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

• Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form. 
• You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.  

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Hiding The Punishment Board

When we were kids, we had this beds that had oak slats in them.  Sometimes we would jump up and down on the springs and of course, every now and then the oak slat would break.  Generally when that happened, my dad would scream and get angry.  But hey, that was nothing new.

Of course, he then figured out that the board made a nice punishment tool. In fact it was more effective than the belt he would normally use.  It didn't give in flexibility like a belt and it inflicted more pain upon us kids.

I used to hate the thing almost as much as I hated my father.  He didn't just punish us, he beat us.  Often it was for some small thing that just set him off wrong.  It didn't take much to find yourself on the wrong end of his anger.

The board was too convenient

Throughout the years, my brothers and I dealt with that stupid board.  I tried hard to be as perfect as I could be for we were not only taught that Jesus wanted you to be perfect, but any little infraction would bring punishment with great pain by my dad.  The board was just too convenient for him to use on us.

Since we moved around a lot, it was not uncommon to forget something.  Most of the homes we lived in were rentals and there was always left over junk from before we got there and long after we left.

In addition, my dad loved to collect lumber.  If he went by a railroad car with old lumber in it, he would go to great lengths to ask the right person if he could have it.  Then, we would go and pull all of this lumber out and drag it home.  Next, my brothers and I would have to pull each and every bent nail out of the boards.  We spent hours doing this every day when we got home from school.  Of course, my father never helped except to chastise us if we broke a nail off in the board or we weren't doing it fast enough or correct enough.  I hated this lumber.  I loathed him collecting it and most of the time it never got used for anything.

I was so tired of being beat with that board...

On one such move, I got smart and didn't tell my brothers or anyone the plan I had in my mind.  I was so tired of being beat with that board, that I decided to hide it.  The big stack of wood that he had collected was not going to go with us to our new home.  It was too far of a drive and not enough space in the moving truck for it, so my father donated it to some friend in church.

Without anyone looking, I quickly took the board and ran to the wood pile and hid it so it wouldn't be found.  I made sure no one saw me and if anyone walked around the lumber, it would not be seen.  It was just before we were ready to get in the moving truck and leave.

Where did the punishment board go?

When we got to the new place, my dad was perplexed at where this board had gone.  He surmised it must have been misplaced in the move or left behind, but he didn't know where it had gone.  Finally, little bit of a reprieve, but not by much because he still had his belt and his hand and his tools to punish us with.  He could still kick us too.

It was not until years later that I told the family what I had done with it.  They didn't suspect it out of me because I was always the one that tried to behave and do the right thing.  When I told them, I knew I was safe and while everyone laughed, I am sure my father probably wanted to beat the daylights out of me at that point.  I won that battle.  It was about the only battle with him I won.

I'll never forget that oak slat board he used for punishment.  I so badly wanted to use it on him and believe me, if I still had it, I probably would.  The pain we endured from those years has never left me.  It remains a constant reminder to me.

I'm just glad I was smart enough to go and hide the thing and not tell a soul.  I doubt I could have trusted anyone in the family to keep the secret which would have been a horror for me.

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Blog Post And Images (c) 2016 by Don Shetterly

• Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form. 
• You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.  

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Abused In A Christian Church

It only takes a moment for a child to be abused sexually, but it continues to haunt the child for the rest of their life.  Sure, many child abuse survivors manage to find a way to thrive and get beyond it, but when you take the innocence away from a child, they live with that for the rest of their life.

Growing up, I was abused by my father, older brother, and some unknown individual that went to a church we went to and found me in the church basement bathroom.  All of these people messed with my mind something fierce and many of them told me that they were doing this because "God wanted to show his love to me".  They did it because God told them to do it.

It messes you up...

I'm sure in their sick and twisted minds, they believed what they were telling me.  When you're taught from a little kid on up, that if God gets angry at you, you are going to that bad place, this stuff screws your mind up.  It really messes you up because you're not allowed to breathe, eat, or think anything different than what they teach you about God.

What makes me really want to puke my guts out at the thought, is when I see the baptism video of my older brother on Youtube.  Once again, he rededicated his life to Jesus.  Jesus forgave him of all his sins once again.  I've lost track how many times that has been now.  He had a good teacher, because my father was the exact same way.

Here's the blog post that I just referred to about the baptism video of my older brother.

(click image to read)

Of course, it sickens me to see how his childhood friends stand up for him and act as if he is some poor victim.  Yes, I'm sure he was abused too, but unlike him, I didn't go on and abuse others.  He made that choice and all the forgiveness by Jesus will never change that choice in my mind.

These goodie-two-shoe family of Christians that support him act like I'm the brainwashed one.  They act like I'm the criminal and the bad person for daring to break the silence and expose what they did.  I guess, I should take some solace in these fine upstanding Christians that got caught by the IRS for how they ran their shady businesses.  Hey, that's okay.  You can lie and cheat and steal and God will forgive you, but don't you dare expose a child abuser because you are the bad person.  Maybe that is why they built that church for a community I lived in?

Sickened by Child Molesters...

I know, I've been through this area of my healing many times and I have made great progress.  At least I can attempt to be respectful in what I write here, unlike before where the language would have been much worse.  Even though I try to get away from it, it still haunts me.  I'm still sickened by the way these child molesters are treated and how the enablers feel sorry for them.

It isn't just the Catholic church that abuses their little boys and girls either.  This was all done while we attended a Baptist church of the GARBC (General Association Of Regular Baptist Churches) with M.O. Burman as the minister.  It also happened in other churches too because we skipped around many times.  Life was go to church and pray and sing hymns to Jesus on Sunday and then Sunday afternoon, go home and abuse those weaker than you or at least the children and your siblings (and the wife). 

I'll never understand most likely how the sick and twisted are coddled by those that enable them while shouting praises to God in the highest.  I'll never understand why there are some that steal the innocence of a child.  It will always be a mystery to me.

I keep working it...

For now, I keep trying to continue my own healing in child abuse.  I've made tremendous strides over the years, but sometimes the anger of what I see by the ones that abused me attempts to engulf my own life.  What I went through lasted for most of my growing up years and believe me, it is not easy to free myself completely from it.  I keep working on it though!

You can read more about this church we went to in the blog post, Haunted By Ghosts Of The Past.

(click image to read)

Question Of The Day

We're you abused in the name of religion or God or a church?  Feel free to leave a comment if you were.

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Blog Post And Images (c) 2016 by Don Shetterly

• Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form. 
• You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.  

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Traumatized by Cold Hands

I'm once again reminded of one of the reasons I no longer live in the northern half of the country.  It is too cold.  Well, it isn't so much the cold because I can take a little of it.  It is the cold hands.

Every since I can remember, my hands got cold.  It didn't matter if I had layers of clothes on and warm gloves, my hands were cold.  It didn't matter if I had the warmest mittens on, they got cold.  It could be 70 degrees in a room and my hands would be cold.

As far back as I can remember, I would get kicked, hit, and ridiculed, because my hands would get cold.  I couldn't help it.  They just did. 

Time and time again, I was told to shut up and grow up.  I was told not to cry.  Big boys don't cry is what I was told. I was so traumatized by it, that it still haunts me today. 

You would have thought allowing me to have 5 minutes to go inside and warm up would not have been asking for too much.  Apparently, it was.

Imagine your hands hurting from being cold or being so stiff they didn't want to move.  Imagine someone telling you that you were a cry baby or just complaining and whining.  Imagine being threatened with physical punishment and seeing that threat followed through.

Being traumatized by cold hands is not fun.  I do not enjoy the colder weather at all and for those that do, more power to you.  However, I didn't like to be made fun of and bullied by my father because my hands were naturally cold.

For me, I prefer the warmer weather.  Cold weather isn't my desire anymore and most of the time, it makes me want to hide and withdraw.  Most don't fully understand this, but it can be a very traumatizing moment for me.

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Blog Post And Images (c) 1/13/16 by Don Shetterly

• Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form. 
• You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.  

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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.

Knock Knock

If you have not seen this video, please spend a couple of minutes and watch it. It is very powerful and it carries a very powerful message. It takes my breath away just watching it and I've seen it many times.