It’s amazing how many changes happen between the start of puberty and adulthood. You start off hating everybody. And then you are forced into situations where you have to find a way to get along with all of the people you hate. So by the time you leave high school, you’ve been conditioned to get along with every kind of person from every kind of background.
At least that’s how it was for me., and my dad played a big part in my realization that there is no point to hate. At least when talking in terms of people and living things.
My dad has a a lot of prejudices, drilled into him by an ugly childhood, which he uses as the excuse for all the stupid things that he does.
He’s a stage-four alcoholic, smoker, and a SecondLife addict.
I can’t exactly say that trust his opinions anymore. He and I live in totally different worlds now, and day-by-day, it’s becoming harder and harder to relate to him. However, when I was a teenager, I didn’t know any better. I look back at those days now, and I regret it whole-heartedly.
Because I listened to my dad and tried to adopt his beliefs, I developed prejudices against the Christian faith, conservative politicians, people struggling with obesity (including my own mom), and people with mental disabilities.
As bate, he bragged that he has read thousands of books in his life (which he has). I assumed that having read so many books, he knew almost everything. A very juvenile and biased perception, I agree, but who the hell knows this stuff when you’re stuck between carefree childhood and hard, adult reality of the world?
When I was older (about seventeen), I finally understood that he was only reading books that already complimented his bigoted views. He was just adding wood to the fire, slowly letting the tongues of fiery hate eat him from the inside out.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t until we caught him drinking again that his image started to deteriorate before my eyes.
It was the start of my senior year in high school, and he had been sober for eight years, and all of the sudden, he decided that he didn’t care anymore. My brother and I were both grown up, and we could take care of ourselves, so he didn’t have to be our dad anymore. He didn’t care about my mom or her emotional state after years of verbal abuse. To him, she was just a fat, ugly bitch who wouldn’t leave him alone to live in his bullshit fantasy land on the other side of a computer screen.
But this is pretty harsh, coming from me. I’m in school to become a counselor, and I know that there are layers and layers and layers more than what I perceive on the surface. At the same time, it angers me that one would be so stubbornly stuck on habits that put others’ physical and emotional well-being at risk.
His antics have forced us to pick up and leave, because he absolutely refuses to get help. We’ve tried intervention after intervention, and he keeps up his excuse that he’s too old (he’s only 53) to go through rehab again.
On August 25th, we’re moving to Sumner to start over. He doesn’t know yet. I hope he understands that in order to live a happy, healthy lifestyle, I can no longer live in the same place as him. Neither can my mom and my brother. They deserve so much better than this.
I made a promise to myself, a long time ago, that I would never drink, smoke, or do drugs. I never have, and I will continue to live clean, no matter what kind of pressures are put on me. There are much better, healthier ways to deal with your problems. Ones that don’t hurt you or those you love.
