Dear Lily:

You are welcome.

I am glad you have a good friend and I agree with you, that attempting a relationship with a man is not a good idea for you, not anytime soon.

Notice this: as an adult, maybe starting as a teenager, you are able to figure out that your parents w ere overwhelmed, that they didn’t know how to be parents, that your father wants to appear strong but isn’t, that he is insecure, and that your father projecting what he doesn’t like about himself into you.

But as a young child, you didn’t think these things. What you experienced as a younger child is what  was  most powerful in the way  you now think, feel and behave. For example, as a young child, you didn’t see him as  one who “wants to appear strong”, but as Strong, the strongest!)

Young Lily saw him as Authority- what he said, what he expressed to young Lily was The Truth.

When he looked at you with disgust in his face (I believe you shared that, but I don’t have a quote from you stating this), what that communicated to you was that Authority says that there is something very wrong with you. When he expressed to you that he  disliked you, it meant that Authority says you are  not likeable. When he expressed anger at you,  it meant you did something wrong, or that you were something  wrong.

It is what he communicated to you when you were too young to evaluate what  he said, before you read anything about psychology, that formed your core  beliefs.

Unfortunately for you, as it was  for me, Authority was a messed up person, not at all qualified to be authority on who you are, not at all. Problem is, a young child doesn’t know it yet, and  core beliefs, often very incorrect, are formed before a child is able to  see  her parents as anything less than the ultimate Authority.

anita