1st Day of School: Major Triggers

I am feeling a lifetime of emotional pain today. I feel like I abandoned my baby and it's triggering me in fully unexpected and excruciating ways.

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Bianca has been pretty vocal about not wanting to start Kindergarten. Her 5th birthday was last week and she cried much of the day that she didn't want to be 5. She doesn't want to go to Kindergarten, doesn't like Kindergarten, doesn't like new friends, etc, etc, etc. Yesterday we took a day off for "Mommy/Bianca Fun Day" which was really nice. I was pushing the subject of Kindergarten pretty hard for a while but decided to back off in the last week or so. Yesterday, she mentioned something about starting K and I said "I'm so excited for you" to which she solemnly replied "I'm not."

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She was the same this morning. Didn't want to go. I tried to keep things light and positive, as well as just matter-of-fact in an empathetic way. I hear and understand what you're saying....we'll get through this and we'll both be okay! We read The Kissing Hand last night and gave each other heart stickers from the book this morning to signify that our love stays with one another all day even when we're apart. Things were a little muddled this AM. I had to run out & grab her a notebook before school. Weren't sure where we were going or what the time schedule was. Eventually we made our way over to her classroom. I was pleased to see her teacher was the same woman who did her evaluation in the spring. She seems very nice. I also met the two TA's. Bianca actually, though somewhat clingy, did much better than I expected. She definitely likes the classroom. There is alot to see and do and she was playing with some of the things and exploring. Several times, she said she didn't want me to leave. She was holding onto me but not crying. I, on the other hand, had to take many, many extra pictures of her (not exactly a hardship) in order to hide my tears behind the camera so she would not see me!!

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Once pledge of allegiance and morning announcements were over, it was time for parents to leave and kids to start class. I hugged & kissed her, kissed her Kissing Hand heart sticker, told her I loved her and would see her later, have a great day and I bolted from the room, not looking back. I have no idea if she was crying or how she felt. I cried all the way to the car, garnishing a few encouraging words from other parents along the way, got into my car and just sobbed. Sobbed. Sobbed. I called my friend for support and she was trying valiantly to calm me down. I was able to verbalize that I didn't need reason. I can do the calm rationale by myself. It's emotions that I don't do well and I really just needed to let them out. I was spewing all kinds of nonsensical hysteria when it came to the surface......I feel like I abandoned her. I ran out on her when she needed or wanted me. Triggers, triggers, triggers. Old stuff, old stuff, old stuff.

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In my head, I know I did the right thing. The quick exit is the only way to go to not prolong the agony. In my heart, I feel like I just ran out on my baby when she needed me and I'm leaving her to fend for herself in a scary new world. In about 30 minutes, she's going to have to transition to the after school program where she will get onto a bus full of people she doesn't know and go to another new place, with another set of new kids. And I won't even be there to walk her in and help her get set up. She just turned 5 for heaven's sake!! I know, in my head, this is all age appropriate independence, and that there are wonderful people around her to assist her, but I can't help but worry she will feel like I ran out on her. That I am not there for her. Or like she's being forced to grow up too fast and take care of her own needs. I don't want to shelter her but I want to be there for her. And I feel like I'm not. Which triggers me in all my old stuff. I *SO* did not expect this feeling. It's bringing up my own abandonment issues, remembering that I was expected to be a pint-sized adult and deal with my own problems. Remembering that my parents were not there for me when I needed help or protection. I know I need to sort my issues away from her situation or else I will make this harder on her than it needs to be. I did not in any way anticipate this kind of reaction on my part. Oh the joy of PTSD. (spit)

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I am supposed to be working from home but I'm a freaking mess. I am going for my first acupuncture appointment in about 9o minutes. I'm hoping that will help me relax. And, oh how convenient, the acupuncture center is about 5 minutes up the road from Bianca's after school program. So I will be picking her up early today and probably smothering her (or cracking a few ribs) with ginormous hugs and kisses. I seriously need to pull my shit together before then because I'm still crying like a loon. The love for this child is suffocating, entirely overwhelming and all-consuming. She is my world and I just so want for her to be happy and enjoy her childhood. It's a horrible and out-of-control feeling right now wondering what is happening and how she's doing. Wondering if she's crying, scared, missing me? I know, I know, I know that she will be alright in the end. And I know I can't protect her from life. And I know she is not me and her circumstances, feelings and fears are not the same as mine were.

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I'm in agony right now. I recognize that it's primarily pain for me. For the 5 year old in me who wonders why she wasn't good enough or loved enough to be protected.

Tapping into Grief

Just when you least expect it....there is a breakthrough moment.

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I had T this morning. Went with only a minor agenda of talking about the card from my brother and discussing father's day. Let me start with the card from my brother part (story in my prior post). I told Susan that I evaluated the card, thought there was an ulterior motive behind it and then just kind of put the whole thing aside. I felt like there should have been a more emotional reaction to it and I stayed open to that but it never really happened. Often, when I've not connected emotionally to something, when I talk about it in therapy I will make the connection there. When I discussed it with Susan, I felt the same way as I did when I got the card. She actually told me that she felt this was very positive. I'm reacting from a here and now, adult perspective and it doesn't appear I'm repressing anything about it. Excellent!

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We discussed Father's Day and that Bianca had done pretty well with it. I talked about the feelings I have toward Bianca's bio-father and how I have trouble wrapping my brain around the fact that he has nothing to do with her. I wonder sometimes if he ever thinks about her, wonders about her. It's difficult for me to accept that I will never know the truth and hard for me to let that go. Not in my control-craving nature. Susan asked me what if Bianca had a father who had died when she was a baby? How would I deal with that? I said that would be a million times easier to explain. It's easier to tell her that she had a dad who loved her but now he's in heaven. It's easy to find a million books for kids on how to deal with the grief of a deceased parent. But how do you explain that there is a living, breathing parent who has just chosen to reject her? Susan said that I would have empathy for her if the situation were a dead father but that I'm fully triggered by the idea of rejection and the way I feel and act are because of my own unresolved issues. Dammit! We're almost in a cycle where Bianca has legitimate thoughts about fathers but then it sets me off and she feeds off that so we keep going round and round. I said I just don't want her to end up like me. Everytime I think I'm working past my father issues, I'm reminded that I still have more work to do. In my heart, I still feel responsible for my father's abuse and rejection of me.

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Susan reminded me that my own father experience had nothing to do with ME. It's all about my father and HIS issues. Yes, I know this......in my head. It's intellectual. Clearly I don't accept it in my heart. Still. I thought I was past this. Susan asked me what I meant when I said I don't want Bianca to end up like me. What kinds of things am I thinking, feeling and picturing in my head? I said I was feeling fear, afraid that she would become promiscuous and foolish the way that I had been, doing anything for male attention to fill that void, to feel loved or lovable. She asked what feelings came up in me for my situation with my own father? Trying to access my feelings kept resulting in going back to my head, to intellectualizing. When I was able to let it down, I said "Grief. I feel grief." And I said "I know why he did what he did.....but I just wanted a Dad." *Sob*Sob*Sob*

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Susan suggested I do energy tapping around the statement I made to try to help release some of those emotions. I did and absolutely gushed tears the entire process. In fact, 3 hours later, I'm still crying. After the tapping work with her, I felt exhausted and just sad. I know I did some serious emotional grieving work. After writing this, but before publishing it, I ended up taking a nearly 3 hour nap. Unheard of for me.....I really drained myself.

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I have to put in a quick funny....I unconsciously hold my breath alot in T when I'm holding my emotions in. When Susan asked me to get in touch with my feelings about my father, I guess I was doing it again. Susan said "Breathe, for heavens sake!! Sometimes I think you could scuba dive without an oxygen tank when I see how long you sit here without taking a breath!!"

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As I was driving home, I was mulling things over. I often say that I feel guilty or responsible for Bianca not having a father. I just realized that my guilt stems from my feeling unlovable.....feeling that I wasn't good enough for her bio-father, for her "Dad" or even for my own Dad to love me, to choose me. And now she has to pay the price for my inferiority. Emotional work sucks. No wonder I avoid it.

My tribute to Fathers Day:

Let these images be my words. This is how I feel about the "fathers" who have touched my life.

Coming Out Of Hiding

Emerging from under the covers. Reluctantly. Why is it that when I need to reach out the most is when I retreat?

It's been over a week since I've posted. What has been going on in my world? Well.....*deep breath*....66 binge free days just went down the....

And I had a 12 day binge. And now I'm back at a new Day 1. I hate admitting that. But I guess being ready to admit it means being ready to start over again. Hate starting over. Hate FAILURE. Please no rosy, bright side comments about having had 66 clean days. I am not ready to hear it right now. Most of those 66 days were a struggle. I was never really excited about the amount of time I managed to stay binge free because I felt so "on-edge" most of the time. And I knew I was at a serious risk of relapse. I think all of this father stuff has just been too much for me to handle without my old coping tools. But they just don't serve me well anymore. I end up sick, miserable and hating myself. Not even able to look in the mirror. My sense of BDD takes over and I appear distorted to myself; enormous to the point of comic absurdity. I can't look. I want to hide even from myself.

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In the days that I've been away, I've had 2 massive migraines. This mornings was the worst I think I've ever had. Vomiting over and over, every time I moved my head an inch off the pillow. So hard that I look almost as if I have 2 black eyes; blood vessels ruptured under both of them. I was truly, seriously contemplating if I'd rather wet my bed than to try getting up to go to the bathroom. It was a serious toss up. I'll tell you....if I had the waterproof liner on my mattress that DD does.....I probably would have made a different decision! I was literally just whimpering in misery. I had to take my migraine pills 3 times because I kept throwing them back up. DD is such an angel when I'm feeling this way. Thank God. I'm not sure if the migraines are from eating all the bad food (sugar, refined carbs) I'd cleansed my body of in those 66 days or if it's just from trying to suppress all of this emotional crap that needs to be dealt with. The thing is....I just don't know what to do to deal with it. I get what it is I need to come to terms with. It's just really hard to let go of the idea of something I've held onto so tightly. I so deeply wanted to give DD the family that I did not have. The funny thing is that by holding onto that desire, I am actually steering her right into the same feelings of abandonment and rejection that I've lived a lifetime with. I know I will come to terms with it. It's just so hard right now. I know the only thing to do is just to feel it little by little, over and over, as it comes it. Feel it, grieve it, release it. I think I'd rather pull my fingernails out with pliers.

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DD had a playdate with her friend, C, over the weekend. C's mom and I are getting to be better friends the more our daughters play together. DD & C were playing out in the yard while C's Mom and I were up on the deck. C came running up to me to tell me that my DD had said she wanted to go to her Daddy's house before we went home. And she said it again later as we were getting ready to leave. "Don't forget that DD wants to visit her Daddy before you go home." Anyway, after the first time she said it, I started to cry. I told C's Mom the basics of the story. I felt like such a.....I don't know. A fool, I suppose. Unlovable?

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This morning, we were listening to DD's music. There is a Laurie Berkner song that goes "I'm a little frog and my Daddy loves me, I'm a little frog and my Mommy loves me and when they tuck me in to say Goodnight, they say Ribbit-Ribbit, Goodnight!" And does the same verse for several animals. So DD says "Does my Daddy love me?" How the hell do you answer those questions when they come out of the blue?? Without falling apart, anyway?? I bought some time by asking her what she thought which she didn't have an answer for. I told her that she was very lucky because she is SO absolutely loved by all the people who are in her life. Told her how much I love her and all the reasons she's so lovable and special. I thought it was a pretty nice save, actually. No one prepares you for these major questions that just come flying out of the blue with kids. Mental note to never listen to THAT song again......

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I think that's about all that needs updating with me.....nothing else really going on. Getting ready for vaca in 10 days and really looking forward to it.

Time to Extinguish the Fantasy

Had a very eye opening counseling session this morning. I love my T. I went with 2 topics. The first was what is going on with DD’s bio father. The second was my date last week. That one is easier to sum up so I’ll talk about that first. I told T how I felt responsible for what happened and was having a hard time assigning any blame on him. She gave me a little perspective on that. But what we did dissect, which was important, were my beliefs and expectations throughout the process.

She asked me: When you made plans to go out to lunch, what were your expectations?
I said “Umm. Lunch. And ‘safe’ time spent together.”
When you saw him at the restaurant, what were you there for?
“Ummm. Lunch. And being able to spend time together that didn’t revolve around sex.”
What was your interaction like at the beginning of the date?
“Friendly, like 2 people who haven’t seen each other in a while. We talked about computers.”
And then, what happened?
“We began flirting.”
She asked me how so, what that entailed & I answered “compliments, big smiles, hand holding.”
And did your expectations change at that point?
“No. I was just enjoying lunch with him and enjoying the attention.”
At what point did it escalate?
I answered that he began showing signs of arousal and started with touching my hands/arms differently. And introduced some innuendos. I followed and I felt I was giving him the “green light” at that point.
"Oh,” T says, “so at this point you decided you wanted to have sex with him on your lunch date?”
I replied “No, I guess I really wasn’t thinking ahead of the moment”

BINGO. I wasn’t thinking. I’m not thinking consequence. I’m thinking in segments which, as T pointed out, is generally NOT how I think. I tend to be a “big picture” thinker but not when it comes to this situation. I’m compartmentalizing each step because the process of engaging in sexual activity is disjointed for me since it’s really never existed in a healthy and real way. So the answer here was that I need to think through my actions and realize what the potential consequences are so that I can make different choices from the start.

Okay, the bigger topic: I was telling T about my correspondence with DD’s bio-father. In my last email, I accused him of something I later learned to not be true. I said that I felt bad and, even though I don’t believe he’s telling me the truth, I feel like I need to acknowledge that I falsely accused him. She cut me off and said “Listen….you need to detach. He is a sperm donor. He is nothing more than a number, like you went to a sperm bank and had a baby with that mystery sperm.” His identity needs to become neutralized. I need to redefine him. I continue to think of him as her “father” which causes me to conceptualize him in a certain way. By giving him that identity, I’m feeding the “father fantasy”. It sets me up to long for something that was not part of our “deal”. The reality is that we had sex. That’s all. There was no commitment; there was no relationship. There were no expectations.

Now, to clarify, *I* did have expectations. I thought there was a relationship. But the parts of me that believed those things and fed those expectations were not based in reality. They were more fantasy and not recognizing his actions, not being present in the reality of the situation.

What is happening now is that I have things I need to work out; things that have nothing to do with him. Things I can’t work out through him. But for some reason, I continue to try. By doing so, I continue to open up this painful wound, MY father wound. I continue to feed the pain, the loss and the longing. More importantly, what I am doing is setting a script for my DD’s life that says: “You have a father out there who doesn’t want to be part of your life.” If I characterize it as a rejection, that he doesn’t want her, then I will define her life and her worth as such. She doesn’t need to grow up this way. Our situation isn’t the ideal but it IS the reality. I can choose to feed the pain, or choose to feed the joy. I can choose to feed the loss, or choose to feed into what we DO have. Set the theme in her life that the people around her adore her and choose to be with her out of love. And anyone who chooses to not be in her life doesn’t matter.


Where I’ve said I will always tell DD the truth of what happened, I really wasn’t thinking about how I’m presenting it. I can tell her a better truth that basically says he was someone I spent some time with but he was not a meaningful part of my life. He is someone we don’t know yet my limited time with him produced, for me, the biggest joy of my life…..the unexpected surprise of my daughter! Children come into the world, and into families, in all different ways. This was how our family, she and I, came to be.

I need to drain the power from the events of my life, of her conception, or else she will never be free. She will become the victim to my past and my fantasies. Where I was in my life when he and I were “dating” fed into the unhealthy dynamic with him. I cannot now allow it to be unhealthy for her as well. It’s time to remove the personal aspect and stop reaching out to him. Let the child support system take its course. When we talked about this step, I felt a serious sense of fear, anxiety and LOSS. It’s like the same thing I did with my father….by keeping even the idea of peripheral contact alive, it keeps the fantasy alive. Once I take the step to extinguish the fantasy, then I admit that I am solely in charge of my own joy and fulfillment. Underneath it all is my relationship with myself. I put myself back in charge of meeting my own needs instead of giving that power to someone else.

I keep this pain body alive just out familiarity. It has no purpose. It has no substance other than the one I give to it. I don’t need to have the pain but I don’t always know who I am without it. T likened it to the shadow in Peter Pan. He saw as a literal reflection of who he was. Without the shadow, what is he? Who is he? This is not the story I want to write for myself OR my DD.

Update After Counseling

I went in with an agenda tonight.

With all that's been happening in my mind re: XBF, I wanted to get T's take on what kind of man he is so that I could better understand how I ended up falling for him. There has clearly been something in the way of my moving on and I do feel like I have now hit on it with the vulnerability realization.

I told T the latest that I found out about XBF. I mentioned this cryptically the other day on my blog, saying I found out some "unpleasantries." Well, what I found out through peeking into his email is that he has been soliciting prostitution. And now he has taken up as a regular with one and seems to be "falling" for this woman he's paying to have sex with. Unbelievable. I mentioned my observation that he seems to crave physical intimacy and the "high" of a new relationship. But when real emotional intimacy starts to evolve, he runs for cover.

T said XBF is immature, an avoidant personality, stunted emotional growth. Hmmm....all of these just like my father!! In addition, he has massive mother issues. He is the youngest of 4 boys. His mother and father did not have a close relationship and started sleeping in separate bedrooms when XBF was still fairly young. His mother basically made him her equal, like a little husband. From a very early age, he was the "go-to" person to clean up the messes of the whole family. He is the center of her world. She is totally dependent on him for everything. In essense now, he is "married" to his mother. The girlfriend relationships he has are tantamount to affairs. He enjoys the short term high and then, when it gets too serious or threatens the need to go up to the next level, he runs back to his "wife" (mother).

There are some real Inner Child issues because he was not allowed to develop as a child. I'm not sure if he was attracted to the caretaker in me, since it met his need for nurturing, or he was attracted to the "damsel in distress" side of me because it allowed him to assume his familiar caretaking role. For some reason, I believe it's the latter. The part of me that was attracted to him was the part that was caught up in a fantasy, not grounded in reality, wanting to rush the process and find my (barf) happily-ever-after. The good news is that T said I've done this work now and she doesn't believe I'm in any danger of approaching another relationship so blindly. T said this is about setting boundaries, healthy boundaries, around my vulnerability. Because to not be vulnerable at all means being closed off altogether. Life requires moments of vulnerability. There is a risk:reward ratio but trust needs to be established first. Baby steps!

Yes, I was extremely vulnerable to XBF but I did it without merit; without taking time to figure out if he was worthy. T said it's as if I was ready to take the step of being vulnerable but I was not prepared for a different outcome yet. I had more to learn. I ignored the red flags on purpose to bring the same result...pain, betrayal. I was unconsciously willing to be manipulated by making myself vulnerable right away. I was looking for the reward without measuring the risk.

We talked about my dream of my car being stolen. I had already deciphered that one as being about a loss of my identity. I wondered why I felt that way after the father work I'd done. T said it was actually a very good sign that I'd really "felt" my work because the dream then suggests I was reorienting to the world, resolving my sense of loss & grief; who I am without holding onto that father angst.

Re: DD & the Daddy comment (the other day when she said "I want someone to be my Daddy because my Daddy left") T said that DD is obviously maturing in her thought process and this would be a good time to start expanding on talk of fathers and XBF specifically. Tell her it's okay for her to call him by his first name instead of calling him Daddy anymore. Tell her that we allowed her to call him Daddy but we made a mistake in that; we should not have given him that name because he did not behave like a Daddy. I need to find a way to help her take back that word (Daddy) because it's identified only with him in her mind. So, in her world now.....Daddy's leave. :o( Gosh that just pains me. I feel such remorse that I did not use better judgment.

An Interesting Observation

I had T this morning. I read her my posts, Childhood of my Dreams and Dear Daddy. It was rough. Rough to revisit both of those posts. Rough to read them aloud. I let myself cry more than I ever have in front of her. I had to work very hard to stay in the moment and allow the feelings to flow. My mind was all over the place trying to grasp onto another subject. In fact, after I was done reading the first part, my T had to "shush" me to stop me from minimizing what I'd written. It's my nature to start joking around immediately after.

She did say I'd opened the door to good grieving work. The remainder of this work is just being open to those feelings of loss and grief whenever they arise. I think I can do that. Since I wrote those posts, there have been a couple times I've allowed mysef to be in touch with the mourning again. I really do feel like someone in my life has died and I imagine it will linger for a while.


T asked me about how I feel about my IC. I told her what I said here about how I am not sure how I feel about it.....I'm not sure I believe in it. I know it could well be a Catch 22. I don't believe because I can't connect but maybe I can't connect because I don't believe. She made a very interesting observation which was what prompted her question. She noted that my "Dear Daddy" letter (the goodbye letter) was written from this present day perspective and spoke nothing of saying goodbye to what I didn't have as a child. Not that it was "right or wrong". She just said it was noteworthy. I take that to mean I have IC work coming! I don't know if I need to make a conscious decision to believe in IC work and just try to let down the guard to attempt the work. But I think that will likely be my focus in the days to come.

Dear Father,

aka the DNA Donor I called "Dad",

As far as I'm concerned, this will be my final letter to you. In a recent exercise, I constructed the father of my dreams and I said goodbye to him. I believe that holding onto the desire for that father to someday be part of my life is what has kept me attempting to reach out to you. Hoping that one word I say would suddenly change everything. Hoping to change your mind and motivating you to be the father I needed.

This is a note I took in a T session some time ago and it's amazing how it continues to resurface in my life: Inherent in all of what I said to T is this deep down belief that [person in question] is capable of what I want from him/her and somehow holding it back from me. These are my illusions. That I'm not what I need to be in order to get from her/him what I want. That I need to somehow find the key to unlock her/him into being what I need. It's a carry over from the childhood abuse that taught me to assume responsibility. It can't be her/him....s/he is my parent/friend/significant other. IT MUST BE ME. This is something I need to let go of. I need to stop believing s/he is capable of more than what s/he is giving me because that is where I'm getting caught up and being disappointed.

Isn't that something.....this is the first time I've put that together to realize I do it with you and not just with Mom. But that was the whole point of this exercise. And it was the whole reason I've been afraid to just shut the door on my relationship with you. To stop trying. It was the dreaded "what-if?" What if one more letter makes all the difference? Because I held onto hope that I would someday get the timing just right, reach out to you at a receptive moment and say just the right magical words to transform your heart into being the caring, loving father you should have been. Well, fuck that.

You are who you are, who you have always been as long as I've known you. You're abusive, childish, immature, hurtful, hateful, prejudice, condescending, snide, cold hearted, selfish, closed off, sarcastic, controlling, unloving. Your arrogance and pompous attitude thinly veil your true personality which is broken, scared, insecure and damaged. I'm not going to empathize with that to my own detriment anymore. Things happened to you. Things happened to me, too. But I didn't end up like you. Because I took responsibility for my own life and made it better. You live in your own world and you can stay there. You can die, waste away and decompose there. Bastard.

You have robbed me of enough. I am SO DONE waiting for the day you realize what you've lost. I have lost enough to you. And I take back any energy I ever used to spend wishing on you to be who I needed. You are not that man. You never were that man. You are incapable of ever being that man. You're nothing but a horrid shell of a human being, rotting from the inside out. A complete waste of space. You are not worth my time and my energy. I am free from you. You cannot touch me, cannot hurt me ever again.

The Childhood of my Reality

I had a really good cry last night after I posted the Dear Daddy letter. I typed most of it with my eyes shut and tried not to go back and correct much more than typos. I noticed alot of run on sentences which I actually thought was good.....the thoughts were flowing very quickly. I feel like "my Dad" has died. And I suppose that was the entire point of the letter. Obviously, I don't know what will really happen when my bio-father dies but I have this feeling of peace right now that when he does die, I will have already grieved for what I never got from him. And it will be far less traumatic. I realize he is nothing but a shell, a figure of my past. A DNA donor. I don't have to try to reach out to him again because I accept that who he is, and who I want him to be, are two completely different people. I will continue to work on mourning that loss whenever I feel it come up.

The father of my reality is a sick, damaged, dark, depressed man. I hate remembering or admitting that we had some good times together but we did. I remember when our dog had 5 puppies, playing with him and the puppies. I can see him sitting on the ground with the puppies running and jumping all over him.
Times we had company over. He was a totally different man in front of other people. I wouldn't have minded that guy as my Dad. He was pretty damn charming.
The letter he wrote me on my 16th birthday telling me that I would always be his little girl, his "babe", and the necklace he gave me with it. If only his actions had ever once backed up those words.....

More prevalent are the memories like these:
"I liked you fine til you started talking"
When I broke my collarbone and he grabbed me by the arm, flinging me around, and proclaimed it was not broken.
His contribution to raising me when he told me my breath stunk and tried to teach me how to use Listerine at 10 years old.
Threatening to cut off my hair if I didn't stop with a nervous head-shaking twitch
Humiliating me in front of my friends
Throwing me down the stairs b/c I left a plate on the counter
Ruining holidays with his temper, sarcasm and silent brooding
Walking on eggshells around him at all times
Him drop kicking my cat off the back porch because she was meowing to go out
The inane morning competitions to get into the bathroom
Of course, the way he reacted to the abuse by yelling at me and forcing me to admit it was a lie
His hateful accusations of my being a whore

I'm sure I could go on and on with these but there really is no point. I searched online for an image to sum up the way I feel about him and his influence on my childhood and life but I could not find one. So, with the very patient cooperation of my DD, I made this one which says it all:

I give myself permission to grieve this loss. I wanted his love. Truthfully, I believe he did love me but only in his limited, conditional and warped definition of love. Nothing like the ways I needed it. But I don't need him or his love anymore. I have made it 38 years without it. And you know, I've turned out pretty damn good. And I can take the credit for that.

Dear Daddy,

(If you've not been following along the last few posts, this is a letter to my fictional father. The Dad I've longed for all my life who I sortof created in the last post. Brought him "to life" so I could bid him farewell.)

Dear Daddy,
Where have you gone? Why have you left me? I miss you so much and I need you to just come and wrap your arms around me and tell me that you love me and that everything is alright. To remind me that I'm strong and that the bad memories don't have to overshadow everything that is good. I crave your voice and your sense of humor. I want your strong arms to wrap around me in shelter and support. I miss your caring advice, even when it's just silence because you know I already realize the right answer. You were so wise that way and I love that you allow me the freedom to be myself, always knowing I need not be more than that to make you proud. I miss our special times and I wish I had a hundred picture books and memory albums full of all of them. I miss your influence in DDs life and I know she would adore you the same way that I did and still do. I just need to hear you say that you wanted me and you cherished me and that you believe I was the biggest gift ever bestowed on you. That you never meant to leave me here alone. I want to be able to call you late at night and share with you the silly tidbits of the day because I know they will make your day better as well. I want to debate politics with you and exchange outlandish news stories. I want to have a memory bank of your favorite recipes and spend all day preparing them with DD because Grandpa is coming over and it's one of our favorite things to do. Where have you gone?? And don't you know how much I needed you?? Needed you to be the father you were supposed to be to me? Don't you know that your job to nurture me never ends even though I am grown up? It's not fair of you to leave me. It's not fair that I don't have you. Just because I'm not a little girl doesn' t mean that I don't need my daddy and I wasn't ready for you to leave me. I wasn't ready to let you go but I can see now that you are never returning and it pains me to the depths of my heart to say goodbye to you Daddy. You are my friend, my mentor, my helping hand and my crying shoulder. I don't know what to do without you but I release you because I know we will not see each other in this lifetime. It feels so wrong to let you go. I think of you, I miss you. I love you and I remember you with all my heart. Always.
Love, K.