The fear is still real.

a`zdxs`A ... My little dog thought he'd start off my blog post today. He obviously feels I need a bit of help today. He's sitting here right next to me with a paw on my leg. He is probably right. I feel drained. I am 'oomphless'. My husband and I had a hectic day yesterday. Packing up the rest of my dad's books and carting them off to storage. We did three heavily loaded drop offs.

His books have always been his 'thing'. Heaven forbid if we ever dropped one, damaged one or if he could not find one. I have previously mentioned this, I am sure. It was another way to control my Mum and I; to keep us on our toes and under his 'spell'.

Interestingly, after all the therapy, I can now see more clearly and see it for what it was. We were ruled by fear as if he was some maniacal despot. Worryingly though, that fear is still very real to me. It is ingrained; entrenched in me. And so, packing up his books, brought that fear to the fore. I figured out a way to ease it though. Unfortunately it does not seem to want to be totally gone... just yet. But I am hopeful.

I asked our lodgers to pack up all his treasured religious books. In his eyes, they can still do no wrong so if there was a hiccup; I knew they would never feel the force of his wrath. My husband and I packed the secondary but still important, others. We all did this in a methodical way - labelling shelves and bookcases and book boxes so they would match. Just in case he asks for a certain book that was on a certain shelf in a certain place, which is his want. I have been periodically mentioning to him, that the books will be packed away in storage for a while so he will not be able to reach for a particular book as and when he wishes. He is still quite compus menus so he knows exactly what is going on.

As I was in the lounge alone for a time, putting books in boxes, he asked what the little pieces of paper were that I placed on the shelf before taking a photo of said shelf. I explained the system we had in place and the reasons why. He uttered, 'oh, you don't need to go to all that bother'. Well, I took a deep breath and measuredly reminded him of the number of times that the house roof had almost been blown off by his explosive anger regarding his books.

Writing this, a realisation has hit me. No pun intended. I always thought his books must be more important and precious to him than us, his wife and daughter. He treated them with much more care and respect than he ever treated me or my Mum. He never blew up if I was dropped or damaged. In fact he was the one who inflicted those wounds on me. But wait a minute, if that happened to a book..... it would seem to me like the doors of hell had opened and that was terrifying as a child brought up in a 'god-fearing' household.

He looked at me with a stare of miscomprehension and woe. Methinks he had been hoping I had forgotten those dark times but no, I have not. They need to be exposed to the light of day. Maybe then I will be able to freely dance to my own fearless tune instead of still feeling the need to dance to the beat of his spine-chilling drum.