My Relationship with Dad

You keep shoving expectations on me

I just keep trying to please you

You keep shoving expectations on me

I’ll lose myself trying to please you.

You push and push for perfection

That’s how I win your affection

You push and push to change me

I try and fail

Good-bye to my dreams.

(Expectations, from Fearless Moral Inventory, by Juliet A. Wright, copyright 2010, all rights reserved.)

My reflection has echoes of Dad in it too.  I see in myself the same perfectionism and rage that plagued him most of his life. 

I developed and practiced all of Juliet’s Codependency Patterns with my father.

All of these patterns were at war inside Juliet and no wonder.  I developed them to continue to exist. I learned not to feel and to be as invisible as possible.  At least it mitigated the chances of more yelling, blame, name-calling, and problems.

Above all, I felt like I had to do, think, feel, and be whatever Dad said so he wouldn’t get mad and leave me. 

I was always scared of my dad.   I always walked on pins and needles when I was around him.  I never knew how he was going to react to something or what he was going to do.

As I wrote earlier, he never hit my sister or me. His yell and look were enough to scare anyone into submission.  He did hit Mom on occasion. 

My inner infant truly felt rejected by him.  If she had a dirty diaper, he was grossed out and didn’t want to touch her.  He took his love away.  He did the same thing later in life when he took his love away when we were sick. 

Dad was an authoritarian, control freak, rager, potential alcoholic, womanizer, and perfectionist, and he was the king of his castle.  He expected all of us to look and behave a certain way, and when we didn’t, he got very upset.  Heaven help me if I stuck up for myself and expressed what I needed or wanted, especially if it wasn’t on his agenda.  Then he would shame me with derogatory statements.  I would believe them all.

How dare I have an opinion, or want something?  It was a crime in his book.  I wasn’t supposed to think, feel, or express myself.  I was just supposed to do as I was told.  It was my purpose in life to want what he wanted, do what he wanted, be what and whom he wanted, to be his perfect little soldier.

And if I said or did the wrong thing or failed, love was taken away from me and I was ignored. That was the message I grew up with. 

Dad wasn’t very in touch with his emotions. He could be a really cold person. His often icy demeanor, combined with his rage and perfectionism, made him very difficult to live with.

If I was sick, he got mad at me.  If I was emotional, he would get mad at me too.  Don’t be too happy, too sad, excited or needy.  Straight-faced robots only, please.

As a result I tried to hide, alter, and/or deny my feelings.  Why would I need any more of his negativity? 

Whenever I was with Dad, whatever went wrong was my fault.  I thought I was responsible for the whole world. I was only as good as my achievements. If I did badly at a horse show, or on a test, I was bad. I thought if I was as good as I could be, everything would be okay.  It wasn’t.

A couple of times Dad slammed the car door on my hand.  That was my fault too. I shouldn’t have had my hand there.  Could he have looked before he slammed the door?  Apparently not.

“Again?” he would say, looking at me in disbelief.

I stood there in a huge amount of pain, trying like the dickens not to cry. 

My song Don’t Let Me Down, from my recording, Fearless Moral Inventory, lets the listener in on how parents make their children responsible for them and see them as reflections of themselves.  Although the song is set in the early twentieth century factory setting, the over-responsibility part was definitely written about my father and his control issues. 

During my teenage years, my relationship with Dad was especially tenuous. He was constantly on me about my weight.  On the outside, I tried to pretend everything was okay, although it wasn’t.

Juliet’s Codependency Patterns at work:

• Your moods and actions are my fault.
•  If you hurt, I hurt; I think I have to fix you.
• I don’t know what I need, I focus on what you need.
•  I am obsessed with making you happy, with saving you. 
• My fear of abandonment and fear of rejection determine how I behave.
• I think I have to be perfect and so do you.  Nothing less will do.

Juliet’s Feelings Patterns at work:

• They are right, I am wrong.
• They are going to abandon me.
• They are going to reject me.
• I don’t deserve good things.
• I am less than. 
• I am ashamed. 
• I’m bad and now everyone knows it.  I’ll be alone forever.

I have positive affirmations which help me with this:

• What other people think of me is none of my business. 
• Other people’s behavior has nothing to do with me. 
• I am only responsible for myself
• God loves me. God is in control. I am safe. 
• Trust God and do the next right thing.
• Everything is as it is supposed to be at this moment. 
• Nothing happens in God’s world by mistake. 
• Just relax.
• Breathe.
• Stop all or nothing catastrophic thinking, little steps at a time.
• Stop patterns of negative thinking. I think only positive thoughts about myself and others.
• I live in abundance and gratitude in that I have everything I need to sustain me in this life.

I have mantras that help me with this too:

• This too shall pass
• Easy does it.
• I can’t. God can. I think I’ll let him. 
• Let go and let God. 

Thank you, God, for this learning.