Joshua Jackson Believes His Absent Dad Helped Him Become the Man He Is Today

[shangri__la]

Joshua Jackson opens up about being the dad he never had to his little girl 💗 Check out his full interview: https://t.co/eOz3g6UVjt pic.twitter.com/xd73Z7y2u3
- The Kelly Clarkson Show (@KellyClarksonTV) May 3, 2023

The whole interviewOn today's session of celebrity therapy, Joshua Jackson talks to Kelly Clarkson about how his absent father

Comments

[photogpab]

my dad wasn't absent, but he showed me who NOT to be! It for sure shaped me into the man I am today. I was like ok be the opposite of that guy.

[senshi_forever]

I am who I am precisely because I wanted to be the opposite of my parents. I'm still lacking in a lot of ways, but there are so many decisions I made with that in mind to I'm grateful for.

[photogpab]

yep. i sometimes catch myself about to do something they would have done, but thankfully I have grown and learned over time to stop myself like 99.99% of the time, and immediately correct course lol! but yeah my life motto is "opposite of them".

[waffletaco]

he looks so soft

[epiphany_maria]

I can recall JJ talking about how the father swanned off and left them broke. So he had to be the breadwinner from age 13 while the dad and his do over family lived it up.

[anterrabre]

Damn, his daddy ain't shit. Sometimes things don't work out, but how can you leave your former family destitute? That's just...

[thatcovergirl]

You hear what Brian McKnigt did?

[anterrabre]

No...tell me!

[teenageriot16]

gather round ONTD, it's oversharing time

[yankeesarelove]

I'm in your boat sort of- my parents divorced when I was 11 and I saw my dad like three times after that and he eventually passed away 10 years later. but growing up, I never thought that it was super harmful to me or my mental health until I grew up and got a therapist and was like, whoaaa he actually really did mess me up in so many areas of my life.

so TLDR- easier to deal with a crappy parent when you're a kid, until you grow up and realize the actual impact that had and you need years of therapy to sort through it.

[nelisce]

Oh wow, I relate to this a lot. My parents got divorced when I was 12 and I also saw my father just a handful of times after that. Not because he passed away, just because there didn't seem to be any particular interest on either side to keep the relationship going. The few times I did see him he was always more interested in talking about his own life or making subtle digs about my mother, so eventually I just broke off the contact completely since I didn't see the point.

And like you I also never thought that I was affected by it when I was younger (even though I struggled with depression on and off since I was 14). In fact, when my mother first told me that she was divorcing my father I wasn't upset about it since I was always much closer to her anyway. It's only in the past couple of years that I started to realize that some of my mental health issues may be related to him

[yankeesarelove]

im very sorry you went through that- absence can affect as much as constant proximity and that was a really hard thing to grasp/realize the ramifications of!

[lurkurheartout]

I can understand that. My brother’s dad wanted nothing to do with him. Now my brother has a kid and my nephew is the luckiest kid in the world to have a dad that loves him so much. They do everything together. My brother gets to have moments he never got with his own dad, and he said those things were so healing. I’m so happy for my big bro because if anyone deserved happiness it’s him 🥹