Blood Isn’t Thicker Than Water

My dad died about a month ago. While I felt sad at first, mostly, I felt nothing. Turns out, I had already gone through the grieving process years ago. I thought I would at least feel something when his time came. I knew it would happen sooner, rather than later. When I stopped talking to him almost a decade ago, he was already old and in pretty terrible shape. Being an alcoholic and chain smoker, along with having 30 years of unresolved medical issues, does that.

I initially found out from a plethora of random people my mom gave my phone number to, along with her friends that I hadn’t blocked yet. I checked my voice messages one day after work and found many messages telling me he had passed. My mom couldn’t call me herself because I also have her blocked. God knows she tried, though.

Why do I have such a callous attitude towards my parents you ask? Some of that story begins about 8 years ago when I finally woke up. The rest of it begins much earlier than that.

When my partner and I finally had our twins, it was a joyous occasion. Hands down one of the best days of our lives, aside from the day we got married. However, anyone who experienced newborn twins can tell you that the first couple of months is rough. Between having to feed them every two hours, my partner and I were only getting about three hours of sleep a night if we were lucky. After the first few weeks of that regimen, we started having hallucinations. One night I woke up in a panic because I could have sworn one of the kids was tangled in the sheets of our bed. My partner was shaking me, practically screaming that both kids were safe and in the crib.

My mom came to visit a couple of months after the kids were born. My partner and I thought we were very explicit in saying we were in no shape to be entertaining guests. She was more than welcome to come, but she should expect to have to fend for herself. Despite agreeing to this arrangement, she ended up leaving in a huff because we didn’t make her feel welcome.

I talked to my mom about it afterward, and I explained that having newborn twins is hard. I thought I had been clear in explaining that we wouldn’t be able to make her “feel welcome.” However, I was sorry that we had hurt her feelings. Rather than attempting to see things from our point of view, she doubled down. My mom accused my partner of being a gold digger, despite my disappointing lack of money. She also laid the guilt trip on thick, presumably to sway me to her side. She brought out the old classics:

I’m your only mother.

I gave you life.

We have sacrificed everything for you.

Blood is thicker than water.

At this moment, I finally realized what my parents were. They didn’t completely disregard my personal space because they were just overprotective and cared about me. They didn’t hit me when I was a kid because I’m they grew up in a different time, and corporal punishment was acceptable back then. They were fucking abusive.

This understanding didn’t come all at once. It took hours of contemplation, looking back on my childhood through the lens of my experience as a parent. Sort of like how it takes a few minutes to shake off the last bit of sleep. Would I be okay treating my kids the same way my parents treated me? No. It also took hours of therapy, asking if the experiences I had were normal or abusive. That was when I stopped talking to my parents completely.

At first, I just wanted some space from my parents to figure things out. In response, my mom gave me some more of the ol’ “I’m your only mother” guilt trip. She refused to give me the space I needed and called me incessantly until I finally blocked her number. She found me on social media and flooded my DMs with messages, so I blocked her there as well. Finally, she enlisted the aid of her friends in calling me to tell me how much I’m hurting my mom by not talking to her. I blocked them too.

That brings us back to the present. I found out my dad had passed away when a random hospital employee called me, saying my mom needed me. For a second, I considered reaching out, feeling some amount of grief at hearing the news of my dad’s passing. Then, I remembered how when I was 6 or 7, I had pissed my mom off by not listening to her. She sent me to my room until my dad came home from work. During the three or four hours she forced me to stay in my room, I had fallen asleep. I woke to my dad yanking me out of bed by the hair on the back of my head and beating me with a wooden brush. Before my “awakening,” I justified the beating I received by telling myself that he just hit me on the ass, so it’s not a big deal.

Immediately after my dad’s passing, the extended family that I still talked to asked me if I was going to the funeral. No. “Why?” They asked. I didn’t have the energy to explain, especially since they probably knew I was happening and did nothing. They knew my dad was a psychopath. It wasn’t a big secret that my mom was a huge narcissist, who viewed family as extensions of herself and random people as commodities who she allows in her orbit as long as they prove their worthiness. They likely understood that it’s not normal for 8-year-olds to sit quietly, doing nothing, afraid of their own shadow, while adults talked. Fuck, they were there when I was ten and my dad shouted at me to stop being a fucking pussy after showing signs of being disappointed at not being able to go trick-or-treating.

I’ll be a little too busy to attend his funeral. I don’t need to pay my “respects” to him since I’ll get the chance during the shitload of therapy that I still need. I’m working on not getting unreasonably angry whenever someone interrupts me. That was a holdover from when my dad told me to shut the fuck up whenever I started talking too much. I’m also working on overcoming the near paralyzing anxiety whenever someone around me is angry. Despite being a whole-ass adult, I still have that initial urge to hide when angry people are around.

I wanted to put this out into the world, in case someone is going through a similar situation. It took me too long to realize that I don’t owe my parents a fucking thing. The “duties of a child” aren’t a thing. You’re not responsible for their happiness, sadness, carrying on their legacy, or any of that bullshit. Fuck their legacy.

Originally published on Medium.