A story about choosing your life instead of merely inheriting one

That little blonde kid is me. It’s interesting to me that I look so happy in this photo, but maybe it was taken before the choices of my parents’ caught up to me. Maybe they just hadn’t had me long enough yet.

There are some really disturbing things in my family photos. It’s nothing you can see — it’s what’s inside of my parents. And if you know me, you might’ve noticed that I don’t talk about my family much. It’s common in polite conversation when first meeting someone to ask where they’re from and about their family, but the stories of my family aren’t for polite conversations.

“Oh, you’re from Southern California? Is your family still back there?” I always struggle with that question. If I say “I don’t have family,” it’ll just lead to awkward pauses and more questions. So I say “yeah, they’re still back there,” and then steer the conversation somewhere else. My family stories don’t make for fun small talk, so I’ve spent most of my life staying quiet about the ugly realities of my past. It’s not because I want to hide the truth, I just don’t really know how to talk about it. But I can’t keep doing this.

So, yes, my family still lives in Southern California, and it’s a place I have a lot of bad associations with. The way the horizon is hidden behind a thick blanket of smog. The way wildfires tear through the hills every year and fill the air with billowing smoke that snows black ash. Earthquakes like the one that destroyed my home when I was thirteen. The toxic self-obsessions of fame and celebrity that everyone seems to lust after. The ways that so many perfectly beautiful people disfigure themselves with plastic surgery. Oh, and then there’s the state’s database of registered sex offenders.

There are thousands of people in that database, but only one of them makes it significant to me. It’s my dad.

For most people, I imagine the moment they found out their dad was in prison for child molestation would be permanently burned into their memory. Where they were, who told them, how time slowed down, their disbelief, and the sickness they felt in their stomach. But I can’t recall anything about it. That doesn’t mean I didn’t care, it just doesn’t stand out.

In the same way that you don’t remember any single dot when watching snowy static on a televisions screen, the disturbing events back then were too numerous. That event sounds significant, but it didn’t have a unique enough identity or amplitude to be memorable.

Fortunate people get to experience their childhood as an exciting time to explore the world. A time to play and learn useful things from their parents. A time to create formative bonds and memories with their friends and family. But my childhood was spent watching my dad break things and beat up my mom and big brother. It was spent listening to my mom tell me while I was still very small that my dad drugged and raped women, including her when he took her virginity. And then when I was 16 I learned my dad had preyed upon a small child he should have been protecting.

This is my dad. This is the man I came from. He was my first example of what men are like.

When I was little, I dreamed that my parents would become loving toward me one day. I thought that if I tried hard enough and was good enough I could change them. But as I got older, I realized that dream had become like a festering wound that I either had to eliminate and heal, or I would keep chasing that dream and eventually become like them.

The process of cauterizing that wound began when I was 20.

At the time, I was living with my mother and her second husband, Richard. They met while they were part of a religious cult but had since ”left the flock.” My mom has borderline personality disorder and Richard is a deeply disturbed sociopath. Not the oddly charming and quirky sociopaths in movies—a deeply troubled, unpredictable, and cruel man who sees people as objects to torture and manipulate.

Unsurprisingly, things were very unpredictable and chaotic in their home. In my teens, I would live with them briefly, be thrown out without warning for whatever reason and bounce around from place to place staying wherever I could. But I’d always find myself back there, and before long, the cycle would repeat. But the time she threw me out as a “20th birthday present” (her words) was the last time that ever happened. I never lived with her again.

I know that a lot of people around that age live away from home and support themselves just fine, but things had been so unstable for so long. I was never able to find my footing. I was just trying to survive, trying to make sense of the ongoing storm of unpredictability and the psychological, physical, and emotional violence around me. So I found myself thrown out of my home again, and this time I only saw two options in front of me: I could live in my car, or ask my dad to let me live with him.

My dad and I hardly spoke. He had been released from prison not long before this and happened to live only about two miles from my mom. He was a convicted child molester, but was living right around the corner from numerous schools, parks, and churches.

Map from California’s sex offender registry website showing my dad’s house

I made the short drive to his house in a daze. The neighborhood where he lived seemed quiet and safe enough, but I knew what was living there. I arrived at his front door, knocked, and when he answered I went inside. I sat in his living room and asked the man who I identified as the source of so many of the hardships in my life if he would let me live with him. He said “yes.” I was surprised and relieved, but I knew this wasn’t a blessing.

Jehovah’s Witnesses

My dad introduced my mom to the religious cult that I mentioned, and because she joined, my big brother and I were born as members. My dad is still a member. If you’re reading this and thinking “wait, I know some Jehovah’s Witnesses—they’re perfectly friendly and harmless folks,” with all due respect, you are profoundly mistaken. The deeply troubling nature of Jehovah’s Witness and their brainwashing is difficult to see unless you’ve been personally wrapped in it and had the rare fortune to escape and see it from the outside.

While I lived with my dad and his new wife, it was a nightly theme that I would come home and find them huddled on the couch watching the evening news in absolute horror. Every terrible thing they were seeing — shootings, murders, robberies, car crashes, gang violence, war — it was all proof to them that Armageddon was beginning.

My dad believes that Satan has a legion of demon soldiers that are constantly attacking him and all the other Jehovah’s Witnesses. He believes that every bad occurrence in his life is proof that Satan is after him, and, by extension, evidence of his righteousness. He is certain that the world is going to be destroyed at any minute, and that his god is going to murder everyone who doesn’t follow what Jehovah’s Witnesses believe. My dad believes that I am one of the people his god is going to murder.

While I lived in his home, I tried to have conversations with him about how he saw the world. I tried to understand what was going on inside of him and to share my perspectives on things. I wanted to know if there was any malleability to his insane beliefs. Could he change?

The answer with my dad was always a consistent and resounding “no.” You can’t reason with someone whose identity and beliefs are entirely dependent on the absence of sense and reason. When someone is ensconced in a complex nest of lies, the truth and reason are seen as adversaries and existential threats.

Learn more about Jehovah’s Witnesses
In 2002 the BBC made a short documentary on Jehovah’s Witnesses called Suffer the Little Children. It looks at the massive epidemic of pedophilia that the organization is hiding, and how they’re protecting known offenders from the law because they believe “Jehovah will sort it out on judgment day.”

My father is not featured in the documentary, but it’s very relevant to this story. It gives insight into some of the circumstances that helped create the man my father has become.

BBC Panorama: Suffer the Little Children

Racing toward bottom

I lived with my dad for 18-months, and during that time did my best to improve my circumstances and to better myself. I tried my hand at a few jobs to see if I could find something I enjoyed; I wrote a lot of music and performed in a few bands; I taught myself all about computers and recording music; I read a lot of books; I decided to put myself through school for graphic design.

Another thing I did was collect a lot of information about who my dad is. I already had a ton of information about who my mom is, but my dad had only been around sporadically, especially after they divorced when I was seven. I needed this information about him to complete the picture of my parents.

My dad would say the words "I love you” to me sometimes, and I never understood what he meant. He ”loved” me, but he was ok with the idea of his god murdering me. He ”loved” me, but told me that all of my memories of his violence when I was a child were just lies my mom planted in my head. He “loved” me, but he made it clear that I was only interesting to him when I did something that made him look good to his friends or the neighbors.

The puzzle pieces fell into place, and as they did a picture began to come into focus. I didn’t like what I saw, but the truth it revealed seemed undeniable: my parents were still alive, but I was an orphan.

While I don’t remember why my dad eventually told me I had to leave, I do remember the massive nervous breakdown I was in the middle of. The pain my mom and dad had been giving me for years was just too much, and I had completely dissociated from my body. I would look down at my hands or legs and not recognize them as me. My body just seemed like this thing my consciousness was trapped inside of—a thing that made it possible for people to inflict pain on me. I felt like a phantom hovering through the world, unable to control my environment or change anything, but able to be manipulated and harmed by everyone around me. I saw my body as a prison, and part of me felt that I had to destroy it so I could escape.

I thought about killing myself so many times when I was younger, but no matter how bad things would get, it was never an eject button I was actually willing to press. There has always been a stubborn determination in me to not let the bad things I've experienced win. While I couldn’t escape myself or the body I felt trapped in, I could escape everything outside of myself that I hated. So I disappeared and made sure my parents couldn’t find me.

After I left that house, I bounced around staying briefly with an ex-girlfriend, and then renting a few rooms in strange little houses for short periods. After about a year of that aimless drifting I had an opportunity to leave Southern California, and I took it.

The dark tunnel to Seattle

I lived in Southern California for the first 23 years of my life. I had traveled very little and never outside of the U.S. This lack of perspective led to a belief that everything I hated about California was actually inherent in life, humanity, and the world as a whole. But then I wound up in a small town in Washington where I was far away from everything and everyone I had ever known.

I lived alone with my kitty, Pinkertons McGraw, in an empty 2-bedroom apartment on a hill. I was broke, had no friends, no sense of what was ahead of me, and no hope. That said, this was the first time I felt truly free from my parents and the corrosive environment I grew up in. But it didn’t bring the relief I was hoping for.

In Southern California, it felt like my life was burning down around me, and I hoped that leaving would fix everything. But we take ourselves with us everywhere we go. So my focus shifted from trying to escape that hellish environment to addressing the searing pain I was in from all the toxicity I’d absorbed.

During that time of extreme isolation and despair, I created a lot of disturbing self-portraits. I wanted so badly to be seen, but I had no one around to see me. It was also cathartic. I felt like I was being eaten from the inside out.

Throughout my life I’d hear people say that we all eventually become our parents; how “the sins of the father are visited upon the son.” I assumed this was true. I found it deeply troubling, and I was plagued with questions during this time.

“What does it mean that I came from a man like Dean? What does that say about me? Do I have to turn into him? Who am I? Can I control this?”

Myths can be beautiful allegories that help us understand the complexities of human relationships and who we are, but they can also be toxic templates that originated in ignorance and misunderstandings. In the West, we have a myth that says we all turn into our parents. Hearing something like that over and over and over again makes it easy to assume there’s truth in it. The thing that scared me most was not knowing if I could trust myself. I had never wanted to hurt anyone, but I also had no idea what was behind the kind of evil and cruelty that had seeped through multiple generations of my family.

Is evil genetic? Is it an external force? Is it something that’s chosen, or something that invades and possesses people?

I had no answers, so I just isolated myself. I wouldn’t go around children, and I was afraid that I might somehow hurt women if they came near me. I was so lost and in need of help, but I preferred to suffer alone than risk continuing the legacy of abuse I thought was my fate.

I can only in retrospect see the implication of that fear. I was able to see that path and be afraid of it because it wasn’t actually inside of me. It was only a potential. I had a choice.

Seattle

My year of isolation in Renton had run its course. I needed a change, and Seattle was calling to me. I loooooooved living in Seattle. It was so beautiful, the weather was amazing (yes, the rainy Pacific Northwest weather), and I was finally surrounded by a way of life that I wanted to be a part of.

My new external environment was beautiful, but I still had so much of my past warping my inner world. I realized that my only hope was to completely dismantle my view of everything. The world, myself, relationships, money, the belief that I didn’t matter and had no future — everything came into question. Every last bit of the toxic insanity I had been taught had to go so that I might replace it with things that I wanted inside of me.

We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them -Albert Einstein

I was fortunate. Even though I was born into it, I never really bought the Jehovah’s Witness story I was being fed. People who sincerely embrace a belief system have a really hard time getting rid of it (if they ever do at all). My mom, my dad, and my big brother all fully aligned themselves and their identities with those beliefs. And while I was forced to carry around a mouthful of that poison for the first 14-years of my life, I never actually swallowed it.

Being exposed to it for that long still did a lot of damage. The first barrier I had to get through was stamping out my taught distrust of everything that was not coming from Jehovah’s Witnesses. Echoes of their naive and myopically ignorant view of the world were distorting everything I saw. I began devouring books on science, spirituality, philosophy, creativity, psychology, and anything else that seemed to offer the types of answers that I needed — but I was still battling this internal voice that was saying “That’s a lie! Those are Satan's words!”

It sounds insane because it was.

During this time I also began journaling to process what I was going through. Every day I would spend hours sitting alone at a coffee shop reading and pouring whatever was inside of me into a journal. I have journal after journal after journal filled from front to back with things that are difficult for me to read now. There was so much anger, confusion, and despair inside of me, and it seemed like I’d never reach the bottom of that pit of ugliness.

I’m not proud of what’s in those journals… Huh. Actually, I just realized as I wrote that that I am proud of it. I was getting all of that hate and anger out of me. I was doing the best I could to find my way through a lifetime of insanity so I could reform it into something constructive. And it was through that process that I was slowly able to increase my understanding. I slowly began to feel that progress was happening. I saw how harboring resentment or hate towards other people was only harming myself.

Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies. -Nelson Mandela

That awareness emerged, but it didn’t come with an instruction manual on how to actually loosen the grip that resentment and hatred had on me. That would have to come later.

Moving back to California

I made a lot of progress during my time in Seattle. I was in a relationship with a woman I was very much in love with. I had become part of a group of friends that cared for me. I had begun to create a career for myself in design. But things were still far from where I needed them to be. It was common for me to not know how I'd pay rent next month, and I was heavily self-medicating with drugs and alcohol. I knew this wasn’t a path that led to the life I wanted, and that I needed to make another change.

Then an opportunity for a job back in California opened up. I felt like I had to take it.

Moving back to California was like renting a room from an abusive ex. But, it was a source of pride for me that I was able to maintain perspective on the place and settle into a comfortable rhythm there. Once I had settled into this new chapter, I found myself thinking about Dean. He was getting older, and I knew he wasn’t going to be around forever. I didn’t need or really want anything from him, but he was the only father I’d ever have. I wanted to make sure for my own peace of mind that I wasn’t leaving anything unresolved with him.

After a year of being back in California, I finally reached out. He told me over the phone that he was happy to hear from me, and we agreed to meet for lunch near where I was living in Hollywood. I was nervous and excited… and maybe even a little hopeful. I hadn’t seen or spoken to him in six years, and I didn’t know what to expect.

The thing I remember most about our first meeting was looking at him from across the table and trying to wrap my head around how the shell of a man in front of me could be my father. I’d spent the time since I last saw him working to better understand myself and the world. To become better equipped for the healthy relationships that I’d always craved. To let go of my anger and resentment. He seemed to have spent that time doing exactly the opposite.

He used our time together to speak hatefully about the people he worked with, how stupid person x, y, or z was, and just generally spewing resentment and bitterness about everything in his life. I sat there looking into his eyes while he spoke, thinking over and over again “this is my father, this is my father, this is my father,” trying to make sense of it.

I cleaned out the attic, and then the house caught on fire

I need to back up for a minute and mention something that literally began the day I arrived back in Los Angeles.

Everything felt like it was looking up for me. I had a promising new job and the internal peace I was experiencing felt like a gold medal around my neck for all the hard work I'd done in Seattle. I was entering a new chapter of my life. I thought I was finally stepping through the doorway to happiness and fulfillment. Then the other shoe dropped.

It started when a small patch on the left side of my chest went numb. Then the small patch spread until the entire left side of my torso was numb. Then it spread down and I began losing the ability to control my leg. This decline progressed rapidly over the next few months. I was experiencing symptoms similar to advanced Multiple Sclerosis or Parkinson’s Disease, and none of the doctors I saw had any idea what was happening to me.

I was 26.

I was so scared. I had no idea what was happening to me or how bad it was going to get. Doctors were poking and prodding me with test after fruitless test, and no one could tell me what was happening or what to expect. The symptoms were so unpredictable, and morphed dramatically without any rhyme or reason. There was paralysis; I went completely deaf in my right ear for several weeks; I had difficulty speaking; overnight my vision went from excellent to needing glasses (there were days my sight was so impaired I could barely function); there was complete numbness across huge portions of my body; I experienced a complete absence of emotions, passion, or interest in anything for months at a time; and there were so many other things.

The stress from my health and being back in Southern California was overwhelming, and after three years I decided it was time to leave again. I called my father to let him know that I had decided to move to Oregon, and that with my health being what it was, I needed help to make it go smoothly. He said he’d be there for me to help however he could.

As my move approached, my health had gotten so bad I could barely walk. I was weak, had no energy, and was struggling to do even the simplest of tasks. I had called my father a few times to check in on his offer to help, but I couldn't get ahold of him. That was fine though — I was still able to arrange what I needed, everything I owned was loaded into the moving truck, and me and Pinkertons McGraw hit the road again.

When we arrived in Portland movers unloaded the moving truck, and then I started the process of settling into my new home. I felt happy. And then again, I started to think about Dean. I still hadn’t heard from him and imagined that he wasn’t reaching out because he felt ashamed of not being able to help with my move. The idea of him feeling bad bothered me — everything had worked out, there were no hard feelings, and I wanted him to know that. I called him, but there was no answer. I left him a voicemail, but he didn’t return my call.

A few months later an email from him arrived in my inbox.

How MySpace destroyed my relationship with my father

I’m kidding — our relationship was already crap. But let me back up one more time to a few months before I left California. I was at a show in Hollywood and I ran into an old friend I hadn’t seen in many years. He was another child who had been raised as a Jehovah’s Witnesses. We went to the same congregation when we were kids, and were part of a very small group who were able to get away.

We stayed in touch after that show, and conversations about Jehovah’s Witnesses eventually came up. It sparked my interest in digging deeper into my understanding of a few things, so I started doing a ton of research. I came across a massive amount of videos and blogs that were created by people struggling to overcome the brainwashing from being a Jehovah’s Witnesses. It was heartbreaking. I also found a lot of information about the people who started the organization. How they'd built a secret mansion as a home for the biblical figures they believed were coming back from the dead, and about how the organization had repeatedly predicted the end of times inaccurately which led their followers to abandon their homes and discard all of their belongings in preparation for Armageddon.

It was fascinating, and I wanted to share what I was discovering with my friends. This was 2008, so of course I created a post on MySpace. I published the post, and then basically forgot about the whole thing.

Have you guessed where this is going yet? When I finally heard back from my dad it was an email with the subject “Troubled.” Here’s part of what it said:

"I guess it's only fair to let you know why I haven't responded to anything you've sent. Let me say this first so that there is no misunderstanding. I love you very much and always will. Don't ever think otherwise. The reason is this, I am very, very offended at what [you put on MySpace] about Jehovah's Witnesses.
…
If I believe that the end will come very soon and I'm wrong, what is the worse thing that I might have to deal with, someone laughing at me and making fun of me? What if you are wrong? You will lose your life along with billions of others who never really tried to prove the Bible right or wrong.
…
When you say derogatory things about Jehovah's Witnesses… you deeply offend me. I have been upset for a long time and didn't want to just go off, so I waited till I was calmed down before I wrote to you. I done now [sic]. Don't forget the first couple of lines I wrote."

Actual footage of my reaction to his email

Wow. It’s always blown my mind how sanctimoniously my dad strolls through the world without awareness of the damage he’s inflicted with his life. I had no interest in trying to create a meaningful relationship with him at this point, but there were things I needed to say for my own closure. My response was longer than just the quotes below, but this captures the essence of it:

"I find it absolutely incredible that you have the superhuman audacity to… have a problem with me. I'm taking the time to respond to this [because I’d imagine this is]… one of the last communications we'll ever have.
…
What's the worst thing that you might have to deal with if you're wrong about your beliefs? I'd say that someone laughing at you should be the least of your worries. I'd say much worse than mere ridicule is missing out on your children's lives, and having no clue whatsoever who they are… I find it odd too that you're so obsessed with eternal life when I don't [think] you've effectively lived the life that you have [now]. Using your time and energy to be afraid of the world, of god, and to hoist yourself up on your high horse [so you can] look down on the people that you have abandoned, abused, and done all manner of un-Christ-like things to is just incredible.
…
You are so far removed from the realities of your life and how you have destructively [impacted] the people whose lives [you’ve touched] that it continues to make you dangerous…"

My father is a wolf hiding in a bloodstained sheep’s skin who believes he’s fooled everyone. And unfortunately, he’s surrounded himself with people who are so ignorant and unconscious that they’ve bought it.

My biology doesn’t determine my destination

I rarely look through my photo albums or see pictures of my dad, but when I do, I almost automatically begin searching for physical traits that we share. It’s another version of the questions I was trying to answer when I first moved to Washington, and at the first meal we shared in Hollywood.

“How is this man my father? What does that mean about me?“

I still catch myself in a mirror sometimes in just the right way, and I see a flash of him looking back at me. They’re not my favorite moments, but I have to stop and remind myself that whether I look like him or not, it says nothing about who I am. Biology doesn’t decide who I am anymore than it determines who you are. What makes us who we are is how we choose to live our lives. It’s how we respond to the challenges and events we witness, how we choose to treat others, and what we choose to devote ourselves to building.

I am not my father. I’ve chosen to cultivate the strength and courage required to look inside of myself with radical honesty and to continually address whatever pain and dysfunction has been hiding in there.

My parents handed me a recipe for creating hell when I was born, but I was never willing to follow it. I am where I am in my life because of the choices I’ve made — nothing has been predetermined, or prophecy, or fate. And what is true for me is true for all of us. Our choices are what determine the quality and content of our lives, and over time, the person we become is the sum of what we consistently choose.

The evolution of Dean Everrett Weisgerber

I am so determined to live a life of purpose and intention because of how little my parents have. Dean didn’t come into this world as a child molester, a wife-beater, a child abuser, or a cult member. The legacy he’s created is the result of many, many choices throughout his life — and it’s what he has to live with.

I will not be remembered for bringing more pain and injury into the world. I will not be remembered as a cautionary tale for how to not live one’s life. I have one chance to be this person and contribute something beautiful to the world, and I refuse to be careless with an opportunity that precious. I am not proud of everything that I’ve done, but I am proud of the man that I’ve become.

Until next time, be kind to yourself, to each other, and go make your dreams real.

(I would like to thank my amazing editor, Shea Ashdown, for her excellent contributions to this story. I couldn't have gotten through this one without you.)

The Darkness in My Father Did Not Become a Part of Me