Dear TeaK,

I cried when reading your reply because I was so happy that you understood my situation and felt a lot more heard. Thank you so much for taking the time to keep replying and reading my messages. I will reply, to things where questions were asked, or things that seem to need clarification.

“You started suffering from depression before your mother got sick, and it seems it wasn’t because of your mother, but because of your father (was it because he wasn’t around too much?) and because of your school friends.”

I think it was because I did not share the same connection with him as I did with my mother. I eventually thought it was my fault though, yet the lack of him around meant less time for bonding.

For example, I often missed out on father’s day because he was not there. When he was there (I am talking about kindergarten times) he did not seem as happy as my mum when giving him gifts and wishing him Happy Father’s Day.  Eventually, I grew to forget that day altogether; often not remembering what day of the year it is. Sometimes I sent him wishes when I remembered, but it did make me feel guilty because I always remembered mother’s day. I once expressed that to my parent when talking about my depression in Cuba, and individually to my dad. He replied that he does not care about such things. On many of those celebration days, he does not care about them in the sense that he finds the original meaning of the celebrations has been lost, and too much has been commercialized and romanticized.

When it comes to the connection between mother and child he taught me about how it is more natural to have such a strong bond between mother and child. The child literally spends 9 months in the womb of the mother, already forming a deep connection there. I am starting to think I also learned rationalizing from my dad.

Also, I was determined to make my parents proud since grade 1. My dad rarely expresses his praise for us kids to us kids. He does show us how to improve, which was often. It felt like being compared often to others and I was still waiting for the praise. There are times I remember crying because when I received help from him, it seemed like I was not fast enough to catch up to his thinking and the way he was carrying out himself seemed like he was angry at me. But with crying, I also noticed that it would upset him somehow, which made me feel like I hurt him. The same situation as described in your reply (“If I share my negative feelings – if I am authentic – I will hurt the people I love”). So I often tried to avoid needing his help with studies and hoping to be able to do things without his help. Around middle school, my mom no longer could intellectually help me much with school content, even before she got unwell.

Through it all though, the anger/disappointment/pain I had towards my dad I often expressed to my mum. Most of my feelings in regard to my dad were expressed, whether they were sad or happy ones. There are memories I have of him that show that he loves me, that he loves and cares for all of us a lot, but has tremendous difficulties expressing that to us directly.

Me being stubborn and keeping to try to form a stronger connection between us paid off in the end. I try to speak in his way of thinking; that is the languages of sciences. My dad knows a LOT in almost every single field. Much seems to come from his traveling and self-studies experiences and his thirst for knowledge thanks to his grandeur curiosity; I think I get my curiosty from him.

When I felt heard by my dad on father’s day this year (things have changed), we first talked about the storage of proteins and carbohydrates at advanced cellular and metabolic level. When he could see, that I understood what he was talking about, to such extent that there was little to no new information for me, he was more open to hearing me. I don’t think he is aware of this himself though. I slowly could incorporate my explanations about the way I think and how I have difficulties expressing my knowledge yet understand it. Then I could move on to talking about emotions; This is the only topic I think my dad is not good at unless he has to address such matters with people outside his family. I addressed that once to him and he agreed, that was the case and it has to do with how he grew up. When he shared that piece of information with me, that was already a big accomplishment sharing such vulnerability.

But my dad has been trying to improve throughout all years of my existence, just the category family and emotions are tricky for him, and change there takes more time. He learns from every experience. The amount of effort he put in trying to help me through when he saw I had an outbreak of emotions is amazing:

1. He does not like therapy much and would rather pay for single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) to be able to see directly which part of the brain is affected. This can help get the proper nutrition and mediation methods or relaxation methods a lot quicker and more effectively in his opinion. I would agree though, the SPECT scans do show some very promising results and seem to be able to aid a lot, especially along with therapy. Yet he paid for online counseling for an extended while without much further explanation of how something else could be better. He was in Indonesia and I was in Germany. This was around October 2020. He also went through several sites about HSP and SPECT scans from Dr. Amen together with me. He asked what things I resonated with so that he can get a clearer picture as well. It was from him, that I was introduced to HSP, and could inform myself better.
2. He would order vitamins and minerals and deliver them to the house because he knew I was too “dead” inside to do anything.
3. Constantly checked in to see whether I finally get my blood tested for vitamin D.
4. When he overheard me and my mum talking on the phone, and I was expressing “dark” thoughts like “it does not matter anyway what I do,” or “I no longer can keep going” he would send a blog article to me that was inspiring and included both emotions and a bit science. (That was a new change; to see more emotional support in the things he would send me).

Basically, yes, my first depression had more to do with my dad, but it was also complicated. And his lack of presence did not make things easier. BUT, he keeps changing and he loves us all, he simply has a very hard time expressing that to us directly. Often he expresses it in different forms, which take getting used to as it was quite different from how my mum expresses love. It was also thanks to other people that could clarify more of my dad’s behavior. How I came to the opportunity to have these conversations was like fate, since they kind of came unexpectedly.

“I wonder if you started rationalizing only after your mother got sick”

I think it came before that already. I learned it from her. She would also rationalize, and be compassionate and understanding of others.  This was also seen early on with kinship. When she was in the position to help she would help a lot. As a child, it seemed like my mum was helping a lot more than receiving. Sometimes, she would also spend a lot of time with my cousin. I was still in primary school and was not so much aware of exactly what wounds each other family members held. I once got jealous of my cousin because it seemed like my mum was forgetting me. I shared that with my mum and she was understanding of my emotion and promised me that we would spend time together, just the two of us. She also taught me that at the moment my cousin really needed someone too and because we live in different cities (eventually different countries) we only had vacation time to do things with my cousin. That made sense.

“Perhaps you did blame your father for causing those moves to happen, or for not being home too much?”

I don’t think I blamed my dad for the moves. In fact, I was always excited when getting to explore a new environment. It was like an adventure. Maybe because I made happy memories usually upon moving into a new place, city, or country. I would even say I am more affected by reverse culture shock than culture shock, sometimes even wondering whether I experience culture shock.

“However, it could be that the core of that belief is related to your family and that you couldn’t really be authentic with them.”

That could be the case.

“I see how the trauma accumulated over time, and how it was difficult for you to even be angry at anybody, because no one did anything wrong, and yet you suffered, and your needs weren’t met – due to the “circumstances”.”

Yes. I think that describes my situation very well.

It would be nice if you could wait for the reply until I replied to anita’s new message.

Kibou