"Bruises Fade but the Pain Remains the Same"

I can't sleep so I decided to brain dump, I need to right now...



So here it is, another Non-existent father's day. Do they make Hallmark cards for that? I do admit I've looked for "thank you mom for being everything cards".

This has always been one of my most, if not *the* most, dreaded days.

This is the day where countless children spend time with their daddies who hug them and kiss them and tell them they love them. I never was one of those children. I never had a real daddy. I feared my father, dreading having to spend time with him, never knowing if I would be lied to or hurt emotionally or physically.

I think back on how far I have come from the angry and afraid young girl to the woman I am today. No longer does my throat clench when I talk about him, no longer does the anger course through my veins. The hurt, though lessened, is still there. The tears still manage to sneak out from time to time.

I do wish it would go away, that he wouldn't affect me anymore but that is a tall task. It's there, just under the surface, lurking in the shadows.

It'll show during therapy, most especially when I was hypnotized several years back (Hello, I never want to "live" through being 6 again!).

It'll show through at weddings during father/daughter dances where I will clear a room as if it was on fire, though never fast enough to stop the tears from flowing.

It'll show when I see a daddy with his little girl, being gentle and sweet with her.

It shows through when Alex and Bethia joke around and share a moment just for them. I get jealous because once again I feel left out.

In 2005 my "father" contacted me. He found my email through a web search and wrote:

found you on the internet- what a great site! Hope you are well and happy - As an adult put aside the past - We have all made mistakes - if you want no
further communications, in your answer just say NO. Daddy

For the first time in my life I really stood up to him. I wrote back everything I had been meaning to say for years, being very careful to not bring my mother and what he had done to her into the equation.

I don't even know where to begin this letter. It has been long coming, yet I have put it off each time, out of fear, out of wanting to forget it all, out of wanting to move past the past. I am angry but mostly I am hurt. I hurt for the life I had and the loss of what I should have had. Most importantly I am not afraid anymore.

Previous messages from you as well as the current have stated that I need to "as an adult put aside the past". I have had my past haunt me for many, many years. I am finally at the point where I can talk about it without crying, without feeling my throat clench up in anger. You also said in the email that "we all have made mistakes". I can't imagine what mistakes a little girl could have possibly made, what I ever could have done to deserve what happened to me.

I asked you once why, on my 8th birthday, I was chastised in front of my friends and then forced to sit at the table while those friends were told to eat my ice cream. It was my birthday and not only did I have to endure being screamed at in public, I was to sit there and watch them eat their ice cream as well as my own. It was the first time I dared ask you about any childhood incident. You replied that I must have done something wrong. This statement is utterly ridiculous. I was a great kid, I didn't talk back, I obeyed. It took me a long time to realize I didn't do anything wrong, I didn't do anything to deserve being burnt with boiling water, being whipped with a belt, having my favorite toy being hid as I cried, experiencing countless lies and broken promises, etc etc. It wasn't ME, it NEVER WAS.

I understand now what you went through as a child. I know what kind of life you had. It was awful and you didn't deserve it. But neither did I. You had NO right to do what you did to me, nor what you did to my mother who was too weak to do anything about it. You, as a parent, should have stopped that cycle of abuse. It was up to you to do so. I know what it's like but I also know it can be done, for you have passed on your blinding anger to me. I, in turn, have broken the cycle. I acknowledge my fury and I have worked through it. I know what damage I sustained at the hand and voice of an abusive parent and I WILL NOT pass that on to any child of my own. You may say that I'm a crazy bitch or whatever and feel I am wronging you by what I have said but I know denial can run deep and I know what scars I have. Deep emotional scars.

I remember you saying when I was about 7 or so, when you didn't know I was listening, that you didn't want me, that you didn't care what happened to me. All I wanted in life was a father who loved me more than anything else. I still wish I had that every day of my life. And the sad thing is I know you probably will never realize how much I hurt. Of course I always have hope that you will understand what you did was wrong and feel badly. However, I don't expect there to be an apology and the hurt will probably never go away.

To end I'd like to share with you some pictures I have saved on my computer. One is a picture of you and me as a baby. Another is of me at around age four. I look upon these old pictures and I think of how our lives should have been and of how much that little girl needed a Daddy. I did love you and I just wanted you to love me.



Jennifer

He of course denied it all. He wrote back saying my mother was a liar and had made all of it up, that me hearing that he had done all those awful things over and over, made me believe it actually happened. In his mind he wasn't involved in these things and I was too young to actually have accurate memories of them.

But he was involved and I do remember. I remember being hit, I remember being stuck in the corner for hours at age four, I remember my mother crying after being beaten and seeing her being raped in front of me. I remember all the emotional damage that was done, from my teddy bear that I need to go to sleep being hid on top of the refrigerator where a toddler couldn't find it, to being promised a computer if I got on the honor roll in high school and getting an empty computer box, as a joke, instead. He thought it was hilarious while I just cried.

So today is the day I mourn what I lack. I mourn what I should have had. I mourn what could have made me a stronger person, a better person, what could have made me whole. Today I mourn my daddy.

*Pause my blog music to hear a song that really touches me*

Christina Aguilera- I'm Ok