this is the way the world ends
Jun. 2nd, 2009 10:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
be_themoonI'm gonna cut most of this, because it's all sorts of personal crap and I don't wanna spam my f-list with it, as I have a feeling this could get long. I just really need to talk about this, because I'm tired of just carrying it in my head and the only people I can talk about it to are Mary and Esther.
I don't tend to talk about my dad much or when I do I talk in generalities and vagueness, because he and I have had some huge problems with personalities that are very similar and therefore clash a lot but also attract each other. He's a Christian - a rather militant one. He calls Bible Studies that consist of him telling us of his 'new revelations' that sound extremely similar to his last ones for at least an hour, often more. When the rest of us see movies he calls family meetings and has us explain the movie and then tells us precisely how everything in it is a sin against God and how we should pray for forgiveness for watching it. For instance - Night at the Museum 2, which we just went to see yesterday. He told us how Larry talking to the exhibits that had been brought to life was necromancy and evil, and how the entire movie was just to make us think idolatry was okay, and then went on a rant against modern culture, including Harry Potter and Dungeons & Dragons. Apparently just the title of the movie is a sin because it doesn't have God or Jesus in it. There's a reason I'm not going to be submitting any of my writing 'till I'm out of the house. I write fantasy, and I never let him read it, and if he found the answer letters he'd start asking questions that could only end with tears and rage.
My mom thinks it's possible he has some sort of psychiatric condition, possibly a manic-depressive one. I've had depression for the past year. I've been pretty open about this with the people important to me, because I don't want to worry them when I'm feeling sad and upset for no reason whatsoever and I wanted them to understand that it's not their fault, it's just something I struggle with and it'll pass. At the same time, I've been struggling with it and trying to keep it in rein, to just go somewhere by myself and do school quietly when I realize I'm having one of my 'episodes.' I've been trying very hard to minimize the impact of my depression on my family, because they've got enough on their hands already. As you can probably imagine, it frustrates me to no end that I, a 16-year-old who's only been dealing with this for a year, have more control over my psychological problems than my dad does, who's 50-something and should have realized and taken steps years ago.
My dad yells a lot, too. It's just something he does. And you can never tell what's going to set him off, or when he's going to get angry. He'll be all happy and nice and everything will be fine, and then he'll just start yelling at you. When he's talking about God he's all fake-jovial, like this is going to make everything better, but if you dare to ask questions or say something that sounds like correction or that you're questioning his complete authority, he gets angry immediately, and then goes back to all jovial and 'thank the Lord, thank the Lord.' And what really scares me is that I know that there were good times, that we've had fun together and been awesome together, but I can't really remember what it was anymore. I can only remember him being angry. The strongest memory I have of my childhood is of him yelling at me for something I didn't know not to do, something I thought he'd be happy with me doing. He'd gone to get a sponge to clear off his tray, and so I swept off the crumbs with my hand onto the carpet. I was maybe eight years old, and I was so proud of myself, and he came back and yelled at me and told me to go to my room and reflect on my failures. And I cried and begged for Mom and he said no, I'd disobeyed, I couldn't have her. But the thing was, I hadn't disobeyed, I hadn't known I wasn't supposed to do that. It's a very vivid memory, still strong enough after at least eight years to make me angry and frustrated and feeling like crying.
He has done his damn well best to tear my family apart. He's kicked Mary out of the house once, Matt twice, he's so angry with Esther over her whole church thing that I'm fairly certain he'll kick her out sometime soon. At one point it got so bad that we all left and went to a friend's house for around four days. I didn't want to come back, but Mom thought it was her duty to stick by him. I love my Mom. She's pretty much amazing. She's dealt with him being like this for at least ten years, she's raised six kids who so far are all smart people who somehow managed to have a sense of family despite Papa, she's more or less supported the family since Papa injured his back working as a postman, and at the same time she's cooked dinner, washed dishes, cleaned house, homeschooled us all, organized our homeschool group, knitted us sweaters, gone to our baseball and softball and soccer games, been willing to ferry us to choir and practice and get-togethers. She's always stressed, and she tries so hard not to take it out on us, and then I get angry when she does and it's not fair of me. I love her to pieces, and I don't tell her enough, and I am so proud of her and so impressed by her because I don't think I could do what she's done and I don't know of many people I think could. She's tough on us, and she expects a lot of us, and it's made us better people, but at the same time she's always been supportive of what we want to do. I mean, NaNoWriMo, which to her sounds like some sort of hare-brain idea, but she's supported me and shown interest even at eleven at night when she just wants me to go to bed so she can finish her grading and get some sleep before she has to get up at 6:30 the next morning to teach her class, two mornings a week.
And in this gigantic mess, there's Kat and Sam. They're only 11 and 14, they're so young, and I've been trying to protect them since I first understood how upset Papa could make me. I've always been a protective person, probably because of all of this. And he yells at Sam over stupid things, baseball things that aren't Sam's fault, or at Kat over other stupid things, and Katherine goes all quiet and goes away to be by herself, and Sam goes to cry in his room, and I can't stop it. And that's the thing that probably hurts the most.
And there stands the situation as it is. Sorry, that was insanely long, but I needed to get it out and to talk about it. I'm so tired of holding it all in.
Also, vaguely appropriate icon is vaguely appropriate. :P
I don't tend to talk about my dad much or when I do I talk in generalities and vagueness, because he and I have had some huge problems with personalities that are very similar and therefore clash a lot but also attract each other. He's a Christian - a rather militant one. He calls Bible Studies that consist of him telling us of his 'new revelations' that sound extremely similar to his last ones for at least an hour, often more. When the rest of us see movies he calls family meetings and has us explain the movie and then tells us precisely how everything in it is a sin against God and how we should pray for forgiveness for watching it. For instance - Night at the Museum 2, which we just went to see yesterday. He told us how Larry talking to the exhibits that had been brought to life was necromancy and evil, and how the entire movie was just to make us think idolatry was okay, and then went on a rant against modern culture, including Harry Potter and Dungeons & Dragons. Apparently just the title of the movie is a sin because it doesn't have God or Jesus in it. There's a reason I'm not going to be submitting any of my writing 'till I'm out of the house. I write fantasy, and I never let him read it, and if he found the answer letters he'd start asking questions that could only end with tears and rage.
My mom thinks it's possible he has some sort of psychiatric condition, possibly a manic-depressive one. I've had depression for the past year. I've been pretty open about this with the people important to me, because I don't want to worry them when I'm feeling sad and upset for no reason whatsoever and I wanted them to understand that it's not their fault, it's just something I struggle with and it'll pass. At the same time, I've been struggling with it and trying to keep it in rein, to just go somewhere by myself and do school quietly when I realize I'm having one of my 'episodes.' I've been trying very hard to minimize the impact of my depression on my family, because they've got enough on their hands already. As you can probably imagine, it frustrates me to no end that I, a 16-year-old who's only been dealing with this for a year, have more control over my psychological problems than my dad does, who's 50-something and should have realized and taken steps years ago.
My dad yells a lot, too. It's just something he does. And you can never tell what's going to set him off, or when he's going to get angry. He'll be all happy and nice and everything will be fine, and then he'll just start yelling at you. When he's talking about God he's all fake-jovial, like this is going to make everything better, but if you dare to ask questions or say something that sounds like correction or that you're questioning his complete authority, he gets angry immediately, and then goes back to all jovial and 'thank the Lord, thank the Lord.' And what really scares me is that I know that there were good times, that we've had fun together and been awesome together, but I can't really remember what it was anymore. I can only remember him being angry. The strongest memory I have of my childhood is of him yelling at me for something I didn't know not to do, something I thought he'd be happy with me doing. He'd gone to get a sponge to clear off his tray, and so I swept off the crumbs with my hand onto the carpet. I was maybe eight years old, and I was so proud of myself, and he came back and yelled at me and told me to go to my room and reflect on my failures. And I cried and begged for Mom and he said no, I'd disobeyed, I couldn't have her. But the thing was, I hadn't disobeyed, I hadn't known I wasn't supposed to do that. It's a very vivid memory, still strong enough after at least eight years to make me angry and frustrated and feeling like crying.
He has done his damn well best to tear my family apart. He's kicked Mary out of the house once, Matt twice, he's so angry with Esther over her whole church thing that I'm fairly certain he'll kick her out sometime soon. At one point it got so bad that we all left and went to a friend's house for around four days. I didn't want to come back, but Mom thought it was her duty to stick by him. I love my Mom. She's pretty much amazing. She's dealt with him being like this for at least ten years, she's raised six kids who so far are all smart people who somehow managed to have a sense of family despite Papa, she's more or less supported the family since Papa injured his back working as a postman, and at the same time she's cooked dinner, washed dishes, cleaned house, homeschooled us all, organized our homeschool group, knitted us sweaters, gone to our baseball and softball and soccer games, been willing to ferry us to choir and practice and get-togethers. She's always stressed, and she tries so hard not to take it out on us, and then I get angry when she does and it's not fair of me. I love her to pieces, and I don't tell her enough, and I am so proud of her and so impressed by her because I don't think I could do what she's done and I don't know of many people I think could. She's tough on us, and she expects a lot of us, and it's made us better people, but at the same time she's always been supportive of what we want to do. I mean, NaNoWriMo, which to her sounds like some sort of hare-brain idea, but she's supported me and shown interest even at eleven at night when she just wants me to go to bed so she can finish her grading and get some sleep before she has to get up at 6:30 the next morning to teach her class, two mornings a week.
And in this gigantic mess, there's Kat and Sam. They're only 11 and 14, they're so young, and I've been trying to protect them since I first understood how upset Papa could make me. I've always been a protective person, probably because of all of this. And he yells at Sam over stupid things, baseball things that aren't Sam's fault, or at Kat over other stupid things, and Katherine goes all quiet and goes away to be by herself, and Sam goes to cry in his room, and I can't stop it. And that's the thing that probably hurts the most.
And there stands the situation as it is. Sorry, that was insanely long, but I needed to get it out and to talk about it. I'm so tired of holding it all in.
Also, vaguely appropriate icon is vaguely appropriate. :P
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no subject
Date: 2009-06-02 04:58 pm (UTC)And another hug here. None should be so dismissive of your awesome self.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-02 06:44 pm (UTC)You being there means a ton to me. Many many thanks. <333
no subject
Date: 2009-06-02 09:59 pm (UTC)*offers hugs*
so... you're sixteen? Another year, or two before college - will you be able to leave home then?
hmmm. If you really want to submit work, though, is there a friend whose address you could use as your return address?
no subject
Date: 2009-06-03 12:59 am (UTC)There is a friend who would probably be fine with me using her address, but I've decided I'm just going to concentrate on my writing for now, try to get some really good stuff together, and then submit once I'm living by myself.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-02 10:38 pm (UTC)And I really admire your mom reading that! She's a very strong woman.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-03 01:09 am (UTC)Like said, my mom's amazing. XD <333 Thanks for the support.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-03 12:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-03 01:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-03 12:55 am (UTC)On the other hand, you're only sixteen?! Holy crap, I thought you were...like...older than me or something. @_@
no subject
Date: 2009-06-03 01:13 am (UTC)For some reason, I get that a lot over the internet. Apparently I act mature or I just... sound older than I am? I dunno, actually. :D The great mystery!