A Palindrome Dad is not the Same Thing as a Dad...

My therapist says my dad is a parasite, feeding off me. Even now. He fed off me all through my childhood... just fed and fed and fed and fed... never giving me anything good in return.

He gave me life but spent my entire childhood trying to suck it out of me... and now he doesn't have contact with me but he's still sucking.

I think people hate me and I think that I'm useless and stupid and a failure. Isn't a dad supposed to make their children feel like a human being who other people could actually like... someone who is valued for who they are and not just cast aside because they aren't the absolute best of the best of the best?

To him, I'm only worth something if it benefits him. I'm not worth anything for just being me. I don't remember a time when he was loving or kind. His 'love' was selfish. My heart and mind and body didn't matter. His 'kindness' was cruelty.

I was a non-person there to serve him and to take care of his responsibilities. What about his responsibilities?

I was was never allowed to be a child. I was never allowed to have feelings or thoughts or value.

If I cried I was punished. If I was upset I was ridiculed. If I was hurt I was humiliated. Isn't a dad supposed to comfort their child?

I tried so hard to be as good as I could possibly be. I tried to be quiet and polite and respectful and obedient and compliant. But I was only deserving of punishment, humiliation, pain and mind games. Isn't a dad supposed to make their child feel better?

I was terrified of him and tried so hard to do everything 'right'. But he enjoyed taking away my safety. Isn't a dad supposed to want their child to feel safe?


If a dad is supposed to be loving, kind, gentle, wanting to provide, wanting to keep you safe, wanting to protect you, wanting to help you be the best you can be and being proud of you and there for you no matter what...

And if my dad was cruel, cold, sadistic, self-seeking, dangerous, critical, condemning, humiliating, controlling, manipulative, mocking and constantly trying to break me...

... I guess he wasn't ever really a dad.

So why does my heart shatter every time I remember the truth of who he was/is? ...why does my everything hold onto him so tightly and not want to let go? Why do I still call him Daddy, when he's not even been a Dad? 

I don't want to disrespect him by saying these things, but they are the truth and the truth really really hurts right now... and I'm broken.

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Love is....?

When I was in my early teens, I was given an assignment at school on Valentine's Day to write an essay that answered the question "Love is...?". I remember it clearly because it totally stumped me. That was my first realisation that I actually had no clue what "love" was supposed to mean. I remember we had to spend a period of time brainstorming as many answers to that question as we could come up with. My classmates kept popping out answers every few seconds. My paper stayed blank.

That was over a decade ago. Today I am still puzzled by the concept, particularly when it is related to other people loving me. "Love" is a scary word for me. Saying the words "I love you" is incredibly uncomfortable and I struggle to say them. Showing love through actions is easier for me than expressing it verbally. I'm not sure why that is. Receiving love from someone else is near impossible and it's an issue I really need to overcome. The problem is I still don't really know what love is.

credit: www.xkcd.com

If I ask myself what it means for me to love someone else, I would say loving someone means giving up your life for theirs... it means giving as much of yourself as you can give. It means putting aside your own needs in order to put another's before your own. The University Rabbi asked me the other week "If you were on a desert island with another person and you only had one bottle of water, what would you do? Give it to the other person or keep it for yourself?" I said "give it to the other person". It wouldn't really occur to me that there was an alternative option. Love to me means giving up your own life to save another.

I guess in a way that is the ultimate demonstration of love, but perhaps my interpretation of that is a little bit screwed up. Someone once said to me "If someone doesn't know how to love themselves, how can they love someone else?" It's a good question. The question that naturally follows from this is "what does it mean to love yourself?". This is a bit scary to me because if I love myself then that might make me arrogant or selfish... there's a fine line and it's one I'm terribly afraid to risk crossing.

I spent my whole childhood denying that I had needs. I wasn't allowed needs. I didn't deserve to have any need met. I was apparently innately selfish and needed to learn to always put others before myself. I tried with everything in me to achieve that. On top of that, the kind of "love" I was shown makes the word "love" repulsive to me - it fills me with shame and disgust. The maternal love I feel towards my siblings is different - I love them so much it hurts, but any idea of love towards me makes my stomach churn. I wonder if I will ever truly understand what it means to be loved, but I'm aware I need to figure out how to allow myself to feel as though I have a right to be loved first and that's a tough one!

credit: http://loveislove.me

So my question is, what does love mean? ...What does it mean to love someone else and what does it mean to be loved?  When you've been through severe child abuse that's screwed up your understanding of love, how do you come to understand it as it should be and what makes it feel safe?

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Fatherless Father's Day

This Sunday, it's Father's Day.  I guess for most people, this is a happy day - a day to celebrate having a wonderful dad, and showing your appreciation for all he's done.  For people like me, it's a very painful day. 

It seems as though everywhere I turn, there are painful reminders that I don't have a dad.  He's not dead, but he's not in my life.  And when he was in my life, it wasn't something to be celebrated because he hurt me in ways no father ever should.  I still love my dad, and that makes things like Father's day hurt all the more I suppose.  He's still my dad, even though he's not, if you know what I mean?

There seems to be a trend on places like Facebook these days, where people post things 'in honour' of certain things relevant to upcoming holidays or special days.  Today I saw this:

"If your Dad is, or was, a hard working man, and is your hero, has helped you no matter how good or bad you were, and is just the best Dad ever, if you are blessed to still have your Dad, or if he is the brightest star in the night's sky, paste this to your status and let everyone know you are proud of your Dad. You can replace a lot of people in your life, but you only have one Dad."

Ouch. :(

Sometimes it seems like from every angle, people around us are rubbing in the fact that our fathers weren't who they were supposed to be, and it's so painful! As for the above status... on the one hand, I kind of agree - you can't ever really replace your biological father.  He is who he is. However, I believe you have two families in this life - the one you were born with and the one you choose. 

Yes, I long for my dad to be my dad... to love me and treat me as he should... to love me no matter what and to do everything in his power to prevent me from harm... to accept me for who I am and be proud of me.  Truth is, he hasn't ever been that and I don't think he ever will be.  When it comes to my biological father, I have to accept that I will always be 'fatherless'.  That hurts, and it's okay to admit that. I don't know if that pain will ever go away. 

At the same time, I have other people in my life who do love me and who do treat me in the way family is supposed to.  In spite of the pain that comes with being "fatherless", I am learning what it means to have a family - a real family.  I am grateful for that and I know I'm truly blessed to have found that after everything I've been through.  Maybe one day, Father's Day won't hurt so deeply. Maybe one day I'll stop trying in my heart to chase after something that I cannot have.  For now, I choose to allow myself to feel what I feel, to accept that I can't change who my dad is... and to learn to trust the new 'real' family in my life.  

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Breaking the Silence

My last post was about the courage to use words.  Since posting that, I've been finding it so difficult to not be silent.  How is it that speaking out can so easily silence me?  My heart has so much it wants to say but my mouth is frozen. How do we break the silence? When the fear creeps in and takes control, how do you find your voice again?

Sometimes, maybe you just have to start with one word and take it a word at a time, until the chains of silence start to break...


So here is an attempt to break my silence...

of speaking, of remembering, of sleeping, of being, of feeling...

Shame

I know the shame isn't mine to carry, but I don't know how to get rid of it. It's a silencing shame and cuts right to the core of my being...

Fragile, small, cut off, discarded... tossed aside after being used.

Super-sensitive and utterly exposed.

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Need more layers... or something.

Do you ever feel like no matter how many layers of clothes you put on, you're still naked? Like that shame won't go away? I am safe now and have been for a while, but right now I just keep feeling stuck in that place where everything is stripped from me and I'm not a person - I'm an object that is bartered and used. I can't seem to get my head to stop playing those 'movies'... the flashes of having everything stripped away, literally and metaphorically. And what's left? ...me standing, sitting, lying, crouching... exposed, frightened and ashamed... waiting.

Right now I feel afraid again.  I feel once again like a ball in a game, being thrown around and passed to different 'players'.  Who cares about the ball right? You just do whatever you want to it because it's part of the game and as long as you get your kick, who cares what state the ball is left in?

I want to feel safe again. I want to feel like that shame isn't consuming me. Putting on more layers of clothes isn't working (funnily lol). I just want to be a person. Someone who isn't naked or ashamed.  But right now, I feel broken, and I don't know how to find the pieces to put back together again.

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