Letter to my father

[annakoen]

Dad,

I've told myself I would write this letter, so that I may voice what bothers me, without having to go through the usual motions of you nearly starting to cry and me feeling guilty for having voiced anything. I know you feel truly remorseful for the fact that my little brother and me grew up in a war zone, but you always end up making it about how your life didn't work out the way you intended. You're always in learned helplessness mode. It's just how you are, I guess. Or at least, how you have become. You are traumatized yourself. You had an accident when you were younger and I think you have brain damage. Grandpa had PTSD from the war and selective mutism (yes, there is a word for people who never talk). Grandma I never knew because she died from cancer when you were a teenager. Nobody ever taught you how to mourn and so when I was six, you would go on and on about the day your mother died. You never told me anything else. Nobody told me anything about who I am, to build character and to support me in my challenges as gifted and highly sensitive young girl. It was always about you. When I was a teenager, you were afraid of my growing up. I know now it is because you were afraid of me becoming a separate person. I always felt I had to stay at home and be your surrogate mother and wife. I'm glad I didn't and moved out when I was 20.

You married a woman with autism. You've threatened to kill her, divorce her, you've said all sorts of awful things behind her back. But you never did, because you are afraid of being vulnerable.

Your brother died two years ago and now you are alone. You have been in mental pain your entire life. And you drink. I know you have been drinking like crazy, 'cause mom said you had mentioned that if you weren't allowed to drink, you didn't want to live anymore.

And you used to get so angry.

You were such an angry thirty-five year old, forty year old, and we were so afraid of you. It doesn't matter that you never hit us, you gave me the sense that there is no safe place in the world, that at any time anyone can burst out of their skin and threaten to hit me with a balled fist and red face.

And you've programmed me to be worried about you, always. From the time I could talk, you found out I had loads of empathy. Empathy mom with her undiagnosed autism doesn't have. And you abused it. You came to me for all your troubles, and pains, from age 6 onwards. And now I am empty. I have so little empathy left to give to anyone, I don't even know how to be emphatic towards myself. All I was ever taught is that empathy is a bucket of ice cream that other people will take from you and eat everything from, not leaving anything for you, never replenishing it.

You have taught me that there is nobody who will care for me. Instead, I had to care for you. You have taught me to be hyper vigilant, to expect danger in the form of being emotionally used and abused around every corner. I am terrified at work. Someone else taught me how to mourn the death of grandpa, because the only coping mechanism you have is alcohol.

During a surgery the anesthetics that was supposed to wear off within a few hours, didn't wear off for a whole day. I know for sure now that your liver has gone to *. You're in your early sixties and every day I expect a phone call that your liver has given out and you're in hospital. Or that you killed yourself.

I have always known that you are who you are because of what happened to you. But * man, pull yourself together and find a therapist. I'm done with always having a background thought worrying about you, even though I live on the other side of the country.

I'm going to visit an adult children of alcoholics support group in two weeks. See what that brings me.
I'm done being so scared of the world.
I'm done worrying.
I know it's not your fault for being this way, life happened to you, trauma and brain damage happened to you.
But sometimes I wonder... am I really your daughter? Because I'm in therapy, I sought out help and am still seeking help. I will not sit in a corner and hide, like you do, I will engage in the world the best I can and do what I must, even if it is briefly enduring discomfort to learn, to have a happier life. I wonder who I got this strength from. My therapist wonders about this too. I'm happy I'm strong, even though I sometimes push myself too hard to do things when my highly sensitive body is screaming at me please don't. But I am strong enough to dare to be vulnerable. That's a gift I don't know where I found but I'm cherishing it.

[LucyHenry]

much love. You are showing great courage and resilience.

[radical]

Beautiful words.

[Jdog]

What an amazing letter, showing just how strong and determined you are to be your own person after so much trauma.  This is a true inspiration.  I wish I could have written a letter to my Dad before he died, and it would have not been too different from yours.  Unfortunately, he died when I was 23 and I didn't have the words at the time. 

Thanks for sharing your letter.  You are a beautiful writer.

[annakoen]

Thank you all