I responded to another thread and for some reason it brought home some memories that I had elected not to recall.

My father died several years ago. I loved him so much and his death left a hole in my heart and caused a break down.

He wasn’t a saint. I admire him tremendously for admitting he had a problem with alcohol and remaining sober for 20 odd years on his death.

Last night, I relived the experiences of my mother calling from a bar somewhere saying “Dad’s in a mood, hide.” But the problem was, when he was drinking, these moods were easy to spot and I could avoid them with my mother’s warning by going to my Aunt’s and sleeping there. I’d forgotten the middle of the night trips down the road to her house and creeping in and sleeping on the couch.

He quit drinking when I was 12ish. From then on, these temper flares virtually had no trigger that I could see. At 16 my mom wanted me to run to the grocery store, and my father wanted me to pick up something. I went to grab my shoes, and he somehow thought that mean I was not waiting for his list. He grabbed me by the back of the neck and smashed my face into a stand. I had no clue where it came from. My grandmother witnessed the attack and just jumped up off the couch and ran out of the house and went home. My mother was speechless.

At 30 he had screwed up his computer, and while fixing it I contacted an IT friend of mine, who emailed the steps to fix it to his email address and he was freaking out because I was opening a message from someone he didn’t know. I was like “Dad, this is the guy that I emailed to find out how to fix your computer, if I don’t open it, I’m not going to be able to fix it.” He was going to punch me in the face if I opened that email. His arm was cocked back and ready to strike. I finally said “fine, don’t open it, and figure it out on your own, I’m not touching it.” I took the kids and left.

How am I supposed to deal with this now? Why are they rearing their ugly head now?