1111 Assurance...

Friday, February 09, 2007

P.S.
Dr. K., who helped me to realize that I really was an ok person, assured me that even if my father had hit BB, I would not have done it. I'm not so sure, but Dr. K. was the expert, and he said so. I don't know what he figured I would have done instead.

Daughter was very ill, hospitalized, when my father died of a heart attack (before I started with Dr. K.), so I didn't go to the funeral. For a long time, I didn't really believe he was dead. On the top of my mind, the reasoning part, I believed it, but deep down where the emotions live I was afraid that he wasn't really dead, that people just told me that so I wouldn't kill him.

For a few years after my father died, I had nightmares. I would dream that he really was alive, and was searching for my baby brother to hurt him, and that I was hiding BB from him, and he was close to finding him, and no one would help me because they insisted he was dead. Very detailed dreams. Think of the scariest horror movie. Like that. Panic.

I dreamed of him in college, too. After my first semester, I had the only private room on campus, because I screamed and cried so much in my sleep that no roommate could sleep. Those dreams were almost silly. One I had over and over was that my parents were visiting the campus, and we were walking up the hill and there was a bright red VW beetle parked in front of Carver Hall, and for some reason my father took a dislike to the beetle and he started beating it with a ... something, bat? Board? I was trying to stop him from destroying the car. I screamed "No, Daddy, no! Stop! Stop, Daddy! Please don't!"

Apparently anyone within hearing found this very disturbing.

Dr. K. figured the VW beetle was BB, but I used a car instead because I couldn't handle not being able to protect my baby brother, but it was almost ok to not be able to protect an anonymous car.

The nightmares didn't stop until after I accepted fully that he was dead.

By the way, some relatives hold me responsible for his death anyway. After I had told him that I'd kill him if he hit BB or my mother ever again, he had nowhere for his anger to go. They blame me for his heart attacks getting worse. (Think about the injustice in that for a while.) But he'd been having minor attacks for years, and would not go to the doctor, so I feel no responsibility. Well, very little. Well, maybe I gloat sometimes. Just a little.
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