My father, the emotional blackhole

I've been struggling to write this post (and it's not only because my shift keys refuse to work consistently). A powerful insight hit me while I was reading Fear of Intimacy. My first impulse was to get my thinking down here before it left me. Maybe I could deepen it a bit in the process of just getting it out of my head. (I question why I feel compelled to write about these very personal insights in such a public, albeit not widely read, venue. I just need to get some of this stuff out of my head. If I write it here, I'll be able to find it later.) I avoided writing the post because I don't really know how to approach the subject. I keep avoiding the real subject matter. It's painful. I've certainly dug up an important piece of my self-perception.

A couple of years ago, I went to my mom's house over Memorial Day weekend. My aunt and uncle were there, my brother would be there, I knew that before I left my house that morning. When I was about 10 minutes from my mom's driveway, she called me to let my know my dad was there too. I hadn't seen him in years. I don't think I've seen him since. The visit was horrible. I felt nothing but disgust when I was around my dad. All I could see was how weak and ineffectual he was. He was intimidated by my kids, afraid to interact with them, to talk to them, to see that my mom's husband was their real grandfather. I was happy to see him go. He sucks the joy and pleasure out of everything he touches.

I hate my dad. I don't think I've ever expressed it in quite that way until this moment, but that's how I feel. I hate him because he has never loved me. Not once, in my entire life, have I ever felt that my dad loved me for who I am. I've never been enough for him. No matter what I did, he couldn't find it in himself to show me any affection. I've just been there, an obligation and a burden. I have a constant sense that I'm not enough in my personal relationships. I can't help but think that I don't feel like I'm not enough because I was never enough for my father. If my own father couldn't love me, why would anybody else care about me? If I couldn't earn his affection, why would anybody else want to have anything to do with me?

This was my big insight tonight. That my life long sense of inadequacy is likely rooted in the fact that my dad rejected me over and over again throughout my youth. I rarely talk to him now. Tomorrow is my birthday. I may hear from him. He might send me a text. I'd be shocked if he called. Of course I want him to reach out to me tomorrow. As much as I dislike him, I still want his approval. I've been spending my life hoping that other people would give me their approval as some kind of replacement for the absence of my dad's acceptance of me for me. 

That way I described how I feel about my dad a few paragraphs ago, in many ways that's how I feel about myself. I know I'm not my father, but his imprint on my emotional being is very deep. How could a disinterested and neglectful father have any other impact on me? It pisses me off that somebody who I hold in such low regard has had such a profound impact on my life. My other parent has made her contribution, but my dad's disinterest set the stage. I was primed to think that I wasn't enough for other people by my father. I need to get out from under this burden. I have plenty of evidence that I'm not inadequate. That plenty of people accept me for me. I need to focus on that and get over this vestige of my childhood. That's the past. I don't need that armor anymore. It didn't really work all that well to begin with.