fbpx
Menu

Posts by V.E. Willis

V.E. Willis has written extensively about music and popular culture, but is currently pursuing writing creative non-fiction. When she’s not writing, she enjoys drinking coffee, running and CrossFit, and drinking more coffee. Most recently, her non-fiction essay about her father, “The Wheat from the Chaff,” was published in Eyedrum Periodically.

Why Walking Away Is Sometimes the Most Compassionate Choice

By

“Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals.” ~Pema Chodron

In May 2012, I was appointed guardian and conservator of my father, and my brother was appointed co-guardian. Our father was declared mentally incompetent by the county court.

My father was, and is, an alcoholic. When I was growing up, he was an abusive alcoholic. He gave out wounds like gifts. He used words to cut us open, and then he threatened us with salt.

I lived in hypervigilance, and I learned that being alone, quiet, and invisible was the safest state …