The Video I Did with my Dad and the Fuckery of Getting Triggered

The other day I went to Brookline to visit my dad. He does this thing where he talks and I listen. If I start to talk, he gets bored pretty easily and will quickly say he can’t listen any more or that it is time to go somewhere or he’ll tell a joke that has nothing to do with what I was saying. I’ve gotten used to this (total lie on my part, but I like the hopefulness of writing it), except for the fact that I am so hard on any man I date. I become my dad, and as soon as these poor men talk more than I think they should, I start to shut down. It becomes difficult to breathe and I feel like I will pass out if they keep talking. I feel myself disappearing. I want to come back into the room, and for this to happen, I need them to stop talking.

It’s all so ridiculous. This is the bullshit of getting “triggered.” Someone does something (a man talks) and I react (get upset) and the blame, in my mind, goes to the man. He did it. He talked too much. I was the victim!! And this is why it’s bullshit: I let it happen. When I’m sitting there listening and getting all steamed up, it’s like I’m in a car and I see another car headed right for me, and I just let it crash into me because I knew the accident was going to happen, I just knew it, and, by golly, I was right! The other car drove right into me!! I was hurt! The guy just kept talking and talking and talking like I wasn’t even in the room. I could have been any girl in a dress. I could have been a vase. He would have, in my mind, talked to anyone, anything. He wasn’t talking to me. He was just talking and I was not more important than a plant in his mind!!

I deserve better! Bye! I’m going to find someone who listens!!

The only problem is that I don’t always love to talk because then I risk being wrong, looking stupid. Because talking is work and I would rather sit there and act like a wall, and so I ask leading questions. I try to get the guy talking so I don’t have to. I stay safe, quiet.

Until, god damn it, that thing happens and my body starts to flood with hot anxiety and my breath gets shallow and I realize this guy doesn’t give a shit about me because he has not asked one question in the last fifteen minutes. He lets me do all the asking!!

He can go fuck himself. I’m going to find someone who knows how to listen.

But.

Here’s the real problem: me. My love affair with the wounded self. I’m the one who doesn’t listen. If I did listen, I would hear myself saying, Be here, Anne (oh! the body shock of even typing my own name!). Be alive. Be real. Speak up. Don’t wait until it hurts. I’m like a director in a film when it comes to men and me in a room. Director to actress: Here’s the scene: you relentlessly ask him a whole bunch of questions about himself, and then, suddenly, get up, scream that he never listens to you, and leave the room. ACTION!

I have so much to learn from Pippi Longstocking, Ramona Quimby, and Harriet the Spy: Don’t just sit there like a rock waiting to get upset. Be yourself. Take risks. If you pick someone who is like your dad and isn’t really interested in listening, don’t go on a date with him, or, if you’re already on the date, just make a game of it and talk over him. Please yourself. Tell him you feel like a vase and smile while you say it and see what happens. JUST BE YOU, NOT SOME TANTRUMMY WEIRDO.

I listened to my dad talk for 45 minutes and I watched the feelings start to build in my guts and my throat, and I decided to try something different. Instead of standing up and abruptly saying I had to go, I asked if he would do a brief video with me so I could show people that parents can survive being written about in their child’s memoir. Much to my surprise, he said yes, as long as he could see it first to make sure it was okay.

I went and sat next to him, close, held my camera out in front of us, pressed record, and asked him what it was like to read my book about being adopted. He was a champ. He spoke honestly, beautifully, and when he had answered my question, I asked, “Do you still love me?” and his response was gorgeous. I get teary thinking about it. After we hugged, we pulled back and looked each other in the eye and laughed and then I turned off my phone because I was trying to keep the recording close to a minute so I could post it on Instagram—I had yet to learn that you edit one video into minute-long sections and string them together.

Later, people wrote that they envied my dad’s and my relationship. They said they could tell we were close because of the way we looked at each other, but I have to tell you that what happened on camera happened because I’d sat next to my dad and asked if I could film us. That closeness had not been in the room five minutes earlier when I was listening to him, annoyed and short-tempered.

I’m so glad I spoke up. I’m so glad I didn’t let myself get triggered and took action instead.

God, growing up is hard.

I’ll be 55 in three weeks. I wonder if I’ll be grown up when I’m 60.

It’s so much easier just to be a big baby and throw tantrums.

But it’s not nearly as fun.

Fuck.

(To see the video, visit my Instagram page at anne_heffron. It’s between my posts about dignity and Joyce Paveo.)