Here He Is Again

The Monster has reared his ugly head again.

No matter how much I try to keep him out of my life, every so often my father manages to let me know he is watching. He keeps track. He knows about me, mine and our life.

My husband and I have an online family journal with which we keep our friends and extended families updated about our goings-on. The Rebel and I have both moved repeatedly before and since meeting each other. We thus have pockets of friends scattered throughout the country and the rest of the world. Our blog is a convenient medium through which to keep our family and acquaintances near and far in the loop about our Angel, our projects and activities, our thoughts on life and other such things.

That online journal is no secret, by virtue of being publicly accessible via the internet. My father came upon it, either by searching for us online or being pointed to it by my brother Victor who has confused loyalties. Thanks to tracking engines, we have figured out when the Monster visits. He does so obsessively. This was troubling enough, as I know he meticulously reads everything the Rebel and I write, taking mental notes about which information he may manipulate or use to badmouth us later. However, disturbing as that knowledge may be, I’ve learned to deal with it because the benefits of our family blog outweigh the pesky negative of the Monster’s lurking.

What makes this bitter pill harder to swallow is when my father becomes an active participant in this part of our life. Over the past six months or so, the Monster has sporadically posted comments on our family blog. He refuses to identify himself, instead posting as “Anonymous”. Every bit the coward he accuses others to be. Needless to say, his comments are always negative and, strangely, solely aimed at my husband. Under the guise of an inquisitive and contemptuously polite tone, his comments are for the most part derogatory or even aggressive toward the Rebel’s thoughts and opinions. I am not sure whether the Monster thinks he’ll affect me more effectively by tormenting someone I love. Or perhaps he is crazy enough to think he might convert the Rebel to his point of view.

Despite professing his anonymity, the Monster is an open book. In addition to his presence being confirmed by web analytics, his obvious tells are those of a poor poker player. He uses the same rhetoric — down to the exact same words — he used to employ in his demeaning arguments with me years ago. It’s always lofty, condescending and vague, touting important words such as “justice”, “ethics”, “responsibility”, “respect”, and other concepts that are utterly unfamiliar to him — but do sound impressive. He often quotes a dictionary definition or a famous thinker’s words, so as to legitimize his venom. He criticizes, demeans and mocks, while making demands for integrity. Integrity, I could not think of a quality more foreign to him.

The Rebel doesn’t take well to being put down, particularly when it is unfair and unjustified. At first, he reacted impulsively, bent on defending his honor and principles, and there ensued a war of words. I realize the comment section of a small family blog is quite inconsequential to the world at large. But this virtual fight between the two most important men in my life stressed me out of my mind. Striving to keep my anguish in check, I explained the mechanisms of the sociopath to my infuriated husband. I attempted to defuse his anger by outlining how arguing with that kind of a disturbed character is pointless. The Rebel quickly grasped the essence of those dynamics and his outrage morphed into a slightly twisted form of amusement. He began to make a sport of answering the Monster’s vile comments with aplomb, sarcasm and a righteous confidence I never had the self-esteem to muster. Witnessing this written combat, I was both in awe and in distress.

Of course, a sociopath needs to win. And I believe the Monster was at first shocked by my husband’s audacity, which he surely must have labeled disrespectful. He then shifted into higher gear and let his guard down, spewing insults and slander left and right. What the Monster didn’t expect is for our community of loyal readers — consisting, of course, of family and friends (most of whom actually know my father) — to come to the rescue and berate this Anonymous commenter for his unwarranted affronts. Seemingly unaffected by the collective backlash, the Monster marched on, replying with the same virulence until we finally decided to delete his comments. We should have done so from the start. But the decision to delete the Monster’s comments came after a wave of exhausting family drama, my siblings all chiming in with their variety of loud opinions regarding the Rebel’s reactions to my father’s words.

Stress and distress aside, these confrontational exchanges between my husband and my father on our family blog led to my having a breakthrough of sorts. You see, one of our friends, disgusted by the Monster’s words, called him an “idiot” in her chivalrous comment. My reaction was significant of the depth of my emotional troubles. Upon reading that word, my heart sank. On one hand, because I was afraid of the Monster’s reaction. How dare someone talk to him in that “tone”? My father was going to be angry. On the other hand, because I felt sorry for the Monster. This word was going to hurt his feelings and I felt the urge to protect him.

“Why, oh why, do I feel responsible, or even guilty, for the Monster?” I abruptly asked myself. He brought this onto himself. AS HE ALWAYS DOES. The realization of this cause-and-effect process was momentous. All of a sudden, I understood that I should not feel guilty for the consequences of my father’s actions. He is an adult. As such, he ought to be responsible for his actions. Especially because he, alone, stirs up the shit. He, alone, causes trouble. He, alone, causes drama. He, alone, is malevolent.

Since this breakthrough of sorts, my emotions about the Monster’s poisonous involvement have spiraled from high-strung to increasingly more distant and cold. Of course, everything is relative. Let’s just say I have added a filter to my perspective and it is most helpful. The Monster continues to comment on the Rebel’s posts every so often. A month or so ago, he even took on a few different, fictional identities, attempting to distance himself from his Anonymous label. That switch-a-roo nearly managed to fool my husband who, after answering to the critical comments of these “strangers” honestly and respectfully, was doubly shocked when he realized the extent of my father’s insanity. How can anyone be both so hateful and childish in their determination to deride another?

I believe the Monster is resolute to teach the Rebel a lesson. As if that were his mission in life. His fatherly duty toward a son-in-law he has never met. Since I no longer acknowledge him, my father must also think he can indirectly edify me by whipping my Rebel into shape. The concept is laughable, as my husband is a hundred times the adult that my father will never be. I can hear the Monster as if he were in front of me. “Someone must put that kid in his place.” “I’ll show him how things work in the real world.” “I’ll teach him respect.” My father has never understood the two-way street of respect, confusing others’ fear of him with it. It of course would never occur to him that he doesn’t deserve respect, despite the fact that he doesn’t dish it out for anyone.

And, I am exhausted just recognizing this: the Monster has just begun. Like any good sociopath, he needs to feel dominant, victorious. At the moment, he is honing his tactics, sharpening his knives. He now posts his comments during the night, undoubtedly hoping that some readers will see them or perhaps even respond before we can get to them in the morning. He reposts the comments we delete, one, two, three times before he gives up on that one. Until the next one. Since we are unwilling to change the settings of our blog at this point, our community of family and friends being more important than my pest of a father, I think we will continue to have to deal with his antics for some time to come.

So, once again the Monster is back. Trying his best to poison my world, to claim his insidious stake in my life. But things have changed. Ironically, the more he asserts his pernicious presence, thereby showing his true colors, the more I find myself discerning the layers of his antisocial personality and distancing myself. Shedding those bits and scraps of him that have been embedded within me. Pulling those splinters out, one at a time. The Monster may need to win. But as long as I remember to not let him reach the heart of me, he never will.