Just a warning, this is going to cover a subject I know plenty of people would rather not hear about and will feel uncomfortable about, but I feel the need to discuss it.

My parents were in a LDR back in the 80s, my father lived in Colorado even though he was originally from Louisiana and my mom lived in New Orleans. They met through my father's sister who was a co-worker of my mom's. They were together for 6 months before my mom moved to be with him and shortly after were married in a small ceremony. What my mom didn't learn about my dad until after they married was that he had a violent temper. He never hit her, but he would become very angry for very little things and verbally abused her. After two years of marriage they moved back to Louisiana with me, barely 2 at the time, and when I turned 6 they divorced. My mom could not handle his temper, his control issues, and his paranoia. Unfortunately with no evidence against him he was allowed joint custody of me. At first his anger was still directed towards my mother and he would badmouth her in front of me. When I wasn't buying into it he turned his anger to me.

My father, in short, was a monster. He was a pedophile and a sociopath with a taste for little boys. For 8 years he molested me and abused me verbally, emotionally, and sexually. The molestation stopped when he became too physically ill (he had diabetes, MS, heart problems, was blind and deaf on his left side amongst other health issues) to care for me, but the abuse didn't end until he died when I was 18. For years I thought everything he had done was just him being an asshole. It wasn't until after I had a mental breakdown at 18 that caused me to be admitted into outpatient therapy and I talked about what he had done that I learned the severity of it all. He died before I could confront him and get closure. I had to sit through a funeral and listen to dozens of people call that sadist a SAINT and praise him. There are only two people in both families that know what he did, my mother and his sister.

Tonight the subject of my father came up with my mom and often times when this happens we recount incidents of times he said something crude or mistreated one of us and just how we wished things had been different. My mom told me tonight that before her, he had been engaged to someone else who had gotten pregnant. The woman ended up aborting the baby saying to him she could never marry him and live with his temper, much less have a child who might inherit it.

I have my father's temper. I am easily angered but over the years I have learned to curb it and not lash out. After thinking for a few minutes, I told my mom: "You know I have his temper. It was actually the real reason I never dated. I saw what that temper did to your marriage and how it was used to hurt us and I got scared I would be the same way, that I would find somebody and hurt them." I started crying at this point because I had never discussed this with anyone. I always told my mom the reason I never dated was because I wasn't interested, but the real reason I was scared that because I have so much of my father and his flaws in me that I would inevitably turn into him and I would either hurt that person without meaning to or they would leave me, saying they were unable to deal with me.

Being in a relationship now, the fear strikes me more profoundly. I am constantly scared that I will run my boyfriend away with my temper or my moodswings or anything else. I've spent my life trying to be nothing like my father but still the fear is there. The fear that I will ruin the one thing I thought I'd never be allowed. I suppose it's a natural, if not slightly irrational, fear. I have ruined friendships because I acted like my father, ironically the one that was affected the most the girl cut contact with me just a month before Hattie asked me out. I was frightened I'd reinact it with him, but I fought with myself not to.

I realize I am not my father, that just because half his DNA makes up my own doesn't mean I will trip down the same sick path he did. Doesn't mean it doesn't scare me all the same.