The Baby Comes and My Dad Finds Someone Else He Likes More Than Me

"It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake."~ H.L. Mencken

Before I begin my continuing litany of what went wrong with my life, just an update on what's going wrong now. My hubby is somewhat bipolar, I think, and he's in the midst of a slight upswing into the manic mode. Unfortunately, this is not the type of mania that leads to euphoria. He's been in a bad mood for at least a couple of days now. I'm much better about dealing with it than ever before. I pretty much leave him alone to work out his own mood disorder. I try not to get anxious. Unfortunately, he has this nasty habit of slamming doors when he's irritable. Every time he does it, I can feel a tremor run through my nervous system. I consider it a triumph that I'm able to recognize what's going on and detach from it a little. I guess this is really just desserts after my little tirade about triggers yesterday. Yes, boys and girls, I do have triggers. I have many. I generally just manage to carry on, nonetheless. As i am doing now. It's just a little blip on the radar screen of unpleasantness. It is unpleasant, though, and maybe a little scary.

It's been raining here for two days now. The sun has been out for about half an hour now and I'm so thrilled to see it. Relentlessly gray skies wear me down emotionally. It's supposed to be clear for a couple of days, so maybe I can regain my emotional equilibrium.

Okay, so where was I in the saga of trauma? Oh yeah, the baby. When i was around 13, I noticed what appeared to be a growing pregnancy in my father's wife (yes, that would be the 15 year old). There was, of course, general denial, although I don't think I ever actually mentioned it to anyone. You know, what would have been the point? After the baby was born and returned to my house, my dad told me it was someone else's kid. Yes, this pisses me off even today. I endured. what else can I say? I was enraged and contemptuous of him. Somewhere in there, before the whole baby thing, my father decided he'd found someone else he liked more than me.

We went to visit his family in Hillbilly USA because, I guess, he wanted to demonstrate to his mother and siblings what a cool thing he was doing. He took the wife with us, along with my mom. If you'd buried me in a hill of fire ants, you could not have caused me any more torture than sitting in a fucking car with all of them for a good 7 hours (one way). While we were visiting the folks, my father dropped in on his oldest sister at her house. She had several kids, including a girl who was my age. Se seemed to hit it off. Of course, it's easy to hit it off when you're looking for any distraction available so you don't have to think about what a huge fucking mess your life is through no fault of your own.

My dad's great idea was to bring her back with us for a visit. I don't know how long the visit was supposed to last, but in retrospect, it seems like several months. Well, guess what? Once she got there, my dad used every opportunity to point out how she was better than I was. She dressed better. She had less acne. She was smarter. Goddamn it. Just in case I wasn't getting the message already that he thought I was just a huge piece of shit, here was further evidence.

Have i mentioned how much I hated him? I worked up a pretty fair hatred of my cousin, too. By the time she left, I never wanted to see her again and, in fact, I never have. I understand that she's been living with another cousin of ours for about the past 15 years or so. Just to be clear, the cousin is a male and yes, they're having a sexual relationship. No children, luckily. It's the scandal of the family. That would make me laugh if it weren't so grim. Let's see now. We have a father (my grandfather) who definitely sexually abused at least one of his daughters, but I'm guessing all of them. He also allegedly sexually abused his sons. It's my own personal guess that his wife (my grandmother) also sexually abused the boys.

I have at least one uncle who sexually abused at least three of his nieces. he may or may not have raped someone. He definitely sexually abused his own daughter. I have a father who's also a pedophile and a sadist. My father said that he once caught his mother in bed with some guy who wasn't his dad. I don't know about that...it's definitely possible, but with my dad you could just never be sure whether he imagined it. He also told me he'd interrupted a conversation between my grandmother and one of my aunts about murdering my grandfather. My personal take on this is, wouldn't you? So given all of this, they all consider it surprising and scandalous that my two cousins are cohabitating? I also have a cousin who's gay. He's been officially excommunicated from the family. He might actually be one of the lucky ones. There are more fun stories from my father's family, but no time now to delve into them.

This seems like about enough for today.