For most of my adolescence, my father was an alcoholic. He also suffered (and still suffers) from depression. He had trouble holding down a job, so he was a stay-at-home dad for the first six or seven (???) years of my life. Of course, at the time, I didn’t understand all these things, but as an adult after talking with my mother I can kind of piece it all together.
I have some lovely memories of my father during those years. I remember him telling me stories before my afternoon nap, playing airplane, going to the park, watching movies etc. All normal dad things. I have no doubt that my father loves my sister and I more than anything, and always has. I love him, too, and always was a “daddy’s girl” growing up.
However, he was still a mentally ill drunk, and that had its effect on me. He would have random violent outbursts, where he would scream in my face, hit me, choke me. The punishment never fit the crime, and it was impossible to predict what would set him off. Once I spoke back to my mom at breakfast, and he waited until she had left the house to back me up against the wall and strangle me. I was 12? Another time he was lecturing my sister about something and I was doing something that annoyed him and he turned on me, hitting me over and over again and screaming. Those are the two incidents I remember most vividly, but I have a vague idea that he was a hitter, and I know he used spanking as a form of punishment – I remember once being spanked for not coming downstairs the first time he called me, which now strikes me as unreasonable.
My mother would tell me when to approach my father and when to keep away from him. His mood ruled our house. When my sister and I got in trouble, my mother often kept it from my father because he could go overboard. I know my father was abused as a child, and that he believes his mother didn’t love him (it is my understanding that she told him this, as a child, but who knows – I’ve never discussed it with him).
Now, my father has cut down his drinking considerably, and he has been on anti-depressants for a long time. I think there is a definite divide in my childhood, with the no-medication years on one side and the medication years on the other. He was much better on medication, is what I’m saying. Now, he is old, retired, visibly struggling with depression again. His only joy seems to be my sister and I. That’s why this is so awful.
When I was a kid, I was a habitual liar. At least, that’s the idea I have on myself. I remember making up stories at school. Once, I told my friends I was afraid of my shoelaces because my dad had whipped me with a pair of shoelaces the night before (didn’t happen). Once, I said someone had run over my dog. I lied about lots of stuff, or at least made up fibs. And my default action when I got in trouble was to lie. I’d lie desperately, and cling to that lie way past the point of reason. As a teenager, this habit faded, kind of, though I’d still lie to try and avoid trouble, and I kept lying about weird stuff all the way until my 20’s.
This is important because my idea of myself as a child who made up stories and clung to lies makes me think that I have good reason to suspect I’m wrong in my feelings. I know memory is flawed, and that the vast majority of our memories are false, exaggerated, or otherwise distorted from reality. I’ve often wondered if I made up the memories of my father’s violence. Couldn’t a child who wanted attention make up stories like that to get it? If I kept telling myself that story, wouldn’t I believe it?
I lied to my high school boyfriend. I told him I was molested by a stranger in a bathroom. I knew this was a lie when I told it. I have always known I was never raped or molested. Perhaps later, in adulthood, as a female alcoholic, I could make a case for some unwanted sexual encounters, but not as a child. Right?
I started drinking at 16 and continued drinking until I was 26. This is my first year of sobriety since I was a teenager. I imagine that’s why I’m having these feelings. To get to the point, I’m increasingly uncomfortable/afraid/anxious around my father. I noticed it last Christmas when we went on a hike together (just the two of us) and I was just uncomfortable and didn’t want to be there, alone with him. After that, all through the year when I saw him, I felt it when he hugged me, too tight and for too long. The feeling seems to have steadily increased over the year, with this holiday being unbearably bad. He needed me to help with my mom’s gift, which led to us being alone in their room with the door closed, and I hated it so bad. He was drinking on Christmas Eve, and I wanted to run away whenever we were alone in the kitchen together. My stomach was constantly knotted. We took a walk together after dinner and I just…I hated it. And he was so happy to see me and spend time with me – it made me feel that much worse.
I remember when I was 16 or 17 or maybe older (really don’t remember), we went on a trip together (just the two of us) to a national park. We were driving up a windy road. I realized I was feeling something very weird between my legs, like I was aroused. I realized how wrong it was and blamed it on the vibrations of the car seat getting me excited and crossed my legs tighter and tried to ignore it. This feeling has returned periodically throughout my life when I’m around my father, a throbbing warmth that made me sick. I think I feel it at least once every time I’m around him for any significant amount of time.
My interpersonal relationships have mostly been bad. I’m insecure and jealous, dependent and irrational. I’ve been diagnosed with persistent depressive disorder, tried to kill myself more than once, cut myself, suffered eating disorders. I don’t really experience sexual attraction, and the few times I’ve been sexually attracted to someone, it has made me feel disgusting and ugly and pathetic. I only enjoy sex when I close my eyes and put myself in a fantasy world – I can’t just “enjoy the sensations”. And those fantasies aren’t “normal” – like, really, they’re super abnormal. I have to work very hard to keep those fantasies from entering a territory that makes my stomach churn (basically, I spend a lot of time circling this fence I have built around the concept of incest, which I know is actually one of the most popular fetish/fantasies b/c I write erotica for a living and those stories sell like hotcakes.) I can’t really begin to describe what I’m trying to say, except that I’ve never had a healthy sex life and I am routinely disgusted by my own mind and sexual desires. I had a few sexual dreams regarding my father as a teenager, which I don’t think is totally abnormal, but I’ve had a few more over the past couple of nights that have bothered me.
I have zero memory whatsoever of my dad touching me inappropriately. I have the vaguest of “feelings” about what I consider pretty normal childhood occurrences – I always used to lie with my head on my dad’s lap while watching the movies or tv, and I remember one time just kind of realizing I was too old to do that. He used to give me baths as a little girl, but that’s normal. I think we would take naps together, too, but I think that’s also normal. I don’t remember ever seeing my dad naked. We weren’t an openly sexual family at all (no porn magazines lying around, never walked in on my parents fooling around). I also spent a lot of time in my parent’s bed/bedroom as a child, that’s where I would take my afternoon naps sometimes and I do feel that a disproportionate amount of my memories from young childhood took place on that bed, but it’s worth noting that my sister and I shared a room in an unfinished attic that was too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter, so it’s not that strange to think I spent a lot of time in my parent’s bed because it was too uncomfortable upstairs.
Basically, I have all these weird things inside me. And I want them to go away. I want very badly to think that this is all part of one of my childhood stories, some lie I used to tell myself that is coming back to screw with me. Or that I’m just being dramatic. These feelings are so awful, I want to drink to make them go away. I would do anything to make them go away. I feel sick when I think about it. I want to believe this is just some kind of weird PTSD from the physical abuse that is manifesting itself as sexual. I want to believe that I’m making it all up because I’m a bad, pathetic person who’ll do anything for attention. I don’t know what to do or who to talk to. I can’t talk to my mother or sister. I just can’t.
I love my dad and will do literally anything to make this sickness go away. I feel like a terrible, shitty, awful, ungrateful, sick person who wants to blame someone else for her problems. I have these flashes in my head of having sex with my dad and I can’t get them to stop or go away. I just want it all to stop. I have always, always, always felt that I am a bad person, a liar, someone who is fundamentally unreliable and bad and screwed up and selfish. I would rather keep feeling like that then have these suspicions that make it impossible for me to hug my dad back or look him in the eye or be alone with him.
I have some lovely memories of my father during those years. I remember him telling me stories before my afternoon nap, playing airplane, going to the park, watching movies etc. All normal dad things. I have no doubt that my father loves my sister and I more than anything, and always has. I love him, too, and always was a “daddy’s girl” growing up.
However, he was still a mentally ill drunk, and that had its effect on me. He would have random violent outbursts, where he would scream in my face, hit me, choke me. The punishment never fit the crime, and it was impossible to predict what would set him off. Once I spoke back to my mom at breakfast, and he waited until she had left the house to back me up against the wall and strangle me. I was 12? Another time he was lecturing my sister about something and I was doing something that annoyed him and he turned on me, hitting me over and over again and screaming. Those are the two incidents I remember most vividly, but I have a vague idea that he was a hitter, and I know he used spanking as a form of punishment – I remember once being spanked for not coming downstairs the first time he called me, which now strikes me as unreasonable.
My mother would tell me when to approach my father and when to keep away from him. His mood ruled our house. When my sister and I got in trouble, my mother often kept it from my father because he could go overboard. I know my father was abused as a child, and that he believes his mother didn’t love him (it is my understanding that she told him this, as a child, but who knows – I’ve never discussed it with him).
Now, my father has cut down his drinking considerably, and he has been on anti-depressants for a long time. I think there is a definite divide in my childhood, with the no-medication years on one side and the medication years on the other. He was much better on medication, is what I’m saying. Now, he is old, retired, visibly struggling with depression again. His only joy seems to be my sister and I. That’s why this is so awful.
When I was a kid, I was a habitual liar. At least, that’s the idea I have on myself. I remember making up stories at school. Once, I told my friends I was afraid of my shoelaces because my dad had whipped me with a pair of shoelaces the night before (didn’t happen). Once, I said someone had run over my dog. I lied about lots of stuff, or at least made up fibs. And my default action when I got in trouble was to lie. I’d lie desperately, and cling to that lie way past the point of reason. As a teenager, this habit faded, kind of, though I’d still lie to try and avoid trouble, and I kept lying about weird stuff all the way until my 20’s.
This is important because my idea of myself as a child who made up stories and clung to lies makes me think that I have good reason to suspect I’m wrong in my feelings. I know memory is flawed, and that the vast majority of our memories are false, exaggerated, or otherwise distorted from reality. I’ve often wondered if I made up the memories of my father’s violence. Couldn’t a child who wanted attention make up stories like that to get it? If I kept telling myself that story, wouldn’t I believe it?
I lied to my high school boyfriend. I told him I was molested by a stranger in a bathroom. I knew this was a lie when I told it. I have always known I was never raped or molested. Perhaps later, in adulthood, as a female alcoholic, I could make a case for some unwanted sexual encounters, but not as a child. Right?
I started drinking at 16 and continued drinking until I was 26. This is my first year of sobriety since I was a teenager. I imagine that’s why I’m having these feelings. To get to the point, I’m increasingly uncomfortable/afraid/anxious around my father. I noticed it last Christmas when we went on a hike together (just the two of us) and I was just uncomfortable and didn’t want to be there, alone with him. After that, all through the year when I saw him, I felt it when he hugged me, too tight and for too long. The feeling seems to have steadily increased over the year, with this holiday being unbearably bad. He needed me to help with my mom’s gift, which led to us being alone in their room with the door closed, and I hated it so bad. He was drinking on Christmas Eve, and I wanted to run away whenever we were alone in the kitchen together. My stomach was constantly knotted. We took a walk together after dinner and I just…I hated it. And he was so happy to see me and spend time with me – it made me feel that much worse.
I remember when I was 16 or 17 or maybe older (really don’t remember), we went on a trip together (just the two of us) to a national park. We were driving up a windy road. I realized I was feeling something very weird between my legs, like I was aroused. I realized how wrong it was and blamed it on the vibrations of the car seat getting me excited and crossed my legs tighter and tried to ignore it. This feeling has returned periodically throughout my life when I’m around my father, a throbbing warmth that made me sick. I think I feel it at least once every time I’m around him for any significant amount of time.
My interpersonal relationships have mostly been bad. I’m insecure and jealous, dependent and irrational. I’ve been diagnosed with persistent depressive disorder, tried to kill myself more than once, cut myself, suffered eating disorders. I don’t really experience sexual attraction, and the few times I’ve been sexually attracted to someone, it has made me feel disgusting and ugly and pathetic. I only enjoy sex when I close my eyes and put myself in a fantasy world – I can’t just “enjoy the sensations”. And those fantasies aren’t “normal” – like, really, they’re super abnormal. I have to work very hard to keep those fantasies from entering a territory that makes my stomach churn (basically, I spend a lot of time circling this fence I have built around the concept of incest, which I know is actually one of the most popular fetish/fantasies b/c I write erotica for a living and those stories sell like hotcakes.) I can’t really begin to describe what I’m trying to say, except that I’ve never had a healthy sex life and I am routinely disgusted by my own mind and sexual desires. I had a few sexual dreams regarding my father as a teenager, which I don’t think is totally abnormal, but I’ve had a few more over the past couple of nights that have bothered me.
I have zero memory whatsoever of my dad touching me inappropriately. I have the vaguest of “feelings” about what I consider pretty normal childhood occurrences – I always used to lie with my head on my dad’s lap while watching the movies or tv, and I remember one time just kind of realizing I was too old to do that. He used to give me baths as a little girl, but that’s normal. I think we would take naps together, too, but I think that’s also normal. I don’t remember ever seeing my dad naked. We weren’t an openly sexual family at all (no porn magazines lying around, never walked in on my parents fooling around). I also spent a lot of time in my parent’s bed/bedroom as a child, that’s where I would take my afternoon naps sometimes and I do feel that a disproportionate amount of my memories from young childhood took place on that bed, but it’s worth noting that my sister and I shared a room in an unfinished attic that was too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter, so it’s not that strange to think I spent a lot of time in my parent’s bed because it was too uncomfortable upstairs.
Basically, I have all these weird things inside me. And I want them to go away. I want very badly to think that this is all part of one of my childhood stories, some lie I used to tell myself that is coming back to screw with me. Or that I’m just being dramatic. These feelings are so awful, I want to drink to make them go away. I would do anything to make them go away. I feel sick when I think about it. I want to believe this is just some kind of weird PTSD from the physical abuse that is manifesting itself as sexual. I want to believe that I’m making it all up because I’m a bad, pathetic person who’ll do anything for attention. I don’t know what to do or who to talk to. I can’t talk to my mother or sister. I just can’t.
I love my dad and will do literally anything to make this sickness go away. I feel like a terrible, shitty, awful, ungrateful, sick person who wants to blame someone else for her problems. I have these flashes in my head of having sex with my dad and I can’t get them to stop or go away. I just want it all to stop. I have always, always, always felt that I am a bad person, a liar, someone who is fundamentally unreliable and bad and screwed up and selfish. I would rather keep feeling like that then have these suspicions that make it impossible for me to hug my dad back or look him in the eye or be alone with him.
