To still be hurt but hopeful 25+ years later

[Kate8889]

I was born in 1989 in Eastern Europe.

When I was 5 my father got involved with a cult (extreme offshoot of Seventh Day Adventists). No TV, no job above minimum wage, no friends outside the church, no makeup or dressy clothes allowed.

He tried to get my mom to join and pressured her enough to leave her job. Then he told her everything that was in her name should go to him to then go to the church or else he's leaving. She said it wasn't hers to give away as her grandmother had willed her a sizable sum.

He moved out and took everything of any value with him. Several months later he called, saying he wanted to return without his terms but by that time my mom had a decent job and with the help of her mom was raising me just fine. She said she'd think on it and basically had my grandma field further calls.

He also took me one time and wouldn't give me back after visitation was over, police had to get involved.

When I was in the US in college in my 2nd year, he wrote me a letter asking me to forgive his child support debt that had piled up. I wrote that since my mom raised me with no help from him, it wouldn't be right.

Anyway...I still have this idea that the cult caused him to be a terrible person and that I can rescue him still, after all this time. Also, I'm so hurt still that he'd just abandon us like that.

Thoughts? I've talked about this in therapy but all I can do is let go of what happened, and I can't, it comes back up.

I was also abandoned by a father who I now have sporadic email contact with. He wants me to call him dad and meet up etc but I just can’t be bothered, he’s nothing to me now. I don’t have any ill will towards him, I just don’t care.

It seems different for you as you do still care, probably because you had a solid relationship with him before he left. If he was in a cult he could have been brainwashed and maybe there is hope for you to have a relationship with him again. For me, it would depend on whether he is now completely dissociated with the cult, whether he has the self awareness to recognise the damage it did and show genuine remorse for that.

If he is still involved with them, I wouldn’t go near him.

Do you even know how to contact him now?

I have an email, he's still deep in the cult, sadly.

Sometimes you need to learn to accept the situation and move on and grieve for the days you wanted not what you have. You’ll be happier in the end with this approach

In this case OP I'd leave it - your never going to change him.

I understand how hard it is to go NC with parents like this - my mum's mum was abusive, and she used to get upset every time she had contact with her when I was growing up. But if you have the strength to do it, it's absolutely the right thing to go NC

I haven't had much contact anyway, basically nothing from the time I was 7 until college, then two more emails. It's been 5 years easily since we've communicated.

It just feels like giving up, I suppose.

@Kate8889 this must be a horrible situation to be in. Unfortunately if he’s still in the cult and has now been for several decades there is very little hope of him ever leaving. Whilst he’s still in his first priority will always be the cult and no amount of building a relationship with you will be likely to change that.

I suppose you need to think about what it is you would want from being in contact with him? Unfortunately it doesn’t seem likely you’d be able to rebuild a deep father/daughter bond given the circumstances. He would probably disappoint you at some stage when he prioritises the cult over you as he did when you were a child. He may also be very pushy in trying to get you to join the cult. Any remorse will probably come across as selfish and anger towards your mother. It seems unlikely that he’d be willing to take responsibility for his actions or own any of the hurt he’s caused you. Hrs only reached out to for selfish reasons, to clear his debt, not for any fatherly concern towards you.

Perhaps you need to reframe your thinking and realise the father you knew died when you were young. Remember the happy times you had as a child and grieve the man he was. He’s no longer that person and can never be. Allow yourself to grieve as if he had died, have a ceremony if some kind of that feels right to you. Let him go and hold on to the memory of who he was. Block his email address and don’t allow yourself to fantasise that he will one day return and be the father you need and wanted.

It’s not giving up it’s protecting yourself, you cannot save him and you need to come to terms with that.

I like the idea of having a ceremony. Thank you!

I didn't email him from my email, he only knows my mom's address that she uses for spam (so it has an alias) so no need to block.

It just sucks that he chose people who pandered to his ego over his family.

What I want most is for him to have real, free choice in how to live his life, it's not really a free choice if he's been manipulated into this group. But I can't really do much to convince him of this

I can understand that but you want him to be someone he just can’t be. You want him to be stronger, to stand up for himself, break free of the control of the cult, realise he was wrong, genuinely apologise and want to build a relationship with you. The reality is that’s not going to happen. It’s entirely unfair and wholly selfish on his part, you were a child who needed her father and he chose not to be there for you. It must be extremely painful to process that. You will probably feel better in the long run if you focus on letting go now rather than holding on to hope, ultimately you’ll just end up hurting yourself more.

It’s great that you’re seeking therapy, it’s a process and can take a long time to heal wounds that were inflicted in childhood s they change the way our brains work. Have you tried EMDR? It’s really good at helping with trauma that is deeply ingrained and may help you move away from feeling like you need to hold on to the hope of him coming back to you.

An apology means nothing unless the person learns or changes so they don't do the wrong thing again. Your Father hasn't changed Op, he's just trying to make himself feel better. Don't reply, get on with your life and try to forget him

I didn't have any "serious" trauma,. compared to many other people I have led a very cushy life.

I had a mom and grandma who were there for me a good bit of the time. I was lucky to move to the US and receive the best medical treatment I could. I was never homeless and was never seriously physically hurt.

I suppose I feel like what happened isn't really worthy of anything more than talk therapy? But maybe that's not true.

@Kate8889 if he is still in it, there is no way he will come out until he decides. The cult might even be trying to manipulate him to manipulate you/get money. For your own sake, cut contact. I’m sorry, this must be so hard.

Of course he wants me to join but when I wanted to actually discuss theology he shut down and reduced everything to "It's His plan, we don't understand it"

K dad, I'm sure the 5 year old with cancer next door will be very comforted by that

In his own cack handed way he seems to be reaching out. I understand cults and cultish behaviour very well due to having to help people “de program”. I am a Christian and can see these organisations very clearly. It may help for you to email him, listing everything that he done that hurt you and your fears/expectations for the future If you decide on any type of contact

It sounds to me that you want to leave the door open to an extent. Let him know that If he decides to leave then you’re open to contact, until he does then any contact will be made by you on your terms

It sounds very odd. I’m not Seventh Day Adventist but have some family that are and am quite familiar with it over many years. The church really encourages them to be highly educated, continue education where and as possible over life and get good jobs. It’s a no brainer that the better job someone has the more ‘spare’ money they will likely donate to their church. People unemployed or working minimal jobs and on the breadline don’t have anything spare to donate so are not really a great advantage. All the Seventh Day Adventist's I know have post grad quals, very good jobs and are ‘normal’ and happy. They do enjoy their Bible though🤣, but no harm, it makes them happy.

It the Free and Independent Adventist movement in Russia, very controlling, not like the mainstream church.

He's free to email the email address he has but hasn't in quite a while. The PP are right, I need to have a ceremony and let him go.

OP, he’s been a rubbish father, and if you get in touch with him he’ll just try to control you. There’s no way you’ll rescue him: he’ll do his level best to get you into the cult, and if he can’t manage that, will go after any money he can get from you. I’m afraid I think you’re being more than a little naïve - he’s made his choices in life, and you need to keep clear of him so you can make yours without him trying to influence you or take advantage of you. Walk away.

You can do it, OP!

Your ex dad isn’t a victim. He is a volunteer. And he tried to drag your mother and you into the cult so he could have his own mini cult following. He is not and never was an innocent victim.

You did right refusing to forgive the debt. And you are right to cut him off. Do whatever is needful to be ok with this decision whether that is holding a ceremony (great idea!) or writing a lengthy letter reviewing all he did to you by his absence and abandonment and reading it in therapy/sending it/burning it.

I used to think like this, that trauma must involve real physical hardship or abuse but that’s just not true. Trauma literally means having experienced a distressing or disturbing experience. Most people have experienced some sort of trauma in their lives which affects the way they behave, react or interact.

Events in childhood are more impactful because your brain is still forming, any disruption in the bonding of child to their care giver or experiences which involve uncertainty/turmoil/loss or are associated with strong emotions such as shame/rejection/grief are harder for young brains to process. As an adult you are more logical, have perspective and understanding of a situation in the context of your wider environment. As a child your world is very small and so any change or negative experience will have a significant impact. Losing your father and your feeling that he was rejecting you will have had a traumatic impact, whether you realise it or not.

It can be really easy to say, well that was difficult but everything else in life was ok so I should be fine or other people have it worse so my issues don’t compare. It doesn’t matter if others had it worse, someone else’s trauma doesn’t negate yours.

The loss of your father from your life still impacted you negatively - you no doubt were confused, sad, angry and felt rejected, perhaps thinking you could have done something to make him stay. No matter how much your mother or grandmother loved and cared for you they couldn’t fully repair the damage caused by what your father did. As an adult you can logically reason that he made a bad choice, that he’s not a bad person, he was brainwashed and that it wasn’t about you but the damage done when you were a child is still there. I think fact you still want to save him is the child part of your brain wanting to be loved, to be wanted, to be his priority. I’m not trying to sound all woo woo about this but dealing with your inner child’s trauma will help you move forward. Your 7yr old self needs to know it wasn’t her fault, that she is safe and that her father did love her but he made poor choices. For what it’s worth I think most people would consider losing a parent to a cult quite traumatic, it’s potentially not far from the death of a parent in terms of impact but in some ways it’s almost worst as your father chose to leave your life.

I have used EMDR personally and found it very helpful in tackling anxiety and managing familial relationships in a way that is less harmful to me.

If he died, it would be a relief, as I would not feel the responsibility/hope of eventually being able to free him from manipulation of his group. It wouldn't be an ambiguous loss, but one with finality.

As it is, I see it similar to having a father who is in the midst of active addiction, that he needs to take the first step and recognize there's a problem. Until then, there's nothing that can be done.

But there's no finality as long as he's alive, if that makes sense.

He tried to drag his aunt and uncle and cousins in too, but it didn't work with them either.

He also tried to do it to his father, who is blind from glaucoma and stopped calling him after he realized he wouldn't join.

How to know what parts of this are really him and which is conditioning by the "church"?

Half my genes are from him and I don't want to become what he is.

Its not an illness though, or something involuntary. People choose cults because something in them appeals. Misogyny, anxiety, paranoia, xenophobia, submission, channelled aggression (aggressive tendencies aimed at outsiders, enemies, family members). He won’t accept deprogramming because he likes where he is at.

@Kate8889 that makes complete sense which is why you need to allow yourself to let him go, to free yourself from limbo. Accept he’s not coming back. Think of the day he left as the day the person he was died, the man who exists now is not your father and unfortunately never can be. Give yourself permission to be free of him and from torturing yourself with unfounded hope and what ifs. It’s not easy but you need to do this for yourself.

You are not him, you have seen the pain and destruction he has caused to you and your family through his actions. You are not doomed to repeat his mistakes, you are your own person, genetics only make up a small part of who we are as people. If anything this experience will ensure you don’t do something like he did because you saw the fall out.

I think the bigger isdue is this sense that he is “half your genes.” That’s technically true but another way of looking atbit is that hecwas just a pass through for an X chromosome from his own mother (your grandmother). Or think to yourself that he contributed to your makeup up until abandonment but that your cells have grown and divided and died many times since then. You are very much the author of your own fate. Not this drive by dad.

That's almost worse though because then it's a conscious choice to leave his child and wife to struggle while he pursues what he sees as lofty, Godly goals.