[13 min read] Hmmm. I am pretty baked (rough day) so I apologize if this makes no sense, I just know I might not be able to get this out later and I am sorta freaking out…so while I have the chemically induced courage – I’m gonna try.
I was up early this AM – like 5am early (ugh), went to bed around 1a. Couldn’t sleep. And that angry part I’ve been feeling (and subduing) started to surface, randomly. Since I was laying there fairly relaxed and already awake I kinda just let it happen to see where it’d take me. My mistake.
I started experiencing the feeling of being beaten all over again – except w/ a belt this time. There was some of that as I grew up but mostly I witnessed it happening to my brothers not as much me… I don’t think… but in this experience I was still held down and restricted in the same way I remember my dad’s hand near my neck, almost choking me, holding me down when he beat me severely. Except, I felt like I was a child again, much, much younger and I begged not to be hurt… and then it started morphing into some scary sexual direction – don’t know how to explain that – I shut that down so fast… but it didn’t feel great. I got pretty panicky and anxious and then obv couldn’t sleep after that.
And…this is the part that I started connecting when I was high. It could just be paranoia but for many years I have had some really uncomfortable feelings about my dad and the way he looks at me, particularly when I was young. I’ve never ever written about this. I don’t want to think about it…I don’t really think anything happened, but I have some very vivid memories that I can’t shake and just weird stuff he’s said over the years.
– When I was really little, my mom was out of town and my dad had to give me a bath that night (he rarely did this). I think I was maybe 3 or 4? I just remember how uncomfortable he was with it. I remember being in the bath and him just staring at me…between my legs particularly… and it weirded me out – like there was something wrong w/ me and I remember even at that age, feeling shame and fear. The memory of him bathing me was awkward… his touch was foreign, but I don’t actually remember any of it except for a few seconds and just the intensity of his gaze. Nothing wrong w/ any of that right?
– As a teenager I just remember catching him staring at me… at my body… my chest in particular. When I’d catch him, he’d look away. It always made me uncomfortable.
– Several times he’s made remarks to my mom about how I should dress or how I am dressing (which I actually dressed conservatively because of how shy I was) which gave me the distinct feeling I was an object for him to control. I remember thinking that my body is not my own, but his and I’m not sure why I had those thoughts. I want to say because of the tight leash he kept on me and my mom but i don’t know. But the worst times were when he got actually drunk and not just his daily beer buzz. At least two time’s he’s made very uncomfortable remarks about my appearance. I guess worst offender was because of context (my wedding day). People had been drinking all day (except me – too much anxiety) – other than the weird comment about convincing me to have kids now that I was married… he was pretty inebriated and standing near my mom and he looked over at me (I wasn’t even saying anything or really looking in his direction) and out of no where he said, “You just think you’re so hot, don’t you?” with this weird accusatory tone. My mom heard him, and she was shocked and admonished him… I said nothing, I was hurt… and didn’t know what to do or what my reaction should have been – I didn’t understand. I just looked down and shuffled away. I felt embarrassed and ashamed – but that doesn’t even make sense?
– My best friend’s ex-fiance got arrested for viewing/soliciting child porn and when I told my parents this story my dad basically said he didn’t understand why the ex-fiance got arrested and seemed really weirded out by the story. He was just short of defending him leaving my mom and I dumbfounded.
– I have had a few rape dreams in my life – 3 to be exact. I always remember those dreams even years later. One in particular was vivid and haunts me because the person raping me didn’t make any sense. It’s a dream, whatever, but in the other two I knew exactly who was in it with me and could understand why I might have the dream, but not this one. In this dream, I was getting raped by a random figure who was much larger than me. This man didn’t look anything like the myriad of sexual partners I had in my past or any one really because the details were obscured. He was bigger, as in chubby, round stomach, mustached, tan complexion but his details were fuzzy, I couldn’t read his face in the dream…it was blurry. In the dream I can feel his belly compressing down on me as he had sex with my unwillingly body. The build and details I can remember from that character in the dream skewed more towards a larger latin male. I remember that one making me feel more disgusted and confused than either of the other two rape dreams I’ve had. It still does. I never put any stock in it because it’s just a dream, right?
– My uncle, who we used to spend a lot of time with when I was younger, got deported because his neighbor reported that he’d sexually assaulted their daughter. My dad was pretty sure it couldn’t be true… defended him. And btw, when I heard him tell that story I absolutely froze.
– When I called him after catching him in his lies about cheating on my mother he broke down on the phone with me several times. It was wild. He would rapidly go from crying trying to get any words out to being completely fine. In one of the breakdowns he started to say “I’ve done so many awful things….” and I had to cut him off because I thought he was going down the path of describing something sexual – and I *assumed* it was in regards to the lady he was sleeping with but… now I don’t fucking know. What was he trying to confess to me? Why me? His daughter of all people? Why would you describe intimate sexual acts about your mistress w/ your daughter (although note that this lady was around my age or younger *pukes*)? Unless…it was about something else?
I guess I could just be imagining shit. There’s even more than that tho. E.g. One of my long term bf’s told me once that he thought I’d been molested by my dad based on things I’ve said or my reactions. And I don’t even want to get into some of the weird fetishes I have had from a young age and can’t explain. I always thought it was the incident(s?) with my cousin that I do remember somewhat clearly and maybe I’m getting it confused but I’m freaking out… It’s just a lot of tiny things that if ANYONE else had given me this awful list – I’d be very suspicious. Even yesterday my mom asked for a picture of me w/ my new haircut and she texted me back saying she liked it and that “your dad said you look good too” and my initial non-thinking reaction was that I wanted to throw up. The idea of him looking at me sexually in any capacity (even as innocuous as “you look nice today”) has me wanting to just rip myself apart.
I feel a lot of fear all of a sudden. I’ve been averaging like 4-5 hours of sleep per night this week so that’s likely a contributing factor to all this craziness. You know, sometimes it seems like when I have really good days I just pay for it in lack of sleep and general horror. Then it all cascades into poor ability to work, feeling guilty about that, then shitty eating habits and can’t exercise because I’m too tired… then feeling generally like living is too fucking hard. Which is where I find myself in this moment. Nice fun downward spiral. Good times.
The thing that is freaking me out the most right now. Is that if I look at the equation of my life, and I solve for X and X is the thing I don’t want to admit or recognize as truth (my dad’s relationship to me having any inappropriate sexual aspect) … if X is true – then the whole equation starts to make a lot of sense. I did that mental math a moment ago and I honestly felt comforted for a moment when I plugged it in and it made sense… and then simultaneously horror.
It’s also a breeding ground for self-destruction. If I accept that at minimum my dad was inappropriately *attracted* to me and at worst he actually did something about it and I just can’t remember the full picture… it’s rapidly followed by fantasizing about blowing my brains out. I’m confused and scared and ashamed for even thinking this… but I’ll just have to endure. I don’t want to falsely accuse him of anything (and I don’t think I ever would)… and I don’t know if any of this even matters. I just know I’ve grown up being scared of him touching me most of my life and I thought it was associated with the violence I witnessed (and experienced) – and that could all still be true. Except when I really think about it, which this is the first time I’ve examined all this, the way in which I was afraid of his touch never made sense. I didn’t dislike his touch just because I was afraid it would hurt… I didn’t like it because it made me feel disgusted. Does that even make sense? And what does that mean? It’s the same way I feel about my mom’s touch, except it’s more disgust and anger (deep down I know I feel she betrayed me, didn’t defend me, and left me, all of us, to get abused…) and with my dad it’s more disgust and fear. I don’t know what any of it means.
Damn, sometimes I really wonder if living is even fucking worth it.
***
Last night after therapy I was pretty woozy. I got lost on the way home twice. And I struggled to stay present. I hung out w a friend online so that helped but for a moment while I took a break and just sat w my thoughts I got a weird fragment.
I was really small – like toddler and I imagined sitting on some older male’s lap just in diapers, no other clothes, and him sticking his hand down between my legs… and then I cut off the visual. No idea whether it’s real or not. Could just be me trying to fill in details where there aren’t any. But I’m terrified about it today. I’m terrified I’m just making shit up but some stuff can’t be ignored. I’m scared.