its not polite to make others feel uncomfortable, even when it hurts

march of 1960, my mother is in labor with her first child, as she leaves my father to go into delivery, he tells her not to embarrass him by making a lot of noise in there.  Can you imagine?  she was nineteen years old, miles away from her family and going in for a life changing experience that will rip her body open, where was the pep talk?

although I wasn't there, that is a story that I have heard countless times by my mom.  so why should it effect me?  fast-forward to the birth of my son.  I was riddled by anxiety of the physical process, scared to death.  I was induced and as I began to feel the discomfort of labor pains, I began worrying about my ability stay in control of myself.  Shane was beside me, I didn't tell him when the pain struck.  I held my breath and worked through it.  once I began to realize the pain was only going to get worse, I asked for a epidural.  the nurse said it was too early, it would end in a C-section.  luckily dr weeks was on duty and graciously told her to give it to me.  I know what she was thinking, I didn't look like it hurt enough.  I am good at keeping a straight face during pain.  its not polite to show pain, it makes others feel uncomfortable.  a year and half later I am in surgery having my second C-section.  I lay there as they are poking and pulling my little girl out of me.  I was more aware of everything, unlike the first time, when I was exhausted and drugged up.  the fear was still there.  I remember laying there, shane was next to me watching over the curtain and the anesthesiologist on the other.  I remember wanting to ask one of them to hold my hand.  I didn't have the courage, felt like it would make them feel uncomfortable or show that I wasn't strong. 

my father shamed us when we displayed emotion or showed pain of any sort.  instead of kind words to comfort us, we would be made to feel bad about even having those feelings and even worse for making him have to "deal" with our silliness.  our feelings were never validated with him.

the first easter after my son was born, I received a call from my neice asking if I was going to dad's for easter.  I didn't know anything about it.  I asked my secondand he thought maybe that dad had just asked him and his kids.  I later come to find out it was in fact my brother, his family and all of my step-mother's children.  turned out it was big family gathering and easter celebration.  me and my family just were not invited.  made the decision to call him out on it.  I calmly called him and addressed the situation.  his first response was that he hadn't know till the day before but I reminded him that he had followed up with my other brother the Thursday before because his wife had needed numbers for food.  he stumbled around some then let me go.  later that night he called back.  I was upstairs giving my son a bath and couldn't leave him in the bath so I missed it.  when I listened to his message later, he asked that I call him back but he didn't hang the phone up correctly so I had to listen to his conversation with his wife following.  his wife went on a rant about where the hell I was with the baby at that time of night then she proceeded to call me immature and told him how one sided his relationship with me was.  I called back but was sent straight to voicemail.  I responded to her question and shared some of my thoughts with him.  when I finally called him back, you know what his first question was?  how much did you hear.  I asked him how it is immature if you are hurt by someone's actions to call them up and talk to them about it.  he then went on telling me how I had been crying and out of control.  I told him that was a lie and my husband had been with me and would verify that.  once again he started stumbling.  told me there wasn't enough room in his 8000 square foot home to fit us all.  told him that was a joke.  he then started in to why his step-daughter hadn't come to Thanksgiving last year, I responded that was because she had hosted her father.  took him off guard that I knew that or maybe he didn't.  absolutely no acknowledgement of my hurt feelings.  only recognition of his irritation.  once again, confirmation that it is better not to express emotions. 

now here is the thing, its not healthy to do that.  but whether it was in direct contact with my father or in complete privacy, I am scared to show my feelings.  it was and is always easy to bury, but that doesn't allow one to grow, hence this process of healing through the blog.  now that I have recognized and acknowledged that flaw in myself, how do I over come it?  its not so easy.  it is insidiously ingrained into me and before I know it I have fallen into old patterns.  I am not used to always being present and conscious of my actions and thoughts.  I am working hard at it.  trying my best to purge of all of this to get it out of my head. 

today I want to give my kids space to feel any and all emotions that come over them.  I want to acknowledge them even if I don't agree with what they are or should be upset about.  I want them to feel safe.  I don't ever want them to feel fearful to let me know how they feel.  I don't want to shame them for having feelings.  I don't want them to be afraid to cry out if they fall and feel pain.  I want my presence to make them feel safe.  I don't want them to feel how I felt.  I also want my husband to know what is going on in my head.  to understand why I do things the way I do sometimes.  to understand how to be supportive to me.  burying things has only caused us misunderstanding, and distance.  I no longer want to be, have, or act as I have.  I want to be better.

Secret of the vasectomy....

when I was in college, my father started dating a woman who is now currently his wife.  Prior to her my dad had dated a wonderful woman for close to seven years.  in a matter of one summer, she was gone and this woman appeared.  she is much younger than my father.  I am not exactly sure of her age but know that she is a year or two older than my oldest brother.  everything about her was kept secret.  From what I was able to gather, my father and his friend met her at a bar.  his friend started a relationship with her first.  she was separated from her husband and jumped at the chance to move to another state with my dad's friend.  have no idea what she did with her kids during that time but she did say that when things didn't work out, she had written a check off his account and came back to Illinois.  upon returning to Illinois, she rung up my father and asked if she could earn money cleaning his house.  I don't know about you but if I broke up with a guy, I don'tthink I would have been calling his friend to make money.  I know there has to be more to the story.  I remember my dad advising me if his friend did call not let on that I knew of her.  Strange.  This man had been a friend and business partner for well over 25 years.  didn't add up to me and I just never felt comfortable of the situation.  to this day I really don't know much about her but I think it is safe to say that she is a life line to my father's narcissism.  she feeds him with her praise and disbelief that my father is anything other than perfect. 

I have to wonder how she would feel if she knew one of the family secrets.  Im sure he could deny it and say it was a lie but others know and medically it could be proven.  I remember once being at the house my dad had put her up in, we were in the kitchen and she pulled out her pill pack and tookher daily dose of birth control.  She told me that she had told my dad that if he wanted to have any more kids that they would need to get on it.  She was in her 30's and my dad was in his 50's.   I remember thinking, dad didn't want the kids he had pretty sure he wasn't in going down that route again.  but as usual I kept it to myself.  a while later I was relating this story to my second oldest brother, he started laughing and told me that dad had, had a vasectomy.  I was surprised and we both shook our heads wondering why he wouldn't just tell her that.   just another of my dad's secrets we were not to share.  Some ten years later she told me that she had recently had her tubes tied.  by now they were married.  I didn't know what to say so just kept quiet.  Months ago I was with my mother and they story came up.  She filled me in on the whole backstory as to why he had a vasectomy.  it was curious since my mom had had a total hysterectomy as to why he would have done that after.  wellapparently one night my mother had received a phone call from a woman telling her that she had my father's baby.  she said after that he went and got himself fixed.  now talk about a bombshell!  there is another one of us kids out there????  asked my mother for more details but she never knew what had come of it.  my heart broke for her, she had kept this secret for all these years.  she must have been so humiliated by that call.  what an awful thing to go through.  I asked if the woman had said she was pregnant or if the woman had a baby.  My mom said that as she recalled there was an actual baby.  well whether there is or whether there isn't, I will never know but now I have the whole demented story of why my father got a vasectomy.  I am hoping that if there was a child he/she had little contact with "our" father.  the story would be so much sadder for that child if he/she had to handle the emotional abuse that we had on top of being an illegitimate child.  wishing him or her a life a peace and unconditional love!

Always watching...

My father has always been known, amongst us kids, to always be watching us.  Not watching OUT for us but watching us.  He was notorious for keeping track of mileage, driving by businesses to make sure the kids were where they were supposed to be, going through our things, etc.  But it wasn't always his family he was watching.  Sundays were devoted to his drives, where we would spend hours whilehe just drove around.  Usually it was to check up on someone.  It was weird but we didn't know any better so it was normal to us. 

Fast forward to after the divorce.  My mom and I had moved down to Scottsdale, Arizona.  He claims he knew nothing about it, which seems like such a joke.  Soooo many times I have heard him say he knew nothing about it, to things that he would have had to been in a coma not to have known or noticed.  Anyway, we were staying at the Holiday Inn while looking for a place to actually move into.  One day at the pool, my mom says to me, "That looks just like your father over there."  I looked and in fact there was a man who sat in the exact way my father did.  The body did look like his but this man had a full beard and mustache.  I told her she was crazy and went about my day at the pool.  Another night, I was going for a swim before bed and that same man was sitting in the pool.  I remember feeling uncomfortable, like he was watching me.  But then my mom and I got involved in a conversation with others and my attention was diverted.  Another morning we woke up to find a book with rental areas marked outside our door.  We thought maybe it had been our waitress that we saw it each morning in the dining area but when asked she shook her head.  Looking back I seehow creepy it was.  My poor mother, how frightening would that be.  Of course, he ended up admitting to it in theheat of an argument to my mom.  Luckily in front of her parents so he couldn't try and paint her as a crazy liar.  Not sure what she ever did regarding that.  If she called the police or lawyers.  Nothing that I knew ever happened as a result of it.  But years later when I brought it up in an argument he got very quiet.  A couple months later he brought it up to me.  There was an elaborate story of how mom had taken me without his knowing it, and when he received a Father's Day card from me, he had seen the post mark and jumped on a plane and just coincidently ended up at the same hotel.    He denied ever wearing a beard or disguising himself in anyway.  Had my mother not pointed him out to me, I would have given him the benefit of the doubt but I can still see him sitting at the pool.  what my mind did not want to see and accept then, it does with sadness now.

I remember another time visiting my dad.  I was still quite young, maybe 11 or 12.  I didn't want to be with him and I wasn't being the good daughter I was suppose to be.  I don't remember the specifics of why but I know I had gotten my period and it was still all new to me. I was crampy, emotional and probably needed some sort of sanitary napkin.   I remember my dad taking me to the his business and telling me I could make a call to my mom in his office.  He left me and went and sat in one of the cubicles in the outer office.  afterwards we went back to his condo.  he dropped me off and said he had to run some errands.  later that night, I was laying bed thinking about the call and my dad being in the cubicle.  it just sort of hit me, he had been in the cubicle where the answering machine had been.  he had been listening, or the thought popped up that he had recorded it.  I thought of him running errands afterwards, and I realized that he had a tape player in the car.  I got up and snuck down to the garage, sure enough the tape was in the cassette player and it was the conversation with my mom.  I snuck back into the condo and went to bed knowing that he invaded my space.  I never confronted him.  Why, I don't know but I just remember sensing a fear of calling him out.  I was young and didn't have the presence of mind to address that sort of thing. 

Over the years, I have witnessed different things.  they will pop into mind here and there.  Things he would secretly do behind peoples back to get them into a corner for attack.  I didn't trust him.  for years, I wondered if he had cameras in the house in the return vents.  I would always turn my back to them when changing andchose my words wisely when talking with friends, I felt like that in to adulthood.  Technology being the way it was he could easily have done it.  I remember my second brother telling me he saw something in my dad's van that made him think it was listening to his conversations with me on his cell.  he never looked further into it but it wouldn't have surprised me if my dad had.  he was weird like that. 

I learned to be very careful with what I said, how it was said, I never wrote anything in a diary that could be used against me or give him notice.  I kept things inside and let them feed my insecurities and sense of safety.  Even in writing this and starting this site, I hold fear that he will find it and use any of my insecurities to some how do more damage.  He has been out of my life for five years and I still think he is watching me.  Shane said one time that he thought he saw him drive by the house.  If he had, it doesn't surprise me.  I just work at telling myself that I live a good life and there is nothing to fear. but I still give pause when I see a car around my house with someone sitting in it.  I watch the car to see if the person is watching me.  I absolutely hate that feeling!