My father didn't protect me

I was a daddy's girl.

When I got to see his heart, it matched mine. He spent some time with us, planned birthday parties, showed up during my first breakup and challenged me intellectually.

He was also angry, authoritative, old-school disciplinary, self-righteous, a bully and had a messed-up belief that we existed to serve him.

He thought he'd earned my respect. It was fear.

My dad valued appearances and reputation. In public, he was playful, funny, outgoing, and laid-back, but behind closed doors he was the opposite.

When I was disciplined, it was his way or the highway. If we "talked back", cried, got angry, or responded in any way that wasn't silent or submissive, his anger and discipline amplified. If my mom interfered, his anger turned towards her.

We all learned to walk on eggshells, anticipated his moods, stay silent, be agreeable, and that expressing ourselves was unsafe.

My father's default emotion was always anger, or he sat in silence. Somehow, his silence was scarier because we'd wait for the blow-up.

I don't know much about his emotional world because there was no space for emotions.

Whether he was suppressing, masking, avoiding them or sweeping them under the rug.

Just like my mother, the only time I saw him cry was when I showed love, expressed gratitude or praised him.

When he wasn't praising my accomplishments, he was bullying me. He would embarrass me in public, comment on my body, and judge my choices

In his relationship with my mother, he exerted power and control and didn't respect her boundaries. I remember when he tried to kiss her passionately in front of me, and when she pulled away, he held her face so she couldn't move and forced a kiss on her.

It didn't matter how people felt as long as he got what he wanted. Pleasing him seemed to be expected. I was regularly forced to apply back pain gel on his back even though I was uncomfortable doing it.

At 18, he tried to stop me from going to my boyfriend's house. He ordered me not to go. Said, "I swear to God" or something similar. I looked him straight in the eyes and asked, "What? Are you going to hit me again?" He groaned in anger and left the house.

This was the first time that I stood up to him.

In adulthood, we barely had a relationship. He visited mostly for my girls or a spontaneous need without asking or notice.

I've had moments where I tried to express my feelings about my struggles or the abuse I had faced in relationships. He always changed the subject back to himself.

I would ask for help with things I couldn't do myself, but he was too busy, didn't want to, or he'd say, "Why don't you ask one of your boyfriends to help you?"

At the beginning of my healing journey, I wrote him a letter as an attempt to express the pain he had caused and how we could heal.

I was told he never read it.

My relationship with my father was hard to walk away from, but the more I saw his truths, the harder it was to unsee them.

The day I decided I was done trying was when he got upset about my not being able to attend his 60th birthday get-together.

He had planned a party at his new house, with his new girlfriend and friends. He wanted them to meet my brother and me.

I didn't have a car, so I reached out to my brother. He said he didn't want to go because all my dad wanted was to show us off to his people and brag about being a good dad. It wouldn't have been true.

He was angry with us for missing his birthday, said some harsh things, and didn't reach out for a year.

The next time I heard from him was when my mom was dying. In his voicemail, he asked me to call or text back, so I texted. He asked what he had done wrong for me not to want to talk to him. I was petty and said that I would write him a letter, but he'd never read it. He argued with me, and I said that I wouldn't have this conversation. He reminded me of "all the things he had done for me." All the money he had spent on me and the girls (birthdays and Christmases).

I replied that his response was narcissistic. He said, "Oh, I see you're describing yourself."

It hurt to be continuously abandoned, blamed, abused, and emotionally neglected by my father.

I haven't spoken to my dad since that day.

I am finally free.

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