Alison, Canada
It's been really nice seeing everyone talk about an experience that I thought I was alone in, but it's also a little disheartening. I would like to still share my story of my dad though (it might be long so I'm sorry). I'm from Canada, close to Toronto actually, so this may be shocking to hear this. My dad is a conservative (probably be Republican if we were in America) and always has been as well as a Christian. I looked up to my dad a lot as a kid and always saw him as being right about everything. He's an intelligent man but in the last couple of years, he's fallen down the right-wing pipeline.
He worships Trump even though we live in Canada and it really doesn't make any sense (There are more and more people in Canada coming out as Trump supporters). He doesn't listen to Fox News but he does listen to these right-wing podcasts and Christan podcasts. Every day after work it's the same podcast I hear. He listens to these Christan podcasts that talk about the end of the world and how Christians are the only hope and junk like that. He truly believes Christians in Western society will be persecuted and killed.
Things got worse when I came out as a Lesbian. He's said some hurtful things like a waste of a woman and how he would never attend my wedding if I got married to a woman. It's sucks but I'm dealing with it. I still have to live at home because trying to find a stable job is hard right now so my dad and I just pretend that I never came out. It's not ideal but I have to do what I have to do to live peacefully at home. Our relationship is hanging on by threads now though. I know that if he keeps going down the pipeline I'll lose my father. He likes to blast these Christian podcasts while I'm home that talks about how evil the LGBTQ community is. Sometimes, I'm actually scared of my dad.
Sometimes my dad acts like my dad, this nice person who cares deeply about his family but then when politics are mentioned it's like he changes into this completely different person I can't recognize. Anything can set him off on a political rant. I always feel like I'm walking on eggshells because I never know what's going to upset him. He's still working right now which is good because he still has a lot of interacting with different races and cultures but retirement is coming soon and I worry. He doesn't have friends or a hobby and he's not an active person. I know that all he'll do is watch right-wing media and with less and less interaction with other people, his views are going to get worse.
Lately, I've been learning how to debate because I suck at it and I want to talk to my dad about his views without getting completely shut down. So far I've been just ignoring him when he talks about this stuff but that only goes so far. I'm trying to understand him better. I'm starting to listen to what he says, not the content but the way he says things. The more I listen the more I realize that all the anger and aggression is really fear. He's scared. The right-wing media has got him scared all the time about everything and they never give solutions so he's just always in fear. He'll be talking about what wrong with the world and we'll ask what we should do and he never has an answer. The right-wing media doesn't want to give him an answer because then he's not scared and then he won't come back to them. It's manipulation and it's sad to see its effect on someone I looked up to.
I really encourage others to listen to friends or family that only listen to right media. Hear how scared they are and try to understand that. My father is not a hateful man but a man filled with fear. Fear that his family and livelihood will be taken away. Fear that he has been forgotten. It's hard to understand sometimes because when he talks it makes my blood boil but I want to pull him out and the only way to do that might be to try to understand his fears and concerns. I hope things get better for us but I'm not sure. I want to try though because I love my dad and just want him back.