one of a thousand emails from my father, accusing me of replacing my family with doubles as a 13 year old
What about it?
My dad has some kind of paranoid schizophrenia, induced by drug use, as well as god-rivaling levels of narcissism. We’ve been out of touch for a while due to his threats to my life, but he has my college email and often reaches out when he’s not in jail.
From the ages of 10-14, he accused me of having sex with my mother and sisters, being a actor/double/replacement of my original self, and orchestrating a Truman Show-like reality focused on him. I can’t begin to describe the psychological harm I took on in the process of trying to convince him that I would never hurt him, since he’s my dad, and that the whole world is not out to get him, and that I was innocent of all of his disgusting accusations. I did everything I could to help the family. I sold my calculator to get us train tickets after we lost another apartment at 14. I worked two jobs since I was a sophomore to help out. I was always there to help him earn money, legal or not.
After years of homelessness, abuse, being held hostage during drug binges, losing all of my little property or having it destroyed, and being made into a scapegoat for all of his issues, I got a nice scholarship from an Ivy League school that has a reputation for helping out smart kids in shitty circumstances, and was able to escape it all for good (of course pops took credit for my achievement lmao).
I don’t really have a moral for this post, other than to say that it’s in the rear view mirror and to hold myself accountable in not contacting him ever again. I also just really want to vent to someone because my entire life has been pretty insane and shitty (not to be a pessimist, I have a girlfriend who loves me and have found beauty in the world), and these weird circumstances have hurt me in a lot of ways that the successful, loved people around me can never understand. I’m hoping to grow beyond it and somehow be better for it, because I don’t want to get a shit deal out of life despite the hand I was given. I’m sorry if this is all rambling or if I had typos, I’m not sober at the moment. I love you all and thank you for sharing your fucked up lives so I feel a little more normal.