August 6, 2025
How did I stop crying? Erik texted me to check how I was doing. He was in KL on his way to the airport, ready to fly back to where he lives. I told him how I had been crying since the morning and didn’t have my first bite of food until 1:30pm and that people in the City of Rain were giving me a hard time. Then we talked on the phone for about 30 minutes; I told him what happened and I told him it was really so stupid and yet it was so overwhelming for me. Then we kept laughing as I verbally ventilated about the incident. He said, “well now you know once you’re officially divorced you won’t have regrets. Many people regret their divorces.” I said, “that means they’re lucky because their marriage is still alive.” He said, “not all divorces happen because the marriage was dead. Some people just grow apart or their values don’t align, etc.” I said, “I guess.” He also told me about his insomnia problem—we’ve been having the same kind of insomnia problem both for 8 years. We can’t sleep through the night. We wake up too early and can’t fall back to sleep but then we’d have to go to work so we’d feel like total shit at work. I told him that’s long term fatigue and sleep debt. If the problem has been there for 8 years then you’d probably need 16 years to fix it…hahaha. At the end of the conversation, I said, “hey.” He asked, “what?” I said, “thank you for talking to me.” He said, “did I make you feel better?” I said, “yes, always.”
After that phone call I felt much lighter and I wanted to see the sunset. I hired a rickshaw and it was so much fun. The rickshaw guy “Toshi” worked so hard and did his best to entertain. He took so many great photos of me; we chat, and he showed me the best part of Otaru. After that I had dinner in Otaru and took a walk alone the canal; it was finally cooling down. Otaru was so lovely and romantic; it was where “First Love” was filmed and I kept listening to Hikaru Utada’s First Love and cried a bit more.
On Saturday I had to fly back to the City of Rain and basically getting to the airport and flying back home took the whole day. When I arrived at home, my whole family were there, including my parents, my father's ex wife, my older brother and his wife. I thought my older brother went to my place because he knew about the conflict between my father and my ex-to-be and that he wanted to be there to be a buffer. Later I found out that it was not because of the conflict between my ex-to-be and my father. It was because early that morning, my mom called him for help. I was still in Hokkaido and my mom called him for help instead for my dad’s emotional abuse towards her.
On Sunday I took my family out for an outing except for my father. At 4am on Monday, a disaster happened. My mom rushed into my room and jumped on me and started crying, saying, “please save me. I’m about to die.”
It actually terrified me from my deep sleep. I got up from my bed and rushed to their bedroom. My kids were sleeping in that bedroom too. I asked my dad what he was doing to my mom. He said, “your mom thinks I’m useless. She wants to kill me.” What really happened was that since we were out on Sunday all day, he was home alone and he couldn’t make himself food. He was hungry and his gout was hurting him again. However he never reached out to anyone for help. I could have ordered him food and have it delivered to him while we were away. He didn’t call for help because he was expecting that we should know he’d be hungry. When my mom didn’t meet his expectations he flipped. He kept verbally abusing her all night while they were sleeping in bed together. I had a conversation with him about why it was so fucking unfair to me that I’m the only one who’s still taking care of him and yet my two brothers are just off the hook. I had to be woken up at 4am and operate on 3 hours of sleep to take care of their mess. I talked about how he had physically and emotionally abused everyone and how he had been financially irresponsible and recorded our entire conversation. I told him to leave my house and he said he had a doctor’s appointment on Tuesday and I was bullying him as he was old and blind. I said I’d go to the doctor on his behalf on Tuesday and pick up his prescription and deliver it to him. He said again that it was still dark outside (about 5:30am) and that I was abusing him. I opened the curtains and said, “no it’s totally bright outside. Leave my house now. I’d pay for your cab and send you home. I am not abusing you because I am getting you a cab and I am not leaving you on the street. You actually have a house to go to.” He said, “you waste too much money. A cab ride is expensive.” I said, “i earn my money and how I spend my money is my business. Right now I’d rather spend money to keep my ears quiet.” I have always been everyone’s emotional regulator and mediator for my entire life. Just when I traveled alone for only 6 days on my own, my whole family collapsed.
At 6am, I couldn’t find a cab so I drove him home on my own. It was about a 50-minute drive to his place when there’s no traffic and over an hour when there was traffic. He wasn’t willing to leave my house without my mom, and my mom left the house as soon as she came to find me for help so she wasn’t there. He wanted my mom to be with him at least every weekend, and I said, “you have no right to require that. Where she wants to be is her freedom.” He said, “she is my wife and she should come home.” (OK in the local law there is a duty for a spouse to live under the same roof as the other spouse; however it is never been legally enforced because many women’s rights groups have advocated against it.) I said, “I don’t know what year you’re living in. You have no right to require her to be anywhere. She is my mom and I am legally obligated to take care of her.”
Before he got off my car he made another threat against my ex-to-be. He didn’t like that my ex-to-be often lies down in my mom’s bed while the kids are playing in her room, even though it is our house. I had the whole conversation recorded on my phone. I said, “I have fulfilled their obligations with utmost benevolence and righteousness by taking you home today. I also want to warn you one last time--do not come back to my house again."
Then, I had to rush to the US embassy for my son's passport renewal. It was only 7am and the traffic was already crazy. I was in such a rush and I was so afraid that I would miss the appointment and had to start all over again. Fortunately we were about 15 minutes late and had our appointment as usual. When I was rushing, I became aware that I had an enormous amount of stress whenever I was about to be late for something. I am terrified of being late and then I realized it was because my father was and is that way. He has never been late to anything and I have been yelled at by him many times for being late and therefore my emotional flashback.
After our passport renewal appointment I took everyone home. Then I called the government's hotline for domestic abuse and reported the incident between my mom and my father, and also the conflict between my father and my ex-to-be. The social bureau now has a record and the social workers are working on it. Then I had a talk therapy session at noon so I left home for my therapy. I did not have a single bite of food until 1:30pm that day, until after I finished my talk therapy and got home. In my talk therapy, there was a lot of crying, but the most important thing that stayed with me was that question my therapist asked me after I showed her the video of my father yelling at my ex-to-be, "what is it that you're afraid of about your dad? He's old and blind now and he can't physically hurt you anymore. I think it's his voice that scares you." I paused for a few seconds and then realized, "yes, it's that yelling voice of his. That's a scary voice that precursored violence when I was little. Someone was about to be hit whenever he had that voice. It is my emotional flashback." This was a good awakening. I told my therapist that after our session I was going to file a restraining order against my father on my ex-to-be's behalf and my mom's behalf. I told her that I also had another awakening after our last session--she pointed out that I have carried the duty of financially supporting my father alone, even though I have two other brothers (per local law, it's illegal if a child abandons their parents and does not support their livelihood, even if the parent had a record of abusing the child) who do not participate in this support. I witnessed how much they got beaten up as kids and since I received the least abuse (only a couple of beatings) I felt that I should be the one supporting him. She said that I have found a way to justify their inaction in participating in supporting the livelihood of my father, but I am completely forgetting about myself. A few days after that session, I realized that yes, my brothers were and are still miserable, but so was I and so am I. It's time that I stand up for myself, that I protect myself first before I protect anyone else. My therapies are really working now.
After my talk therapy on Monday, I went to get a quick lunch and went back home. I changed the passcode for my door but then I realized that my father actually has a key to the community gate in my complex. I talked to the doorman at our community that I'm in the process of applying for a restraining order against him so if he comes to my house, please call me or my mom right away and I would call the police. I also had to inform my helpers at home about this. If this happened two years ago, I'd never have the courage to face the embarrassment and drama of all this. But today, I somehow just have the courage not to care about people's judgments and gossiping anymore and that I actually believe that people around me are willing to help me. Sure they might still gossip but they are willing to help me. In the afternoon, I completely passed out. After napping for an hour, my aunt called me to check on me so I was woken up by that. In that phone call, she said something that triggered me again. She said, “what if your dad goes to your workplace to harass you?” I said to her, “that’d be great. The guards at my school will throw him onto the street. You guys have been telling me he’d do something like this at my mom’s workplace or at my workplace because you’re so afraid of losing your face. That’s just not true and I don’t care about the face anymore.” This fear of mine—the fear of reporting him, of escalating his emotions is rooted in these adults’ voices. They have been telling me over and over again that if we don’t go with what my dad wants, he’d kill everyone along with himself or he’d embarrass us at our workplace. Pete Walker’s CPTSD book has taught me that it’s not factual or real. It’s their imaginary fear imposed on me, giving me so much anxiety of being stuck, of being unable to do anything for decades about my circumstances, making me fatalistic. I thought I was too tired to take my mother and my ex-to-be to the police station to file for a restraining order, but then because I couldn't fall back to sleep, I decided to take them to the police station.
It took us 3 hours to file the reports at the police station. It was a lot of red tape and paperwork, but then I wasn't impatient with it at all. Instead I saw that the police officers didn't take a break either and tried really hard to gather all the details of the incidents and to communicate with my ex-to-be in English. They wanted to make a good case for us. I felt protection then. I felt moved. In my last EMDR session, my therapist told me to find anything that can give me bits of protection. At the police station, I felt it. I said to my 9-year-old self, "we did it. 30 years later, I am finally brave enough to do this for you. Back then nobody did this for us, not a single adult. But today, at least we're still both alive, and I'm doing it for you." In the process of our paperwork, my ex-to-be was clueless and at one point he even said to me, "I don't need to get a restraining order against your dad. I'm not afraid of him." The police officer said to him, "You should. It's good for you. You don't know what crazy behavior he'd have in the future."
What was going on in my head? There were many thoughts racing. I have been the one holding together everyone's emotions for too long, and I am done. I won't let them invade my boundaries anymore. If I wasn't there, nobody could understand and communicate with my father and nobody could get him out of my house, then let's use law enforcement. He can never come near them anymore. As we go to court for the restraining order, we will also file a divorce for my parents then. If the judge rules that they should divorce, then my father has to divorce my mom even if he doesn't consent to it.
That was a very long Monday. I passed out before 10pm that day.
On Tuesday, I had to get up early to take my kid to school and go to the hospital to get my father's prescription. My mom went to the doctor with me and I explained to the doctor that we were trying to get a restraining order against him so he couldn’t physically be there at the doctor's appointment. The doctor said, "wow. You're still here to get his medicine." I said, "yes, I'm his daughter." My mom, a boomer woman, had a hard time telling anyone about the restraining order. In her world, everything that’s not elitist is embarrassing and we can never "lose face". She is the source of many of my inner critics and these inner critics have prevented me from connecting with others genuinely my whole life. I am angry at her too. I'm angry that she was so weak when we were little and still is so weak, so cowardly. I told her to leave my father when I was 9, when I was too scared to go home after school and lived with my aunt for a few months after my dad beat my mom. She went home only two days later after my dad apologized to her and kneeled down to her. I never forgave him or believed in his apology so I didn't go home, even though that meant I had to live without my mother. I missed her very much but I was angry and scared enough not to go home with her. She never thought about protecting me; she never took me away from violence to keep me safe. When I was eloquent enough, maybe around 10 or 11, I became the one talking back to my dad on her behalf. I learned to verbally attack others like a machine gun very early on and I was always able to shut my dad up.
After we picked up the medicine, I dropped my mom off at my place, and she asked, "wait, why are we going back to your place? Aren't you delivering the drugs to your dad?"
This got me angry and triggered. I yelled at her, "you are getting a restraining order against him. Why are you seeing him?"
She said, "Oh I won't talk to him. I will just give him the drugs and leave."
I yelled again, "hell no. You have to treat him like a dead man. Didn't you wish him dead? From now on, he is dead to you. No phone call, no text, no contact. If he shows up at my door, you call the police. You should have done this 30 years ago. Do you see how much damage you've done to your kids because you're such a coward? Now I'm taking care of this problem for you once and for all. If you ever change your mind, withhold your truth in court or from your social workers, you have to go back to live with him and stay out of my life."
Yes, that was an emotional flashback. Every night in my childhood, when she was too scared to go home, we'd just sit in the car for over an hour after we were parked late at night, not being able to go home. I asked her to leave my dad, and she said, "but how can I raise you two without money? Don't you have any feelings for your dad? He’s gonna kill me if I leave him. He’s gonna come to my workplace and embarrass me." I said to her (this was before I was a teenager), "I don't need to have a luxurious life. No, I don't have any feelings for him." At that point of my life, I had already fantasized that one of my English teachers, a Canadian male and a loving father and husband himself, to be my father. I believe this also led to my fetish of dating white males as I got older, although in my 20s I had dated and loved Taiwanese men and Indian men as well. The same conversation with my mom repeated dozens of times as I was growing up and nothing changed. After the financial crisis in 2008, my mom has been the one financially supporting my father the whole time. All these years when she told me that she had to stay in that house, we had to stay in that house, everything was a lie. We didn't need my dad's money because she could make money herself. I started to support myself financially ever since I turned 18. And she even married him when I was 22; they had always been unmarried when we were growing up. How fucked up was that. I just cannot stand my mom as a woman nor as my mother; she forced me to protect her ever since I was a child and nobody ever protected me. She was not a functional mother and I am finally brave enough to see that and stop being the one protecting her. Let law enforcement do it on my behalf. I am protecting myself first finally.
Pete Walker's CPTSD book really speaks to me; I've listened to many parts of it repeatedly. I also started to read "Women Who Love Too Much" by Robin Norwood. I'm half way through it. I've learned that I didn't marry my father, because when I was young, I knew that could be a subconscious thing--a woman always ends up marrying someone like her father. I made sure I didn’t marry someone like him; I had dated someone almost exactly like him and then dumped him five weeks later after he verbally abused me repeatedly and I sense violence in him. But what I've learned from that book was that I married someone like my mother--someone who's completely unable to protect me and needs my protection and problem solving in every way in his life. My mom is exactly that way, and the ironic thing is that in my marriage, my mom has repeatedly said to me that she feels that my ex-to-be is so much like her. With this book I've reading now, I finally see the problem.
Another thing that scares me a bit is something I read in the book “The Drama of the Gifted Child”. It’s also one of the books recommended in Pete Walker’s CPTSD. I was half way through it and I had to stop because it keeps reiterating the idea that people like me, without our achievements, we cannot be loved for who we are. When we attract someone with our achievements, that’s only admiration, not love. This idea scares me because at this point of my life, I am still very proud of my achievements, including financial achievements, my career, my intellect, my social and communication skills, and most importantly my wisdom from all the inner work I’ve been doing. I think the architecture I’ve built is a reflection of what I need to protect the shape of my inner self. I’d want someone to be proud of how much suffering I’ve overcome and how resilient and strong I’ve been. But that’s not all—of course I also want to be loved for who I am. When I read that part in the book, it makes me wonder if my architecture, my history of personal struggles should all be neglected, shouldn’t matter at all. If that’s the case, I’d be scared, because without those skills and achievements, I wouldn’t have the resources to do all the inner work nor have the courage to be myself again. It feels like I should be loved without that architecture part of me but that part is still a part of me.
written by Kendra Johanson at 4:20 PM
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