I felt angry at my father as I rode home today. How can I talk to the man who broke my mother's back in front of me and lied to me and the rest of the community about his behavior. He drove my mother out of their marriage and out of my hometown. My mom and I don't get back the time we spent struggling. I used to hate my mom for leaving my dad and leaving town. I didn't realize she had to take care of herself first or die of alcoholism. I used to wonder if my mom was lying about my father to get back at him. I used to tell her I liked my dad better.
I don't even want to begin to talk about what my dad put my mom through. She spent months in treatment centers for post traumatic stress disorder. She almost died trying to drink away the nightmares. She had to leave her children behind and later learn about how he was beating me as well.
How am I supposed to forgive him? How can I plan a trip with him?
When I was younger I used to pretend that my mom was telling the truth about my dad when I was with her and that my dad was telling the truth about my mom when I was with him. I knew that this made no sense, but it was easier to handle, and I could imagine two different worlds and switch between them. In one world my mom was a liar, and in the other world my dad broke her back and almost killed her. But in both worlds they loved me and that made it bearable.
This summer I found out that my dad absolutely broke her back. She fell down the stairs and got an MRI for a new back injury. The doctor mentioned two old breaks, precisely where she had told me he hurt her and published in her autobiography years earlier. She didn't know her back was broken there. The doctor who x rayed her originally was my dad's friend and destroyed the x rays. What an awful man. Why would he even want to protect a man who hurt his wife that badly?
I had to go on a river trip with my father after leaving my mom's hospital bed. I just put the facts behind me and interacted with the parts of my father I like. I realize now that it is surprising that I wasn't angry at him. My ability to cope with horrific facts kept me from even dealing with them.
I don't want to deal with this now. I don't want to have a blog examining the process of my healing. I don't want to have to do all this work with a counselor to forgive the horrible things my father did. But I know that if I just pretend, if I distract myself with the beautiful, wonderful things this world holds, that I'm never going to really heal. At least, I haven't in the 20 years I've been trying. I think I'm attacking the wrong areas. I think that maybe if I lose weight my body image issues will be resolved. I think that if I read guides to dating I'll be able to have a healthy relationship with a man.
I've spent countless time dealing with these major issues: eating sugar, exercising excessively, attraction to unavailable men and a need to be perfect academically. I'm not sure those are the issues. Because no amount of journalism about them has seemed to resolve them.
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