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With A Little Help From My Friends
Mar. 10th, 2009 08:17 amI read this blog post today: http://ohtobking.livejournal.com/908.html . It was written back in December and I haven’t had any ill dealings with my father since. The odd thing is, I didn’t have any ill dealings with him at the TIME, either. I’ve searched through emails, I’ve gone back over livejournal entries, and I haven’t found anything between the cordial passing of “happy holidays” emails between him and I on the 26th and the next time we spoke at some point in January with him asking if I had his email address blocked (and, fyi, I’d never actually HAD his email address blocked. I don’t block people’s email addresses until they harass me. I simply removed him from my LJ friends list and removed MYSELF from my message board) and me responding that I hadn’t, and then a series of emails asking how each other were.
So you can imagine my surprise when I stumbled over this today. And my first response was, “Well damn.”
I wrote a couple of “friends only” LJ entries on the whole thing but the long and short of it is that I had realized earlier at some point that the source of a LOOOOT of my relationship problems stem from the way my parents’ have spoken to me. Dad has continuously brought up instances of me acting out of a teenager (that, notably, I don’t remember) and Mom has continuously told me what an ungrateful brat I am (when she wasn’t worrying about me going to Hell), and the truth is, I expect the same from everyone else. I think I always have. To be honest, I’m not even sure I believed it from THEM… I’ve just always expected it from other people.
Which is, I think, why I tend to beat people to the punch. I decide for myself “they don’t want me around”, and then I get bitter about it. I can trace instances of this and it makes me cringe. And it’s not that the other people in those situations were exactly FAULTLESS… but I didn’t have much grace for them, either. Because they were just doing what I’d always known they’d do.
Even if they weren’t actually doing it.
So today I begin anew, methinks. For one thing, my father is off the hook. Whether he wants to be a part of my life at all or not, I’m beyond expecting him to make up for the behavior that’s been exhibited in the past, including this particular blog. Fact of the matter is, I’m beyond expecting anything different from him. As far as my older brother is concerned (who is the glad recipient of the previous blog entry, and you can find the rest of his crazy ass here , if you’re that interested… go on, have a good time. Tell him I sent you), he’s got his own bag of issues and I don’t have any interest in dealing with someone who’s going to toy with my emotions and fuck with my head.
The bottom line, though, is that even when I think these things myself… it’s really, really healing to hear it from other people. I had already begun to have the conversation with myself on the question of “What kind of parent says things like that about his own kid on the internet???” and ask myself what I’d think if I’d just stumbled across that blog and didn’t know who it was.
But here, for my sake and the sake of any of my family who may be reading who happen to SHARE Dad’s particularly low opinion of me (and my sanity), I figured I’d repeat some of the things that they said that resonated with me. They’re general good advice and thoughts for anyone going through anything like a similar situation.
Abuse is abuse, no matter how old you are. This is abuse. You don’t have to stay in an abusive situation, regardless of who you may be related to. You are not required to pursue abusive relationships.
And, Dad?
You’re wrong.
( Read the rest of this entry » )
Comments
I'm convoluted? Why don't you get your head straight.
You know what? It's easier for you to say "you're just like your mother" than it is for you to deal with your own FUCKUPS, isn't it? Blow it off. "You're just like your Mother." And then go and lie to Barb and anyone else I might respect just like you lied to them about her.
You know what hurts? Being told that you treated your parents like shit. You know what hurts? Having your own father support an asshole who tells you that you're worthless. You know what hurts? being told that your step-mother thinks you're just fucked up and that's why you can't move from the abusive situation that you're in to your Dad's.
You know what hurts, Dad? Being lied to and put down and told that there's something wrong with you for not liking being told that you're worthless and crazy and a bitch. So I think I'M the one who gets to react to that, and if the WORST THING I HAVE TO SAY TO YOU IS THAT YOU'RE MORE BILL THAN YOU ARE A FATHER, THEN MAYBE YOU FUCKING HAVE IT COMING. Y'THINK?????
All you know how to do is sling nasty words and abuse. That's your repsonse to your own fucking guilt. Well y'know what? SHOVE IT UP YOUR ASS.
You know what? Just don't bother. That's what you think of me. It is ridiculously fucked up (equally ridiculously fucked up that someone would post something like that about their kid on the internet, but hey, that's me) but you're entitled to it.
In much the same way that I'm entitled to not want to bother with someone who's convinced themselves, and most likely others, that that's the sort of person that I am.
Who can't take responsibility for their own actions??????
You know FULL WELL that this isn't who I am, but this is the person you've created in your head. For whatever reason you might have... to justify not coming around, to have an excuse not to see me... and I don't fucking care.
It's your problem, not mine. You have fun making up shit about me with Will so that you can justify being an asshole to me until you don't have to deal with me anymore. You COULD just have said "I don't want to be in your life", but that would have been telling, wouldn't it?
Fuck you.
Because they're more family to me than you've EVER been.
or will ever be, now.
Congratulations. You don't have to be a Dad anymore.
Edited at 2009-03-10 07:54 pm (UTC)