Daddy's Favourite: An Autobiographical Memoir Of Childhood Abuse

Control

There is a need for control in abusive people. A need to control everyone and everything. My father couldn't abuse my mum. When he tried to hit her, she hit him back. So he used us. It's easy to control a mother when you hold her kids at metaphorical and literal gun point.

My mum told me that one of the scariest things he ever did was that he came home one night and he was mad, as he sometimes was, but apparently my brother and I weren't as quiet as we needed to be. So he grabbed his rifle, started screaming before he left the house. He fired it and when my mum went to go see, he had shot our dog in it's dog house. She said brain and blood had splattered everywhere.

He stalked towards the house and told her to get us kids to clean the fucking mess up. When my mum finally demanded to know why, she said he looked at her coldly and told her it was better the dog than the kids and to make sure we cleaned the mess up.

She said it was the scariest thing she ever witnessed because she got the impression that he wanted to shoot us kids. That he had wanted to kill us, to leave us like he had left the dog.

We were always silent when he came home after that. The silence permeating into everything until it became utterly unbearable to live in. I still can't stand silence to this day. I can't stand it, I can't live in it, I need sounds to drown it out otherwise the invisible ringing in my ears creeps up my spine and wraps around my throat. It reminds me too much of him. So I do my best to drown him out, music during the day, my fan blowing at night. I just need the sound to drown out the silence that had once clung to me, seeped into me as a child.

When my mum would tell me stories like those it made me realize just how much he hated the fact he couldn't control my mum like he wanted. He had to take other outlets to control her, he used us against her to get what he wanted.

Controlling us kids was easy. Psychological abuse is easy when your victims can barely speak and don't know any better. It easy to twist their malleable brains into what you want, to destroy parts of them that haven't even begun to be formed.

It's strange, even as young as I was, I knew his attentions to me weren't okay. He would give me all the attention in the world while the others would look on and I would just remember the sinking shame in my little belly, the feeling of nausea that would rise up into my throat. I could just remember how sick he made me feel and I could just feel that shame choking me as I would whisper out the answers to his questions before I would tentatively ask about my brother or my sister. I always tried to bring his focus to them as well, to try and lessen that feeling that had always wrapped around me when he would pick me up and put me on his lap.

I realize now what it was. I knew what he was doing, what he was trying to do between me and my siblings and I tried to stop it but when you are small and you don't truly know, how can you fight against it? I tried, I did. I always waited until I believed it was appropriate before I would retreat from him, seeking out my siblings, trying to repair what he was doing but I had to watch in silence as it just made it worse. I had to watch as the cracks bloomed underneath my feet and between them, the ground becoming unstable and full of pitfalls.

I learned to despise affection. I learned to believe that any compliment I was given was misplaced and manipulative. I learned to never believe I was more than what I saw myself as. I couldn't accept any good that people gave me because if it wasn't given to the others around me, then it was simply manipulation. If it wasn't fair, then it wasn't truly for me.

But when I was told the worst about me, it was easy to believe. When I wanted to join choir, wanted to be with my sister, I believed her when she hissed at me to drop out because I couldn't sing and shouldn't even try. I dropped out, stayed far away from her because she must have been right, I must have been terrible and would just be an embarrassment to the school. I didn't try.

When she graduated and I joined choir out of spite, when I was singing ridiculously in the hallways to be stupid I had a teacher stop me and told me I had a lovely singing voice. I told her no. I told her no I didn't because why would my sister tell me I didn't if it was a lie? Why would the teacher be telling the truth when she didn't tell my friend beside me her voice was just as good? It was all a lie.

Compliments were manipulation in disguise. I knew that as a child and I had grown up that way and even now I have a hard time accepting them. That shame still claws at my belly because I can't be more than my siblings no matter what because it would make them hate me more than they already did.

I accepted no compliments and soaked in the negativity.

So when my siblings called me stupid, I believed I was.

When they told me that no one loved me, I believed no one did.

When they told me my friends only liked me out of pity, I believed that was the only type of relationship I could have.

When they told me I was fat, I started to wear baggy clothes to hide it because I must have been if they said it.

When they told me I was ugly, I died a little every time I looked in the mirror because they were right.

When they told me I looked like a boy, I hated myself, trying to cover up the curves I was growing because they were right, I did look like a boy and a boy who had breasts and hips was just wrong.

When they told me I was a bitch, I did my best to hold back everything I wanted to say because they were right.

When they told me I was a mistake, I would lower my head and agree because that was all I would ever be.

When they told me I was a piece of shit, I agreed because the only type of person who would be the favourite of a monster was nothing but shit.

When they told me the absolute worst of myself, I believed them because why wouldn't I? I had no leg to stand on. It was my punishment for him giving me preference, it was my penance for every time he had shown me affection. I needed to make up for what he did and if it meant I needed to believe the worst in myself, I would without pause.

I've learned that it was him reaching through me. He controlled me then and he controls me now. He's there every single time someone compliments me and my stomach churns with shame and I want to tell them no. He is there whenever I try to lift myself up only to have someone shove me down. He is my burden when it comes to my family.

My two eldest sisters had to live with his abuse in a time when they could remember.

My elder sister had been othered and verbally abused by him.

My little brother had been mentally decimated by him, nearly killed by him.

I had been preened over when people could see.

I had been the golden child.

I had been his favourite.

And sometimes I wonder if that is all my family ever sees in me.

His twisted love and pride for me is my burden to bear. It is his way of controlling me, even now.