I Resign As My Father's Keeper: Effective Immediately

Rage. Pure rage.

I can't even find the words for what is pouring off my skin.

I called my father. He said things that were so frustrating, then when I got exasperated he told me to calm down. I told him I can't, so he hung up on me. He just doesn't understand how he pushes people to the brink and then when they react, he sits there calmly and acts like it's you that is insane. He thinks it's just this one phone call, just this exchange that I am reacting to?! It's my whole life, it's everything he has ever done. I have tried to forgive him. I have taken care of him. I have made huge sacrifices and suffered on his behalf. I have tried to help him. I have been his parent to no avail. I have tried to give him good counsel and steer him in the right directions, only to have him ignore my advice, make awful decisions which I then end up paying for dearly, right alongside of him. Yet he wonders why I am upset. He wonders why my patience for him has shortened considerably.

I want a paternal divorce. I want him out of my life. I don't want my fate linked to his anymore. I only want to suffer for my own mistakes, not his. I want to breathe. I want to feel possibility, freedom, AIR.

My father is choking the life out of me. I can't deal with it anymore. I don't know how to get free, but I will, I have to.

All of my anger, all of my unweildy feelings have been turning inward and killing me through depression. It's time for that to stop. It's time for me to take a stand for myself and say NO! No No No!!! No I will not be swallowed whole. No I will not pay for your sins. No I will not grease the wheel. No I will not be sacrificed on your altar anymore. No I won't be your surrogate wife. No I won't be your companion. No I am not on this earth to take care of you until my best years have been spent and my life is over. No I am not here to be your confidant, to chase your loneliness away, to substitute for friends your own age, to be everything my mother wasn't. NO.