My Dad Reached Out To Me After Two Years of No Contact

Recently I noticed a message request on my personal Instagram, and when I went to check it, it was from my biological dad. I was not thrilled. In fact, it triggered me to my core.

The last time my dad and I spoke, this was the message (typos included) that he sent to me on Facebook, unprovoked by anything other than a friend suggesting my migraines were associated with my trauma in a comment section on a post I had made -

"Growing up without a father is a human tragedy. I know. I did it. You had a good one but refused to accept that and were poisened by lies and half truths that people around you used to control you (your mother and CS). This was not your fault, being a 12 year old, but you have never acknowledged this to your extreme unfortune. I have spent 12 + years trying to reach out to you, and with the exception of maybe 1-2 years, you have angrily rejected that help and effort. I am unable to exist with disrepect, the type an elder such as myself has earned and deserve. My friends are dissapearing, like Chris Brown, Doug Deringer and others I grew up with, and my fate is close as my recent surgeries have made clear to me. I have no more time for micro aggesions and confusing feeling. Only hard cold facts which is what reality demands. As I am 45 years your senior, I can tell you the arrogance of youth is a fools game. You are cruel and vindictive, and unaware that you are, for whatever reason. My patience is just about gone. If you are ready to grow up, let me know. If not, we should part company. I think 48 hours should be enuff time for you to make up your mind. ...Your true father"

This wasn't the only time he's ever said something upsetting to me over the internet. In fact, the "micro-aggressions" he's speaking of were always in response to him saying things like "you're just as psychotic as your drug addict mother" and him justifying why he used to beat us, specifically my mom. It was me standing my ground and, as an adult, saying "no, those weren't okay." He tries and has tried to act like all of my memories are make believe, but what he fails to acknowledge is that the police reports, truancies from missing school after being beaten/him beating my mom, friends' parents asking me if I was okay and not letting their kids over to my home for long periods of time, and so much more were all realities that existed outside of my memories. The police were only ever called on him, and sometimes it was for threatening others, like our neighbors and their kids. He was not a good man, and by extension, not a good father.

In high school, I had a restraining order against my dad, and he still went out of his way to email my teachers pretending to be a substitute (he wasn't at the time, but has been before and may still be today), asking for information about me and ways to see me. He even showed up to my school, posing a threat and causing a panic attack. He had never been a safe man to be around, emotionally, mentally, or physically.

So, I didn't reply to the Instagram message. I just blocked him once again. My mom and I both have nightmares still to this day, and whereas I've found a way to cope through support and medications, my mother is alone in her nighttime suffering. He still tries to call her and blame her for my not talking to him, she finally blocked him.

If you've read my book "Trash Bag of Memories," you've read a heavily sugarcoated and summarized version of my home life with my biological dad. If you knew me as a child, you knew my dad. He is a pedophile, a racist and sexist man, and has assaulted more children than just me, his own daughter. When he says he loves me and cherishes our memories, the average joe may read it and assume he has changed or is simply trying to make amends, but that's not the case. Every time he says something heinous to me that has caused me to go no contact, he always comes back with a manipulative gesture that, on its surface, seems like a genuine attempt at reconnection. It's not, though. Even though I know it's ingenuine, I still feel guilt in not replying and it's not fair to me.

To current and former foster youth: it's okay to go no contact, even if they try to make you feel bad about it. This is your life.