I always get stuck at "because"

Saturday 7/11/09 14:40

Dear Daddy, you always treated me like I thought you were evil slime. It was the opposite. I loved you more than anyone. And it's messing things up, because...because...now I love my husband as much as I loved you. And I can't sleep with him, because it reminds me of you, and how you were never who I thought you were. It's so hard to believe. I can't sometimes. I thought you were good and strong and loved me more than anything but it was lies. that's not even... the words aren't enough. I disassociate and can't say it right. You weren't just a bad example; you'd get drunk and say the most cutting things. When I was alone in the desert of my mother I never blamed you. I kept your letters on my person. I treasured every gift you gave me... it wasn't until I was 13 when I figured out how easy it would have been to save me-- if you had just talked to me-- and I still gave you the benefit of the doubt. I thought, he's busy. He... it was too hard, or something. I couldn't believe you didn't love me as much as I thought. And every time you touched me and I felt gross, like a fever dream in my muladhara, or you said something about my breasts and I'd feel rotten inside with stifled anger, I told myself I only felt this way because-- because of someone else, my mother, later [my mother's friend who molested me], later [a family member who molested me]. These people hurt me too, I think, but it was you who made me feel this way. And then I ran away again and remembered how I learned about sex and your stifled anger and your resentment and how you were ALWAYS a mean drunk, not just after you started taking hormones, and how you were rarely there and whenever I tried to talk about my feelings which I thought was good, you'd corner me and yell at me.
And yet, I'll sit and stare and think about how much I love you and remember all these things-- stories you told me about your reckless youth and I thought you were so cool daddy.
I'm glad you castrated yourself because it was violent and loud enough to shake me out of my defense of you. I can always remember how that felt, thinking you were dead and fainting when you related the graphic details, how you thanked them for me and how you blamed me after, told me you had done it for me and
good riddance.
You're not the daddy from 'a little princess'. He died and you are dead to me now, too, because the man you actually are doesn't deserve to call himself my 'father'.