Dear Hannah:

I am glad you returned to your thread with an update.

Regarding your father: if you have a relationship with him again your anger will increase, I believe. That is because in reality he has been abusive toward you and is likely to continue. Even if he is no longer abusive, his past abuse is something he will need to talk to you about, to acknowledge and to sincerely apologize to you, sincerely regretting. Will he do that? If not, being n contact with him will reduce the chances that you forgive him, that is, no longer feeling anger toward him.

Without contact with your father, there is a chance of your anger toward him subsiding.  And so, I do think that “forgiving him in (your) heart (is) enough”.

You wrote at the beginning of your recent post: “I tis almost as if the pain will be worse if I have to verbalise it to explain why I am crying”- it is not that the pain will be worse, it is that you will be more aware of your pain if you verbalize it. The goal of you looking at social media accounts is to distract yourself from awareness of your pain, I believe. We people do a lot of things to remove our awareness of our pain. Many of those distractions, from overeating to drugs to other addictions, damage us in the long run, but temporarily they serve to remove or suspend our awareness of the pain.

I hope you continue counseling and over time allow that pain into your awareness, gradually. That is healing.

anita