At 14, My Dad Slapped Me Twice And Tossed Me Out Into A Snowstorm… – Reddit Family Tales

On her days off, Mom was completely there, making lavish dinners, assisting with homework, and taking me shopping for necessities. The contrast was dramatic yet sustained.

Her friends gathered behind us over those months. Women from the hospital, neighbors from our previous block, folks I had known my entire life.

They donated casseroles, supplied babysitting, and overall formed a support network to replace some of the void left by losing half of our family. Mom gently accepted their compassion, which might be overpowering at times.

Dad attempted to build a relationship through letters. Lengthy meandering pages about regret and development, pledges to improve, and explanations for why he had responded so badly.

Mom reviewed each one first, looking for anything wrong before deciding whether to give them to me. The majority went right into a file folder she retained for legal purposes.

The few she offered me were hollow, like meaningless words on paper unable to restore what had been done. I tried reading one once and got three paragraphs in before my fury flared up so much that I had to put it down.

He wrote about understanding my point of view, about the treatment he’d started, and about trying to regain my trust. Everything sounded like scripts from a self-help book—empty statements that proved he knew intellectually what he’d done wrong but didn’t feel the crushing weight.

I had sleeplessness throughout my first year. I’d lay up until 2 or 3:00 a.m., my mind racing with innumerable what-if possibilities.

What if I didn’t make it to Sophie’s house? What if the Collins family hadn’t been there?

The what-ifs were unending and tiresome. Mom ultimately sent me to a sleep doctor who provided medicine that helped, but the dreams continued to occur sometimes.

High school started rather tough. Freshman year brought a building full of classmates who had heard variants of my narrative.

The majority of them had become corrupted as a result of repeated recounting. Some youngsters regarded me like a morbid celebrity, asking for information about the snow and the beating.

Others avoided me completely, uneasy with the living reminder that parents can be deadly. I learned to balance both extremes by keeping my head down and focused on my studies.

Sophie and I ended up in various buddy groups that year, which is a natural progression as people acquired distinct interests. She remained polite and continued to invite me to events, but we were not as close as we had been previously.

The common suffering had briefly linked us, but true friendship required more than that. We stayed friendly until graduation, then lost touch as college drove us in various directions.

Mom began dating when I was 15, taking great care to ensure that I was at ease with anyone she introduced me to. Neither of the partnerships lasted long.

She’d learned to see red flags and walk away at the first sight of dishonesty or fury. Her standards had risen to unrealistically high levels, which felt fair given what we had been through.

One person, James, survived over seven months. He was gentle with my suspicions, never pushed too far, and always respected Mom’s limits.

They’d go out to dinner or the movies while I stayed at home, and he’d leave her with nothing but a kiss good night on the porch. I admired his discipline, even if I despised his presence.

Mom eventually stopped it, recognizing that I was not ready to share her with anybody. Dad’s attempts to reenter my life intensified around my 17th birthday.

Letters became phone calls to Mom’s number, which he was not supposed to answer. Gifts came on our porch: books, jewelry, and other items that showed he had taken an interest in my hobbies.

Mom cataloged everything, preserved the receipts and cards, and created a dossier to chronicle his boundary infractions. When he arrived at her residence one evening, she contacted the police.

Mom came up with the idea for the restraining order, which she carried out with the same systematic efficiency that she had used in the divorce. Dad had been clearly ordered to keep away, yet he had repeatedly disregarded that directive, demonstrating an inability to respect our limits.

The court instantly issued the injunction, expanding it to include both Mom and myself. Dad was apprehended by police the next day when he attempted to approach me outside school.

Hannah graduated from high school with the closest margin. I heard she barely finished her senior year and had skipped so many classes that the school threatened to keep her back.

In the photographs I saw on social media, she appeared older than her years and more weathered. The girl who had grinned while watching me freeze had transformed into someone I could hardly recognize.

She walked out of Dad’s apartment the day after graduation, crashed with friends, did minimum wage jobs, and wandered through the following several years without a plan. Social media revealed a string of disastrous relationships and questionable actions, indicating the usual trajectory of someone who never learned to accept responsibility for consequences.

I looked from afar, feeling nothing. Dad had a second episode which confirmed Mom’s decision to entirely cut him off.

He got into a confrontation at a pub, beat someone so hard that their jaw broke, and was jailed for assault. The specifics were unclear, but witnesses claimed he had been drinking and became hostile when someone ran into him.

When alcohol was present, the pattern of aggression that began with me appeared to spread to strangers. His lawyer was able to keep him out of jail, but he was unable to avoid probation, required anger management sessions, and limits on his ability to spend time with his own children.

Not that it mattered. I had previously forbidden any communication and Hannah had gone on to cause her own calamities.

Dad had successfully alienated everyone who had ever cared for him. Over the next few months I saw them on occasion, usually in stores or on the street.

Dad always seemed shrunken, smaller than I recalled. Hannah was upset, her visage a permanent frown implying that life with Dad was not matching her expectations.

I felt nothing when staring at them. There is no wrath or pleasure, only a tremendous void where family once was.

Therapy helped. Dr. Morrison specialized in trauma and understood how to help me comprehend what had happened without pushing too hard.

She stated that betrayal by family members left distinct types of wounds, that recovery was not linear, and that some days were more difficult than others. She was correct.

Some mornings I awoke enraged, ready to shout about the injustice of it all. Other days I simply felt exhausted, weighed down by the weight of everything that had happened.

Mom never questioned her decisions. She had burnt down our family, spread the ashes, and rebuilt something new from the rubble.

Just the two of us, finding out how to be a family with half of the members missing. She worked her shifts at the hospital, came home to prepare dinner, helped with school work, and did all of the typical Mom things, but with a newfound passionate protectiveness.

High school came and went. I obtained high grades, went to college, and constructed a life apart from the family I’d lost.

Hannah reached out a few times over the years, sending emails implying a desire to reconcile and restore what she had lost. I never replied.

Some things are permanently broken. Dr. Morrison said that was okay.

I didn’t owe anyone forgiveness simply because we shared DNA. Dad died when I was 26—heart attack, abrupt and deadly.

I attended the funeral because Mom claimed it would provide closure, even though I wasn’t sure I needed it. Hannah was there, older, but with the same calculating attitude she had at 17.

She tried to talk to me about using Dad’s death as a bridge to reconnect. I walked away in the middle of a sentence.