A clarification of the previous post
Someone asked me a question in email about my previous post, and I realized that I had not perhaps been clear enough about how my father’s necessary absences affected me.
( An expansion and clarification )
( An expansion and clarification )
"10 things you should never say to your kids". My first post got kicked out as spam because of your settings so apparently a link marks it as spam(?). Part of why it's great is that it suggests alternatives that are more truthful and helpful ways of saying what we as a parent really intend.
I can really relate to trying to bring closure and seeking regret or apology as a way to heal a relationship with one's past and parents, and either causing them grief or running into them not even remembering the event that was so cataclismic in my development. When I was doing a research paper in a dysfunction family college class, I did it on families where there is someone who is chronically ill, which is the situation that I grew up in. When interviewing my mom for the paper she described the years she was sleepless listening for when my dad might stop breathing. and how everytime he left the house she'd fear she'd never see him again.
All while protecting us kids by not letting us know he wasn't expected to live. I was struck by the profound insight of how that had shaped me to be so irrationally anxious and at times distraught when my ex-husband wouldn't come home on time or wouldn't communicate what his plans were. It would be rational to be annoyed at the inconsideration but because I couldn't connect it to anything I couldn't explain myself to either him or myself. None of my siblings absorbed that reactions or understood mine either. It is very interesting.
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