To My Dad’s Facebook Friends
I had a funny dream last night where I was at a party with all my dad's friends that I'm currently in weird gray areas with. I was busy trying to make all the appetizers, but I was just screwing them all up. No one liked what I had made. Everyone was judging me, so I instead decided to dive into a pool and eat Nutella out of a jar.
Right now, I'm going to dive into a pool and eat Nutella out of a jar. I've gotten a lot of "we're not taking sides" from people in my dad's circle. People I was formerly close with, haven't seen me in months. I've also gotten a lot of "He'll come around." I get it. People don't like conflict, but I want to let everyone know, he hasn't come around and I'm left sitting here, without a father and that feels brutally unfair. Especially when compounded with the fact that a lot his friends have completely disconnected with me as a result of this. On Father's Day, I actually called to get in touch with him and left a voicemail. He called back the next day to let me know that, somehow, he'd seen or heard of my Facebook posts when I spoke about how I'd been treated and why I was hurt- that this was an example of my betrayal. The conversation was not constructive at all and, no matter how hard I tried to explain my point of view, he would not listen. Every instance of emotional terrorism was to totally disregarded as an example of my selfishness.
Here's what I will say- if you're a friend of my dad's and "don't take sides," that sounds a lot to me like you're taking sides. If you think "he's going to come around" maybe you're right, but it's going to take a lot of work on his end for that to happen. Not to mention, you're passively accepting that it's okay for an adult man to abandon his daughter by completely cutting off a relationship due to pride, narcissism, and "being right." You are responding in ignorance to the wrenching pain I've suffered through as a result. You have no idea how much information I'm holding back merely out of some combination of love for my dad and shame that I allowed myself to be treated in such a way for so many years.
With regard to posting up the intimacies of our rift on Facebook, I'll cite writer Anne Lamott to help explain my perspective on being forthright with one's own experiences. She writes,
“You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”
I am no longer going to be complicit in keeping my dad's secrets. I will not pretend like we're okay- that he'll come around. That is something I don't feel I owe him any longer and will not participate in. I did it for many years at the expense of my mental health. I did it for his friends. I did it to save myself from the very difficult realization that we couldn't have a healthy relationship. Speaking about this event does not make me a bad person, a bad daughter, or a cruel human being. If my actions makes you uncomfortable, please unfriend me now. If you are sending messages to him that are anything other than, "Your daughter loves you and is very hurt," you are being destructive.
All I have ever wanted in my life is to have a healthy, supportive, and loving relationship with my dad. That is the truth of the matter. I hope one day that can still happen, but, as it stands, he's not interested because that would mean he would have to come to terms with a reality that isn't one he's constructed for himself- and that is the scariest thing to him in the entire world.
