u/stormcurls

When EiA came out and I saw the reviews I felt like I was taking crazy pills. I genuinely did not understand how people could listen to Gethsemane or Look to Windward and not feel moved, or literally transported into another world. Maybe it's because I don't understand anything about music theory, so I can't criticize a song on the technicalities of music composition, but the thing I value most in music are the lyrics. I can understand when a song has bad/lazy lyrics, I criticized a lot of the songs on EiA for some questionable lyrical choices, but there's people out there tearing this album down so much that it makes me wonder if we even listened to the same album. Don't even get me started on TMBTE because I think that album is genuinely perfect and I understand the criticism even less.

First time posting here, I'll provide a bit of context: my (23F) parents (50M & 55F) have been divorced for like 10 years now, and I have been living with my mom since.

My relationship with my dad has always been rocky but ever since I developed a frontal lobe I understood what was wrong. The more I grew up the more I saw signs of narcissism. Ever since I can remember, he never apologized to me or my mom for his fuck-ups (including cheating on her...), always belittled me, only celebrated my successes in public, always went against everything I wanted to do with my life, and many other things.

The last year or so in our relationship has been horrible. We fought over the most menial bullshit, when I was going through a tough time he was barely there, but he expects me to drop everything to support him if he's not doing good.

Today I did something moderately bad. Mom asked me to look through her phone for some work stuff, and after I did, I took a peek at her messages with dad.
Me and him had a fight some time ago because I didn't reply to his message for 6 hours while I was with my boyfriend. I saw she sent him some messages regarding that so I read the conversation. Long story short, dad was insinuating I am a manipulator because I dared to be upset that we fought over something so stupid and talked about it with mom (it wasn't even the first time we fought for bullshit like this). His response was out of this world, he did nothing but boast about everything he ever did for me like paying for my education (while sharing the cost with mom), saying that I am lost in my own world (something he has been saying since I was little because I play videogames...), that I behave like a child and need to learn to be responsible, insulted me in various ways. Thank god my mom didn't let him have any of it.

I am honestly so tired. I have been working my ass off all year for college and the only times he mentions it is to know when it's done so he can come to the ceremony and bask in my "success". I don't even know if I want him there.

My dad's 13yr old dog passed away not even a month ago. I don't like dogs, but I was sad for the mere reason that I knew that dog for half of my life and I didn't totally despise him. But after the initial sadness I just felt a wave of relief washing over me.

My dad destroyed our family for that dog. He lives with my grandma who's getting old and doesn't have much strength anymore, and my grandpa who can't even walk properly anymore. He basically forced them to look after his dog while he was at work, and mind you, this wasn't a small dog. In his prime he was like 20kg and the only person he ever obeyed was my dad.
My grandma was going crazy. I could see her losing sanity and happiness by the day. And things got worse when the dog got older and started having health issues. He got incontinent, then lost the ability to walk completely in the months leading up to his passing. He was suffering and my dad got so delusional that he could get better, even when the dog started refusing to go down the stairs and had to wear a diaper to not shit all over the house.

And then he died. Thankfully he went peacefully. But the week before, my dad got the smart idea to dump $400 in a medical scan that was useless because everyone knew what was wrong with the dog, that didn't solve anything but only made things worse, because he fully took that money away from what he owed me and my mom (they are divorced and I live with her), leaving us reaching for scraps for a month.

The thing that infuriated me was when I called him, the day after the dog passed, and he said "I used to have two children, now I only have one"... motherfucker are you serious?? I know it's the grief speaking but I was, and still am flabbergasted at the audacity to say that to your ONLY CHILD!! That dog was not and should never have been put to my same level. I can't say this to anyone because I know I will be called heartless but I don't fucking care, that dog was not my brother, it was a DOG. And to say that to your actual human child is fucking delusional.