Under

My habit with books is to binge on one author when I find one I like. I finished listening to Running With Scissors the other week on an especially hellacious commute and I loved it. It was such an entertaining book. His childhood was horrifying but he wrote it as a comedy. A friend said she loves him and has all of his books, so I figured I couldn’t go wrong by trying a couple more, and I was in luck by finding three more audio books at the library.
 
I picked up Wolf At The Table and Dry. I figured I would listen to Wolf At The Table first since it would still be about his childhood (a memoire about his father), and then listen to Dry (about his alcoholic years). I just finished listening to Wolf last night. I’m moved to write him a letter.
 
I don’t typically think about my own father anymore. The best thing I could have ever done was to cut him out of my life once and for all about 5 years ago. If you read me WAY back, you may remember some entries I wrote about him. When I was about 24 I cut him out of my life for about 5 years, only to let him back in and be thrown back into the drama, rollercoaster, and heartbreak all over again. The final straw happened the Christmas before I started dating Mich and so Mich hasn’t even really been exposed to him and I haven’t really even spoken of him to her. She knows just enough to agree with me. But, since I cut him out of my life, I have slowly over time forgiven him and moved on and past the intensity of emotions. Now I can remember the checklist of reasons why he is not healthy and is too toxic to be in my life, but the checklist doesn’t illicit the deep seated emotions anymore.
 
However, listening to this audio book really touched something in me. I hate the word “trigger” because I think it’s overused these days, but I truly feel like it brought back some “stuff” that I probably should deal with. It doesn’t help that I saw him just this past weekend and had such a surreal experience with him.
 
I think, though, that the most comforting thing about the book, even though it made me cry and I actually feel nauseous this morning, is that I feel like someone else understands! There is someone else out there who lived through something so similar to my situation. And he wrote about it so eloquently. He put all this energy into telling this story and really presenting something that normal people can understand: “This is why this so-called normal person you see before you is truly a monster.” I have always agreed with my older brother in that he doesn’t want his wife to meet my father. They have been married for a very long time and she has never met our father. I agreed with him, but never could voice exactly why. My younger brother on the other hand has a different relationship and has allowed my father to be part of his life and his kids’ lives. He has set very firm boundaries and I guess its working. However, they have had their issues and I think his wife finally understands my older brother and me not wanting to be involved with him.
 
The thing about people like my father and the author’s father is that there is a face, a literal mask that they wear. Years and years ago my younger brother’s wife and I got into a pretty big fight over the fact that I didn’t want anything to do with my father. She just couldn’t understand and she trivialized it. She saw him as a “nice” and “normal” guy. This was before he watched their home for them one vacation and they came home to find their drawers rifled through and crosses drawn on all of their doors. It was the beginning of her education of games my father can play.
 
It takes SO much energy to explain to ANYONE outside of the immediate family why I can’t have him in my life. I can think of so many times that my experiences and situations have been trivialized because someone didn’t think it was “so bad.” Even here on OD, when I did write about him, I would receive notes about how he was just “trying to be my father.” It is frustrating and belittling and defeating. Some people think to be abused you have to be hit or neglected… but sometimes attention – the WRONG kind of attention – can be just as abusive and it lingers so much longer.
 
I want to write the author a letter. I have never done that before, but I feel compelled to thank him because I do know how hard that probably was for him to write. And I feel like I need to go back to my therapist. I would love to go to someone closer to home, go to a new therapist, but like I said, it is so exhausting to have to explain this to a new person. To try to explain WHY. Part of me wants to just let it go, to go back to the quiet place of living without thinking about him. With him being just a distant memory and always keeping that check-list nearby.