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This is a PTSD rant because tomorrow is my abusive father's birthday. I was out of contact with him for a healthy 8 years from 1992-2000 before I checked back in to see if he had changed. Then when after he punched my face on a Christmas visit in 2010 I was sure he wouldn't ever change, I've been good about keeping a healthy distance from him for 5 years now.
Just as in 1992-2000, my life has thrived since I stopped surviving him after 2010, so it's not that on his birthday I get sad because I miss him. I have nothing to miss, he was never a loving father. He was just a mentally ill bipolar who put himself up on a religious pedestal as his ruse to avoid treatment. When his symptoms overwhelmed his religious fanatical outlets, he used me as his whipping boy to relieve the mania or the depression.
Afterward, he often didn't even remember the episode. Not even the next day after I showed him my blood that he spattered on my bedroom wall in the beating he gave me. He'd just go back to church and pretend to be a saint like nothing happened. As if what he ignored he'd done wasn't enough, he went further: he expected for me to make a fuss over him on his birthday.
So those being the memories I have of him, I am not sad every August 16 on his birthday because I miss him. No, it's because I grieve that little Muji never having had a nurturing, loving daddy. I miss the fact that, now that I'm an adult and I know from others how good having a loving father can be, in the cards fate dealt me, one of those good daddy cards wasn't included. And we'll leave it for another day to talk about how I missed getting the good mommy card, too.
Sticking to this topic, I did pretty well fathering myself as a kid. As far as religion goes, I even ended up finded enough real stuff about it in spite of my abusive churched dad that I became a hospital chaplain. I enjoyed feeling actually useful in comforting people.
So most days of the year I feel pride in myself about all of that. But this one day a year, I notice the lack, and it still hurts for a day. Then it passes. In large part because I can share about it with you, and I know others here understand for real.
Thanks for letting me let off some sadness and some steam here about this year's August 16.
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I'm alive, I'm sleeping like a rock, and for some reason I wanted cherry juice so that seems to be helping. (??? Weirdo that I am.)***Infamous therapies over history:1. The Attic. The madwoman in the attic is a motif in literature going waaaaaay back: the nutty female relative is locked in the attic. (See: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte for a grotesquely racist version of it, and Charlotte Perkins...
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Hey all, i know its been quite awhile since i posted on here. Its been a summer all right. Its been something else........... You know how they say not to open the can of worms? Well a few months ago i decided to find out what my due date would have been for my first baby, the one conceived by r***. My baby would have been due on March 4th of 2006. They would be 20 years old. I was R**** on June...
I hope you celebrate YOU tomorrow! ☺ In spite of his horrible treatment of you, you turned out to be a wonderful and caring person. He can't ever take that from you. No one can. I hope you get some sort of wonderful surprise tomorrow that will make August 16th a day to remember for a whole other reason. Hugs ♥
Hugs, Patti
Steadying hopes while you ride it out, muji.
I went out to the woods by a pond I call Walden Pond like the one made famous by Henry David Thoreau. I sat quietly there so a "forest bath" could bring me peace. Out by the pond I read a book chapter by JD Vance about his family & his violent childhood. It was from his book Hillbilly Elegy- A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis. It didn't excuse my family's violence, it just let me know that there are others who survived it. That was comforting today.
You carried me through, and I'm so thankful. I'm sorry so many of you have shared past experience, too. I look forward to being there for you when/if your anniversary comes up, ok? I want to pay it forward, because you got me through this day so well. Heartfelt gratitude to you all.
When I read your story it was almost like I was reading mine. When people ask me the question: do you ever miss having a dad, I tell them I don't know what it's like to "miss" a dad, or what is a "dad". I only see what other people have on father's day and wonder what it must be like.
I must say, I really respect that despite his "sins" you became a hospital chaplain anyway, because it's YOUR life and you are the pilot, not he. I want to high-five, hug, and fist-bump you so bad! Way to go.
Btw, my father suffered a stroke recently after being out of my life for 20 yrs... and flooded my FB and personal email with messages. He never apologized for anything he did. Just told me who he is and a bunch of poor me, poor me stuff, I need money blah blah, etc. Many of my relatives were messaging me to do something for him and gave me guilt trips, "He is your *father*!". Even my older brother fell for it and bought a ticket and flew out to see him. I, however, never responded to him and kept the door closed. Some would call me cold hearted. But I don't think so. Some of us closed those doors for a reason and should keep them closed.
You have my sympathies for what you went through. But I admire how you have come through on the other side.
Your story and mine add up to being the same story right down to the details of how he expected your help after his stroke. With mine it was the return of cancer. I'd moved in with him when cancer hit 2004-2007, but after he was violent at Christmas in 2010, I'd moved away.
Then when the cancer came back in 2013 I got that flurry of messages to come running back to help, too. And like you, this time I held my ground even though he got people on the sidelines to condemn me for closing that door, as you say. Oh, it's so good that you shared your story with me. We're not alone.
@Blue,
Just where were all of those people when you were a child? Where were those people when you were being abused?
Oh I guess family means nothing to them. I suspect that they just don't want to be bothered by them. Self centered...as usual.
Hey, iam, I'm so glad you do "forest baths," too. I started doing them this summer, and wow, do they ever work for me! I'm looking forward to what those "forest baths" will be like in autumn with the autumn leaves turn all colors.