I am happy to see that we have a featured question that can
answer with some substance, no more shit questions about zombies and
cigarettes. I am absolutely a better
parent that my parents, which is not an easy thing to do since my parents were
about as fucked as possible. I hope
that you all feel privileged reading this because this is story that I have
never told anyone, not even my wife, whom I swear I tell everything. I think one of the reasons that being
married is often a struggle, is because I feel like I am living a lie and
sometimes the pain of keeping that secret to myself hurts so much that I
completely shut down. I have been
accused of not wanting to be married and of even cheating on my wife, but the
truth is, some times I need to be alone.
Now that you have a little bit of information on why the
history of Dante that I am about to share with you still causes me problems
today, more then 20 years later.
I was raised in an abuse home, not I had shitty childhood,
or I did not get all the stuff that I wanted, I was raised in a nasty abusive
fucking home, thanks to my scumbag father.
He was diagnosed with agoraphobia in 1960 and chose to marry and raise a
family anyway, not something that I would have done, especially knowing now how
it has affected everyone.
The house
that I grew up in Brooklyn was a chamber of horrors of mental and physical
abuse.
My douche bag father would treat
is agoraphobia with alcohol, because he had too much “pride” to seek real help,
so he would get nasty drunk and beat and torment my mother and brother, me
being the baby was often sparred but was always witness to the scene.
I have never told anyone the truth because it is
embarrassing to me. I know that it is
not my fault, but it has always made me feel better to keep it a secret. My theory is that if people know that you
come form a shit family, they will judge you on it. It does not matter how much you achieve in life, nor does it
matter that you are a decent person who has separated themselves from their
ugly beginnings, you will be treated in one of two ways, as a victim in need of
sympathy, or as a rotten apple form a rotten tree. So my choice to keep my secret has served me well, everyone that
I associate with thinks that I am from good Italian family, that made buckets
of money in the plumbing business, and was spoiled rotten.
It is funny to be that people think that I was spoiled
because I had a lot of stuff; it is true that I had more toys as a kid than
most people I know. That was because my
cocksucking father would buy us anything we want because of the guilt he felt
for not being able to take us anywhere.
Then 3:00 pm would roll around and the drinks would flow and the
nastiness would start, and the violence would usually kick in by 7:30 or 8:00
pm. In my office, I have these huge
storage tubs of Legos that I had when I was a kid, they were my most favorite
toys. She was telling me that I should
donate them to needy children or at the very least put them in the basement and
make space in the closet in my office.
I just ‘yessed’ her to death and they are still sitting in the closet. Sometimes I take them out to play with them,
I just recently turned 35 and I can still hear the yelling and hitting like it
happened an hour ago as I am snapping the Legos together and then taking them
apart. I think the reason they are so
important to me is because they help me to remember those times, since I have
made a art form out of recreating the past when ever I discuss a day of my life
prior to 1988.
How does all of this effect now? I hate everything about my past, and lie about it so often,
sometimes I do not know who I am. I am
distrustful of everyone and everything, I hurt people who try to be close to
me, and then manufacture stories about them that make them appear dishonest or
mean people, so that I do not feel bad about myself. Not a day goes by that I do not think I may end up like my prick
father. I have always promised myself
that if it did happen, I would kill myself before I would hurt the ones around
me. My mother is a fucking nervous wreck form all the years of abuse, and I
just makes jokes about her and say things like she is in early senility, when
the truth is all the years of mental and physical abuse has totally destroyed
her existence and she has no fucking idea who she is. My brother is junky and a loser who is looks gets himself in to
one bad situation after another. We
will never have a relationship like brothers should for several reasons, one is
that we live our lives in complete different ways and I do not want my family
exposed to his lifestyle or drugs and booze and a bad attitude, second is that
he lives with who is and I deny our past and for that we will always
disagree. I have not spoken to him in
several months, and as much as I love and miss my brother a relationship is out
of the question. Being close to him
forces me to live with the truth of my childhood. The worst thing that I have done is that I have basically severed
all ties with anyone that knows that real truth of my childhood, that way I do
not have to hear that comments that bring me back to place I rarely want to
visit. There are many people in my
family that I was close with that I have chosen to break ties with in order to
protect the lies that I think make me a better person. I guess someday I am going to have to
apologize to those people and hope that they understand why I did it.
So, Why do I think I am a better parent than my
parents? Well it is because my parents
are alive and I still have a relationship with them, and no matter how many
hard feelings and bad memories I have and no matter how much I blame them, I
maintain this relation so that my daughter will be raised with all the love
that a full set of four grandparents has to offer. My parents were terrible parents when I was kid, my father was
abusive and mean, and my mother would sacrifice her children to protect herself
and please my father every time. But,
they are excellent grandparents and treat my daughter wonderful. Sometimes it makes me think that reason they
are different to her than they were with me is because I was a bad kid and
unlovable, maybe they would have been better parents if they had different
children. And sometimes, I think it is
the guilt that they feel for the things they have done that make do so much and
give so much love to my daughter, either way, I am glad she gets the benefit of
a loving relationship with them, that my brother and I were never able to
have. Sometimes, I think it would be
best to take my daughter away from them, because I do not think that they
deserve the unconditional love that a child is capable of giving, but then I
realize that she would also be losing out.
I would never deny my daughter the comfort of having loving grandparents
because of the shitty childhood that I had.
Perhaps a good set of grandparents in my own life would have been able
to save me form the shit that I had to deal with.
I used to fantasize that when my father died that I would
have his body buried minutes after he kicked, and enjoy the fact that he was
buried with not funeral services and no respect and that his body would rot in
the dark cold ground, and that he would have to spend all eternity trapped in
that box in fear. I always thought that
would be the ultimate revenge, but now that I have a child, I know that it is
unrealistic, I need to give him the proper burial, that he does not deserve to
protect his reputation for my little girls benefit. Denying them respect when they die would be admitting to my
daughter that she comes form a crap family and then she would have to live that
burden, and be judged on it. I would
swallow all of the shit and carry it with me till the day I die, if that
protects my daughter form having to carry the load.
That is why I know that I am a better parent than my
parents, not think, KNOW….
..:: dante
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