Inside my mind is a bad neighborhood... I really shouldn't be here alone!"
When I am all alone with myself, the quiet is too much to bear. I am physically paralyzed by emotional pain...To own my part seems foolish, as I did not ask for this life and the fucked up childhood which I did not have a choice in living. Apologizes don't remove scars. Living amends work well for me and those I hurt who are interested in actually being connected to my life somehow. My mother hasn't ever been interested in me, what I wanted to be, or what I strive to do. She rejects me, refuses to see me, and when I show up, never misses an opportunity to point out just what kind of piece of shit I am, or how my status in scumbag-ville has so appropriately manifested in my child, who is nearly an adult, and a very positive specimen at that.
After 17 years of chaos, filled with calculated emotional and physical abuse, my ex-military one time psychologist father, removed himself from my life, and has made very seldom a cameo appearance since. The only contact I have had with him in the past 22 years, I have initiated. Only one conversation has ended with a positive feeling, it was the most recent, and the odds of it happening again are so slim, it may very well have been our last one ever.
Repeatedly, I have tried to be a part of my family. Like touching a hot stove, burned my hand, and beat myself up about it. Time went by, I thought I was to blame and that it was going to be different, because of the work I have done on myself, I gave it another shot, and OUCH! That fucking stove STILL burns, go figure. Most recently, I have made a conscious decision to make no effort toward first contact with either of them, and of course there has been no attempt from either side to have any contact with me. I say that I do not hold any ill will or resentment... This is true as long as I am busy, working, going to the gym, attending meetings, out with friends, listening to loud music, spending time with my daughter, but the pain is there behind all of these band aids that I use to masque it.
The cut is too big for band aids now. It's torn up and the surface isn't sturdy enough for stitches. My hurt feelings and sadness used to only worsen during times when society calls for togetherness of "family", and holiday cheer. The word FAMILY is a hot button, which sends me off the deep end at times. It's safe to say that the pain is now constant and debilitating. I believe it is cutting off my circulation, I cannot breathe, it's stunting my growth. I can't act out in my old childish ways, as I would be incarcerated or hospitalized indefinitely. Medication is not an option for me, as I don't believe chemicals are an appropriate treatment of the root issue, but the outer symptoms... let's start with one chemical then add another, then add one more, then something for the side effects of the first, now the second and so on... defying all logic.
SO I write...
To both of you:
My poor choices were made after yours, yet mine have always been the ones criticized. What did we do about our precious child trying to slit her own throat at age 7? I know what we did, we suppressed it, after all what would the neighbors think? I have come to accept that once things happen in life, they cannot UN-happen. In my quest for validation, love, affection, nurturing, and emotional stability; I've sought temporary relief in sex, older men, older women, crime, drugs, and when I still wasn't satisfied, dominance, power, and violence. My relationships have been no healthier than the one that brought me into this world, and I recognize today that nothing else in my life can improve until I have successfully released this pain from my heart.
To my mother:
Keeping up appearances was your facade manufactured to keep people from getting close enough to see the sickness inside of you. In a sense I was raised in a lie and forced to lie. Feelings, affection, comfort, were dismissed, discounted, and disallowed. Love and respect were purchased. Trust was a foreign commodity, traded for leverage on the most believable fable. You are cold and calculated, and as you have aged, it has become more clear. When I was a child there was one parent that saw through you, as a teen, a second parent and a third, as an adult I notice that your friends have disappeared, you have just one left, and she will inevitably see through your veil of deceit. You had them all snowed for so long, as if you were some sort of "Mother Theresa", high regarded in your clique of church folk who had no reason to suspect that any kind of evil would lurk in their sacred house of worship.
You are 71 years old, headed in the direction of dying alone, and I don't feel bad, not one iota. Fuck you, for continuing to treat me like I am lower than buried dog shit. I've fantasized about hanging myself at (Your Church)'s altar with a giant sign that reads simply, "(Your Name)'s Daughter", if only the video that plays in my head playing all the fucked up things you say and do could project out to ensure that you wouldn't be seen as a martyr. When I needed a mother, you needed to perform for your audience. The older I got the less fun it was, the promises of fame and fortune were as empty as my soul was becoming. I knew nothing of life, of being a woman, of sex, of my body. I sought your approval through all means possible. The more desperate I became, the less you had to do with me. You have been ashamed of my existence since I was able to form a thought that was different from yours.
To this day you are uncomfortable when I begin to speak in your presence. If you admitted that you've ever had ANY single human struggle whatsoever, I would recoil from such an emotionally angry, and aggressive posture and I would embrace you in MY arms, as you are my mom and I am biologically wired to love you. Even though you have consistently used my need for your love as a way to crush my exposed, unguarded, heart. When I had cancer, you wouldn't even drive me to my surgery, I was in prison, you wouldn't take my calls, rehab, still nothing. Again, fuck you, you sick fucking depraved sociopath. If I outlive you, I will drop trow and shit on your headstone!
To my father:
My role in your family remains undefined, says the grown up forgotten child.
When I needed a Daddy, you needed to chase pussy. You finally divorced from my mother after dragging me around from situation to situation cheating on her for 18 years. Promising me a happy life and a loving family. You never bothered to look at the lifetime of destruction you left in your wake. Your abusive and explosive temper left it's devastation in the form of physical and emotional scars, your cruel and horrific words cut far deeper than that. I was selfish and self centered at 6? Really? You bastard, you knowingly placed blame on me and robbed me of my childhood by insisting that I grow up and accept the fact that I was never going to amount to anything. I sat at your bedside while you threatened to blow your brains out, I cried myself to sleep at night afraid that you actually would. You turned me against my mother who was equally crazy, insured me that you were going to take me somewhere that life would be better for both of us. At 7, you fucking abandoned me with family I never knew and haven't seen since. Then at 17 you fucking bailed on me completely. You left me behind. I was very sick, having surgery in the hospital when you packed all of your shit and the day I got out, you left. You fucking COWARD. 9 months without a call, no forwarding address, not a birthday or a Christmas card. 20 years later, and you've contacted me ONE TIME. Let's not forget about the 17 years of abuse, the holes in my bedroom walls and the scars on my face. Don't worry, the school nurse knows I just fell, but Daddy, why are you mad at me? You never came to see me in jail, rehab, or any hospital, you never took my calls begging for your help. You have never visited, you have never invited me to spend time with you. You and your ex wife both act like once the magic number 18 is achieved, your child is no longer existent. Fuck you.
Not only did you make a million promises you did not keep, you left me DAD, you walked out the door and found yourself a pre-fab-family, then you forgot all about me and made them your 2nd chance! Those kids grew up loving the fact that they have 2 fathers, and now an extra grandfather to their kids. Do you ever wonder how your biological daughter feels about not having a father at all, or your biological grand daughter wondering why she has a grandfather, but he never talks to her or sees her or sends her cards on her birthday? FUCK YOU. I often wonder how my life would have been had you died from taking my penicillin instead of your percocet on the plane that day... what a convenient oversight it was for you to be having an allergic reaction in the hospital while I was running the streets of Oakland at 15. I've always had a knack for finding ways to have my kinda fun.
I made my amends and you claimed that you too had made some changes and found your own program and way of life, funny how nothing has changed for you and I, but what a great man you are today. When holidays come, use your fucking head... I don't want your fucking photographs of your family and your happy life. I don't want to hear about the wonderful family vacations you've taken with my grandmother, aunts, uncles, or cousins. I don't want to know about how much better a Dadda you are to someone else's kids, or "grand kids"... You have ONE grand daughter, you piece of shit, you didn't even bother to acknowledge her when planning for your mother's 80th birthday celebration. YOU sure as fuck don't want to hear how I struggle every day of my life with the strength to not put a bullet in my own fucking head. Yeah Daddy, just like you did when I was a little girl, I sit in the dark on the edge of my bed contemplating suicide. Thanks for the inheritance, shove it up your fucking ass. I should blow my brains out all over your dining room during your beautiful loving family's Christmas dinner!
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