love – Pamela Brunskill

acceptance, shame

The Long-Term Effects of My Father’s Actions (HuffPost Personal)

August 5, 2018 Pamela Brunskill

I published an essay on HuffPost Personal this week:

My Dad Killed Two People When I Was 15. Here’s Why I’m Finally Ready to Accept Him.

In my struggle to disassociate myself from him, I had dehumanized myself.

I was 15 when my father killed my stepmother and her lover in 1992. While I was walking with friends around school after a homecoming game, he walked in on the couple making love in his house in western New York, and he shot them.

When my mom sat me down the next morning to tell me what she knew, waves of coldness washed over me, and I stifled the urge to throw up. Unable to process the magnitude of what he had done, it is only now that I can identify my revulsion, shock, sadness and confusion over his actions…(click to read the rest on HuffPost)