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[talktooloose]

Seems my dad wants to celebrate his 81st year by being a complete alienating asshole. He was a psychiatrist before he retired. His job was to be sensitive and compassionate all day and I like to say that he never wanted to bring his work home.

Now, I should preface this by saying that he and I are very close but also have a unique ability to get under each others' skins. Things have been mostly peaceful in recent years but suddenly he has decided to see me as some kind weak, manipulable character (this was an old cant of his that he trotted out a lot when I was in my mid-20s) and to see Snake as some kind of whipping villain who only takes advantage of me.

When I was driving my parents to the airport a few weeks ago, I mentioned my recurring dream of finding myself in the back seat of a car but realizing that I am actually driving the car from there, able to reach the steering wheel but not the pedals as the car speeds along. He said that as a psychiatrist he might have a few things to say about that. Perhaps I was spoiling for a fight when I said, "go ahead." Knowing full well what he was doing, but barrelling ahead with grim, cold-blooded zeal, he said, "that might be a good description of your relationship."

Well fuck you, you self-righteous, know-nothing, smug, impotent ball of rotting flesh. Where exactly do you keep your crystal ball that gives you magical omniscience? What gets me is that he never has any doubt about his pronouncements. He loves to just shoot from the hip on things in my life that he knows nothing about and he does it with a complete sense of justification.

Last week, In the two hours after I picked them back up from the airport after they returned from their trip, he managed to insult me, Snake and Toutou, implying yet again that Snake is some kind of fool who makes me into his servant boy while I am clearly the competent one in the relationship. It's a funny double-edged sword, this worldview of his: I am the competent one but I am also a pansy for letting myself be put under the thumb of my "inferior".

Y'see, I understand my poor old dad. I was the brilliant son who was supposed to set the fucking world on fire FOR HIS SAKE. Newspapers were supposed to write about me daily and I was supposed to be lauded by my peers for, I dunno, whatever, and my dad was going to bask in the reflected glory, taking the credit for how well I turned out.

But now he's 80 and he's running out of time to bask. I haven't fulfilled the terms of the contract he signed on my behalf. And he's pissed.

No, I'm not world famous, papa. I'm just a kind, considerate, competent man. Things I do touch people's lives and things I make move them from time to time. That is the reward right there. If anything, your desires have made me so paranoid about success, that I cannot take the chance that anything I do will not shake the world and so I often opt for not doing anything.

Leave my partner alone, you asshole. He has made me happier in this life than you have. I acknowledge all you have given me, spiritually, morally, intellectually and monetarily but I am my own person. When I have a different view of things than you do, it is not because I am still defying you like an adolescent at 42. It is because I AM A DIFFERENT PERSON FROM YOU.

I think he knew he had fucked up with his little dream analysis. On the way back from the airport he couldn't stop back seat driving including telling me at what speed the intermittent windshield wipers should be set. I told him I was the one driving and would make the decision that felt right to me. He said he hated being in the backseat and I said, "Do you ever dream about it?" There was a guilty silence from both him and my mother as if they had discussed it on the trip.

Heh. Good.

Comments

[new-improved.livejournal.com]

*hug*

and i really mean it, too. *HUG*

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

As you are one of the most sincere people I know, I didn't need the second line of reassurance. You don't throw your *hugs* around arbitrarily.

Thank you.

[mofic.livejournal.com]

Sorry for all this. I am feeling sympathetic (sometimes being estranged from one's parents seems not so bad) but I'm also kind of boggling at coincidence. So, not only are your father and mine the same age, but they're both retired psychiatrists! Small world. My dad went to med school at University of Manitoba and did his psychiatric residence at the Institute of Living in Hartford, CT. How about yours?

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

It'd be weird if they knew each other, eh? And not entirely unlikely.

My dad went to U of T for med school. He did his internship at the E. J. Meyer Memorial Hosptial in Buffalo (because Canadian hospitals didn't pay interns back then and he had a young family). I think he did his psychiatric residency at the Queen Street Mental Institute (or whatever the name is) in Toronto. We usually just call it "Queen Street".

Alienated as in you don't talk to your folks at all?

[mofic.livejournal.com]

I remember my parents talking about my father not getting paid as an intern. I tink he even had to *pay*.

I'm completely estranged from my parents and have been for 30 years. Like a couple of my characters, I was on my own in my teens when I got disowned after coming into my powers (read: coming out). Unlike Oliver and Scott, I supported myself by working in a library.

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

...

What an impressive member of the psychiatric profession. I wonder if he notched up the juice on the aversion therapy after you left.

Do your parents even know your children? Did you contact him for his 80th? Does it piss you off that I feel sadness for your estrangement?

Angry as I get at my father, he is not a bad guy and tries to behave like a rationale loving person whenever he can.

At least your parents didn't try to burn off your wings.

[mofic.livejournal.com]

My parents met my son at a funeral in 2001. They've never seen my other kids. Or three of my sibs' kids - they are completely estranged from 3 out of 6 of their kids, so I've concluded it's more about control than homophobia.

I don't feel pissed off that you're sad for me. The comment about being estranged seeming like a good thing was meant to be ironic/sardonic.

I thank you for the sympathy. It was very hard early on. It's not a big deal for me now. I have a lot of loving family. I'm sorry they're no longer part of my family, but there's nothing I can do about that and I'm not really bothered by it much anymore.

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

Three out of six! Impressive!

When you can step out of the role of their rejected daughter and look at the situation from the POV of a loving mother, you must just shake your head in astonishment.

"Control rather than homophobia" reminds me of Snake's mother. She supposedly didn't want me to stay in her house when we were in Hungary because I was her son's male partner... but then she was equally hard-line in keeping Snake's brothers' female partners out so maybe the whole homosexuality thing wasn't as important as the control thing.

[painglass.livejournal.com]

Your father, in some major ways, reminds me of my own. Its silly, but I never write of the damaging things my father says to me, while I can wax poetic all day about the damage done to me by my mother. Thank you for writing this about your father, about your anger towards his treatment of you and your partners. Its good that in the end there was guilty silence. I've never gotten even that much from my parents.

You make me want to be brave and write too. Right there you've moved someone's world. It doesn't have to be on the front page of a newspaper to be significant.

Thank you.

[quirkstreet.livejournal.com]

Well, hugs, my father fits many of these characteristics too ... not a trained or licensed therapist, but versed enough in psych research and literature to do the armchair shrink routine. Was hoping I'd set the world fire more than I have, certainly pushed me hard as a kid. Takes the fact that none of his sons is a xerox copy of him rather harder than he should, and I get a particular version of that because I'm the first-born. Etc.

Likes to shoot from the hip about things he isn't really clued in about. Expects not to be challenged. Is smart enough that he's got a good enough point much of the time that it would be tough to challenge him 90% of the time; doesn't realize that a lot of the other 10% he's dead wrong, and alienating people he cares about, because it's too much trouble to back him off.

So, a few things occur to me: good for you for turning the tables on him. He's probably not used to that, and it's probably healthy for him.

Leaving aside your entirely justified anger at his behavior, do you ever say any of the stuff in this post to him calmly, when you're centered, when he hasn't already ratcheted up the stakes? Because he might be able to hear some of it. And that might get him to cut in his filters better.

My Dad and I have made some interesting breakthroughs over email. We didn't really set out to have breakthroughs, but they happened anyway. It took some of the interpersonal stress out of our interactions (we're both astonishingly touchy and easy to "set off"). I get somewhat more respect out of him these days, and I think that's partly a result of finding calm, centered ways to tell him "back off, you're out of line."

Although like you, I've also done the "turn the sharpshooting right back on him and make him realize he better be able to take it if he's going to dish it out." Which I agree is a VERY satisfying tactic. And sometimes effective long-term, too. :)

Anyway, hugs.

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

The thought of engaging him in a process is too wearying to contemplate. It is a better strategy for me to catch him in the act (if I'm not too hurt and dumbfounded). It usually works if I say that I am experienced in whatever area and I have made my decision and thanks for his input. He will actually hear me if I stand up like an adult. Of course, all too often I retreat or become angry and petulent because that's the pattern I learned.

And even if you do engage him, he does not take no for answer easily. He started giving me a bunch of unrequested critique on my comic. I said to him that perhaps I didn't want to hear that from him and that I always ask people what kind of criticism they want from me before I offer any. He dismissed what I had to say out of hand and continued with his list.

He is one of these people who seems to truly believe that if only he was in charge, everything in the world would work right.

I am the youngest and thus the last chance after the "failures" of my older siblings to make the world turn backwards on its axis while blowing fireworks out their asses.

[(Anonymous)]

I had a wonderful father and am so thankful for him! Reading your post has made me consider what kind of a parent I've become. I'll ponder and try to correct my errors. Thanks for the heads up.

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

Hi, new house rules require you to identify yourself on all anonymous posts or they will no longer be posted. Pray tell me who you are.

[rfmcdpei.livejournal.com]

::hugs:: I wish that I could say more, but you deserve to know that you've a right to determine your relationship and your stance that's unconditional.

[kuriadalmatia.livejournal.com]

Late as always... but your comments reminded me of a passage I wrote back in 1997 for a Deep Space Nine story. When I wrote this, I was having difficulty with my parents -- this was pre-divorce, but now I can't remember what we were feuding on about. Funny thing is that I haven't read this story in five or six years, but still remember this part of it:

"We are *all* molded by our parents," Garak patiently explained. "If not by them, then by our elders. They push us to conform to their ideals, to become what they wish to be. They took every opportunity to herd us along that path made of their personal mores. If we strayed, we were punished." He paused, watching as Julian's shoulders slumped and the indignance drained out of the doctor. "Altered, molded, enhanced... they are all synonyms for the one trait a majority of races in this quadrant share: the need to create a legacy in the best image of one's self. Your parents have simply taken one step further in ensuring that you are the supreme sum of their combined parts. You cannot blame yourself for something you had no control over."

"Is that what you are? The 'supreme sum' of Enabran Tain?" he challenged bitterly.

"In a manner of speaking. However, I never quite knew what my father wanted of me." He nonchalantly shrugged to play off the hurtful honesty of his statement. "So I dabbled here and there until I found something which hopefully made Tain not regret killing me the moment he discovered I had been conceived."

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this. I will resist the temptation to quibble about grammar! LOL.

I am both appreciative of your answering my post with fic and amused by it because I have the same tendency which, occassionally I must keep in check. A dear friend was telling me about her own history of abuse and it would have been rather inappropriate to compare it to the Rictor/Shatterstar fic I had just read. *sigh*

[kuriadalmatia.livejournal.com]

Hey, now! That story was beta'd by four people!!! It is solid!

Heh.

Anyway, I hope the passage wasn't too inappropriate. I too get the pushes that my parents -- specifically my mom -- wanted me to be something more than what I turned out to be. My family didn't have college graduates -- I was the first in my immediate family, followed by my mom then my sister. But then, it seemed, my mom expected me to follow what she had done. Get married, raise a family, pursue the career later.

She commented on that once and I somehow managed to fire back, "You taught me to be independent. I don't need a kid to make my life complete or to prove that I'm a woman."

The greatest disappointment for my dad, I think, is that neither my sister oe me possess his salesmanship abilities. My parents are very outwardly social; my sister and I are reclusively social. It's weird.

Regardless, you do make a big impact on a lot of people, as shown in the responses to your journal entries. You make me think about thinks, put them in perspective, and challenge me to revise my way of thinking.