I’ve been holding it together for so long now, I forget when it even began. But now I’m alone in this new apartment, this new life, slightly less empty than it was before my last relationship, and one thing is still the same.

I hate my dad. I don’t want to. I want to think of him as my hero, or even a stand up human, but all that comes to mind is how stupid he made me feel. How he invalidated every feeling I had. How he destroyed my self-esteem time and time again showing off like a jerk of an older brother.

I think of his functional alcoholism when I was growing up, then his full blown straight to AA addiction later. I remember the relief I felt when my mom finally left him and I knew I never needed to see him again.

Though I did. I saw him try and hold it together. Becoming a Freemason, cooking for him and his dog who he openly loved, dating someone who admired his intelligence and insight. But it all went away. Just like his family did.

I was still working myself out, reinventing who I thought I was stuck being: an incompetent wannabe loser. My sister tried, ever the rock, laughing off his inane behavior. But my mom just couldn’t be near him, and although I didn’t know specifics, I felt what he had done to her, because I knew that pain as well.

Just like his father, he drove us all away, but his sisters and mother watched over him as he headed towards sobriety. With his dog’s passing, I imagine the loneliness and regret was too much and eventually he stopped holding on as well.

A few months later he was diagnosed as bi-polar schizophrenic. It was a relief to hear, or rather, I thought it would be. It wasn’t me. I was passive aggressively tormented by my parent, the man who should have been my role-model. He was sick, looked after by his family, and I was free.

But none of that was true. I knew he felt guilty for how he treated me. I knew he believed my mother, his high school girlfriend he got pregnant in junior year, to be his soulmate. Inherently I knew that he knew that he had fucked it all up. It was his fault, and maybe it’s a bit of projecting, but I like to think he really faced himself then.

There’s something about him, his father, and by default, me that makes it so we think (know) we’re better than other people. So he stopped the meds, got drunk, started shit with me via fucking Facebook of all things, and I was too stressed out to swallow his shit anymore.

I told him to just finally do us all a favor and kill himself already, defriended & blocked him, and went ahead with my life.

I was glad. I had held on to so much rage that I felt justified in finally proclaiming myself as an adult who didn’t need his bullshit back-handed comments chipping away at what little sense of self I had. He wasn’t there when I was in the hospital. He wasn’t there when I needed him ever, or in those rare occasions when I did ask for something he endlessly made me regret it by making sure I’d never forget all he had done.

I carry so much guilt and I have no one to share my pain with. My family seems incapable of talking about emotional pain, though I see they suffer it. I’ve overwhelmed myself and then the love of my life with how much hurt was happening inside me. I’d become so much like him. I didn’t know how to stop.

And now I could be bi-polar schizophrenic one day, or perhaps I already am. I’m more scared than I’ve ever been in my life, though I know myself to be much more capable, loving, and cool than I ever have before.

I wish I was strong enough to face my father. My dad who was obsessed with Star Wars and technology, dressed all in black with a Darth Vader helmet sitting in his closet. I even had the Luke Skywalker bowl cut growing up. But just like Empire, he reveals the truth to me after taking my hand.

I write the above paragraph because I know this is how he thinks. In terms of symbolism and fiction. He raised me in that isolated bubble. I just need to know I’m better than him, that I can figure it out before I self-destruct further destroying my life and driving those that matter further away.

Tonight I’ll just lay here and bawl my eyes out, wishing I knew what real, honest love between a parent and child (or any human) felt like, that I was strong enough to call him, maybe even save him. But I’m not.