Dear Boo

🍑 Abusive Father 🍑

Dear Boo,

This is a little difficult for me to talk about, especially because there are so many details that need to be explained properly in order to get the entire big picture; I’ll try to explain the best that I can, but please let me know if anything needs to be clarified.

My relationship with my dad is rocky – and by rocky, I mean it’s pretty non-existent. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that he’s an alcoholic and a smoker with a bad temper and a habit of lying, guilt-tripping, and belittling.

The reason my mom divorced my dad after only two years of marriage was because he came home one night drunk, got mad at my mom and hit her, and proceeded to yank me out of the crib and fling me around like a rag doll (her words, not mine). This wasn’t the first time he hit her, but it was the first time he came after me (I was around two at the time, and my brother was probably a few months old by then). I don’t remember that, but I do remember him beating me with a belt when I was four years old to the point I was so bruised, I couldn’t sit down (years later, I discovered he had lied to the police about what really happened, and I’m still upset about that). That’s the last time I remember him physically abusing me; he switched to emotional abuse – which brings in the guilt tripping and belittling (he’d say degrading things about my weight even as a growing kid or take away my books because I was being “antisocial” instead of being supportive that I was expressing interest in reading).

I’m pretty sure that’s the pinpoint of our relationship declining. That, and the fact he showed favoritism to my brother during our childhood; he went to my brother’s sports games, he coached his basketball team one year – every time my brother wanted him there, he was there. But not once did he come to a choir concert or a school play or any of my volleyball and basketball games, excluding when I was on the basketball team in the sixth grade, because my mom had my younger twin siblings (they were still babies) who had gotten sick and she didn’t want to take them out in the fall weather. He didn’t even come to my high school graduation – because he “thought” I didn’t want him there just because the summer before my senior year, I told him I didn’t want to come over every weekend during the school year, I wanted to make plans with my friends. I didn’t do a whole lot during high school because he would guilt trip me about how he had plans for us and he never gets to see us that often, etc. Which those “plans” never happened, and I honestly missed out on a lot of fun with my classmates.

Going back to the alcohol/bad temper for a minute, it got to the point where - when he’d get so mad, that his voice would go up in pitch when he was yelling, and his face would distort and turn tomato red - my whole body would shake in terror, my heart racing and I’d lose my breath (yep, I have panic attacks triggered by my dad’s physical rage – lovely, isn’t it.). And most of his rages were directed at my brother, after the incident I mentioned above. Some of those moments included my dad shoving my brother’s metal baseball bat into his hands and telling my brother to swing at his head (he was drunk on tequila and got mad because my brother threw a ball at my aunt’s face after she slipped and fell during a game of kickball), shoving my brother across the kitchen after shattering his phone (bro was inappropriately talking to a girl who lied about her age), and within the last few months, hitting my brother in the face/head because they got into a yelling argument while he was drunk (I only saw him fall to the floor as I was in the kitchen and could see the doorway of the bedroom).