The Father I Could’ve Had
By Aeriel White
By 8, I knew right from wrong better than most. After my mother became addicted to drugs, both my parents became abusive. Sometimes physically, but mostly emotionally.
My mother often reminded me, especially during heated arguments, that she had almost aborted me — as if I should thank her for the life I was living (at the time she was nonfunctional and I was the acting parent to my two younger siblings, caretaker of the pets, cleaner of the house, maker of dinner, and doer of laundry). She often used guilt and pity to get what she wanted, especially when she wanted to make up after arguments.
My father was the biggest perpetrator. When you got in trouble you could fully expect a 2-hour lecture — screamed from the depths of his chest — about how you’d never make it in the real world, how he had tried to be nice but all we (my siblings and I) did was take advantage of that, how he didn’t want to yell and scream, but we responded to nothing else.
I often heard that no one cared about me, how I was tearing my family apart (because of my struggle with depression and constant reporting of his abuse), and how I would tear my family apart if Child Protective Services ever took us away (they never helped). He blamed me for everything, often saying I was trying to make his life hell for leaving my mother.
After trips to the hospital (for suicide attempts, ideation, or self-harm), I was often ignored. My senior year of high school, after being away for a month, I was ignored as if I didn’t exist for 3 months. That included Christmas and my 18th birthday.
When my father threatened to put me up for adoption, I was both hurt and elated. I wanted out of my situation, but at the same time it hurt that my own father could so easily consider giving me away.
I was teased about how I repeated words and phrases. For a few years, my “nickname” was Tape Recorder. When I responded emotionally to anything I was told I was “too sensitive”.
He controlled everything. What friends I had, who I could date… I wasn’t even allowed to get my driving permit after taking the Driver’s Education course, despite offering to get a job to pay. He used threats from the time I was young — maybe about 6 — to control us with fear. By my senior year of high school I was so scared of him that I would shake uncontrollably when I knew I had made him mad, even slightly. I walked on eggshells all the time to avoid upsetting him, never knowing when he would explode into a barrage of shortcomings, wrongdoings, negative character traits, and threats to keep me in line.
The worst part was I wanted him to love me. I wanted him to be proud.
Nothing was ever good enough. National Honor Society, advanced classes, As and Bs in all of them. Every accomplishment went by without much more than a “cool.” In fact, in 18 years of life I heard my father say, “I’m proud of you” once. It was the day he dropped me off at school for graduation practice. A few months later I’d learn that he and the principal of my high school bet that I wouldn’t make it to graduation alive. To hear that my father had so little faith in me hurt.
There were days, of course, that everything went “right”. I could talk to my father about emotional things, I could ponder life and not be made fun of. I could laugh with him when we got caught in the pouring rain while we were out fishing.
My dumb mistake was hoping he would change. I had faith in him and hoped that he would eventually see what he was doing as wrong; that he would change and I could feel close to him. To this day, that hasn’t happened. He still deflects when the subject is brought up and claims that he’s reconciled with God (he’s gone to school to become a pastor) and that any problem I have is my own problem — he’s absolved.
But my wounds still bleed. I still grieve for the father I could have had, and for the way my childhood turned out. It still hurts that he won’t be the one walking me down the aisle at my wedding ceremony. I often catch myself saying the same things to me that he did, and crying at night for all my “failures”. My self-esteem is still shattered, and I’m still learning to be kind to myself.
But the worst part is, I’m still holding on to some hope.
