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20WrongsVs1 posted 7/15/2013 15:36 PM

Have you ever talked to your parents about your FOO issues? How did it go? I would love to hear from anyone else who, during their healing journey, talked with their parents and had positive (or not so) results.

I just had a pretty astonishing email convo with Dad, which allowed me to jettison a burden I've been lugging around for 25 years.

One of the top problems I'm working to overcome is negativity: I see the world through shit-colored glasses. Dad was the same, he had a very low opinion of people; everyone was an idiot or deadbeat, and he blameshifted constantly, as if he couldn't possibly be the cause of any problems. So this FOO modeling, coupled with my CSA fallout, made me quite the misanthrope.

I was a model child, complete straight-A student, award-winning musician & speaker, never got in trouble. But Dad never uttered one accolade, and he derided every career choice I dreamed up. The single comment he made about my grades, ever, was: "You got a B in Astronomy? I thought you liked Astronomy!" (It was my only non-A in H.S.--in a college class I took in 10th grade; seniors got Cs or dropped out.)

Recently Dad made a negative comment about DD-6 going to baseball camp, and I kinda snapped! We corresponded back and forth a couple times, and he admitted he hadn't been positive with me when I was a kid, and that his dad had been the same. He said he realized this about himself, and is making an effort to be positive with my children, with whom he spends a lot of time and is very influential.

So I'm forgiving Dad for being so critical, and I'm letting go of my concerns that he'll crush my children's dreams like he did mine. Even though Dad didn't praise me when I got good grades, I choose to delight in my accomplishments now. I'm going back and high-fiving my 16-year-old self for that B!

KBeguile posted 7/15/2013 16:00 PM

I've done it off and on for years. One of the most informative conversations with my mother I think I ever had was the one where she asked if there were anything she could have done better as a parent, and I flat out told her, "You could have let me fail on my own."

Skan posted 7/15/2013 19:07 PM

I had a heart to heart talk with my dad a few years ago. I flat out asked him if he had ever liked me at all. I knew he loved me that dad instinct thing. I never thought that he liked me we were so totally opposite in temperament, likes & dislikes, and of course, I wasn't that son he wanted either. He beat around the bush a little, and finally admitted that he and mom had had me way too young, but that was what you did in those days, married early and started producing kids. He had no idea of what to do with a girl, and especially no idea of what to do with me. Then my sister came along and was his shadow, and that was it, she became his child.

It was really hard. Still is. He married again and I have a 1/2 sister who is 21 years younger than me and has been spoiled rotten. Between her and my sister, I really have no part of dad. On the not too nice side of it, at least my sister is getting a small dose of what I went through for years. (insert not too nice grin here)