Hidden Pieces: My Father

***TRIGGER WARNING***  ***TRIGGER WARNING***

Well, I made a decision after much thought and prayer, I decided to begin retelling what I wrote in the Winter/Spring of 2007 after four years of intense flashbacks and repressed memories emerging. [Current commentary is in brackets.]  I wrote my seventy page "biography" because I needed to write out what I remembered and what I experienced to make it more "real" rather than a "story."  I am ready to take the next step and putting more of it in my blog.  This was the original reason for starting my blog and using my journal as a starting point.  I am still struggling with believing that the following is the truth of my life:

During this time and through elementary school, I saw my father sporadically. There were always arguments when he would come pick me up and, often times, my mother’s anger would be taken out on me. Or I would end up comforting and telling her that “I understood that he is busy and that it is okay that he doesn’t see me.” I could never talk about him with anyone in my family as it would always make someone angry, so I just stopped bringing him up and stopped being tearful. Some of the visits with my father were overnight. Always before a visit I would be anxious about would he cancel, how would my mother take her anger out on me, he felt like a stranger, I was afraid of him, and wanted to see him. I was really confused. I really wanted someone to just listen to me, accept me and comfort me like I comforted my mother.

During a couple of visits with my father, I remember having him become really, really angry with me to the point where he pulled my pants and underwear down and beat me on my bottom and the back of my thighs with his belt…didn’t cry or make a sound. The first incident, I was probably around four and had spilled my Cheerios on the floor. Immediately, began telling him that I was sorry and that I would clean it up. I kept repeating it. But, I still remember the look in his face and knew that I was in a lot of trouble. I felt like a rag doll as he grabbed my arm, pulled my clothing off, and threw me face down on the black leather couch. I remember the smell and feel of it on my face and uncovered body. I remember hearing his taking his belt off and hearing it hit my body and feeling the impact and the radiating pain. I felt like I couldn’t breathe and was going to die. When it was over, I got dressed and I just quietly began cleaning up the mess then eating breakfast like nothing happened. I was really terrified and it hurt to sit down. On another occasion, I was probably around seven…this time I was swinging the doors back and forth.

My father was really hypercritical of me. He also had some OCD issues that he expected the same detail in things that he did, from me. He criticized my mother in what she was teaching me and with just the way that I was. He criticized how I spoke, had my hair done, brushed my teeth, walked, that I spoke too much, how I ate, how much I ate, my grades, how I rode a bike…basically, seems like everything. He slapped me in the face frequently too if I was doing something improperly according to his standards. I remember my hand being slapped suddenly, when he felt I was using the chopsticks incorrectly and because I was supposed to eat only one french fry at a time…I was eating two. He always made promises that he was “going to call every week and see me every other week,” but it never happened. Not a telephone call, not a visit, not a card…nothing. The contact I did have was initiated by my mother who didn’t ask me first. I last had contact with him in sixth grade and at high school graduation.

I stopped trusting what he told me and hoping that things would ever be different. Never could talk to anyone about it…kept it all inside…just made everyone angry to bring him up. The last visit I did not cry at all, but I felt like I was so close to crying…no one ever asked how the visit went, so I never told anyone. I learned to stop talking and not to let anyone in. Also, I stopped asking questions and tried to obtain information from other sources. I always assumed that each visit with him would be my last. Somehow, I knew that after this visit, I wasn’t going to have any contact with him again.

[It was to be my last contact of any type with my father.  My conclusion was that everyone abandons me (borderline personality feature).  I actually recently was in a heated discussion over this issue because I have always said that "he slowly drifted out of my life.  My therapist is trying to make me realize that he actually abandoned me.

Due to this and my mother's abandonment, I have insecure attachments at best.  This is one of the borderline features which effects how friendships and romantic relationships can be so stormy.  One wants to be close, but one doesn't trust enough to be close.  This puts others in a "I love you. Please don't leave me to I hate you. Go away."  This is preemptive in that one leaves a relationship by making it all bad before one has a chance to be abandoned.  I have worked through these issues with my therapist and husband, but it still difficult.

I thank God for my therapist and husband.  Also, for my Grandparents, my aunt and uncle for they were my primary positive attachments especially my Grandpa and aunt. Grandpa served as a father for me and my aunt emotionally was my mother.  If it were not for all of these people, I am positive that I would have succeed in killing myself.]

To be continued...