Never Got To Say Goodbye

John Brosnan's story...

When you tell a child her father is evil and 
that she should hate him, you're telling her that 
everything she once thought to be true about a 
person she loves more than anyone else in the 
world was wrong -- that she was wrong.  If you 
think being told there's no Santa is hard on a 
child, this she'll never forget.  In a short period of time, the bond she once had with her father will be severed, the effects will last forever, and in the end she'll end up hating herself.
"I thought I was right about Dad.  How could I have been so wrong? I'll never trust myself again."
And she won't trust herself again.  She may never trust anyone again.  And every day she'll see something that reminds her of her father but she'll painfully ignore this because she feels so horrible about what happened -- so horrible, in fact, that she won't be able to think about her father anymore.  She won't want any reminders of him because they'll be reminders of the saddest, most terrifying thing that's ever happened to her.  She's horrified about what happened to her father and about what she's supposed to think about him, and she can never see him again.  He's dead to her.
"Something happened to him, and then a big part of me died too, and I had to let go of all those memoies I had of him, which was most of my past. I was so stupid not to see this! I was sure Mom was wrong. I have to be the most stupid person in the world.  I don't ever want to tell anyone about this.  Let's never talk about this again."
And she won't talk about it again. I know Grace. She won't talk about things that bother her much anyway -- she often avoids these things. And she won't talk about this because her confidence is now underminded and she'll no longer feel safe letting anyone question her -- something she had always done before but won't now.  She's hurt more than we can imagine.  And as the maligned parent, it's hard to imagine she could be experiencing anything like I am: the worst pain I've ever had, lasting longer than any pain I've ever had.  It's why parential alientation is called the sickest of abuses.
The trauma associated with her experience will be nearly impossible to heal because she's lost her trust in people -- especially adults, and especially her parents.  And any time she learns something new -- no matter what it is -- that nagging memory of the tie she found out she was wrong about the biggest thing in her life will haunt her.  She'll no longer believe she's as smart or as capable as she once was, tremendously affecting her ability to do almost everything else in her life.  And she'll avoid anything she thinks might cause similar pain, but she won't know what that is -- she'll just remember the hurt associated with trust and never know the answer to the big question she'll always live with:
"Why didn't I see this? How could I not have?"
The moment she lost her dad will be the biggest event in her life not made any easier by what was said about him or by being told he didn't love her anymore.  Like all children who think a parent doesn't love them, she'll think it's her fault.
"Why did he quit loving me? Why does he still love Josie, but not Mary and me? What did we do?" she'll ask the mother.
And this will have to be answered with even bigger lies, until the day she finds out she was lied to about him.  But by then it will be too late for her to have any relationship with her father.

(The rest of this story can be read at: http://nomoresecretsandlies.blogspot.com/2013/03/never-got-to-say-goodbye.html)






Grace with flowers