gathering

I got a little tanked on just enough xanax to cordially enjoy visiting. The part of my brain that I turned off is a bit put out about not being able to go into shock naturally on its own.

The psychiatrist was right, don't even try to get through this now without xanax. I was very ill this morning before we left. I wasn't really that anxious, no anger or depression issues yanking my chain because I turned feelings off while my head underwent a barrage of unbidden memories, almost like a life review attack, so since I couldn't feel anything, my gut took every hit and I was literally stuck at home for an hour before we could even leave. And after there was nothing left, I was able to leave the house and float an hour drive on extra xanax. By the time we arrived, there were other people coming in to talk to, plenty of little kids and diversion, wonderful smelling food, and loads of emotional distance from the source of our gathering. By the time cake was happening, I was even able to sit by him and be congenial, hang out for pictures, even laugh a bit with a few of my family.

My dad is not a bad man. He never intentionally hurt me excepting out of really bizarre forms of neglect. But he never considered how I might feel about anything my entire life during some intensely important life changing things that he had a chance to literally save me from, and even if he has reconnoitered his soul for damages, I'm not privy to anything he may feel between us. In short, a lifetime of intense pain and psychiatric diagnoses (delayed response, narcissism, and possibly dissociative) may be directly related to how he looked at me as a person and handled my life.

It's not his fault. We are all here to learn, are we not? I apparently agreed to let him practice on me, and I apparently don't fear standing up to him when it's time to handle the important things in our lives. But it's so very difficult not to let the negativity creep back in and destroy me some more, eat at me, lie to me.

That part is not on him. It's part of my own learning.

I'm glad I went. I learned today that he has lost all memory of playing chess with me. From age 10 on up a couple or three years, he insisted on me playing with him, because he wanted to learn. He practiced on me and never let me win, using me over and over as his counter moves while he figured out all the angles, as it were. Until one day I finally beat him. And then he never played me again. Those chess games were probably the only times I felt some affinity toward my dad. It was just me and him, and unlike the just me and him times where we were killing, skinning, gutting, and dismembering animals on the farm, and other very challenging chores, chess was a quieter more gentle time of a more intellectual sparring. It wasn't 'necessary'. But I was necessary as an opponent. I was his necessary opponent during a number of religious debates through the years as well. I don't know if he ever even gave that any thought, considering all the times he told me something was unnecessary and left me emotionally hanging in a wisp of breeze, easily forgotten as a real person.

There is more to this, but I'm not ready to deal with it yet.