Hey dad, minor advice but uh…. When you call someone to wish them a happy birthday then ask why they sound depressed (used that exact word) and they respond with “It’s the depression.” How about you don’t go into an immediate tangent on how you believe depression isn’t real and that it’s a crackpot so called scientists way of pushing drugs? Or that God has a plan for everyone and this depression is all on my head?

Thanks dad.

Then he gets all high and mighty when I explain that yeah! It is in my head! Because that is where the brain is and it isn’t producing the right chemicals I need!

Then he rants about all medication being unnecessary like he never took any himself in his entire life (he has. I was there. I remember standing in pharmacy lines with him and earning him more sympathy points for the ‘poor sick man having to get his own meds and babysit’ what a burnt ham of a man!)

But he keeps trying to shut me down and boast about God and the evils of science. And I just…. I wanted to hang up and I know I should have but I didn’t. I wanted to yell at him “This is the reason Cory doesn’t fucking love you!” Because you are a piece of shit father who can’t accept you pushed your kids away and they fucking hate you. Hate you and that you can’t accept they are different from you! And that maybe, just fucking maybe, while the one is atheist that the other believes in gods AND science?! Like we don’t have to live in a world where you just have to pick one. You can believe in both or neither, or parts of things and question other parts. What a crazy concept!!

But fuck me! It’s all made up and I am only ‘sad’ because I choose to be. I never saught help in the light of God or treatment- oh wait. I have. Many times. But sometimes nothing works and in my case that is true so far.

I have depression. Newsflash dad, I also have being diagnosed with PTSD. Wanna guess what caused that? Was it the years of abuse you inflicted upon me when we were alone? How you beat me because you got a speeding ticket and because I wanted to watch the last ten minutes of Swamp Thing it sent you into a blind rage? How you got drunk and would throw me around the house? How you held me under a bathtub faucet till I was out of it and mom came home early? Maybe I am afraid of water because it’s all in my head. Not installed there by you and you actions. I’m totally fine right? All bullshit science? Bet science is why when I hear a deasel truck engine rev nearby my heart sinks and I expect to see you any minute with a belt and a scowl screaming at me that I am a whore and worse than my mother despite at the time not even knowing what that meant or what sex even was.

But science can prove you are the main source of my depression. That my miniscule sense of self worth is hugely attributed to the years of abuse you shown me when you hated going to church and only went to keep pretending you were a good man.

But what do I know? Maybe you finally did find God. But even that won’t save my perception of you. But you never needed my love anyway. Just my fear and screams. Thanks dad. Happy fucking birthday to me.