I feel guilty because . . .

Debbie, my therapist, mentioned during a counseling session last September that almost everything I talk about is steeped in guilt. I thought about it and she is right. I feel guilty to even exist. There are so many times in a day that I re-think whatever it is that I have just done. I dwell on minutia to a ridiculous extent and feel guilt for whatever it is that I think that I did, and then feel this anxious need somehow correct it. This often happens during conversations with other people. A small example of something that happened this week, while I was at work:

Boss: Melisa, you should have sent both of these jobs with the runner so we could have saved a fee.

Me: Well, one was due at the court yesterday so I sent that one right then. This one isn’t due til tomorrow and we didn’t have it ready yet, so that’s why it’s being sent separately. Usually you’re telling me that I shouldn’t work around the runner’s schedule! Now you’re mad because I didn’t send them both at once!

Boss: It’s not a big deal, we could’ve just saved some money. We should be thinking ahead and planning a little better.

I walked away from that little exchange and mulled it over and over in my head. I felt righteous anger because I have spent the last 3 years hearing the phrase “I won’t run my law practice based on what a runner can and can’t do!” coming out of my boss’s mouth — he’s never mentioned a fee before! We’re always doing things last minute! But the anger quickly turned to shame and guilt as I thought of the strident tone in my voice and how he has been telling me lately that I’ve been too defensive. Oh boy, I started thinking, now I’ve really messed it up! Now my boss thinks I am just wasting his money and I don’t have the firm’s best interests at heart! Now I’ve gone and done it again, opened my big fat mouth, been unpleasant and rude and hateful and embarrassed myself. I was defensive and I’m no fun to be around and I waste the firm’s money! I could not stop the voices in my head until I had found my boss and apologized, telling him that I would be sure to do a better job next time and that it certainly wasn’t my intention to be wasteful with his money.

Back in September, when Debbie mentioned my “guilt complex” she asked me to make a list of what I feel guilty about. Here’s what I started with. I stopped where I did but I could have gone on forever. The list is fresh and new every day, but I suppose these are old friends that never go away.

1. I’m alive

2. I married a man that sexually abused my daughter.

3. I married a man that wasn’t faithful and then divorced him, so my daughter didn’t grow up with her nuclear family.

4. I divorced my son’s dad so he isn’t growing up with his nuclear family.

5. I don’t keep my house clean enough.

6. I don’t keep track of my money well enough.

7. I keep gaining weight.

8. I got Crohn’s disease because I’m such a nervous dysfunctional person.

9. I don’t spend enough time doing things with my son and daughter.

10. I let my son play video games too much.

11. He doesn’t have enough chores.

12. I complain about the dog.

13. I create tension in the house.

14. I expect too much from DH.

15. I make DH feel criticized.

16. I let the coke run out in the fridge.

17. I have food in my freezer that we haven’t eaten yet, and I keep buying new food.

18. I don’t tend to the landscaping as well as I should.

19. I am not patient with the dog.

20. My daughter had some very difficult teenage years because of me.

21. I check my email when I’m supposed to be working.

22. I don’t do things to better the lives of people outside my small family

23. I don’t keep up with my friends enough.

24. I missed grandma’s birthday.

25. I keep focusing on things that happened 30 years ago instead of living life today.

26. I blame my mom for what my dad did.

27. I don’t want to see my mom.

28. I expect too much from my brother.

29. My behavior at home is erratic and unpredictable.

30. It’s hard to stay focused at work.

31. I spend too much money on lunch and should bring something from home more often.

32. I spend money on my hair and nails and therapy when DH isn’t spending money on extras.

33. I don’t always prepare healthy balanced meals.

34. I’m selfish and childish.

35. I want my chair all to myself.

36. I need too much.

37. I’ve ruined every family I’ve been a part of.

38. I’m not involved enough in my daughter’s schoolwork.

39. I don’t take my son on field trips or attend school functions during the day.

40. I procrastinate.

41. I haven’t done what I’m supposed to do to move my therapy along.

42. I have a cozy house with running water, electricity, plumbing, and all the amenities I could wish for, while there are so many people in the world who are uncomfortable.

43. I have an overabundance of food and I throw food away instead of eating it.

44. I don’t recycle.

45. I generate at least one garbage bag full of garbage every day.

46. I’m too distracted when interacting with the kids.

47. I want to be alone too much.

48. I selfishly remarried even though I promised myself I would never bring a man into my home until my kids were grown and gone.

Add a comment July 9, 2008

Your ashes are gone, Dad

And what a sense of relief I felt as I took that last handful of you, waited for a strong wind to blow, and I tossed you into the air and watched you swirl away from me. I trust that you are peaceful and whole again, and that I will be someday also.

I love you despite your being you.

You were still my dad.

Add a comment October 15, 2007

I can’t mourn your death

Dad,

I still haven’t started grieving for you. I think of you often, but there’s no emotion – just numbness. I thought by now it would be coming to me, especially since I’ve been in therapy, but so far nothing.

I haven’t even felt angry that you had nothing to say to me as you lay dying. I’ve been thinking about it, and my mind tells me that I’m mad about it and that you should’ve had something to say. But I don’t actually feel that anger. I just know it.

Mom and my brother want to scatter your ashes in a few weeks, and I don’t want to go. I have already decided that I will go, because I have to. I know I can say no, I can choose not to, but I won’t. I’m not ready to give up my “good daughter” identity yet and I feel too responsible for Mom & my brother’s feelings. Whenever I try to imagine being truthful with them, I start telling myself what I think they will say or think and it makes me want to never speak to them again.

I think my brother will say I’m crazy, that you were never that way, that you’re the best man he’s ever known. Maybe he won’t say anything. Maybe he’ll act like he did when I told him I was concerned for his drinking. He said “Wow, Sis, thanks, that must have been hard for you to write.” But he had nothing substantive to say other than that. I told DH that talking to him is like eating cotton candy. He says the right things, very loving and positive and very hippy-speak. He reminds me of Uncle. It’s sweet to hear those things, gratifying sometimes, yet they quickly dissolve and before he’s even finished the sentence I’m left with an airy emptiness where intimacy should be.

I don’t know what Mom will say. She’s surprised me at times. I think she’ll think that I’m pushy and overbearing and too needy and selfish, like I have always been. She’ll think I’m causing trouble. She’ll want me to disappear.

So I’m not too excited about having another little memorial event in your honor, Dad. You certainly didn’t care about me when you were dying. We had opportunities to talk. You were lucid. But you had absolutely nothing to say to me, and that hurt. Still hurts. I haven’t even come up with anything in particular that I wanted you to say. You’ve already said “I’m sorry” and “You are right” . . . I don’t know. I think I just wanted you to acknowledge me. To give me some sort of sign that you felt responsibility for what you had done, that you hadn’t forgotten. But reality is, you had nothing to say. Perhaps that’s my fault. I certainly haven’t talked to you about my childhood, not for many, many years. Perhaps you thought everything was fine. If I needed to hear something from you, I should’ve talked to you myself. The truth is, Dad, I didn’t want to talk to you. I wanted you to talk to me.

I’ve been thinking a lot about you and Mom both. About how I hold you both accountable for things you did many years ago, and how the life that you’ve led since that time has not made healing any easier. Sometimes I imagine having that last conversation with you, Dad — me saying to you, “How could you do that?” and you always replying “But I’ve tried to be a good man. I’ve changed. So many people love me! Haven’t I led a good life? Doesn’t anything else that I’ve done count?” And I never know what to say, when I’m imagining this conversation. Is your parenting of me the sole definition of who you are as a person? No, it’s not. But it’s the sole representation of who you are that I am willing to accept for myself. To do anything less is to turn my back on Missy. Let those other people make you feel good about the kind of man that you are. I can’t. I am not proud of you. I think you knew it was wrong, all those years, yet you did it anyway. You got exactly what you wanted for all those years and then said “sorry” when confronted.

What am I going to say when we scatter your ashes? I’ve contemplated declining to speak and saying that I’ve grieved in private. I’ve contemplated writing something that feels truthful to me but that is ok to read in front of the kids. I’ve wondered what it would be like to really say everything I’d like to say. And of course I could take the coward’s way out and read some sappy poem, which would hurt Missy all over again.

I keep imagining that I’m going to ruin everything. That if I say even the tiniest hint about my true feelings for you and my relationship with you, that Mom and my brother will think I’ve ruined their special moment. And maybe that’s true. Maybe I should excuse myself and not go. Let them have their little love-fest and I won’t dishonor myself by being present. I don’t know what I’ll do if I have to hear either of them go on and on about what a perfect person you were. I can list both your faults and your good traits — maybe I’ll just do both, and they can be damned if they don’t like it. Somehow it’s very important to me that they like me, Mom more than my brother I suppose. It’s hard not to want her to think I’m a good person, when I imagine she thinks I’m too harsh and ugly and petty.

I hate that this is where I am, at almost 39 years old. I hate that I still think about you and how you treated me as a little girl. I hate that I hear you whispering in my ear telling me I’m not good enough. That no man will ever love me for long. That I deserve what I get. That I’m a bad parent. That you’re disappointed. I hate you for what you’ve done. I hate that other people like you. I hate that I can’t even be myself with my family because I have two options: be fake to be liked, or be truthful and make them uncomfortable which makes them distance themselves from me. Neither feels very good, Dad. Not at all. Even people who care about me, who don’t know you well, seemed to fall under your spell and find you a delightful person.

But then I love you too, Dad. You have no idea how awful it is to both love and hate the same person, to miss you but feel a horrible sense of relief that this chapter of my life is over now, for good. I’m glad that no one else can be charmed by you.

I don’t think I have anything else to say to you, Dad. I’m sitting here and nothing is coming to mind. It’s good that you’re gone and I can move on. Right now, I wish I could move on from Mom and my brother, too — I’d like to just walk away from scattering your ashes and never look back.

Add a comment October 1, 2007