littleoc
VIP Member
(I hope this is the right section...? It will take me a while to understand the sections. I apologize -- please move it if necessary. I'll learn.)
My dad's birthday was yesterday. I remembered suddenly while my mother was teaching me to drive today. I've been afraid to learn, for complicated reasons I won't get into here, and my service dog was seated directly behind me in her seatbelt. We were in the middle school parking lot, five minutes from my house. Suddenly, I remembered that today was my dad's birthday.
I occasionally have a good memory with him in it. For example, once he told me very shyly that I looked pretty. That memory confuses me so much. I always get the urge to call him and ask about it. I'm the only one of his children who dares to talk to him now. He deserves no contact, but I feel such a strong pity for him. It's so strong that it keeps me awake the day after his birthday... it's almost four in the morning.
I'm afraid it'll turn out that he's not a psychopath. His mother was worse than him, so what if an actual nice person who loved his babies exists under all that ugliness? Just buried under years of hurt? I think I want to believe that? But it also bothers me, because I also never want to talk to him again.
The last time I talked to him, he called me on the cell phone. I remembered my older sister (who is not his child, and who he banished to the garage) telling me that with HER father, she answered her phone even if she was mad, because at least they could talk. I answered my dad, and he barely said hello. Just started ranting about nonsense, instead of "wow, how are you?" or "I've missed you" like a normal person talking to their kid for the first time in a LONG time. I eventually realized that he was trying to prove to his new girlfriend what a nice dad he was. And I was even more troubled when I heard a young child in the background: I asked, "Who's that?" and he answered, dismissively, "G's five-year-old," and I wanted to go to this stupid event he invited me to all of a sudden to warn his girlfriend that her little daughter was in serious danger. I also wanted to tell my father that I was looking for some normal kind of answer.
Yet, on his birthday I felt so guilty for not telling him happy birthday. He didn't hear from a single one of his kids, and it's bothering me so much. I'm so bothered by the thought -- which he doesn't deserve -- that it might make him feel sad, lonely, unloved... feelings I don't want any human on Earth to experience for some reason.
If there is some good part of him, somewhere, I want it to be forgiven -- but he doesn't deserve it. I also hate him..
Someone else here most likely understand this more than I do -- can you tell me how you dealt with this kind of thing? If there's a reason I should be feeling so badly?
Thanks :)
My dad's birthday was yesterday. I remembered suddenly while my mother was teaching me to drive today. I've been afraid to learn, for complicated reasons I won't get into here, and my service dog was seated directly behind me in her seatbelt. We were in the middle school parking lot, five minutes from my house. Suddenly, I remembered that today was my dad's birthday.
I occasionally have a good memory with him in it. For example, once he told me very shyly that I looked pretty. That memory confuses me so much. I always get the urge to call him and ask about it. I'm the only one of his children who dares to talk to him now. He deserves no contact, but I feel such a strong pity for him. It's so strong that it keeps me awake the day after his birthday... it's almost four in the morning.
I'm afraid it'll turn out that he's not a psychopath. His mother was worse than him, so what if an actual nice person who loved his babies exists under all that ugliness? Just buried under years of hurt? I think I want to believe that? But it also bothers me, because I also never want to talk to him again.
The last time I talked to him, he called me on the cell phone. I remembered my older sister (who is not his child, and who he banished to the garage) telling me that with HER father, she answered her phone even if she was mad, because at least they could talk. I answered my dad, and he barely said hello. Just started ranting about nonsense, instead of "wow, how are you?" or "I've missed you" like a normal person talking to their kid for the first time in a LONG time. I eventually realized that he was trying to prove to his new girlfriend what a nice dad he was. And I was even more troubled when I heard a young child in the background: I asked, "Who's that?" and he answered, dismissively, "G's five-year-old," and I wanted to go to this stupid event he invited me to all of a sudden to warn his girlfriend that her little daughter was in serious danger. I also wanted to tell my father that I was looking for some normal kind of answer.
Yet, on his birthday I felt so guilty for not telling him happy birthday. He didn't hear from a single one of his kids, and it's bothering me so much. I'm so bothered by the thought -- which he doesn't deserve -- that it might make him feel sad, lonely, unloved... feelings I don't want any human on Earth to experience for some reason.
If there is some good part of him, somewhere, I want it to be forgiven -- but he doesn't deserve it. I also hate him..
Someone else here most likely understand this more than I do -- can you tell me how you dealt with this kind of thing? If there's a reason I should be feeling so badly?
Thanks :)
