littleoc
MyPTSD Pro
Hello :)
I could really use some feedback from people more experienced than I am.
I'm so sorry for how long this turned out to be. You can skim. I'm just incredibly confused.
I doubt people have been following my every move here (at least I hope not :P ), so I'm going to give some background, right here.
My dad does not like children. They make him uncomfortable and angry, because they don't listen and are hard to control. But he was willing to change diapers, apparently. According to my mother. He also did all chores because he didn't want kids to touch anything. I still have a mild fear of messing up TV's, radios, CD players. I'm terrified of things messing up, especially of light bulbs going out and water backing up.
If we did touch anything, we'd have our toys taken away, be punished with hitting and yelling, and be locked into our rooms for full days, without food or water.
He killed animals (usually accidentally, because he was hoarding literally hundreds of animals), and blamed it on my negligence, which the guilt still haunts me. I can't even peel potatoes without breaking down sometimes. Thanks, my college thesis, for proving that potatoes know when they're "injured"...
He banished my older sister (who is technically my half sister but I've never thought of her that way -- but she's my dad's step child) to the garage/laundry room and treated her like an alien.
My dad was abused as a child. His mom morphed him into a psychopath. He did awful things, but at times it was just yelling and hitting and constant bullying, and pitting my little brother and I against each other. His mom was worse than he was.
When I was very young, he got jealous of his "Friend" from his childhood. His Friend had been caught kidnapping young boys and occasionally girls, and leaving them in his garage or basement. His Friend had a wife, and both had at least one kid. Friend commit sexual crimes on the kids. I'm not sure what else.
When the Friend was caught and arrested, he got MASSIVE media attention. My dad... was jealous. He started coming up with plans to get himself as part of the story.
The first plan was to watch the news continuously until he was named a victim. This obviously never happened.
The second/third (my brain can't get the order right) thing he did was to insist that his Friend needed support, at least one friend. He started talking about writing him a letter. My mother told him he had better not. Maybe threatened to leave him if he did?
The third/second thing he did was insist that his Friend's wife must be feeling so alone and confused, and he should write her a letter. (If it had really been a secret from her...) My mom told him to leave that poor woman alone.
So my dad never got to be a part of that story.
But he was determined to find a way.
I should mention at this point that my dad has an extremely inflated idea of his own intelligence. He thinks he's so smart, that it's the only thing he consistantly puts onto his resumes. The rest are usually lies about his spacewalks and other things that are ridiculous and obvious lies, that he doesn't seem to understand that other people can see through. Psycho-type lies that mean nothing.
In reality, my dad is very unintelligent. He knows what he's read, but he can't use that information critically and he often needs help understanding basic things if it's not something that has to do with cars. His handwriting and speaking skills match that of a third grader's, and he had no idea what consequences are. He's not mentally retarded, exactly, but he is close to being a sevant, sort of. On top of this he doesn't understand any emotion, not even his own. Unless it's depression.
Being on drugs did not help my dad improve his intelligence, or empathy. But he was weirdly sly at times. For example, he managed two big, surprisingly elaborate plans for pity. Actually, to date, three. Only one of them worked, and unfortunately the police do not seem to believe others about it despite his bragging.
(When my dad's girlfriend didn't agree to marry him, he forced her to overdose on pills and alcohol. He was proud of himself for accomplishing this because she had a drug problem and was an alcoholic, so the investigation ruled it as her doing. She had a son, 13. Not sure what happened to him.)
My dad caused my mom to get breast cancer, which I know sounds ridiculous but he did. He forced her to rub this cream on her breast in the same spot every night, this stuff for menopausal women that's supposed to help with sex drive and painful sex. It had a huge warning on the front not to use it in certain situations, and it said it was a cancer risk. When my mom developed a tumor in that spot, he quit his job. No health insurance. My mom searched frantically and five years later finally got insurance and went to a hospital. By then, my mom's tumor had spread and she had terminal final stages of cancer.
My dad was incredibly proud of this. He couldn't get arrested.
The ONLY reason that plan failed was a literal miracle, which I won't get into right here except to say that an experimental treatment cured my mom of all cancer, though robbed her of the ability to walk properly (permanently damaged nerves).
My dad's other plan was to get famous by being an indirect victim. Being the parent of a kidnapped child.
While my mom was going through chemo, he sought out his "best friend," who was not the Friend from earlier. He was the Neighbor across the street. He was a pedophile who was in denial.
To keep this short and not graphic, my dad basically told me to Neighbor. I think he tried with my sister, who he hated, first. But failed and she also died (near death experience technically, but her heart did stop), but we got her back through more miricle.
My dad treated my little brother the worst, even with a sexual assault, but because he was my dad's favorite. In a way. I guess.
I don't know why he didn't pick my twin brother, but am thankful he didn't. He hated my twin, and would call him retarded. He wasn't, he was autistic and very intelligent. My twin couldn't talk to my dad, being deaf and autistic, and my dad ended up trying to disown him for converting to Christianity.
The Neighbor did let me go eventually but my dad had played the biggest role in that trauma, I feel.
On top of that, my dad made us so poor that I have numerous memories of trying to buy food with my mom and having to leave with nothing. Her side of the family is lower middle class, but not to the point of starvation exactly (though she had seven siblings and often was hungry). My dad's, though, was upper middle class that grew into upper class. Because his parents became famous musicians in classical music. But I grew up too poor to afford food, because my dad used all the money he got to buy things off eBay and other online stores, and to buy drugs and illegal pets.
He signed up for numerous credit cards under my mom's name and maxed them all out.
.
So, yeah, basically he's insane. But I truly feel that he's a real person somewhere. He doesn't seem to understand what permanece is, he doesn't understand that other people can get hurt. Literally, he just can't. So he can't be sorry, either.
He flirted with my sister's husband, which is just uncomfortable, until they cut him off. He tried to fix my mom's car once and ended up just making it have an oil leak. He takes things apart the way an unsupervised child does and gets hurt like a child would.
And despite being a literal child, he seems to feel bad for things at random times. He tries to relate to people occasionally and can't, he would shyly try to tell his kids they looked pretty or handsome (as in, he seemed to be afraid to say nice things), and today he tried to call me.
He called me and usually I feel he's trying to use me to prove that he has a good relationship with one child. He did that to my mom, with his exes. Would call up a ex to chat. To prove that he was actually a very likable character.
But this time he shyly said hello and seemed to want to talk. He talked about himself -- not surprising for a childish psychopath -- but did try to talk about things that would interest me. He told me he has a dog now (very weird... as that was the one animal he banned us from having as kids. No dogs, because he hated them).
One time in public he forgot my name and called me a similar sounding name. That similar sounding name is the name of his dog.
He talked about his friend who has a cow farm, and about the chickens who roam onto his land.
Things I would care about...
He said he'd call me later. I know I'm going to answer, but I'm feeling incredibly confused.
He hasn't felt dangerous to me for a long time. He's a child who was given adult responsibility, so it's not too weird that he'd go insane. Especially when drugs and alcohol got involved.
He is a psycho but he was raised to be. I think there's a real human in his head somewhere looking for acceptance that his mom never provided.
And I know better than to accept an apology. He doesn't even understand basic consequences most of the time.
But... the things he has done are glaringly awful. I know and have known several friends who were mentally retarded, and weren't psychopaths and didn't do such horrendous stuff.
My dad was violent. I have extremely clear memories of it. The reason my brother is deaf? Probably because a coatrack fell onto his ear when he was tiny, playing by the kitchen when my dad pushed my mom down. She landed on a coatrack and then onto my brother. He didn't stop fighting until he passed out in the very early morning. More than eight hours of violence.
I haven't met anyone else like that.
How am I supposed to reconcile this? I don't want him to be alone in the world. But he's my main abuser. Not the only one, but he literally recruited one of them. He made me grow up poor, which I still am and am afraid to call his parents for money like HE does.
He did this to himself, and normally I'd have no problem accepting that. But he's raised so badly, and he's literally unaware of his actions. He's very unintelligent.
Am I looking for permission that it's okay to be talking to him, though maybe not visiting him? Am I looking for confirmation that he's dangerous even though he's too unintelligent to know so?
I've hung out with his mom before. She's not right in the head herself. Somehow... a school teacher. Frightening.
Thoughts?
I could really use some feedback from people more experienced than I am.
I'm so sorry for how long this turned out to be. You can skim. I'm just incredibly confused.
I doubt people have been following my every move here (at least I hope not :P ), so I'm going to give some background, right here.
My dad does not like children. They make him uncomfortable and angry, because they don't listen and are hard to control. But he was willing to change diapers, apparently. According to my mother. He also did all chores because he didn't want kids to touch anything. I still have a mild fear of messing up TV's, radios, CD players. I'm terrified of things messing up, especially of light bulbs going out and water backing up.
If we did touch anything, we'd have our toys taken away, be punished with hitting and yelling, and be locked into our rooms for full days, without food or water.
He killed animals (usually accidentally, because he was hoarding literally hundreds of animals), and blamed it on my negligence, which the guilt still haunts me. I can't even peel potatoes without breaking down sometimes. Thanks, my college thesis, for proving that potatoes know when they're "injured"...
He banished my older sister (who is technically my half sister but I've never thought of her that way -- but she's my dad's step child) to the garage/laundry room and treated her like an alien.
My dad was abused as a child. His mom morphed him into a psychopath. He did awful things, but at times it was just yelling and hitting and constant bullying, and pitting my little brother and I against each other. His mom was worse than he was.
When I was very young, he got jealous of his "Friend" from his childhood. His Friend had been caught kidnapping young boys and occasionally girls, and leaving them in his garage or basement. His Friend had a wife, and both had at least one kid. Friend commit sexual crimes on the kids. I'm not sure what else.
When the Friend was caught and arrested, he got MASSIVE media attention. My dad... was jealous. He started coming up with plans to get himself as part of the story.
The first plan was to watch the news continuously until he was named a victim. This obviously never happened.
The second/third (my brain can't get the order right) thing he did was to insist that his Friend needed support, at least one friend. He started talking about writing him a letter. My mother told him he had better not. Maybe threatened to leave him if he did?
The third/second thing he did was insist that his Friend's wife must be feeling so alone and confused, and he should write her a letter. (If it had really been a secret from her...) My mom told him to leave that poor woman alone.
So my dad never got to be a part of that story.
But he was determined to find a way.
I should mention at this point that my dad has an extremely inflated idea of his own intelligence. He thinks he's so smart, that it's the only thing he consistantly puts onto his resumes. The rest are usually lies about his spacewalks and other things that are ridiculous and obvious lies, that he doesn't seem to understand that other people can see through. Psycho-type lies that mean nothing.
In reality, my dad is very unintelligent. He knows what he's read, but he can't use that information critically and he often needs help understanding basic things if it's not something that has to do with cars. His handwriting and speaking skills match that of a third grader's, and he had no idea what consequences are. He's not mentally retarded, exactly, but he is close to being a sevant, sort of. On top of this he doesn't understand any emotion, not even his own. Unless it's depression.
Being on drugs did not help my dad improve his intelligence, or empathy. But he was weirdly sly at times. For example, he managed two big, surprisingly elaborate plans for pity. Actually, to date, three. Only one of them worked, and unfortunately the police do not seem to believe others about it despite his bragging.
(When my dad's girlfriend didn't agree to marry him, he forced her to overdose on pills and alcohol. He was proud of himself for accomplishing this because she had a drug problem and was an alcoholic, so the investigation ruled it as her doing. She had a son, 13. Not sure what happened to him.)
My dad caused my mom to get breast cancer, which I know sounds ridiculous but he did. He forced her to rub this cream on her breast in the same spot every night, this stuff for menopausal women that's supposed to help with sex drive and painful sex. It had a huge warning on the front not to use it in certain situations, and it said it was a cancer risk. When my mom developed a tumor in that spot, he quit his job. No health insurance. My mom searched frantically and five years later finally got insurance and went to a hospital. By then, my mom's tumor had spread and she had terminal final stages of cancer.
My dad was incredibly proud of this. He couldn't get arrested.
The ONLY reason that plan failed was a literal miracle, which I won't get into right here except to say that an experimental treatment cured my mom of all cancer, though robbed her of the ability to walk properly (permanently damaged nerves).
My dad's other plan was to get famous by being an indirect victim. Being the parent of a kidnapped child.
While my mom was going through chemo, he sought out his "best friend," who was not the Friend from earlier. He was the Neighbor across the street. He was a pedophile who was in denial.
To keep this short and not graphic, my dad basically told me to Neighbor. I think he tried with my sister, who he hated, first. But failed and she also died (near death experience technically, but her heart did stop), but we got her back through more miricle.
My dad treated my little brother the worst, even with a sexual assault, but because he was my dad's favorite. In a way. I guess.
I don't know why he didn't pick my twin brother, but am thankful he didn't. He hated my twin, and would call him retarded. He wasn't, he was autistic and very intelligent. My twin couldn't talk to my dad, being deaf and autistic, and my dad ended up trying to disown him for converting to Christianity.
The Neighbor did let me go eventually but my dad had played the biggest role in that trauma, I feel.
On top of that, my dad made us so poor that I have numerous memories of trying to buy food with my mom and having to leave with nothing. Her side of the family is lower middle class, but not to the point of starvation exactly (though she had seven siblings and often was hungry). My dad's, though, was upper middle class that grew into upper class. Because his parents became famous musicians in classical music. But I grew up too poor to afford food, because my dad used all the money he got to buy things off eBay and other online stores, and to buy drugs and illegal pets.
He signed up for numerous credit cards under my mom's name and maxed them all out.
.
So, yeah, basically he's insane. But I truly feel that he's a real person somewhere. He doesn't seem to understand what permanece is, he doesn't understand that other people can get hurt. Literally, he just can't. So he can't be sorry, either.
He flirted with my sister's husband, which is just uncomfortable, until they cut him off. He tried to fix my mom's car once and ended up just making it have an oil leak. He takes things apart the way an unsupervised child does and gets hurt like a child would.
And despite being a literal child, he seems to feel bad for things at random times. He tries to relate to people occasionally and can't, he would shyly try to tell his kids they looked pretty or handsome (as in, he seemed to be afraid to say nice things), and today he tried to call me.
He called me and usually I feel he's trying to use me to prove that he has a good relationship with one child. He did that to my mom, with his exes. Would call up a ex to chat. To prove that he was actually a very likable character.
But this time he shyly said hello and seemed to want to talk. He talked about himself -- not surprising for a childish psychopath -- but did try to talk about things that would interest me. He told me he has a dog now (very weird... as that was the one animal he banned us from having as kids. No dogs, because he hated them).
One time in public he forgot my name and called me a similar sounding name. That similar sounding name is the name of his dog.
He talked about his friend who has a cow farm, and about the chickens who roam onto his land.
Things I would care about...
He said he'd call me later. I know I'm going to answer, but I'm feeling incredibly confused.
He hasn't felt dangerous to me for a long time. He's a child who was given adult responsibility, so it's not too weird that he'd go insane. Especially when drugs and alcohol got involved.
He is a psycho but he was raised to be. I think there's a real human in his head somewhere looking for acceptance that his mom never provided.
And I know better than to accept an apology. He doesn't even understand basic consequences most of the time.
But... the things he has done are glaringly awful. I know and have known several friends who were mentally retarded, and weren't psychopaths and didn't do such horrendous stuff.
My dad was violent. I have extremely clear memories of it. The reason my brother is deaf? Probably because a coatrack fell onto his ear when he was tiny, playing by the kitchen when my dad pushed my mom down. She landed on a coatrack and then onto my brother. He didn't stop fighting until he passed out in the very early morning. More than eight hours of violence.
I haven't met anyone else like that.
How am I supposed to reconcile this? I don't want him to be alone in the world. But he's my main abuser. Not the only one, but he literally recruited one of them. He made me grow up poor, which I still am and am afraid to call his parents for money like HE does.
He did this to himself, and normally I'd have no problem accepting that. But he's raised so badly, and he's literally unaware of his actions. He's very unintelligent.
Am I looking for permission that it's okay to be talking to him, though maybe not visiting him? Am I looking for confirmation that he's dangerous even though he's too unintelligent to know so?
I've hung out with his mom before. She's not right in the head herself. Somehow... a school teacher. Frightening.
Thoughts?