Marguerite
Active Member
I was reading someone's thread on concerns about their very young son being hypersexual because of his fascination for photos of naked women and it made me think.
My best friend's father was odd, to say the least. He was a very clever man but very eccentric. Also, a bully. He seemed very childish in his interactions and his wife enabled him, would either cover for him or soothe people down (including her own daughters).
My friend described how he would cut out pictures of naked women (or provocative pictures of women) and glue them into other books. It didn't seem to matter WHICH book, if he happened to come across a picture he liked in a girlie magazine he would cut it out, reach for the glue pot, reach for a book off his shelves, open it at random and glue in the picture.
My friend gave her father a lovely (and very expensive) coffee table book, glossy pages, that dealt with the Mediterranean island where he was born. There was even a detailed chapter on his home village and my friend hadn't realised until she sat with her father after she gave him the book, but there were people in those photos who he knew. He really enjoyed that book, was very pleased with it.
And yet when she was cleaning out his things after he died, she opened up that book and found a few of his naked lady pictures, glued into that book on top of some beautiful scenery.
It wasn't that he didn't value the book - he clearly did - but something seemed to drive him to do this. His wife claimed to not know about it, or would make light of it if she stumbled on a book which had acquired one of these 'treasures'.
For my friend, it felt like the ultimate betrayal. She had spent hundreds of dollars on that book and it seemed to her to be utter disregard. She was able to remove the glued-in picture because the book was good quality glossy pages; the glue was poor quality and it simply cracked off.
He did a lot of other weird, inappropriate things too, including publicly poking fun at his "funny, fat little girl." He seemed to think it would help her resolve to lose weight. He invited visitors into the bathroom to look at his daughter naked when she was about ten years old - he thought it would be funny. He would also regularly walk through his daughters' bedroom without knocking. He wasn't being a perve, he just didn't consider that they were entitled to privacy or any feelings at all.
She found other things which brought back painful memories - a photo of her and her sister. Their father had written her sister's name on the photo in large decorative letters with adjectives like "beautiful, darling, treasured" but in smaller, plain print just wrote the other girl's name.
I remember him from many meetings. He was a volatile man, very difficult at times, very childish. He took a liking to easy child 2/difficult child 2 because she was cute and fair-haired. I didn't think he would have done anything inappropriate to her; besides, he never had a chance to. But his behaviour in general was - a problem.
Interestingly, his granddaughter is similarly a problem and inappropriate. Narcissistic, tempestuous, can argue her way into or out of anything. Whenever I drop in on my friend and her daughter happens to be there, I don't even bother trying to have any conversation because daughter HAS to monopolise everything. I really do love the girl but I've been concerned for her.
Amazingly, the mother who had such ordeal from her father can't see the similarity and difficult nature in her daughter.
None of them lack intelligence. Extremely bright. But something is wrong. Or was wrong, with the father.
He always seemed to be a spoilt brat whose wife pandered to his whims in order to keep him happy. That seemed to be the creed of the house - "Don't upset your father." If ever he got angry with my friend, he would scream abuse at her and could get physically violent. He could go from apparently happy, to raging, in seconds.
It's all academic now, but would what I describe fit into bipolar?
Marg
My best friend's father was odd, to say the least. He was a very clever man but very eccentric. Also, a bully. He seemed very childish in his interactions and his wife enabled him, would either cover for him or soothe people down (including her own daughters).
My friend described how he would cut out pictures of naked women (or provocative pictures of women) and glue them into other books. It didn't seem to matter WHICH book, if he happened to come across a picture he liked in a girlie magazine he would cut it out, reach for the glue pot, reach for a book off his shelves, open it at random and glue in the picture.
My friend gave her father a lovely (and very expensive) coffee table book, glossy pages, that dealt with the Mediterranean island where he was born. There was even a detailed chapter on his home village and my friend hadn't realised until she sat with her father after she gave him the book, but there were people in those photos who he knew. He really enjoyed that book, was very pleased with it.
And yet when she was cleaning out his things after he died, she opened up that book and found a few of his naked lady pictures, glued into that book on top of some beautiful scenery.
It wasn't that he didn't value the book - he clearly did - but something seemed to drive him to do this. His wife claimed to not know about it, or would make light of it if she stumbled on a book which had acquired one of these 'treasures'.
For my friend, it felt like the ultimate betrayal. She had spent hundreds of dollars on that book and it seemed to her to be utter disregard. She was able to remove the glued-in picture because the book was good quality glossy pages; the glue was poor quality and it simply cracked off.
He did a lot of other weird, inappropriate things too, including publicly poking fun at his "funny, fat little girl." He seemed to think it would help her resolve to lose weight. He invited visitors into the bathroom to look at his daughter naked when she was about ten years old - he thought it would be funny. He would also regularly walk through his daughters' bedroom without knocking. He wasn't being a perve, he just didn't consider that they were entitled to privacy or any feelings at all.
She found other things which brought back painful memories - a photo of her and her sister. Their father had written her sister's name on the photo in large decorative letters with adjectives like "beautiful, darling, treasured" but in smaller, plain print just wrote the other girl's name.
I remember him from many meetings. He was a volatile man, very difficult at times, very childish. He took a liking to easy child 2/difficult child 2 because she was cute and fair-haired. I didn't think he would have done anything inappropriate to her; besides, he never had a chance to. But his behaviour in general was - a problem.
Interestingly, his granddaughter is similarly a problem and inappropriate. Narcissistic, tempestuous, can argue her way into or out of anything. Whenever I drop in on my friend and her daughter happens to be there, I don't even bother trying to have any conversation because daughter HAS to monopolise everything. I really do love the girl but I've been concerned for her.
Amazingly, the mother who had such ordeal from her father can't see the similarity and difficult nature in her daughter.
None of them lack intelligence. Extremely bright. But something is wrong. Or was wrong, with the father.
He always seemed to be a spoilt brat whose wife pandered to his whims in order to keep him happy. That seemed to be the creed of the house - "Don't upset your father." If ever he got angry with my friend, he would scream abuse at her and could get physically violent. He could go from apparently happy, to raging, in seconds.
It's all academic now, but would what I describe fit into bipolar?
Marg