Dear Kshitij:

You are welcome! I am thinking that your father projected his father (with whom he was very angry for many years) into you- not because you deserved his anger (not at all!), and not because your behaviors (and maybe even your looks) were more like his father than your siblings’, but because you were first-born. He has been holding his anger inside him probably since he was a child. When you were born- his first child– it was his first opportunity to express his long-held anger, to let it out, at a child that belonged to him (an easy target).

This is what abuse is about. my mother did the same to me, as I was too first born.

“One reason he acts differently towards my younger brother is because he probably sees himself in his personality, he finds a similarity“- excellent insight. For one, he didn’t project his father into them (this was your  “job”, unfortunately for you). If he expressed affection for them over the years, it means that yes, he probably projected himself into them.

“Now, when I live abroad away from home, he tries to get close to me and acts very cordially; but the more he tries the more I get repelled“- I too felt repelled by my mother over the years, because she did to me, in principle, what your father did to you.

“Since childhood I would use to ruminate over incidents of his unkind treatment and that happens even now when I think about a past situation or hypothesize about a future confrontation. It leads me to rage fits at times… back when I was a kid/teenager, there used to be times when I would be filled with rage, despair and frustration and I would cry myself to sleep“-I ruminated too, I was anxious too about the next time she’d rage at me, so I would ruminate about what I might have said or done wrong to bring about her next rage.

And I felt rage myself, rage at her, which I held inside.

I’ll answer your questions in the last paragraph, best I can, tomorrow morning (in about  14 hours from now).

anita