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I learned the hard way, years later, his Special Move™. During all those years, he called other members of the family to give them news about me — news that he completely made up, because he didn’t know anything about my life! He told them to call *him* back rather than me, because I was ”busy” or something. This alienated me from most of my family. I lost contact with most of them — my uncle and my aunt, for instance. But, in the rare occasions my father and I got to talk, he was very good at saying how the rest of the family abandoned us after our mother’s death, and I’m ashamed to say I believed him back then. He manipulated me into thinking I had no family but him. And he did the same with my sister — even worse somehow, he managed to do the same between my sister and mI.So we kind of grew apart for most of our twenties and only got to reconcile in the last couple of years. We’re now closer than ever, to my father’s dismay. The very last time we talked, he accused me of « manipulating [my sister] into erasing him from her life ». He knew that he was losing his grip on her, and he sounded desperate. She now has a loving family, he’s not a part of it, and I am back into her life. And I couldn’t be happier about all of this.
Long story short, he was great at being manipulative, he had an insidious way into our lives, and it took a lot of years to figure this all out. Now he’s grasping at straws, showing everyone who he truly is — my sister realized how he didn’t seem to even care about her at all nowadays, he only shows interest for his granddaughter. Lately, he’s been telling us and everyone he’ll commit suicide because of us (for more context, our grandpa *actually* committed suicide this year, and he knows perfectly well how this kind of blackmail hurt us).
I cannot remember a single time when he behaved like an actual loving parent would: showing genuine interest in how we feel, even if the answer might be « I don’t feel great ». Cheering us up when we’re feeling bad. Being unconditionally kind and supportive. Staying in touch throughout the years. Thinking about wishing us a happy birthday or holidays — let alone making us gifts. Lending us money when we’re about to get expelled from our home, or lending his car for a few hours when we need to go to a job interview. Welcoming the new members of our respective families and seeing them as members of his own. None of that ever happened. None of that will ever happen. Because he doesn’t love us. He doesn’t love me. But I have to keep saying this to myself often, because, deep down, my brain wants to believe that every parent does love their children unconditionally. Helas, that is simply not true. And to be honest, he probably loves no one.
This story could be over, but there’s more. I’m still digging and uncovering a lot of buried memories. I talked about the « weird incestuous » relationship he established with my sister, and I picked these words very consciously. I still have flashes, faint reminiscences, visions of my father naked, and a strange gut feeling when I see him acting weirdly around kids. I’m now at peace with the idea that I’ll probably never truly know what happened (if anything). It’s okay. As far as I’m concerned, the amount of abuse I can remember is already enough for a lifetime.
A last note towards people who recognize themselves in this story. For the purpose of this thread I’ve been talking about « my father » but more often than not, I now refer to him as « the progenitor », or similar circumlocutions. It helps me process. And if it helps you too, don’t feel ashamed to do the same. Family is only what you make of it. It’s not your fault. Sometimes it’s better to just cut ties off. No one should go through the stuff that I, or you, went through. And I know you’ll find your family eventually, if you haven’t yet.
(part 3 of 3)

2024-12-26 20:34:40 CET

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From that moment on, I began being the one he beat up. I dared to expose him once, and that was enough to warrant punishment. As I grew up, I stood up against him more often when my mother was beaten, and I ended up taking the hits instead. Also, I wasn’t exactly a gender-conforming manly-man, and my bisexual awakening was probably more obvious to my parents than it was to myself, and that gave another reason for my father to pick me as a target.
When I was about 15 or so, I was filled with revenge and hatred. And one day, when he started raising his voice and cornering me against a wall, I thought I had enough. I pushed him back. Hard. Keep in mind I was now taller and stronger than him: I sent him banging over a wall, breaking a door’s knob. I didn’t intend my reaction to be that strong, but it kind of happened that way, probably out of fear. At the moment, I ran out of the house for a few hours — I did that quite often anyway — because I thought he’d kill me. But he never ever tried to touch me or my mother ever again. It was over.
My mother did try to run away once, with my sister and me. I only have vague memories of this. I wasn’t 10 yet, and one morning she woke us up very early. We walked a lot, took the first regional train, and went knocking at some friend’s door, waking her and her family up. We spent like a day and a half there, but then my father came to pick us all up (I don’t know how he figured out where we were). It was a short-lived attempt at an escape, the only one I can think of. And I cannot help but feeling a bit resentful at my mother for not trying to protect us a bit more, even when I was the one who got beaten up.
My sister does not remember much of this. For good reasons. Because of the trauma, my own memories from my early childhood are also blurry, and she’s 3 years younger than I am. Besides, as far as I know, my father never hit her. As it turns out (and we figured this out only quite recently), he was abusive with her in a whole different way. After our mother’s death, our father became very intrusive in my sister’s life. She became a substitute wife for him: helping him when he was drunk and depressed, making groceries and housecleaning, cooking for him… He had a very manipulative way of playing the victim’s part, saying for years how he was sad because he lost his wife, calling or even visiting in the middle of the night completely drunk to complain… he never cared about, or acknowledged, the fact that we had also lost a mother. Help was always a single-way lane with him. It was all so fucking selfish and self-centered. And this weird, incestuous power relationship with my sister prevented her from having a healthy private life, from healing as she was always dragged back to our mother’s death’s trauma, and ultimately from growing up as a woman with a husband and family of her own. He wanted her to keep being her little daughter slash make-believe wife forever and ever.
By then, I had already taken steps to keep my father away from my daily life. I was scared that he would be as intrusive and controlling with me as he was with my sister, so I was being extra-distant with him. I made boundaries clear, obvious, and non-negotiable. That was enough for him to stop caring about me entirely (if he couldn’t keep some way of pressure on me, I wasn’t useful to him anymore). He barely wanted to talk at all; when he called me, about twice a year, it was mostly to complain and never to ask how *I* was going (not great, thanks for asking, Dad). But I’ve learned from neighbours that on his daily way to work, he often took a detour to pass by my street. He wanted to see if my car was parked there, if he could see light through my windows. Maybe it was a way for him to gather intel about my private life? He did so for years, and I never told him that I knew.
(part 2 of 3)

2024-09-18 07:52:04 CEST

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bon courage https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTAgbqidAic

2024-09-05 17:19:09 CEST

Je rappelle que l'argument officiellement avancé par l'Élysée pour ne pas nommer un Premier ministre issu du NFP, c'était que celui-ci "serait immédiatement censuré par l’ensemble des autres groupes représentés à l’Assemblée nationale". Bon, déjà, goûtez le côté "Minority Report" où, sous prétexte qu'un truc pourrait arriver, on estime que c'est comme s'il était déjà arrivé.
Mais surtout, surtout, il aurait suffi que Macron (en évoquant la "stabilité" nécessaire des institutions, comme il le fait toujours) demande à ses députés de ne pas voter cette potentielle mention de censure pour que ce risque imaginaire se retrouve immédiatement écarté. Le vote d'une motion de censure aurait requis la majorité absolue, soit 285 députés. En comptant les 193 députés de gauche ainsi que 99 députés macronistes (sans même compter les groupes "proches" des macronistes comme Horizons ou le MoDeM), on est déjà au-dessus de ce nombre.
Réalisez donc à quel point il se fout de votre gueule.

2024-09-01 23:22:33 CEST

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🫂
I hope you will be able to find your balance again (I certainly think you will) and the ability to do the things you want at a speed that feels right.

2024-08-19 11:28:58 CEST

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le Cuisinotron me faisait beaucoup marrer. À l'époque où c'était la mode 🧓 j'avais aussi créé un compte "ebooks" basé sur mon activité Twitter, globalement ça se contentait de rattacher des bouts de tweet qui avaient des mots communs, mais le résultat était assez fendard.

2024-05-31 14:54:09 CEST

OK, j'ai envie de partager mes playlists musicales mensuelles ici. Essentiellement c'est un best of personnel des sorties récentes, mais aussi des fois des musiques qui m'obsèdent ou se rappellent à mon souvenir pour telle ou telle raison.
Je vais essayer de faire en sorte que ce soit pas limité à un seul service musical, Songwhip est pas mal pour ça, mais pas parfait — désolée si des fois ça n'arrive pas à matcher un morceau sur tous les services musicaux.
Des fois j'ajoute aussi des musiques qui ne sont pas dispo sur les plateformes, donc ça arrive qu'occasionnellement un petit lien Bandcamp se glisse dedans, voire YouTube en tout dernier recours (mais vraiment j'éviterai autant que possible).
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