Psychological Warfare in A Childhood Lost

I haven’t spoken to my dad since my cousin’s wedding in September. He didn’t speak to me at all then, other than giving me a look of disgust when I came to say good-bye. Before that, I hadn’t spoken to him since… well. I’m not sure of the exact date but it was in like May or something. We didn’t do father’s day, even though since we moved into our house 7 years ago, we’ve hosted a father’s day bash every year. I think I sent him a mug or something.

I am starting to realize that my dad wasn’t just an “Absent Father” or a bad dad. I think he really hated me. Like, really actually hated me.
The things he would say to me- still says- to me, that I never really understood come into clear focus with the revelation that he hates me. He always hated me.

I’m not clear on the why. There is so much I do not know about my dad. In very basic terms, I can draw on some theories from psychology- he was the youngest of 4, and he was (obviously a boy)- while I’m the eldest and a girl. His dad was not the eldest, but I’m still unclear about where his dad was in the sibling order. It wouldn’t surprise me if his dad was the youngest as well, since my dad seems to have a lot of sympathy with his dad.
Most recently trying to get some kind of information from my dad about his life… I asked him about his childhood and he just left the room. He really didn’t even bother to excuse himself or tell me that he didn’t want to talk about it. He just got up and left the room. As if I wasn’t even there.
I don’t have any sympathy with my dad at all. I try to think of something- anything!- about which we could sympathize with together, even. And I can’t think of anything.

My experience of my dad has been one of continual resistance and defense. He rarely spoke to me for any reason unless it was a command, a reprimand, or to tell me something offensive. I remember vividly the first time he ever asked me a question- I was more than 20 years old.

My dad was horribly verbally abusive. And abusive in other ways. But he seems particularly keen on making me repugnant. Even the last time he visited when my son was just born- he acted as if I was offensive and disgusting for breastfeeding my days or weeks old baby.

I was a useless piece of shit to my dad. A brat. A smart ass. I talked back. I spoke about things that I had no idea about. I was a stupid kid.
He would scream and berate me until I was silenced and in tears. Then he would ask the room, embarrassed, “I can’t understand why you’re so quiet!”
He would walk into a room, realize I was the only one in it, and look at me with unmasked disgust, aversion, or embarrassment, and walk out again.
In the car together, he would glare at me reading a book or playing a game. “Why don’t you ever want to talk?” after, of course, years of beating me and verbally harassing me.
He’d look at a drawing that I had done and scoff “You’d be a good artist if you didn’t draw these stupid fantasy creatures all the time.”
I asked to join band- at no cost to my parents other than having them sign me up- and after years of not being put in band; “You’d be a great musician! It’s a shame you never got into it.”
Of course, back when there was talk about School of Choice, he told me about the wonderful amazing school that I could go to- and then “Too bad we can’t afford it.” All the while buying a new vehicle every year or 2.
Of course I hated school. But my dad would criticize our teachers as if they were only out to indoctrinate us. “What are they teaching you kids?!” he’d bark, and demand some kind of explanation about it. I squinted at him in disbelief; aren’t you sending me to that school?
And, leaving me on the school grounds for hours. Somehow I knew that he wanted to just leave me there and never come back.
Later, seemingly since beating me was no longer an option, my dad began to abuse me in a new way. He started to insult the man that I would someday marry. He’d offhandedly declare to whoever was around, about me, “I pity the fool!”
Throughout my adolescence, he commented on and scoffed at any attempt I made to be female. When I wore a bra, he’d made a big scene. When I wore makeup, he’d insult me. When I tried on new clothes, he gagged or made an exaggerated laughing/ insulting noise. It was some of the most humiliating moments of my life. And it wasn’t at the hands of mean kids at school or jealous girls. It was my own father.
Now that I have a son, my dad acts as if I do not exist. And my mom did, too. He pulled into the driveway, strode right up to where my mom and I were standing, turned his back to me, and greeted my baby. I said “hi, dad” and he never even looked at me.

I don’t suppose that I ever felt jealous of my brother. But I did notice that my dad never treated my brother as badly. My brother never got the belt. I don’t know if that’s because my parents were caught beating me, and so were scared away from that type of abuse. But… I tend to think that my dad just liked my brother better than me, and that’s the main reason he wasn’t beat as badly.
There is the whole enmeshment problem- my brother as the youngest male in our family and my dad as the youngest male in his family. Of course my dad tried to make my brother into himself. He made him do all the sports and hobbies and pastimes that Dad wanted, nothing that my kid brother wanted.

Perhaps it is just that I was useless to his ego status. My brother wasn’t… my brother at least had the potential of enmeshment since they were both male. So my dad was tasked with supporting and loving someone who he had nothing at all in common with. Well, nothing to his liking.

Maybe that’s why he hated me.