Reasons for the Breaking

I recently had it explained to me that my dad feels that when my mom was murdered in January 1993 is when I "changed" and that I have been "broken" ever since then.  Or maybe he defined that as when I went "crazy", when I became "no good", when I became "defective".  Essentially, since then, he feels that I am a different person and not in a good way.  I can't argue this.  Losing my mom at 19 did change me.  Living with her and her murderer at various times July 1991-November 1992 changed me.  The combined trauma of living with them and having her murdered was extremely damaging to my heart and soul.  Becoming motherless and losing the one human on the planet that understood me and loved me was very damaging.  I don't think this is abnormal or makes me flawed, though.  I think it makes me human.  I think most people would end up with some scars, some changes, some sign that they had such significant life events occur.  To my dad, I apparently should have bounced back and been fine.  That I didn't return to my former self apparently makes me a bad person.

I think there is more to look at during this time frame though.  I also lived with my father during this period of time, having moved in with him shortly after I turned 18.  My two younger brothers and I moved in with him the summer of 1991.  People thought I was his girlfriend and that my brothers were my children because they had no idea that our dad even had kids--that was unfathomable--he had never been seen with children, talked about children, or had any signs of having children in his life.  His parenting style was also very different than our mom's and it was admittedly a hard adjustment.  We went from having our mom daily and seeing our dad one afternoon every month to three months (holidays) to not seeing our mom at all and living with a man we barely knew.  He worked a lot and seemed to always be angry and disapproving during his moments at home.  I was expected to be the mother, the maid, the caregiver, and whatever other roles were needed due to his work schedule.  It was a very hard adjustment for all four of us.  I managed six years living this way but eventually I broke and had to leave.

My dad and I were oil and water.  I was sensitive and easily hurt.  His parenting style with me would best be defined as "break the spirit".  He didn't understand me and let me know regularly that I was a "freak" and wasn't born a freak, so why was I one now?  No matter what I did or how I did it, there was no approval but regularly met scorn.  This was true before we moved in with him, too, but definitely became more problematic upon more exposure to each other.  With my middle brother, he could seemingly do no wrong and when he did, as the oldest that was also my fault for "setting the bad example".  I was basically the rotten apple spoiling the bunch.  My youngest brother fell somewhere between the two of us and wasn't as terrible as I was in my father's eyes, either.  Years after I moved out and my father remarried, my youngest brother left a soda can on the coffee table and that was still my fault--he was actually forbidden to interact with me over the soda can incident because I "programmed him to leave the can on the coffee table to destroy our stepmother".  Even at 20+ miles away, I was still the problem.  I couldn't win no matter what I did.

I don't think it was just my mom's death that changed me and our relationship.  I wonder if he ever considers these things when he looks at what "broke me" and what "happened to me". A person can't have their parent constantly putting them down, criticizing them, telling them that they are no good and always emerge with no scars and be fine.  I think it's probably the minority of folks that end up being okay through that sort of treatment, not the majority.  I think for most of us it does damage.  So I guess when he says that it was my mom's death that ruined me, I wonder how much these other factors influence whom and what I became?  Not that he would consider these issues, but they do weigh on my mind since this is when he considers me becoming damaged, flawed, and worthless.  I'm sure others with similar family dynamics understand this, as well.  To say it was only my mother's death that hurt me and made me this way is flawed to a degree.  Those six years of being mentally beat down should probably be considered, too.  Just my thoughts--they aren't for me to dwell on, just getting it off my chest.