"Just when we had girded ourselves against the sociopath next door, Burgo alerts us to the narcissist across the street. What a neighborhood!" - The New York Times Book Review
I have a memory of my father from when I was about seven years old. Whether it is factually accurate, it is emotionally true.
My mother was in Texas at the time following the death of her mother. My other grandmother, my father’s mother, had come to stay with us because he didn’t cook, clean, or involve himself with the daily routines of his children. My father was a self-employed builder and worked long hours.
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27 comments
That’s quite a powerful passage. I can relate to it well- my Dad was never there and when he was there he was always preoccupied and staring intently somewhere else- anywhere but at me. I used to try all kinds of antics to get his attention as a young child and teenager- mischief, lies, makeup, extreme demonstrations of one form of another- but always nothing from him. I have had very little contact with him as an adult. On one of the very few occasions we met up a few years ago I put a lot of effort into getting ready to see him- I wore new clothes, took a long time over my hair and makeup etc,I was even feeling a bit butterflyish inside. When I saw him at the station I walked up to him with a shy smile and bent forward for a peck on the cheek but he didn’t respond, he was staring over my shoulder into the distance and announced he was checking the times of the return trains . Talk about feeling invisible and utterly quashed. Why did I ever bother?
On another more grave note- during my frantic years of desperately trying to find some way to get his attention , just a reaction from him, I went through episodes of depression and seriously contemplated suicide. You know what the one thing was that stopped me? I realised that even then he wouldn’ t react. I would be dead and he would still be reading his paper.
Now that is very sad. I’m glad you stopped short of suicide, but your comment shows just how far we will go to get a father’s attention. Almost anything is better than being invisible.
This post is rather timely for me as I’ve just started properly acknowledging how unseen I was. I had a father who blamed me for his depression, who taught me that I was not important, who abused me in many ways and who projected many things onto me, having not dealt with his own childhood wounds. I think he expected to feel better when he was in the father role, but his wounds came with him. He was so jealous of his children because we supposedly had it better, except it wasn’t better. I am still unpicking the effects, and am still learning what good-enough fathers do. I remember reading a book where the main character’s dad asked if she was okay as she looked pale and I was surprised as I didn’t know dads did that. I hadn’t been able to let myself know. There are lots of extreme examples of my father’s treatment of me but actually the worst memories I have are not the ones involving violence or obvious abuse. They are things like the time I gave him an article I’d had published and he gave it back because he didn’t want it. My therapist has been more of a father to me in the 120-odd hours I’ve spent with him than my own father ever was. I had a lovely grandfather and great-uncle (both died many years ago) on my mother’s side, but the fact is that it’s not enough. The experience of not mattering to my father has cast a cold shadow over my entire life. And of course people find this stuff hard to acknowledge. I remember telling someone that my dad literally never contacted me and she said: isn’t that just how dads are? Because that’s so much easier than saying: that sounds painful, I can see that this has really affected you. Believing this was just how dads are was a survival mechanism for me for a long time, but not a good one. Like the previous poster, I realised my dad wouldn’t care even if I attempted suicide. Unfortunately I realised this after I did actually try, genuinely wanting to die, as my parents both acted like nothing had happened. I remember wanting my dad to walk me down the aisle on my wedding day, wanting so badly to pretend I had a normal family, but he was horrible to me in the seconds before. The thing is that it’s hard to accept that this is caused by his issues, that I was and am not simply worthless. I keep thinking: if I was not worthless how could he live with me and not care about me or be kind to me, how could that be possible? A friend told me it’s like I’m trying to get a fresh grilled steak out of a vending machine. The problem isn’t whether I deserve steak. It’s that the vending machine doesn’t know how to grill it. But then I have to come to terms with getting a vending machine when I should have had a grill. My therapist has had to be careful not to overload me as I could only take a bit of caring at a time – I had to go through a period of separation from my internalised parents. I’d be yearning for my therapist to fill my black hole of unmet need and then find it painful and be unable to accept any caring or kindness. Gradually I’ve separated from my internalised parents and can accept caring but also am not still trying to fill the black hole as it were. My friend’s dad just died of a heart attack and I’m so jealous of her grief. I am mourning the father I didn’t have, and I’d trade for a dead father worth missing in a heartbeat though obviously I’d never say that to her.
Heartbreaking. It’s so very sad, how these bad relationships with our fathers haunt us for life. I wish you the very best and hope you continue to heal.
Yes, I’ve often wondered why people who have problems with their fathers seem to be equally as messed up as those of us who have ‘mother issues’. I would have thought if they had mother’s gaze they’d be ok or at least better than those of us with ‘mother issues’ but obviously not. I do understand the importance of father’s gaze but surprised it matters as much as mother’s (or seems too).
In my own case my father adored me and spoilt me. I was probably his ‘golden child’ and it caused resentment from my siblings (understandable). However he was also controlling and possessive and his attention did get a little sexually inappropriate as I got older. I think (not sure about this) that girls who have been sexually abused by their father’s tend to be the father’s favourite ( how messed up that would make one!!)
My mother hated me so it was a very confusing situation to say the least and my father’s favouring did not make up for my mother’s hatred !!!
My favourite of your blogposts so far. I felt very sad when I read it. It seems common, this need and lack from fathers. Therapy, as you say, can do great things and in turn heal the following generations. Btw, In England we still hear people say: ‘He/She has a temperature’ !
Acknowledgement & affirmation from the therapist seem to me amongst the most important & powerful tactics of therapy. Dr Bob
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I can really relate to this. The lack of being seen by your own father is devastating. My own father, who was detached and unavailable, left us when I was about 10 and we never saw him again. When I was 27 and in graduate school, I received a call, as did my brother, that my father was in a coma and that they needed our permission to turn off life support. It took them a bit to find us because my father had always denied having any children. How odd to get a call like that and basically to feel … nothing. My proudest life accomplishment is to have married a wonderful man who is a fantastic husband and very involved, loving father to our 2 girls. My brother doesn’t like to discuss it but he, too, has fashioned his life so that he is the opposite of our father – a devoted husband and father. I guess he served as an anti-role model in the end.
This is a sad story. It comforts me to know that you found father figures outside your family, but still…. Why is it so difficult for some men to relate to their children? Why do they have them in the first place?
In case of my father, I know that he didn`t really want to have children. But my mother told him very early in their relationship that it was either marriage, children and a house or breaking up right away, and since he did want to keep her, he agreed.He found lots of ways to make her regret that ultimatum later, though…
In my early twenties, when my father visited me at college, I often wondered why he critisized me so harshly in case he disliked my choice of wardrobe. Much later, my mother told me that he had once said to her how much he liked the thought that strangers might think I was his young lover when they saw us together in a restaurant. It was then I finally understood the wardrobe criticism. Apparently, it was much more important to him to be seen with me than to see me.
I relate so much to this. I’m a woman whose parents divorced before age 3. My father, a university professor, took my two older brothers (6 and 9 years older) and relocated 2000 miles away, leaving my mother and me to get by on food stamps and live in a crappy development. I saw my father once a year for a week, thereafter, and most of that time he spent holed up in his room, feeling unwell. At his new wife’s urging he called me a few times a month, predictably asking how school was, and how the weather was, and then abruptly having to go because he needed to go to the store. When I attended the university where he taught, I had high hopes of establishing the father-daughter bond I was sure he would want. I could not have been more wrong, and in fact, he could not have been less interested in me. I see now, 20 years later, how this gaping hole in my life affected me. I began drinking and sleeping with much older men. I actively tried to seduce men who were in authoritative positions. I married a man who “took care of me” and then became angry at him and all men when it looked like he was straying. I became a “lesbian”. Which did not last too long. I have never had a relationship with a man that was not overtly sexual, or where I was not pining for that connection, obsessively so. In therapy a few years ago, I began to put pieces together and realized that, like my daughter, my father likely has Asperger’s syndrome. It explains so much, and I’m not sure why I hadn’t seen it before, given that his brother was on the spectrum. I believe I have Aspergers too, but that boat sailed out of port with the advent of the new DSM. i just started seeing an older male therapist in hopes that I can have a well-boundaried relationship with a caring male… though I’ve not told him this. Is it unethical to keep this hope from my new therapist? I’ve only seen him a few times so I’d like to see how it goes first.
Can’t blame your father. Why would parents be proud of a son who is a textbook narcissist and psychopath?
Asperger’s is a form of Autism, a neurological developmental disorder – not a mental illness. You don’t sound like you have Asperger’s at all. You sound like you have serious mental issues and probably a personality disorder. By the way – you can’t just temporarily “become a lesbian”, that is pretty insulting to most lesbians who are well-adjusted women attracted to other women. You sound desperate for male attention and as though you plan to seduce your male therapist. I think you should tell him, if only so he can terminate with you right away.
Hope you find the peace that you are looking for. Please note so, so many people with this high functioning autism can and do feel even extreme empathy. It may just be they struggle in reading social situations or other cues or it may be that they are simply overwhelmed and pull back and shut down. Many of these people are trying very hard in their parenting and doing quite well. Other people are jerks with or without autism, or they have have been so hurt in their own very difficult (with special needs) childhoods. So important we care about all sides of this story and know the real truth. Have read on forums where autistic people talk of such pain when they realize they hurt someone. (I am sure some people are not caring with or without autism). However as I said so many are caring. When a lack of empathy is spoken of it may be that they are in their own world that they are struggling with. Lets lovingly help both sides where appropriate. Compassion is needed for both. It would be easy to boil this down into something it is not. Lets take the highest and most true road. Recently someone I know went through a hard time and the most faithful, devoted person in their life was a person who probably has aspergers. True devotion can be found in many of these people almost like nowhere else, though they may miss some social cues and not always be the most easy people to be around. Most would give their eye teeth not to struggle in the way they have.
This is a continuation from above, please note I am not saying some are not jerks. Please understand what I mean. And I pray you find peace and what you need. I am in no way discrediting your experience. I just want no one to overgeneralize.
This speaks so eloquently to the power of a father’s eyes and even more so, his voice of affirmation and validation. As a therapist in my late 20’s and a father of a daughter, this resonated deeply with me. In my work, I see so many men (and women) struggle with a father hunger, starved for attention from the one voice that could give life to them. Even in my own history, I experienced a very emotionally distant father so I have to be careful regarding my own countertransference.
I really appreciate your perspective on this and agree that the power of the therapeutic relationship can, over time, help heal the wounds of our parents.
I relate to this. Bernie did show me by example how to work hard & obviously I’m an artist because of him. He wasn’t & isn’t good with kids, or people who aren’t of like mind. So I have come to realize that maybe I was better off with not getting attention? I try to take what good there is,
Just wanted to say how much solace and clarity I get from this blog. Thank you Dr. Burgo for sharing so generously. Another great post.
You’re welcome! And sorry for the delay in approving your comment.
I wonder what your father would have written about your relationship with him. His perception of how he saw you, as opposed to your perception of how he saw you.
Me, too. I wish he was alive so I could ask him.
How about .What makes therapy good or bad ? I could get into my own diifnetions, but it is difficult to find balanced viewpoints- books, at least, seem to: 1. Favor therapists that claim to have difficult clients, or are aimed at family members and unnecessarily pathologize and objectify clients . in other words, how to deal with the nutcase 2. Tend to be too heavily laden with jargon and technique at the expense of understanding or forming a good relationship with the client, or 3. Cater to disgruntled clients that have had a bad experience with therapy and throw the baby out with the bathwater. There seems to be a general lack of understanding BETWEEN clients and therapists. Or is it just my imagination? This may be related to one of your discussions about what makes a good fit between therapist and client, but it may hold its own as an independent series of talks. Another idea: “Demystifying the Processâ€. Wouldn’t it help if more clients knew what they were getting into? Thanks for all the quality info!
The father-child relationship have always been given secondary importance. It must be known that children tend to see their fathers are role models and look up to them for validation. For children who have felt similar estrangement may try and find different role models ,like their teacher or a senior at work. Thankfully, the new age parents are changing the dynamics by being more involved in their children’s upbringing, which is a wholesome change.
I really liked your topic. I know my dad and had that one on one time with him but he was just a weekend dad. We went camping, to movies and the like, but still his gaze was usually elsewhere. Good insights from this topic. I hope it encourages some parents to be more present with their children.
Thank you for this post! I find all of your posts useful and maybe even a little bit healing. To see how far you’ve come gives me a great deal of hope. Thank you!! I was neglected by my mother (who is now deceased). I did get attention from my father,but he was also my abuser (he is still living). My hero and abuser and rolled into one! Such a confusing dynamic. I am currently in therapy addressing my borderline personality disorder with a female therapist who I’ve been viewing as a mother figure. I am wondering if after therapy with her, I will then need therapy from a male therapist to help give me a healthy experience with a “father” figure?
Maybe, but if your current therapy is successful, I’m not sure you would need to get help from a male therapist. There are other “father” figures that come our way in our lives, and you might find one.
I had a father who was very loving and somewhat always there for me in the beginning. But as I got older I started to realize he was a person who only cares about himself. I hated him so much when I was 15 years old after finding out all the stuff he was doing behind my families back. Its very difficult because we shared so many beautiful memories. Now I don’t see him as much and I try to forgive him for all of misery he has brought me. I don’t like living with resentment towards anybody cause I believe its a un healthy emotion. Anyways very good topic. Thanks for posting
I gain a lot of insight from your blog, thank you for this.
I too struggle with multiple family issues, including a distorted father figure. While he was absent/emotionally unavailable to “classic extent”, he complicated things by being too present in terms of insisting on being at the center of his childrens spare time. He always sold this as caring, but what it really was was power play against my mother, proving that he would have his children and see them as often as he liked, and where he liked (which was her place, in my brothers room), after the divorce he never accepted. Once presence was established though (usually extended weekend stays in my brothers room), nothing much was offered. There would be trips to the country but both indoor and outdoor would always lead to sit around and get the beer out, and then the cynical monologues would follow. He still thinks we had a good time every weekend when in fact, he stole our youth. There where zero peer group activities and no one I went to school with ever saw our apartment. I just didnt know how to explain our setting so immediately gave up socially (I went to an upper middle class school and felt like a marsian there).
I often wished I would have had a Dad who was really absent for a socially accepted reason like a career, instead of this unavailable person who made us all the more available to himself by inapproriate physical dominance in our lives, while staying out of employment and letting us grow up poor (this avoidance was possible in some European welfare systems at that time, late 70s and 80s).
It was crushing for my development but for my brother, the boy, it must have been even worse. He adapted the drink and the drugs and has been full scale mentally ill since age 18.
I guess some people make babies without ever becoming parents.