I have also been thinking a lot about my father and his role. I think I ?was? quite shocked by how complicit he was in keeping me down and making me feel bad about myself.
I often wonder whether he was projecting feelings bout himself or about how he felt about his sister onto me.
I too saw my father (once upon a time) as the hero of the piece. Recently though I have had memories of my dad coming back. Strange things like little sayings of his. Once I saw them as harmless and as Sakura and Pinky mentioned, I would laugh along with them.
But now I see them as quite toxic. For example my dad used to say; ?Do you know what is between here and here pointing to my ears?
Then he?d say ?scotch mist?. ?then?.
?Do you know what Scotch mist is??
?Nothing? cue laughter.
I did used to laugh, I did find it funny, or so I thought. I realise now though I would never dream of saying this sort of thing to my own children. So was it ok to say to me as child?
When my husband rang my dad to ask for my hand, I thought my dad would be pleased that my DH had made the effort to ask him in a traditional sense showing the strength of his feelings toward me.
His reply to DH was ?Are you mad, do you know what you are taking on?? cue laughter.
There is so much buried stuff about my father. But I just don?t have the time now because I know it is a huge and painful task delving into it all. Although part of me does want to.
If detachment ?is? the holy grail then I am no where near that point when it comes to my father.
Sakura What you wrote about seeing yourself through your father?s eyes.
I realise that applies to me and I wondered if this applied to all women.
That is why a father is so important because a father interprets your view of yourself and your place in the world ?.as a woman.
Roseability and PinkyM- I think you both mentioned a feeling of unease about your fathers.
??Dare I say that I almost find him a bit pervy sometimes? I can't put my finger on it and I am not saying he ever sexually abused me but he creeps me out sometimes?
I don?t feel like this about my father (as such, but there is stuff which makes me uneasy about him) but I do/did about my GF. Everyone loves my GF. He is so much fun so entertaining, but I see how he has clearly been such a damaging influence to his own children. My GF would mock me if he was being inappropriate but I didn?t humor him by joining in or laughing. He would imply I was stuck up.
I believed he was right at the time. But now I just think, no, he ?was being? inappropriate. I was his GD FGS.
As for my father, there are things now that do make me feel uneasy. He would stare at me. He had this vacant stare and I would smile at him but he wasn?t seeing me. It turns my stomach when I think about it now.
He was also clearly enraged by me becoming a woman, and got very abusive if there was even a sniff of a boy in the vicinity. I was not allowed to date until I was 17!
Something else that troubles me is he went through a stage of wanting to wrestle with me. I must have been entering my teens I think. 10/11ish. Sometimes he would just lay on top of me and I couldn?t breathe or get out. I remember feeling a bit panicked at times. He?d say that he liked to see my determination and will. That, that was what I needed to survive.
For my part I guess I would just go along with it because I was getting his attention, and secondly if I had to be physically strong and aggressive to win his approval then that's waht I should do.
Then again I wonder if I am making something out of nothing?
It may not have been sexual, Im not saying it definately was or wasnt. In fact I dont think it was because I do think that a lot of what drives my father is feeling more powerful than a woman.
Having the power physically and finacially to keep a woman in her place, because deep down he feels 'less than'. His parents made him feel 'so' much less than his sister.
Ironically he married a woman who bellittled him and undermined him, and destroyed further the little self esteem he had.
AN- Very interesting what you wrote. Two things struck me.
Firstly how awful the birth was with your dd and how much it has affected you.
Did you ver talk about the birth straight after it happened with anyone?
It sounds 'so' traumatic. Describing yourself standing 'soaked in blood' in order to get to your dd, and the feelings of slipping away.
It makes me feel sad as well because it is so much the converse of my mother who said she could not get out of bed for a week to see me. So I stayed by myself in an incubator.
I know that is where that drive comes from. My birth with ds wasnt as traumatic as yours but despite needing a wheelchair to get down to the SBU I was determined to go. I couldnt bare to think of him feeling abandoned. That was more unbearable to me than any physical pain.
I wonder if you yourself have acknowledged the trauma of all of this? Acknowledged what you really went through.
With regard to your fear, I also wondered wether you felt panic as a driver or a passenger or both, but I also wonderd if there was any relation to control and prtotection. I probably shouldnt say anything else as Im guessing part of the process is for you to come to you own conclusions.