A Message To My Father

Note: I have been having horrible flashbacks the last few weeks about my father, remembering clear details about everything that happened. I also have been remembering his "weak" moments. What happened when he appeared to be depressed for sometimes days at a time or how he tried to "make up" for the abuse by letting us do "fun" things.  His manipulation of me in particular to control me---to keep me silent---was so real. He knew I was the one that he had to battle on the homestead. He told many visitors or other people I was a bad person in order to make me not believable. He looked like a Saint to them, and with most of the other children smiling nobody would believe me. They just thought I was a bad, rebellious, horrible child.He sent me away to be abused by other people as well. The thing is, with all the pain and rage I have, I still feel sympathy for my father's pain. I know what he feels because I feel it. However, I just wish he could have taken his pain and rage and directed it towards using for good, helping the world. Why did he have to take it out on an innocent little child? I didn't mean to be the way I was. To have the personality I had, the looks I had, the voice I had. Everything I had that he hated. I went to the woods everyday with my rosary and Bible praying he wouldn't beat me and abuse me. I thought the nightmare would never end. I am writing this message today hoping that he is reading this blog and will stop this cycle of abuse and pain. Let my mother and brother go. Go seek treatment. This is no life to lead.

 Message to my Father
I understand that you are scared, running, isolating yourself. You have done this all your life. You would build up all this hype about your “kingdom” and then you would fall and crumble. You would hide in the woods, be at the neighbors or in town drinking, jump out the back window and run when you saw visitors coming, you sometimes would fall into days of depression and curl into a ball and sob. I know the intense pain you are in.
I know the HORRIBLE guilt you feel about your best friend Frankie dying in a fire when you were sixteen when you couldn’t save him. I know how your beloved dog, Teddy, had to be put down when you were only 15 and you cried for days. I know you loved your old horse, Rain Cloud, and had real tears streaming down your cheeks when you gave her away.
Why did you feel the need to torture me? To torture animals? In your times of pain and extreme rage. I saw that rage, a light glaring in your eyes. You didn’t seem human. You were a monster. I didn’t know if I would survive. No daughter should feel like that. No daughter should have to hide in the bushes and high grass and behind boards and trees when she hears her father’s footsteps.
I know you probably think the “good” moments made up for all the abuse and terror. The times you allowed me to go to town, go to someone’s house (because you happened to be in a good mood, but changed your mind later), the times you took us to the circus or to a play or let us go to the library or park, or brought us raisins or a headband from town. But it didn’t cancel it out. You continued on with the cycles of abuse and terror and never stopped and I knew you were a fake. I can’t be fooled. I knew you were sick. Mentally sick.
I know what it feels like to be trapped in a cycle of pain and fear in your mind and want to take it out on the world. I probably understand the abusive and twisted horrible sick mind of yours better than your other children because you hated me so much and made me hate you so much. My worst fear when I had children was becoming like you: being you. I know out of everyone in the family I am most like you that is why you hated me so much. You tortured me as if you felt you were abused as a child and took my dog, Bosco, away, like your dog, Teddy was taken away.
I think everyone deserves a second chance.
Despite all the abuse, hate, hurt and everything you did to me, I wish for you to reach out to someone for help. ASK for help. PUT DOWN THE BOTTLE. Go seek help. Go to a hospital, a mental facility. You owe this to your children. To your grandchildren. You are an old man now and will die soon. Why not seek help and live the rest of your days trying to make up for what you did?
Stop hurting people, please.
                        

I never wanted to get attached to another animal after my father got rid of my dog, Bosco, when I was 12 just for the hell of it without letting me say goodbye (he said the dog was chasing the cats). I have had Cujo for four years and he is like my baby. I wouldn't dream of giving him away to anyone. I think I have finally healed my heart where he tore it apart.