Since I've been going to therapy to try and move through the internal conflict I have over my family and my childhood, I've since realized that I have actually learned a lot from my father. He taught me how not to be, and how not to treat your life partner. In just the last 24 hours, I've written about what love is and isn't, what it's like, and what it takes to make it work. Yet in the last 24 minutes, I had an epiphany. My dad may have damaged me emotionally, and allowed a pervert to take advantage of me physically, but I still learned a lot from him. Don't ever take your lover for granted. Don't forget to tell them you love them before you leave in the morning. I don't think that my grandmother sat up in bed on the morning of October 18, 2005 thinking that her husband would be dead by the next time she got in it. I don't think my maternal grandmother, my aunts and cousin went to bed on the evening of November 30, 2010 thinking that the next morning they'd find my grandmother's loving companion had died in his sleep. My dad treats my mom like a piece of furniture. She's just got the house clean and dinner ready when he comes home and she's the one who gives the dogs their treats every night so he can sit on the couch and watch PBS. He taught me what a loveless marriage looks like. Like I said last night, just thinking about Brendan, just hearing his name gets my heart pounding. I almost get teary-eyed, I love him so goddamn much. My dad taught me just how much words hurt and that taught me I needed to cool my temper. He taught me just how stupid you feel when all you've been told is how stupid and incompetent you are. Condescending demeanor hurts, and he taught me that by the way he treats everyone. I'm still working on forgiving my dad for what he did. I still want to cut him completely out of my life. “The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.” -Thomas S. Szasz
Dude, I just realized today you are 18. You are wise beyond your years and a truly good person. You are caring, articulate and level headed. I am beyond impressed with you. I had a shitty childhood. Like you, I turned my back on it and decided to be a better person and live a better life. Everyone learns from their abuse. They either learn it's normal and continue the cycle or they learn they are worth more than that and vow to do things differently. I'm so glad you learned that you are worthy of healthy relationships and have the ability to give that to others. I had to forgive people in my life. Forgiving them didn't give them the right to have a place in my life. I still have very clear boundaries with them, I just stopped carrying around the anger and pain.
That's the thing about how we learn. Sometimes we can learn as much, and sometimes more, from a negative example as opposed to a positive one. It's where we get to see what the consequences from certain negative behaviors might be. As is said "You don't have to get run over by a truck to know that it hurts.". In other words, you don't have to emulate bad behavior to understand what the consequences could be. Armed with that information, maybe a better course of action can be chosen.
Actions speak louder than words. Yet words may comprise a sharper knife than one in your kitchen. We should learn from both.
