Daddy Issues: You Can’t Take Command
I need to find a way to win. I feel lost being a loser. Losing to my father. This feels too familiar. I gave Jake an earful as I say everything that I can possibly think of to believe that I don’t want him. The only words I believe as I work desperately to convince Jake to have no faith in me are that ‘I couldn’t make it work with Fitz, why would I think I could make it work with him.’ I don’t know why I ever believed so, or pretended like I believed so. I have such a reputation in this town, and after being outed as the President’s mistress, in this country. People believe in me at this point, more than I’m able to believe in myself, at times. I feel damaged and traumatized sometimes. It’s like I’m living someone else’s life. I’ve alienated my staff. I don’t have a clue what’s happening in my own agency. Thank goodness for Quinn and Huck because I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have them. And honestly, feeling that I can trust them is priceless. And after this disaster battle with Abbey, it makes me feel so validated that she actually sacrificed her success to avoid hurting me. It wasn’t even the idea of hurting the president, the man of whose success she depends on, that deterred her, it was her respect for me. Maybe I don’t deserve the people that support me, even when they’re no longer paid to support me. She’s my friend.
I feel so sick of having to pretend sometimes. I feel like I’m always pretending to be someone else. A proud and strong person. The fixer. Sometimes I feel like a defeated and helpless little girl. I have to rationalize to others, including myself. Even this thing with Mellie, I question sometimes what I am doing. I allow all of the conflicting ideas, attitudes, and history to distort the conflicts that I’m really considering on a deeper level. Mellie, I slept with your husband, and I was the primary reason for your divorce. If your husband hadn’t fallen in love with me, you both would probably still be living a loveless and contractually, politically, beneficial marriage. It’s no matter to me. I empathize with Mellie and her quest for power… Similar to my father’s endless quest for power.
That was so low of my father. How could he share that information about my abortion with Abbey so that she could use it against not only my candidate and the President, but against me? Against his unborn grandchild? I think back to sitting on that table, my feet in stirrups, feeling completely numb and empty inside. He really is no concern for his unborn grandchild or his daughter. I’m used to my father’s antics, but I’d hate for Fitz to know that I too could also be so callous, to get rid of our unborn child without him even knowing of its existence. Who am I kidding? I don’t even trust myself sometimes, not until I figure out my own angle and how it can still maximize my benefits. In this moment in the parking garage, I’m standing here trying to profess my love for Jake and confess my sins, but he doesn’t fully seem to believe me. If he loves me, wouldn’t he believe me? Fitz always believed whatever I told him. Do I really even love Jake? I’ve always assumed that it was my fear of intimacy and anxious and avoidant approach to relationships that was our barrier. How can I trust someone when I’ve learned through experience that people, not even my parents, are worthy of trust?
I compete with Jake over my father’s loyalty. I despise my father, but still, I yearn for his adoration and validation. Maybe that is why I seem to only be attracted to men that are powerful and successful, and sometimes, also dangerous. Jake has been with my father for 20 years. 20 years of brainwashing. Jake also feels that strong desire to prove himself to my father. He always has. Is that the actual thing that I need and want from Jake? I want to win Jake. Not as my man, but as a pawn in my father’s game. I can prove to my father that I have won Jake in order to destroy my father, since he’s my father’s pride and joy. Father and son. While Andrew talks of his temporary and meaningless victory of me being kidnapped, I have flashbacks of being in that hellhole. It’s not the pain of remembering feeling physically powerless, dirty, objectified, and worthless, or when I was fighting for freedom to return to my life. It was the things he said that seemed to expose my inner self that enraged me. He actually exposed the things that I feel about myself sometimes. It’s like he could hear what is in my mind. That everything is just a mask for the ugliness and emptiness I feel about myself. So yes. I bashed his face in. I bashed his face in to express the rage that I feel at my father, Fitz, Jake, and even Huck. They are all weak men pretending to be strong, but in reality, none of them could make it without me. So as I feel Andrew’s blood spray over my face, I know that I’ve won. Jake has already broken the law to let me in, Fitz will cover it up, and my father will be enamored with my display. This will disarm my father where I can have Jake all to myself for my needs and my purposes, solely, away from my father. Huck will tell me what I need to know about my father’s weaknesses and practices. I will not only take Command, I will become Command. My father will never even expect it.
