This has not been an easy time. Swinging from fear to grief and back and forth like that, with some good hours.
Last night was especially not good. I slept fitfully. John says I kept waking him up by shouting in my sleep. He says I sounded angry. He told me this after I had been for my swim.
During my swim, I came to the conclusion that I feel something I have denied feeling. I hate my dad. I ma not sure what means exactly. I don't wish pain and suffering upon him. I don't wish him ill. However, I do feel strongly that neither of us would be safe if he was physically anywhere near me. I am not sure I would not beat him to mush.
And this is the problem. Anger. I detest it. It terrifies me. His anger was the source of all my problems. His hatred. And I have never wanted to be like him. My own anger frightens me. It also make sme feel guilty and ashamed. How could I be like him? And worse, I am constantly told I should forgive and that forgiveness is withheld form me because I am bad to feel such rage toward my parent.
Well **** that! I do feel rage toward him. So much so it hurts and I have to find a way of letting it go. It colours everything. It keeps me tense.
When I think about him and the words he used toward me, the fear he caused me to feel when in his rages he physically hurt me, the sneers and disgust on his face. The judgement. The condemnation. The lack of love.
How dare he? How dare he father me and then treat me like a worthless piece of shit? How dare he blame me for his behaviour and attitude? What sort of man is he? He used to go and on about what a failure as man I would be and am, but what the f**k sort of man is he? A COWARD? A BULLY? A SELF-CENTRED IMMATURE BOY? A JEALOUS ENVIOUS PROUD FOOL? A LIAR, A FRAUD. ALL MOUTH AND NO TROUSERS? WHAT SORT OF 'MAN' BEATS UP A CHILD MUCH SMALLER THAN HE? WHAT SORT OF MAN TERRORISES A CHILD? BULLIES ONE?
I am far far more of a man than he ever was (or is-I don't even know if he is still alive but think he is because I would know if he wasn't - the same way I found out my mother had died. That's another story.)
Despite him I grew up to be decent and kind person. But one who feels this terrible rage and who feels guilty for it. I am scared of it and ashamed of it. I do not want to be like him.
There is no excuse at all for his behaviour and treatment of me. NONE. It was all him! I did not ask for it. I did not deserve it. I did not fail him. There is nothing wrong with ME! There was something wrong with him, big time. HE was the one with the problem. HE was the one who failed. HE was the one who lacked. HE was the one who did not deserve me.
And frankly I don't give a toss what you, God or any other f***er thinks about how angry I am. I am angry. I have been angry for a very long and I am sick of pretending otherwise. I am also heartily sick of feeling bad about myself for feeling this anger. Why the f**k should I not feel angry? For f**k's sake, look what he did? This isn't just some one off injury. That bastard nearly destroyed me. And he got away with it! It was ME who was punished. ME who paid the price of his sins. ME! How dare that be! If I had got angry years ago I could have protected myself. Instead, I rolled over and took more and more. Not just from him but from others. I spent most of my life apologising for being me. No more!
I know this anger will go but it can't until I at least acknowledge it is there-which I now have-and expressed it which I have begun to.
I don't need to be told to forgive. IF that happens it will happen of it's own accord, as it did with with forgiving my mother.
I want a lot more out of life, I want to live more or it, and I am not carrying that bastard with me to shit all over it. I am sick of feeling afraid. No. However long it takes, he is going to be exorcised out of me. He will be banished. He will become nothing. And I will be something and enjoying every minute of it.
Another long stretch, but hoping to be more regular
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17 comments:
Colin, dear, you are entirely within your rights to be angry and to express that. If your latest entry is difficult for people to read, they should stop and think about how much more difficult it was to write. To say all that in unretractable black & white. Which you need to do, as many times as it comes to you, to lighten the load until eventually it IS banished, and it DOES become as nothing. Sometimes people are given parents they cannot honor. I've been there. Maybe not as severely as you, but the emotional scars still linger. I struggle with them every day, and even more so than I normally would because I, like the Prodigal Son's brother, have sole responsibility for taking care of my mother as she ages and gets more emotionally abusive and does NOT mellow. My sister relocated halfway across the country in 1978. If I had been the older child, I would have done it first. I take care of mom dutifully so I can live with myself after she buys the proverbial farm. I have to feel I have done right by her, though the favor has never been returned and never will be. While she does her rehab, I knit and talk with other folks who are waiting for family members who are also in rehab. I have made friends with a lot of those folks in these weeks, so I actually enjoy getting to the rehab place. Mom goes off and does her thing, and I visit wth people who are pleasant to me. Mom, of course, does not appreciate seeing me have a pleasant time, but I don't give a rat's a**. ;-)
There's so much more I could say, but I'm still in my PJs and have to be at work in half an hour! But take heart, my friend. It sucks to feel what you're feeling, and to have to say the things you've been saying, but remember that you are making incredible progress! Everytime you vent, that bundle of misery gets a bit lighter.
Keep up the good work! YOU ARE WORTH IT!!!!
Paula
hi Colin,
As a faithful reader of your blog, yet not one who comments much, I just wanted to check in today. Of course you should feel angry--as you point out, what kind of man abuses a child. Obviously, not a worthwhile adult. Get used to expressing your anger--you'll feel less guilty about it that way. And, eventually, you'll hopefully just wear it out, gone. I think all emotions are probably good, as long as you're capable of feeling a variety of them and know which is which.
Enough of my shoestring psychology.
Best to you,
Melanie in CT
Colin,
Don't let anyone tell you that you are wrong to feel the anger you do. That is just another way of keeping a victim down. You are fighting back, regaining your Self from the evils that were done to you before you were ever able to fight back. You go right ahead and be as angry as you need to be. Shout it from the rooftops if you need to. Anger is a terribly corrosive poison when kept inside you. It needs to be let out so you can survive it and heal. The only wrong thing would be if, having recognized it for what it is, you continued to suppress it and deny it or deny your right to feel and express it.
The unforgivable sin is his, Colin, not yours. You know this, you have recognized this. After you are able to let this very righteous anger out, you will be able to believe, deep down in your soul, the truth of this. When you do, you will be amazed to recognize what small, insignifcant, and pathetic creatures those who abused you really are. And from that day forward, they will never, ever be able to hurt you again.
You are a beautiful person, Colin. I wish you Peace.
Terri from Ann Arbor, MI
Anger is a perfectly normal feeling & is closely linked to love. I have felt the same about my mother. I ended my relationship with her about 10 years ago, but since we still both live in the same area, I see her out at times. I have been told I will regret cutting her off after she dies - my response is that I will deal with that when the time comes. In the meantime, for my own mental & emotional well-being, I had to end it!
The hard part is feeling like I am being shunned by family members for having nothing to do with her when they have no idea what I put up with growing up with her. Most people don't really know what she is tryly like!
My feelings now are that I miss having a mother that I can feel close to & do things with, but I don't miss my mother! So I try to be the kind of mother I wanted to my kids and for the most part it is working.
So anyway, don't be so hard on yourself! You have a right to your feelings and no one has a right to tell you that you don't!
Oh Colin
I could hardly read what you wrote but you are doing the right thing by putting it out in the open for you to read. I had parents that abused me both physically as well as mentally.
They are both gone now and I am free of it but I have to remind myself of that everyday of my life. I was never abused sexually but beaten with a strip or board or whatever when I was young. I could tell you lots of stories also.
I found like you writing about it has helped me overcome some of it.
It will always be there in your mind but the more you talk about it the more you will heal. We tend to keep it in and then it eats at us every chance it gets.
I wish you the best Colin and know you aren't alone. There is people in your life that care and are praying for you too.
I feel that my knitting and crocheting groups online has really helped me and knowing someone else is there helps you with the healing.
I will say a special prayer for you tonight and from now on in my special prayers. I now have to deal with a lot of pain in the hips, knees and back due to arthritis setting in but am learning to do medation which has helped me immensly.
Hugs Colin
annette2u
You are absolutely correct. You have every right to be angry. YOU are the victim and your dad and all the other so-called "good" men who hurt you should burn in whatever respective hell they believe in.
If people don't like what you write, they don't have to read.
I have read your blog from it's beginning but have never posted a comment before. I just wanted you to know like the other commenters that I was also abused both emotionally, verbally and physically by both of my parents who were themselves mentally ill. I also have bi-polar mood disorder for which I have been treated successfully since 1995, although I suffered many hospitalizations in psych wards from 1980 to 1995. I have an excellent psychiatrist who told me that it was time that I "divorced" my parents and after a year of horrendous guilt and rage I finally got up the courage to write them and tell them how badly they made me feel and that I could no longer communicate with them. From that day on I no longer saw or spoke to them nor did I attend their funerals. After these many years I have finally come to terms with my anger and disappointment in being born to abusive parents but when I am under pressure and get overtired many of these feelings start bubbling up to the surface again. However, I am now able to understand that this is quite normal and that the storm will pass and I will be peaceful again. I also, like you, have a wonderful friend and husband who loves me just the way I am and we have been together for 40 years! He says that he loves my quirky personality and my childlike trust and enthusiastic nature for all things crafty, especially my knitting, which I believe kept me going during my years in hell. Keep telling yourself that you are a kind,gentle, worthy person and take it from me, someone who had absolutely no self esteem, you will someday really believe in yourself and like me will be proud that you have survived such enormously brutal circumstances. Keep on letting out that rage in the safeness of your blog and in your own home and someday it will definitely start to drain away. Keep on blogging and knitting, you are truly talented and your dogs are beautiful. All the best to you, from Irene in Winnipeg, Mb. Canada. p.s. I am under the name fullywoolly in Ravelry.....drop on in and take a look around!
Hi Colin
Dropped by to see the puppies and was touched by your Oct 15th post. Long time ago I read that anger at it's root was really frustration over being unable to control a situation. I've found that to be true for myself, so maybe that's why I am seeing frustration in your post. Instead of forgiving your father, forgive yourself. You were unable to control the circumstances. You OBVIOUSLY did the BEST thing, because you grew up to be a caring, kind person and you are now creating the life that you deserve. The child you were survived the experience as best he could and became a GREAT adult.
BTW puppies are really cute. Glad I'm not close enough to want one.
BRAVO Colin......I am so proud of you.....It is so hard to do what you have just done, but necessary for your recovery....Its been along time since my theropist told me and guided me thorugh just what you are going through now....There are still days that I become angry, and to this day still have not forgiven the person making so....I know its coming, I just havent crossed that bridge yet....
Colin, I agree with everything you said and more! You deserve to be angry, I never got to have my peace with my father he willed himself to die, he died 2 hours before I was to get to the hospital. I guess he knew I was coming! He killed my mother and tried killing my soul as your father did! Be angry you have a right. Do whatever you need to do to get yourself feeling good! What you say is how I feel. Take care. Sheila
As a knitter and a counsellor on a never-ending learning cycle your blog has been both useful and helpful to me although I have never commented before. Colin, you have every right to be angry with both your parents - they held all the power and you were totally powerless. All I can say is that, to me, you seem to have reached a point that is right for you to release the rage you have carried for most of your life and, perhaps, you may find that some of your physical pain is a somatic resonance with your internal anger.
Scream it, shout it, write it, paint it.... however you feel is right. If you are not currently in counselling or therapy perhaps it would be helpful for you to return for a while and have some guidance during this time. I have a client who was abused throughout her formative years by both parents - her only way of expressing her anger is to harm herself. I hope that one day she will feel able to reach the point that you seem to have arrived at. Take great care of yourself and I wish you peace and happiness in your life.
H
Yes you have a right to be angry. Unfortunately, anger is very destructive. I know. Seek counseling before you hurt yourself, or someone else. It's worth it.
Colin - I think the previous comments are right on the mark, but I'd add that you should view the forgiving of your father as a gift to yourself. Forgiving him - in the sense of not having to feel the pain of your past with him and your justifiable anger - should be viewed solely as a benefit to you, not as some sort of measure of your moral fiber. Anyone who can create beauty as you obviously do and express the love obvious in your blog is the most moral of men. You must express your anger as you have done. You should not feel guilty for feeling the anger or expressing it in words. The only "sin" would be NOT to "own" your anger and then subconsciously work it out on other people who would become your victims. (Maybe that was behind your father's actions toward you?) Neither you nor I buy into religious dogma, but a prayer I learned that was pretty powerful was just to ask God to take the anger and pain away. In my case, I found it hard to release the anger - it almost defined me (not a pretty thing). But now, most of the time, I can view my old situation without getting caught up in the painful emotions - I'm (mostly) free! The facts of the abuse that caused your pain will never be erased, but I believe that you will eventually reach that serene distance from your situation, too.
I think that really you should forgive yourself - you were totally unable to control the situation and survived the best way possible. So many times the abused in some way still believes that they are somehow at fault - you know that to be completely and totally FALSE.
know one other thing - that your siblings also survived in the only way they knew how, it might not have been right, but they knew if they stuck up for you they would also be on the receiving end of the same treatment. You may never forgive them but remember that they were also children and I am sure that they were terrified that at any time the hammer would fall on them. I read a book about such a family when the abused one was finally removed then suddlenly one of the 'good' children took his place as 'evil'.
I also think that if you forgive yourself you will find some relief from the physical pain.
The worst part of abuse is not the terrible things that are done to the person but the long-term effects - the things that never seem be be shed.
It is a miracle that you have escaped such horrible beginnings to be such a person and that you have found someone wonderful to share your life.
Dear Colin,
Your post is so poignant. I often wonder how any of us survive abusive parents. Counseling, writing about our experiences in order to help others,working with abused kids, and hopefully, finally letting it go... for what happened to you can't be changed.
My counselor asked me, "If you were your own parent, how would you treat yourself?" without thinking, I answered, "I would love me."
That was a turning point for me. It is hard when you think you are unlovable.
Goddammittohell, Colin! You have EVERY f**king right to be furious with the puny excuse for a man that donated sperm to your existence! Ferchrissakes, man, you were a CHILD!!! Thank GOD you are angry. If you weren't I'd think there was something seriously wrong with you!
I hate him and I don't even know him!
So how must YOU feel?
Colin the words you use could be written about my father .I stumbled across a book "Toxic Parents" by Susan Forward in a charity shop .It cost 40p and changed my life.My heart ached when I read your post.Very Best wishes Colin .
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