Subtle Glow

A recent conversation touched on something (or someone) that I don’t often talk about or really deal with in a concrete way.

My father was physically abusive to me growing up. He was also abusive to my mother, my brother, his second wife, and her three children.

He was also verbally abusive. I remember being told I was fat (I was 5′4″ and less than 120 lbs until I was in my 20’s), that I had a big fat ass, that I had a big nose, that my voice was too nasal, etc. I remember thinking then how uncomfortable it was and how hurtful it felt when he said those things, but “at least he’s not hitting me.”

There were nights when the beatings would happen, after everyone else had gone to bed. They all heard him yelling, the slamming, my crying, my screams of fear and pain. They heard him, my stepmother included. There were nights that none of them left their beds as it happened. They laid there, fear pinning them in place as their hearts raced and they hoped he didn’t come in for them next. We all did it. We all had our turn, over and over again.

At worst, the physical abuse escalated to the point where he was beating me as he threw me around the front porch and into the house inside the living room. Every child in that house witnessed this, and my stepmother tried to have him stop. He smacked her and shoved her out of the way. He was in a blind rage. I was 15 and had enough - earlier that day I stood up to him and told him I was a person and didn’t deserve this kind of treatment. I didn’t deserve it, his wife didn’t deserve and the children living there didn’t either.

During the beating that night, my step-sister picked up the phone to call for help. He told her to hang up the phone and when she wouldn’t, he told her to hang up the phone or he would kill her. Her mother pleaded with her to hang up the phone, and out of fear (knowing her mother wasn’t going to stand up for her) she hung up the phone before anyone could answer on the other end.

And then he went back to beating on me.

Once he finished, the six kids and my stepmother locked ourselves in her room and the smaller kids piled on her bed as everyone tried to get some sleep. I sat sitting up in a chair, unable to sleep, unable to breathe. My nose was broken but I didn’t know it at the time. I contemplated how bad would life really get if I just took the gun out of his closet and shot him. I didn’t know how to get to it without waking everyone else in the room - which probably saved his life that night. Who knows, maybe it saved mine, too.

I never saw my father again after that summer, over 16 years ago. We have spoken less than 5 times since then. He wasn’t invited to my wedding and I don’t know if he knows about my son. Our last conversation was the time he called to tell me he “found God.” He was reveling in his holy glory, and told me how sad he felt for me that I “rejected God” in my life - regardless that I had never accepted “God” in the first place.

I was sitting there thinking, you fucking bastard. How dare you? How DARE you even think for ONE SECOND that some divine entity has washed away all your “sins” and that your past has disappeared. Like magic! You have some nerve thinking you’re getting any forgiveness from some big guy in the sky, when you don’t have the balls to face those you tormented for years without so much as an “I’m Sorry.”

I don’t remember the exact words I said to him, but in an instant the old version of him had returned. Only this time I guess he felt he had the hand of god on his side. He told me that all he heard was the devil talking, and then condemned me to hell, and when that failed to sway me he thundered through the phone line, “How dare you talk to me like that. I am YOUR FATHER…” and ranted about what a little bitch and a whore I was, how I would rot and burn in hell.

By that point he had long since ceased to be “my father” in my mind. I only use the term here because it makes it easier to string in a sentence.

Over the years, I have tried to let go of the anger, the frustration, and the rage that is still there. I have cut him out of my life, as much as I could. In doing so, I know that this past and those things and my reactions have come to shape who I am as a person in many ways. It is in the way I revile any sort of religion and in particular, references to Jesus within a religion. It is in the way I would prefer never to step foot in the state of Louisiana, and prefer not to go to Texas, either. Because he was there, and it happened there, and as far as I know he is still there.

Especially in the way I refuse to define “addiction” as broadly as some people would.

He was an “addict” for much of my life. He drank, he did drugs - both legal and illegal, he took money from the household income to fund his hobbies, including his drug and alchohol habits. We went without regular check-ups, healthcare, dental visits ,etc. becuase we were ‘too poor’ but he could spend thousands of dollars a month on his habits. He did these things and then he let the whatever-induced haze fuel his anger and viciousness, likely from the treatment he received growing up, and he turned it on us.

The night he broke my nose and threatened to kill my step-sister, he was completely and utterly sober. In fact he had been through drug rehab and was heavily participating in AA, among other recovery programs, and he was proud of his progress.

He used his addiction to excuse his choices over the years - the choice to beat and terrorize his children, his family, and anyone who should have been able to look to him for love and support. The truth, if you ask me, is that those behaviors didn’t come from any addiction. They came from the source. They came from him. He just made it ‘OK’ for himself by saying “I was an addict!”

I say, “Bullshit.”

I think about what I would say to him if I ever came face to face with him again. Because deep down, I wonder if part of the reason I can’t let go of the anger and rage is due to the fact that he refuses to acknowledge and OWN what he did.

I imagine the conversation, not word for word, but enough that I think it will just be words from him. He’ll never believe he was wrong, I’ll never get the satisfaction of having him honestly acknowledge how terrible and awful he was. He’ll never suffer the way I have, and yes - part of me wants him to suffer. Maybe even a big part of me. Because if he can’t even cop to it, then maybe he should have to live through it again and again until he understands that there can never be an excuse.

I am not constantly in a state of rage, but it’s there. It’s always there, bubbling slowly beneath the surface like a pit of warm tar. How? How do I let it go, without making it acceptable? I need to make myself be ok, without making what he did ok. I need to and I don’t know how to do that.