Daughter of a Male Chauvinist

"Are you real?" This is the question I tumultuously turned over and over in my mind. "Are you real or are you some kind of Frankenstein?" I am a girl and I also have an awful lot of degree's in Computer Science: Software Engineering, Database, Cyber Security, Digital Forensics, etc. Maybe a novelty of my own time. Back in my day there were not very many girls who obtained degrees in Computer Science. Was I confident? No, not at all. I was plagued by the idea that men and women had different brains and, no, I didn't know If I had what it took at all. I gained confidence as I went, through the accomplishment of each class that I took. I went in with fear and I came out with confidence. I couldn't stop with one degree. I needed to fill in each side of the rubic's cube. I am still filling in the rubic's cube... driven by some premordial obsession. In addition to becoming a programmer, I am programmed too. There is neary a thought in my head that is my own. Every line that flies through my mind-- well, it is all just my dad. These are all the words of my dad. My programming is my dad. "Do I even exist?" The turning over continues. Everyday of my childhood was some kind of, "super-hero-in-the-making bootcamp." My father, he pushed me relentlessly. He busted out the capacities and ceilings in my mind. Not just my mind-- he pushed me in every way, physically, spiritually, endurance wise. It wasn't normal. I know it could not have been normal. This is not a normal childhood. I am so grateful to be who I am. There is not a day that goes by that I am not grateful to be who I am. But I know, I was not created in love. I know I was created out of the hatred of women. I was created out of some obsession. Yes, my father, he looked at me like the greatest thing to ever walk G-d's green earth, and yet it was not love. He would have had to be human first. As I became older it became obvious that my father was missing specific human components, namely, he had no ability to feel. He quite simply, did not feel anything. My childhood memories were very real. It was a duality that continually ping-ponged in my mind. I remembered the father whose boot I would run and jump on when he came home from his 24 hour shift at the Fire Department. I remembered my dad, the hero, who could revive my goldfish with CPR and bring them back to life. But the man that stood before me today was quite insane and detatched from reality. He once seemed to me a brilliant genius but now he seemed to not be able to discern between truth and lies, right and wrong, or even reality and fiction. I constantly had to put my foot down as he traveled off into tales of things that could not possibly be true. When I was diagnosed with cancer, I wanted my dad so badly to value my life. Instead, he advised me on how I could, maybe, find a compassoinate doctor who could .. put me out of my misery. Essentially, he advised me on how to get euthanized. I knew any normal father would have been devestated by the news that their child had cancer, but just not mine. So much of my adult life had been setting up these little scenarios to give him the opportunity to show love. I made it so easy, and yet, he could never even catch on that he was suppose to care. My father with his good head of still-blondish hair, baby-blue eyes, and youthful appearance even in his 70's. My father was charming. I, till this day, have not a met a single person who could compare with my father's charm. I could take him to my oncology appointments to charm the nurses and female doctors who were so cruel to me. That was the kind of service my father could provide. I did do this and now I was greated with big giant smiles and waves from nurses and doctors who asked, "how is your father?" I learned that I would have to not set myself up for these kind of disappointments-- trying to expect my father to be human, afterall. The results were just too crushing for me. He was what he was. We could do eachother favors and that was all we could do. That was our relationship. All this, and yet I still questioned the duality-- of the father in my childhood and the father I have now. Was he some kind of sociopath even back then? or did he some point in his obsession just lose his mind? Or perhaps it was the trauma that made him go cold? All the years of dealing with death in the ambulance or maybe even Vietnam? I could not go back to my childhood and view it as an adult so I would never really know. My father made me great. My father also turned me into a Dissmisive Avoidant. I was a person incapable of expressing emotions and a person incapable of bonding, attaching, or being vulnerable with another human. Inside, I was, certainly deep, emotional, and even empathetic, but on the outside I was robotic and cold. My childhood was my father shutting off my emotions. Emotions were weak. I didn't dare show emotions. I was required to always hold a perfect poker face as my father threw, "Chinese Stars to the neck" and, "Whale Harpoons to the guts" as I called them. I was required to not flench or react in the least. I had wanted to believe that this was, "done in love" and that it was, "training" but I couldn't forget the slight sadistic look in his eyes and maybe in his slight smile-- but then maybe I just imagined it. Me and my dad spoke our own language. It was the language of Male Chevanism. I knew exactly what my dad meant by every word. Even though he didn't ever use those words on me, he controlled me with the fear that he might. One word that I feared more than any word was, "sissy." I felt death itself was better than ever hearing those words from my father's mouth, and so this enabled me to endure any level of pain. It was all nothing in comparison. My father divided every quality and attribute into male/strength and female/weakness. I was terrified of the female attributes. There were zero good female attributes. I had to dissociate to exist. In my world, all females were bad, except me. I was the exception, according to my dad. Females, they fell into five categories. There were the feminist, the traditionalist, the women who were abused and cheated on but always returned to their man, there were the sex objects, and there were the legal (gold diggers) and illegal prostitutes. Upon observing all the roles that were available for me as a woman, I cringed. I didn't like my options. So I dissociated. I created my own unique version. I created an Academic who was incredibly intelligent, fiercely strong, and all enduring. I was a girl who made all the guys say, "damn, that is a girl." I was also a girl who men would injure rather than be beat by a girl. When I played soccer and football with the guys first they said, "damn, that is a girl" and then they ganged up to try to injure me rather than be beat by me. I was a girl who in following my father's footsteps through Fire Academy. I was not able to be taken down in a pressure point drill one day, so the teacher came along and broke my ribs to "demonstrate how it was done." I was a girl who learned, "the game"-- the game that men played and beat them at it. I was a girl that they called, "a bad bitch." And yet, there was no original thought in my head. I had long brown hair down to my thighs because I believed it gave me strength like Sampson and I had arm muscles that were a little bit bigger than an average girl and I was a girl that lived by, "the code." All the code was, was my father telling me what to do in any and every given situation. I hated myself if I failed, "the code." My entire worth and self-esteem depended upon, "the code." The code told me how to never chase, never feel, never show weakness, never show fear, never show emotions, always hold my respect, always keep an upper hand. Little catch phrases always flew through my mind, "water off a ducks back," they would say. I learned to shut off emotions and operate on super brain power. I observed men fighting with eachother like two male deer, antler's locked. They competed with eachother nonstop. "That must be the male ego," I thought, "I seem to be missing one." However, I had an insessant need to compete with myself, to prove something to myself. But I constantly questioned, "was I even real?" or was I some kind of, "Frankenstein?" The dualities of my father, my own identity, and my self-hatred as a woman all plagued me. I loved a man once and he told me I was, "not feminine enough." What did that even mean? I had no idea what feminine meant. My dad had made me afraid of women. "They were erradic, untrustworthy, creatures who would eat me or consume me, or something??" I thought. I did possess one feminine quality though, I was gentle. Didn't that count for something? I was torn between the need to show him I was feminine and the fact that every feminine quality was marketed to me as something horrible and undesirable. One day this man crushed my world when he told me, "I should not be allowed to think or read." It generated so much pain in me that I couldn't shut it off. I had spent my life shutting off pain and feeling NOTHING and now I couldn't shut it off. My whole identity began to reel and collapse. He said, "women were not capable of logical or clear thoughts." I told him, "books and my mind are all I have ever had." Why was he taking the only things that I ever had in life? I wanted to tell him the truth--- that, "I am just a little girl behind 4 walls." I wanted him to know there there was no way for a woman to win in this life-- to go left was wrong and to go right was wrong too. If you are weak you will be taken advantage of or be snuffed out by life and if you are strong you are condemned too? I wanted ask him how he exected me to survive if I was not strong? How could I survive men like him who just wanted to break me? Didn't he know that this was the life I was born into-- sink or swim? But he did not care. To him I was simply invisible. I was like Ellison's Invisible Man. And so I unraveled into nothing but a sea of grey. Nothingness. I questioned everything, and I rebuilt stone by stone. Who was I? I was everything-- Strength, Intelligence, Endurance, Kindness, Gentleness, Compassion, Empathy, Emotion, Passion, and whatever I want to be. I was everything. In all of this, my weakness became my superpower. I was not required to fit anywhere. To fit was to live in assigned roles and with ceilings. Who invents these things and who writes the rules? Am I not entitled to be what I am in essence and can I really be anything other than what I am in essence? Must I be decapacitated to be a woman?? I was just like everyone else--- created by somebody, and yet also created by myself. I was a Frankenstein. I was a shape-shifter. I was entitled to male attributes. I was entitled to female attributes. I earned them all. I earned them! I endured them all! I survived. Could you have survived my childhood? my life? Blood, sweat, turmoil, hard work-- I earned it. If you don't like it, Mr. Male Chauvinist, shouldn't you take it up with my father!? Is he not your own type and your own kind! And, yet he created me. Don't hate me! Take it up with my father! Can you compete with me? Can you beat me? I like being me. It is fun. It is actually great being me. Even though, I can't fit into all of your roles and boxes, I still exist. Can you stop me from existing? I am the daughter of a Male Chauvinist.