Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Needing a father, not a borderline personality

I posted a few months ago about my dad and my gender (http://kkriesel.blogspot.com/2009/08/gender-related-to-my-dad.html): he raised me androgynously until I hit puberty, the masculinities I managed to learn from him, etc.

He's returned to emailing my half-sister. The two emails so far are pleasant, friendly rambles, the most recent of which he asks for the contact information of others - including me. He has my email address, but probably won't use it until this current attempt at manipulation fails.

October '08, he contacted my half-sister that he was dying and, after eight years of no contact, I emailed him that I would forgive him when he dies. I made it clear that I wrote this for MY OWN CLOSURE; he rampaged for a while until he realized that I wasn't going to reply anymore. After writing that email (and learning how to weld. Nothing works out anger like getting metal hot and hitting it with a hammer), I finally was able to reflect on our relationship from a healthy place.

When I came out as a lesbian to my mom, she claimed it was because I didn't have enough male role models. My dad replied to my closure-email, in which I came out as gay to him, that I'm confusing my sexuality with my gender. Well, they both had seeds of truth that neither of them could have foreseen. Now that I'm going through a gender transition, I wish that I had more male role models, particularly a father. The masculinities I learned from him were so valuable and, now that I'm an adult, there are more to learn but I'm cut off from them. I was so angry at him throughout high school and college that I honestly thought that I would never need a father figure. And now I do.

Learning about borderline personality disorder, though, has helped me to see that nothing he says/writes is real: it's all just to cover up his fear.

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