safe unsafe safe unsafe
January 17, 2023 8:26 PM Subscribe
Getting back in touch with my formerly estranged father has been… not great. Help?
I wrote this question and went nearly four years without talking to my dad. It was a good thing for me. I grew a lot and feel much more secure relationally. Whether that’s getting older or other trauma healing stuff, unsure, but I know it was the right thing for me.
This summer, I felt like I had done enough healing that I could restart a relationship in a breezy, low stakes way. We live half the country away, and my dad now has significantly reduced mobility and early stage Alzheimer’s. He lives with his new wife, who is very talkative/charismatic. They can’t travel and the relationship is entirely phone, text, a couple letters.
So, with low expectations, I entered into a “call every few weeks” pattern of communication. It’s never just my dad alone - he always brings his partner into the call. He never apologized for anything from the letter or brought up any of those themes. He expressed happiness to be back in touch and asks questions of me often / shares some about himself. Mostly his partner dominates the call - and she’s friendly enough and we talk cats and little stories and stuff.
We spoke a little after Christmas. Near the end of the call, my dad let some anger flash in his voice and chastised me for taking too long between reaching out. I apologized, but the whole thing left a lingering out of.. bad feelings. Just now, I was reading a random description in a novel of the moment a character no longer thinks of her father as her father, but will let those impressions float around when it keeps her safe (NK Jemisin oooof you are a good writer) and I realized I had fallen back into just this kind of pattern - just like it was before I initiated estrangement.
Also, like before, he has sent me checks (once for my move, and once for Xmas) and I am leaving the second uncashed on my desk. It just feels like… the motions of “look we’re close” with no actual intimacy and low key manipulation from him (how can he be ANGRY I’m not reaching out every minute when he has never really apologized / talked with me in a real way and won’t even talk alone with me??? what the fuck is that?) I don’t know, it feels… bad. And I’ve been avoiding confronting that bad feeling.
This is obviously a big and personal process, but I guess I wanted to just open this up to other people who have gone thru similar experiences reconnecting with historically unsafe people. What were those experiences like for you? Do you have any guidance for me? I don’t know what I want. I don’t like feeling unsafe again. Just processing.
I’ll also add that I’ve in general become a lot braver being direct with people in my life. I’ve really been honest and even confrontational with friends and it’s SO improved those relationships. This is something in a sense I learned from estrangement and I am grateful for it. What’s different here is that I don’t know if I want to go through that process with him. I don’t know if there’s anything Real to fight for or if it’s just managing his impressions of me so I feel safe. Or maybe it’s just extra scary? I just kind of want to not talk any more, and I’m trying to understand that better.
Thank you thank you.
I wrote this question and went nearly four years without talking to my dad. It was a good thing for me. I grew a lot and feel much more secure relationally. Whether that’s getting older or other trauma healing stuff, unsure, but I know it was the right thing for me.
This summer, I felt like I had done enough healing that I could restart a relationship in a breezy, low stakes way. We live half the country away, and my dad now has significantly reduced mobility and early stage Alzheimer’s. He lives with his new wife, who is very talkative/charismatic. They can’t travel and the relationship is entirely phone, text, a couple letters.
So, with low expectations, I entered into a “call every few weeks” pattern of communication. It’s never just my dad alone - he always brings his partner into the call. He never apologized for anything from the letter or brought up any of those themes. He expressed happiness to be back in touch and asks questions of me often / shares some about himself. Mostly his partner dominates the call - and she’s friendly enough and we talk cats and little stories and stuff.
We spoke a little after Christmas. Near the end of the call, my dad let some anger flash in his voice and chastised me for taking too long between reaching out. I apologized, but the whole thing left a lingering out of.. bad feelings. Just now, I was reading a random description in a novel of the moment a character no longer thinks of her father as her father, but will let those impressions float around when it keeps her safe (NK Jemisin oooof you are a good writer) and I realized I had fallen back into just this kind of pattern - just like it was before I initiated estrangement.
Also, like before, he has sent me checks (once for my move, and once for Xmas) and I am leaving the second uncashed on my desk. It just feels like… the motions of “look we’re close” with no actual intimacy and low key manipulation from him (how can he be ANGRY I’m not reaching out every minute when he has never really apologized / talked with me in a real way and won’t even talk alone with me??? what the fuck is that?) I don’t know, it feels… bad. And I’ve been avoiding confronting that bad feeling.
This is obviously a big and personal process, but I guess I wanted to just open this up to other people who have gone thru similar experiences reconnecting with historically unsafe people. What were those experiences like for you? Do you have any guidance for me? I don’t know what I want. I don’t like feeling unsafe again. Just processing.
I’ll also add that I’ve in general become a lot braver being direct with people in my life. I’ve really been honest and even confrontational with friends and it’s SO improved those relationships. This is something in a sense I learned from estrangement and I am grateful for it. What’s different here is that I don’t know if I want to go through that process with him. I don’t know if there’s anything Real to fight for or if it’s just managing his impressions of me so I feel safe. Or maybe it’s just extra scary? I just kind of want to not talk any more, and I’m trying to understand that better.
Thank you thank you.
Best answer: You know how when we're around people we haven't seen in a long time, there's a tendency to interact with them in the way we were then rather than the way we are now? One thing that might help me in some circumstances is to recognize that there's a mature adult-me with lots more life experience and a childhood-me who doesn't understand yet. And, after the fact, have the adult-me sit down with childhood-me and have a conversation like I would with any other child who needed help processing a big experience and/or big emotions.
posted by aniola at 8:47 PM on January 17, 2023 [13 favorites]
posted by aniola at 8:47 PM on January 17, 2023 [13 favorites]
You have to be super aware of who is handling the negotiations, which of your historical identities decided to reestablish contact, and what they wanted.Your inner kid needs someone else to help with healing. Charisma woman will filter you right out if it comes down to the money. Taking care of Alzheimers victims is VERY difficult and love only mitigates it somewhat. But if it helps you any, his long term memories of you, will outlast the shorter term memories of his newer association. If she is a bad actor, she will be the one who installs the accusatory questions.
So hold tightly onto the hand and heart of your inner child, and consciously feed them what it is they need from the situation. Set yours sights on self healing, facilitated by pleasant, innocuous, contact. Find the good and fill in the rough spots. Your road is still long, but his is not.
posted by Oyéah at 9:32 PM on January 17, 2023 [1 favorite]
So hold tightly onto the hand and heart of your inner child, and consciously feed them what it is they need from the situation. Set yours sights on self healing, facilitated by pleasant, innocuous, contact. Find the good and fill in the rough spots. Your road is still long, but his is not.
posted by Oyéah at 9:32 PM on January 17, 2023 [1 favorite]
We spoke a little after Christmas. Near the end of the call, my dad let some anger flash in his voice and chastised me for taking too long between reaching out. I apologized, but the whole thing left a lingering out of.. bad feelings.
It sounds to me as if you are struggling to maintain the boundaries you need to maintain in order to safely engage with him in a low-stakes sort of way. It doesn't help that he's clearly pushing on them. I think the impulse you express at the end to step away may be the right one. You can't will or train yourself to be ready to re-engage with an abusive parent; it comes or it doesn't. And...you don't mention a therapist. Looking back at your prior post, there's no way I'd try re-engaging with this man without one. You need someone to help you think and feel through all this. You don't have to do it all for yourself.
You have no obligations to this man. Wishing you the best.
posted by praemunire at 10:42 PM on January 17, 2023 [6 favorites]
It sounds to me as if you are struggling to maintain the boundaries you need to maintain in order to safely engage with him in a low-stakes sort of way. It doesn't help that he's clearly pushing on them. I think the impulse you express at the end to step away may be the right one. You can't will or train yourself to be ready to re-engage with an abusive parent; it comes or it doesn't. And...you don't mention a therapist. Looking back at your prior post, there's no way I'd try re-engaging with this man without one. You need someone to help you think and feel through all this. You don't have to do it all for yourself.
You have no obligations to this man. Wishing you the best.
posted by praemunire at 10:42 PM on January 17, 2023 [6 favorites]
Best answer: Oh, sweetie. I am feeling a lot of compassion for you. Kids need and should get true love and security and safety from our caregivers. You did not. You have spent a life longing for it. You took some time away, which is good. But now you are back, looking for his love and approval, looking for safety and acceptance.
I was really sad to see you say you did the work to feel like you could have a relationship with him. Somehow you have internalized the idea that you’re the problem, that you need to change.
It’s not you. It’s him.
It doesn’t matter what you do. He’s the one who needs to do the work, who needs to even see he needs to do the work. And no change you make will get him to change.
So the work that needs to happen now isn’t in your work with him. I spent years trying to figure out the right way to behave to get the right love and response from a parental figure. I finally learned that it’s not about me and how I behave. They can’t and won’t give that to me. I am still grieving that.
The real growth and freedom is moving towards a place of understanding that you will never get what you want from him. He can’t give it to you. The real freedom comes when you stop looking and hoping for it.
I’m so sorry. He can’t give you what you want and need, what every kid should get. He can’t. And you can’t do anything to change yourself to make him.
posted by bluedaisy at 10:45 PM on January 17, 2023 [56 favorites]
I was really sad to see you say you did the work to feel like you could have a relationship with him. Somehow you have internalized the idea that you’re the problem, that you need to change.
It’s not you. It’s him.
It doesn’t matter what you do. He’s the one who needs to do the work, who needs to even see he needs to do the work. And no change you make will get him to change.
So the work that needs to happen now isn’t in your work with him. I spent years trying to figure out the right way to behave to get the right love and response from a parental figure. I finally learned that it’s not about me and how I behave. They can’t and won’t give that to me. I am still grieving that.
The real growth and freedom is moving towards a place of understanding that you will never get what you want from him. He can’t give it to you. The real freedom comes when you stop looking and hoping for it.
I’m so sorry. He can’t give you what you want and need, what every kid should get. He can’t. And you can’t do anything to change yourself to make him.
posted by bluedaisy at 10:45 PM on January 17, 2023 [56 favorites]
Seconding and thirding and nthing bluedaisy's wise comment. I have a problematic mom and a situation similar to yours.
Without getting into details, years back I had a frank conversation with my mother that her ____ needed to stop and if she could not stop doing _____, I would be unable to speak with her. She was not able to stop ____, so I stopped speaking with her.
Time passed, people got older, COVID hit, I felt I could handle it. I again set up the boundary of ___ and she immediately violated it.
Our relationship is now occasional emails. I am not happy about this and really wish she could stop doing ____ so I could actually have a nice relationship with my mother, but she won't.
I'm really sorry. It feels like a fresh injury every time our boundaries are violated and I am sorry you're in this situation.
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 3:33 AM on January 18, 2023 [6 favorites]
Without getting into details, years back I had a frank conversation with my mother that her ____ needed to stop and if she could not stop doing _____, I would be unable to speak with her. She was not able to stop ____, so I stopped speaking with her.
Time passed, people got older, COVID hit, I felt I could handle it. I again set up the boundary of ___ and she immediately violated it.
Our relationship is now occasional emails. I am not happy about this and really wish she could stop doing ____ so I could actually have a nice relationship with my mother, but she won't.
I'm really sorry. It feels like a fresh injury every time our boundaries are violated and I am sorry you're in this situation.
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 3:33 AM on January 18, 2023 [6 favorites]
Wow. So many thoughts about this, coming from a similar situation. I think you're doing such good work and I want to encourage you to give yourself whatever you think will help you. Cash those checks from your father and use them to pay for therapy, if you want.
But also I want to echo that the problem isn't with you; it's with him. Since my father's death, I think I have been able to see a bit more clearly how little control I really had over that relationship and how much apparent success or progress was temporary or just depending on luck at the time. My siblings and I used to report back to each other about interactions with him and how we thought we were making progress if one went well. I felt, and feel, incredibly lucky to have had siblings by my side through a lot of this but I have to laugh a little, recalling how we acted like it we just managed things right, it would get better.
We also had the charismatic wife thing going on, although in our case she was not really charismatic, more like straight up manipulative. In that regard, I think you are doing an awesome job of diplomacy and if you are going to maintain a relationship, you've made a really good start with her. If you ever want information about your father's health, you will be depending on her. If you were strategizing about this, I don't think you could possibly be doing better. But if you wanted to throw in the towel and tell them to fuck off, you could do that too.
Good luck with all this!
posted by BibiRose at 4:43 AM on January 18, 2023 [2 favorites]
But also I want to echo that the problem isn't with you; it's with him. Since my father's death, I think I have been able to see a bit more clearly how little control I really had over that relationship and how much apparent success or progress was temporary or just depending on luck at the time. My siblings and I used to report back to each other about interactions with him and how we thought we were making progress if one went well. I felt, and feel, incredibly lucky to have had siblings by my side through a lot of this but I have to laugh a little, recalling how we acted like it we just managed things right, it would get better.
We also had the charismatic wife thing going on, although in our case she was not really charismatic, more like straight up manipulative. In that regard, I think you are doing an awesome job of diplomacy and if you are going to maintain a relationship, you've made a really good start with her. If you ever want information about your father's health, you will be depending on her. If you were strategizing about this, I don't think you could possibly be doing better. But if you wanted to throw in the towel and tell them to fuck off, you could do that too.
Good luck with all this!
posted by BibiRose at 4:43 AM on January 18, 2023 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: thank you all <3 aniola and Oyéah, it took me a while to make sense of your comments, but I was able to imagine consoling a teenage friend (younger me) and that really helped.
bluedaisy, thank you. That got through.
I just sent this message: “ Heya - I’ve been reflecting on getting back in touch with you over the last six months. I still don’t feel like whatever acknowledgement / resolution / change I was hoping for is there, and it’s upsetting and painful for me. I don’t know if it’s possible after childhood hurt. I will need to go back to not being in touch indefinitely with you. I wish you all of the health and peaceful time with [partner]. with love, [me]
And blocked both of their numbers. Feels right. I’ll keep processing and being gentle with little kid me inside, but drawing on adult me wisdom. And potentially go back to therapy lolol. Thanks MeFi for the nudge/sounding board.
posted by Sock Meets Body at 6:42 AM on January 18, 2023 [21 favorites]
bluedaisy, thank you. That got through.
I just sent this message: “ Heya - I’ve been reflecting on getting back in touch with you over the last six months. I still don’t feel like whatever acknowledgement / resolution / change I was hoping for is there, and it’s upsetting and painful for me. I don’t know if it’s possible after childhood hurt. I will need to go back to not being in touch indefinitely with you. I wish you all of the health and peaceful time with [partner]. with love, [me]
And blocked both of their numbers. Feels right. I’ll keep processing and being gentle with little kid me inside, but drawing on adult me wisdom. And potentially go back to therapy lolol. Thanks MeFi for the nudge/sounding board.
posted by Sock Meets Body at 6:42 AM on January 18, 2023 [21 favorites]
Smallest of follow-up updates. I blocked them on my iPhone, but apparently not on iMessage (???) so they were able to reply in a way that went thru to my iMac (ugh, Apple). The response was from my dad's phone, but his partner clearly wrote it:
"Truly sorry to hear you feel this way! May I ask what change, we're you hoping for? We always want to be here for you. Love Dad & [Partner]"
and like, yeah. i'm not going to participate in a third party person (who seems pleasant enough, but has no history or context with us, and certainly no exposure to the abusive years/DECADES) carry his relational water for him. blocked on iMac, too. then put on "Thumbs" by Lucy Dacus and cried. ok that's all. <3
(ah well, there goes my sock account lol. submitted request for moderators to change to sock.)
posted by Anonymous at 7:41 AM on January 18, 2023 [6 favorites]
"Truly sorry to hear you feel this way! May I ask what change, we're you hoping for? We always want to be here for you. Love Dad & [Partner]"
and like, yeah. i'm not going to participate in a third party person (who seems pleasant enough, but has no history or context with us, and certainly no exposure to the abusive years/DECADES) carry his relational water for him. blocked on iMac, too. then put on "Thumbs" by Lucy Dacus and cried. ok that's all. <3
(ah well, there goes my sock account lol. submitted request for moderators to change to sock.)
posted by Anonymous at 7:41 AM on January 18, 2023 [6 favorites]
Best answer: My father died recently at 95. I cut off contact with him 35 years ago. Yes, I still had some minuscule shred of hope that he would come around, acknowledge what a bastard he'd been, and attempt to make amends, but that shred went completely away when he developed dementia a few years ago.
Hugs from afar!
posted by mareli at 9:39 AM on January 18, 2023 [2 favorites]
Hugs from afar!
posted by mareli at 9:39 AM on January 18, 2023 [2 favorites]
I have a bit different take from others here. You can't be emotionally independent if you are financially dependent. Cashing even one check from your father gives him control over you.
You'll never be able to work toward a breezy, low stake relationship with your father until you stop accepting his money.
posted by mono blanco at 10:39 AM on January 18, 2023
You'll never be able to work toward a breezy, low stake relationship with your father until you stop accepting his money.
posted by mono blanco at 10:39 AM on January 18, 2023
Response by poster: @mono blanco: definitely hear that! I haven’t asked for or accepted any money from him since 2012 (I asked to be put on his insurance plan while working AmeriCorps at 23, and he made a grand gesture of accepting on speaker phone around my uncles..) the small cash amounts were birthday and Christmas gifts. I ripped up the Christmas check late last night. that unease in entering a relationship with gifts/cash is one of the early warnings that “this new contact isn’t working”
posted by Sock Meets Body at 10:44 AM on January 18, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Sock Meets Body at 10:44 AM on January 18, 2023 [1 favorite]
Best answer: My mother tried to reestablish a more-than-superficial relationship with adult-me, but never once asked me what I wanted from our relationship, much less what I would be comfortable with. This was a continuation of her lifelong pattern of everything having to be her way on her terms. We never really got beyond surfaces before she passed. I find that I can be more accepting of her memory now, but that doesn't mean I regret staying at arms' length from her. I don't.
My father is still alive, but every time I've interacted with him, it's been clear that he doesn't know how not to be judgy and overbearing. If the time comes that he needs logistical help (he should be okay financially), I will pitch in... but I don't want to talk to him and I don't envision that changing. He's not really interested in me as a person, any more than he ever was, and I refuse to be treated as nothing more than a status symbol and a helpless ear for his political and academic ranting.
I do accept small monetary gifts from him to keep the peace, and send small gifts back (usually gift cards to restaurants he likes). Large monetary gifts are Right Out while he is alive, because control through money was a huge thing when I was younger, and I won't subject myself to it again.
So yeah, one more ticky mark under "nobody's gonna change -- not them, and not me."
posted by humbug at 1:31 PM on January 18, 2023
My father is still alive, but every time I've interacted with him, it's been clear that he doesn't know how not to be judgy and overbearing. If the time comes that he needs logistical help (he should be okay financially), I will pitch in... but I don't want to talk to him and I don't envision that changing. He's not really interested in me as a person, any more than he ever was, and I refuse to be treated as nothing more than a status symbol and a helpless ear for his political and academic ranting.
I do accept small monetary gifts from him to keep the peace, and send small gifts back (usually gift cards to restaurants he likes). Large monetary gifts are Right Out while he is alive, because control through money was a huge thing when I was younger, and I won't subject myself to it again.
So yeah, one more ticky mark under "nobody's gonna change -- not them, and not me."
posted by humbug at 1:31 PM on January 18, 2023
>Also, like before, he has sent me checks (once for my move, and once for Xmas) and I am leaving the second uncashed on my desk. It just feels like… the motions of “look we’re close” with no actual intimacy and low key manipulation from him (how can he be ANGRY I’m not reaching out every minute when he has never really apologized / talked with me in a real way and won’t even talk alone with me??? what the fuck is that?) I don’t know, it feels… bad.
Ooof I have been there - exactly there - with my parents.
I'm going to just give away the takeaway big lesson I learned: while healthy relationships involve mutual efforts towards repairing ruptures via intimacy and co-regulation of emotions, unhealthy relationships are the opposite. Trying to repair your relationship with your dad via the means of emotionally connecting with him, seeking to co-regulate painful emotions via the process of being vulnerable and honest about how hurt you are and in return, having him soothe you or give you apologies or act contrite or show understanding: all of this is inevitably re-traumatizing, confusing, hurtful, and utterly emotionally draining because the relationship between you both is simply not strong enough to bear this load.
(This is true for BOTH parties! Like, in the extremely unlikely and hypothetical scenario where your dad was 100% sincere, contrite, apologetic, capable of understanding and facing the full extent of his fuckery, etc., it would inevitably be traumatic and hurtful and damaging to him if he attempted to repair your relationship via intimacy and co-regulation with you. That's because you are not emotionally capable of even tolerating these hypothetical efforts from him with equanimity and acceptance, let alone capable of honoring his hypothetical courage, or protecting and nurturing his ability to continue making those efforts.)
Intimacy and connection comes after you've healed from the damage on your own. It cannot be the mechanism by which you seek to heal the damage, not even part of the damage. In other words, your father cannot say or do anything that helps you right now. What comes from him cannot be emotionally helpful for you right now. Find help elsewhere.
What does work is long, hard, painful solo therapy for yourself. And it works even if you're the only one who does it, and he never changes or does anything different. Focusing on your personal healing makes it possible for you to regain your natural emotional wholeness, your personal happiness, your inner strength, and crucially, your capacity to be emotionally generous towards others. (This is a useful way to judge whether your therapy is working, too. "Am I healing from my trauma?" is IMO just another way of asking, "Am I increasingly experiencing a sense of emotional wholeness and fullness, so much that I find it easy to extend emotional generosity towards others?")
This is not to say you will, or should, forgive him, or that forgiveness is the true test of healing. What I'm saying is, when you feel healed within yourself, it becomes much easier to - for instance - accept a check from your abuser without rancor, without thinking "How dare he act as if nothing is wrong!", without the cloud of the past coloring present interactions. When you've healed from the past, that leaves you free to be available to the present of a relationship, on its current terms.
-----------------------------------------------
Here's my personal context, my history and process by which I came to all of the above:
I never cut contact with my parents. What I've done is confronted them in small and big ways over the years but they didn't react the way your dad reacted to you. They never "said the right words" even just glibly. They have never apologized even as a throwaway easy statement. They still deny that they ever abused me at all. My mother denies ever hitting me, she denies that the scars on my face were caused by her pushing me into a sharp table edge, she denies scars on my wrists were caused by her burning me with hot tongs. My father denies that he slapped me so many times throughout my teenage years, he denies that he made a ritual of kicking me out of the house practically every Sunday when I was 15, 16, 17... only to allow me back in after a few hours. Both parents deny they properly threw me out and cut me off financially when I was in college and they both deny they refused to speak to me for the next two years. They claim they have no recollection of this whole event.
I had always assumed there was no possibility of forgiveness and no possibility of achieving a good relationship in the absence of contrition, apologies, true understanding, and amends from my parents. Turns out it was never necessary! What a mindfuck. I can apparently forgive them and have a good relationship with them twenty years later even despite their total denial. All I needed to forgive them fully and have a good relationship with them again was (a) they are no longer abusive in the present (though they are still obnoxious/annoying/etc), and (b) five years of solo therapy for myself. Those are the only ingredients in this end product. I cannot overstate the sheer wtf I feel about this. Mindfuck. It's like finding out that you can make delicious soup using literally just stone and water and nothing else. Sounds like a fable or a con, except I am living it.
The way I understand my process is what I said in the very first paragraph: because the relationship I had with my parents was so phenomenally unhealthy, the way to fix it was to go off on my own and work on healing my childhood trauma from them. While I did, I had almost no contact with them and no pressure to work on fixing my relationship with them. That was never my end goal. My end goal was my personal healing only. And as I healed, one of the things that happened was I was able to overcome my hurt, and thus my visceral anger. They may lack the capacity to ever understand what they did or take responsibility for it, but I've found my healing for that on my own. So I can let that go and focus on the now.
I did psychodynamic psychotherapy with "the right therapist" for five years. I had worked with a trauma focused cognitive therapist for a year earlier, that did not help me much. Straight up CBT would have probably never worked at all. Anyway, most of my therapy was about me, until about three years in, I had healed enough to start becoming curious about "what the fuck was happening with my parents, though? why did they DO those things? wtf is wrong with them?" Through a process of repeatedly asking that question and trying to answer it in a million different ways, I ended up considering their whole life, their experiences, their trauma, their limitations.
My therapist helped me to not turn this into a self-harming exercise, where I end up intellectually excusing my parents for what they did while internally feeling hurt all over again by my betrayal of myself. That was super important. Learning how to understand them without excusing them or minimizing the hurt they caused me has been a VERY difficult skill to learn but essential to repairing my relationship with my parents in the present. Learning to be honest with my parents without lashing out and triggering their defensiveness was even harder, but now that I am becoming practiced at it, I feel so much safer being around my parents because I know I will speak up (without getting into a fight) when they say something awful. Another essential component has been this weird intangible magic of resolving my attachment issues through my relationship with my therapist. Hard to put into words, but what that does is help me approach other people from a less paranoid mindset, feeling less as if I am threatened by their bad behavior and by their invalidating pronouncements.
So really, it wasn't stone soup after all. These other substantial ingredients had to boil in the pot. Hope this helps you look for the right therapist and the most helpful outcomes from that therapy.
posted by MiraK at 12:22 PM on January 19, 2023 [4 favorites]
Ooof I have been there - exactly there - with my parents.
I'm going to just give away the takeaway big lesson I learned: while healthy relationships involve mutual efforts towards repairing ruptures via intimacy and co-regulation of emotions, unhealthy relationships are the opposite. Trying to repair your relationship with your dad via the means of emotionally connecting with him, seeking to co-regulate painful emotions via the process of being vulnerable and honest about how hurt you are and in return, having him soothe you or give you apologies or act contrite or show understanding: all of this is inevitably re-traumatizing, confusing, hurtful, and utterly emotionally draining because the relationship between you both is simply not strong enough to bear this load.
(This is true for BOTH parties! Like, in the extremely unlikely and hypothetical scenario where your dad was 100% sincere, contrite, apologetic, capable of understanding and facing the full extent of his fuckery, etc., it would inevitably be traumatic and hurtful and damaging to him if he attempted to repair your relationship via intimacy and co-regulation with you. That's because you are not emotionally capable of even tolerating these hypothetical efforts from him with equanimity and acceptance, let alone capable of honoring his hypothetical courage, or protecting and nurturing his ability to continue making those efforts.)
Intimacy and connection comes after you've healed from the damage on your own. It cannot be the mechanism by which you seek to heal the damage, not even part of the damage. In other words, your father cannot say or do anything that helps you right now. What comes from him cannot be emotionally helpful for you right now. Find help elsewhere.
What does work is long, hard, painful solo therapy for yourself. And it works even if you're the only one who does it, and he never changes or does anything different. Focusing on your personal healing makes it possible for you to regain your natural emotional wholeness, your personal happiness, your inner strength, and crucially, your capacity to be emotionally generous towards others. (This is a useful way to judge whether your therapy is working, too. "Am I healing from my trauma?" is IMO just another way of asking, "Am I increasingly experiencing a sense of emotional wholeness and fullness, so much that I find it easy to extend emotional generosity towards others?")
This is not to say you will, or should, forgive him, or that forgiveness is the true test of healing. What I'm saying is, when you feel healed within yourself, it becomes much easier to - for instance - accept a check from your abuser without rancor, without thinking "How dare he act as if nothing is wrong!", without the cloud of the past coloring present interactions. When you've healed from the past, that leaves you free to be available to the present of a relationship, on its current terms.
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Here's my personal context, my history and process by which I came to all of the above:
I never cut contact with my parents. What I've done is confronted them in small and big ways over the years but they didn't react the way your dad reacted to you. They never "said the right words" even just glibly. They have never apologized even as a throwaway easy statement. They still deny that they ever abused me at all. My mother denies ever hitting me, she denies that the scars on my face were caused by her pushing me into a sharp table edge, she denies scars on my wrists were caused by her burning me with hot tongs. My father denies that he slapped me so many times throughout my teenage years, he denies that he made a ritual of kicking me out of the house practically every Sunday when I was 15, 16, 17... only to allow me back in after a few hours. Both parents deny they properly threw me out and cut me off financially when I was in college and they both deny they refused to speak to me for the next two years. They claim they have no recollection of this whole event.
I had always assumed there was no possibility of forgiveness and no possibility of achieving a good relationship in the absence of contrition, apologies, true understanding, and amends from my parents. Turns out it was never necessary! What a mindfuck. I can apparently forgive them and have a good relationship with them twenty years later even despite their total denial. All I needed to forgive them fully and have a good relationship with them again was (a) they are no longer abusive in the present (though they are still obnoxious/annoying/etc), and (b) five years of solo therapy for myself. Those are the only ingredients in this end product. I cannot overstate the sheer wtf I feel about this. Mindfuck. It's like finding out that you can make delicious soup using literally just stone and water and nothing else. Sounds like a fable or a con, except I am living it.
The way I understand my process is what I said in the very first paragraph: because the relationship I had with my parents was so phenomenally unhealthy, the way to fix it was to go off on my own and work on healing my childhood trauma from them. While I did, I had almost no contact with them and no pressure to work on fixing my relationship with them. That was never my end goal. My end goal was my personal healing only. And as I healed, one of the things that happened was I was able to overcome my hurt, and thus my visceral anger. They may lack the capacity to ever understand what they did or take responsibility for it, but I've found my healing for that on my own. So I can let that go and focus on the now.
I did psychodynamic psychotherapy with "the right therapist" for five years. I had worked with a trauma focused cognitive therapist for a year earlier, that did not help me much. Straight up CBT would have probably never worked at all. Anyway, most of my therapy was about me, until about three years in, I had healed enough to start becoming curious about "what the fuck was happening with my parents, though? why did they DO those things? wtf is wrong with them?" Through a process of repeatedly asking that question and trying to answer it in a million different ways, I ended up considering their whole life, their experiences, their trauma, their limitations.
My therapist helped me to not turn this into a self-harming exercise, where I end up intellectually excusing my parents for what they did while internally feeling hurt all over again by my betrayal of myself. That was super important. Learning how to understand them without excusing them or minimizing the hurt they caused me has been a VERY difficult skill to learn but essential to repairing my relationship with my parents in the present. Learning to be honest with my parents without lashing out and triggering their defensiveness was even harder, but now that I am becoming practiced at it, I feel so much safer being around my parents because I know I will speak up (without getting into a fight) when they say something awful. Another essential component has been this weird intangible magic of resolving my attachment issues through my relationship with my therapist. Hard to put into words, but what that does is help me approach other people from a less paranoid mindset, feeling less as if I am threatened by their bad behavior and by their invalidating pronouncements.
So really, it wasn't stone soup after all. These other substantial ingredients had to boil in the pot. Hope this helps you look for the right therapist and the most helpful outcomes from that therapy.
posted by MiraK at 12:22 PM on January 19, 2023 [4 favorites]
Response by poster: @MiraK , your response is really interesting. i'm sorry that you had to endure what you did, and i'm glad you experienced the healing you needed on your own (or with a therapist's help, that is). and that goes for everyone in this thread that has struggled in similar ways!
i just wanted to offer some closing reflections with a few days' distance:
1) when I reinitiated contact last summer, my feeling was "i feel relatively healed, I feel like I am in the right headspace to cultivate a warm, if limited relationship with my dad and accept what comes." in other words, I thought, becaused healed, ready to talk!
2) i had made an expectation, without making this explicit to myself, that enough had changed with my dad during that time that a more authentic, comfortable relationship would be possible. in other words, I imagined him moving along a similar timescale as me. I knew intellectually this might not be the case, but I acted as if I could assume he had absorbed my long letter describing abuse etc in a way that would make him feel... safer to me.
3) I did discover some harmless basic decency in him in our interactions. clearly, i am not that terrified child in a household he dominates anymore. however, I also encountered someone who has already experienced moderate cognitive and physical decline, and has offloaded emotional labor / the dynamic of reconnecting to his new wife. it would always be "Dad and NewPartner" written by NewPartner. i didn't expect this - and also it goes to show I was hoping/expecting something different to happen.
4) THIS IS THE KEY PIECE: i found myself again entering into a caretaker/accomdater/soother role. he asked me to help make sure my sister responded to him more often. i tried to give him sunny updates about my life on the phone that would appeal to him. granted, i took up these little roles and self-presentations on my own - this is my own trauma and issues. whether he was explicitly calling this out of me, or i had not healed enough to show up with something else, or whatever, i realized that the PRESENT TENSE relationship (the one right now) did not make me feel good. it was like a dance i was going through out of respect for... something... some idea of being kid and father. No other relationship in my life is like that. I'm not saying I don't have complex relationships, but I have positive, mutually effortful family and friendship relationships. And I have relationships that are meaningful on some other level and can't take on that burden of active processing. That's ok. Even still, it's not a relationship I want, as cruel as that sounds.
5) @MiraK the current state of relating you describe is really useful for me to think about. I am absolutely NOT passing judgment on the value of that relationship to you. For me, I don't really want that type of relationship. I know that, for instance, my cousins rebuilt relationships of present-tense trust for my uncles who commited acts of sexual violence against them. I think that can very well be part of the human experience. For me, I'd like to think I'm a loving and forgiving and emotionally generous person (i hope!!!!) but I also have a self-concept of someone who, as someone living a kind of weirdo life as a queer and trans person and not following normative faimly structures, can weave together safe and trusting networks of people and be comfortable cutting ties with historically unsafe people forever. it's a part of me that I haven't really explored and confronted too much, although there were many moments in the past four years where I did wonder "is this a moral wrong, to give up on other people?" but I know it's consistent with how I want to build myself in the world.
tl;dr on 5: I think, now that I have accepted I do not feel safety with this person, even if that's a product of my incomplete healing, and projection onto the ultimate limitations of this other person, I'd like to think I can part ways with equanimity and even care and love, and that feels true to me (and safe, and good).
anyways, just kind of thinking it out. wanted to share here b/c i know threads can be helpful for others. thanks for your care and engagement, all. big week. <3
posted by Sock Meets Body at 1:48 PM on January 20, 2023 [1 favorite]
i just wanted to offer some closing reflections with a few days' distance:
1) when I reinitiated contact last summer, my feeling was "i feel relatively healed, I feel like I am in the right headspace to cultivate a warm, if limited relationship with my dad and accept what comes." in other words, I thought, becaused healed, ready to talk!
2) i had made an expectation, without making this explicit to myself, that enough had changed with my dad during that time that a more authentic, comfortable relationship would be possible. in other words, I imagined him moving along a similar timescale as me. I knew intellectually this might not be the case, but I acted as if I could assume he had absorbed my long letter describing abuse etc in a way that would make him feel... safer to me.
3) I did discover some harmless basic decency in him in our interactions. clearly, i am not that terrified child in a household he dominates anymore. however, I also encountered someone who has already experienced moderate cognitive and physical decline, and has offloaded emotional labor / the dynamic of reconnecting to his new wife. it would always be "Dad and NewPartner" written by NewPartner. i didn't expect this - and also it goes to show I was hoping/expecting something different to happen.
4) THIS IS THE KEY PIECE: i found myself again entering into a caretaker/accomdater/soother role. he asked me to help make sure my sister responded to him more often. i tried to give him sunny updates about my life on the phone that would appeal to him. granted, i took up these little roles and self-presentations on my own - this is my own trauma and issues. whether he was explicitly calling this out of me, or i had not healed enough to show up with something else, or whatever, i realized that the PRESENT TENSE relationship (the one right now) did not make me feel good. it was like a dance i was going through out of respect for... something... some idea of being kid and father. No other relationship in my life is like that. I'm not saying I don't have complex relationships, but I have positive, mutually effortful family and friendship relationships. And I have relationships that are meaningful on some other level and can't take on that burden of active processing. That's ok. Even still, it's not a relationship I want, as cruel as that sounds.
5) @MiraK the current state of relating you describe is really useful for me to think about. I am absolutely NOT passing judgment on the value of that relationship to you. For me, I don't really want that type of relationship. I know that, for instance, my cousins rebuilt relationships of present-tense trust for my uncles who commited acts of sexual violence against them. I think that can very well be part of the human experience. For me, I'd like to think I'm a loving and forgiving and emotionally generous person (i hope!!!!) but I also have a self-concept of someone who, as someone living a kind of weirdo life as a queer and trans person and not following normative faimly structures, can weave together safe and trusting networks of people and be comfortable cutting ties with historically unsafe people forever. it's a part of me that I haven't really explored and confronted too much, although there were many moments in the past four years where I did wonder "is this a moral wrong, to give up on other people?" but I know it's consistent with how I want to build myself in the world.
tl;dr on 5: I think, now that I have accepted I do not feel safety with this person, even if that's a product of my incomplete healing, and projection onto the ultimate limitations of this other person, I'd like to think I can part ways with equanimity and even care and love, and that feels true to me (and safe, and good).
anyways, just kind of thinking it out. wanted to share here b/c i know threads can be helpful for others. thanks for your care and engagement, all. big week. <3
posted by Sock Meets Body at 1:48 PM on January 20, 2023 [1 favorite]
You can't be emotionally independent if you are financially dependent
true and irrelevant because this isn't financial dependence. it is partial collection of outstanding debts that will not be fully repaid in this man's lifetime no matter how many checks he writes.
(OP, you can cash them or rip them up, and you can do either one in a spirit of vengefulness, forgiveness, or cold practicality as suits your needs, any time you want. don't take it if it makes you feel low, but there is no amount of money that can make you beholden to him. abuse cancels all normal relational rules and cliches, including financial ones. that doesn't change unless you say it does.)
posted by queenofbithynia at 10:19 PM on January 20, 2023
true and irrelevant because this isn't financial dependence. it is partial collection of outstanding debts that will not be fully repaid in this man's lifetime no matter how many checks he writes.
(OP, you can cash them or rip them up, and you can do either one in a spirit of vengefulness, forgiveness, or cold practicality as suits your needs, any time you want. don't take it if it makes you feel low, but there is no amount of money that can make you beholden to him. abuse cancels all normal relational rules and cliches, including financial ones. that doesn't change unless you say it does.)
posted by queenofbithynia at 10:19 PM on January 20, 2023
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Sock Meets Body at 8:31 PM on January 17, 2023 [2 favorites]