I feel like I owe you, my readers, an apology. I haven't posted in a while. I meant for this to be an uplifting and informative blog. It is hard to post something uplifting and informative when you are hanging onto sanity with your fingernails. So please forgive me for posting about my own struggles yet again.
I have never been under any illusion that my father was a good father. I have never been able to refer to him as "dad". Dad is a title that is earned. He has never earned it.
There is, however, a world of difference between a bad father and an evil person, between an abusive parent and a pedophile. This weekend, I was forced to admit that my father had stepped over that line. He was not only a bad parent, he was a bone-fide pedophile. He was the type of man who picks out vulnerable boys, grooms them, and then sexually abuse them repeatedly, over a period of years. He is no better than Sandusky, Savile, or those thousands of boyscout leaders and Priests. He was a predatory pedophile who preyed on innocent young boys.
At first, I was angry, then my anger morphed into revulsion. Then it hit me - this predator, this personification of pure evil, is also the man to who I owe 50% of my own genetic make up. I have his eyes, his build, his tendency for addiction.
I can no longer look in a mirror. In every mirror lives a pedophile, staring back at me with my own eyes. I can no longer look people in the eyes for fear that they will see the evil in mine. I don't want people to come close to me, to look at me, to touch me. I feel like I will contaminate anything or anyone who comes close to me with my evil, pedophile genes. I am filled with revulsion at the mere thought of touching my daughter, as if he will be touching her through me. She is still so innocent - how could I ever expose her to the part of me that is him? How can she be in the same room as so much evil, without somehow getting contaminated?
People tell me that I'm not him and that I can choose my own destiny. They aren't the ones have to look into a pedophile's face in the mirror!
I'm not yet sure how I will come out on the other side of this realisation, or even if there is an "other side". Right now, I only know that in the past, even the most painful chapters of my life always had an end. It might take a very long time, but the pain has never lasted "forever" before, so I have to keep hanging on, hoping that there will be hope in the end, that somehow I will be able to heal from this, too. Hoping that I will be able to learn to look my reflection in the mirror in the eyes again...
Hey Gecko,
ReplyDeleteI'm praying for you to find your way out of this whirlpool of emotions and found solid ground.
Hang on and keep fighting!
Pero
You will persevere. You will be stronger and better because of it.
ReplyDeleteYou are NOT your father. Genetic material doesn't determine who you are. It was the sum of your FATHERS EXPERIENCES and HIS choices that made him into the monster he was.
ReplyDelete