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 Justlin.
This article is spot on. It made me so emotional, I had just typed a two page, single spaced response explaining my relationship with my dad. I saved that for my online journal but wanted to share with you the way it feels to have your dad growing up and then he fades away. When I graduated my dad started doing drugs after being clean for 12 years, him and my mom separated, she moved to NC and he got more and more distant. I graduated high school in 2003 and went to live on campus 4 hours away from him at 16 years old before moving on my own in Atlanta in 2007. It began as a call here and there, I would visit when I was in town, things like that. 12 years later he forgot to even send my I love you text on my birthday.
My mom is close with my sister and my brother because they’ve been in the same city with her the whole time. My older sister is still living at home with her son and my not so lil brother lived there until he was 23. I actually came to live with my Mom first before settling down in NC and was kicked out officially by the 7th month. My mom bought a house with only two bedrooms, I don’t think she ever thought I would be coming back. I lived on my own for 12 years, no parents or anyone to answer to so I take majority of the blame. I had just left everything behind in Atlanta and was sleeping on my mother’s couch. It was a major adjustment for me and it got ugly towards the end with my mom saying somethings I am 88% sure she didn’t mean. My mom and I are just incompatible, I have a lot of resentment towards her because I’ve always felt like an outcast with them even as a kid. She was always hard on me about everything. I was too smart, too curious, too mouthy, not pink enough, etc (usual middle child stuff) and even on my best day my relationship with my mom is strained and feels phony.
With my dad it’s different. I’ve always felt my daddy loved me no matter what. Growing up it was like he saw me, my flaws, and my strengths and decided he was cool with that until one day he wasn’t any more. So he left me alone with people who didn’t even like me. This is the root of all my insecurities and ticks, people could leave you all alone, you’ll be depending on them and loving on them but they will just be gone. No matter what you do or say, people can decide they don’t want to be with you anymore and you just suppose to act like your world always existed without them. But the reality is I need my dad, I don’t know what for since I am one year shy of 30 now but its a feeling I can’t explain every time I see his name or my brother does something that is so like my Daddy that it makes me want to call him.
