Haberling 1

Elizabeth Haberling

Zubaidah Albaro

CORE C03: The Human Experience

19 August 2020

Outline

Intro: A scene from my life that explains why this was a very conflicting time in my life.

Then going into detail about I learned what his perspective was throughout the time he abused

me.

Body 1: He had no control over his mental illness. This in deeper detail: he has

depression, bipolar disorder, anger issues, and anxiety. People have a hard time being able to

control their illnesses, especially in situations that can cause the person to explode. Now the

reason for them exploding is not their fault, most of the time. In this case, I do not know if my

father abused me because it was a way for him to release all of the over build of emotions caused

by his illnesses.

Body 2: He had no control over his drug and alcohol addiction. Drugs and alcohol alter

with the human brain. It starts to deteriorate cells in the brain. This causes conflicts that people

do not mean to create.

Body 3: He did not know how to love. My father’s childhood was filled with no love, it

was instead filled with abuse and alcohol problems. When you are taught one thing, you

normally can not unlearn that thing.

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Conclusion: Explaining how empathy and dialogue coming from people made me feel.

Why did the way the empathy towards me make me feel, that will be explained here.
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Love, Alcohol, and Mental Illness

Have you ever had a situation where a really bad conflict comes around and you just have

no idea how to feel about it? Then there are people around you that try to empathize for you, and

you just don’t appreciate it. Well, I ran into a conflict like that. It wasn’t a very easy conflict to

get through. The conflict between me and my dad started when I was young. More conflicts

between me and my father occurred over the years. Through all of the bad conflicts that

happened with my father and I, people around me empathized.

“You are the worst daughter in the world”, he would yell as he started to slowly trap me

in the corner of my room. “How did I end up with a daughter that thinks she is the victim in

everything”, he would say to me staring into my overwhelmed eyes. “Sometimes I just wish you

were never alive. Then maybe, just maybe I could live a happy life.” His hand goes up into the

air, I brace myself for a hit that could either kill me or leave me thinking the worst. This was a

time where I first remember our conflict beginning, I took no note of it. I assumed it was just the

alcohol he had consumed that night. My mother would tell me, “Sweetheart, there is no need to

worry. Everything will get back to normal. Dad is going to AAA again to fix his problems”. I

knew that AAA wasn’t going to work. It didn’t the first time, it won’t now. What she told me,

made me feel helpless. I know she was trying to make me feel better about the situation, but she

wasn’t helping. Her empathy towards me and the situation was not needed at that point in time.

“Do you wanna see me in jail Elizabeth?”, he screamed on the top of his lungs. “Dad, of

course I don’t want to see you go to jail, please calm down.”, I would weep while running down

the stairs to catch the bus for school. “You just hate me and wish I would die, right Elizabeth?”,
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he said while sitting up against the wall of my bedroom. “Dad, I love you and would never want

to see you die…”, I said in a tone of concern. Second note I took. Mental illness could have

overtaken him in these times of stress. I mean, he couldn’t really hate his daughter this much. I

told my best friend on the bus what had happened, and she empathized. “Libby! This is terrible

to hear! What are you going to do? Do you need a hug? I’m here if you need anything!”. Her

empathy was nice to hear, but it didn’t affect me a great deal like it could’ve if I didn’t feel the

way I felt. Hearing this empathy made me trapped. I couldn’t get away from people wanting to

make me feel better. I didn’t want to be asked if I needed anything. I needed someone to save my

life. I have a father who’s mental illness is causing him to act out in ways that are making me

feel worthless. Don’t get me wrong, I really do appreciate the empathy given to me. If only I

didn’t feel the way I was feeling, then maybe I would have taken that hug.

“Gosh, all you do is overreact about everything. All I said is that you needed to lose some

weight.”, he told me while eating dinner. “Dad, please stop. That hurts my feelings.”, I said

while feeling the skin on my body, ashamed of what I had. “Gosh, you're so sensitive. You

wouldn’t have been able to grow up with my mom with this type of sensitivity.”, he told me

while shoving his face with the dinner my mom had prepared for us. There I was, left standing in

despair of my own body. Third note I took. Could it have been the way he was treated when he

was younger? He portrayed his life as a living hell. Maybe he wasn’t able to learn how to love,

because he was never loved. I started losing the weight, people in my school noticed. I had a girl

come up to me and ask if I was doing okay, because I guess I just didn’t look healthy. “Hey

Libby, I hope I’m not being rude by saying this, but you don’t look very good. Is everything

okay? Did you forget to eat breakfast this morning? If you did, I have some cereal you can
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have.”, she said to me, smiling while handing me the cereal. “Thanks Grace, but I'm okay. I’m

not very hungry.”. I felt almost like an outcast. My father told me to lose the weight, and I did.

Now people are looking at me like I had just died and came back to life.

There were three perspectives explained that I believe caused my father to become

abusive towards me. Out of those perspectives, I can’t decide what perspective would be the

correct one. Then I thought about it, maybe I didn’t take note of the right perspective. I don’t

think I’ll ever understand his perspective for why he abused me the way he did. The empathy

given to me from friends and family made me happy, don’t get me wrong. At the same time

though, it made me feel trapped. I felt trapped in my own despair and misery. I couldn’t bear to

let in something that could change my whole perspective on the situation. I believed that with

anything I heard, it wasn’t going to be true. The importance of this conflict is that even through

all of the worst parts, I can still grow from it. The words spoken to me, deep down, hit me in a

way it shouldn’t have. With that, it also taught me that I can learn to appreciate the empathy

coming from people towards me.