All I ever really wanted from my dad is for him to acknowledge that he had many more advantages in how his early life played out compared to mine: a much more kind, warm and caring mother than the woman he chose to be his wife and my mother. That he had the good fortune of physically developing earlier than I did, which facilitated his high school sports career and all the confidence-boosting things that came along with that. I on the other hand, developed much later, not until college, and though I had athletic talent, by the age of 14-16 I was still basically a child playing sports with men. Just this alone created the opposite effect w/r/t my own confidence. He married his high school sweetheart which was largely facilitated by the confidence he developed from this. I on the other hand did not have such luck and did not get a girlfriend until college. There are so many seemingly small forks in the road that completely differentiated our respective life trajectories and despite him always saying that I could have similar things and be similar to him, I knew this wasn’t so. I always compared myself to him and he would never step in to prevent me from thinking this way, even though he knew it was destructive to my self esteem. Maybe he got some sick satisfaction from having a first-born son who could never successfully eclipse him and his accomplishments.
He would never even admit to the fact that as a boomer he rode the wave of the greatest prosperity the world has ever seen. He considers everything he is and everything he accomplished a testament to his own hard work. Meanwhile all my struggles were due to a lack of hard work. Never did he acknowledge his role or the role of any externality whatsoever in any of my mistakes but he always made sure to take pride in my successes because naturally, these were evidence of his great parenting skills.
Man, unfortunately, you will never get any acknowledgment from your abusive parents. Never happens.but that just goes to show what they are. And you can take them as a negative example to avoid. Thank them for those lessons
I too cannot stand the new age logic that we attract bad things that happen to us.
It denies reality, like the numb person who cannot fathom the shit show they were thrust into.
But it's even more nefarious, like religion it gives you some preset reason why with a shiny wrapper.
That's why society loves to rag on welfare and rehab instead of understanding why people end up in these situations. But no, we don't have the money they say, but they have 100x of that more for wars and the military.
The way to mental and physical health is facing the truth good or bad and dealing with it instead of numbing it or making up fairy tales about reality.
It's a hard process but we push because we feel we need to.
Animals respond to their instincts (biological programming). It’s nobody’s “fault” but the programmers’. Then again, who are we to judge our programmers?
Are we not just programmed animals? Do we have any ultimate control of what happens in our lives, or does the programmer? We are just puppet cartoons in the dream of an impersonal supreme being having an unconscious dream to self amuse.
All I ever really wanted from my dad is for him to acknowledge that he had many more advantages in how his early life played out compared to mine: a much more kind, warm and caring mother than the woman he chose to be his wife and my mother. That he had the good fortune of physically developing earlier than I did, which facilitated his high school sports career and all the confidence-boosting things that came along with that. I on the other hand, developed much later, not until college, and though I had athletic talent, by the age of 14-16 I was still basically a child playing sports with men. Just this alone created the opposite effect w/r/t my own confidence. He married his high school sweetheart which was largely facilitated by the confidence he developed from this. I on the other hand did not have such luck and did not get a girlfriend until college. There are so many seemingly small forks in the road that completely differentiated our respective life trajectories and despite him always saying that I could have similar things and be similar to him, I knew this wasn’t so. I always compared myself to him and he would never step in to prevent me from thinking this way, even though he knew it was destructive to my self esteem. Maybe he got some sick satisfaction from having a first-born son who could never successfully eclipse him and his accomplishments.
He would never even admit to the fact that as a boomer he rode the wave of the greatest prosperity the world has ever seen. He considers everything he is and everything he accomplished a testament to his own hard work. Meanwhile all my struggles were due to a lack of hard work. Never did he acknowledge his role or the role of any externality whatsoever in any of my mistakes but he always made sure to take pride in my successes because naturally, these were evidence of his great parenting skills.
Man, unfortunately, you will never get any acknowledgment from your abusive parents. Never happens.but that just goes to show what they are. And you can take them as a negative example to avoid. Thank them for those lessons
I would say that most people have to find out who they are not, before they can know who they are.
Insightful.
Man you keep knockin it out of the park. Thanks again for all you do
Thank you, man. I’m sorry this relates to you. Trauma is real
I too cannot stand the new age logic that we attract bad things that happen to us.
It denies reality, like the numb person who cannot fathom the shit show they were thrust into.
But it's even more nefarious, like religion it gives you some preset reason why with a shiny wrapper.
That's why society loves to rag on welfare and rehab instead of understanding why people end up in these situations. But no, we don't have the money they say, but they have 100x of that more for wars and the military.
The way to mental and physical health is facing the truth good or bad and dealing with it instead of numbing it or making up fairy tales about reality.
It's a hard process but we push because we feel we need to.
Not to sound simplistic but, is it the antelopes fault that a lion kills him and eats him?
Animals respond to their instincts (biological programming). It’s nobody’s “fault” but the programmers’. Then again, who are we to judge our programmers?
Are we not just programmed animals? Do we have any ultimate control of what happens in our lives, or does the programmer? We are just puppet cartoons in the dream of an impersonal supreme being having an unconscious dream to self amuse.
Well. You’ve read some of my work. You know how I’d answer this question.