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Another letter from father!-- not opening this one!
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<blockquote data-quote="BackintheSaddle" data-source="post: 621916" data-attributes="member: 17503"><p>Thanks everyone for your responses and great advice and support...the week got better and I actually got to see difficult child this week!...haven't laid eyes on him since mid-January and he called Wed to ask if he could come by and pick up some of his things. I worried that my father was putting him up to something or it would somehow not be good but I couldn't help myself, I waited outside until I saw him drive up. God, it was good to see him! I asked my husband to come out and say hello and make it a 'nice' encounter if he felt like he could. I ran up to difficult child and hugged him, he had his girlfriend with him and she was friendly too. It was a fine 10 minutes and husband came out and hugged him too! That was major-- like Cedar says, husband has hated to watch me go through all this and that's what's happened to him, I think...the powerlessness of his position to 'fix' things is overwhelming...difficult child's face lit up when Dad came out to hug him...that meant more to him than seeing me I'm sure...it was a pleasant visit, short, sweet, I don't think my father even knew about it (maybe?), and I made sure difficult child left knowing that we hoped he'd come see us more, we didn't mean for him to think we never wanted to se him again...haven't heard from him since but it's amazing how seeing him made me feel so much better...</p><p></p><p>It was interesting though, one of his big issues is depression and I listed out for him all the symptoms I was observing in him in November when he seemed to be taking a turn for the worst and I made him go see psychiatrist...one big one is that he never bathes...he MIGHT take a shower 2 times a week and he works at a car wash-- so he gets sweaty and would come home and be very stinky for days...one of the things my father kept saying in his letters was how wrong I was about all his symptoms because he was bathing every day, had friends, and so on....but when he came Wed, same thing...was visibly unkempt looking and stunk...the same smell of someone just not taking care of themselves...I guess my parents don't notice?</p><p></p><p>and my mother...well, that's a long story but she's from a very mentally ill family, her mother was put in psychiatric hospital when mother was 4yo and never came home again...my mother is borderline personality disorder and takes my father's abuse but is also cruel and manipulative in ways he's never been..I've had more and bigger conflicts with her over the years and resolved a lot of those feelings as best I could but honestly still idolized my father, saw him as the one trying to keep peace, but in hindsight, now that I see more clearly, he was always at the center of the bad memories I have...he's type of manipulation is less obvious than hers and more effective for that reason...I don't know how I came out of that family intact-- I do have clinical depression, have been on medications for years but also been in therapy a lot of years to process all this dysfunction as I can....</p><p></p><p>my kitchen is almost done by the way!!! hoping to finish it tomorrow...and the next project is my hen house! we're getting into the chicken raising world...we've had 1 hen who's adopted us the past year (from across the street) and I've got 12 eggs in an incubator that I'm hoping to get her to start sitting on in the near future...we have plans for our coop and much of it about ready (our hen lives in the horse barn now), just need some good days of weather...here's hoping for spring soon!...hope everyone is finding peace this week and weekend!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="BackintheSaddle, post: 621916, member: 17503"] Thanks everyone for your responses and great advice and support...the week got better and I actually got to see difficult child this week!...haven't laid eyes on him since mid-January and he called Wed to ask if he could come by and pick up some of his things. I worried that my father was putting him up to something or it would somehow not be good but I couldn't help myself, I waited outside until I saw him drive up. God, it was good to see him! I asked my husband to come out and say hello and make it a 'nice' encounter if he felt like he could. I ran up to difficult child and hugged him, he had his girlfriend with him and she was friendly too. It was a fine 10 minutes and husband came out and hugged him too! That was major-- like Cedar says, husband has hated to watch me go through all this and that's what's happened to him, I think...the powerlessness of his position to 'fix' things is overwhelming...difficult child's face lit up when Dad came out to hug him...that meant more to him than seeing me I'm sure...it was a pleasant visit, short, sweet, I don't think my father even knew about it (maybe?), and I made sure difficult child left knowing that we hoped he'd come see us more, we didn't mean for him to think we never wanted to se him again...haven't heard from him since but it's amazing how seeing him made me feel so much better... It was interesting though, one of his big issues is depression and I listed out for him all the symptoms I was observing in him in November when he seemed to be taking a turn for the worst and I made him go see psychiatrist...one big one is that he never bathes...he MIGHT take a shower 2 times a week and he works at a car wash-- so he gets sweaty and would come home and be very stinky for days...one of the things my father kept saying in his letters was how wrong I was about all his symptoms because he was bathing every day, had friends, and so on....but when he came Wed, same thing...was visibly unkempt looking and stunk...the same smell of someone just not taking care of themselves...I guess my parents don't notice? and my mother...well, that's a long story but she's from a very mentally ill family, her mother was put in psychiatric hospital when mother was 4yo and never came home again...my mother is borderline personality disorder and takes my father's abuse but is also cruel and manipulative in ways he's never been..I've had more and bigger conflicts with her over the years and resolved a lot of those feelings as best I could but honestly still idolized my father, saw him as the one trying to keep peace, but in hindsight, now that I see more clearly, he was always at the center of the bad memories I have...he's type of manipulation is less obvious than hers and more effective for that reason...I don't know how I came out of that family intact-- I do have clinical depression, have been on medications for years but also been in therapy a lot of years to process all this dysfunction as I can.... my kitchen is almost done by the way!!! hoping to finish it tomorrow...and the next project is my hen house! we're getting into the chicken raising world...we've had 1 hen who's adopted us the past year (from across the street) and I've got 12 eggs in an incubator that I'm hoping to get her to start sitting on in the near future...we have plans for our coop and much of it about ready (our hen lives in the horse barn now), just need some good days of weather...here's hoping for spring soon!...hope everyone is finding peace this week and weekend! [/QUOTE]
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