why i hate october
10.11.04 (3:08 pm) [edit]
i started off the morning by thinking of my dad. it's exactly a week until the anniversary of his suicide. for some reason, i was reminded of an incident that took place when i was around six. i'm thinking six because i started school when i was seven and i know it happened before i was in school.
i was quite precocious, i guess. before he died, my father told me that he was so amazed that, even when i was two or three, i would answer questions like an adult. i suspect a lot of that was related to survival instinct. my parents used to get these workbooks that purported to teach various subjects. i had already completed all of the first grade work and had progressed to the second or third grade. unfortunately, i had reached my limit. maybe under different circumstances i could have been successful at higher grade levels, but i don't think so.
my memories of childhood tend to focus on one aspect of an event; this is a ptsd symptom. my recollection was of sitting at the dining room table with one of those workbooks (math, i think) and being completely unable to complete the work. that made my dad very angry with me. i just remember that he yelled and hit me, left the room while i attempted to complete the work. as i said before, i was unable to complete it, so he kept coming in and hitting me and yelling at me. i can't say how long all of that went on, but in my child's sense of time, it went on for a very long time.
it's incidents like these that make the anniversary of his death so difficult. despte his paranoia and sadism, he was the only father i will ever have and i did love him. i get bombarded by all of these bad memories, followed by memories of how i felt i failed him as a daughter. i wish i could have saved him from himself, but if i had been there at the time, i fear there would have been two others dead--my mother and me.
the idea that i could save my father from his mental illness is absurd, but he was kind enough to instill in me a sense of responsibility for him. i was also responsible for my mother, too, and just as unable to really help her. days like today are filled with self-recrimination.
i'm very sad today. i still have a week to get through. it's going to be a long week.
i was quite precocious, i guess. before he died, my father told me that he was so amazed that, even when i was two or three, i would answer questions like an adult. i suspect a lot of that was related to survival instinct. my parents used to get these workbooks that purported to teach various subjects. i had already completed all of the first grade work and had progressed to the second or third grade. unfortunately, i had reached my limit. maybe under different circumstances i could have been successful at higher grade levels, but i don't think so.
my memories of childhood tend to focus on one aspect of an event; this is a ptsd symptom. my recollection was of sitting at the dining room table with one of those workbooks (math, i think) and being completely unable to complete the work. that made my dad very angry with me. i just remember that he yelled and hit me, left the room while i attempted to complete the work. as i said before, i was unable to complete it, so he kept coming in and hitting me and yelling at me. i can't say how long all of that went on, but in my child's sense of time, it went on for a very long time.
it's incidents like these that make the anniversary of his death so difficult. despte his paranoia and sadism, he was the only father i will ever have and i did love him. i get bombarded by all of these bad memories, followed by memories of how i felt i failed him as a daughter. i wish i could have saved him from himself, but if i had been there at the time, i fear there would have been two others dead--my mother and me.
the idea that i could save my father from his mental illness is absurd, but he was kind enough to instill in me a sense of responsibility for him. i was also responsible for my mother, too, and just as unable to really help her. days like today are filled with self-recrimination.
i'm very sad today. i still have a week to get through. it's going to be a long week.
