notjitka089's shoutbox - Help.com

I am going to give you the short version, ’cause I like you. lol
My father was an amazing man. He was intelligent, handsome, and eveyone who ever met him fell under his spell. He was also violent man, who was trained in the military how to kill. When he drank, he would be fine for hours and then all of a sudden fly into a rage, which would end in someone getting hurt. He had blackouts and could not remember the violence.
For the duration of my childhood, I learned to be hypervigilent, always looking for the signs of impending violence. I spent a lot of time in my room hiding from the horror of what was going on in the livingroom. I was never the target of his rage perhaps because I was his baby girl. All this went on during an era when families did not air their dirty laundry in public, so I kept the family secret until a teacher coaxed it out of me when I was a teenager. While it was a relief to me to have talked about the problem, nothing changed at home.
Fast forward ten years. My father and mother had divorced and he had remarried. His wife called my to tell me that Dad had attacked her with a knife, and I told her to take her little daughter and hide out. My father wound up moving near me and I watched him slowly kill himself with alcohol. I cared for him during his final illness and grieved for him and for what might have been.
So I guess you might like to know what I gained and lost due to being the daughter of an alcoholic. I gained the ability to dodge bullets, avoid drugs and alcohol, love someone deeply in spite of their failings, and to care for the weak. What did I lose? My father, a secure childhood, the college education my father could not afford due to job loss, and the ability to trust someone to take care of me, emotionally.
The thing is, my father did love me and I still miss him. Would I have been better off not knowing him? I can’t answer that. I am my father’s daughter and I have been told that I am a good person. Would I have been as good a person without having had my father’s genes…I doubt it. I got his I.Q. Yea!

Hey, some of the previous shout disappeared. It should have said, If you are interested in how that affected my life…

I am more than 60 yers old and the daughter of an alcoholic father. If you are interested, I could tell you in a shoutbox, when I have more time. It might be helpful to you, but I am not ready to post it for everyone.