To tell or not to tell

That's always the question I guess - to tell the truth or not tell the truth - to be who you are or to pretend to be something else - or to pretend not to be something - like an alcoholic for example. How do you pretend not to be that, when it's you and so much of the way you are is colored by the "ism" of it. I struggle with this - being myself. With not feeling like I have to pretend to be different things in different situations. Because in some ways I do have to pretend. My work life and my AA life feel very distinct - so much so that I feel like two different people. At least two different people - maybe more - because there is also my non-work and non-AA life which involves people that I don't work with and who are not in the program - and with these people, some of whom don't know I'm sober - I am someone else completely. I have been trying to figure out how to integrate these versions of myself into something authentic and real.

First I should say that I don't believe that telling the truth is always the best thing to do. I'm not advocating for all out lying - but I think there are truths that shouldn't be told.

Anyway, this little dilemma over truth telling and being myself surrounds my father. We have never been close. I don't really know how to describe my relationship with my dad - it just is, because it's supposed to be, but there isn't a lot of substance to it and there never has been. We aren't close, but we aren't not close - it just is the way it's been. I wonder sometimes how to change it. I would not describe it as an honest relationship - he doesn't really know much about me and I don't really feel like it's that easy to be me around him. I just don't find him easy to talk to, or deal with, or interact with. I think the first time we had a conversation about anything real I was maybe 24. My dad was there the whole time we were growing up - watching - participating - yet he seems to have missed the degree to which our lives were completely and utter dysfunctional.

My dad appears to be living under this illusion that my brother and I are happy, functional, well adjusted people, and I think the illusion makes him feel okay about what happened in our house when we were growing up. He is somehow absolved of it. I'm not saying that my brother and I aren't these things that my dad believes us to be - I'm just saying - there is definitely some illusion to the way my dad sees things. For me anyway - he believes these things because I have a successful career - I must be okay, right? And my dad cannot even seem to comprehend that I could possibly feel unhappy or depressed, even given everything I've been through. I've mentioned this recently to him - feeling unhappy - and his response is something just less than shocked.

Every once in a while I feel the urge to shatter my dad's illusion - I feel like saying - do you know just how fucked up I have been, how many bad relationships I've had, what I've let men do to me, how depressed I've been, how much I hate myself? Do you even have any idea how completely horrible growing up in that house was? I would never say those things to him - but sometimes I want to, because it feels like he got off easy. I know I have talked some about my mother, but she is not the only one who has failed to take responsibility.

Out of a feeling of needing to protect my father's feelings and the illusion that he is living under, and out of a fear of his reaction, I have never told my dad that I'm sober. For two years I have wondered whether to tell him that I don't drink and why and that I've been going to AA meetings for the past two years. The years go by and he knows me less and less - and I've been hiding this huge, incredibly huge part of myself from him. I'm worried he will be devastated. I mean, I wouldn't have a clue about what that's like to have your child tell you something like that. Maybe it's no big deal - I mean these days, recovery is perceived differently than it used to be - but my dad is from a different generation. Not only that but he doesn't understand - he may grasp on some level that it can be genetic - so he may be able to fathom it because I have an alcoholic mother (who is not sober) and grandmother (who died of the disease), but I can tell, based on conversations we've had, that he definitely doesn't get it.

I am worried about a couple of things - mostly that he will be angry and that his opinion of me will change. But at the same - I can't keep living this kind of half truth with him. I'm not being honest about who I am with him and it's getting to me after all these years. Our relationship has always been based on half truths - pretending and hiding and covering things up - a legacy of my childhood (maybe if you don't talk about it isn't true, but definitely, don't let the neighbors find out). That's what my life has always been about on some level. I am finding that I can't do it anymore - and not just with him. I'm going to tell him when I go home on the 13th for my anniversary. I really thought that I would never tell him, but I am going to. It isn't to shatter his illusion or hurt him or upset him. It's so that I can be me around him, finally. I just hope he isn't devastated by who that person is.