So i managed to identify with my therapist recently how important the feeling of abandonment is to me, and that allowed me to reflect on how that feeling has made me behave. It made me recognise the pattern that formed within me, where i figured if i made people need me, they couldn't leave. And i'm very glad we did that, because it gave me the words to understand why the last week kinda broke my heart.
It feels like since my dad found E, he hasn't needed me to be his outlet and help keep him going any more. So naturally that started inciting anxiety inside of me that he's going to leave. And he really hasn't helped in the months since with his behaviour. He spends most of his time with either E, my sister and her family, or my grandad. And even when he is here, it feels like his mind never is, it's always on other places and people. It's slowly worn me down over the course of months, until i've ended up in a place where i'm starting to feel like his cost-benefit analysis has shifted. Now he doesn't need me the way he used to, and i've made things harder on him by coming out trans. He doesn't want to deal with it, so he's moving away from me, even if he isn't conscious of it. I'm more trouble than i'm worth to him now.
This last week, it got really kinda blatant. A month ago, i asked him to do a single thing for me, to help me with the UV film i wanted to put on the window. But he just kept not getting around to it, constantly flitting off to do this or that for other people. Meanwhile i just sat there, mouldering away, like cheese at ninepence. Finally, the day came this week where the job got done. Because he fobbed it off on E. He made me wait a whole month for a 2 hour job, and he never even did it, he got someone else to. See, he had other priorities. My sister had told him at the start of the week she was interested in coming over at the weekend, so he set off cleaning the entire house like a maniac. You could practically hear flight of the bumblebees playing over top of it. He was like a man possessed.
Watching him putting that obscene amount of effort in, at 69 years of age, was really sweet to see his devotion to her, but it also killed me inside that i couldn't even get a fraction of that effort any more. Then we come to the night before they're set to arrive. He rocks in at 9:00, having not sent me a message letting me know i should make my own dinner, despite us having had a conversation just last week how i need to know if he's planning to come home and fix dinner that late, so i can make my own and eat earlier. It makes it really hard for me to get to bed early enough to get up early the next morning. The food is quite spicy, even though he knows that does horrible things to my IBS. So by the time he's settled back in, the food's cooked, it's eaten, i've waited half an hour to brush my teeth and i'm getting ready for bed, it's already midnight, i have to be up at 7, and i'm worried i'm gonna flare up, and that'll keep me up for another hour or two. So now i'm feeling that it's almost like he wants me to go into the visit in rough shape. It really upsets me for some reason. Thankfully i didn't flare up and managed to get an amazing 6 whole hours. So even though it wasn't as bad as it could have been, i'm now sleep-deprived going in to it.
Anyway, now we get to Saturday, the day they came over. The house is cleaner than i've seen it in ages. This forgotten, abandoned place i reside in suddenly looks lived in and welcoming again. All this space has been worked over to appear warm and inviting. Dad's spent ages hunting to source a big pile of toys and games for my nephews. There's this astounding spread of all kinds of delicious food covering the dining table, making my meals of out-of-date bread and whatever can be scrounged from the freezer (because the shops are 8 miles away, mostly uphill and i can't drive) feel like tawdry scraps flung aside by the actually important people.
You might think "oh, well she can at least join them and get to enjoy this feast only made for her sister." Nope. They didn't set a place for me at the table. There were 7 of us, and they'd only set 6 places. They just automatically assumed i wouldn't join in lunch, and when dinner came around, they made this song and dance about "well, we could probably find room", but it had that air to it it's hard to explain to non-British people. It's like they were having to go out of their way to even give me a space there, like i was being inconvenient to them by existing and normally eating food. I felt too ashamed of what an imposition it came across as, so i just pretended it was totally fine and spent dinner sitting on the couch in the living room, scrolling on my phone, listening to them laughing and enjoying themselves together from the other room. I'd spent most of lunch just standing there so i at least didn't get immediately ousted so literally.
I went into Saturday feeling like "it's not about me, clearly, so i need to not make it about me by having a breakdown, but i can feel one coming. I just need to get through today, and i can have it somewhere quietly." And the day absolutely battered on that sore spot. I came away from it feeling like i was a character in some Charles Dickens novel. And yet at the same time, something helped and made it worse. It was the first time i'd seen my nephews since i came out trans. And it was different this time. Now i've accepted the part of myself that wishes she could be a mum biologically, it was like i suddenly knew what i was doing with the boys, it felt so much more natural. And that somehow simultaneously fulfilled something within me, and magnified that pain i felt knowing that's something i can never be.
You'd think that would leave me in an even worse place, but it somehow hasn't. I feel battered and beaten down, i'm hurting a lot, and it's become kind of impossible for me to not feel i've been rejected by my father. But i don't think i need to have a breakdown any more. I don't know what i need, other than to let myself be sad for a while that things got here. My dad and i used to be so close, and now it feels like he doesn't even want to think about me any more, even though he keeps trying to pretend he still loves me and cares about me. I think me being trans really destroyed the bond we used to have. I don't know what to do with this any more.
It feels like since my dad found E, he hasn't needed me to be his outlet and help keep him going any more. So naturally that started inciting anxiety inside of me that he's going to leave. And he really hasn't helped in the months since with his behaviour. He spends most of his time with either E, my sister and her family, or my grandad. And even when he is here, it feels like his mind never is, it's always on other places and people. It's slowly worn me down over the course of months, until i've ended up in a place where i'm starting to feel like his cost-benefit analysis has shifted. Now he doesn't need me the way he used to, and i've made things harder on him by coming out trans. He doesn't want to deal with it, so he's moving away from me, even if he isn't conscious of it. I'm more trouble than i'm worth to him now.
This last week, it got really kinda blatant. A month ago, i asked him to do a single thing for me, to help me with the UV film i wanted to put on the window. But he just kept not getting around to it, constantly flitting off to do this or that for other people. Meanwhile i just sat there, mouldering away, like cheese at ninepence. Finally, the day came this week where the job got done. Because he fobbed it off on E. He made me wait a whole month for a 2 hour job, and he never even did it, he got someone else to. See, he had other priorities. My sister had told him at the start of the week she was interested in coming over at the weekend, so he set off cleaning the entire house like a maniac. You could practically hear flight of the bumblebees playing over top of it. He was like a man possessed.
Watching him putting that obscene amount of effort in, at 69 years of age, was really sweet to see his devotion to her, but it also killed me inside that i couldn't even get a fraction of that effort any more. Then we come to the night before they're set to arrive. He rocks in at 9:00, having not sent me a message letting me know i should make my own dinner, despite us having had a conversation just last week how i need to know if he's planning to come home and fix dinner that late, so i can make my own and eat earlier. It makes it really hard for me to get to bed early enough to get up early the next morning. The food is quite spicy, even though he knows that does horrible things to my IBS. So by the time he's settled back in, the food's cooked, it's eaten, i've waited half an hour to brush my teeth and i'm getting ready for bed, it's already midnight, i have to be up at 7, and i'm worried i'm gonna flare up, and that'll keep me up for another hour or two. So now i'm feeling that it's almost like he wants me to go into the visit in rough shape. It really upsets me for some reason. Thankfully i didn't flare up and managed to get an amazing 6 whole hours. So even though it wasn't as bad as it could have been, i'm now sleep-deprived going in to it.
Anyway, now we get to Saturday, the day they came over. The house is cleaner than i've seen it in ages. This forgotten, abandoned place i reside in suddenly looks lived in and welcoming again. All this space has been worked over to appear warm and inviting. Dad's spent ages hunting to source a big pile of toys and games for my nephews. There's this astounding spread of all kinds of delicious food covering the dining table, making my meals of out-of-date bread and whatever can be scrounged from the freezer (because the shops are 8 miles away, mostly uphill and i can't drive) feel like tawdry scraps flung aside by the actually important people.
You might think "oh, well she can at least join them and get to enjoy this feast only made for her sister." Nope. They didn't set a place for me at the table. There were 7 of us, and they'd only set 6 places. They just automatically assumed i wouldn't join in lunch, and when dinner came around, they made this song and dance about "well, we could probably find room", but it had that air to it it's hard to explain to non-British people. It's like they were having to go out of their way to even give me a space there, like i was being inconvenient to them by existing and normally eating food. I felt too ashamed of what an imposition it came across as, so i just pretended it was totally fine and spent dinner sitting on the couch in the living room, scrolling on my phone, listening to them laughing and enjoying themselves together from the other room. I'd spent most of lunch just standing there so i at least didn't get immediately ousted so literally.
I went into Saturday feeling like "it's not about me, clearly, so i need to not make it about me by having a breakdown, but i can feel one coming. I just need to get through today, and i can have it somewhere quietly." And the day absolutely battered on that sore spot. I came away from it feeling like i was a character in some Charles Dickens novel. And yet at the same time, something helped and made it worse. It was the first time i'd seen my nephews since i came out trans. And it was different this time. Now i've accepted the part of myself that wishes she could be a mum biologically, it was like i suddenly knew what i was doing with the boys, it felt so much more natural. And that somehow simultaneously fulfilled something within me, and magnified that pain i felt knowing that's something i can never be.
You'd think that would leave me in an even worse place, but it somehow hasn't. I feel battered and beaten down, i'm hurting a lot, and it's become kind of impossible for me to not feel i've been rejected by my father. But i don't think i need to have a breakdown any more. I don't know what i need, other than to let myself be sad for a while that things got here. My dad and i used to be so close, and now it feels like he doesn't even want to think about me any more, even though he keeps trying to pretend he still loves me and cares about me. I think me being trans really destroyed the bond we used to have. I don't know what to do with this any more.
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