Letting go

So as some of you may know, my (adoptive) dad and I have some...problems, to say the least. Basically, I'm mad at him for leaving my mom and I. The fact that he's a sociopath who thinks he's always right, never apologizes, and has no moral conscience doesn't really help.

For the past five years, I've been putting up with him, simply because he's my dad. But recently, I've been wondering what would happen if I stopped seeing him. Until this past weekend, I hadn't seen him in a month, and every thing was perfectly fine. I don't remember thinking once, "I miss my dad." Still, I feel some sort of obligation to see him, so I went to his house for five days. Everything was fine, in fact I was almost enjoying myself. Then we had a huge fight, leaving me feeling angrier than I had ever felt before. Then he comes back twenty minutes later, acting as if nothing happened, and asks me if I want to go shopping with him. In my head, I was screaming at him that I didn't want to go anywhere with him, but of course I ended up going anyways. The entire time, he didn't even acknowledge that we'd had a fight or that I was upset. He didn't apologize.

Even when he does apologize, my dad never says "I'm sorry I upset you." or anything like that. Instead he says "I'm sorry you feel upset." which is his way of pretending to apologize without taking any credit for his actions. Needless to say, I came home upset and frustrated. I started texting my friend T (yes M, I'm stealing you're idea of using letter abbreviations for my friends' names) and then I just broke down. I cried and sobbed and let go of all of the built up pressure I'd been holding inside. You see, I have this nasty habit of bottling up my feelings, especially when I feel I need to cry. Mainly because I hate crying in front of others, even my friends, but also because when my parents divorced, I always felt I had to be strong for my mom, since my dad wasn't there any more.

So I cried. I cried about how frustrated I was that I have him as my father. About how tired I was of putting up with him. About how much I wanted to never see him again. About how afraid I was of actually cutting him off. About how annoyed I was for letting it get this bad. I cried about everything that's happened between us in the last five years.

I went downstairs, still crying, and talked to my mom. My mom is a counselor and an overall sympathetic person, so I always love talking to her. My mom gets up to let the dog outside, and my notification sound on my phone goes off. One unread message. It's from T again, and she's telling me that "[I am] better than him in any and every possible way" and that "he does not, in any way, deserve some one as amazing, smart, beautiful and dazzling in everyday person like [me] as a daughter". Then I really lost it. But this time I wasn't crying because I was upset, or frustrated. I was crying because it felt so nice to hear from some one else what I've been thinking all along. Reading that text, I suddenly felt like I could do it. I could cut him out of my life for good. No matter what happens, I can handle it. Because that's all life is, a series of challenges, and once you learn how to get past those challenges, you know how to live life.

Long story short, I've decided I'm not going to see my dad anymore. This next part of my life is going to be difficult for me, and while part of me wishes that I could just have a clean break where my dad realizes that this is my decision and leaves my mom out of it, I know that will never happen.

So I just want to say thank you. Thank you to my 'homegirls' A, G, and K, for always being there for me. Thank you to T, for giving me the extra push I needed to make this decision. Thank you to my dead pancreas buddy M, for listening to me complaining. Thank you to my family, for all your support and love. And thank you to anyone actually reading this long post. I love and appreciate all of you.

Trust

"As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

This quote rings so true to me, I can't even begin to explain it. But I'll try...

For diabetes, you have to be able to trust your instincts when you feel low, high, like you bolused too much, or too little. Sometimes you have to ignore what other people think or say and just follow your gut, and that can be really hard to do. However, you also need to be able to trust others as well. Like when your mom says she thinks your low because your grumpy, and you really want to tell you're not, but you test anyways. Or when you feel low, and your meter says you're 14.1.

I must admit, I sometimes have difficulty trusting. Not all the time, just with certain sensitive issues like my parents' divorce and all the details. So trusting myself is really important in my life. I do have some close friends that I trust with a few things, but honestly, I haven't sat down and told anyone all of my problems, secrets and inner thoughts. I just don't do that. I tell my diabetic friends things about diabetes, I tell my empathetic friends about my parents' divorce, I tell my friends who are good listeners all about my adoption. But I haven't told one person all of these things. Everyone in my life receives snippets of who I truly am, but not the whole picture. Like a jigsaw puzzle with a few pieces missing.

Returning to reality, all this to say, I trust myself more than anyone else. I am the only one who knows everything to know about me, and that's ok. Maybe one day I'll come across someone who I trust more than myself, but I'll deal with that when it happens.

Not a bad first post, if I do say so myself.

Here's another quote to finish it off.

"The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them." - Ernest Hemingway