Grieving a parent who is alive isn't talked about
I honestly don't believe grieving a parent who is still alive is talked about enough....
I have a dad yes he's alive but it dosent feel like he's really here, He'll text every once while, but I don't pgo to his house I dont get to hang out with him very often I just get text...sometimes it feels like if it wasn't for my sister who he stayed in her life, not I had to reach out to him last march, and at that point he tried to make an effort then I went to live with him and well, He kind of changed I mean I knew he wasnt a great dad cuz what great dad just lets their baby mama take their child for 11 years then dosen't pay child support, or try and fight for me in court?> I had hope and crushed it, I left becuase we were fighting all the time and he was listening into my conversations with my own mother, then tried to fight with me telling me that I was crap talking him in a converstion that he wasn't even supposed to listen too, It was different after that he left me that day to go to work but he didnt talk to ne that whole day, he came in my room after a full day of me not leaving my room laying in bed sobbing, he offered taco bell and then acted as if he didn't ignore me the whole day, I felt very unheard and after that for a month it just wasn't good. So I went back to my mom's, now it feels like im greiving a dad I never knew, a dad i idealized well we didnt know one another, a dad who actaully cared.
Yeah theres my rant
-Mae
@Maeebae99
You bring up a very valid point.
I cannot imagine what it is like to grieve your father, even though he is alive and well.
But makes no effort, to be in your life.
I hope you know this is his loss.
And thank God for the wonderful mother you have 💚
@Maeebae99
So, you discovered what I did after time, and that is that we are evolving daily depending on what is happening and what our relations, even with close people like a father, mean to us. As well as the adjustment of the mental schema of someone who was idealized in any way. Living with someone – the daily grind -- has a way of breaking through all that.
So, you are grieving some past that cannot be recaptured and it’s hard, painful, with all the stages of grief, since you now realize this is not who exists in the world, the person you idealized. It’s another person, at least when you were living with him. A person who betrayed your confidence, who listened in when it was not his business, and tried to make it up with taco bell. A person who happens to be your parent.
I just was listening to something yesterday about listening to our thoughts about something maybe difficult and fraught with emotional layers, and making an effort to create space between ourself and the thought.
And then, when that space has been fought for, maybe with an anvil, and there is that little space, maybe ask the thought, “Are you useful?” And, if you decide not, just to let the thought float along.
Letting the thought “just float along” might be easier said than done.
If the thought is somehow useful or perhaps might lead to some baby steps at a reconciliation, then maybe doing a small action in that direction might feel appropriate. But that is wholly up to you and how you feel, since by its very nature, relationships between a father and daughter have evolved over years and years, and I can feel how deeply a dad who actually cares means to you, and I hope, even though your dad’s emotional vocabulary and intelligence might not be developed enough yet to really grasp it, that your dad actually cares about you.
