He is not a villain. He is not a monster. He is not a caricature of rage.
But he is a wound. The kind that never quite scabs over because it was never treated properly to begin with.
This isn’t an exposé. It’s not a reckoning. It’s an attempt to name the bruise that shaped how I show up in rooms, in relationships, and in the quiet conversations I have with myself.
My father.
The man who raised his voice louder than anyone else in the house. The man who raised his hand too. Not always for discipline. Sometimes for dominance. Sometimes for sport. Sometimes, just because he could. He was violent. He was feared. And for a long time, I didn’t know that was abnormal.
We didn’t laugh much growing up. There was no softness. No ease. He loved respect more than he loved connection. He craved submission more than closeness. He demanded presence but never presence of mind.
And somehow, even in all of this, I wanted him to choose me.
I was never his favourite. He said it. He showed it. And every year that went by, I felt myself shrinking under the weight of not being enough for him. Not smart enough. Not grateful enough. Not obedient enough. I started believing that maybe I wasn’t enough.
He paid school fees for my siblings. I remember the moment he stopped paying mine. It wasn’t an argument. It was just silence. A kind of unspoken rejection that screamed louder than any belt ever did.
When I started my business, he didn’t ask about it. Didn’t offer encouragement. Didn’t even seem curious. When I lost my job before that, there was no offer of help. No checking in. I was left to figure it out. Alone.
And the irony? When my mother kicked me out, when I packed my things in shame and confusion and grief, he looked at me and laughed. “She’s your mother,” he said. “Deal with it.”
But when she left him, when she moved out while he was away and left him stranded in his own life, suddenly I was the solution. Because I was single. Because I had space. Because I didn’t count.
He moved in.
And with him came a tidal wave of helplessness. Of grief. Of need. I parented the man who never once protected me. I listened to his heartbreak, his stories, his pain—while swallowing the fact that he never made room for mine.
And it brought everything back. The violence. The favouritism. The shame. The way he used to laugh at me when I cried. The way he told me I wouldn’t amount to anything. The way he reminded me that things were only ever done for me “for consistency.”
When I tried to speak about these things, he offered the same hollow refrain: “I know I’ve made some mistakes, but…”
That “but” is a knife. It cuts through any attempt at real accountability. It absolves him of the need to reflect. And it leaves me holding the weight of everything that came after.
I think he believes this is all about money. That my distance is financial. But it’s not. It’s emotional. It’s generational. It’s structural. It’s the years of being overlooked, misunderstood, and used.
He wants to start businesses we have to fund. Ventures that aren’t viable. Decisions that ignore the toll they take on our income and future. He doesn’t want to change. He wants to be helped.
And I’m tired.
I’m tired of being the one he remembers when he has nowhere else to go. I’m tired of the hierarchy, the guilt, the lack of repair. I’m tired of being told I should be grateful when what I am is grieving.
He is not a villain. He is not a monster. But he is a wound I never asked for. A wound I am finally, finally trying to clean.
This is not about revenge. This is about release. This is the part where I stop bleeding quietly. This is the part where I write it down.