Tears Solve Nothing – Lean Into the Anger

I admit, there is no love lost between me and my parents. I have stated unequivocally many times that if the man who fathered me passed away right now, I wouldn’t care. I also acknowledge my growing ambivalence about my mother’s eventual demise, not surprising as we are not super close and growing further apart as time goes by. 

I have a coworker who comes from a very abusive household. Her father is volatile, she describes him as really scary. A short triggered latino machismo piece of crap in my estimation. He treats the mother, and all his children (this coworker included) with his special brand of extra physical and verbal abuse. Who knows the full extent of the damage?

I will not apologize for feeling no empathy or sympathy for her because her POS abusive father is dying. Maybe I am a little extra annoyed because this coworker is especially dramatic, and sensitive about every fucking thing.

Her father was recently diagnosed stage 4 of some cancer (I forgot which) and was unable to receive treatment for several months after the diagnosis because he kept testing positive for COVID-19. 

So now he is basically dying. Even if he undergoes treatment he is really just prolonging the inevitable. It is at this part of her story where I internally gave a sigh of relief, because his death will free her from the cycle of abuse. Maybe.

She has been flagellating herself with his dying. Out of the entire family of siblings, her mother included, the coworker is the only one tending to his bedside regularly. She is incredibly strong at the same time that she is unbelievably foolish. 

She is missing a golden opportunity to stick a big old middle finger in the asshole’s face as he lays on his deathbed. She could be giving him the big old fuck-you-old-man, but instead she is crying and weeping and literally mourning his passing. Martyring herself for a man who treats her and his whole family like shit.

This is the part where I couldn’t empathize.

I can’t even. I tried for like 20 seconds, as I unwillingly shared in her personal phone call that afternoon (hey, she chose to sit at the desk across from mine to FaceTime her mother). It was too much. Too much worrying, too much weeping. Too much feeling sad over a man who doesn’t give two shits about them and treated them terribly – and still would had he the physical strength to do so. 

I am no stranger to abusive households. My mother was physically abusive with me. She will deny it with her every breath and try to gaslight me and tell me that it didn’t happen. In short, when I was little, I was her punching bag when she had a shit day at work. Beatings for no reason or for seemingly unequal offenses were a matter of course. And because I was the eldest, I protected my brother and took the beatings so she wouldn’t beat on him. This pattern continued until about middle school, at which time I as physically bigger than her, and coincidentally she changed jobs too.

Unfortunately, my brother thinks I made it all up. He sided with my mother’s gaslit version of our childhood during the huge argument we had on the ill-fated Grand Canyon Trip of 2015. His empirical evidence being that he wasn’t beaten. Therefore, I am making up lies that she was ever abusive to me. Whatever, is it a surprise we aren’t close anymore?

Regardless, I came away from the abusive experience differently. I have anger issues and see sadness as a weakness – when I can control it. If I am going to get emotional, I would rather rage than give into my feelings of despair. It is what it is. 

So where I lean into the anger, this coworker leans into her sadness. Her weakness is like a coat she wears, that she can’t/won’t take it off. She recently confessed to me that she was unable to return to work as soon as we reopened the business because of her father. 

Good fucking riddance.  

I hope after the man dies, that the crying stops. For her sake. She needs to buck up and stop being a victim. She has no clue how strong she is because she spends all her time looking for validation from outside sources. I don’t know what it’s going to take for her to have a personal epiphany about how she needs to be the hero in her own life. 

She calls me strong because I stand up for myself and refuse to be the emotional punching bag for my parental figures. 

I say all of this because she was so overwrought with grief after that phone call that she had to leave work early. I was like oh my god. Yes, please go home with all that goddamned crying, it is getting on my every last nerve! 

Have I mentioned how much I hate crying?

My mother was a weeping willow. When she wasn’t flying into a rage and spanking me for whatever supposed transgression I was guilty of that day, she was crying constantly over my father, over her life, over who knows. It was just too much flipping crying. 

Tears, in my experience, solve nothing. Unless the time spent crying is also spent in retrospection and at the end of the crying you reach a conclusion to move ahead, then all you are doing is wasting time.

Perhaps my reaction to this coworker’s situation is a little strong…

I have noticed that lately I am a little extra keyed up. Hell, some of my friends have noticed, and I own it. It’s a volatile time and I am trying to cope as best I can. There’s a little too much of everything right now. The pandemic, the economic downturn, the protests, the government, the upcoming election, etc. The list goes on. 

The globe is in crisis. I would think that would help her get a grip, to get some perspective on her situation. Help her pump the brakes on the runaway train of crying. Because in the scheme of things, once this man passes away, she will be free.

If I were her, I would be focusing on the after, and not wallowing in the now.