Why can't I stop feeling this way? The overwhelming need to know what he's doing, why he isn't speaking to me, even though it makes no sense. He has his own life, I have mine, it isn't fair to do this. But here I am, and no amount of logic will turn that off. Why do I do this? Every new relationship I go through this. How many have I sabotaged in my early times of insanity? It fades as I get used to it, but the beginning is tumultuous and incredibly triggering of my poor mental health. Even if the relationship lasts, I often come out with new scars, physical and emotional.
I'm positive it's not tied into the relationships themselves, but what causes it? Why? How can I deal, how can I learn to cope, if I can't even figure out what it is that is causing these extreme responses? the insecurities, the complete inability to deal? I try to force myself to enjoy the things I used to enjoy, but it's all empty. Even when I'm "okay" I feel numb inside. I can put on a smile, I can feel brief moments of happiness, but inside is numb. Inside is nothing. I am rotten and broken, useless, unable to recover from traumas that I can't even identify. The trauma responses are there, but no idea where they've stemmed from.
So I have to just keep going, and hoping that the next low won't be my end, because the urge to die is stronger and stronger, and I'm not sure that anyone really realizes how deeply hard to resist it is. It would be so easy, living where I do, to simply make it happen. Sometimes people say, "but what about Kennedy?" But more and more I feel disconnected from her, as well. It breaks my heart, I know I love her, I know she loves me, but I'm also numb and blank. I can hardly feel. Kennedy is pulling away as she gets older, and I'm pulling away as I spiral.
Friendship is a possible trigger. Closeness of others. They will leave, just as all the others left before, and will still leave.
Sunday, March 1, 2020
My Dad
Earliest memories of bad things.
Trying to really dig in, because I truly don't understand why I act the way I do. I don't understand why I act like I have all this shit in my life, but I honestly can't think of too much bad. We had relatively decent money by the time I was really able to remember. We didn't have a lot, but we were surviving. We had been very poor before, when I was very young, of which I have very few memories. We had a home, a nice yard. I knew my parents loved me and took care of me, and my sisters are like my best friends.
Maybe if I write, if I just write it out, it will make more sense. More will come, and it'll make sense, and maybe I can deal with it... Or not. At least get it out?
I suppose the first topic would be my dad.
I remember being genuinely afraid of my dad. I can't pinpoint a reason exactly.
He simply felt unpredictable. I would have nightmares of punishments from him, but none of them were things he ever actually did. Things like hitting me when I did something that, to me, didn't feel wrong. I felt confused.
I never knew what was OK and what was not. I never knew what would get me in trouble. It became the default to think "hide everything" so nobody will see fault.
I suppose that is a trend to this day, though not necessarily to keep myself from being in trouble, but simply to hide everything. Hide everything and nobody will judge you, hide everything and nobody will bother you. Hide everything and you can continue to exist under the radar.
I remember feeling anxiety about being forced into things I didn't want. I have memories of La
Salette shrine around Christmas time, and the dread I felt looking at the stairs where people would kneel and pray. I remember feeling dread that I might have to go up those stairs, an illogical fear that my dad would make me do that (which makes zero sense truly, since we are not religious anyway). Telling my mom about this story as an older child, she couldn't understand how I could remember that. Apparently I was not yet speaking, and was in a stroller. We went again and I led her to what I remembered without hesitation. I can no longer recall all those details enough that I could lead her there today, but i recall telling my mom about it, showing her, proving it, and her disbelief. My age would explain the illogical reasoning, but I'm forever wondering why I remembered that particular moment before most children have really developed that kind of long-term memory. Was it that I was so deeply afraid, regardless of what it was about? In my barely-speaking age, was that deeply terrifying to an extent that I still have vague memories of it?
Some of the worst bits about anything to do with him was that I adored my dad. I looked up to him, I wanted to be like him. I would take his tools and try to build things, because that's what dad did and I wanted to do that too. I wanted him to approve of me. He was also the one who scared me the most, however.
He would critique how I spoke, he would yell at me if I spoke to my friends in a different way than I spoke to him because I was "just doing that to be like ____"... but he never considered that perhaps I could be more than one person depending on who I was with. Different aspects of myself came out, but they were all me, they were all things that existed in me. I simply hid those things so regularly from him because he scared me. His scolding had me unsure of everything I did, using extreme caution to not "be different" than I normally was with them, regardless of what my truth might be. I spent a lot of time teaching myself to question my every action and how they may be perceived by others, especially my dad.
He believed entirely that I was making things up when things were so very wrong. Now I know the issues ranged from severe anxiety, depression, autism, auditory processing, down to simple genetic issues with my feet that make it painful to stand too long.
After high school I was working full time from 4am to noon as a baker at Dunkin, then going to classes from about 3-6 each afternoon. I felt like my life revolved around this, but since I had recently lost all my friends it didn't mean much to me. I was also very likely incredibly depressed but unaware- I had given up most everything, and was stuck in a cycle that included little more than those things, barely caring for my self in that time. Constantly being on my feet, and the aforementioned issues with the structure of my feet, led to severe pain that lasted days after, so even a weekend was wasted hiding while in pain. Instead of any sort of recognition of things going on, all I remember was my dad lecturing me about sleeping in, about not doing anything on the weekends. I felt so tired, so exhausted by life, and he would rage in after 8am if I wasn't awake, forcing me to be awake. He would tell me that if I would get up more my feet would adjust, that it was simply because I wasn't walking enough, wasn't standing enough. After a year or so my mom took me to a podiatrist who confirmed that it was a genetic issue with my feet and simply "doing more" would only worsen it. It is not curable, but knowing what it is, it can be dealt with to lessen pain. Thanks, dad.
He wouldn't install any sort of cooling system, even if the house had central air that he had simply disconnected, even when I was suffering near constantly from heat exhaustion and could hardly eat due to the debilitating nausea I was constantly experiencing during one summer in particular. I would eat dinner mints all day, nothing more, because they eased the nausea in that moment, but it wouldn't go away. I had no energy to even move, and my dad went on about my laziness, how I wouldn't feel warm if I would go in the pool, but I had no energy to even move, how could I go in the pool? So I lay there, an uncomfortable mess. I didn't actually discover that it was heat exhaustion until a friend informed me. At least I did not have that issue again, no thanks to anyone but her. Summers were always difficult due to that, however, since he would never to this day even get any sort of cooling in the house.
My childhood doctor once told my parents that my later-diagnosed Auditory Processing Disorder was simply "Selective Hearing"... in essence, he said that I was ignoring them and it was behavioral. My dad latched onto this, and while my mom continued to feel something was not right, he would treat every occasion of me not hearing him as willful disobedience. My mom continued to have my hearing tested, and hear from teachers that this was certainly something more, but it still took years for them to bother testing how my hearing was with background noise involved. To this day my dad stands by "Selective Hearing" as my issue, just to add salt to that wound. No apology, but why would he ever?
He never apologized even when proven wrong.
An example of that was when the milk had gone bad in the fridge. I had been poured a glass of milk, took a fraction of a sip and spat it back in. "It's bad," I said, and he scoffed at me. "it's not, its a few days old. Drink it." and I was older at this point, still feeling the urge to simply submit, but I knew this milk was bad and of course I was not going to drink it. "It's bad. Try it yourself. Smell it." I said, annoyed but also cautious. He seemed annoyed and came over, clearly expecting to tell me its fine, get over it. He smelled it... and paused. "Huh." he said, then dumped it down the sink drain. "Must have gotten too warm at some point." and that was that. No apology, no acknowledgement of how he wanted me to just drink bad milk. There was an instance of this when I was younger as well, but that one I did drink it.
That was a more minor one of those times. Another was when I was grounded because of a jump rope being wrapped around the ceiling fan of my sister's bedroom, and then the fan was turned on. My dad was yelling for me, his voice was clearly angry. I was confused. I came into my sisters room to see her untangling the jump rope. My dad immediately snapped at me to wipe that look off my face, he knew I did it. He went on about how that can burn out the motor of the fan, his entire behavior screaming anger, aggression. "I didn't do that," I said, confused. I had literally just come over after minding my own business and playing in the living room, and had no idea what was happening. "Go to your room." it was unspoken, but I knew i had to stay there until he forgot. Who knows when that would be- he would never give an end time. Sometimes if I came out after an hour all was fine, sometimes the next day, sometimes a few days. He usually forgot or simply 'moved on' by then, but he never said anything, so i went back to the constant guessing game and the paranoia and anxiety that came with that. If i leave the room now, is it too soon? Will it further my punishment? Worse... will I be yelled at? Because somehow simply being yelled at felt the worst to me.
Years later, my sister admitted she had done it. She was scared, too, and simply said she didn't do it, and was believed. My dad immediately decided it was me, and I was isolated and confused for quite some time. I remember crying because I couldn't understand why that happened. I didn't do anything, he didn't even ask, he didn't believe even my initial honest confusion. He didn't believe my words, either, though he believed my sister it would seem. I was probably only 6 or 7 years old, but I remember going into my room and lying in bed just crying. I remember not wanting to do anything, even when I was probably safe to leave. Depression? I don't know. Reminds me of it, though. I know it felt like a harsh injustice, even if the 'punishment' wasn't anything insane, simple mild isolation.
I guess there are several things with my dad that occurred throughout my youth, more than that even, but there was always good and I do not see him as abusive, I do not see him as anything but a product of his generation. Why should I attribute any of this to my own bullshit? I don't know if its related, but venting it out feels good enough, so I guess that's all for this time, for this topic.
Trying to really dig in, because I truly don't understand why I act the way I do. I don't understand why I act like I have all this shit in my life, but I honestly can't think of too much bad. We had relatively decent money by the time I was really able to remember. We didn't have a lot, but we were surviving. We had been very poor before, when I was very young, of which I have very few memories. We had a home, a nice yard. I knew my parents loved me and took care of me, and my sisters are like my best friends.
Maybe if I write, if I just write it out, it will make more sense. More will come, and it'll make sense, and maybe I can deal with it... Or not. At least get it out?
I suppose the first topic would be my dad.
I remember being genuinely afraid of my dad. I can't pinpoint a reason exactly.
He simply felt unpredictable. I would have nightmares of punishments from him, but none of them were things he ever actually did. Things like hitting me when I did something that, to me, didn't feel wrong. I felt confused.
I never knew what was OK and what was not. I never knew what would get me in trouble. It became the default to think "hide everything" so nobody will see fault.
I suppose that is a trend to this day, though not necessarily to keep myself from being in trouble, but simply to hide everything. Hide everything and nobody will judge you, hide everything and nobody will bother you. Hide everything and you can continue to exist under the radar.
I remember feeling anxiety about being forced into things I didn't want. I have memories of La
Salette shrine around Christmas time, and the dread I felt looking at the stairs where people would kneel and pray. I remember feeling dread that I might have to go up those stairs, an illogical fear that my dad would make me do that (which makes zero sense truly, since we are not religious anyway). Telling my mom about this story as an older child, she couldn't understand how I could remember that. Apparently I was not yet speaking, and was in a stroller. We went again and I led her to what I remembered without hesitation. I can no longer recall all those details enough that I could lead her there today, but i recall telling my mom about it, showing her, proving it, and her disbelief. My age would explain the illogical reasoning, but I'm forever wondering why I remembered that particular moment before most children have really developed that kind of long-term memory. Was it that I was so deeply afraid, regardless of what it was about? In my barely-speaking age, was that deeply terrifying to an extent that I still have vague memories of it?
Some of the worst bits about anything to do with him was that I adored my dad. I looked up to him, I wanted to be like him. I would take his tools and try to build things, because that's what dad did and I wanted to do that too. I wanted him to approve of me. He was also the one who scared me the most, however.
He would critique how I spoke, he would yell at me if I spoke to my friends in a different way than I spoke to him because I was "just doing that to be like ____"... but he never considered that perhaps I could be more than one person depending on who I was with. Different aspects of myself came out, but they were all me, they were all things that existed in me. I simply hid those things so regularly from him because he scared me. His scolding had me unsure of everything I did, using extreme caution to not "be different" than I normally was with them, regardless of what my truth might be. I spent a lot of time teaching myself to question my every action and how they may be perceived by others, especially my dad.
He believed entirely that I was making things up when things were so very wrong. Now I know the issues ranged from severe anxiety, depression, autism, auditory processing, down to simple genetic issues with my feet that make it painful to stand too long.
After high school I was working full time from 4am to noon as a baker at Dunkin, then going to classes from about 3-6 each afternoon. I felt like my life revolved around this, but since I had recently lost all my friends it didn't mean much to me. I was also very likely incredibly depressed but unaware- I had given up most everything, and was stuck in a cycle that included little more than those things, barely caring for my self in that time. Constantly being on my feet, and the aforementioned issues with the structure of my feet, led to severe pain that lasted days after, so even a weekend was wasted hiding while in pain. Instead of any sort of recognition of things going on, all I remember was my dad lecturing me about sleeping in, about not doing anything on the weekends. I felt so tired, so exhausted by life, and he would rage in after 8am if I wasn't awake, forcing me to be awake. He would tell me that if I would get up more my feet would adjust, that it was simply because I wasn't walking enough, wasn't standing enough. After a year or so my mom took me to a podiatrist who confirmed that it was a genetic issue with my feet and simply "doing more" would only worsen it. It is not curable, but knowing what it is, it can be dealt with to lessen pain. Thanks, dad.
He wouldn't install any sort of cooling system, even if the house had central air that he had simply disconnected, even when I was suffering near constantly from heat exhaustion and could hardly eat due to the debilitating nausea I was constantly experiencing during one summer in particular. I would eat dinner mints all day, nothing more, because they eased the nausea in that moment, but it wouldn't go away. I had no energy to even move, and my dad went on about my laziness, how I wouldn't feel warm if I would go in the pool, but I had no energy to even move, how could I go in the pool? So I lay there, an uncomfortable mess. I didn't actually discover that it was heat exhaustion until a friend informed me. At least I did not have that issue again, no thanks to anyone but her. Summers were always difficult due to that, however, since he would never to this day even get any sort of cooling in the house.
My childhood doctor once told my parents that my later-diagnosed Auditory Processing Disorder was simply "Selective Hearing"... in essence, he said that I was ignoring them and it was behavioral. My dad latched onto this, and while my mom continued to feel something was not right, he would treat every occasion of me not hearing him as willful disobedience. My mom continued to have my hearing tested, and hear from teachers that this was certainly something more, but it still took years for them to bother testing how my hearing was with background noise involved. To this day my dad stands by "Selective Hearing" as my issue, just to add salt to that wound. No apology, but why would he ever?
He never apologized even when proven wrong.
An example of that was when the milk had gone bad in the fridge. I had been poured a glass of milk, took a fraction of a sip and spat it back in. "It's bad," I said, and he scoffed at me. "it's not, its a few days old. Drink it." and I was older at this point, still feeling the urge to simply submit, but I knew this milk was bad and of course I was not going to drink it. "It's bad. Try it yourself. Smell it." I said, annoyed but also cautious. He seemed annoyed and came over, clearly expecting to tell me its fine, get over it. He smelled it... and paused. "Huh." he said, then dumped it down the sink drain. "Must have gotten too warm at some point." and that was that. No apology, no acknowledgement of how he wanted me to just drink bad milk. There was an instance of this when I was younger as well, but that one I did drink it.
That was a more minor one of those times. Another was when I was grounded because of a jump rope being wrapped around the ceiling fan of my sister's bedroom, and then the fan was turned on. My dad was yelling for me, his voice was clearly angry. I was confused. I came into my sisters room to see her untangling the jump rope. My dad immediately snapped at me to wipe that look off my face, he knew I did it. He went on about how that can burn out the motor of the fan, his entire behavior screaming anger, aggression. "I didn't do that," I said, confused. I had literally just come over after minding my own business and playing in the living room, and had no idea what was happening. "Go to your room." it was unspoken, but I knew i had to stay there until he forgot. Who knows when that would be- he would never give an end time. Sometimes if I came out after an hour all was fine, sometimes the next day, sometimes a few days. He usually forgot or simply 'moved on' by then, but he never said anything, so i went back to the constant guessing game and the paranoia and anxiety that came with that. If i leave the room now, is it too soon? Will it further my punishment? Worse... will I be yelled at? Because somehow simply being yelled at felt the worst to me.
Years later, my sister admitted she had done it. She was scared, too, and simply said she didn't do it, and was believed. My dad immediately decided it was me, and I was isolated and confused for quite some time. I remember crying because I couldn't understand why that happened. I didn't do anything, he didn't even ask, he didn't believe even my initial honest confusion. He didn't believe my words, either, though he believed my sister it would seem. I was probably only 6 or 7 years old, but I remember going into my room and lying in bed just crying. I remember not wanting to do anything, even when I was probably safe to leave. Depression? I don't know. Reminds me of it, though. I know it felt like a harsh injustice, even if the 'punishment' wasn't anything insane, simple mild isolation.
I guess there are several things with my dad that occurred throughout my youth, more than that even, but there was always good and I do not see him as abusive, I do not see him as anything but a product of his generation. Why should I attribute any of this to my own bullshit? I don't know if its related, but venting it out feels good enough, so I guess that's all for this time, for this topic.
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