I'm having a tough time getting this last chapter out. It's convoluted and fuzzy and difficult to think about. But I will give it a try.
I'm finally at a college I can call home. I'm having a good time, doing very well at my studies. Dad's happy, he visits me often, we have slumber parties in the house I am renting with roommates. Then, what seems to me to be out of the blue, he tells me he and mom are separated. Okay, I can live with that, long overdue. THEN he says he's seeing a woman...and living with her, if I remember correctly. So, he's just telling me that he's leaving my mom and already with someone else? Then he wants me to meet her. It's oh-so-important that I meet her and immediately. Okay, I'm rather shocked but what would be the harm, I think.
They come to visit soon after, and I meet her for the first time in a restaurant, where she spends an hour sort of talking to me, and dad's physically all over her. At the end of the lunch, she tells me she loves me and gives me a necklace. I am quite uncomfortable with all this--I don't even know this woman, let alone LOVE her! And I have a funny feeling I've been bought.
For the next year, I try hard to "love" her. Dad constantly pressures me to know if I love her, isn't she so great, she's the best cook, they talk a bit about their sex life at dinners. They give me expensive gifts. As long as I am hugging her and seem happy about it all, things are fine. I feel completely lost-my feelings are that something is very wrong here, I really don't like this woman at all, I'm nervous about dad. I try to talk to him about my concerns, but he doesn't like that. I can't seem to have my own feelings about this issue and express them or act on them. My discomfort is very high. My sister points out that she has a drinking problem. I read about histrionic personalities and recognize this trait in her. She gets nasty when the attention isn't focused on her. From experience, I know there's no way out here. Either I do what dad wants or, well, I'm not sure what. I don't live with them so I can't be punished in the usual way. But there are the phone calls that last over an hour consisting of silence, and I can't get myself to hang up on him. There's the fact that he's paying for my therapy (!!!!) and college and could withdraw all financial support. I'm dependent on him, I realize. We would fight over the therapy money- I would have to beg for it, he would want to know what I was talking about in therapy. Needless to say, this therapy was ineffective. I don't have a job, I've been scared shitless about the life I would lead without completing college. I am frightened. That's when I turned off and became an automaton, going through the gestures, smiles, hugs, talking about feelings with them, letting her dress me up like a doll, admiring her cooking, their material possessions, her intelligence...visited and stayed in their guest room, awake all night shaking, sweating, and holding back vomiting. Every single night I was there. When I came home, I magically felt better. When they visited (and my dad never visited alone anymore), the same thing happened, only it kept getting worse and worse. My soon-to-be-husband and I had moved in together by that time and didn't understand why I was so ill every night during visits and for a good week after, not for awhile, anyway. I blocked out anything of my own to be enmeshed with them--it felt like survival to me. When I graduated, I worked for a year or so, then decided to go to grad school in psychology...why did I chose this? Because he and his wife were psychologists. I attended his alma mater and studied with his colleague. I completed the one year then stopped. I made enough money to get by in a decent job, but I was afraid I couldn't live without their gifts. I had become very dependent on them. They enjoyed flaunting their wealth, talking about the things they owned, their condo, fancy cars, 5-star restaurants, cruises. They were constantly very physically affectionate around me, uncomfortably so. I didn't need to see that much. But it was a condition of being. I started to resent my husband (soon-to-be) because he didn't treat me like my father treated his girlfriend. She had a bigger engagement ring than I did; dad kissed her more than my man did me, dad gave me more than my man could. I was jealous, sick with jealousy. And as long as I was drawn toward my father in that way, he and his girlfriend were happy.
I kept getting sicker. I started having allergic type reactions to foods--over a 5-year period I became unable to tolerate most foods, as well as chemicals, like shampoo or soap. The whole world felt like an enemy, out to hurt me. I tried to talk to dad and tell him how all this was affecting me, but he couldn't hear. My life moved forward in time, but I was stuck. I was chronically depressed, suicidal at times, starving, stuck without any energy or ambition in what should have been my most energetic years. I finally had to do something. I just wanted to have a relationship with dad, not his wife. This woman was toxic to me. As was my father, but I couldn't cope with that at the time. I tried to cut back on this intensity and intimacy with her. Dad got angry, and he began to punish by withdrawing his approval and enthusiasm. Wrote letters telling me how much I was hurting him by rejecting her. I didn't understand-what was the big deal? If I wanted a relationship with her, shouldn't I be allowed to do that in the way I needed? No, I wasn't. It was dad's way or nothing.
I don't know, I tried my best but I couldn't be in this triangle without making myself ill. And the thing was, there was no physical abuse! What the hell was wrong with me that I couldn't be in relationship with these people???
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