If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood

by Gregg Olsen

The monster at the heart of If You Tell is not your typical boogeyman, not some wandering drifter or man in a van. No. In fact, they called her . . . mother.

Ahhhh, what am I getting myself intooo, I’m scared already lol

There were

“Lord, this isn’t right,” he’d say. “This isn’t normal. This isn’t how a family operates. I know it. Help me.”

My heart </3

I loved my mother because I didn’t know I had a choice. I had to love her.”

her favorite present must always be the one her mother had given.

Nikki recognized that her mother had returned to one of her greatest hits of abuse—gaslighting.

They inhabited a world in which looking the other way kept them safe from their mother but led them to accept things that would haunt them forever.

SICKKK

Rage gave her superhuman strength.

Her mom was a monster, but she was the only mom she’d ever had.

He’d had enough. Hadn’t she?

Given everything she learned later on, Nikki says, “I’m lucky to still be here. My sister thinks the same thing.”

Mom was weird, she thought. But Mom was Mom.

Oh my God, is she going to kill me and make it look like I killed myself?

“Look,” she said. “You do what I tell you to do when I tell you. I’m the mom. You’re the kid.

Her mother had waged a campaign to make her fear, and then hate, her oldest sister.

What happened in their family was a burden on all of the sisters, but the one who always found a way to set things aside with humor was the one who was always in the middle.

Sometimes, Shelly said, you just never know how far someone will go to get what he or she wants.

And yet, when it was over, the same thing always happened: “Two hours later you love her again because she’d be holding you and saying, I’m sorry, I love you.”

Soooo mind fucking

She’s evil. She’s probably the worst person in the world.

There was no arguing that their mom probably was the worst person in the world. But she’s our mom. The only mom we’ll ever have.

But she wasn’t alone. She had her two sisters. They loved her, and they knew what kind of a monster their mother truly was.

Dear FBI, police, etc. Please don’t ruin all of my things when you’re investigating. Nothing of interest is here anyways. Please leave all of my personal belongings alone. Please find the animals good homes.

She later said that she had only told the police “like ten percent of the bad stuff.” Investigators, however, understood that 10 percent of a nightmare is still a nightmare.

“Mom liked to torture people. It just went too far, and she found she had a taste for it. I don’t know.”

She doesn’t miss Shelly at all, though she does miss having a mom. Luckily, her sisters were able to fill that role.

Sisters forever. Victims no more.

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Having only superficial emotional attachments to truth and moral behavior, predators train themselves to imitate trustworthy behaviors like honesty and compassion so they can exploit what people expect.

Victims of abuse can still love the monster. This ambivalent loyalty might just be the predator’s ultimate form of damage.

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Each reminds me that as terrible a person’s starting point in life might be, it’s where one ends up that really matters.

You don’t get to choose when your life begins or ends, but you do get to choose what you do with it (,: