Dear Dafne,

good to hear from you again, and thank you again for your kindness and care. I haven’t figured out how to use emoticons on this website, but I enjoy seeing yours 🙂

The spring has come, but unfortunately my health took a turn for the worse again, with my back pain intensifying for no apparent reason. I hope it’s just a phase and will get better soon…

I am glad you liked the video about narcissistic people and pets.

Not many people are aware of that dynamic and generalise (just like me before) that all dog lovers are good people to everybody.

I can imagine it was confusing for you to see your father love and care for his dogs so much, and at the same time be so cold towards you. And I can imagine it made you conclude that he must be a good person, and that something is wrong with you.

Narcissistic people can also pretend very well to the outside world how loving and caring they are, whereas be extremely cold and abusive with their immediate family. They are very good at maintaining the fake image of themselves, and so if you would to complain to a say a friend of yours about your father, they might not understand what you are talking about, because they see your father as a good person. Did you have experiences like that – that other people don’t agree with how you see your father (if you ever spoke to anyone about it?)

At least now thanks to you, I know that it’s not true & I should never find excuses for his behaviour. And also not to blame myself all the time.

I am glad you’ve realized this and have a more clear view of him, and will not tolerating his abuse any more. This is a huge progress, Dafne, and I think a major milestone in your healing!

I was quite sensitive and shy as a small girl so there was no way for me to express myself freely. I had to be quite and hide in my room to avoid the conflict & the constant fights.

Maybe my personality as a child contributed to the fact that I can’t cope with life or romantic relationships in my adult life?

I know that some children were more stronger than me (especially those with siblings) and kept going, married early and broke contact with their abusive family members. I wasn’t that strong & I was always afraid to hurt them & say or do something wrong.

Every child is negatively affected by parental abuse and neglect, but we react differently. Some children feel stronger and they decide in themselves not to need love, and go through life emotionally closed and fearing emotional intimacy. They may appear strong and independent, but deep within, they are hurting, only it’s hard for them to admit. This attachment style is called avoidant attachment – these people avoid emotional intimacy and sometimes avoid relationships altogether, because they are afraid of being hurt (like they were hurt with their parents).

Other children, like you and myself, feel weaker, and they crave someone to take care of them, to give them the love and care they didn’t get as children. These people tend to be more clingy and expect their partner to be a surrogate parent in a way. That attachment style is called anxious attachment.

So if someone appears strong, it doesn’t necessarily mean they are healed, or that they haven’t been negatively affected by their childhood. Rather, it might be a defense mechanism. But it can also be that those people did heal, and realized they don’t want to endure abuse, and so they distanced themselves or even cut contact entirely with their abusive family members.

It was hard to be a child. I never spoke about my childhood with my potential dates as I could scare them away & also did not want to talk negatively about my family.

I imagine one reason why it was hard for you to talk negatively about your family (specially about your father), is that he was actually gaslighting you and telling you that your soul chose him to be your father and thus, he has no responsibility whatsoever for his behavior. That was a very serious spiritual gaslighting, intended to wash responsibility from himself and put all the blame on you. So he was confusing you and manipulating you, and you took the blame on yourself.

But maybe you’re right that one day, with the right person it could still be possible to share. For the moment I’m not ready to do that…

Yes, you don’t need to share it immediately, specially not with a potential romantic interest. But do you have a friend or relative, with whom you could share about your father? Or they wouldn’t be able to understand?

This life is not an easy journey and being emotional doesn’t always help us.

No, it’s not, and it’s a hard lesson to learn… But we need to keep on keeping on…. towards more and more healing!

Love and a big hug to you <3