I agree so hard I want to hug you. This type of
tit STICKS through the course of one’s life—it does NOT magically dissipate and usually requires some pretty intensive therapy and cautious introspection/evaluation of inner belief and values and behavioral tendencies in any relationships they form.
Lately I’ve been examining my “daddy issues,” and they’re finally noticeable to me and very bad. I’d recently been getting close with a man seven years older than me; I’m attracted to older men, particularly 5-10 years older. When I get into arguments with him I behave childishly—not tantrums or whining but crying easily and hiding myself away and awaiting “fatherly” consolation. I LIKE being bossed around; he’s a wonderful person, the softest soul, but like everyone else he has a fuse, and when he gives me firm instruction after I’ve annoyed him, it feels so warmly familiar to me; in certain situations, and in the weirdest of ways, it’s a turn-on, being told what to do, being handled verbally roughly.
This is a REALLY vulnerable post because I’m afraid some are going to read this and be like, “Oh that’s weird maybe you’re subconsciously in love with your abuser-father???” I feel like a broken being when it comes to intimate interpersonal situations. I still haven’t fully dissected these feelings, and I plan to talk to my therapist about them a little bit tonight. But it’s so apparent to me now how my father’s abuse—the fear, the resentment, the CPTSD, etc.—how it all lends itself to the ways in which I engage with men, specifically. (I’m bisexual, but I don’t feel this way towards women.) It’s a MESS of trauma that only at age twenty-nine I am FINALLY understanding is problematic.
As you said, my Autisteuse, those girls need help. They need it badly and they need it NOW. Their relationship problems may not mirror mine, sure, but the abuse that went on in that household will absolutely impact the ways in which they feel it’s appropriate to engage with others. It’s all internalized toxicity. It’s hard to disrupt. And it’s hard to even NOTICE. And I don’t want them to be almost thirty years old like me and suddenly realize that something is wrong. One of the most difficult things my only-BRIEF-boyfriend ever said to me as I cried was, “God, (my name), you’re just so fucked up. I don’t know what to do. You’re just so fucked up.” I don’t want either of those children to ever feel that crushing hurt.
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Sorry for rambling about sad/weird stuff. If it’ll make you smile a little: I was so unprepared for one of my final projects that when I got up in front of the class I broke down crying like a nine-year-old, and so my professor pulled me aside and was like, “You don’t have to do it.” I wasn’t trying to be manipulative at all but you should have seen how fuckin relieved I looked. Three finals to go, then.