Dear P.,
This letter, as with all the letters written to your brand of person once they have passed, would have been better written, or the conversation better had were you still alive. The problem is nothing would ever have been said. You wouldn't have allowed it. Normals like me are left with people like your son, and decisions about what to do. Do we stay with someone we know is pathologically incapable of actually loving anyone? Or do we leave?
I can hear echos of your childrens' voices in my head using pseudo-spiritual commentary to justify their bad behavior. I can't call it purely spiritual because it's so deeply intertwined with pop psychology and social network derived meme's at this point. I can't call it a philosophy because it's so self-contradictory and is used to excuse while double-standards are lived.
They seem to thrive on the chaos they create with the double-standards. It's as necessary as air to them.
At one point, years ago, I had theorized that, evolutionarily speaking, humans developed logical rationales for having children as an outgrowth of advanced intelligence. People, you included, are inherently average in intelligence and not terribly rational. Indeed, people like you are grossly destructive. At no point was having children a good idea on your part. (And yes, I know, it wasn't all you.)
It's hard to tell how much to chalk up to genetics, and how much to chalk up to socialization--but regardless of where that line falls, there's evidence from folk with sociopathic tendencies that parenting has everything to do with how a person turns out. It's less genes and more environment, across the board.
When you have children, or exist as an adult in this world, you're setting an example for others, whether you choose that or not. That's part of the interconnected nature of humanity. It's something you should have taught your kids.
"Be selfish. No one else is going to do it for you." It's hard for smart people to not notice that you totally bastardized that truism for your own convenience, and worse yet, spread it to your son. Loving, caring people always have the best interest of their partners or friends at heart. Then there's the rest of the world.
But besides that, the saying is "take care of yourself. No one else will do it for you." And it was intended for women who sacrifice absolutely everything for everyone--men and children in particular--and at great personal expense.
From the stories I've heard over the years, your bit of advice was something you'd mastered, forcing women to learn to take care of themselves after they were done taking care of you.
I'm fairly certain that half your son's angst is the fact that the women in your lives put the scare in him about actually sabotaging his relationship by actually physically screwing other women if there wasn't a loophole to cover his ass. He's so "tired" of living his life for everyone else, and what that actually amounts to is that he's tired of not living just like you. I should throw in the towel now: him being truly himself is to wreck lives by suggesting and demanding a certain level of commitment from others, while taking only for himself, giving little in return, and even less if the person's ego isn't available for stroking. And anyone who doesn't is the failure for not liking him, and "accepting" him for who he is. He's too obtuse to understand that sometimes "acceptance" includes walking away from selfish, toxic behavior.
Your very existence was so damaging. Not one of those kids is self-aware enough to see the pathological circumstance. How they didn't stop to question the normalcy of the whole thing is beyond me. There's a cry about how people hate your family, mostly from your son, but at no point has anyone stopped to reflect on how that came to be. It certainly isn't everyone else that's in the wrong. "Where there's s_____'s there's drama" is the mantra I've heard more than once. Your family is like a running t.v. show that people comment on in shock and awe. The looks of disgust have given me pause: I do have to wonder how people are behind my back given my guilt by association. Your near and dears, the closer the worse it is, have garnered the same eye-rolls and looks of disdain.
The worst yet is that at any point, any of you could have chosen to drop out and stop the drama. Blow the whistle. Take a moment to reflect and take active steps to change. Yet none of you do. Perhaps they all feel like they couldn't communicate because none of the others are willing to be reasonable--except none of them realize that people outside the clan ARE willing to reasonable and view all of you that way.
I've made the mistake of thinking your son was better than that because he talked good, acted frustrated and made it sound like he knew it all. It took me a while to accept that it was all arrogance. It's rather shocking to find out someone is that far gone. You stand back for long moments and believe you must be seeing or hearing things wrong: this can't possibly be real. But all of you are very, very real. And you did just say or do that thing.
Your family had told me that you had a military and/or prison diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder--you'd be clearly the low-aggression type. And the word "sociopath" comes with a sting that "malignant narcissist" doesn't, but after seeing you re-telling stories with what was clearly an exaggerated twist on it--the same as your son--I can see that it's the malignant narcissism, which wasn't an available diagnosis back then. Sociopaths are actually easy by comparison, and in some ways seem more human. They also have better self-control and are wiser if they don't want to end up alone.
Why write to you? I'm asking myself that question. Your son could leave with me. I don't know that he will. I don't know what will happen even if he does. He's an addict because he has no reason not to be. He doesn't see me, or any of his friends, or anything as good enough reason to be sober. He refuses to deal with his feelings--and for as long as I've known him, that's the way it is. He over-emoted, this histrionic drama where he literally used me as means to maintain friendships that were sustained on the basis of needing to be protected from the "big bad evil girlfriend" because his ex wasn't perfectly behaved. I've never heard her whole side of the story, so I can't really say that he didn't have a role: if he was with her like he is with me, I'm not at all surprised at the outcome. If he's not over-emoting and histrionics for the attention about non-existent problems that he entirely made up to form friendships with, he doesn't seem to have any actual feelings. Do you suppose it's the emptiness that he's filling? Is it the emptiness that drives him to use? Did your objectifying womanizing fill the empty spot for you like it does him? Will he settle out of this drug and party phase like you did yours? Am I really supposed to settle for that?
"I am my father." He's said that dramatically more than once. He's never rationally explained his feelings. And I have an utter terror inside me that he's going to live out your life story for some deranged reason that totally ignores his insistence that people have a choice about what their life looks like. Martyrdom 101?
Apparently one of your daughters has commented that she's dating her father. The mother of your children notices that all of her daughters have ended up dating versions of you, and she blames herself for half of that.
Did you really want your daughters to date you? Are you proud of yourself? Sadly, I don't think you ever saw your effect on things: it was more about how YOU felt about a particular person or thing--not what was happening to them and how you played a part in that: for the worse.
You got the simple stuff: you can't pay bills if you're putting it up your nose. But you didn't get the other stuff: when you treat women like shit, your son will, and your daughters will find that guy... just like their mother did. Were you just not capable? Or did you choose not to see it... I wish you were alive to talk about it, though I'm not sure you were smart enough to even see what you were missing let alone be that honest.
Your son said that if we had kids things would be different, i.e.he would clean up his act. I've terminated because the first time I was, he looked at me darkly out of the corner of his eye with an evil grin and went back to his friends on-line. He'd be "the man" telling kids what to do, but actually doing little? He certainly isn't equipped to set a good moral example. Ethics are a thing beyond his comprehension--we've hit walls that I've had to work around alone because they just aren't part of his emotional landscape.
Some part of me wants to, or needs to, believe that after we die we are stripped naked of our egos and that we are forced to be honest about ourselves and our lives. Since living with people is hell for this reason, I like to pretend that's what it would be like in "heaven" or the hereafter or whatever. If you can hear me, if you can see me writing this, I hope that you're doing some reflecting. I hope you finally feel some amount of shame, because you clearly didn't while you were alive.
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