All About Dad

Today has been a rough day.  I have not been able to get out of emotional mind, I’ve been trying to do opposite to emotion action, distract, or any other tool that I can think of that I’ve learned so far in DBT, but nothing has helped.  I have felt triggered and have been unable to deescalate myself with much success.

Today is my father’s 54^th Birthday. 

I have spoken about my father before, in the post titled “The Perks of being a 17 year old gay boy”, so it really comes to no surprise to anyone that thought about my father are not warm and fuzzy.  It’s actually really hard for me to talk to, or hear about dad’s being good fathers without turning into an emotional mess because of my history with mine. 

This is my dad.  His name is Randy Clark.  He is a hard looking man and he looks like he has lived a hard life.  To which I have to say is somewhat true, I think my father struggled a lot with mental illness, in fact upon reflection I would say that I wouldn’t be too surprised if Randy also had Borderline Personality Disorder.  And although I might be able to come and understand and accept his reality, it doesn’t mean I need to have a relationship with this man.  In fact, it doesn’t even mean that I have to like him.

I debated about putting his picture up, and his name.  But I feel that I have the right to, despite the fact that I have legally changed my name because I no longer wanted to carry his.  This man is very much a part of me, despite how much I don’t want him to be.  He’s a part of me, I feel that I have the right to name him, to take away the power he has over me, and the protection he may have from anonymity.

I have so much I want to say to him, that I want to say out of anger.  And I’m going to come out and say them here.  I generally don’t like to throw around the word hate, I feel it so often gets misused in our society when people simply mean to say they dislike something, or it makes them uncomfortable.  It does not however, pain me to say, that I hate this man.  I hate everything he is, everything he did, and everything he represents to me.

I hate that he has been abusive to me, my mother, and every partner he’s ever had.  I have watched him how he treats people, and my biggest fear is that I am destined to become him. 

My father is pretty adept at a thing called gas-lighting, it’s where he will do one thing and then turn around the next day and tell you that it never happened.  In fact, he had convinced one of his partners that she was absolutely crazy and she checked herself into the hospital because of it.  I’ve also heard his partners tell me that they deserved to pushed around be him. 

As much as I want to do something to help the people that have fallen victim to my father, there is only so much I can do, when there is so many people in his life that are enabling the abusive behaviour that he has carried on with all of his life.

The thing that I am struggling with the most is that all the history with my father is staying with me.  I have yet to figure out a way to deal with it and put it behind me.  Radical acceptance is suppose to help me with this, as it teaches us that acceptance does not mean support for the behaviour.  For example, just because I accept that my father did all sorts of horrible things to me, does not mean that I think what he did is okay. 

My father has had to live his entire life without consequences, he’s never lived on his own, he’s never truly had to support himself, he’s always had a safety net.

So I suppose that on his 54^th birthday, I hope that my father finally has to live and accept the consequences of his behaviour.  I hope that in the coming year he gets everything that he deserves.  

I have to admit that I can’t say that I am not saying any of this out of spite, I am too close not to have some sort of bias.  But I do not wish him ill, I just wish that he will have to finally have to deal with the consequences of his actions.

And most of all,. I really hope that I can start to let this go.