I Was Never Good Enough For My Dad

Written By Don Shetterly

I used to hate having to go get tools for my dad.  My older brother would treat me the same way as my dad treated me.  They were too freaking lazy to go get the tools themselves and so I’d have to trek all the way to the barn where we had them.

Of course, the tools were never where they said they were.  Of course, they didn’t know how to properly identify them.  So, I would have to guess and hope I brought the right one back.

Most of the time I failed.  I would be berated with the following statements:

"You don’t have any common sense." 

"If the tool would have been a snake, it would have bit you." 

"Can’t you do anything right?" 

Those and many more statements filled the void around me.  They made me nervous.  They caused so much anxiety in me.

If my dad got real mad, he’d pick up a shovel, a garden hoe, a board or anything else within his reach and beat me with it.  Minor infractions meant that he would just kick you, and I mean physically kick you. 

Afterwards, I would get blamed for not putting the tools away in the correct spots.  There were no “spots” for the tools, only general locations.  My dad would never return things back to where he found them, but it was always our fault.  Then we’d have to clean up the barn all over again, only for the scenario to repeat.

I remember one time in college, I had come home and changed the oil in my car.  I put things back where they were supposed to go.  Days later I get this letter from my dad.  Now, my dad could barely put words together to form a sentence on paper and hardly ever sent a letter to anyone.  This letter was blasting me for how irresponsible and immature I was because I left his “garage” a mess.  It wasn’t me that did that.  It was someone else, but of course I got blamed.

Fault in the smallest of things...

Nothing I ever did was good enough for my dad.  He would find fault in the smallest of things.  Even in the music that I created, I can still remember him criticizing me because it had mistakes in it.  His anger fumed at me when I replied to him, “but how can it have mistakes – I’m just creating it?”

When I bought my first pickup, it wasn’t good enough because I didn’t ask his permission, even though I was out of college, working a good job, and paid for it on my own.  He thought I should get his approval first.  It did not matter that I got the best deal I most likely ever got on buying a vehicle.

When I got tired of waiting on him to help me build a hay feeding bunk for my sheep, I finally just did it on my own.  The sheep needed it badly and day after day, he kept telling me he was too busy to help me.  No, it wasn’t perfect, but it worked.  He could only criticize me and it for every little flaw that he magnified in his own eyes.  Nothing was ever good enough for my dad.

When I would play the piano in high school choir events, he would gloat that I was his son.  It wasn’t that I played beautifully.  It was about how I was related to him and he made sure that he was the focus of the event to everyone that knew us.  His responses to me in private though were nitpicking how much he hated the music I was given to play.  This was from a man that had no concept of music, but he sure was a critic.

When I tried to go to college, he was all for it if I got a good paying job and it was more of a hands-on trade.  Yet, my dad resented the money I was offered for my first job.  While in college and for years after, I would hear that I was nothing more than an over educated college idiot.  No matter how humble and true I was with people, my father resented that I was doing better than he was.

Jealous of me...

I dealt with my older brother and my dad being completely jealous of me in everything I did.  They expected someone to walk up and hand them what they needed.  I, on the other hand, worked my butt off to get what I needed.  I was well known and successful for my hard work in the area where we grew up.  I never had to look for work.  It always found me.  Regardless, though, I had to deal with the never-ending jealously by my dad and older brother.  Anything I had, they thought they should have, even if they did nothing to get it.

I’ve been called so many names.  I’ve been hit and beaten so hard.  I am not sure how I made it this far in life.

I always try to stay humble and be who I am.  However, that was never enough for them and it made my life hell for many years. 

In recent years, I’ve started to really come to terms with that, but I would be lying if I said that none of what I had been through with my dad and older brother did not impact everything I do to this day.

It is my goal to keep reminding myself that they were the bullies in my life and because of their own shortcomings, they felt threatened by me.  However, that is their circus.  It is their dysfunctional issues.  I no longer desire to own them.

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Blog Post And Images (c) 2017 by Don Shetterly

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The Wooden Hay Bunk

One painful moment of my childhood was a confrontation I had with my father in an episode that has played a major role in my life from that point forward.  If you look in the picture to the right, you will see the wooden hay bunk for my sheep that became the source of contention between my father and myself.  I was only about 16 or 17 years old at the time and my sheep were my life.  I was fast becoming an experienced learner in how to raise sheep.

As the days went, I had nowhere to feed hay to my sheep except on the ground.  Throughout the winter months, you would feed bales of hay to them since there was no grass to eat.  Often you would throw out extra ears of corn that we picked up from the fields to help give them protein and calories.  They were often pregnant and so to help their lamb mature inside the womb and to help them weather the harsh Iowa winters, this feed was vital for them to survive and produce viable lambs.

Putting hay on the ground was one way to feed them, but that often meant they were eating whatever was on the ground.  In a sheep lot, there are things that just aren't healthy for them to eat and sometimes they can pick up parasites from the practice.  Plus, if the hay was on the ground, a lot of good food would be wasted from being trampled by the sheep, which means it gets more expensive to feed the sheep.

Dream Of Standing Up To My Family

From my dream journal 11/27/10:
Imagine a high rise building that stretched for many hundreds of floors into the sky, taller than you could ever think a building could go. That was where my dream started out.

It seemed that I was in the building to do some work like I was doing something with computers or a computer install. Yet, the funny thing is, I don't recall seeing any computers, just cubicles with desks that had very little on them. There were no people visible at the desks except for the people running around delivering stuff or doing tasks like I was doing. Yet, it felt like a lot of information was housed here and being exchanged almost like it was a customer call center with a vast array of powerful computers.

I got on the elevator and was met by someone that knew which floor I was to go on as they pushed the correct button. I do not know the number of the floor they pushed but I could see that only some numbers were available but not all numbers for all floors. It was not sequential like one would normally see in an elevator. I just knew that this building stretched up into the sky for many floors and it was hard to understand how tall this building was. I was somewhat frightened and scared but not overwhelmed by the fear.

When the doors opened of the elevator, I got out and immediately stepped on to the steps of a bus. Stepping from the elevator to the bus, I noticed the sky was very blue and bright, yet it seemed like the building continued for many more floors above. It felt like I was on a sky deck or terrace of the building. The bus seemed to have others on it but I really could not see them. However, I sensed or knew they were there. In a quick fashion, the bus sped away to some place that looked like a combination of places I had lived like a house but it was not any one house that I had ever lived in. The house seemed very small in the place I was in but I could tell it stretched for a long ways in all directions. There were many windows in it facing towards beautiful pastures, mountains and open lands.

When I arrived at this house, my mom was the first one that came into view. She admitted to me that she knew Dad had molested us. My dad was sitting there in another room looking dejected, full of shame and almost barely able to hold his head up to look at me.

There were other friends there that I knew and they all seemed to know the secret of me being abused was known to them. It was like they had always known it had taken place but had never said anything or did anything.

Ceaser Milan was there in one of the bedrooms. I can remember a bed being in a corner of the room with a deep blue bedspread. He was explaining how to make healing smoothies with three ingredients of which I cannot remember what all they were. There was something in this to do with ice cream. The most important part though that I remembered was that he told me you had to put dog poop in them because it was very healthy. He was very adamant about this ingredient and stated it just as I wrote here. When I balked at this, he urged me to try the smoothie and I was shocked that it tasted good.

I went back out to talk with my parents and everyone that I knew who was there. I cried a lot about the events that I had gone through being sexually abused and was very angry but not violent. I stood up for myself and told everyone that I knew including my dad, how could you? I asked my mom why she didn't leave dad but there were no answers. They all just stared at me as if they had no answers.

I told my dad that he was leaving this house and I never wanted to see him again for he was dead to me.

After that, the dream ended. I really don't remember physically leaving the place or these people leaving but it was like everything was finished and now life went on. I remember waking up this morning feeling very rested and like I had slept deeper than I had ever slept before in my life. It was an extremely deep, restful and rejuvenating night of sleep. I felt empowered, strong and full of hope when I woke up this morning.

Surprisingly enough, I was able to remember and record many of the details from this dream.

(c) by Don Shetterly 11/28/10 - use by permission only

Dreams - Tornado, Cows and a Barn

Waking up with what seemed to be my heart racing and wanting to hide under the covers from some unknown frightening source, I finally convinced myself that I was dreaming. The dream that was taking place in my mind was not actually happening. However, it was difficult to convince myself of this. As I found myself needing to make a trip to the bathroom, my trusty cat was there to help give me some comfort and protection from this unknown frightening source. The frightening source is a mystery to me but all I know is that I was trying to hide from it.

Isn’t it amazing just how dreams can become so real to us or feel like they are in every way real with every emotion that accompanies them? While I don’t try to analyze every dream and make it describe in detail what it may or may not mean, I do pay attention to the emotions and fears that surface for they tell me something. In this particular dream, there were familiar things mixed in with strange events and people that I know. However, there are so many explanations that could fit this dream and like I was saying, the important part may be to not pick apart and analyze the dream but to see how the emotions and fear come up within me. Some of the symbols are important I assume but as to what they mean, I do not know at this time.

I wish I would have had my pulse meter close to me because I would have liked to check it to see if it matched what I was feeling in my own body with my heart racing. However, it was not available so I could not verify this.

So here’s the dream: (just for the sake of writing it down).

There was a big dairy barn and somehow everyone knew that a gigantic tornado was coming and would be hitting the town. So at the right time, we as a town (the town’s people) made our way to the barn. This barn was old and rickety with many air holes and leaks throughout. Everyone gathered in the upper level of the barn lying side to side on the bales of hay. Down below were the cattle and they were all shut up in the barn. While most of the people seemed very familiar in the barn as if I knew them all, the only person there from my family was my dad. No other family members were present and I have no idea where they were. It was not like we were in close proximity to each other but I just knew my dad was there.

As the tornado got close and began to hit the barn, we all realized that the tornado was much smaller than everyone thought. It was a sigh of relief to all. As the tornado was unleashing its fury on the barn and rotating the barn in a slow paced circular motion, I sat down on the stairs going to the lower level of the barn. Just before, one of the cows was standing there. It was a very big bull which was very fat and had a black, shiny, coat of hair. In a very firm stance and stare, it looked at me as if to try and intimidate me but I just stared back not flinching for a minute.

As the tornado withdrew and vanished, the barn stayed together without any damage. No one was hurt and so everyone left to go back to their homes or wherever they needed to go in the town. My dad vanished and I did not see him again. I have no idea where he went.