Hello Sarah, I have found your article very interesting and I …

Comment on So you grew up with a dad who didn’t know how to express love? Here’s how it could be affecting you today by Gabby.

Hello Sarah,

I have found your article very interesting and I feel that in a way it hit home, at one point it even brought me to tears. I am 22 years old, at university abroad from where my parents live.

When I was a young girl, my father and I were really close and I was always very fond of him. He spent a lot of time with me, was very kind and attentive – we would go on bike trips, hike, play music together etc. However, he would lose his temper quite suddenly and turn from the most perfect dad to a tyrant, who orders everyone around and throws objects in anger. He never hit me, but I always heard him telling my mom how she does too much for me and that I would never become independent and will grow into a lazy selfish child. These episodes of him being very loving and then suddenly very cold and angry made me feel slightly uneasy, but he still meant the world to me.

When I was about 13 years old, my little sister was born and my whole life turned upside down. I wasn’t happy at the news, but my parents told me that nothing would change and we would still have the same bond and love. Still, I wasn’t looking forward to her birth, avoided being with my pregnant mom in public and would even refuse to look at the baby scans. This coincided with me starting a completely new school, where at first I struggled to adapt. During that time my father repeatedly told me I wasn’t helping enough around the house and caring for my mom properly. Unfortunately days after my sister was born, she became very ill. My parents spent a month at the hospital, so I was sent to live with my uncle in a small village in the middle of nowhere. I spent a month away from school (where I only just managed to make new friends) and my parents, rarely spoke to anyone at all (my uncle is a very quiet person). When my sister recovered, I was very hopeful that things would finally get better but they never did and since then I felt pushed away.

My mom went through post-natal depression and seemed totally lost, my father was struggling with his business and spent long hours at work. The house was filled with arguing, my sister being the centre of everyone’s attention. I often felt like they were taking things out on me, expecting me to fix their problems. As a 13-16 year old, my dad constantly was unhappy with the level of my engagement in the family life, said I didn’t help enough or take care of my sister and that I was an egoist. He’d always make me feel guilty for not being there, shouted at me and slammed doors. I went to a very demanding school and disciplined myself to get good grades, as I thought that would be the way I can please my dad and make him proud, or just a way for him to notice some positives about me. My parents were never engaged in helping me with homework because I was very bright, so they got used to me getting good grades and crossed it off the things they had to worry about. I paid the bills and helped my father because “my mother couldn’t handle it” and so felt the weight of responsibility on my young shoulders.

There were good moments and bad moments, but as I grew older things never changed. My dad would still make me feel like I wasn’t doing enough and was selfish, so I started to withdraw myself from the family life using homework as an excuse. I struggled with weight and became very self-conscious and withdrawn at school, but my parents were never aware of that because my sister was a very demanding child, so I just blended in the background.

The moments I spent with my dad listening to music or going places were very rare but I made sure to tell everyone about it. I always was very proud of him and used him as my role model – even though it was a very unstable relation I idealised him in my head and blamed myself for the negative parts of our family life. He provided me with anything I needed and then was really encouraging and supportive in choosing higher education, and paid for me to go to university abroad. He would still often flip and become verbally abusive and at that point said he couldn’t change me for the better because I was too old, but I always told myself he was a good father and I wasn’t grateful enough.

Our relationship now is good on the surface but I feel like there is a lot underneath it all. I would say it is a love-hate relationship where I am often scared of his reactions. It feels like he is Dr Jekyll and Mr Hide, and you never know which one he is on a certain day. Whenever we get into a hard situation when I’m at home, it’s emotionally draining, we drag out problems from the past. There is a lot more to it, but I feel like this is affecting my life in a big way. I have been on antidepressants for over a year, struggled with self-esteem and have never been in a relationship with a guy. Any men I meet, I push away and never let anyone get past the friendship level. I seek love and romance and constantly think about it but I feel extremely scared of it, too, so I try to focus on education and work. My friends buy presents for their boyfriends and I only talk about my dad.

Could the relation I have with my dad be the reason why I am struggling with adulthood? I am completely lost and don’t know what to do, I have spoken to my dad about my feelings during my growing up and think he slowly realises things weren’t perfect, but how could we fix it now? Is it too late?