I wrote a letter to my dad, but I'm not going to send it to him. I went to the courthouse today to file for an order of protection against him, and while I was there, I was served notice that my parents filed for orders of protection against me yesterday. So I guess it's mutual. I wrote this yesterday, and like I said I'm not going to send it to him. But I thought I would share it with all of you:
Dad,
I've made the decision to cut you out of my life and never speak to you again. This will be the last time I make any effort in that direction. Tomorrow, I will be filing for an order of protection against you, and I'm planning to move away from Missouri soon.
If your estate needs to reach me for some reason, your lawyers can go through my attorney, Adam Dowling at Eng & Woods. He has been instructed not to reveal my whereabouts. I am in the Safe at Home program now because of your violence.
I don't want to hear from you while you're still alive because you refuse to acknowledge, let alone treat, your NPD. Because you have been abusing me and the rest of your family my entire life. Because you lie and play the victim. It's tiresome.
The reason you can't sleep is not that you have any reason to fear me. You don't. You attacked and injured me, you changed the locks When I fled to a hotel for my safety, you got the cops involved. You are the one instigating all of this drama, and always have been. I'm tired of it.
The reason you can't sleep has nothing to do with anything I've ever done or said to you. The reason you can't sleep is that you are ASHAMED of YOURSELF. You feel guilty for your lies, your explosive anger, and for decades of abusing your own family. It's no mystery you're so anxious. You're paranoid and mentally ill, and you won't seek help.
You have grandiose subtype narcissistic personality disorder. It's just like Donald Trump. You married a fellow narcissistic abuser, one with covert subtype NPD. It's sad how obvious it is.
You lie to your therapist, your "friends," your family, and yourself to play the victim, because you have NPD, and that's what narcissists do. It's textbook. You are a cis, straight, white male sitting on $8.7m. No one feels sorry for you. You won the privilege jackpot. It's just sad.
Part of choosing to have kids means sacrificing for them, if need be. You don't magically stop being a parent just because your child reaches a certain age. You don't get to renege on that responsibility because of their gender or disability.
The truth is that you feel guilty about the way you treat your daughter, and that's what keeps you up at night.
You feel guilty because you are so rich, and you know your disabled daughter can't afford food or housing. You never learned how to process the emotion of guilt, and so in textbook NPD fashion, you designated a Scapegoat. You use me to regulate your emotions instead of doing so internally. You blame me for your own selfishness and violent anger. It's really obvious to everyone who knows what it looks like.
You can clearly mimic neurotypical behavior, because you do so when your "friends" are watching. This proves 1) that you agree your behavior behind closed doors is immoral and inappropriate, and 2) that you can choose at will when to act like a decent person, ie when you care about looking like one in front of your "friends." I put friends in quotes because you don't actually have any real friends. You have employees, and you have people you hope you impress. You hide your authentic self from your "friends," because you care more about appearing successful and happy than you actually do about being honest with anyone, even yourself. And it makes you miserable. It's sad.
Disowning your disabled daughter is the wrong answer. You know this: That's why you lie about it and say you're "estranged," and why your delusion tells you that you're afraid of her. In shared reality, you are afraid of accountability, of letting yourself feel the guilt of abusing her. The truth is that you are ashamed of yourself. As you should be.
No one feels sorry for you just because you feel so guilty that you shake instead of sleeping. You are the one who attacked me. You are the one who changed the locks, when I fled to a hotel without my cat, to escape your explosive and violent anger.
You are like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum because you have a dirty diaper and you think it's somebody else's fault. We are not estranged. You have disowned me because you are delusional. Grow up. No wonder you can't sleep. You feel overwhelming shame for abusing your trans disabled daughter and the rest of your family, too.
I feel so sorry for Andrew. You know that he's having temper tantrums because you and my brother/his dad abuse him, right? There's nothing wrong with him that some gentle parenting couldn't resolve. You can't sleep because you know you are lying to yourself. I hope one day he figures out that he can cut his abusers out of his life, too.
The softest pillow is a clean conscience, doc. I sleep fine.
"Shaking like a leaf, rollin' like a log, shakin' and a rolling now and that ain't all. Hey hey hey. Look at little sister." That's a Stevie Ray Vaughan song.
I know that you hate me for playing guitar better than you. I know that you hate me for being better at pool and at chess and being more creative than you. I know that you hate me because I'm smarter than you.
You feel overwhelming embarrassment about how pathetic you are. You can't process it, you never learned to process guilt and shame. So instead, you just get angry and throw a temper tantrum, and age regress, and play the victim. You regress to an age before you had any sense of accountability.
You know how to mimic normal behavior. I see you do it all the time. You're not fooling anyone. You can stop this anytime you want.
I'm writing a book about your decades of child abuse. I expect you to sue me, but know that it will cost you another "small fortune" and that I have contemporaneous notes and 100 hours of audio recordings backing me up. You will lose, very publicly, and it will be extraordinarily embarrassing for you. There is nothing you can do about it. I have a First Amendment right to tell the truth, and I have been keeping a diary about your abuse for decades longer than you have been keeping your little "trauma diary."
You had your chance to make this right by me, but you are so "stingy," according to your own attorney, that you can't even see the forest for the trees. You know, aside from your own attorney calling you stingy, your other attorney literally pulled me aside to apologize to me for your behavior. You should be ashamed of yourself. You have 8.7 million dollars. You are wildly rich, and you feel terrible about how selfish you are. It shows.
You're like little Donald Trump, throwing a temper tantrum Little Joey, that's what I see when I look at you. Crying and whining, your face all red, screaming your head off, a toddler having a temper tantrum. That's what you are.
You know I'm telling the truth, and it makes your skin turn red and get hot, it makes you shake, it keeps you up when you try to sleep, because you know that you can't hide it anymore, and that terrifies you.
You should have treated me better.
Stop feeling sorry for yourself. You're a cis straight white old American male with multiple houses and a $22,000 wrist watch and a $70,000 car and a half a million dollar art collection. You think anyone should feel sorry for you?
You. Are. Delusional. It's textbook grandiose subtype narcissistic personality disorder. Seek help instead of blaming me. You need therapy because you have a personality disorder. Not an ultimatum for therapy family, and not with a student. You need real help. You know, the number one symptom of NPD is denial.
This ends when you are ready: when you decide to stop being selfish, and be a father and a decent person, instead. You choose when that happens. Do the right thing. You feel ashamed because your disabled daughter is going hungry while you take your fifth vacation of the year. You're about to spend $20,000 to go on vacation! How dare you whine about legal bills that you instigated. Didn't you just get back from vacation?
Do you think anyone feels sorry for you? No wonder you can't sleep! You owe your daughter an apology. Take responsibility for your abuse.
You are doing this to yourself. You can stop it whenever you choose.
I do feel sorry for you. I feel sorry for you because you are so sick. It's sad. You're a bad father and a bad person. It's really sad.
I wish I could end this by saying that I love you, but I don't. I tried to love the person you pretend to be in front of your friends, and it took me time to realize it, but that person doesn't exist and never did. The real you is an embarrassment, cruel, pitiful, and shameful.
I wish that you had been a better father. I wish that you had been a better person. It's too bad.
A masterclass in gaslighting.
