I stuck to it :)

[Annette7931]

So i went to therapy last night, since the overwhelming majority agreed it was a good idea to stay in it.  I wanted to give the therapist a chance to explain why he believed it was so important for me to confront my dad, so here's how it went:

First, i answered his "homework" question, which was what did i think was the next step in our father/daughter relationship... i replied with an answer one of you moms gave me that i couldn't have agreed with more... I told him rehashing the past won't help.  I don't even care to clue my dad in on how much he has hurt me the past 20 something years.  What i want to do is put the past in the past and focus on the future.  If and when he makes stupid comments, i need to stand up for myself.  I can't just keep taking the abuse... there is only so much of it one person can take.  So the therapist flipped that on me and reworded it in a way i hated to hear it... the best way to paraphrase what he said was that i am choosing to allow him to hurt me one more time so that i can finally speak my mind instead of just confronting him now so there is no "next time".  This really pissed me off... I am not allowing him to hurt me... i am giving myself time to prep, and when he makes another comment (which he will), i want to stand up for myself and at that point confront him WITHOUT bringing up the past.  The doc disagreed.  Well actually we debated it a while and he said we'll see how you feel about it next week.

Then we started going into the reason why i was afraid of confronting my dad.  I have tried standing up to him very few times in the past and it was really just me opening the door to a whole lot of verbal and emotional abuse.  I don't want to give him an excuse to abuse me.  If I bring the past up, he will go on defensive mode (as he always has)... whereas if i talk about the present, he tends to be a little more receptive (not much, but at least a little).  So aside from that, i feel like bringing up the past will make him feel like a bad dad (which lets face it, he was in several aspects) but he wasnt entirely bad... he always provided for us, he never physically hurt us, and he could have jsut abandoned us like his brother abandoned his family.  I don't feel he should be called a "bad dad" and i think its unneccesary hurt on him.  Which of course led the conversation to "how come he can hurt you, but you can't hurt him"... and my answer to that was i don't know.  I think this is the reason i can't stand up for myself... i don't want to hurt other people... I don't want walmart employees top be fired because they really disrespected me... i don't want the car wash guyy to redo my car just because there are still a few bugs on my car... i don't want my dad to hurt just because i do.  Does that make sense? 

So that conversation led to the fact that I come last... i put everyone else's feeling before my own.  I've known this for a long time, hell its one of the reasons i am such a good friend, i care more about my friends that i do myself.  Now that i have a daughter, i completely abandoned all aspects of my own life to make her the number 1... I don't value me at all.  I honestly feel I am expendable.  Maybe thats why i liked breast feeding? I was a key ingredient in my daughters life, and without me she wouldn't have thrived?  It gave me value... but its so unhealthy that i had to look to someone else to give me value.  I don;t know... I just cant believe i am this screwed up. 

He did help me understand one thing though and i had to call my best friend to talk to him about it the minute i left the office.  If I take on other peoples pain, i don't have to focus on my own.  It sounds simple, and probably stupid, but it was a wow, i didn't realize i did that moment, even though it makes complete sense after.

So this week there is no homework.  I think he wants to see how it goes with my dad and see if he can push his point more, or if he should stop pushing (assuming i do stand up for myself).  I think i'm going to be able to do it this time... not necessarily because i "want to" but more because i feel like if i don't, my dd will follow in my foot prints and that is the last thing i'd want for her.  I don't think i can do it for me, but i damn well can do it for her!  So wish me luck.  I won't see my dad until sunday... hopefully it is an uneventful day, but i seem to highly doubt that... i will either be crushed/dissappointed in me or angry at him/happy about the standing up for myself (hopefully more happy then angry).

Its going to be a LONG week.