CalamityJane wrote:Yes, indifferent wasn't the right word, as we are never indifferent when
it comes to our parents, no matter how badly we're treated.
I think, deep down you've known that you weren't helpful enough
(in a way you were with your mother) because of your father's inabilities
to be a loving father - you just have to learn to accept it, which means
you're too hard on yourself.
Perhaps, the more you learn about him, the more forgiving you'll become
towards yourself.
You know...this is resonating and here's how:
In my normal relationships, I am happy to help, and I do not get overwhelmed (generally, and if I do, it is because someone is being overwhelming, or because some other dynamic is operating)...because the focus is on THEM, and their needs. Sure, there is that ego stuff about feeling good if you can help and all that, but basically I am focussed on them.
I think with my dad, he (unwittingly) set up a relationship where he projected a lot of his **** onto me, and eventually I took that stuff on myself (that's called projective identification).
I knew this was ****, and I struggled to escape it, while still being trapped in it, and having a lot of feelings that were my father's, not mine.
Also, at base I find my reluctance to help him kind of narcissistic...you know, here is an old, miserable man who is frail and needy, and I am thinking all the time about myself...how his neediness scares me etc. Looked at logically, the worst was only gonna last a couple of years...but I felt like he would swallow me and drag me down into his world. As if he could by then! And I am very clear about hIS narcissism, which when I am with him, triggers mine especially badly.
The obsessive guilt stuff is HIS (though I have caught more than my share from him, sadly for both of us) ....and look how I couldn't react to the genuine need he had because I had to protect myself so much from his putting those needs onto me when I was way too small. Which he could not really do by the time he was old, but I still felt as if he could.
The narcissistic, overblown sense of responsibility is more his than mine, too...though I have my share of that, too.
And the blame is his.....he was blaming me for not looking after him well enough when mum died, right on his deathbed! When I was trying to do the stuff to help him let go...you know, you've been a good father, what are the things you have done in your life that you look back on with the most happiness/sense of achievement etc.
His answer to that question was a dig at me, too...which was kind of funny (he stayed true to himself!!!).....I work for the public sector, and, bless him, his pinnacle of pride was that he had never stooped so low as to work for the public sector...followed by that little fake gasp, and covering of your mouth thing you do when you want to pretend you didn't mean to say something.
Bless him..thing is, I was kind of gob smacked by his reply, so I said "What?"...and he did the whole thing again, complete with fake gasp!
It saddened me rather...you hope you may be beyond wanting to hurt others when you are in extremis...but he wasn't. The words were funny...the intent wasn't. The intent was sad and mean.
This is all so much psychobabble right now, but I will let it simmer under the surface and see what bobs up......
