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father's day when your dad is dead.
Jun. 15th, 2025 06:45 pmthere is no lonelier feeling, than sitting with my in-laws, listening to them talk about family members, and having no family of my own other than an estranged brother, no kids, no parents, no way to relate, no history with these people, no cousins in contact, no stories to share. And being shown pictures of someone's toddler eating spaghetti, as if it's supposed to mean something to me.
it didn't help that today my husband was in one of his autism moods where he just sat and silently scowled at the table the entire time and refused to answer any questions, other than to shake his head dismissively and keep scowling. I am hypervigilant and was trained to never allow anyone to sit unhappy, lest I risk my worthiness of being part of the family at all, so when he does this it makes me unbearably uneasy. he can't understand or care or even be brought to the awareness to even consider the effect he might be having on others when he acts this way.
...
My in-laws are perfectly lovely people, there is nothing wrong with them, and I cannot expect them to keep in mind or understand what it's like for me to keep going through these holidays with them, it isn't their fault, they never met my parents because they weren't here to meet, when Josh and I started dating, they don't know, and it's my fault for refusing to talk about it, I don't want to bring everyone down.
Josh is usually not like this and I love him to pieces, so I am diving into work and not lashing out at him about it, I know he doesn't understand how painful this is for me. I will explain later when I am feeling better and will maybe avoid Mother's/Father's day going forward. I've been trying to hard to connect with my in-laws in a meaningful way and I just need a break. I am emotionally spent.
I'd say I miss my dad, but I honestly don't right now. I miss having one, and he was great, but he left when I was a toddler, I barely knew him, I know he did his best but he never really parented me. It wasn't his fault. I am not mad at him. But I do have neglect and abandonment issues. I had to sort of realize how much he sucked as a father this year and it has been really painful, a big part of me wanted to glorify him and that has kind of fallen apart. One of his cousins who found me online back when he died sent me a letter he had written to his sister back in the early 90s, I was a young teenager, and he got my birthday entirely wrong in this letter, neither the day or the month were close at all. (I have always been annoyed that my brother also can't remember my birthday.) Dad was a chronic drug and alcohol user so I can't really expect him to have been able to remember things clearly, but how sad is that, that he didn't even know when my birthday was.
...
Edited to add: Josh came into my room once I was done with work tonight and apologized, slightly tearfully. He realized it must have been a hard day for me. "I got tired." He was slightly teary. Poor thing. It was very sweet. He's good.
My dad was a good person, too. He did his best, he really did. He came from poverty and had absolutely no support or modeling of any kind, as far as I could tell. And he gave me all the love he had to give, while he was here. I can't really ask for more than that. I know many people didn't really feel loved by their fathers, I am grateful that he was kind and loving with me. We were all so lost and confused, trying to navigate the world together, our little substance-soaked dysfunctional family, sigh.
...
So much has happened and I've wanted to come journal so many times in the past week or so, but I'm just barely stumbling through my days and I am so tired. I am doing my best to process what life will look like going forward with bone spurs and arthritis and no hope for any sort of treatment. I am trying to adjust to a new activity level. I continue to gain weight instead of lose any, I think part of this is the estrogen I am taking, but most of it is stress. I need to do something about my stress levels. My CRP is 1, which is mildly elevated, this is typical of people suffering with depression. sigh. Chronic stress is so bad for our bodies.
Josh and I tried so hard to hunt for houses, we've looked at so many places, but honestly, despite all of our hard work and efforts, we can't afford anything worth buying, in or around Portland. We feel drained and demoralized and very defeated. We hate living in this apartment complex, but we are afraid moving to rent some other apartment will end up somehow being even worse.
It's still possible we could end up buying a very old dark quirky weird low-ceilinged not-level-floored tiny 2br house in Tigard, a distant suburb, which would mean an hour of driving for me each work day at the studio. But. We would not have to deal with all of these random water shut-offs, these astronomical utility bills (they charge us far more than anyone in any house we know pays, like at least double, for our little 2br 1bath apartment, it is a corrupt management company that is notorious for this and there are documented cases of them doing this to renters in other complexes, but no lawyers are willing to help us, we pay 400+ a month for water and electricity), Josh being interrupted during calls, the theft and vandalism and screaming that goes on from all the campers in the neighborhood, our windows getting banged on by prowlers, who stake out apartments here weekly, not to mention the dog upstairs that tried to kill my cat. The little house in Tigard has a yard, it would be hell to maintain (so much bamboo! a wall of arborvitae! grass on a slope!) but I could build an enclosure for Avalanche, to give her safe outdoor space in which to play. I would feel bad for Josh having to work in a weird dark low-ceilinged office, which would also be his bedroom. I don't know. It doesn't seme right to buy a house sheerly because we loathe our apartment experience so much, when we don't really like the house. It's not horrible, but we would not be at all excited about it, we would be trying to make do, which just sucks. It's all of our savings, it seems like it should maybe be something we actually like and would want to live in. But no such thing in our budget exists. So. What do you do. I'm so tired of thinking about it.
it didn't help that today my husband was in one of his autism moods where he just sat and silently scowled at the table the entire time and refused to answer any questions, other than to shake his head dismissively and keep scowling. I am hypervigilant and was trained to never allow anyone to sit unhappy, lest I risk my worthiness of being part of the family at all, so when he does this it makes me unbearably uneasy. he can't understand or care or even be brought to the awareness to even consider the effect he might be having on others when he acts this way.
...
My in-laws are perfectly lovely people, there is nothing wrong with them, and I cannot expect them to keep in mind or understand what it's like for me to keep going through these holidays with them, it isn't their fault, they never met my parents because they weren't here to meet, when Josh and I started dating, they don't know, and it's my fault for refusing to talk about it, I don't want to bring everyone down.
Josh is usually not like this and I love him to pieces, so I am diving into work and not lashing out at him about it, I know he doesn't understand how painful this is for me. I will explain later when I am feeling better and will maybe avoid Mother's/Father's day going forward. I've been trying to hard to connect with my in-laws in a meaningful way and I just need a break. I am emotionally spent.
I'd say I miss my dad, but I honestly don't right now. I miss having one, and he was great, but he left when I was a toddler, I barely knew him, I know he did his best but he never really parented me. It wasn't his fault. I am not mad at him. But I do have neglect and abandonment issues. I had to sort of realize how much he sucked as a father this year and it has been really painful, a big part of me wanted to glorify him and that has kind of fallen apart. One of his cousins who found me online back when he died sent me a letter he had written to his sister back in the early 90s, I was a young teenager, and he got my birthday entirely wrong in this letter, neither the day or the month were close at all. (I have always been annoyed that my brother also can't remember my birthday.) Dad was a chronic drug and alcohol user so I can't really expect him to have been able to remember things clearly, but how sad is that, that he didn't even know when my birthday was.
...
Edited to add: Josh came into my room once I was done with work tonight and apologized, slightly tearfully. He realized it must have been a hard day for me. "I got tired." He was slightly teary. Poor thing. It was very sweet. He's good.
My dad was a good person, too. He did his best, he really did. He came from poverty and had absolutely no support or modeling of any kind, as far as I could tell. And he gave me all the love he had to give, while he was here. I can't really ask for more than that. I know many people didn't really feel loved by their fathers, I am grateful that he was kind and loving with me. We were all so lost and confused, trying to navigate the world together, our little substance-soaked dysfunctional family, sigh.
...
So much has happened and I've wanted to come journal so many times in the past week or so, but I'm just barely stumbling through my days and I am so tired. I am doing my best to process what life will look like going forward with bone spurs and arthritis and no hope for any sort of treatment. I am trying to adjust to a new activity level. I continue to gain weight instead of lose any, I think part of this is the estrogen I am taking, but most of it is stress. I need to do something about my stress levels. My CRP is 1, which is mildly elevated, this is typical of people suffering with depression. sigh. Chronic stress is so bad for our bodies.
Josh and I tried so hard to hunt for houses, we've looked at so many places, but honestly, despite all of our hard work and efforts, we can't afford anything worth buying, in or around Portland. We feel drained and demoralized and very defeated. We hate living in this apartment complex, but we are afraid moving to rent some other apartment will end up somehow being even worse.
It's still possible we could end up buying a very old dark quirky weird low-ceilinged not-level-floored tiny 2br house in Tigard, a distant suburb, which would mean an hour of driving for me each work day at the studio. But. We would not have to deal with all of these random water shut-offs, these astronomical utility bills (they charge us far more than anyone in any house we know pays, like at least double, for our little 2br 1bath apartment, it is a corrupt management company that is notorious for this and there are documented cases of them doing this to renters in other complexes, but no lawyers are willing to help us, we pay 400+ a month for water and electricity), Josh being interrupted during calls, the theft and vandalism and screaming that goes on from all the campers in the neighborhood, our windows getting banged on by prowlers, who stake out apartments here weekly, not to mention the dog upstairs that tried to kill my cat. The little house in Tigard has a yard, it would be hell to maintain (so much bamboo! a wall of arborvitae! grass on a slope!) but I could build an enclosure for Avalanche, to give her safe outdoor space in which to play. I would feel bad for Josh having to work in a weird dark low-ceilinged office, which would also be his bedroom. I don't know. It doesn't seme right to buy a house sheerly because we loathe our apartment experience so much, when we don't really like the house. It's not horrible, but we would not be at all excited about it, we would be trying to make do, which just sucks. It's all of our savings, it seems like it should maybe be something we actually like and would want to live in. But no such thing in our budget exists. So. What do you do. I'm so tired of thinking about it.
