A Letter: Part One

Jun 25, 2013 11:04

L.,

You have been dead for 13 years, but in my mind, you are still very much alive. No, I don't think of you, much less remember the "good" times I've had with you. They are only "good under pretense; They are "good" to make up for the nightmare of being your stepdaughter. I cannot remember a single time, as a child, until the last time I saw you in the hospital, when "good" didn't come with a price. Everything I ever got from you was for my silence and a way for you to ease your guilt. Did you ever really love me, as a child, as a daughter that you chose to rear as your own? Did you ever love me as a person, as I am? Those questions haunted me for so many years. I am now 36 years old and the answers to those questions has ceased to matter long ago. You are dead. Yet you are still very much alive. Why is this so?

You are alive, dwelling in every man I meet, in their touches, in their eyes. You are alive with every plate of food set before me. You are alive in every daddies I see playing and shopping with their little girls. You are alive with every shout, every scream, every belittling remarks and every belt I see. You are alive in every hot tub I pass and try to avoid, even if it's only mentioned in conversation. You are alive in every clown I see, and I shudder every time one is spoken of. You are in my head, in the way I think, in the panic I feel, in the tears I cry and the angry words I scream. There simply is no escaping you, despite the years you've been long dead and buried. And I hate you for it. I hate that you have warped me so much that, even dead, you dictate my every choice, my every thoughts and reactions, my every fears and happiness.

I don't know what normal is. People tell me I'm odd, strange or weird. I feel normal, contrary to the popular consensus. So, what is "normal," then? I find it strange that others don't think the way I do, react how I would react or fear the things that makes me shake and sweat. I find it odd that people aren't worried about men being alone with their little girls. I can't understand why people don't feel as if their heart might explode when they are screamed at or threatened. I can't understand their interest, fascination or obsession with certain things, places, people or events, when I find it detestable, deplorable and horrifying. I can't even conceive of people's reaction of shock, disgust and uneasiness when they see or hear of gore, "bad" sex, rape, murder, decapitation or horror when I feel nothing. I shrug it off, my stomach does not recoil. But I am not normal, they say. Eccentric, weird, strange, different, crazy and mad, these are the words I hear about myself every day of my life, for as long as I can remember. You have permeated me so that I lack the understanding of normality. I cannot even conceive of what is normal and what is not, even though it's been explained to me so many times. One truly cannot understand something they never had.

People tell me I'm smart, I'm brilliant, I'm special. I try to explain that it only appears that way. I am not any smarter or more brilliant than the next person. There is nothing special or extraordinary about me. I am simply me, the person you shaped me into being. I'm just an empty shell, a wad of cotton that learned to absorb everything it ever read, learned and saw, and manifested itself to accompany the "knowledge" it acquired. I spit out random and useless facts, I am nothing but a media of learned experiences, of all the books I lost myself into in order to escape the reality of my shattered mind. I am but a parrot of words, of actions and of consequences. I don't know what makes me be, just that I am and that I exist. I don't know who I am, only what you taught me to be and what others tell me I am. I play the role because I literally have no clue how else to do it I don't even know if there is anything else but this clay, this shell, modeled so long ago to be the subject of your every whim, experiment, anger and the endless little "games" you so enjoyed. And I hate you for it. I hate that I don't know who I really am, hate that I am forced to wear a mask, hate that I can't feel, or be, normal.

It has taken me a good hour just to write as much as I have, which isn't even very much and barely skims the surface of the iceberg, but I'm tired of thinking, of remembering, of hating. I shall leave this for another day, but in all the times I don't write, you will continue to linger in everything I do and every one I speak to.... I am what I am because of you, and I hate you.

-C.

writing, stepfather, letter

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