There He Goes Again

   TRIGGER WARNING: This entry mentions a family member’s suicide attempt.

   When someone blames you for a parent's suicide attempt, you never want to set them off again. The backbone I had as a child has gone soft, and I say whatever my dad wants to hear, even if it suffocates me.

   My mom says I need to tell him how I feel and ask him my questions. He’s blatantly lied to me. He fabricated a whole story of living in a Sober Living group home still and telling me his roomies were calling, so he had to call me back three times. He also wouldn’t take my call till he got out of bed and drove away from where he lived.

   Then two days later, he says he moved out of Sober Living 1 month ago. A month ago? What? I knew I’d been lied to. Now a week later, my mom has me confront him. I asked him why he lied to me, but he played dumb. And it hurt.

   First, he claimed I called him a month ago when he lived there. I told him it was a week ago. He claimed it was his sponsor calling. I said for a moment he read out his brother's name. He claimed his brother must have called cause something happened to Grandpa. I said, “Dad, you’re still lying to me.” He claimed there was a misunderstanding, and he was sorry. “I’ll call you later,” he says, hanging up on me.

   My mom called it, “He’s never calling back. You caught him, and now he’ll run.” He had been calling me daily. Now he doesn’t call at all. So I guess he only wants me as his daughter when he can do whatever he wants without consequence. It sounds like he hasn’t changed at all.

   To make matters worse, his brother, who blamed me for his suicide attempt, had forbidden him from speaking to me. That is why I believe he went to the mental hospital and waited until he left home to call me. I’m the villain.

   The good thing I’ve taken from all this is this proves my dad can’t love or even respect me. That he will abandon me if I fight for myself. And that he is genuinely an astonishing pathological liar like my birth mom, and that will not change. And I needed to know that. To be reminded, the ghost behind me still walks among us. Perhaps I can focus on things more worthy of my time and thought.

-Anemone