Dear Anita,

“-answer:  re-associate with your feelings about your childhood experience with your father. Elaborated: a child stuck with a difficult, abusive parent dissociates best she can, pushing her distressing feelings as far down as she can, becoming minimally aware of them and therefore, minimally distressed.”

Do you think that I can re-associate and release my feelings about my childhood experiences with my father through art? When I read this I imagined needing an outlet for those feelings that I would be re-associating with, and possibly a blank canvas could be helpful for me. You know what is interesting, so I majored in Sociology, and a big portion of my college classes were also in the psychology department, for a while I thought I wanted to be a child therapist. Then when I moved to Arizona, feeling sort of trapped in that home with N and the roommate, I painted more than ever, some paintings that make more sense now than they did at the time. I have considered starting an art therapy class, I am not sure how to go about it or what qualification’s I would need, but it seems like I may be looping back to that idea.

“One way to do it is in talk therapy, expressing how you felt back then in the context of your interactions with your father; another way is to journal (you can journal here, on your thread).”

I appreciate this option to journal here 🙂

What comes to mind now is how I didn’t know how to talk to him or express myself to him. I often left conversations wondering how I gave in or upset with myself that I couldn’t express myself well enough. He also made me feel stupid and lazy quite often. I watched the show “friends” alot through my parents divorce, it brought me alot of comfort and meant more than a tv show to me. I would rewatch it A LOT, i’ve seen the series through probably near 100 times. I liked it on to watch, or in the background when I was alone. Anways, my dad would make fun of me for watching it, he would say “I can’t believe you like this show so much, Seinfield is way better comedy than this trash,” “watching tv during the day time! must be nice.” He made me question myself often, like my taste in clothing for example, I would wear something that was trendy and he would roll his eyes and kinda laugh (because all of these things were “jokes” to him, if I brought up now he would be like “wow I guess I just didn’t realize you were so sensitive”), he would laugh and be like “copying your friend “so and so” huh?” He would also always tell me I basically wasn’t special… He literally told me I didn’t have original thoughts. Like I would say something I thought was a good idea or think I started a trend or that people liked what I wore or something like that and he would laugh and just make fun of me for thinking I came up with it. My dad is a funny person, the way he phrases things gets laughs, he is very sarcastic and I do find him funny, actually sometimes I miss his sense of humor. But about half of his jokes are at the expense of someone else. My dad could be sweet, he would plan these elaborate gifts for my mom on mothers day and her birthday, he added a speaker system to her car one year and another he put a lunchbox of snacks in her car so she would remember to eat. He coordinated us making breakfast for her in bed every mothers day.

My mom would set up dinner dates between me and my dad cause she wanted us to have a relationship, one she didn’t she never met her real dad and had an amazing stepdad growing up. At those dinner dates, I remember feeling inspired by him, he should be a life coach with how he can inspire you to take on a lofty goal. But then I would feel like I wasn’t good enough if I didn’t follow through on our inspirational conversation goals.  I think my mom felt the same way, they would have budget goals and she would currently be inspired but then spend behind his back and I just remember him always being so confused whenever her or I didn’t follow through on this lofty goal. Always had to be my best infront of my dad I never have felt able to be vulnerable with him. Well then there was the year we lived together and we bonded over mutual disappointment in my mom. But his disappointment continued on after mine. I think he literally felt betrayed when I stayed with my mom for long periods.

with love,

Hatchling