Father's Day Reflection | Neurospicy Black Girl

Yeah, this is quite unscripted, prepare for lots of "likes".

Transcript

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Hi, I'm Milani. I'm black, female, and neurodivergent, aka I lost the genetic lottery. The only thing I could do is pull myself up by my bootstraps and live whatever life takes me. If anyone deserves to profit from my trauma, it's me. That's the life of a neuro-spicy black girl. So today for this episode, I'm gonna do things like a little bit unscripted, off the cuff, but with notes and stuff. Oh, this is gonna be edited, so it's not unedited. Because trust me, you don't want to hear all the pauses, the gasp, the tongue noises and mouth noises and whatever, that stuff. I'm just gonna kind of just speak my mind about... As the title suggests, Father's Day reflection, but also both the parents' days, to be honest. So yeah, let's get into it. I'm gonna try to not be as heated as I was with the Mother's Day episode, but I'm not making any promises. Father's Day has always been a tough holiday for me. If you listened to any of my previous episodes, you know that I don't have a good relationship with my father. I don't have any relationship with my father. Because I'm in no contact with him. This day has always been tough because it's hard to remember any good memories with my father. As someone who's like... My brain has repressed so much of my childhood. It takes a lot for me to remember stuff. But the stuff I do remember about my father includes things that a child should not have witnessed. Things like my dad threatening my mom multiple times in the car. And sometimes in my case, he also threatens my life too. So I'm also collateral in a lot of cases. But I always would hear my dad screaming at my mom, yell at her, demean her. I know my mom is a piece of work. And she's not a good person herself either, if you listen to my Mother's Day episode. But I will tell you, that does not justify putting your hands on another person. It does not. On that topic, when it comes to physical discipline... I know there's, like, a whole debate, especially with older Black folk, about, you know, putting your hands on your child as discipline. You know, the whole spare the rod, spoil the child thing. But there are, like, studies that show physically reprimanding your child has negative effects throughout the childhood and to adulthood. And from the times I tell, like... Whenever I remember my dad putting his hands on me, even as a little girl, sometimes I just wondered if he was for real trying to kill me. Sorry, I should say trigger warning for mentioning physical abuse. But I remember feeling... I could feel the sting on my back nearly... I don't know if paralyzed is the right word, but it would shut me down, essentially. I would feel like it was hard for me as a little girl to get up from being hit from my dad. Whether or not I deserved it is out of the point, but I could say that whenever my mom in the future would compare me to my dad whenever I got angry at her, That is a messed up thing to do to your child to compare your own child to a physically abusive person that happens to be her own father. So, I think, like, witnessing that, that's why I try so hard to calm my anger down, or at least temper it. Because I don't want to be compared like that. Especially... I don't know why I'm tearing up, but... Yeah. Damn, now I need, like, five... Minutes into the recording, I already get emotional. Besides that, um, going through or witnessing my parents' divorce was also not pretty. You know what the funny thing is, is that despite my dad really being an awful person to my mom, she still stayed with him. He wasn't a good step-parent to my siblings either. And I'm not going to go in too deep because although I'm not in contact with my siblings, I will be respectful of their story because it's their story to tell. I will just say that whenever things got physical between them, my mom would take my dad's side. Let's just keep it at that. It's just interesting that it was my dad who filed for divorce from my mom. Like, you would think it'd be the other way around, considering how he treated her. But nah, he was tired of her. I just remember my dad... He waited till I went asleep to... Leave me and my mom in Virginia. And then, a few years later, when I was getting more acclimated to a new state... I'm originally from Florida, just for context, so... I remember my mom getting the divorce papers. And this was when my grandma was staying in Virginia to help my mom out and stuff. But yeah, I remember the whole custody battle thing. And it was going on since third grade. Yeah, I remember those days where I would be so sad going to school. And it was heartbreaking like seeing your classmates, seeing your classmates and their dads, even like the classmates whose parents are also divorced, you still see their dads showing up for them. Meanwhile, your own dad keeps lying to you. Saying that he's going to visit you and doesn't show up multiple times and has an excuse for each one. Say it's because of work or it's because my mom was trying to prevent him from doing that. And whether or not the mom one was true or not, you would think if you care about your own child, you would put an effort to spite him. what you're going through with your former partner, but what do I know? But yeah, the one Christmas when he eventually did come to see me, I was so surprised. Like I was literally raking down tears because I didn't think he was going to do it. But even then, that had some weird stipulations or it wasn't as perfect as I thought it could be. Okay, oh, I'm sorry. I'm like mixing the days up. There was this one day where he was able to spend spring break with me. When I went to see him at spring break, he got a hotel in Virginia. But when he was driving all the way to the hotel, he randomly drops the news that I was going to meet his wife. And I was like, what? Why you didn't tell me any of this? Like, why you telling me this now? And honestly, like, when we got to the hotel room, I met his new wife. She seemed very standoffish for some reason. And I didn't know why. Because I was nice and I was respectful to her. And I tried to be friendly and stuff. But I just felt the energy was off with her. And that's when I found out the tea is that his new wife is apparently, well, she was the rebound chick back when my mom and him were dating. So back when he and my mom were dating and they had relationship issues, she was basically the rebound and she convinced him to basically have like a fling or whatever. And it was my mom who convinced my dad to dump the rebound lady. And yeah. And you see how that turned out. So yeah, this happened all before I was born, by the way. But anyway, back to the relationship between my dad and I. So I feel like things got a little bit worse, I would say. Especially when it comes to picking colleges and stuff. I wanted to go to college in New York, and my dad wanted me to go to college in Florida. But I felt like New York would have been the best place for me, basically, with what I wanted to do. And I'm glad I made that choice now, especially with all the opportunities I've got over the years. But he got really pissed that I didn't want to go to college. In Florida. But I felt. What I thought it was kind of like a nothing burger. I thought it turned into a something burger. Because. For high school graduation. I decided to. Invite him last. Because I legit didn't think he was going to show up. In my heart. I felt like he wasn't going to show up. Somehow it was my mom. Who convinced me to invite him. Again. I don't know why. But anyway. I decided to invite him. So I used the invite app, Evite. And with Evite, I guess it shows you like... Or it shows the people who got invited. It shows them the order of who got invited and stuff. And the reason why I'm saying this is because my dad says that's the reason why he didn't show up. Because he saw that he was the last person in the list. And he said and accused me that I wasn't prioritizing him at all. And I'm like, bruh, you didn't prioritize me when I was young. When y'all were going through divorce and stuff, you didn't prioritize me at all. But yeah, so that was like the last time I had like a phone call conversation with him. The last time I had contact with him at all was back in June of 2020 during the pandemic and after George Floyd's murder. He just sent like an email and it was just saying like, hey, I hope you're doing okay during these tough times. He didn't specify like, you know, the pandemic or like Black Lives Matter and stuff. But it was just kind of like, Uh, hey, hope you're alive, I guess. And honestly, with the stuff I was going through during that time, with feeling abandoned by my mom, I think I made the right choice to not continue contact with my dad. It seemed like he didn't want to be a dad, just like my mom didn't want to be my mom. And honestly, I don't want to be any of their daughters, but I had no choice in that. The only thing I had a choice in was my relationship with them, and that's why I went no contact. Let's talk about both of the parents' days. I feel like... And also weirdly normalized, too. I wonder if anyone else deals with that, too. Let me know in the comments or such. But either way, both holidays are difficult... to endure because I have trouble issues with both parents. It's hard to feel happy or celebrate a day where both of your parents, parents didn't even want you to begin with, or at least they didn't want to be parents in the first place. Like, to be honest with you, my mom and dad were more like an egg and sperm donor, disrespectively. Weird thing is, is that Coincidentally, both had two children prior to me and, you know, different partners and stuff. And they both made the same mistakes with both of the children as far as being terrible parents for both of them. Both of them have childhood trauma, as you could probably expect at this point. Yeah, both of them have trouble relationships with their fathers. In the case of my dad, we don't even know who his father is. And you know what's weird? I remember my dad once told me in a conversation. I don't remember what brought this conversation. But he said that he once told his younger... He said to his younger self that when he grows up to be a parent, that he wouldn't treat his future kids like his... mom treated him or treats him i don't know the status of them and i just find that ironic because and i'll bring my mom and do this too but i'm just thinking like if their childhood selves know knew like what they gonna grow up to be I feel like their childhood selves would be both scared and disappointed, too. Like, damn. You wanted to break the cycle, but instead, you continue it. And now, it's up to y'all's descendants, y'all children, to break the cycle. And yeah, that's honestly freaking sad. Or, maybe sad is not the right word. More bittersweet. Bittersweet in my case, because... Yeah, it is stressful. And it's very lonely to not have any support. Any familial support. Because that's what the media says. The media says, oh, the families are supposed to support each other. And especially if you're a person of color. Especially if you're Black. And especially if you're Caribbean. It's a whole collectivist type of culture. So the fact that I do not have that collectivist culture is honestly very alienating. And it's a very lonely path. However, I also recognize that it's a suffering that I have to go through in order to achieve peace. I have to carve my own path, essentially, to break this cycle. Because... What my parents have taught me is to both not treat other people, especially children, like how they treated me as a child, and also to be kinder to myself. The things that they did to me, they said to me, they cannot take that back. But what I can't take back is the power that it held over me. I am not a burden, and I was not a burden. I was literally a child that needed love and guidance. And if I have to be the love and guidance I give to my inner child, then so be it. Wow, this got emotional. I did not expect it, but crying is a good stress reliever. It does release endorphins or whatever the molecules are. I mean, chemicals. Y'all know what I'm talking about. But yeah, that's what I wanted to reflect on for today's episode. And I hope... My little unscripted rant and such is helpful in any sort of way. Links to support me are in the description. Remember, it's okay to be human. Do what's best for you. Stay tuned where something new happens and it definitely won't be boring. Bye now and take care. Hey everyone, I have credits now! Narrow Spicy Black Girl is written, created, produced, and edited by me, Align Geeks. This show is produced at Brick Media Arts. To learn more about this nonprofit arts organization, visit brickmediaarts.org. That is B-R-I-C-M-E-D-I-A-R-T-S dot org.