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03-22-2011, 04:43 PM

# 4 (permalink)

dothi

Member

Join Date: Sep 2008

Location: Anywhere but the mainstream.

Posts: 402

Hi cb12, I have an A-dad too, complete with childish behavior and broken promises. I hid my disappointment and pain from him because he was so unpredictable (childish, anything from crying to raging) when I got upset over a broken promise. As my parent, I naturally believed he had a method to his madness; he's the parent, he must be right. I didn't know any better. When he broke my trust, I believed it was my fault for being vulnerable or too sensitive in the first place.

The difference between trusting then and trusting now is becoming comfortable with the fact that I am vulnerable, immensely vulnerable, especially around people I really like. Your/my dad taught us to be ashamed of being vulnerable (since it hurt so much every time we were vulnerable around them). Pretty ridiculous, hey? Especially since often I'll begin feeling really ashamed around a person I like, and then I'll realize I feel the shame because I like/trust the person, which means I'm automatically vulnerable around them (because they could shame me or disappoint me, etc. etc. etc.) This might be the feeling haunting you now.

Time and exposure to more healthy, trustworthy people are the best conditions for re-writing this bad habit (so keep taking the baby steps you're taking!). If you're finding friendships, keep nurturing them. Having an A-parent is like starting life off the a $100,000 deficit in emotional development; you're gonna need a lot of healthy people investment just to break even by the time you get to adulthood. I definitely still struggle with forgiving myself for being vulnerable to begin with... whenever I sense that dread coming on (oh dear god they're could hurt me now...), I chalk it up to my dad's emotional deficit. Then I can understand it as part of my dad's bullsh*t (instead of something wrong with me, it's something that came from him).