Tackling this one. I didn’t even want to. I push this topic FAR away because it causes a lot of sadness and feelings of not being enough. I avoid those because I felt them so often growing up and into adulthood. Nothing was ever good enough. I could be the top tier of whatever I was doing and it still wasn’t enough and that hurt so much.
I reached out yesterday to him. I reached out in hopes it would be different. Maybe hoping for a different outcome. I poured my feelings out. Asking about the abuse to my mom and myself when I was younger. It was justified with the discipline excuse. Like I deserved it. Did I? No. I was a child. He just doesn’t want to take responsibility.
From him I learned that safety looked like money being thrown at problems. Didn’t like what was going on, money will fix it. When I needed the fatherly figure to keep me safe from even family sexual predators, I was brushed off because he didn’t have time. He wouldn’t be vulnerable. That really took a toll on me through my adult relationships. Looking for someone to make me feel safe and secure like he never did. It created a huge void.
When I think of danger, I see him in throwing stance ready to throw something at me or my Mom when I was younger. I hear him yelling at my mama at night over something trivial from the day. I hear him yelling in most of my memories. Always controlling. You won’t do this or you better not embarrass us. He felt like his opinion bore so much weight when all I asked for was unconditional acceptance. Did I receive that? No. They didn’t have time for my needs. I was and still am a ”victim” for asking for my basic emotional needs to be met as a child. I was brushed off.
I never really dealt with it or wanted to think about it until I had my own kids. When I saw how much what I did and said affected them in such intricate ways. I don’t want to raise my kids feeling like their thoughts and feelings were not relevant. We’re meant to guide and I intend to do it in spite of not receiving it as a child myself. When speaking to him yesterday, it felt like I was talking to someone who didn’t know me at all. Someone who never really took the time to go much deeper than the surface with his own child. And with that comes the most deep emptiness I cannot even describe. It’s just a hole I cannot fill. It feels as though I was never wanted. I was just a disappointment.
When I didn’t receive that emotionally filled cup as a child and up into my teens, it made me keep to myself and latch on to other’s families who actually had loving parents in hopes they’d love me like my parents could not or would not. It stunted my emotional growth by so much.
I don’t feel like I ever grew up because I feel stuck emotionally as very young. Like teen years emotionally. I want to be able to love maturely and I feel like that may come with just letting go of what I cannot get from my parents. I have never wanted to move on so bad from a feeling I cannot escape. I am not a victim because I ask for these things as an adult. I am strong for being able to face my innermost fears and still being able to work through it. I will not look back or be dragged back by those that cannot do the same because they are simply too scared and too comfortable in their control.
