"I have the right to do whatever I want to do." [View all]

I've heard this before.

Not from Trump.

From my authoritarian father.

At a certain age, he felt unconstrained. His parents and all his siblings were gone. He made my mother feel impotent.

He owned his medical practice. His medical partner mostly allowed Dad to do whatever he wanted.

He punished simply because my siblings and/or I ruined his illusion of a perfect world. Like when my sister wanted to convert from Judaism to Catholicism (in order to get married faster). She married a nice Jewish boy in the end. Like when my brother did convert to Sufiism (mystical Islam) from Judaism. Like when I didn't support a co-worker at his doctor's office because she spent more time on the phone to organize her son's bar mitzvah than doing what had to be done in the office.

As for the latter, Dad wasn't satisfied only with punishing me for causing undue stress on this woman (which I didn't b/c the rest of the office agreed she wasn't pulling her share). He wanted to destroy me.

I won't go into the details (now) but Dad was driving a bulldozer, and I was in its path. Needless to say, I outmaneuvered him, but I never forget what he did and why he did it. Because he believed he had the right to do whatever he pleased.

No, TSF hasn't triggered PTSD, but I remember acutely Dad's MO.