I’m really struggling with some hard core depression. And to be honest, if I knew my actions wouldn’t have a ripple effect, inflicting ongoing, excruciating emotional pain for years to come to those who I dearly love, I would check out permanently. I just cannot seem to shake the sadness, it’s all consuming, and I’m so weary. I’ve experienced night after sleepless night, staying up all hours and shoveling food into my mouth to numb out the feelings that seem determined to extricate themselves. It’s almost as if my body is trying to exorcise them but I don’t want to deal with the pain so I eat until I can’t stuff another thing into my mouth. I eat until there’s literally no more room in my stomach. And it isn’t until I’ve mindlessly consumed brownies and cookies and ice cream and cereal and tortilla chips and whatever else I can find to satiate my ‘hunger’, that my eyelids grow heavy and I am finally able to make my way to bed.
Tonight was no different. I emptied the cabinets of most of the carbs and some of the items in the freezer too, and despite an aching belly and utter exhaustion, I found no solace once I climbed into bed. I attempted to read a book on my Kindle but it didn’t help, so I then tried slowly inhaling and exhaling. “Breathe through the pain,” I told myself. But it was of no use either. Oddly enough, as I tried to soothe myself by taking deep breaths, memories of my childhood flooded my brain, but not ones I expected. I actually had been thinking about my mom because her birthday’s tomorrow and even though she’s no longer here (she passed away in 2022), I still want to honor that milestone. But it wasn’t memories of my mom that I had, it was memories of my ‘fathers’. To be precise, I had two; but if you added them both together, they didn’t even amount to one good one.
My first father, the one responsible for me being here because of his sperm contribution, was a lousy husband and a lousy father. In addition to his inability to keep a job and provide for his family, his behavior towards others was often twisted and cruel. But not to everyone, just a few select family members. My mom and oldest sister were at the top of the list. Sadly, my sister was dealt the worst hand and my father was relentless in making her life a living hell. There were others in my family who were also included on this ‘list’ but his insidious actions weren’t nearly as calculating or obvious. And for some strange reason which is unknown to me, I never got on that particular list. I was placed on a different one, the ‘put on a pedestal’ list. At first glance, it seems like a great list to be on. You, and only you, get to go on countless outings. You cannot help but feel special.
One week it might be swimming at the Elks Club followed by supper at Skipper’s which included a heaping helping of fish and chips and a large soda. Another week it might be a movie or bowling, followed by a visit to Colonel Sanders for some fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, coleslaw and a biscuit. This ‘treatment’ also includes having your photo, and only yours, enlarged and taped to the dashboard of your father’s car for all his other children to view, all eight of them. Suffice to say, it made things ‘awkward’ between me and my siblings. I was so little that I didn’t understand how he was using me to create dissension and hostility within our family unit. My mom had kicked him to the curb and officially divorced him when I was two, but despite never paying a nickel towards child support, he continued to show up on a regular basis and ‘lavish’ me with attention until she remarried six years later. And then ‘poof’, just like that, he disappeared.
Enter ‘Father Number Two’. I can’t help but think, no, I can’t help but know that this is where things went terribly wrong. My mom had finally found someone who loved her and was a good provider. And, most notably, someone who married her despite her ‘baggage’. The problem was, this guy didn’t know how to be a father. When she met him, he was a bachelor in his mid-forties, with no prior experience of how to deal with children to speak of. Once he entered our lives, his sole focus seemed to be making sure that everything was ‘ship-shape’, in other words, ensuring that everything on the chore chart (something he introduced shortly after their nuptials) was executed per his precise instructions. I hated that damn chore chart! Since most of my older siblings didn’t stick around once my stepfather entered the picture, the chores were left to the three of us at the bottom, the three of us who were far too young to ‘escape’.
And with that, I’m going to take a pause. I just realized that I’ve hardly scratched the surface and won’t be able to adequately convey everything in one post, so this is going to be a two-parter. Anyway, since I’ve been able to get some of this off my chest, I’m going to make another attempt at sleeping. Thank you for ‘humoring’ me while I’ve tried to make sense of some of this stuff.
