wall and put a dent into it but didn’t feel a thing. I started smoking pot recreationally. I ignored curfew when there was even one enforced. The physical abuse from my mother escalated. I took it in stride and let her hit me, pull me around by my hair, slap me around. I decided to just take it instead of fighting back, I mean what was the point anyway? I found other ways of dealing with it, whether it was through alcohol, pot or even hitting Chris. Most of his friends at the time couldn’t stand me because I had such a bad attitude. We ended our relationship when I was 16. I put him through a lot of shit within those two years and apologize deeply to the bottom of my heart because he was such a good guy but at the time, he was my scapegoat. I did manage to befriend one of his friends and stay friends with him until this very day but in the beginning I know I wasn’t his biggest fan. Drew, I thank you for your friendship still to this day. I love you bro!

Around this time my mom was not only drinking heavily but she began to become
abusive. I had become the scapegoat for all her problems. I remember being fully asleep
when she barged into my bedroom in the middle of the night turning on the light,
grabbing me by my hair and telling me we had to go see the priest because I was
possessed by the devil. I was confused and terrified. What the fuck? I was 10. All I could do is scream and cry. It was like I was in the movie Mommie Dearest but the cast was different and my mom didn’t give a shit about wire hangers. The next morning it was as if it never happened. That wasn’t because she was embarrassed about her actions it was because she didn’t even remember what the fuck she did. So this cycle would play out again and again getting worse over time. What happened to the mother that
used to tuck me in at night, make me feel secure and safe? What I didn’t realize then was
that I was never getting that mother back and things would only get worse as time went
on. When I look at pictures of myself from this time in my life I can’t help but cringe. I
see a little girl who was so lost and desperate for love but also so confused about what
love was. Was love something that you earned because you were good? Was it something
that came and went like night and day? School was the only place I felt safe even though I  hated it. At night I would hide in my closet that I turned into a reading cubby since it was big enough to put a small chair in and had a light. But there was still no escaping my mother’s wrath when she was pissed off about something. She fought with her boyfriend Jay, yes even psychically.  One instance I can remember clearly was them fighting in the driveway about who the hell knows.  My mom took a 2 by 4 to his truck and then he punched her in the face. She ran into the house and demanded that my brother punch her jaw back into place because she was convinced he knocked it out-of-place.