my birth dad was 18 when I was conceived, he stuck around for a fortnight and scarpered and to be honest I don't blame him. I couldn't pick a haircut I liked at that age, how on earth could you commit to a family? I know his name but I've never seen any pictures of him or met anyone from his side of the family, sometimes I wonder but mostly I feel like it's his loss.
My brother's dad was on the scene til I was about five. We lived above a pub and an off-license, and he was an alcoholic who also had a slot machine installed in the flat. He hit my mother and I didn't realise that this wasn't normal, and it was because I said he did it in front of my grandparents that we got moved out and placed in council housing. They agreed to a custody arrangement with my brother but the condition was that he took both of us because my mother was adamant that we were getting equal treatment. She didn't want one of us to have a dad and not the other. But he couldn't treat us equal - my brother got the better toys, the choice of dinner, front seat in the car every time etc. So it fizzled out. His other kids tried to reach out to me on Facebook, I ignored it, they found my brother and I know they've met; but my policy is to remain strictly disengaged from that, because my own opinions on the man won't change the fact he is my brother's father.
The painter and decorator who came to do the council house became my de facto stepdad until I was 18. I hate the bastard. I wake up every day and I hope he dies. He wanted us to be proper boys - football, rock music, cars, girlfriends. I'm not that person and I never have been. I was a geeky child, not in the comics-and-science way, but in the always-reading, always-indoors way. I liked pop music and dance music and things that were "pretty and nice" and essentially embarassed every sense of fragile masculinity he had. He hated that, and told me constantly what a failure and disappointment I was. We did resemble each other so I can imagine he was worried people would think I was his son and he had brought up a sissy. I got older and became more sure of myself - my beliefs, my politics, and my willingness to fight for them, and did we fight. He battered me a few times, he called me the same things that people who were said to be "bullying" me at school called me, he did everything he could to make me feel ashamed and afraid of the person that I am.
Inevitably I realised my sexuality and told some friends. Not that it was ever going to be hidden with my character and mannerisms. On my 16th my friends jokingly got me a copy of Gay Times, and after drinking in the park I came home and chucked it under the bed. He found it later while looking for something in my room (I've never found out what that was) and threw me out for two days. I slept on a pal's couch, and when I went home to hash it out he told me that I was a disgrace, that I had clearly been laughing at him behind his back, and that he didn't mind as long as I kept it hidden ie no boyfriends, tone down the campness, don't tell anyone local. Nearly half my life has passed and I still can't fathom the mindset to see your stepson's coming out as being about "laughing behind your back" as if it was a deliberate act of spite. When he found out I had been seeing someone he told me I was disgusting and used some really homophobic language to describe it, to him the physical act was repulsive. His own mother had disowned his sister when she came out as a lesbian in her late 30s, so I almost understood it, but when I heard this I realised that it was a proper revulsion rather than a position of fear or ignorance.
My teenage motivation in life to do well at school then uni, to go out and into the world, wasn't driven by a desire to accomplish anything in particular. I just wanted to get away from the shittiness of small-town life and bigotry, to be somewhere where I wouldn't be limited and viewed with scorn because of my identity and my beliefs. I wanted to leave my family and my town and never look back. I wanted away from him and I wanted my revenge of being successful and happy. My mother beat me to it - she left him. He tried to make life difficult for a year - he tried to run me down, he followed me to a new address, he tried to attack me in the street. It was all my fault, apparently. She had realised that I was completely detached from the family and she knew that she would lose me otherwise (too little too late but thats's another story!) But it was never my fault: he was the bastard who ruined most of my childhood, he got the consequences of his actions.
As an adult I used to really struggle with criticisms because I had learned to interpret them as referendums on my worth and validity. I'm also really sensitive to changes in mood and atmosphere, because I had to learn to navigate bad moods and disagreements in a way that only diplomacy would prevent risk ie keeping things peaceful to avoid it happening again. When I do have a crisis, I find myself having flashbacks to occasions when I had been bruised and bloody, and I have to talk myself out of the "maybe he was right" mindset that comes on almost instantly. I don't want to let go of my bitterness and anger: he deserves it, and I deserved better.
I probably shouldn't post all this on a public messageboard but it's not like there's any consequences I could fear.