I have been avoiding writing this post for a while now, but after reading this post yesterday, I was reminded once again that when we're going through something tough, we're not the only ones.
There has been so much going through my head lately - about my ability as a parent, and my relationship with my kids, to my relationship with my own parents. For the past few years, I have had an increasingly combative relationship with my dad. My whole life, my dad was the guy that everyone wanted to be around. He was funny and sweet and open-minded and just a great guy. About 10 years ago, I lost an uncle who was like a second father to me, and was probably my dad's closest friend. Shortly after that, I lost a second uncle who was also very close to my dad. Since that time dad has been in a depression that I don't feel he has ever gotten over. He is 76 now, and from a generation that doesn't do things like talk about their feelings, and they certainly don't do things like see a therapist.
My dad has been a functioning alcoholic all my life, and I didn't realize it until I was an adult when my mom told me. He has never been a slur-your-words, stumble around drunk, which is why I didn't realize it - it is what I had always grown up with.
Dad and I have very similar personalities - stubborn and explosive. For the past few years, since my kids were born, it has gotten strained, recently to the point where I can hardly stand to be around him. He has become verbally abusive to my mom and me, but for some reason, not to my sister. It could be because she lives so far away, or it could be the difference in their relationship. My mom chooses to live with it, but I find it harder and harder, especially since I was in a physically, verbally, and emotionally abusive relationship with a boyfriend when I was 24. When I left that relationship, I realized I didn't have to live that way, and left. Every time my dad makes another comment to me, I feel like it drains a little more of my love for him. That sounds terrible to say, but it's the only way I know how to say it. Sometimes I wonder if he is in the beginning stages of dementia or Alzheimers, because strangely, those are the easiest diagnoses to stomach.
My dad has told me I'm white trash, or that I think I'm better than everyone else, or, most recently, accused me of being abusive to my kids (because I disciplined Simon in front of him after he had hit me twice). I will be the first to admit that I yell too much at my kids. I hate that about myself, and wish I didn't do it, but I would never, ever physically harm my kids. I would not tell them that they are worthless. But here is the thing - I DO yell. And then I feel terrible and guilt-ridden and ashamed. I know I am not the only parent to yell at their kids, but I have to figure out a way to be in the moment where, as a parent, you are so frustrated with your kids for doing something that you have repeatedly asked them not to do, and NOT lose my cool. I have decided to start seeing a therapist to figure out a better way to do this.
The thing that struck me, when dad called me abusive, was this. As a parent I think we each see ourselves in a certain way. I have days when I feel like I have done a pretty good job, and go to bed and sleep soundly. But more often than not, I go to sleep and cry, or feel like I have done a shit job, or wonder how in the hell everyone else seems to be able to keep it together and why can't I? Just once? I have learned in the past 5 years exactly how much GUILT comes along with being a parent, and it is an emotion I feel at least once every single day. I also realize I am harder on myself than anyone else is - I think that's just human nature - but when you lie awake in the middle of the night after a bad day, and wonder if your family wouldn't just be better off if you took off, and you wonder if you're harming your kids by yelling, well, when someone calls you abusive - when they just happen to pick the one word you're most afraid of - and apply it to you, it is heart wrenching. And when the person who applies that word to you is one of the two people who are supposed to be your biggest champions, your biggest encouragers, one of the two people who love you unconditionally, it is like a kick to the gut.
So.
If I have been distant lately, it is because all of this is going through my head. It is because I am trying to rectify the parent I feel like I am with the parent I want to be. I am trying to decide whether to cut ties to my own father or try to make it work, because right now? I don't fucking know if I want to make it work. I lived a life, almost 20 years ago, with someone who used me as a punching bag, literally and figuratively, for 6 short and long months. Someone who kicked me in the stomach while I laid on the ground and screamed. Someone who grabbed me, while I held onto the front door, and physically carried me back into the house so he could continue to beat me. Someone who bruised me and destroyed my things and shredded my clothes and shredded ME, and I decided at midnight, on December 11, 1993, that I did NOT have to live like that ever again, and I left. I drove to my parents' home and knocked on the door and my dad bawled like I had never seen, and the next day, helped me move my things home. And now? I feel like I have cycled back to that same point, in a manner of speaking.
So please forgive me if I am lax in posting, or I cannot make myself be funny, or I slack off. I am trying. Every day I start over, trying to figure out this LIFE. And I wrote this because I know, deep down in my heart, even though I have felt alone on an island of misery for a while now, that I cannot be the only one who is struggling, and maybe by writing this, it will strike a chord with someone else. Maybe, just maybe, these words, and this confession, will help start my own healing. I pray that it will.
Shannan
