***definite triggers here***

My dad and I went out for pizza while I was home this weekend. We talked about his dad, because his dad just had a stroke. I knew my dad's dad was alcoholic and abusive, but I guess I never really knew how bad it was. My dad talked about how his dad would look for any reason to flip out and beat him. He was always drunk and always mad. My dad told me about this one time when his dad flipped out on him so bad, over a very minor thing btw, that he beat my dad with a pool cue until he blacked out.

When I was a kid, I felt like my dad was always mad, too. He did mean things because he thought it was "funny" to get a rise out of me, and he also hit me if I ever talked back. But it was NEVER anywhere NEAR what he went through. And when he tells me certain things that his father did, and certain things about his own self as a father, I can see where he tried SO HARD not to be the jerk his father was. And he really did a tremendous job compared to his own father. And he's also stopped the violence, and he's made huge progress just in the course of my life. I know he has tried.

He tells these horrible things from his childhood as if he's a robot. No trace of emotion at all. I can understand that, because I have often been the same way. I don't think he has any connection to the fact that he was a child back then, in terrible pain. I know how that is, too.

I guess I just felt connected to him, and even though it's through a terribly negative thing and even though he was the man who caused me all this pain- I really saw him as the little boy he was.

Almost a year ago I wrote a poem about the cycle of abuse, as expressed in my grandfather, my dad, and me. I was only beginning to touch on the reality of that connection. You can see my anger and pain in it, but not as much understanding of what my dad REALLY went through. I posted it here when I joined the site. I'm going to copy and paste it into this post now.

****BEWARE, VERY VERY GRAPHIC!!! DEFINITE TRIGGER!!!*******


You hit me to vent anger that I didn't cause.
You told me it was my own fault for being "bad." I believed.
I try to know better now.
I know what you did- you used me.
You vented on me.
I was the scapegoat for the pain you wanted out of you.
What you couldn't handle,
You put on me, your little baby.

You said you'd give me something to cry about
That's one promise you've kept through the years
You've given me much to cry about.

You kept hitting and you kept saying to me, "stop crying!"
It made you so mad.
So I thought that meant crying when you're getting hit
is "bad."

I know why you wouldn't let me cry.
Now I know it opened you up to hurting inside.
You wanted to kill the pain- even if it killed me.
And my crying only made that pain much more alive.

You were a little boy once, with a dad who drank too much
and he hit you, and he never heard you,
like you don't hear me.
And my cries when you hit me,
they called to the little boy in you.
Did he cry once too?
And you didn't know what to do,
so you piled that on top of me, too.

And you bashed it in my head
And you kicked your own pain into my legs
And you said mean words to shove your hurting in my ears,
compacting my brain.
And you made me swallow my anger, born of your own,
down my throat.

And now we both get to feelt it
And hate our fathers
And hate our "badness"
And hate ourselves.