We celebrate Christmas with my mom’s side of the family a few Saturdays before Christmas and it’s usually a good time. It’s the only time I see most of these people and it’s fun to see how much the kids have grown.
We went to our party last night. My older son and his girlfriend made the drive to Northern Kentucky with us. It felt good having everyone together in the car.
We have a grab bag game that mostly involves booze. We put the gifts in a pile and draw numbers and we go in order to open the presents. Then, the numbers are drawn a second time. You go in order and have the option to swap your gift with another person, so whoever has the highest number pretty much gets the pick of the litter. Randy was so excited last night. He got number 22, which was the highest number possible. He went home last night with a bottle of Buffalo Trace bourbon and a smile on his face.
It’s a very cut-throat game. People will lie about what number they have or attempt to hide a gift they’d like to keep. One year, I got stuck with a ceramic Santa. It sucks to be number one in that game.
No one gets really mad, though. It’s all in fun.
Until the lottery tickets. Someone always brings scratch off lottery tickets and my brain damaged, narcissist father has ALWAYS had a gambling problem. Every. Fucking. Year. He will find a way to get his hands on the lottery tickets and starts scratching them off before all the numbers are called. The grab bag game doesn’t work that way.
No one really cares. At least, I don’t think they care. But I fucking do. I care a lot.
I care because he’s always been all about himself, getting what he wants, and fuck everyone else. It fills me with anger that has just completely overshadowed the fun I should be having at this once a year get together.
As soon as he got his hands on those tickets, he started scratching one off. I think my sister or my son asked him to stop because the gift could still be taken from him. He ignored them. I walked over and said “Dad, the game isn’t over yet, stop scratching off the ticket..it’s not yours yet”.
He scratched even faster without looking up. It was kind of like watching a two year old cram a whole cookie into their mouth after being told they weren’t allowed to have any cookies until after dinner.
The rest of the tickets were in a bowl on his lap. So, I said “Fine, I’ll just take these until the game is over”. His hearing suddenly improved. I had my hands on one side of the bowl and his on the other.
The look on his face was nothing but rage and hatred. We reflected each other.
He’s frail now. I wasn’t going to lose that fight. I got the bowl and walked away knowing that my reaction was over the top. I created a little scene where a scene didn’t need to be created.
My sister said to just give them back and let him scratch them off. Then, if there were actual winners, it would be more incentive for someone else to steal them. She had a point. So I gave them back, but told him that I thought he was being really shitty.
He completely ignored my comment and went back to scratching them off.
I don’t know what I wished more. No winner ticket or a ticket that was a big winner and someone else would take it from him. Either way, I didn’t want him to get what he wanted.
This man always put himself first. Always. He deserved to go where he wanted on vacations. He demanded that we greet him at the door after work. He wanted his way and he wanted attention. Every day after work, he would come through the door and announce “The king is home” and we all had to run up to greet him. If we didn’t, there was hell to pay. He would pout and then he’d get mean. In one fashion or another, we would pay for not participating.
When I took away the tickets, I saw that look of anger and loathing on my father’s face. I felt all the progress I’ve made fall away.
It felt as if I’ve made NO progress at all. I was furious and sick to my stomach and had a fitful night of sleep. How can ONE look and ONE act of childish selfishness set me all the way back to the beginning?
Randy pointed out this morning that it was going to take more than 6 visits with my cut rate therapist to work through my issues. He’s right. I haven’t lost all the progress I’ve made. I’ve been much more kind to myself. I am finding little moments of peace and for these things I am grateful. Dealing with my father, though? I haven’t gotten very far with that.
I can go from zero to a bubbling cauldron of pain, anger, and resentment with a single $1 scratch off ticket.
I’d really like to be able to let it go. I know that is what I need to do and I am willing to do it. At least most of me is. Apparently, there is a stubborn part of me who has no intention of letting this anger go. She’s got a strong will and I don’t know how to get around her. At least not yet.
We had fist fights. So, yeah…good times.
oh man…yeah..no fist fights. I am thankful for no fist fights.
Yep. It wasn’t Christmas at our house unless someone was getting their ass kicked.
That sucks. I wish humans were better.
Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’ve made a lot of progress if you can recognize that your reaction wasn’t helpful.
There’s a huge difference between making progress within yourself on your own, and facing the source of your dysfunction. It is far too easy to fall back into old patterns.
Would it help to look at him as someone you don’t know? Would you pity that person, ignore them, laugh at them?
I don’t know. Honestly, there is a compelling argument that could be made that he would be worthy of MUCH pity. He truly is pathetic and always has been…but he’s my dad and he was supposed to take care of me…not fuck me up for life..so I don’t pity him. When I try to view him as just a human who really had a terrible life (he did) I just end up feeling guilty.
This is gonna take a while…
‘This man always put himself first. Always. He deserved to go where he wanted on vacations. He demanded that we greet him at the door after work. He wanted his way and he wanted attention’
>
I can totally relate to this and I’m so sorry you have had to deal with that. Add to that the choice of where we ate if we were to go out, where we lived, the furniture, décor, what I cooked and ate for dinner, the topic of conversation, being forced to dumb down my vocabulary, the rage it caused when I chose to go into another room to do something else rather than sit through another evening of what he wanted to watch on TV. I was expected to sit there on the couch with him to watch films I didn’t like, being shoved over backwards onto a ceramic kitchen floor because I refused to cook him dinner at 9pm on a Sunday night after he’d been in the pub all day, having to crawl to phone an ambulance after I’d had a blackout and needed stitches from where I’d hit the corner of something when I went down, scared to death I’d had a stroke or a coronary, while he screamed abuse at me from halfway down the stairs, as me going to hospital was going to be an inconvenience to him, this and so much more…
It will take a while to find the real me and free her, perhaps the rest of my life, that’s what my counsellor told me anyway. After 6 months of counselling I still can’t control that feeling I get when I have to deal with him, but it’s a lot better than it was and hopefully you’ll start to get there too.
>
Now I must shed a few tears again as this post has acted as a trigger, but thankfully I have some control of that element now..
I hate that you’ve gone through that. I hate it so much. My father was never physically abusive. (That is very nearly true) his preferred method of abuse was emotional. What I love about us is that even with all the shit, look at us! Sure, far from perfect…but witty and creative and genuine. We’ll just keep shedding the layers until we get to our rich creamy center.
That sounded way creepier than I intended.
Yep, his was mainly emotional, as was my father’s , though not at the same level, the violence only started in the last year of our marriage and was the catalyst to get me out as that is something I wouldn’t tolerate. I didn’t realise that the emotional abuse was the thing that scars the most until I got out. Falling about at ‘rich creamy centre’ I think I’m probably pure bourbon in the middle 🙂
Oh man..I know I am today. Tomorrow is gonna suck.
Oh yes…white hot rage. BTDT.
Have you ever read The Great Santini by Pat Conroy? If you choose to read it, also read his latest book called The Death of Santini.
By the way, my offer still stands 🙂
GAAAH..I KNOW! I feel really bad and I swear I didn’t mean to blow it off….just holiday crazy busy.
I did NOT read the book. But I did see the movie with Robert Duvall and I both loved and hated the movie..
Next year you should buy one of those fake winning lotto tickets and make sure he gets it. Ha Ha – more enjoyment for you than a ceramic Santa 🙂
My son was talking about doing that last night on the car ride home and while I would get a big fat hoot out of fucking him over like that, it would cause my mother pain because she would have to live with the aftermath and I’m not willing to do that. Honestly, that’s why I’m bothered right now. I don’t know how much of that scene my mother saw. She doesn’t want me to be hurt by my past and I don’t want her to worry about it. Also part of the goddamn problem.
I found that the best way of dealing with my family was moving 2,000 miles away! 😉
Hang in there! Merry Christmas!!
hahah. Well…I mostly love my family…just not so much my dad.
Putting the past behind you and moving on is way easier said than done, especially when the person is still around causing harm. In all of us, there is still a furious little kid who refuses to pretend like everything is okay. Maybe give your inner furious little kid a hug, tell her she is completely right to be upset about her father being a jerk and that it is okay to be angry, and then let her take a nice nap and take her out fo rice cream when she wakes up.
you know WHY this is awesome? I JUST woke up from a nap and was considering ice cream. Now I’m definitely getting ice cream
My friend Jack has this theory that the longer you have known someone, the fewer words from them it takes to cause you to fly into a rage. Your post made me think of that. I don’t know whether you can find that helpful or not, but I thought I would type it here just in case.
that actually makes all kinds of sense.
Argh, that sounds really frustrating and I’m sorry that a family gathering led to stress and loss of sleep :-/ A lot of what you said sounds familiar… particularly the “be excited to see me or I’ll pout and then become a monster” thing. Don’t discount your progress… that was a pretty loaded situation to go into.
Thank you, sister. I KNEW it would happen. It always happens. I am going to try to not care next year. Or not go.
I’m so sorry you had to go through that. To be honest, I would’ve done the same thing. Actually, I have done the same thing…
My dad is a degenerate gambler. It is the most hurtful thing to find out that your dad was NOT working his ass off (as he would often claim) and couldn’t make it to your game because he was at the casino. I once snapped at him when I was old enough and strong enough and it turned into a fist fight.
Every bit of progress always takes a step back though. It’s just a matter of how you respond to it. I’m sure you will be fine as long as you still WANT to make that progress.
Thanks, Rocco.
I want to NOT respond that way because I don’t want him to continue to have that much power over me. My dad was a degenerate gambler as well..but not at casinos, for him it was the race track and pick up poker games. We lived in poverty because he gambled away the money. My mom worked two jobs when I was little. Personally, I don’t like gambling. I HAVE gambled but not often. It just strikes me as a stupid waste of money.
Thanks for the reminder, though. You really do take some backward steps..it’s inevitable.
I like to play poker but that’s it for me. I know when to walk away but I still only play MAYBE once or twice a year. I joined the service because I didn’t have an option to go to school. I couldn’t get any scholarships and I wasn’t about to go in to $100k of debt because my dad gambled all of my college savings away. That was the worst it really affected me. My younger brothers and sisters on the other hand…. I feel so bad for them. It makes me want to puke sometimes. But they’ve handled it 1,000,000,000x better than I ever would have!
Big (virtual) hugs from afar…I’m afraid to go back into therapy myself: I was too busy several years ago trying to get over the rage & PTSD of my emotionally abusive 1st marriage/divorce & custody battles that I never addressed the suffocating panic that envelops me in my parents’ house sometimes. I MUST escape, as if I’m outrunning some old buried nightmare – is there a suppressed memory of early abuse? or “merely” perceived responsibility for my mother’s unhappiness?!? Haven’t gone there, but I need to, sometime soon…
I think you have to be ready for it. So, you just do what you can. 🙂
And thank you
I guess I’m lucky that my parents divorced–I can’t imagine still trying to have us all get together for a holiday…I’m still mad at my mom that she can BE around my dad as gracefully as she can, after all these years.
In this particular case (with the tickets), I’d have told him to “YES-Hurry up and SCRATCH EVERY SINGLE ONE, DAD, before the next person opens a gift. That way, they’ll KNOW if they need to take them from you. No one wants them if they’re not winners, so yeah, go ahead…” Either that, or next year I’d put the word out in the family that NO ONE is to bring freaking lotto tickets next year.
I kind of hate that white elephant game, too, and we got sucked into doing it every year awhile back. There’s always that One Gift that everyone wants. I’ve seen people send their children to “go get that (whatever) from uncle Bob”, so they can have it for themselves. It should be banned.
If the tickets weren’t winners, though, you can smile and tell yourself, “Ha. Dummy. We all got gifts, and you got those stupid worthless little tickets. Happy?”
This is why I’m *not* a therapist. But I feel ya-
Yes, I did take some petty satisfaction in that he had no winners. Ha.
Usually, it’s a fun game. We don’t have any issues. And like I said, I don’t think anyone cared (or if they did, they wouldn’t say so). It was just the principle of it. It’s just him being HIM. I still have so many anger issues to work through.
Oh, hun, so sorry you had to go through that. I think everyone has at least one horrendous family member who can ruin even the best day by opening their mouth or giving a look. My eldest sister is that member for me. She’s one reason I haven’t seen my family in a decade. Last BIG fight was over the fact that she had a car accident and her son told my other sibs, but not me. She emailed me and called me every name in the book for getting mad at him. I let it all go until she called me stupid. That was it. I’m a lot of things, but stupid isn’t one of them. I blocked her after that and the only time I’ve talked to her has been when I’ve called my mom and my eldest sis yelled “Hi” across the room.
So, yeah…I feel ya. People can be assholes. Family assholes are the worst.
I am so sorry – that is a lot of pain and anger and pain. I’ve been in therapy on and off ( due to moving, not due to giving up) since i was 15 years old. that is 45 years of OMG therapy – sometimes twice a week. I’ve made progress, on and off. i will never really forgive my parents for the emotional abuse – let us just say they were BOTH professional abusers. But, strangely, after all that therapy, i started having dreams about what my grandparents were like to my parents WHEN I WAS AROUND TO SEE IT. I slowly got some insight into what my parents went through. Like i said, i still don’t forgive them, but i have started to feel more sorry for them. They were sick, broken before i was born. I used to think they were both mature responsible adults who knew better. They weren’t – not mature, not responsible, not sensitive. Somehow, i can now see that as sad, as opposed to being mostly furious at them. Am I all well and healthy and happy now??? No, no way. But i am better.
But i know what you are talking about. i wish you all the luck in the world in therapy.
Thank you so much. And yes, my dad was horribly broken. My grandmother was a horrible, horrible woman who abused him in many different ways. I would like to feel compassion for him and feel sorry for him…I’m trying to work toward that, but there is just so much anger to work through. I talked about this with my therapist this week and might have felt a stirring of sympathy for him…but it’s not easy.
Thank you for your encouraging words! I truly appreciate it!
Michelle, I’m glad it sounded encouraging. i was so afraid it would sound like “get over it.” i’m here if you ever want to compare horror stories. SOME (a few) of them are almost funny. Because NORMAL PEOPLE JUST DON’T ACT LIKE THAT!
Similarly, the Carolyn Hax Holiday Hootenany of Horrors is fun, even usefol, in seeing that it is not just our 2 families that have less sensitivity than a rock. as in, it is easier to laugh at than my own history.
http://live.washingtonpost.com/carolyn-hax-live-131213.html
As soon as I fully wake up, I”m going to read this.
I become somewhat idiotically and illogically protective of certain people who have done mean things to me. Like my stepfather who dumped my father’s hand-thrown pottery in a Hefty bag down the incinerator chute when he didn’t come pick them up quick enough; who almost inappropriately tickled me on my mother’s bed while he was babysitting me at 12-going-on-13.
He left a message on my answering machine several years ago, out of the blue, saying he was sorry if he’d ever done anything to hurt me and to thank me for being the person I am. So this kind of earned him a “pass” on all the shitty stuff he did; even though I still bitch about some of those things like the 3/4 arm cast my father drew flowers on with Design markers and glued back together after the doc sawed it off which my stepfather threw away with a box of other keepsake things like my baby clothes. It’s almost like he did a bit better than my mother who has only said things like “I wasn’t such a bad mother, was I?” and, if ever questioned about some of the things she did to me, “Oh, you must have dreamt that”.
Those are all horrible things..but you know..taking responsibility for shitty behavior does go a long way. My dad would have never taken responsibility. He’s brain damaged now, so that ship has sailed..I mean, he’s functional, but he’s a shell of his former self.
I hate saying this, because it always sounds like rationalizing/justifying this behavior based on a “reasonable excuse” but more often than not I’ve found that people who behave this way were damaged as young children, too.
He was horribly damaged as a child. As a human, I can feel compassion for him..as his daughter? It’s difficult.
Sending a big hug your way because I have no words. I cannot imagine anyone treating their child like that and I certainly cannot imagine my Dad doing to me what you put up with from your Dad.
xox
Thank you! That one was from a few years ago. We had that same family party last Saturday and it was really nice. No stress. He was quiet and it wasn’t bad.
So glad to hear !!!!
Holidays are difficult. Everything is magnified 20,000X. I wouldn’t be too hard on yourself. I’ve read your blog and I think you’ve made a hell of a lot of progress. Your dad is going to piss you off, but he won’t do that forever nor all the time.
((()))
We already had that party this year…and it was MUCH better this time around. Thank you. 🙂
I can’t believe I missed this one!! I will check my email thingy cuz this is the second one I didn’t see for a few days.
I NEED my RageMichelle Therapy and Outlook will not deprive me.
Good God Girl…you make me feel pretty smug with my ‘Daddy fix’ results.
Sad that you aren’t able to use the same method, but pleased that mine is working.
I think.
I didn’t argue myself to sleep last night and wake up in the middle of the argument, crying and losing. So…
But, I also don’t get to/have to attend family anythings unless it’s with my Mom’s side…and she doesn’t do anything on the actual holiday-day because after her divorce from Daddy dearest, he ALWAYS took ALL the holidays on the actual day and she had to have the celebrations on a different non-holiday day.
We just got used to ‘Holidays happen whenever…’ and I added, ‘…Daddy’s not there.’
You are developing skills and emotional control that I will never achieve because I don’t get any practice.
My solution to people I can’t deal with is avoidance and I’m SURE there will be a hefty price to pay. I LIKE isolation, but I’m seeing the effects on my sons, and the cost is approaching dangerously close to my grandbabies.
YOU DID GOOD!!
Every move you made gave you power. From taking the tickets from him (expressing your displeasure and awareness of his ‘bad Daddy/person behaviour’) to listening to your sister and giving the tickets back (to keep the peace and not end up being the ‘bad Daughter with a grudge’).
I COULD NOT have done that without screaming…at least three people would have gotten involved… and hitting. And that might take actual muscle men to pull me off at this stage of the game.
I think you saved Christmas!
Daddy should be proud… Oh No…he didn’t get that again this year? You WIN!!
(I know, shallow victory, but Randy still got the Bottle, the highest number and the smile…Use him and his happy while you work the voices back to soothing 🙂
I’m wearing my Grinch suit to work today. My Mother-in-law got it for me last year…I liked her alot more after that 🙂
XOXOXXO. This post is actually a few years old and that’s why you didn’t see it. Randy has been posting up some older Christmas ones. We just had that family party last weekend and I didn’t get upset even once. It was nice. Now, to get through Christmas eve.
OOhhh Whoops. Good to know 🙂 BRB…gotta go apologize to Microsoft.
🙂
You can be my Designated Drinker for Christmas Eve…if that will help 🙂
(There’s a lot of rules for following bloggers, huh? 🙂 )
Yup. There they are. The dates. And I call myself a detail-obsessed Librarian…
I have the good grace to be ashamed.
*head hangs low*
Spank me.
🙂
Hahah
I do that all the time. I comment on people’s memory posts on FB like they just happened even though FB has clearly tagged it a memory.
And therein lies my problem…at least makes it blame-able 🙂 No FaceBook practice!!
🙂
I’m pretty glad I get to learn this stuff on you…you’re a ‘Mentor to the blog intern.’
I shall learn my lessons well and make you proud.
(But it was a great post and worthy of resurrection!) You and Aussa been going at this awhile now 🙂
Hoping this Christmas is better
You and me both.