My father’s sensitivity

Sadly a lot of sensitive children of my fathers generation (1920s) were often either brutalised or shamed for sensitivity and got little in the way of learning how to handle emotions. Awarenees of this issue is rising up in me as I see the deeper meaning behind why my Dad kept up such distance and would silently try to get my mother to at least show some empathy to me behind my back..so when he died in 1985 it was devastating.

However having to go it alone himself and as the oldest child with no father and carry the burden in a family then besieged by the outbreak of Nazism close to Holland his young life must have been so tough. So much compassion for him has been coming up for me since my brother finally heard my distress on Tuesday and took some action to sort my trust allowance.

Often I feel shame for needing to rely on this. I was shamed by my oldest nephew for it a few years ago when he found out I was helping Scott. But now I see there was a deeper issue with my Dad. Strange to say listening to that song by Franki Valli My Eyes Adored You I am seeing it as reflecting something very deep on an emotional distance level with my Dad and I the echoes of which have affected every single relationship with partners since. Today listening to the song it all came together as I also felt the difficult affects of how harshly I was treated following my accident.

The next year I was to start college but things got even more traumatic following my sister Judiths cerebral bleed. What happened in the following years in terms of her abandonment and psychosis also pushed my brother and his family away..Dad dying marking the final cut. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my brothers grief manifesting as ‘forgetting’ detachment avoidance and excuses as well as retreats into rationality and shaming or dismissing emotions. That said on Tuesday when I broke down he handled it and got active to help..but with money. He needs emotional distance from my sister and I my niece told me he told her this some years ago.

So much forgiveness has been flooding in around my Dad lately listening to that song. Dad did adore me as a baby even though so often I was told I was a mistake. They were older parents then and not willing to sacrifice much to be emotionally present..though I am sure they tried their best. An earlier therapist called what I suffered benign neglect but they invaded and traumatised and over stimulated my young body too.

Lately in therapy sessions I’ve been stripping off tight clothes and my wrist watch as the flooding manifests with we shaking and swirling and screaming at them to get off me. This happened literally too in a session with an earlier body work therapist. She just said to me..’you can leave’ but I went to the chair and just cried and cried while she glowered at me. That therapy failed in about 2012.

Luckily my current therapist Kat does not intervene physically….she validates, attuned, mirrors, feeds back her impressions and I feel held. Thank God for Kat..so many earlier therapies failed and I now see THOSE FAILURES WERE THEIRS NOT MINE!!!!!

And today I could cry for my Dad and that absent solar light a living father can shine in a daughter’s soul to help her feel valued, special and able to blossom. Dad couldn’t do a lot of that..maybe if he had lived on and Ai learned never to expect or look for it. Yes, in the end we do have to learn to be self validating but we need this light and love and affection. Possibly my Dad felt it but found it I.possible to physically demonstrate due to his own limits. He was just a human being doing his very best…but certain wounds cut deep. They really really did.