#which I don't know if I'll do yet bc socmed is distracting me

[sweetlittlevampire]

Okay, I know that I don’t owe anyone an explanation, but I feel like giving one nonetheless. Or maybe I just wanna talk into the void that’s the internet, because it’s easier than talking to an actual person, but -

I don’t like May 15th.

Which is an odd thing to say, because the day per se isn’t a bad day. I have very dear friends who were born on that day. I am trying to think about them on this day, about making them happy. I am trying to make May 15 th a nice and happy day for myself. And most years, at least the past few ones, I succeeded in doing so pretty well.

But on some years, I do get remined that May 15th was also my father’s birthday, and it leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Especially if my mother decides to casually forget that there are things you simply do not say to someone else, even in jest, thank you very much.

(Heavy mentions of mental/emotional/psychological as well as physical abuse and mentions of suicide under the Read More. Proceed at your own discretion.)

If you’ve been around for long enough, you probably know that my relationship with my father was not the best. He lied to my mother about wanting children because he thought he could get her to stay with her that way. He told her he never wanted kids when I was fourteen; he successfully hid that truth from the whole family the whole time.

He didn’t hide it from me. Every minor inconvenience, every deviation from what he deemed his “standard” - and I mean even minor things, like not wanting to wear the colour socks he’d picked out for me - was met with degrading and humiliating comments, yelling, and sometimes even a beating. Every hobby I picked out - drawing, reading, crochet - every choice I made academically - pursuing languages and linguistics and literature - was met with comments that were aimed at making me feel completely worthless as a human being. Because what I love doing most was worthless to him, so anyone doing those things was a worthless person by default.

(If you ever wondered why I am so unreasonably insecure about my art and my writing at times? here’s your answer.)

I got severely ill during my teen years, which was stress-induced, and my father didn’t believe me for one second that I really was sick, despite of having an actual diagnosis, meds to take, and being unable to eat food or drink without breaking down crying because I was in so much pain (oh yeah, trying to beat your kids so they stop crying when they’re in pain does not work. We tried that too.)

It might seem super trivial, but the yellings and the beatings were so bad that I was afraid to come home from school. My father developed heavy alcoholism in his late years - he literally drank himself to his grave - and there were days on which I was begging for him to be extra drunk. Because it meant he’d probably be asleep and would leave me alone.

(Drunk enough that he was still semi-conscious was...a whole different thing,)

He wasn’t nice to my mother either. She has Multiple Sclerosis, and he tried to make her believe that she was faking it too (didn’t work). He had zero respect for neither me nor her and got physically violent with her as well, as if the whole stress wasn’t taking enough of a toll on her health as is. I remember her legs stopping to work completely for a couple of weeks because of it all when I was around six or so.

(Side note: If you’re wondering why my mother never left him - both my parents were on disability pension, but because my father got his disability pension years before my mother did, she would’ve had to pay him a special alimony, which she could never have afforded back then with her meager job and a child. She knows this because she actually consulted a divorce lawyer about it.

That, and fear. It’s a paralysing thing.)

I didn’t like my father. I think it’s safe to say that he didn’t like me either. He still expected birthday gifts on May 15th.

Which were either met with indifference, or with disgust. “That’s all? So that’s what I’m worth to you, huh? Thought so” he said while actually tossing it into the trash. ...it was an expensive stationery set with a fountain pen, a ballpoint pen, and a mechanical pencil. Emerald green with gold accents. Monogrammed.I remember this so distinctively because I had saved my allowance for almost a whole year to get the thing, simply because I foolishly thought “Hey, he always uses fountain pens. He likes those. Getting  a quality one that is personalised will maybe make him like me too? Just a bit?” ...an idiotic thought in hindsight.

I still think about the birthdays. I often think about my father - I look like him. On particularly bad days, I look into the mirror, and all I see is him.

I know I sometimes behave like him, in the sense that...I kind of have a bad temper? And I tend to get loud when I’m upset. I don’t know if it’s genetics, or if it’s learned behaviour. I have told most of my friends and family to tell me whenever I’m doing it, because sometimes I do it without noticing...and I’m actively trying to unlearn it. Sometimes there are slip-ups, and I make mistakes. It happens, but please tell me if I mess up, so I can apologise and do better next time.

Now my mother is equally hot-headed, equally stubborn, equally as loud. So when we argue, it tends to get messy sometimes.

Like today. It was because of something minor, I don’t even recall what it was about, but I ended up raising my voice in frustration and anger, which frankly, was a bad move. I need to work on that.

So my lovely mother, who already told me once that I am but “a ruined human being” to her, proceeds to look me in the eye, and says:

“You are just like your father.”

And leaves the room.

And I know that she probably meant “You are just as loud as him”, but it sent me spiralling.

Because my father was a manipulative, self-absorbed, irascible, abusive human being who didn’t shy away from driving his daughter into depression and to the brink of suicide with his words and his fists.

And I’ve been wondering for the last few hours: what if she’s right? I already adopted some of his behaviour and am having a hard time unlearning it. What if there’s more? What if I am a manipulative, self-absorbed, irascible, abusive human being and I don’t notice it?

What if I’m hurting and scaring my mother in the same way that he did? What if I’m hurting my girlfriend in the same way that he did? And just cannot see it?

Look. Objectively and logically I know it’s not the case. But my brain keeps circlimg back to “But what if it IS the case?” and I am disgusted and scared and insecure and just want to crawl into a hole and never to come out again because what if my brain is right?

...May 15th, yall.