Putting the Past Where it Belongs.

A little over a week ago My Father past away. I cried for a couple of days, but my tiers where not for his loss as much as they were a release of all the pain, anger, regret, and remorse that had built up in my 55 years as his Daughter.  You see, even though I loved my Father, because he was the man who helped to give me life, I didn't much like the man. In short he was not a very good father or a very good Human for that matter.

For the first 16 years of my life he put me through a gauntlet of Sexual, physical, mental, and emotional abuse.  Most of this ended when he fleet to Texas to get out of paying child support, leaving my Mother to support 6 children on a nurses aids salary.  You see my Father had no real idea what love was or how to properly express it.  To him love/sex/enjoyment/and pleasure were all mixed together. So for Him having multiple Mistresses, sexually abusing children of any age and any gender, and in general pleasuring himself in whatever way opportunity placed in his path was his way of feeling love.

At 12 when I got my first period the realization of the possible consequences of my Fathers continued sexual use of me hit me like a brick i mustard up the courage and told my Mother what my Father had been doing to me. The memory of standing in-front of a Christmas cardboard fireplace in a darkened living room after My Father had left for work telling my Mother how for as long as I could remember my Father had sexually molested and raped me is one that will be with me forever. I remember her tears, how she kept apologizing and saying that she couldn't believe she had not see it. Not that she didn't believe me, but that she had through fear and her love for him turned a blind eye to what was happening under her own roof.  I remember hearing the yelling the next night as she confronted him and told him that unless he wanted to end up in jail he would never lay another hand on me in that manure. And I remember how he retaliated for my telling by turning his abuse physical, even more so then it had been in my younger years.

It turned into a slap, a punch, an elbow to the ribs, a kick, a whatever he could get away with when he was upset, or angry and had no-one to stop him or to talk the hit for me. For 2 more years I put up with this till I finally couldn't take it anymore and wrote my Mother a long letter telling her in short that it was either Me or Him. That I could no longer live in a house where I didn't know what was coming next.  I had already tried 3 times to Kill my Father, missing his head with a butcher knife that in bedded its shelve over an inch deep in the wall next to him as he sat belittling me wile I hand washed the evenings dishes. My older Brother stopped me the second time, taking the scissors from my grasp as I stood over my Father as he slept on the family coach ready to plunge them into his heart. And the Third time I can't even remember, My Mother told me I was screaming and chasing My Father with knife held high. That she grabbed me as I came past her stopping me as I collapsed to the floor in tears, and that she informed my Father that the only reason she spot me was because she didn't want to see her little girl wind up in jail.

So after my letter she filed for divorce. Somehow the Lawyer who was representing both of my parents convinced her that my Father needed to remain in the how until the divorce was final, so for one more year i dealt with his abuse as well as the scorn of my younger sibling who my Father had told that his and Mommies divorce was all Sissies fault.

Just before the divorce was final he moved out quit his job and took one that paid a fraction of what he had been making and moved in with the woman who had been my Mothers best friend for years and turn out to be my Fathers latest Mistress. A little over a year later they both fled to Texas, she to had gotten divorced and ha lost custody of her 3 children resulting in her having to pay child support as well.

I know that this all sounds so matter of fact, but it isn't. It hard to look back at all the pain he inflicted and not let the anger get the better of me. To not regal you all with the countless stories or to let the details come spilling out. For me its easier this way to let the after math be the testimony of my pain then the details of the abuse itself.

I spent many years in therapy to deal with alcohol and drug abuse as well as a multiple personality disorder.  My ways of cooping with what I had been through.  My Family were not aware of the extent of my pain or the damage I have had to recover from. yes they knew of my drinking, but not the MBD. that was my secret that i only shared with my Husband til now. He has been my strong shoulder that helped me pull all the pieces of me back together. That made me feel loved and secure enough to not hide in a closet when I felt overwhelmed, or to scream and hide under my bed when a shaft of light hit the wall at night in my bedroom. He is the one who got me to believe that I could have a daughter and that she would be safe. And that the word family meant a safe happy place where you could be you without fear or pain.  For all these thing and many, many more I Love and thank him

And now that My Father is Dead and gone I can let go of all those ghosts that haunted my life and kept the pain alive.  I don't care what others think of what I have put into tangible words for all to read, it was my pain I'm dealing with, now they need to either ignore or deal with their own as they see fit, but for me this is my way of letting it all go.