2003 Was a bad year, if I told you everything you probably wouldn’t believe me but screw it… I’ll tell you anyway. 2003 Started with my coming home to the refrigerator in my front lawn and it just didn’t get better from there for quite a while.

Screw Respect, This Is About Trust

By the begging of 2003 it was clear (very clear) that what I needed was a divorce from my pill popping wife but as the year went on it became even clearer that what I needed was to save my 3 (Count them THREE) children from the very real danger of their mother’s insanity… She had become very dangerous and from what I could tell it wasn’t just the drugs. By the end of 2003 there were legal proceedings… Divorce papers were filed and nothing pleased me more than this (I really needed a divorce) but the terror of the custody battle began and a TERROR it was.

Through all of this, the whole year of 2003 and into the future for quite some time I had an ally… No not just an ally, but a comrade in arms, my oldest daughter she was 14 and she was the only other person that had seen what a nightmare our home had become and knew just how insane her mother was. In 2003 her and I fought in those trenches, fixed bayonets, went over the top side by side… And we survived.

Of all the people in this world, she was the one and only person I truly trusted… I also have to tell you though, I didn’t “like” her, she had become kind of a materialistic snotty little bitch but I loved her, she was my kid, and I loved her, trusted her and yeah, I would have defended her with my life… And I believed she would have done the same for me… I was wrong.

The Pact We Made

I didn’t have much confidence in my self as a father by the time the divorce hit and as a matter of fact I felt like an abysmal failure all the way around and I swore I would change all of that RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW. I had come under the notion that I could Fix This by just being the best dad ever, not just the best dad but the coolest one too. Now here I was “Both Mother and Father”… Was I up to this?

The 14 year old had suffered a few terrible beatings while protecting her two younger siblings from a mother that just wasn’t right in the head and she had witnessed so many crazy events surrounding that she was hardened and definitely matured beyond her years in some ways but really… 14 is still just a baby and a baby girl at that.

In 2003 I made a pact with my 14 daughter and it was this: You be honest with me and I will be honest with you, you come to me with ANYTHING and I will listen and I promise to be FAIR and REASONABLE. No mater WHAT, we will be truthful with each other. We both swore on it and for years I believed the held… And I held up my end.

 I always told her the truth no matter what – And I listened and I was as reasonable as any human could be.

Even though it was at times nearly impossible to stay my reactions to what I was listening to I strived to be REASONABLE… Damn it was hard but I felt I had no choice… She had no mother to talk to about a lot of things so I was it.

Like I said, I was Wrong.

Over the past decade many things have come to pass between myself and my “Daughter”… There were struggles. There were huge disappointments and she made some very severe mistakes in judgment that caused terrible problems in our family and jeopardize her younger brother and sister’s safety. I came to like her even less as a person, but still there was that pact, I loved here and I trusted her but it was really too much. A lot of it I blamed on her animosity towards my wife (yes I married shortly after the divorce from her mother was over but no that marriage was and still is strong and pretty damn healthy) so I had to “Release her with love” AKA Throw her out of the house at 18. I was sad but I believed I was doing the right thing for her as well as everyone else.  Before this time her and I never really had any serious fights, for all of her faults I always considered her a “really good kid” and I believed her to be an exceptionally HONEST kid even before I had made our pact back in 2003.

After she left home she began to exhibit signs of deep emotional problems and constant “life issues” like dropping out of college, taking jobs that I believed were truly below her (Like working in a phuckin titty bar) and I suspected she was using drugs. She would call in varied states of upset and was often irrational  I was constantly in fear for her well being and even her life. We began to fight (over the phone) sometimes even violently. I didn’t want to admit it to myself at the time but, She was becoming like her mother in many ways… I eventually came to believe she had severe borderline personality disorder. But even then I trusted her when it came to our pact and I firmly held that would be the ONE constant in her life, so I ALWAYS SPOKE THE TRUTH TO HER and I did it with compassion… I couldn’t stand her… She was a bitch… But I loved her, she was my kid… But the verbal fights between us became so vicious I ended up literally disowning her and vowed (yes a new pact) not to speak to her again… It didn’t stick though… Phuck, she’s my kid. 

After this, over time her behavior became so erratic and so strange I was sure she was into something be it drugs or God only knew what… I just tried to deal with it and prayed it would run it’s course without killing her so someday she could “come to grips” and have some kind of life.

The Unraveling of Trust

2013 so far is a very bad year… Standing where I am now is very difficult I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that I have been living under an illusion for a very long time. I had the entire history of the past 10 years written all wrong.