I think as I go more and more through this journey in my life, I discover more and more has been stolen. Of course, I lost my innocence a long time ago, and maybe that was the worst thing to lose. Or maybe it was that I lost myself and who I was meant to be, but there are moments, things, that I never realised I had lost.
Sympathy.
Not mine. It’s a weird thing to lose. I sit here with my chest tight and my shoulders weighted down, but there is no one to really turn to. People’s dislike for my dad is stronger and they can’t see. They can’t see what is being taken from me.
When normal people’s fathers are sick, suffering with something like cancer, and the normal person sees their parent slipping away. When the adult who raised them suddenly needs help to fasten shoelaces, make meals or simply fill out a form. They talk to their friends, they get hugs and care and sympathy.
I find myself in this place I never imagined, where that has been stolen from me. I tell people my father is sick, and they say good. Inside, the child who is there, who loves his father, wraps his arms around himself for comfort. 
When I say that I am helping my dad, fixing his car, cooking his meal, I am told that I am doing more than he deserves. I end up finding myself torn between what feels right to do and what people think I should do.
When people ask me why I would help him, my answer is because he is my dad. I find myself envious of that normal person who wouldn’t be asked why, but would be asked, what help do you need.
I wish I was a normal person. Instead, he is my abuser and I am his victim. But I wish the world would see that he is my dad, and I am his son.
I never knew that this part had been stolen.
Tag Archives: cancer
Monster
It’s been a while since I have written my thoughts on here. Of course I have written many other things. I have since finished therapy. I had in total 14 sessions. I didn’t find them very helpful. It was ironic in a way that I was there because I had stumbled into my doctor’s surgery one day to tell them I wanted to kill myself and it took so much inside to say what was at the root of that, my father, and yet, when I got to therapy, if I tried to mention my parents in anyway, my therapist would tell me that it doesn’t matter. It’s in the past. And while this is true, it is in the past. Most of the occurrences are years ago. They are still big to me. I have not got over them and the parts inside me struggle. 
Mt father is dying. He has cancer. He has had it a while and because he is older, it is taking a while. I do not imagine he will be here this time next year, maybe not in six months either. He is in the final stages now. I used to think I wouldn’t care if he died. Not because I hated him for what he had done, not because I had cut him off, but because I was sure that I wasn’t capable of loving anyone or anything. I don’t feel it inside for people, not until they leave. It was a terrible time when my children were growing up and I questioned continually my feelings for them. It feels like some part inside me doesn’t work.
My father at the moment was just awaiting tests to see if his cancer had spread even farther. He messaged me today to say that it hadn’t. I found myself disappointed with that and I have no idea why. It isn’t that I wish him anything bad. When he had a heart attack recently I found myself upset, but what I realised was that I wasn’t upset about him dying. I was upset that his chance to ever make things up to me was gone. The chance he would ever be my father was at risk.
I sometimes think that inside, I am a monster.
JD Stockholm. 