I'm about to tell all of you something very personal, something that has shaped my self-image since I was a child, please try to imagine where I'm coming from before you judge me for expressing an opinion.

Backstory:

Before I was born, my mother used to be an alcoholic, she says she drank socially, but word on the street is she would blackout and she's full of it. She was engaged to a man, I don't know how long, but anyway, on her 41st birthday, he shows up at her house and confesses to sleeping with her sister.

I should also mention, my mom's most likely an oblivious narcissist, so most of what you read has been filtered through her social filter.

This sudden turn of events is obviously hard for anyone to handle, she decides to drink, and drink. Apparently, my sister, then 18 or 19, and my aunt take her out to a bar in the middle of nowhere Michigan. Apparently my mom was drinking in the car before even arriving at the bar.

I've heard that my mom used to be rather good-looking and quite a fun drunk, I wouldn't know, she hasn't had more than a sip in 21 years. I suspect she was flirtatious, she's told me stories of dancing with Neil Diamond and world-series winning Kurt Gibson.

Fast forward to the bar. It's night, the drinks are pouring, music's playing, and my mom's talking to another woman about her age. This woman, tells my mom about how her 23 year-old son just got over testicular cancer, losing a testicle in the process. She introduces her son to my mom, my mom, starts talking to him, they apparently start dancing, and as my sister says, "she was all over him." Bar closes, my mom's not done having fun, so this guy invites everyone back to his mom's house. Classy. My sister says she and my aunt didn't want to go, but my mom did. So off they went to some guy's momma's house in the middle of the night.

Once there, my sister says she tried to get my mom to leave but my mom didn't want to, apparently mom was alone with my him. My aunt and sister ended up leaving my mom there! I can't believe it, but that's how it went down.

My mom says to this day the only thing she remembers is "waking up and kicking him off of her." He drove her to my aunt's in the morning.

Eight and half months later I was born. To avoid questions, she puts "Unknown" on the father line of my birth certificate. Even though she knew exactly who my father was.

As an infant my mom brings me to my father, he remarks "He's got my feet" and "What do you expect me to do? I'm going to South America" Total bullshit. His mom convinces him I couldn't be his son, he was supposed to be sterile, according to all the tests. So he never did anything for me or my mom.

When I was going through some stuff with my mom, I ended up tracking my father down when I was 17, I called his mother in-law and got his phone number, and I called him. We talked for hours, getting to know each other. We spoke for over a year, sometimes going long periods without calling because of arguments. We're both stubborn and he's the antithesis of me on almost everything politically. I'm a progressive atheist, he's a very conservative Christian. Eventually when things were smoother between us, we decide to meet. He invites me stay with him for Thanksgiving '10, meet his family.

He's married, two daughters, not genetically, they're from his wife's previous relationship. Apparently they've tried to have kids and couldn't, damn, guess I was pretty lucky. Things went okay at first, yeah we argued, but we also had a lot of similarities. My father tells me he's convinced I'm his, and so am I. He drops me off and home and talks to my mom again, even he tells her it was consensual, and the whole kicking him off thing never happened.

Cut to December '10, we have a falling out. We haven't spoken since.

Sorry if I'm rambling, I'm on Adderall, it does that sometimes, well, and I guess I've got a lot of stuff to get off my chest.

I guess I need to rewind, back to when I was born. My mom had a "profound conversion" and became a super-intense pro-life Catholic. At around 7 she told me her version of the story of how she was raped. She'd use any chance she could, even when I was with her, at church, the pharmacy, the grocery store, the school office, anywhere, to tell people how instead of aborting me, she gave birth the product of rape. Oh, what a good Catholic. It doesn't matter how much I begged her not to embarrass me like that, she did it anyway.

I guess I'm angry, angry that I grew up thinking I was unwanted. Angry that she chose to get drunk, come on to some guy, choose to go back to his house (like who doesn't know what that means?!), basically have a one-night stand and out of sheer embarrassment convince herself and the world that she had no part in the pregnancy, and use my life to make some evangelical point!

Controversial opinion:

My thoughts are, and I struggle with this thought, is if you can decide to drive when drunk, and have to face the consequences and take responsibility, why should it be any different when you decide to get drunk, lower your inhibitions, and do something out of character, like sleeping with some stranger?

In my mind, being born out of a one-night stand, is infinitely better than being born from rape.

Anyone who read that rambling mess, thanks, I'm not looking for sympathy, it was cathartic just to write it down.