Echo

When the feelings have no place to go.

It’s almost 1am and I have to be up at 5am tomorrow to catch my flight back to LA. I’m tired beyond words yet I can’t sleep because there’s something I want to let off my chest. I’m so sick and tired of this whole thing in my family about how there are things we keep behind closed doors. I’m so sick of having no outlet for things because I’ve been told what I’m allowed to say and not allowed to say. I’m tired of sacrificing my own well-being, and my ability to lead a fulfilling life, and I’m so tired of being afraid of letting anyone come close to me.

I’ve been here for 3 days and my father has not said a word to me. In fact, should we cross paths in this house, or even at the gym, it’s not even a meaningless silence like two ships passing in the night, each with nothing to do with the other. He sets his face like he’s walking by the dog that once bit him but who’s shit that he can’t look upon. I know this face. He taught it to me as the one I should show my enemies, to defeat their existence by blatantly refusing to acknowledge it.

Trying to be the bigger person, I’ve said hello to him twice the first time we ran into each other the morning after I arrived (twice in case he hadn’t heard me the first time), as well as at the gym later that day, when my brother and I ran into him. Both times, he refused to deign me with a response, speaking only to my brother.

Today was my brother’s birthday. We had 30 relatives over for a big party, and again he refused to talk to me, making a big show of sitting outside and smoking a cigar all by himself. I mentioned to my cousin that my dad wasn’t talking to me because we’d had a fight. He asked what the fight was over and I couldn’t give him an answer. I mean, I trust my cousin. He’s one of my favorite people in the world. But when I opened my mouth to speak, I realized that I didn’t know how to make it sound convincing. I didn’t know how to make anyone believe the mindfuck that goes on in this house. That’s the way things have always been. No one believes you, so you just keep quiet.

You want to know what the fight was over? What could cause a father to make such a display of not talking to his daughter?

On the day my brother was having surgery, I called my dad to find out how Michael was doing. My dad told me he was still in surgery. So in the meantime, I asked him how he was doing. This has been part of my efforts to connect with my dad more. My mom tells me he cries sometimes and says that I never call him, that I don’t care, etc. But the truth is, whenever I call, he’s very short with me and answers the phone with, “What do you want.” He usually either ends up yelling at me for being irresponsible about one thing or another, or complaining about my mother. So obviously, it’s not very pleasant to call because I can’t call just to talk the way I can with my mom, and usually, he doesn’t really want to talk to me anyway. But I’ve made an effort to try to call more and he seems to make an effort to be more pleasant.. Well, a week previously, I had called him when I found out about Michael cutting his hand and had suggested they look into other methods of behavior modification. He started yelling at me about how he’s under a lot of pressure because he’s doing this all by himself and the rest of us are so selfish, and hung up on me. This time, I asked him how he was doing and he told me that our lawyer needed me to create a timeline with specific dates for our lawsuit against my builders. I told him that all this happened so long ago (3 years) that I can’t remember specific dates, but I gave all the dates to our lawyer last year, so I just needed the lawyer to fax those over so I could do it. My dad flipped and started yelling at me about how this was BULLSHIT that I couldn’t remember and that I was lying just to get out of it. How he was sick of how I’m always asking him to do things and I never take care of things myself and I’m so irresponsible.

For whatever reason, I just got sick of taking his martyr act. Because I hadn’t asked him to do anything, it’s perfectly reasonable that I can’t remember specific dates from 3 years ago and I stated that I would write the timeline with the help of something I had previously given the lawyer. I tried to point out the fact that I hadn’t asked HIM for anything but he kept trying to tear me down. And I just had it. So I told him I was sick of him being a martyr and he needed to stop making things about how people mistreat him so he could feel sorry for himself. So he hung up on me.

I called him right back and told him that I didn’t ask HIM for anything and what I had asked (a fax of dates previously submitted to our lawyer) was perfectly reasonable. He accused me of not wanting to do it at all and how he was an old man and so tired of having to take care of me and everyone else. I told him that he was NOT taking care of me and that I’ve taken care of my life on my end. But he’s not even listening as he goes on a rant about how I’m just like my mother, so incredibly selfish and all he wants to do is go somewhere and live his life by himself. In my head I’m thinking, what the fuck? But I tried to reason with him. I ask him, “Is our relationship exactly what you always hoped it would be? Is it exactly what you always envisioned a relationship with your daughter would be?” He admitted, no. So I said, “Then why don’t you want to try? If we both want the same thing, to have a good relationship, if we both love each other, then why won’t you work with me.” And he says, “I don’t care. I gave up a long time ago.” I said, “You’re saying you gave up on me.” He said, “I’m done trying. I’m done doing anything for you and your mother.” I said, “I’m not my mother. Why do you keep lumping us together?” He said, “You and your mother are both so selfish. All you do is take take take and WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT FROM ME?” And I had it. I said to him, “Listen to what I say next, because it may be the last thing I ever say to you. If you can’t even see me as my own person. If all you see me as is an extension of my mother and your hatred for her, then that is the cruellest thing that you could ever do to me.” And hung up.

I was very upset and called my mom to tell her about what my dad said. She just got really said and said, “I’m sooo sorry Julia. This wasn’t about you. He’s just taking things out on you. This is about me.” Apparently, they hadn’t talked in weeks. And as our family history goes, whenever he’s mad at her, my brother and I get the bitch stick. And with my brother hurt, that left me. My mom said, “He knows he can’t hurt me because I won’t talk to him anymore. But he knows that by hurting you, he can hurt me. He’s taking things out on you right now because you’re not as strong as me, and you’ll take it because you haven’t realized yet that you don’t have to.” And as much as it hurt to hear it, I knew it was true. And I saw it clearer than I ever saw it. And I remember, as I sat on that sidewalk sobbing into the phone, a healthy leap past hysterical, begging my mom not to die and leave me alone with him, I remembered a memory from my childhood, of being scared that she would leave me alone with him, because he could be incredibly cruel. He has a sadistic streak in him that’s crafty enough that if you’re a kid, you don’t know how to explain it to other adults. And I never could because I didn’t think anyone would believe me. He’s charming, you see…always has the best jokes, always willing to buy lavish dinners, always pulling out the most expensive whiskeys…but what you see in public, what my extended relatives see…they would never know. Because he had a rough child, abandoned by his parents, unloved by a selfish mother, a history that would make me weep as a child when my mom told them to me as bedtime stories. And it made me forgive him. For the little acts of sadism. For the anger, the violence that didn’t make sense. Because he’s had a hard life and I wasn’t exa
ctly completely innocent. But now, it seems that I’ve been sacrificing more than I realized. The reason I flip out when I’m faced with corrupt or unreasonable authority…it all stems from my relationship with my father. The way he could do things and no one would believe you. I used to watch him poke at my brother until my brother threw a tantrum, and then he would act like, “Look at THAT crazy kid.” But I knew he caused it, even though I never said anything. Because as long as my brother was the one getting into trouble, as long as it was my brother getting his sadistic attention, it meant I was safe. Sometimes he still purposely provokes my brother so that when my brother flips, he can act like, what the hell did he do to deserve this. Another miserable martyr act.

I’m so sick of it. This weekend of relatives coming up and telling me how I need to be a better daughter, I’m so sick of it. Because there’s no winning in this game. He’s made the rules so that we all lose. Because he needs this… to believe that I, like everyone else in his life who has failed him, make him miserable when I’ve done everything I could to make him happy…tried to be both a son and daughter to him when all he wants to see is disappointment so that he can keep feeling sorry for himself.

I’m done with it.

I ask my mom tonight, why should I give up my own happiness and self-esteem to play out the miserable cycle of someone intent on being miserable, all for the sake of culture? I’m 26 years old. I’m afraid of people, uneasy sometimes even around my friends because I’m afraid of being blindsighted by cruelty. I can never seem to shake the nagging feeling of dread that people might just be acting nice to me just to fuck with me when I least expect it. I’m terrified of relationships for the same reasons, all because one of the people I was most dependent on as a child was a Jeckyl and Hyde, prone to illogical bouts of sadism followed by contrite kindness all hidden under the guise of charm, whose violence sprung out of him without a second’s warning, who always made sure to undercut you the moment you were feeling any kind of emotional security, who always told me that we were one step away from the poorhouse because he had to support us, who made it seem like the reason he was always sick was because of the stress we caused him, who told me in secret he would commit suicide if my mom ever left him, who called me into the room and told me it was up to me to decide if they should get a divorce when she wanted to leave. Was he never a good father? No. He was always there for me during my knee surgeries and to shuttle me around. But even the worst wife beaters have moments where they were good, loving partners, and at the end of the day, it comes down to how good for you this person is. And I don’t want to play anymore sadistic games. Because I want to be happy, because I deserve it. Because I don’t have to be miserable anymore just because you are.