In therapy Wednesday Dr. D and I talked about the entry where I wrote a letter to my biological father expressing feelings of abandonment and rejection. We talked about my questions concerning how much sexual abuse would have taken place had he stayed. I then dismissed that statement because my mother had two boyfriends the entire time I was growing up, it’s just that she preferred her two daughters.
We talked about how my mother made sure we didn’t see him and how she taunted us with it. One time at a restaurant she told us to keep looking at her and listen to her. She wanted to distract my sister and myself with idle chit chat. Then she stopped and said, “That was your father that just walked by.” She giggled as we broke our necks to get a glimpse of him. (I hope you choke on your chicken, I thought.)
Dr. D wanted to know what it would be like if I took my father up on his offer to have a relationship. I was rather blunt with my answer. It would be odd to sit across from a man who knows I too slept with his wife, I being his daughter. Could he even look me in the eye if he found out? Would he blame me? Would he call it rape or would he just be so disgusted he couldn’t even look at me?
I’d have a ton of questions for him but mostly resentment and anger. I’d lash out and I know I would. I’d lash out on a personal level so he could never forget, much like I can’t. Then I’d make excuses for him such as I did in therapy today. He couldn’t have known it would get that bad. If he’d been around would I have told him? Would I have said a single word about it? Probably not, it took me my senior year in high school to tell anyone what she’d done sexually.
I probably would not have trusted him so what’s the point of thinking “what if”? I was raised to hate men and think of them in the worst terms possible. We really did get up in the morning, look in the mirror and say twenty times in a row, “Men are dogs.” I doubt seriously with my training to distrust men that I would have opened up to him and told him what his wife was doing. Heck, for the longest time I had no clue it wasn’t right or normal.
I want to lash out at him. I want to say hurtful things like, “Hey did you know your three year old daughter picked up where you left off? Where were you?” I want him to feel guilt and to have images in his head he can’t get out. I want to slap his psyche, kick him in the conscience and knock him dead in his manhood. I want him to feel a tiny bit of what I felt for so long. But why? Why this anger for a man I don’t really know? It all comes down to “should.” He should have been there.
I said in my journal letter to him that it looked as if life was good to him. I need to rephrase that. When I saw my father he looked as if he let life be good to him. There are a lot of people who have good things tossed their way but choose to pass up those opportunities for immediate gratification. You can tell by the stress on their face that they’ve been through a lot, much of it their own doing. The look on my father’s face said he let life be good to him and that he’d made some good choices a long the way.
The only family photo I have displayed in my home is of my father. I guess I like the idea of having something/someone to say I belong to. The idea of being out here with no family at all is too painful. Most of the time I can see his photo and not want to throw things at it nor do I want to cower in the corner. I can handle seeing his photo because I know so little about him. Dr. D asked what it would be like to have a relationship with him. Nope, not gonna happen. It’s not worth it for me to try and heal what he and I never had then attempt to build a close friendship. It’s not worth it for me at all. It would feel like a step backwards instead of forward.
My art therapy assignment for this week is to paint a picture of the feelings I have for my biological father. This should be interesting.
The therapy assignment is here.
Joan of Arc with Morton
Choices, Should and Lashing Out – Thursday, September 03, 2009 – 4:10AM EST
Hi Austin,
I’m so sorry that your father left and you were sexually abused by your mother.
My father didn’t leave physically, but I still was sexually abused. He was an alcoholic and I think did not want to believe things were bad or that he had to intervene on anything, even though he knew about a lot of her physical abuses of all his children. I have so much hatred at him for that, for the easy way out he had of not facing things, not protecting me, not standing up, not being a man. I personally could not have told, I was hiding it inside and did not often remember abuse moment to moment.
You are right about what you told your therapist about your mother; having sexual partners did not stop her from abusing chlidren sexually. Many sexual perpetrators, male and female, are in a primary sexual relationship with another adult while they are sexually abusing children.
Good and healing thoughts to you.
Kate
I’m back from being out of town and am trying to catch up on blogs. I need to re-read this one – I have the same T assignment. I hate homework some days. How’s yours coming?
the therapy assignment is here.
Other versions of it are here and of course here.