Daddy's Little Princess

They say truth is often stranger than fiction, and for me... that has never been false. I write a lot of horror based material. None of it ever scares me because of what I have actually gone through in real life.

A few days ago, my dad called. As it always does, one thing led to another, and we ended up right back in the middle of a heated, exhausting replay of my childhood. The divorce. How my mom is entirely at fault for everything and how she is pure evil.

There always comes a point in the conversation where I try to inject a shred of reality... it takes two people and a divorce isn't solely on one person's shoulders. That's always his cue to bring up my sister and how my mom "stole her kids."

My sister chose drugs. She lost her kids and showed zero interest in actually getting them back, outside of talking a big game and feeding anyone who would listen a sob story about being robbed. She was a victim of her own devices, and her kids were the ones who suffered. My dad uses her as his ultimate weapon to fuel his hatred for my mom, as if he needed another reason.

For the first time, I finally told him, "Respectfully, I don't give a single fuck about what my sister does, and I don't give a fuck about her lies anymore. She can say whatever she needs to and you can believe whatever delusion you want." Bottom line, he wasn't there. He didn't live through her addiction. I did.

He claimed to understand me because "that's just how siblings are." They grow up and want nothing to do with each other. Which isn't true, I know plenty of people who have great relationships with their own families and siblings.

So no. Mine aren't just drifting apart... my sisters are self absorbed assholes who will use anyone for everything they have and then turn around and talk shit about them the moment they say enough is enough. The minute you point that out, the entire stream of hate is directed right at you. They're deeply selfish and lack accountability.

When I told him that, he doubled down and said, as he often does, "Imagine having your kids ripped away from you! Imagine it! That was done to me AND your sister! Your mom stole everyone's kids."

No, Dad... you left.

He's admitted multiple times that he left because he had to or he would go crazy. Fine. Just own it. Stop pretending that we were stolen. And again, my sister chose drugs... her kids weren't stolen either (though she went and actively broke up someone else's marriage to take custody of four other kids, but we don't talk about that... because it was "God's will").

And as for wondering what it's like to have my kids "stolen"? I never have to wonder. From the minute I knew I was pregnant, I never needed anyone to tell me how to be a mother. I've never put anything before my child, and I never would.

My dad's end goal in these conversations is always to make me agree with him. I won't. I don't side with my mom either. I have my own mind. I don't care about what happened in their decades old divorce. What I care about is moving forward. I told him I have no interest in his opinions on my marriage or kids. (Something else he like to flap his gums about.) Why would I take marriage advice from unhappily married or divorced people, or parenting advice from someone who never had a hand in raising theirs? His "love" has always come in the form of gift cards.

During our call, he had the audacity to tell me that my kids will reach an age where they hate me and want to leave because that's how he felt as a child. For the trillionth time, he told me I'm wrong for homeschooling them because "school was a break for him." My kids have a good home. They don't need a break from it, and they've explicitly told me they don't want to go to public school. The only opinions I care about are theirs. I told him that he can yap all he wants, but it all goes in one ear and out the other because I don't give a flying fuck about his opinions.

Which brought us right back to last year, when I ended up living with him for the first time since I was two years old.

Thanks to the family I was born into, the family I created had become homeless. I poured everything into my sister and have been trying to pick up the pieces for a long time. My uncle offered a room for three hundred dollars a month (which was impossible for us as we were selling everything of value we had just to try and get the money to feed the kids) so we took my dad up on his offer. He wanted me to come stay with him. He promised his basement would give us space and time to think. We could stay for free... just pay for our groceries and what the kids needed while we dusted ourself off and got back onto our feet.

I was hesitant because I've been taking care of myself for as long as I can remember and everything has always come with a catch. But.. I wanted to be optimistic. In my head, my dad was Danny Tanner. A single dad who lost his wife and loved his little girls so much.

I was a fucking moron.

Dad neglected to mention reality.

The house was an episode of Hoarders, packed floor to ceiling with Amazon boxes and clothes and shoes his wife bought. The few baby pictures he had of me and the gifts I'd sent him over the years were stuffed away in a box in his office out of sight, while the house was covered in pictures, gifts, coffee mugs, and notes from my sister boasting about what a "good dad" he is and slandering my mom.

The house was also infested with brown recluse spiders. When I tried to clean, his wife texted me complaining that she "couldn't breathe" from the cleaner. I guess the smell of dog shit was preferred... but also... she was spraying the house with Gain Febreze without issue (after I said my daughter was allergic to Gain). My dad also claimed he "had no spiders" when I told him I was scared to stay there. I don't know what he calls these.

He also didn't tell me he brought us there to criticize everything I did, yell at me about my parenting while demanding I join his wife's church, enroll my kids into their local school, move into a trailer park on his street, and buy a "piece of shit junk car".

He didn't tell me he brought me there to try and convince me to leave my husband (the ultimate crime of my mom by the way) and marry a truck driver.

The day we were finally able to leave, my husband showed up in our new Cadillac Escalade with a new job, a trailer, and a house waiting for us. I didn't stay to say a proper goodbye to his wife, and my dad apparently holds that against me according to the conversation.

He claims he never tried to control me. Yet was always telling me what I needed to do. Also, while we were there, he and his wife took my kids to a restaurant and video called my sister, allowing the very person who is blocked from my children to have direct contact with them behind my back and without my permission. And I was selfish for being angry about it.

During that call, he said if we ever came back (and why the fuck would we) it would be different. He'd be kinder. He'd make it right.

I told him I wouldn't change a single fucking thing.

My whole life, I've carried this naive curiosity about what it would be like to have a "real" family. A mom and dad who loved each other. Sisters who were close. Family holidays. The last few years have brutally cured me of that curiosity. Between my sister moving in and destroying everything my family had, another sister who wanted to be secret friends to find out everything going on in the family under the radar, and a stint living with my mom where my kids were constantly policed over opening a door or eating snacks anywhere but on the kitchen floor... I've had to face the hard reality that in my blood family, pets and material belongings mean more than I ever have or will.

They have disrespected my marriage, my parenting, and my choices at every turn. They apologize... but it's more like "I'm sorry I was such a bad parent" thing over genuine remorse. Or excuses... "well that was just because of xyz". And then it's some stupid fucking excuse that doesn't make it the least bit ok.

Finally during this conversation with my dad, a poem turned song was brought up.

I wrote a poem at his house when I was falling apart on the actual brink of suicide, held back from the edge only by knowing my kids needed me to protect them. Taking myself out would mean leaving them to face the fire of this disaster on their own.

This is that poem:

It ultimately turned into this song:

I told him it came from a place of the most horrifying pain I had to go through. That I had to break completely to come back as what I am now. Unshakable, unbreakable, un-fucking-stoppable.

His response.... even I didn't see it coming.

"Well, there you go, Kiddo. I helped you. You don't talk about that in your music."

Do you want me to, Dad?

This isn't a song, but thank you.

Thank you for breaking whatever hope was left inside of me and shattering any remaining illusion that I have a father who loves me and wants me to be happy or is proud of me. Thank you for teaching me everything not to be as a parent, and teaching me what NOT to look for in a husband. Thank you for teaching me that wealth has NOTHING to do with money. Thank you for making me despise the very concept of money, because that's all I have ever been to you. A score card... or a talent to be celebrated only when I'm winning something on "that site I write for".

Thank you for reducing me to that.

Thank you for making me feel the need to walk around in your house with my camera on record so I could actually capture some of the abuse you claim "never happened" and the things you "never say". Thank you for giving me that piece of evidence I can play back every time you tell me I'm crazy and you don't tell me what to do or put me down. You wouldn't dare!

Thank you for taking pride in turning me into nothing. For burning me beyond recognition, so that I could finally rise as the fucking phoenix I am today.