(2) Blindsided (Prt 2)

Let's go back to that visit my father paid me, the one I talked about last time. Among other things, he told me that it was my mother's fault we never had any kind of social life, that we were never allowed to do anything that involved staying away from home for any length of time (no matter how old we were). And he said it was my mother's fault that we weren't allowed to go to public school and struggled with college. (Which we did not, by the way, thanks only to her).

My father has always insisted we never go to public school. He even told me at one point he wasn't even sure college was in God's plan for women. He strongly maintained that higher education wasn't necessary at all, and did all he could to discourage us from getting ours. If it hadn't been for my mom's determination, I'm not really sure where my older brother and I would be today. Still there, working for him on the farm, most likely. He told her once that we should just quit at ninth grade, like the German Baptists do. It's still an ongoing struggle for her with my four younger siblings.

As far as social interaction? Nah. Everyone is out to get you, and they are all ignorant, worthless people. I've never met anyone that he didn't trash talk as soon as their back was turned. We had no friends and if they dared come over to my house, he wouldn't speak to them. After I moved into the dorm, I brought some of my college friends over to my brother's graduation party and he glared at them all from the minute they arrived until the minute they left. Didn't introduce himself. Didn't speak.

So I'm not really sure why he thought I'd buy into that lie. I remember asking to sleep over at my friend's house, only five months before I left for a college dorm. (I was eighteen).

He didn't speak to me for two days, because I had dared ask him.

But…my mother did it, it was all her fault.

WTF.

I've heard of projection; I feel like that's what happened there. Everything we had to deal with from him, all the atrocities we put up with, he settled squarely on my mother's shoulders. But regardless of whether it was a carefully-orchestrated lie or some kind of alternate universe he truly believes he lives in, one thing is clear to me: the man has a mental problem - or, more accurately, quite a few of them.

I regret letting him talk for two hours. I regret it with everything in me. But when he invited himself in, sat at my table, and opened his mouth, I was taken by complete surprise. It came out of left field. But I shouldn't have been.

Since I left for college, the only time he sought me out, both in person and on the phone, has been to do something like this. That says something about a father, don't you think?

I think I should feel regret for cutting him out of my life completely; but truthfully, I only feel relief.