Don't get too excited, though, this may be a slightly depressing, thought-provoking, philosophical venture. You've been warned.
So. After about ten-and-a-half years (that's a real number, by the way) my father is being let out on parole from prison. As in, yesterday. Literally yesterday. 8/5/2017
He entered jail when I was thirteen-ish, was incarcerated by the time I was fourteen-ish, Mom fought against DCFS for the custody of us, and then by the time I was fifteen we'd moved to the city.
Sometimes people are puzzled by the lack of linear events in my memory, but, honestly, there was a lot going on in that time frame. I was trying to actually live a normal life, and as a teenager at that! Going through teenage drama and boys and friends and also acting as a secondary parent during a time when all heck was being let loose and things were falling apart around my ears.
So time is a tad...
Well. Like the above gif.
Of course, when you're in the moment you're just sort of trying to survive, day by day. It's more the after-effect that gets you, especially after the betrayal of a parent that you love.
You just hurt. You feel broken.
And after a while you think that you've healed enough to move on.
You clamp down on your emotions, build a wall, and focus on things like work and schooling and friends and believe that there's no poison running through your veins, boiling beneath the surface of your heart.
After a while, the dirt you buried the pain under starts to solidify, and you feel like you can build on it. Like the rubble they threw into the bay after the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. :|
For a long time I tried to put behind me what he did to me and my family. To remember the good that he did as a father.
But there's a part of you that's always affected. It alters your ability to talk to people, to judge correct behavior, to have healthy relationships. Trauma does that to you, either consciously or unconsciously.
How do you, for example, react to people in social situations when you, yourself react strangely to things? Things that you don't realize are off until others look at you oddly, and then your guilt complex takes over once more...
What about when you're awkward? Or overly loud or childish or delving into your book/art/writing rather than interacting with others? What about when you ask strange questions at the wrong time, or laugh at inappropriate things?
How are you supposed to...alter your behavior or your remarks? How do you even do that? What is it that you are supposed to say? I certainly have no idea. *helpless shrug* I've been told off for talking too much, for not having a filter, and for saying things that I thought were funny, but they weren't. And then I inevitably get treated like an immature pariah. But I'm just not sure what I'm actually supposed to do, instead. :S
I know that for years and years I tried to get to a point when I thought to myself, "well, I'm wierd/a nerd, but I like myself the way I am. And I am okay sitting on the outside and being on my own." But it doesn't exactly afford you many friends, and after a while it gets kind of lonely.
That's not to mention problems with boundaries. What are you supposed to do when one of your love languages is touch...but only with those that you COMPLETELY trust? Making you actually averse to touch, to people hanging off of you or entering your personal space? So you want it and hate it at the same time?
And have you any idea how painful it is to go to an activity or a dance and the leaders there try to PHYSICALLY get you involved (as in, arm around your back and on your wrist and trying to propel you forward), but that just makes you want to cut and run? And possibly hit things.
Sometimes there's just too much noise. Or people that are clingy; emotionally needy individuals that attach themselves to me because I'm nice and kind, yet I keep trying to subtly edge away because they make me claustrophobic and I start hyperventilating a bit. Then others, watching the scene, think that I am being unkind and uncharitable. But honestly, what else are you supposed to do when being around a person gives you anxiety? :S
Not to mention how being around "normal" people feels awkward. That you feel unconnected to their normalcy.
Or with just men in general, because every man reminds me of my father sometimes.
And I'm caught in this endless loop, because men with a sense of humor and confidence attract me, but 1. they definitely aren't interested in me, (you're too immature and "young" and silly, never mind that you're thirty years old).
And if you say that this isn't true, and to give myself some credit, and "surely men don't think that at all!" then you haven't seen the sheer amount of awkward I can bring to a single conversation. :|
And 2. if they were interested, they're too much like my dad for me to get close to, anyway...
How about when you get in a relationship? I don't know about anyone else, but when I start to get comfortable, and feel like I might actually begin to love them--suddenly anxiety tidal-waves into me. Irrational fear of being hurt keeps me from creating any sort of foundation and, with time, it even keeps me from having many deep friendships for fear that they might get too close. That they might see what's wrong with me or straight-up hurt me. It's an irrational anxiety but it's there, it's real, and it's pressing into my chest.
What about when it's worse than that? What about the realization that your parent hasn't just betrayed you, your family and your loved ones. But they have also treated you in such a way that you deal with the side effects of abuse--a PTSD that you had never recognized as PTSD until now. Too willing to shy away; to pretend that your parent surely didn't do what you remember them doing. Because if you forget about it then it's like it never happened...right? It's like the scars aren't really there...
Slowly the wall gets chipped away, until you can only see the aching exposure of your bones.
The timing of all this is ironic, because it's been recently that the wall's been coming down as I've been dealing with problems, anxieties, sorrow and old coping behaviors I thought that I had done away with back when I was fifteen or sixteen.
Instead loneliness has pounded into my chest cavity as I am reminded, again and again that I am thirty and still single. I am fearful and lonely and have...issues. I wish for love but I can't seem to let anyone get close enough to me for it to happen. And I'm TRYING to work through them, I really am, but it's hard. After all, it's not like I do these things on purpose!
That's not to mention anxiety brought about by being thrown into new situations, being forced to talk to people I don't know, taking paths and buses I don't normally take. Much of that was taken care of by serving as a full-time missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the Tokyo, South, Japan area. But that anxiety is still there, even if I've largely conquered it. It likes to show itself whenever I have to take an airplane or teach a Sunday School class.
Or when I feel like I need to move to a new place, or attend a new college, or try something scary. Yep. I might be dealing with all of those thoughts right now.
Meanwhile, people around me say flippantly that I should, "just give life a chance!", "get over your fear and bite the bullet!" "Your fear is all in your mind!" "Why are you having problems?" All because I've done such a great job of hiding the rush of fear I feel and putting on a brave face. But really, and honestly, that's like putting a bandage on a broken bone. Things are better-ish, but still not quite healed yet.
Or, even worse: "just get laid--you'll feel better."
No, I won't feel better.
Because my insides are a mess of shame and sorrow and addiction and piercing solitude and the desire for love mixed with an inability to understand what healthy relationships are made of.
(But I'm still trying. You really have to give me points for that. But what I'm trying to say is that "hooking up" with someone is entirely counter-productive and just makes things worse. Whereas healthy, developed relationships actually help me conquer that part of people that's a little chipped.)
I'm willing to make friends with anyone (after I pray for bravery and give myself some stiff encouragement) and also to give any guy a chance to date me if he builds up the courage to ask outright (I have to give him points for facing the same fear I'm facing). But more often than not they don't even get that far, because I don't feel comfortable enough to let them in so that we can develop a friendship that might actually lead to love.
And then when they DO get the courage to do so! Well, that's a whole other matter--a date or two is nice, but four or five or six is just plain overwhelming and if he just keeps asking and asking and asking, especially when I try to say no, then I just get anxious and don't want to do anything with them or near them, because just being near makes me feel like he's wrapping his future around my throat.
I can't break free without breaking his heart--because I've done that before already, more than once, twice, or always. (Pretty much every single time I've been the one to break things off. Except for one or two heartbreaking times.)
(And I'm a Hufflepuff and an INFP, so my favorite pastime is feeling guilty about hurting someone's feelings.)
But all I really want is someone that will fight for me. And not a physical fight, either, but an emotional one and a spiritual one. That they will stick out the hard times and be willing to give me love when I need it...and space when I need it. Because you better believe that my issues have some wide hips.
But I don't need some super-hero of a man to fix all my problems.
I just need someone who will sit and talk things out with me, so that I can fix my OWN problems.
Someone who is just genuinely good and kind (and who loves kids. It's not too much to ask, really it's not).
And many people ask what my relationship problems have to do with my "daddy issues," but they don't understand that they are one and the same.
Because it's all about trust and hurt and pain and also not wanting to be touched, but also actually wanting to be touched while dying on the inside because you want to make human connections with others. To love and be loved in return.
And yet also this eternal hope that happiness will come, whether or not I find an eternal companion. That I can be happy even on my own.
I've chosen to participate in happy activities, focus on being creative, and lately have involved myself in therapy to deal with these, the things that I thought that I conquered. Just trying to relearn the lessons I thought I had figured out over a decade ago:
But
And when you feel all alone, like no one will understand, you have to keep hoping. And keep praying. Relying on Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and His Atonement. That, in the end:
"And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.
And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away." Revelation 21:3-4
Which is why, in wondering about my father's return to society, I can't help hoping that he doesn't try to contact me. Because with how messed up I am already, who knows where I'll be if he tries to come back into my life?! Especially when he hasn't tried to contact me in over a decade, and those siblings of mine that he has contacted he's either been verbally abusive towards or manipulative.
Sooooo...
And yet...
I'll just keep trying to be emotionally healthy, to learn to interact with people in diverse situations. And I will try to focus on being happy...even as all these thoughts are constantly being tossed like salad within my brain. We'll see how things go.
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