Jackly or Hyde? (Dec. 4)

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[A note to my sister-in-law]
Hey ____. I was just rereading your comments on your post on Facebook. I'm sure we'll discuss this when we visit tomorrow, although with kids around, i'm not sure how much we'll be at liberty to share.

Anyway, your comment about "we never know which version we will get when they visit" stuck out to me. I have thought that too. I called recently, expecting to get "bad cop" and got "good cop" instead. It really threw me. So which one is the "real" one?

The last couple months have been hugely eye-opening to myself. I've been on this crazy spiritual quest complete with dreams and crazy experiences with God. Real pilgrimage sort of craziness.

We’ve read a lot of books, and had some top-notch counselling too. Some key terms have been “narcissistic personality disorder,” “sociopath,” and "chaotic and controlled" family structures. Maybe these terms would mean something to yourself as well.

Which is "the real" dad? Is he Jakyl? Or is he Hyde?

The literature seems to say...and this seems to fit...he's both. If you do what he says, you get the good cop. If not, you get the bad. So what is he really?

...

...He is in control...

of himself, and of those around him.

He is far more in control than we have ever realized.

It's interesting that he said, "No more pussy-futting around my beliefs." That meant all this time, bad cop was in there. All that anger was there. But you got good cop. Why? Because he wanted something out of you? Because you were doing the right things?

Now you're getting bad cop because you're not doing the bad things.

Religion and personal beliefs on sexual orientation completely aside...it's about control. My dad still thinks he is in control of his three sons. For him, nothing at all has changed from the days when he had complete control over our lives through discipline, anger, and sometimes rage and violence.

[See the post, "The Conversation" for more on this topic]

And that control is why we feel like we need to take a big step back from him right now. It’s not just that we feel that he is an unsafe person (he is that too), but we feel the need to disentangle from decades of control: and that is not easy to do.

Anyway, I’m sure we’ll talk more in person. But these are just things I have been thinking lately.

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