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Here we go...another family holiday that, with all of its good intentions, manages by accident to rub my face in the fact that my family memories aren't all warm and fuzzy. They're flashbacks of terror instead.
TW
My untreated and mentally illfather couldn't stop hurting me even when he meant to play catch. Throwing the football in the back yard with me, as a bipolar he would throw a manic bullet pass at my head that would drill me point blank in the face. To say hello in the morning at the breakfast table he would hide behind the refrigerator. Then when I walked by he would jump out at me to sock me a light buddy-to-buddy punch in the arm. The problem was, his manic delivery of that light buddy-to-buddy punch in the arm would turn into a heavyweight champion-level roundhouse stinger blow that would knock me off my feet and leave me with a purple bruise for days--all before breakfast.
And that was when he wasn't angry. When he got angry about once a week, he'd go into blackout rages, fists flying and not with punches to my arms. Then they were straight to the face. I'd retreat to my room, but I couldn't escape through its window because he put bars on it. I could only bolt the door and wait for the raging beast of a dad outside to wear itself out and go away. After the blackout rages passed, he never remembered them. He just went back to hitting me in the face with a football and knocking me off my feet at breakfast, all friendly again.
Locking myself in my bedroom to get to safety from him worked for a while until when I was in high school in one of his blackout rages he finally just went ahead and kicked it in. That time he had me trapped in a smaller room than usual, so now he could bounce me off of its walls with his fists. It left behind traces of blood spatter in arcs across its white walls that stayed there ever after as evidence even though later he never could remember how my blood got up there.
Instead, in a manic fit he bought me a shotgun to keep under my bed in there. His reckless lack of awareness of his safety issues toward me scared me so badly that I left home then at 17, just 4 months shy of my final high school exams. I didn't want to get trapped in my bedroom again with his fists flying and wind up having shot my dad in self defense with the shotgun he'd given me to keep there.
My TV just blared an ad at me about what I should buy my dad as a gift for Father's Day. Ruefully, I thought that in memory of our relationship when I was a kid I could him a football, or maybe a pair of boxing gloves. Instead, though, I realized that by leaving home at 17 I already gave him the greatest gift of all--his life. I didn't fulfill his deranged death wish with that shotgun he gave me.
Happy Father's Day, Dad.
Anybody else having PTSD reflections on Father's Day?
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Just wanted to give a thank you to Mid, Arfie, Malibumark, Greeneyes, Mlro, Girlincalif, and Suncloudjd! You all always have such helpful tips and advice, but I always forget to write on my posts when I see you post, lol. I would lose my head if it wasn't attached to my body, lol. Thank you all so much! I'm starting to use my AI app as a sounding board again. I used to use it as that before...
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89FNo energy, just going to do whatever. Sandra, It's hard to move at a certain time in life. You've been in your home forever, at least you'll be able to travel to the beach and enjoy. Oh, we did hear Boris Johnson's tenure ended due to a series of ethics scandals, accusations of dishonesty and a final collapse of government support that forced his recognation. What he didn't do like the...
Still, I was also gifted with a great co-parent and a son who has gifted me with 2 grand-children I am proud to spend time with. The stark contrast feels a bit like being torn between two realities. Is it any surprise I'm crazy? Some days I can even make crazy look good. I'm merely *eccentric* on those days.
Here's to hoping I can be merely eccentric as I pay homage to the worthy fathers in my life. They really do deserve it, but they are not homage hogs. They will forgive me if I don't make it to the party.
BTW, in the 20 years he was a horrible golf player? He went through seven sets of clubs b/c he'd break them in a rage fit over a missed shot. Yeah. Here's some golf towels and golf balls and new golf club covers, Dad, have a good season on the greens.... away from *us*.
My mom encouraged this, btw, as one of her "I am a good Catholic wife but still protecting my kids as I can" tactics. Could've paid for college if he'd worked or not golfed or both, but hey! Keep him happy, and keeping him away, at the same time? Bonus!
Yeah, I'm a little bitter, but...I dunno, bitter is better than fear-loathing-dread-terror-panic and letting the day be one of memories I have all year around anyway, if that makes sense?
When they divorced, my dad all but abandoned us. I saw him maybe once a year and he was immediately replaced by a step-father. He also immediately re-married and started another family. This affected me as young girl and woman, having her father figure disappear from her life, yet want to show-up for just the good stuff, like the public celebrations, graduations.
However, my father apologized to me as an adult. His words were for “abandoning” me. That meant a lot to me. We have worked hard to re-build our relationship ever since. I’ve worked really hard to forgive/understand both my parents.
It's no tjust forgiveness.
It's *Trust*. That has to be re-earned. And that takes time.
My dad wouldn't have apologized if you put a gun to his head, so I've no idea if it would matter. Honestly? Not to me. He'd only be doing it for himself. He was that kind of guy. And keeping peace in a family is a rotten reason to go back to what one feels is a toxic or unsafe place/situation/gene pool, IMHO.
That's my perspective, anyway. Heck, if my late sister rose and apologized, I'd have to ask what she wanted and what she was after, and why. I learned that early and often, alas.
And your child may have had experiences outside your house that feed into her unwillingness to believe/forgive/whatever. Could be she has seen other addicts and situations that you're unaware of that scare her and scar her.
Again, just from my POV.
Another was times when my mother made me ride to the store and or do errands,or got pick up wood to burn. He would stop at the local porn store
then talk when driving about how he wants to just end things by driving into a semi with me in tow.
He would slap me repeatedly. black my eye Mother stood watched and giggled.
His anger and abrupt violence scared me to my core. and like you and others here, I knew he was dangerous.
I left home at 16.
I am glad you made it out muji. and others here. I am sorry you had to go through such abuse.
In a way I think you should celebrate yourself,,for I think you have been there as a father figure to many people you have encountered and helped.
May the day pass peacefully. I am glad you are here.
The thing is my dad was my best friend when I was a kid. But things changed when I turned 12. He developed RA and it brought out the worst in him. My mother is no prize either. I don't talk to either of them anymore.
It's challenge for me, with my family of origin as my primary abuser, not to relapse in my recovery on directly parent-related holidays like Father's Day and Mother's Day. Then there is the loneliness of holidays usually spent with family, like Christmas and Thanksgiving.
On those days it helps me to remember there are biological families and logical families, and that these years here many of us have spent together in support here at DS PTSD now, you are my logical family. Knee, yes, that indeed is what I'll celebrate this weekend, taking your advice.
lost4411, I had to estrange myself as an adult from my family because of two dangerous physical attacks my father made on me on two Christmas visits to celebrate the holidays with him. The first I escaped. It was right before my wedding, so it was doubly sad for me since it meant my parents didn't attend the ceremony.
8 years later he was fired for fraud in pastoring a church. Though he didn't admit to his fraud, I reestablished contact to give him a second chance so I could support him in his disgrace as a defrocked minister who had to mow lawns for a living. He enjoyed my support for a few years, but then in 2010 again at Christmas he attacked me again. I couldn't escape this second attack because I was ill with kidney disease. He managed to land a punched in my face, just like he had before I escaped home at 17--me, a hospital chaplain and a minister myself at age 52.
There are times when fathers don't admit what they've done as you have. Such fathers have no remorse, and so choose to continue to be violent forever. I took control of the issue, then, and had a vasectomy. My motivation wasn't negative, it was a positive commitment to end my family's cycles of violence forever. Cutting ties with my father, then, is consistent with having my man tubes cut to ensure that no more family violence could ever take place between a father and a child in my family again. It ends with me.
You ask for an insight, and mine is this: just speaking for myself, ending the violence is priority one, then continuing the relationship. If the violence can end as the relationship continues, that's a double blessing. But it is one big blessing, too, if the violence ends though the relationship does not continue. Peace is worth the price for all concerned.
But, I left ‘home’ for good at 14 yrs old so that probably says a lot rite there
Mujica, I’m so sorry what you been through, I cried reading it
Everyone else too I’m so sorry what you all have been through
Big hugs to anyone that’s had to feel this pain that we have, I’m not sure I’ll ever ever understand it :(
Thank you for your responses and sharing your stories with me. For you and everyone on this post I am so sorry for all of your pain. I appreciate you opening up to me and I will take what you said to heart in hopes to reconnect with our daughter one day. God bless you all!
The pain shared is about the hole in the heart that can't be filled concerning what never came to be no matter how much effort was spent trying to bring fatherhood about by being an exemplary child. It's a story of unrequited love, love not returned even after turning the other cheek, even after second chances.
Having experienced divorce before, I can say without a doubt that for me such grief is even greater than the grief of the loss of love in divorce. The loss of parental love reaches back farther in life before adulthood in a relationship not initiated by choice that extends into the formation of basic identity itself. For the person who initiated that relationship to take no responsibility for it leaves a burden on the adult child that is too much to bear alone.
I'm so glad to have friends here to share that burden with support as Father's Day ads once again trigger reminders that go to the core of the self and the soul. Thanks, everybody.