Letting things go: Installment #2

I really feel like I have only briefly touched base on how screwed up things were for me during my teenage years. I remember a few events that stick out and I suppose some of these show in a way how dysfunctional we were. 

For example, I remember writing a poem for English class that I knew was really good but touched on a lot of the "do not EVER discuss" issues in my family. My teacher wanted me to submit it to our local youth writing contest but I was afraid to because I knew it would win and I would end up in deep shit at home. She convinced me to enter, I won, and we had to go to an award banquet with the other winners and their families and we each ended up reading our piece out loud to EVERYONE. I didn't know that ahead of time or you can bet I sure as shit wouldn't have entered. The whole ride home I was convinced my dad was going to kill us by crashing the car he was so pissed off at me. Not because I had aired our dirty laundry for others to see but because there wasn't anything wrong to begin with and I was an ungrateful bitch and nasty little liar for implying otherwise. Each participant was given an award certificate for their entry, when we got home dad took mine and burned it. In any normal family winning something like that would have been an accomplishment, although maybe not so much if it was about something private no one else was supposed to know about.

Anyway.... Just before I had left for college I had my last Therapy session and my therapist insisted that my parents be there so we could address some of my issues with them, namely my dad's drinking problem. I still don't know how she convinced me to bring this up to my dad since I was scared out of my mind with the idea of what was going to happen to me once we weren't in the safe room with her acting as mediator, but I did it. 

It was awful; I cried, he yelled, my mom cried, I yelled & the therapist had to step in more then once and tell my dad to sit down & be quiet so I could talk. I was so scared I shook through out the whole thing and was crying more out of fright than anything else. I thought for sure I was in for the beating of a lifetime as soon as we got home, but that's not how dad operated. He was the kind to give you a verbal lashing that was mentally devastating and never actually touch you. The therapist made him promise that there wouldn't be any kind of repercussions toward me after our talk and I remember sitting there thinking "Boy, are you naive Lady. What the hell do you think is going to happen when we leave here? You won't be around then to protect me." But for the most part she was right, at least he wasn't any worse to me than he normally was. He still denied that he had any kind of a problem though and yelled at me for wasting their money by convincing the therapist that we had problems we really didn't.  

This was the beginning of years of lying and attempted deception on my dad's part to hide his drinking from me. I think part of it was an honest attempt on his end to try and help me, though. I believe that deep down he was really disturbed to think that his drinking had that much of an effect on anyone but himself and he didn't want it to hurt me anymore. So, rather than admitting he had a problem and getting help, he just continued what he was doing (in fact he started drinking more) but whenever I would come home for a visit he would pretend like he didn't to make me feel better. It was always a big show about how he reformed he was and how he didn't do that anymore. He really wanted me to think well of him and tried very hard to prove to me he was better. I didn't want to hurt his feelings because I could see he was trying and that it meant a lot to him that I believed him, so I would pretend I did even though I knew the truth.

I honestly, don't know much about my family's problems in the years I was away at college. I went back home the summer after my first year of school and never lived there again. I loved being away from the burden of all those emotions and was happy for the first time in a very long time. I didn't want to know about their issues, I didn't want to have to deal with the dysfunction, or with dad's drinking; I liked my freedom better. I would still go back for visits of course but I found that by not being there my status had changed, I was missed and loved and spoilt when I came home now, because having me there was a novelty. I had become one of the outside people who they had to put in a face for and I loved it because it meant I could pretend we were normal. My sister was now the one having a hard time, she was the one who had to deal with things on a daily basis. I know she resented me for her burden and she has always insisted that once I left things got really bad, much worse than they had ever been while I was there. I can't say for sure if that is true or if because I as her protector was gone and she was older she was more aware of what had been there all along, but I am pretty sure she is right. 

Mum & dad separated during the year I graduated college and were divorced a year later. And that was the end of my pretend, I couldn't ignore what was happening anymore and I was dragged much against my will right into the thick of things. 

Letting things go: Installment #1

Like many people I come from a highly dysfunctional family. I have realized lately that there are a lot of issues which I believed resolved which are not. Things that I thought I had accepted but were in fact just buried deep down and are coming back to haunt me. I need to let them out so here we go.

My parents have been divorced now for 3 years, after separating for 1 year which came after being married for more than 26 years. I began expecting a divorce almost 15 years ago and still don't know why it took them so long to get around to it. I believed then (and still do) that it was the right thing. It had to happen because things just could not continue the way they were. But as with most life changing events things didn't exactly fall out the way I thought they would. 

I should start at the beginning. I will do my best to recount events as they happened.

Growing up my friends all thought we were rich. I lived in a large house with a room full of whatever I wanted at the time toys, cds, stereos, books. You name it I had it. My parents each had their own cars and my mum was mostly a stay at home mother, working part time. She is disabled and was not able to work full time. My dad owned his own business and worked almost 90 hours a week sometimes and was rarely around. He would have to travel for work and would be gone for nearly a month at at time. Because mum couldn't work very much the pressure of supporting her, my sister and myself fell to my dad. As I got older he didn't have to travel as much and would only have to be gone for a week here & there.

Most of my childhood  seemed normal, at least that is what I remember. It is possible things we not as ideal as that or that I was just too young to really catch on to any issues my parents may have been having, but really the only thing that stands out is that dad was never around as much as I wanted him to be. Even that young this wasn't usual though, as I had friends who came from split or single parent families. I do remember that some friends of my cousin's didn't believe I really had a dad because they had never met him but over all growing up things were good.

In high school things really started to go down hill fast. Despite appearances we were really very strapped for money and my parents were in a seemly insurmountable amount of debt. This was partly due to my father's rash spending and rapidly developing drinking habit. Dad felt that he had worked hard enough in his life and that he deserved to be rewarded even if we didn't have the money to cover the costs of the things he was buying. He would go to auctions and come home with cars, boats, ATVs and snowmobiles always without talking to mum about it first and usually while we were out of town visiting family so that she couldn't try to talk him out of it.

I was 15 when my sister (age 11) & I stopped asking for Christmas & birthday presents because we knew my parents couldn't afford them because they were still trying to pay off the house & cover the bills while also paying for dad's latest purchase. My sister and I would talk over their financial issues and what we could do to help them cut back but never came up with anything very useful. Mum & dad were fighting all the time and he never listened to her. He started going out drinking with his friends more and more and staying out later and later, sometimes not coming home until 3 or 4 in the morning. I am not sure when it started but he was also spending every night sleeping on the pull out bed on the sofa downstairs. Mum always said it was because his snoring kept her awake at night. But I also know that they had no sex life, we lived in a old house with thin walls and you could hear everything. 

In the mornings we would have to be extra quiet because dad was sleeping the living room (in the middle of the house) and if you woke him up he would get angry and start screaming because of his hang over. Despite his going out all the time my mum wasn't allowed to go anywhere unless it was for work or errands. Dad was verbally abusive and totally controlling of her, telling her all the time that she was stupid & worthless and stopped allowing her visits to her friends. She rarely stood up to him and soon the only thing about life at home that mattered was don't piss off dad. 

He was never happy & always angry, nearly always drunk and resentful of us and the obligation we represented. He thought it was funny be insulting and to make you mad on purpose, but then once you got upset would get angry himself and tell you to quit being a baby and suck it up. Nothing was ever his fault, ever, there was always an excuse or someone else to blame. Despite the fact that everyone in the house was going out of their way to please him, he was never satisfied and would go on for hours about "poor me" and how hard he had things if he couldn't get what he wanted right away.

Our whole lives became an act, everything was structured around him and keeping him happy which was almost impossible, all while keeping up appearances. No one but my best friend knew about our troubles, not even my grandparents. All our energy went into keeping things smooth at home and then keeping them quiet if they didn't stay smooth.

When dad did lose this temper he always started in on my mother. He would deliberately say or do things he knew would hurt her, sometimes using things she had told him from her past against her just to make her cry. Once she started crying he would get mad and storm out of the house to go drink some more, sometimes not coming home until the next day. Then the for the next few days he would be super nice and give her presents and flowers so try and get back in her good graces. 

He and I used to fight all the time because I would deliberately pick fights with him so he would lay off my mother and sister. If I could see he was in a bad mood I would provoke him so that they could sneak off to another part of the house and hide while we duked it out. Provoking him was always dangerous, he never hit any of us but he would lash out verbally and physically at anything else in the house. There were drawers in the kitchen that didn't work because he kicked the crap out of them one time when we were fighting, I've seen him rip the kitchen door off it's hinges several times and had him break several mirrors in front of me. He never hit us but the threat of it was always there. It was as if by breaking all these other things he was saying "Do what I want or it could be you next time".

While all this was going on I had become depressed and suicidal. I was cutting myself in secret and spent hours out of my day thinking up the best ways to die. Secrecy had become second nature, it was the unspoken rule that you put your best face forward and hid anything that really mattered.  Because what I wanted or thought DIDN'T matter, only keeping the peace mattered. So to the outside world I was fine, I was normal and got good grades and participated in  sport & art and hung out with my friends. I knew I couldn't trust adults watching my parents had shown me that, my mother couldn't protect me and my father didn't care, so who else could possibly give a shit that I thought the best thing that could happen to me would be to die? 

I knew in my heart that I needed help but I was physically incapable of asking for it. The only person I trusted with anything important was my best friend and she knew that to say anything I would see as a betrayal and she too had a bad home situation so she didn't trust easily either. It all came to a head when I did finally attempt to kill myself by over-dosing. It was my last silent cry for help and thank God I didn't succeed. My parents were shocked, especially my mum who I am very close to, all my teachers were shocked, even my friends were shocked. Most people never knew I had a problem, those that did know didn't think I would go through with anything.  I did get help and to this day think that therapy is one if the best things that ever happened to me. 

My life since that day has been divided in my mind forever, it was the end for a lot of bad things and the start of some of the happiest times in my life so far. I honestly felt reborn and that I was given a second chance. Part of me did die that day but it was part that needed to be let go. Therapy helped to show me that what was going on between my parents and with my dad wasn't my fault and also gave me some tools for dealing with the situation. It also helped that this happened as I was preparing to leave for college and was finally able to escape from the house and all the selfish bitter anger that resided there. I literally fled to college that fall. The freedom I had there was heady and helped to break down some of the last control my dad had over me. I felt as though I was falling and instead of hitting the ground I had grown wings. 

More to come later........