We rescued this little nugget from some crazy neighbors next door. They gave him to us when he wouldn’t stop coming to our house to play with our pittie girl. We were told that he’s part pit/part pocket bully and a year later he’s still pretty puppy sized height-wise, which he loves to use to his advantage lol. He’s so smooshy I can’t stand it😭
I’m still fairly new to collaging but this is my most recent piece - I still haven’t found a foolproof method of not getting the paper to wrinkle as I’m using very old magazines on wooden plaques/boards most of the time.
A little back story - growing up, I was the black sheep, the scapegoat, the odd-one-out, etc., and my father is a textbook narcissist and a self proclaimed “high functioning” alcoholic. The wind blowing the wrong direction on any given day would set him off so my 3 sisters and I walked on eggshells 24/7. He became physically abusive exclusively towards me in middle school, after years of verbal/psychological abuse. Eventually when I was 13, he kicked me out (though he swears up and down I “chose to move out.”) I didn’t speak to him at all for a couple years.
I am the only one out of my siblings who has been to therapy or learned how to set hard boundaries with my father. Because of this, our relationship eventually improved for the most part, and we’ve been on quite good terms for quite a while. Eventually he had trouble concealing his true demeanor and patterns and we had a falling out about 7 months ago. I no longer speak to my father as he overstepped a few of my boundaries and rather than apologize when I explained how he had hurt my feelings, stopped paying for my therapy sessions and stopped talking to me altogether so he could throw himself a pity party and tell literally everyone how “mean” I am. (This stupid shit works for him and most of my family usually believes him - they all think I moved out despite half of them being in the room when he called my mom and told her that the door would be locked the next day when I came home from school.)
Fast forward to a few weeks ago, my youngest sister (the golden child) was at my dad’s visiting with her 2yo daughter. She’s in that phase where she’s beginning to throw tantrums over relatively small things. My sister does a wonderful job with her and deals with these issues very calmly but firmly while helping her process her bigger feelings. My niece began to cry while she was at my dad’s, and my dad got frustrated pretty quickly. The connection to the backstory is important here as when a narcissist loses control (especially over their scapegoat,) things tend to fall apart with the other family members because the dynamic they’re comfortable with has shifted. My sister says that my dad came out of his room into the kitchen and made a snarky comment about my niece’s behavior. My sister explained to him that she’s been having a tough time working through her feelings/could be entering the “terrible twos,” and that she can’t have (something my sister was preparing) right now, so she’s upset. My dad then said, “At some point she’s going to need to be disciplined.” She’s fucking TWO. My sister looked at him for a moment and then went back to what she was doing as she didn’t know what to say. My dad bent down to my niece’s level, looked her in the face, and said, in a very mocking tone, “hey (name,) stop crying. Do you know what you are? Embarrassing.”
My sister immediately told him she would not allow him to speak to her baby that way. She wouldn’t raise her voice, but told him that he was being an asshole. Things escalated and she said she was leaving. He followed my sister around the house screaming and calling her crazy trying to gaslight and criticize her as she gathered her things. My sister repeated multiple times that she would not engage while he yelled around her baby. My niece was visibly upset by the insane way my father was acting, and continued to cry throughout this. Eventually, my dad got in my sister’s face, said she wasn’t going to take whatever it was she was grabbing, and he somewhat raised his clenched fists at her. She says this is when she lost it and challenged him - she said “DO IT.” And he just stood there glaring at her. Finally she shoved past him, picked up my niece, and said that he would never be allowed to see her baby again. He changed his tune and calmly asked to at least be able to say goodbye. She refused, put her in the car, and drove away.
They haven’t spoken for a few weeks, and since then my stepmom apparently claims that my dad “doesn’t remember” any of that. He’s used this on me 1000x so I know it’s a crock of shit. Apparently though, my sister went to their house and spent the day there this past Thursday with my niece. I’m infuriated because I know he has not apologized or owned up to his psycho behavior, and I know it’s not my business but I’m considering messaging my dad (potentially via email or letter) and telling him off/pointing out his extremely over the top behavior over the years and letting him know the impact he has had on me. I can’t decide if it’s worth it or over the top. Should I just finally let him have it - pull zero punches and make him understand that I see him for who he truly is through this flimsy nice-guy act? Should I let him know that his behavior is so textbook that it's laughable/pathetic? I’m so exhausted after a lifetime of this that part of me knows I would be better off saying nothing because he will never change either way. Part of me wants to give him a REAL wake up call in the hopes that he seriously reflects on and changes his behavior because I honestly want to be able to love my dad as there are good parts of him that I’ve seen when he isn’t in a terrible mood. I just want my sisters to be safe despite the fact that they’ve repeatedly taken his side over believing or even listening to my truth. I want them to realize what I realize, but unfortunately they are more easily manipulated by him when he turns his charm up/pulls the pity card, and are still scared of him.