pharaoh
Bluelighter
- Joined
- May 8, 2017
- Messages
- 586
Mine and my partner's birthdays are very close together. She got a card from the man who got my mother pregnant's partner which was signed by her and him. I got a card and it was only signed by her. I don't even know where to start with all this - I come from a broken home and an abusive household after my parents split. My "father" who I'm just gonna call "X" now basically seemed to have it in for me for "choosing" to be with my mum and her psychopath partner, even though I was 13 and stayed with my mum to try and protect her, and because I'm a mama's boy really - I was too young to even think about "choosing" beyond that. On weekends when I'd go and stay with him, he'd be drunk and cruel, calling me a "yob" which is like a "thug" I suppose and I didn't realise how hurtful that was until recent years when I have finally accepted that X is a bad person. Psychologically abusive, undermining, petty, cruel, jealous and mean. Also a coward. Being called a yob by your father when you have no father, go to a failing school and have no actual father figure doesn't do wonders for self-development. My mother was/is a good person and tried with me but the school was fucked - it was the worst in the country and made national news. She herself was in a hellish, abusive relationship and couldn't cope. I started drinking pretty much daily at the age of 14, as was my mother. I was more like a friend to her than a son. My friends outside of the house were from similar homes (one close friend's mum even went out with the same psychopath who my mother ended up with). We drank, took drugs, raised ourselves and looked up to the older fuck-ups and all wanted to be gangsters as we knew no better. My mother's partner groomed me into crime. I finally had to leave and go and live with X because I couldn't take it. To his credit, he encouraged me to go into education and eventually I got into uni, but my brother and I had to save my mother from the house.
We went to meet her in town and she'd been scalded with tea, had hair ripped out, been beaten etc. We took her to X's - his ex-wife even though they were still legally married at this point (he divorced her shortly after to make sure she'd get nothing, of course). X didn't want her there and wanted to send her back to that house. I said that she would be killed if she went back and forced him to let her stay. Her psychopath boyfriend finally had to go and then I could go to uni and leave it behind, so I thought.
Went to uni and was doing well despite being involved in criminality as uni wasn't what I expected it to be but fucked up after hearing my mum was jailed after being prosecuted for fraud even though it was committed by her ex as he controlled the bank cards and the spending etc. I lost it, was put on antidepressants which triggered a manic episode and was then diagnosed bipolar. I still tried with uni, going back and forth. From then on I struggled with periods of stability and the opposite, moving around, living wild, making and losing money, not being medicated. On the few occasions that I tried to go back to him for a break, he did let me for a bit once but after I went away and tried to come back, he called the police. As no crime had been committed, they didn't know what to do with me and took me to a hostel (for homeless people or people fresh out of prison). I had to endure that and then got a place where I was medicated and stable for a while but totally isolated, in a horrible, bleak place where there is nothing to do but drugs. I slipped again and moved around from city to city before staying with a friend for a bit, basically in a drunken stupor - can't remember how long it lasted.
I wore out my welcome and went to a different city, completely out of options by this point and had to live on the streets for a bit. I got on my feet again pretty quickly, got a house and got a job but X let me rot on the street. As I say, I got back up quite quickly but I could write pages about the trauma of living on the streets itself - it is pure survival, a glimpse into a kind of hell. He didn't invite me up to stay. I never really understood why. None of my family did.
After a few years I straightened up and even though there have been some bad moments, after a brother died from suicide for example (X's son with a different woman who he abandoned at the age of 5 or 6 to get with my mum). I lost it, naturally, but came back slowly from the grief. I was living in the city where I had set myself up and he was to give me a lift to the funeral, picking me up from a service station. He didn't want to do it even though it was arranged and I was there, in the middle of the motorway. After the funeral and the wake, X wanted to get moving ASAP. He left me in the city, lent me 30 quid and then drove everyone else home. I had to make my way back up the country by myself, overnight on a coach.
Since then he tried to get along, or pretended to, mainly cos I had been in a decent relationship. He said he never really understood me until reading some of my poetry. But he let me down again at other points if I needed somewhere to crash to get away or whatever. In more recent years, we got along and spoke but a big event was coming up last year. I panicked before the event, went on a bender and accidentally ODd - completely accidental, unintended - it was my last night on the bender. I told him but begged him not to tell the person who's event it was what happened but he did, right before, which caused me to be uninvited even though I was sorted out and ready to go. I had spent thousands - much of it borrowed from my (ex)-partner's mother on this event, had to travel hundreds of miles for the pre-event (where I ended up drinking despite being in recovery), missed my plane back up and had to go by coaches, one of which was delayed due to a fatal crash. We were diverted to an airport where we had to hang around for hours before a 4o'clock (am) coach would take us to another city. I got there at 6am and had to wait until 9 for them to give me a ticket back up the road. That one broke down. I finally got back to the city near me - it took me 3 days to get back whereas it would've taken an hour if I got my flight. I called X and asked if I could stay at his. No, he was busy, which he was to be fair. I had to book a hotel. 3 days after leaving. All of this, including buying a suit, all to be uninvited because X took my plea for help as a chance to get me uninvited to this big thing that he complained about more than anyone.
That was the last I spoke to him before receiving this birthday card. There is so much more to it but I wanted to vent. He puts on a front to the family, playing the good man, upright but I know him. I have sleepless nights during which I write a letter to the whole family, detailing the bad things he's done to me since he stole 40 quid I was saving for a school trip (I was 12 - he and my mother had just split), to the psychological abuse, to leaving me on the streets, to asking me not to tell his current partner that he was cheating on her when they got together. Loads of shit. I have done bad things but I hate how he speaks for me, tells people who I am and gets away with treating people like absolute scum, like me, the yob, the alky, the criminal, the addict, whatever else. He called my ex during the big crisis leading up to the big event and she couldn't believe that he was talking about me in that way that he did. She said it was like hearing about a different person. It took me so many years to find out that he did as much damage psychologically as my mother's psychopath partner - more even. I don't know if he feels guilt but I always have. He played on that, gaslit me, made me think I was bad from a young age, like there was something wrong with my soul it felt. But I feel guilt and have tried to change. I don't think he has that capacity.
All I ever wanted was a dad and I was foolish to ever think I had one.
Thanks for letting me vent. I'd usually go out, get drunk, take a load of drugs and all that and that'd help to vindicate his narrative. I don't know if he has crafted his version of things to absolve himself of guilt or if he even feels guilt as I said, but I am in pain. I have been riddled with guilt my whole life but I have finally started to realise that it does nothing, especially when it is those who have wronged you that you feel guilty about. They wont change. I don't think I could live with myself if I was X. My mother's partner after him was an actual psychopath and so he didn't feel guilt. X, I'm not sure - he used to call my mother "Borderline" as in Borderline Personality Disorder and I never understood it. I used to read the DSM a lot and I didn't understand that but now I think that he is textbook Borderline because I see those behaviours in him but not in my mother, not even slightly.
Getting a card from his partner, signed by her, after my SO/technically ex got one signed from them both just brought it all up, on my birthday. I went from almost rage to just general sadness. The damage that this man has done to me is immense and this is just a summary to try and give the picture. It felt like being punched in the gut on my birthday.
Anyway, I just had to write some of this down. I still don't know where to start with it all. I wish I'd have accepted that he had damaged me all those years ago instead of trying to have a dad, trying to earn his respect and all that when he never saw me as anything but scum anyway. I could've avoided a lot of bullshit.
"They fuck you up, your mum and dad" as the Philip Larkin poem goes. I just didn't realise how badly mine did. I wanted to believe, I kidded myself, and whilst I have done bad things I have done so mostly when in manic/mixed manic and depressive episodes, added with the drink and drugs which was always self-medication. I don't know what can explain his behaviour. He was an alcoholic for many years but was functioning. I never learnt how to function truly.
At first I wanted this to be anonymous but I don't care now. I don't need sympathy, just wanted to rant and maybe others have stories about fathers being shit that they can share.
So yes, I am ashamed to be my father's son. He abandoned me when I neded him, lied about me and isolated me from my family, lies about who he is, has left a trail of misery behind him which he covers up with gaslighting and he helped me become the addict and madman that I became.
We went to meet her in town and she'd been scalded with tea, had hair ripped out, been beaten etc. We took her to X's - his ex-wife even though they were still legally married at this point (he divorced her shortly after to make sure she'd get nothing, of course). X didn't want her there and wanted to send her back to that house. I said that she would be killed if she went back and forced him to let her stay. Her psychopath boyfriend finally had to go and then I could go to uni and leave it behind, so I thought.
Went to uni and was doing well despite being involved in criminality as uni wasn't what I expected it to be but fucked up after hearing my mum was jailed after being prosecuted for fraud even though it was committed by her ex as he controlled the bank cards and the spending etc. I lost it, was put on antidepressants which triggered a manic episode and was then diagnosed bipolar. I still tried with uni, going back and forth. From then on I struggled with periods of stability and the opposite, moving around, living wild, making and losing money, not being medicated. On the few occasions that I tried to go back to him for a break, he did let me for a bit once but after I went away and tried to come back, he called the police. As no crime had been committed, they didn't know what to do with me and took me to a hostel (for homeless people or people fresh out of prison). I had to endure that and then got a place where I was medicated and stable for a while but totally isolated, in a horrible, bleak place where there is nothing to do but drugs. I slipped again and moved around from city to city before staying with a friend for a bit, basically in a drunken stupor - can't remember how long it lasted.
I wore out my welcome and went to a different city, completely out of options by this point and had to live on the streets for a bit. I got on my feet again pretty quickly, got a house and got a job but X let me rot on the street. As I say, I got back up quite quickly but I could write pages about the trauma of living on the streets itself - it is pure survival, a glimpse into a kind of hell. He didn't invite me up to stay. I never really understood why. None of my family did.
After a few years I straightened up and even though there have been some bad moments, after a brother died from suicide for example (X's son with a different woman who he abandoned at the age of 5 or 6 to get with my mum). I lost it, naturally, but came back slowly from the grief. I was living in the city where I had set myself up and he was to give me a lift to the funeral, picking me up from a service station. He didn't want to do it even though it was arranged and I was there, in the middle of the motorway. After the funeral and the wake, X wanted to get moving ASAP. He left me in the city, lent me 30 quid and then drove everyone else home. I had to make my way back up the country by myself, overnight on a coach.
Since then he tried to get along, or pretended to, mainly cos I had been in a decent relationship. He said he never really understood me until reading some of my poetry. But he let me down again at other points if I needed somewhere to crash to get away or whatever. In more recent years, we got along and spoke but a big event was coming up last year. I panicked before the event, went on a bender and accidentally ODd - completely accidental, unintended - it was my last night on the bender. I told him but begged him not to tell the person who's event it was what happened but he did, right before, which caused me to be uninvited even though I was sorted out and ready to go. I had spent thousands - much of it borrowed from my (ex)-partner's mother on this event, had to travel hundreds of miles for the pre-event (where I ended up drinking despite being in recovery), missed my plane back up and had to go by coaches, one of which was delayed due to a fatal crash. We were diverted to an airport where we had to hang around for hours before a 4o'clock (am) coach would take us to another city. I got there at 6am and had to wait until 9 for them to give me a ticket back up the road. That one broke down. I finally got back to the city near me - it took me 3 days to get back whereas it would've taken an hour if I got my flight. I called X and asked if I could stay at his. No, he was busy, which he was to be fair. I had to book a hotel. 3 days after leaving. All of this, including buying a suit, all to be uninvited because X took my plea for help as a chance to get me uninvited to this big thing that he complained about more than anyone.
That was the last I spoke to him before receiving this birthday card. There is so much more to it but I wanted to vent. He puts on a front to the family, playing the good man, upright but I know him. I have sleepless nights during which I write a letter to the whole family, detailing the bad things he's done to me since he stole 40 quid I was saving for a school trip (I was 12 - he and my mother had just split), to the psychological abuse, to leaving me on the streets, to asking me not to tell his current partner that he was cheating on her when they got together. Loads of shit. I have done bad things but I hate how he speaks for me, tells people who I am and gets away with treating people like absolute scum, like me, the yob, the alky, the criminal, the addict, whatever else. He called my ex during the big crisis leading up to the big event and she couldn't believe that he was talking about me in that way that he did. She said it was like hearing about a different person. It took me so many years to find out that he did as much damage psychologically as my mother's psychopath partner - more even. I don't know if he feels guilt but I always have. He played on that, gaslit me, made me think I was bad from a young age, like there was something wrong with my soul it felt. But I feel guilt and have tried to change. I don't think he has that capacity.
All I ever wanted was a dad and I was foolish to ever think I had one.
Thanks for letting me vent. I'd usually go out, get drunk, take a load of drugs and all that and that'd help to vindicate his narrative. I don't know if he has crafted his version of things to absolve himself of guilt or if he even feels guilt as I said, but I am in pain. I have been riddled with guilt my whole life but I have finally started to realise that it does nothing, especially when it is those who have wronged you that you feel guilty about. They wont change. I don't think I could live with myself if I was X. My mother's partner after him was an actual psychopath and so he didn't feel guilt. X, I'm not sure - he used to call my mother "Borderline" as in Borderline Personality Disorder and I never understood it. I used to read the DSM a lot and I didn't understand that but now I think that he is textbook Borderline because I see those behaviours in him but not in my mother, not even slightly.
Getting a card from his partner, signed by her, after my SO/technically ex got one signed from them both just brought it all up, on my birthday. I went from almost rage to just general sadness. The damage that this man has done to me is immense and this is just a summary to try and give the picture. It felt like being punched in the gut on my birthday.
Anyway, I just had to write some of this down. I still don't know where to start with it all. I wish I'd have accepted that he had damaged me all those years ago instead of trying to have a dad, trying to earn his respect and all that when he never saw me as anything but scum anyway. I could've avoided a lot of bullshit.
"They fuck you up, your mum and dad" as the Philip Larkin poem goes. I just didn't realise how badly mine did. I wanted to believe, I kidded myself, and whilst I have done bad things I have done so mostly when in manic/mixed manic and depressive episodes, added with the drink and drugs which was always self-medication. I don't know what can explain his behaviour. He was an alcoholic for many years but was functioning. I never learnt how to function truly.
At first I wanted this to be anonymous but I don't care now. I don't need sympathy, just wanted to rant and maybe others have stories about fathers being shit that they can share.
So yes, I am ashamed to be my father's son. He abandoned me when I neded him, lied about me and isolated me from my family, lies about who he is, has left a trail of misery behind him which he covers up with gaslighting and he helped me become the addict and madman that I became.
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