Please note, this post contains references to domestic violence, child abuse and animal cruelty.
My dad died today, on his 74th birthday. Ten days ago, on my birthday, he fell, hit his head, and went into a coma from which he never woke.
When I was a kid in the 1970s, my dad introduced me to science fiction, computers, martial arts, video games and Dungeons & Dragons. He bought a Darth Vader helmet and made a costume by dyeing his old army fatigues black and making a chest piece in the garage. He used to play the “princess game” with me where I would run down the hall, lose a shoe like Cinderella, fall into bed like Sleeping Beauty, and he would wake me with a kiss, like Snow White. He would lift me in the air and “fly” me around the room like I was Peter Pan.
He had an incredible imagination and a great sense of humor. He gave me treasure hunts, art lessons, board games, card games, haunted houses, Disneyland, dances and songs. He loved to sing. He taught me to read, write and draw using perspective, before I entered kindergarten. He brought home pieces of colored wire from work so I could make bracelets and rings.
My dad thought it was ok for me, a girl, to do computer programming, science and video games, at a time when my own school refused to let me take electronics because it was “for boys.” He taught me how to play lots of different sports and even how to do a little bit of kung fu.
I still make jewelry today. I’m a published science fiction and fantasy author, and I have a YouTube video gaming channel. I love Westerns and martial arts movies. I’ve made treasure hunts for my own kids.
In so many ways, I am my father’s daughter. But not in every way.
I wish I could say I miss him, but he was an abuser who also collected guns, Nazi paraphernalia and anti-Catholic comic books along with his Star Wars memorabilia. When I was a kid, he gave me black eyes, bruises, and a broken ear drum. I watched him, at various times throughout my life, hit my mom, beat my yelping dog, knock over my sister in her high chair, kick his mother, threaten to get a gun and shoot us, and much more.
He was highly controlling, always had to be right about everything, and accepted nothing less than perfection and total obedience. To disagree or disappoint him was to risk a beating and/or setting off a tantrum that would result in myself, family members and/or pets being abused and household objects broken. He could be enraged by something as small as a scrap of paper on the floor, a towel folded incorrectly, or not eating every bite on your plate at meal times.
“You’ll understand someday when you have kids of your own,” is the old saying. Well, I have kids – one of whom is an adult now, the other a teenager – and I still don’t understand my father. I would never treat my kids the way he treated his and I have a spouse who’s never behaved like that. Ever. Before I married, I dated plenty of people who didn’t terrify me, throw temper tantrums or break things, no matter how bad a day they had or what they were going through.
This is not a eulogy for him but a message for anyone who’s experienced something like this and needs to know they’re not alone.
If you or someone you love is being abused, please seek help. If you think your life or someone else’s life is in immediate danger, call 9-1-1.
If you hurt the people you love, if you use physical violence or anger to control others, please seek help.
If you have experienced abuse in the past and have depression, anxiety, PTSD, suicidal thoughts, IBS, risky sexual behaviors, addiction, autoimmune disorders or other difficulties linked to abuse, I hope you are getting the help that you need.
If you’re not sure where to start, try MentalHealth.gov or talk to your doctor.
It is not your fault when someone abuses you, it’s theirs, no matter what they say.
I’ll also write this for anyone who thinks “he can’t be an abuser, he’s such a nice guy.” It’s not fun to find out someone you know is capable of doing awful things. But I’m here to tell you that it is absolutely possible to be both kind and cruel, humorous and horrifying, friendly and an utter fucking shithead. It is possible to be a co-worker, a friend, a family member AND an abuser.
The last thing I remember him saying to me was “fucking bitch” and we never spoke to each other again in 23 years.
My goal in writing this is not to seek advice or sympathy. I’ve done the therapy with professionals and I’ve spent my entire life dealing with this, in one way or another. I know he struggled with his own demons and had several mental and medical issues. Labeling me a “difficult child” was easier for him and my mom than changing, I get that. And they didn’t know I was on the autism spectrum. Autistic women and girls are often undiagnosed or misdiagnosed, even in this decade, let alone in the 1970s or 80s. *
Don’t tell me how “strong” I am. I hate hearing that. I’m not strong. I got through it because I had no choice, not because I had some kind of special emotional resilience or learned some kind of deep, meaningful lessons. This bullshit weakened me, weakened me badly, and I still deal with the effects to my mental and physical health to this day.
I left as soon as I could, when I turned 18, and I survived because I’m lucky. Some people aren’t.
Five children a day die in the United States from child abuse and neglect.
If you feel the need to react to what I’m saying, please turn that urge into helpful action.
- Donate time and/or money to organizations that help victims of domestic violence and work to prevent child abuse.
- Take anger management classes or talk to a therapist, if you need it.
- Read up on the red flags of abuse, so you can spot them in your own relationships and understand them when friends or family talk about theirs.
- Read the book Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men by Lundy Bancroft. I highly recommend it.
Don’t worry about me, I’m good. But if I can stop the cycle of abuse for one other person, if I can help someone else get through the day knowing they’re not alone, if I can prevent someone out there from being an asshole to their own kids or disbelieving a victim of abuse, if I can raise a $1 to help the estimated 10 million people who are abused by an intimate partner every year in the U.S., then this needs to be said and it might as well be today.
Happy birthday, dad. Rest in peace.
~ J.L. Hilton
* This post was updated in 2024 to reflect my autism diagnosis, which I was unaware of at the original time of writing
