The father’s day blues
There is no day on the calendar year that makes me as sad and angry as father’s day.
Long time readers have seen me vent many a time about my father, and though those posts have now been made private (for family reasons), the sentiment remains.
My father, the schizophrenic, the egomaniac, god in his eyes and ‘owner’ of us all.
On a day to day basis, I generally spend about 1-5 minutes in the same room as my father, and even less time engaged in conversation with him, something that I don’t mind at all. But I can remember being young, yearning for his approval which never came. Getting a full scholarship to an exclusive private school, getting into MacRobertson Girls High TWICE, winning creative writing/math/science awards, scoring ridiculously high on school reports (some of my teachers during my junior high years didn’t think an A+ was sufficient, so I got insane A+++ marks), none of this was ever good enough. I still remember in year 8, after bringing home a report card that was A+s from front to back bar one page, being marched back to school by him to have a ‘discussion’ with my computer science teacher about why I’d only scored a B, then cowering in the back of the car as he fumed at me all the way back home.
Never in my life has he expressed in any way that he loved me or was proud of me. That much I could’ve lived with, but then was the insanity, the physical abuse my mother endured, the mental abuse the rest of the family endured, and my mother’s insinuations that my conception was not…altogether willing, on her part.
And yet, I find myself unable to leave. If it were just him and me in this equation, I would have bolted as fast as my stumpy little legs could carry me long ago, but in some sick and twisted way, I’ve been instilled with a sense of family unity and loyalty that is part of the very core of my being. My mother, my brother and my sister are my life, and I cannot imagine living without them. Add that to the fact that my mother, who’s never been a woman of good health, finds it more and more difficult to manage the household and thus my role as surrogate mother and housekeeper comes into play.
To be honest, I’ve spent the past 25 years in this life and it just doesn’t bother me so much any more. Well, the scars still run deep beneath the surface, but I operate and live like any normal person - other than my frequent bouts of introversion and desperate desire for quiet and solitude, you’d never guess what was going on in either my head or my heart.
However, on father’s day…I find that the pain is still raw. Bombarded with images and messages by the commercial world telling me to tell my father that he’s “the world’s greatest dad” and people sharing stories about how utterly wonderful their fathers or father figures were cuts deep.
And then I see things like this:
and it makes me want to burst into tears, wondering what life would have been like if I’d had a father/father-figure who gave a damn about my existence, other than as a disappointing pedigree dog who he wanted to show off to others but was never quite proud enough to do so.
I know, compared to others I’m lucky - I have a wonderful, loving mother who I get on fabulously with, and two wonderful siblings who I love with every fibre of my being. But I still feel the hole in my heart, yearning for a father’s love all my life.
And yet, I can still remember John. After my first attempt at taking my own life, I was put into foster care with an amazing elderly couple in East St Kilda, and the two of them were two of the most loving and caring people I’d met in my life. And while they were both lovely, I found myself doing whatever I could to make John happy - from cleaning dog poop and walking their two furbabies, taking their adopted daughter T* to and from school… I was amazed that he seemed pleased with me for doing the smallest of chores that I absolutely fell in love with him (not romantically, but as the first father figure I’d ever had in my life). I wonder what life would have been like, had my father been someone more like him.
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Comments
Ellie ‘Easier’ is fucking subjective. And you’ve told me about this friend before, the comment seems almost exactly the same as the last one you left on the topic. Once more for good measure?
Pamela I had the good fortune to not realize my dad was a parenting disaster until I was an adult, and my family went to hell in a handbasket in less than half a year.
But I also have the good fortune to have my father-in-law, who sounds much like your John. I got married about the time my dad left (ran away with an inmate, how’s that for yuck?), and I feel really blessed that my husband’s dad filled the Dad Void. Overflowed it, actually.
And ‘easier’ is totally subjective. You have no idea, really, unless you lived it. Your dedication to your mom and siblings is awesome. They must truly appreciate you.
stickyfingers One day Butterfly you will set yourself free.
Both my parents are mentally ill. I too survived by swallowing my pain and in childhood, by often being fostered out to family friends. I took me until well into my thirties to realise how my parents had impacted on my choices in life.
Careerwise I have gone where other women in my industry have not, but I have never felt successful. My father did this to me. Many Asians fathers, whether mentally ill or not, do this to their children. I have been tested as having double the average IQ and the ability to learn in one tenth of the normal time, yet I was always made to feel stupid and inadequate. It lurks still in the back of my mind.
Once I began to unravel my past, I had to admit that I had made so many poor choices and mistakes in my life. Things could have been better had I not learnt inappropriate behaviours from my parents.
Once I saw this, I began to carve the kind of life I wanted, strived hard to modify my expectations and perceptions, severed ties with all the nutbags I considered were my friends and began to attract the kind of people I needed to have in my life. Mr Stickyfingers was one of them.
I am on good terms with my parents. I love them, but now rarely see them. We are all happier this way. I don’t discuss my life with them and leave them to their psychoses. Now, rather than allowing them to place my life under a microscope with which to criticise my perceived flaws, they focus on their own crazy world instead.
You’re lucky you have siblings. I had no one to turn to. I have no other family locally and am not able to have children. Perhaps its for the best? At least whatever ‘crazy’ genes I may harbour will not be passed on.
Ellie 
Only when I’m grumpy.
Sticky - You’re right about Asian fathers, I have the same feeling of inadequacy that haunts everything that I do, the saying that my father drilled into my head as a child (If you’re not FIRST, then you’re NOTHING) is burnt into my consciousness to the point where I don’t think it’s something I’ll ever overcome.
I know I’m very lucky to have siblings - throughout all the crazy in my life, they are what kept me going forward, giving me something to focus on (in that I still believe I need to be there to protect them) which my mother thinks is the reason that I see myself and they see me as part sister, part mom.
I’m sorry to hear that you can’t have children, one thing that my father’s psychiatrist (when he was taken away to a psych ward) said is that “genes do not make the person”, so as well as not being able to pass on the genes, there will be nobody to carry on your kindness, which is a loss 
You have it… easier… I know one girl whose father is beyond psychopath. He has threatened to KILL his 4(?) kids! My friend needless to say doesn’t keep in touch with him. My friend’s mother ran away from him fearing for her life.
My friend can’t find where her mother is since she went into hiding… now, THAT’s sad. And my friend is Korean-American, born in the US. That’s so tragic…
On similar note, I spent this father’s day all by myself as my family is still in Korea till August! Sheesh… I hope your father’s not physically abusive…