Hooked (2 page)

How I coped

I developed a fairly constant depression while all this was going on. My days were colored by sadness and fear. On the one hand, I loved my dad a lot and looked up to him. After all, he was this really fun guy when he was sober. But on the other hand, he could be a terrifying drunk—so I was often scared and angry too. And there was no one to explain to me that it made sense to feel the way I did.

I dealt with things—in part—by having a very active fantasy life. I dreamed about being able to swim fast, skate fast, and hold my breath underwater. I dreamed about having powers that helped me save my family from different villains. There was this never-ending supply of bad guys out there that I had to fight in superhuman ways. I think this allowed me to feel some sense of control over my own environment. I couldn't control the real world, so I controlled a fantasy world. It also helped me feel powerful, like I could make a difference.

My mother

Like my father, my mother was a trauma survivor. They both had abusive parents and had experienced a lot of violence when they were younger—so they were a perfect match in that sense. When my mom chose my dad, I think she unconsciously chose someone who would treat her the way she was treated by
her
father. Only what she didn't realize was that my dad was going to be way worse than hers.

My mother had gotten straight As while she was in school, but didn't have a college degree because she dropped out when she got pregnant with me. She came from a Roman Catholic family and gave birth to me only seven months after her marriage. Her mother would not talk to her for five years after I was born because she knew I'd been conceived before the wedding. So basically, my mom was flying solo.

She worked full-time, and spent the rest of her time thinking about how to keep us safe from her alcoholic husband. I think part of what was challenging for her was that we'd go through long periods where nothing bad happened. Then, suddenly, the wheels would fall off. The years I was thirteen and fourteen were the worst for that … and I guess that was all she could take.

Although she did leave my dad eventually, I remember my mother being very passive. I think that she was concerned for her own safety.

It can take many years for someone to leave an abusive relationship.
In many cases, they never do.
Sometimes this is because they fear they'd be unable to support themselves or their children without the abusive partner. Sometimes they are isolated, and don't know where to go. Sometimes (as with Greg's dad) the abuse is cyclical, and only occurs part of the time, making it hard to justify breaking up.

She worried that if she were to stand up to my father and tell him that his behavior was unacceptable, he would hurt her. So it wasn't until my father began having affairs that she finally said, “That's it. To hell with it.”

Dad's departure

Immediately after my parents' divorce, Dad was living in a small apartment with my grandma and her new husband. It was tough to see that, because we'd always had a really comfortable living growing up. For most of my childhood my dad made quite a lot of money, so life after the divorce was quite the transition for him. Perhaps it's no surprise, then, that he soon decided to go teach in Ireland for a year. After that, he never seemed to want to live near us again. Almost as soon as he got back from Ireland, he took a position in Barbados and moved there for good.

In some ways, that was actually kind of cool. My brother and I went down to visit him when I was sixteen, and it was a neat place. He was still drinking, though, and never really got his act together. One night while we were there, he drank four-fifths of a bottle of rum. I remember getting up in the middle of the night to pour the remaining fifth down the drain.

Not long after we went home from that trip, we got a letter from one of his colleagues saying that he was in rough shape, and if somebody didn't come down to help him there was a good chance he would die. But by that time my family just didn't have the money for anyone to fly there. He was on his own.

Getting the news

We found out my father had died because Mom got a letter from the university where he was working. It said that the coroner's report had revealed a foreign substance in his blood. So we think that he overdosed—accidentally or maybe on purpose. My mother burst into tears when she told me about the letter. I hugged her and said, “Well, we kind of knew it was coming.”

Later that night, I went into town and hung out with a friend of mine and walked around. It was the strangest experience because, despite the fact that his death wasn't a surprise, I still felt so stunned.

Looking back

My biggest regret about growing up with my dad is that I lost so many opportunities. Most of all, I lost the opportunity to feel like I was a lovable human being. For the longest time I felt as if nobody had any reason to like me. I'm married now, with kids, but I didn't have any enduring relationships until I was in my thirties. I was always really clumsy, really goofy, and really shy.

I also lost the opportunity to do well in school, because I was constantly fighting sadness or anger or depression. My father was always worried about something, and so I worried too. I spent so much time worrying that I found it hard to make friends or do well academically. I worried about things at home and, above all, about my conflicting emotions.

That's why my advice to anyone going through something like this is to pay attention to
every
emotion. If you sometimes feel like you hate your parent and sometimes feel like you love him or her, that's okay. Both feelings can be true. I always used to wonder if one of my feelings was wrong. But now I know that you've got to accept all your emotions, even if they seem to totally contradict each other. It took me a long time to figure that out. Now that I finally have, it's a weight off my shoulders.

Learning to Forgive

Jenny was the glue that held her family together while her mom's gambling was tearing it apart. She dealt with the stress by forgiving her mom—over and over and over again.

Finding out

My family didn't have a lot of money when I was growing up. We were immigrants and my parents both worked really hard to make ends meet. Before my brother was born, I was alone a lot of the time because my parents were both so busy at their jobs. So when one of my mom's friends first told me that she had lost $3,000 gambling, I couldn't believe it! My mom was always a huge pennypincher, and was really strict about money, so I thought,
There's no way she would throw that kind of money away.

Like all addictions, gambling addiction is not rational. Compulsive gamblers can't control their impulse to chase bets, even if they are otherwise logical people and know their behavior is hurting their families. They will continue to gamble, despite losing routinely. Therapy, group support, and other techniques can help problem gamblers overcome their addiction.

I don't know how much my mom ultimately lost—or won. But I assume she lost because you never win against the house, and we never seemed to have a lot of money. And my mom never hesitated to remind us how hard she had to work so that we could afford everything. So her gambling just seemed like such a contradiction to all the things she always told me about being responsible. And for a long time, I was in denial about her addiction.

Hard to believe

Part of the reason for my disbelief was probably the fact that I never really saw my mom gambling. My family is Vietnamese, and in our culture a lot of people gamble casually for fun, but my parents never really did that in our home. Instead, my mom would go away to the casino for long periods of time. Also, no one in my family really talked about my mom's gambling problem, so I mostly just heard about it from other people. My mom's friends would make comments about her losing money, but I wasn't sure what to believe. No one wants to think badly of his or her parents, so I was really reluctant to admit that my mom had a problem. I felt so betrayed, because it went against everything she was always saying to me. Finding out about that $3,000 loss when I was fourteen was definitely one of those moments when you realize that your parents aren't perfect, that their actions aren't always right.

Long absences

Even after I became aware of my mom's gambling, I kind of brushed it off. But gradually it became too bad to ignore. By the time I was in my late teens, my mom had started disappearing to the casino for days on end.

Sometimes she'd only be gone for a day, but others she'd be gone over the weekend, if not longer. She never called to check in or let us know when she was gone. I used to worry that something might have happened to her, and that I wouldn't be able to tell if it did. So there was always that fear—that she might be in trouble, or that she was never going to come back. There were times I thought I should call the police, but I didn't know what I'd say if I did.

Dad's anger was deflected onto me

My mom's absences created a lot of tension between my parents, and my dad began to make really angry remarks about my mom. He would say to me, “Oh, she's out gambling again. She's so irresponsible.” And because my mom was never around when my dad was most angry with her, he would deflect that anger onto me. Funnily enough, I think it was my dad's rants that made me angriest toward my mom, not so much because of what she was doing, but because she was making my dad say mean things about her. I ended up being mad at both my parents a lot because they put me in this position.

Trying to make amends

Whenever my mom was away for days at a time gambling, she would always come back from the casino with food for my brother and me. She would present us each with takeout containers of fried chicken or Chinese. I don't know why, but we always accepted them gratefully. I think she meant for the food to be like a peace offering—a way to get us to forgive her for the long absence. And even though it was totally inadequate, we were always so glad to have her back that we would take it and eat it. It was a ritual; it was her way of getting us to talk to her again.

Keeping the family together

In the midst of all this, I felt like the glue that was holding my family together. My parents never talked to each other, and my brother was too young for either of them to talk to, so I was the link between everybody. It felt as though if I weren't there, the family would break apart. Meanwhile, all my friends were dealing with different things—they were busy worrying about boys or shopping for new clothes—and there I was, trying to keep my family intact.

One time, when my mom had disappeared for a few days to go gamble, I stayed late at school to finish a group project. And I guess I had forgotten to tell my dad that I was going to be home later than normal, because he got really scared and sent some of my friends to look for me. Finally, one of them found me in the library and said, “Come quick. Your dad is really worried about you. He called me because he thought that your mom had kidnapped you.” When my dad picked me up, he was so emotional. I remember we were in the car and he was crying. I don't think I had ever seen him cry before then. That's when he told me he was afraid he was going to lose one of us. I think he was scared that my mom would either drive me away with her gambling or would take me away herself. And if I were gone, he wouldn't have anyone to confide in.

How I coped

The funny thing is, even though I was angry a lot of the time, my parents would tell you that I was a really good kid. And it's true. I was always very obedient. I was the kind of kid that makes adults say, “You should be more like Jenny.” Instead of confronting my mom about her gambling or telling my dad to stop ranting to me, I took my frustrations out online. I had a website and I would spend hours and hours writing about my life there. I liked it because it was totally anonymous. I didn't know any of the people who were reading it and they didn't know me. My mom was a very private person, and I think that's one of the things that I inherited from her. I've never enjoyed talking about my problems with friends, and it's always been easier for me to talk to strangers. So I would write about how I felt toward my parents and about the things they did to me. Anyone visiting my site read a lot of angry posts.

For the most part, that's what I did instead of getting angry with my parents. But there was also a brief time when I became more rebellious and started to talk back. I remember once, my dad was lecturing me about doing well in school and I said to him, “Dad, I'll do well in school, and I'll get a good job, but it won't be because of you.”

Mom was off limits

Although I would sometimes get angry with my dad, I never confronted or talked back to my mom. My dad was usually an easygoing guy, but my mom was a lot more intense. I think I was afraid that if I ever pushed her too hard, she would go away and just disappear forever. I remember one time when I was about fourteen and my mom was really angry with my dad. I don't remember why, but she said to me, “What do you think your dad would do if we all died? Do you think he would feel guilty?” Obviously, that's a pretty scary thing to hear, so I was always afraid that if I confronted my mom about her gambling, she would do something unexpected or extreme.

My brother, my comforter

Aside from writing, something that comforted me while all of this was going on was my brother. He was always very attached to me, and I really appreciated having him around. We're very different in a lot of ways. I'm a lot like my parents—I'm not very affectionate, and I don't always find it easy to talk to people—but my brother is the opposite. Unlike me, he was born and raised in Western society, and I think people here tend to be more warm and communicative. When our parents were fighting, or my mom was away, he would often say to me, “Can't you do something about this?” or “Doesn't this bother you?” I usually couldn't respond. Most of the time I would tell him, “Just ignore it.” Even though I didn't always know how to help him, knowing there was someone else in the same situation as me made me feel better. And I did my best to make life special for him. Our parents didn't celebrate Christmas, but I always made sure that he got a Christmas present or two from me.