My Support Forums - View Single Post

Blueberrybook · 05:04 PM

I don't really know the point of this post, a rant maybe? I just cannot, cannot connect to my father and never have. Growing up, he was mentally and physically abusive, never really a person I could turn to, one I always felt I was never good enough for, despite graduating valedictorian of my high school class. He hated that I read fiction and wanted me to take more interest in his business (which unfortunately was next door to our house). He repaired things, it was a paycheck-to-paycheck thing - TVs, VCRs, cars, trucks, tractors (pretty much he has a gift for looking at and examining anything electronic or mechanical that breaks and being able to fix it given time enough for him to understand how it works). Later, once I'd moved out he'd start getting larger contracts for upkeep on cotton gins, city water treatments, cabinet making shops, but it was a hard time financially back when I was in school living paycheck to paycheck and his wanting me to be out there handing him tools as he explained things I had no chance in h*ll of understanding or as he chatted endlessly with his customers (which definitely slowed his work output).

Still, the thing about my father is I am almost sure he has Aspergers or something very like it. He talks nonstop and in excruiating detail about his repair projects (no normal person has a hope of understanding any of it). Later, he became a born-again Christian Bible thumper. Now, I'm a Christian myself, but I loathe the Bible-thumper form of Christianity...he can converse on that in great detail how everything is rotten because of Christianity being removed from X, Y, Z how the devil is causing this, that and the other while on the other hand I'm thinking, you know BAD PEOPLE are causing X, Y, Z, and the other.

In an even worse move, he's become a Bible-thumping Trumper...this sits badly with me and my husband especially. Many times forgetting that my husband hails from Los Angelos he will bemoan the fact of Californians coming to Texas (and if you'd hear him with the sole purpose of ruining the Texas economy and not because things are hard economically to make a go of it for many in California) all in the presence of my husband no least, so this has made my husband ranting so on a 1.5 hr. drive home from our last Thanksgiving out there, I was afraid H (normally the best of drivers) would have a traffic accident.

No one can connect with my father really. I don't know, somehow my mom has stayed married to him for 48 years, but she always gives in to his wishes. But my friends from college, my sisters' friends, my uncle when he was dating my aunt, EVERYONE who meets him for the first time just concludes right away that he is not normal.

I feel guilty for my lack of connectivity to him, especially given that he probably does have undiagnosed Aspergers, tried to re-establish it for awhile but gave up at the Bible thumper stage and now adding to Trumper to the thumper, OK, well can I have even less to try to connect with please?

I just look at my daughter and the relationship she has with H; she was his little princess from day 1. In his eyes, she pretty much can do no wrong and I had to mete out the discipline when she was younger (though because of my experience of my father spanking me so much often with a belt, I only spanked my daughter once, by hand when she nearly throttled our new cat in a manner which would either send the cat to the vet or kill it and even that I felt awful about but I had to get her to understand not to hurt the cat). Luckily, as a teen my daughter is a lovely young woman, not a problem at all with her.

I guess I just wish that kind of relationship had been possible with my dad especially now that he's getting older, but I guess some things are what they are.

Thank you so much if you actually got through this long post!