Victory over the Father!
It took 21 years, but I finally achieved my first victory over my father. He actively, clearly and knowingly conceded his power to me. I haven't spoken with him in five and a half months, and he finally awknowledged that.
Quote from his most recent e-mail. The first three sentences read:
"Subj: Hello.
Chris,
It is very sad for me that I have upset you so much that you don't even want to talk with me any more." <--- Translation: I am a fuckhead and I hate myself.
"That's not to say that I don't understand why." <---- Translation: I hate myself
"I can certainly see how you would be very angry and disappointed in me for my decisions." <---- Translation: I'm a fuckhead, and I hate myself, so I can understand why you hate me.
So that's the best part of the e-mail. After that it starts to get into the game-y manuver-y crap where he tries to pull on my old script strings to make me feel sorry for him and contact him. When I do, he can tell himself that he is OK and disregard everything I've done for the past six months. Then he gets to call me a fuckhead for not talking to him and he gets to hate me and go back to his previous "My worthless son" position. Right now, he is in the position of "Oh God, I'm a bad father!" and his internal rule-person is clubbing him over the head and making him hate himself. So here's the game-y stuff.
"I hope that maybe someday you can understand why I felt I needed to do what I did (and perhaps you even understand today, you just disagree with it)." <---- Translation: "I felt" means he's not trying to claim that it's a universal truth that this is what he needed to do, which he usually would have. Just for the record, he's talking about the fact that my entire life, he promised to pay for my college education. When I hit college, he said "Oh right, I was just kidding about that." He then proceeded to give me my own stocks that were set aside for my college education when he divorced my mother, and he bitched about it every time. He would claim that I was sucking him dry of all of his money, when it wasn't his money to begin with. Then he began to try to turn the rest of my family against me, calling me the bad money-sucking son. Specifically my grandparents and my little sister. He gave me less and less and bitched about it more and more as the years went on. I later found out that he had purchased a new jeep for his girlfriend, a new car for himself, he had been going on bi-weekly cruises and trips to New York to see Browadway shows and that after he got married he bought a new horse ranch and at least one horse to go with it. Shortly theirafter, I asked him for $200 per month to cover the distance between what I was making and what it cost me to live. I was making $400 per month and using $600 per month. I needed the money for food. I was working 75-85 hours per week including school and there was absolutely no way to bring in more money. Not only did he refuse, but he sent me a scathingly hateful e-mail about how selfish I was and how I clearly didn't care about anyone but myself. He then sent the same e-mail to the rest of my family, telling them what a worthless shit I was. He makes $130,000 per year. I asked my mom and grandparents for the $200 per month and they gave it to me. My mom makes $30,000 and has a mortgage she got stuck with after the divorce. My grandparents live on social security. They could spare it, but evidently my Dad's trips to New York took precidence over my ability to eat food at night. There were several months where I was eating five to six meals per week, and the meals consisted of cereal and milk, because I could afford nothing else. So to be honest, my Dad deserves a little self-hate right now.
Here's some more of the manuvering.
"I do want to make sure that you know that I Love You very much. I am very proud of you in many ways. I am very proud of how you have stuck with college (in spite of challenges) " <---- I really love that line. My biggest challenges in college were when this asshole wouldn't give me any money. My biggest challenge was going to a 75 hour workday without eating. My biggest challenge was to avoid becoming a drug dealer because I had no time to make money in any other way and I was literally starving.
"and you are pursuing your career goals intelligently and actively. I am very proud of the compassionate instincts you continue to show for those in need. I know that you are one of the most intelligent people I know and that you can find success in many different ways, and I am sure that you will." <---- Translation: I know where you are weak, and I'm going to try to force you to contact me. I feel myself having two major reactions when I read this. One is that my mind clouds out in this pink haze and I get this feeling of bile rising in my stomach, then I think "Aww, poor Dad really misses me, I should call him" and then I feel this massive, massive disgust for this obviously false, disgusting attempt to manipulate me and I remember that his only goal is to make sure that HE doesn't have to feel the discomfort of self-hate that comes from me telling him that he is a bad father.
"I do hope that someday (hopefully before too long) that we can begin speaking again. You are and will always be one of the most important parts of my life. I Love You." <-- And there is where he makes his move "Now that I've clouded your mind with that pink haze, I'll throw in my command. You WILL call me!"
So that's it for the e-mail. Now for the analysis. He is breaking. My father has an iron armor-shield a hundred miles thick. Nothing, absolutely nothing can break his armor. He is very proud of that. He believes there is nothing on this earth that could lure him into consciousness. Even my roommate, as powerful as he is, would not be able to have a particularly useful effect if he met my father. He would get under his skin, activate the logic of levels and my father would experience increasing pressure for years, but he would likely supress it and not take any real conscious action. However, because I am his son, I am under his armor. I live inside of it. If I become a source of stress for him, he has to notice. It's like a burning hot coal in his shoe that he can't remove. He will try, but I am stuck here. The pressure will grow and grow and grow until he cracks all the way through that 100-mile-thick armor. Then suddenly he has to see the world as it really is. He will be forced into consciousness whether he likes it or not. This e-mail was an attempt by him to control me, but as it turns out, I am the one with the power and the first three sentences admitted that. When I fail to respond to this one, and he really realizes he has no power, he will panic. He will experience a hundred times the pressure he has been under. He didn't do it on purpose, but he just threw himself into the rabbit hole, in his last ditch attempt to climb out. One arguable downside, is that this will likely ruin his career, and his marriage. The upside, is that once he is at the absolute bottom, he can start to come back as a human. At that point, in five or ten years, I can stop acting as a burning coal and start acting as a guide. That will be pretty weird, to be my father's guide, but it is inevitable, assuming he doesn't kill himself- which is possible as well, though unlikely, since my family has a history of talk without action.
And that's it for now.
Quote from his most recent e-mail. The first three sentences read:
"Subj: Hello.
Chris,
It is very sad for me that I have upset you so much that you don't even want to talk with me any more." <--- Translation: I am a fuckhead and I hate myself.
"That's not to say that I don't understand why." <---- Translation: I hate myself
"I can certainly see how you would be very angry and disappointed in me for my decisions." <---- Translation: I'm a fuckhead, and I hate myself, so I can understand why you hate me.
So that's the best part of the e-mail. After that it starts to get into the game-y manuver-y crap where he tries to pull on my old script strings to make me feel sorry for him and contact him. When I do, he can tell himself that he is OK and disregard everything I've done for the past six months. Then he gets to call me a fuckhead for not talking to him and he gets to hate me and go back to his previous "My worthless son" position. Right now, he is in the position of "Oh God, I'm a bad father!" and his internal rule-person is clubbing him over the head and making him hate himself. So here's the game-y stuff.
"I hope that maybe someday you can understand why I felt I needed to do what I did (and perhaps you even understand today, you just disagree with it)." <---- Translation: "I felt" means he's not trying to claim that it's a universal truth that this is what he needed to do, which he usually would have. Just for the record, he's talking about the fact that my entire life, he promised to pay for my college education. When I hit college, he said "Oh right, I was just kidding about that." He then proceeded to give me my own stocks that were set aside for my college education when he divorced my mother, and he bitched about it every time. He would claim that I was sucking him dry of all of his money, when it wasn't his money to begin with. Then he began to try to turn the rest of my family against me, calling me the bad money-sucking son. Specifically my grandparents and my little sister. He gave me less and less and bitched about it more and more as the years went on. I later found out that he had purchased a new jeep for his girlfriend, a new car for himself, he had been going on bi-weekly cruises and trips to New York to see Browadway shows and that after he got married he bought a new horse ranch and at least one horse to go with it. Shortly theirafter, I asked him for $200 per month to cover the distance between what I was making and what it cost me to live. I was making $400 per month and using $600 per month. I needed the money for food. I was working 75-85 hours per week including school and there was absolutely no way to bring in more money. Not only did he refuse, but he sent me a scathingly hateful e-mail about how selfish I was and how I clearly didn't care about anyone but myself. He then sent the same e-mail to the rest of my family, telling them what a worthless shit I was. He makes $130,000 per year. I asked my mom and grandparents for the $200 per month and they gave it to me. My mom makes $30,000 and has a mortgage she got stuck with after the divorce. My grandparents live on social security. They could spare it, but evidently my Dad's trips to New York took precidence over my ability to eat food at night. There were several months where I was eating five to six meals per week, and the meals consisted of cereal and milk, because I could afford nothing else. So to be honest, my Dad deserves a little self-hate right now.
Here's some more of the manuvering.
"I do want to make sure that you know that I Love You very much. I am very proud of you in many ways. I am very proud of how you have stuck with college (in spite of challenges) " <---- I really love that line. My biggest challenges in college were when this asshole wouldn't give me any money. My biggest challenge was going to a 75 hour workday without eating. My biggest challenge was to avoid becoming a drug dealer because I had no time to make money in any other way and I was literally starving.
"and you are pursuing your career goals intelligently and actively. I am very proud of the compassionate instincts you continue to show for those in need. I know that you are one of the most intelligent people I know and that you can find success in many different ways, and I am sure that you will." <---- Translation: I know where you are weak, and I'm going to try to force you to contact me. I feel myself having two major reactions when I read this. One is that my mind clouds out in this pink haze and I get this feeling of bile rising in my stomach, then I think "Aww, poor Dad really misses me, I should call him" and then I feel this massive, massive disgust for this obviously false, disgusting attempt to manipulate me and I remember that his only goal is to make sure that HE doesn't have to feel the discomfort of self-hate that comes from me telling him that he is a bad father.
"I do hope that someday (hopefully before too long) that we can begin speaking again. You are and will always be one of the most important parts of my life. I Love You." <-- And there is where he makes his move "Now that I've clouded your mind with that pink haze, I'll throw in my command. You WILL call me!"
So that's it for the e-mail. Now for the analysis. He is breaking. My father has an iron armor-shield a hundred miles thick. Nothing, absolutely nothing can break his armor. He is very proud of that. He believes there is nothing on this earth that could lure him into consciousness. Even my roommate, as powerful as he is, would not be able to have a particularly useful effect if he met my father. He would get under his skin, activate the logic of levels and my father would experience increasing pressure for years, but he would likely supress it and not take any real conscious action. However, because I am his son, I am under his armor. I live inside of it. If I become a source of stress for him, he has to notice. It's like a burning hot coal in his shoe that he can't remove. He will try, but I am stuck here. The pressure will grow and grow and grow until he cracks all the way through that 100-mile-thick armor. Then suddenly he has to see the world as it really is. He will be forced into consciousness whether he likes it or not. This e-mail was an attempt by him to control me, but as it turns out, I am the one with the power and the first three sentences admitted that. When I fail to respond to this one, and he really realizes he has no power, he will panic. He will experience a hundred times the pressure he has been under. He didn't do it on purpose, but he just threw himself into the rabbit hole, in his last ditch attempt to climb out. One arguable downside, is that this will likely ruin his career, and his marriage. The upside, is that once he is at the absolute bottom, he can start to come back as a human. At that point, in five or ten years, I can stop acting as a burning coal and start acting as a guide. That will be pretty weird, to be my father's guide, but it is inevitable, assuming he doesn't kill himself- which is possible as well, though unlikely, since my family has a history of talk without action.
And that's it for now.