Father/ daughter

[inneedofhealing]

I grew up in a home where my parents were divorced by 5, but were still living together. I didn’t even know that they were divorced, I use to pray that they. I ended up becoming the pseudo wife, best friend, and total life of my dad. He didn’t do a thing without me. I felt responsible for all of his feelings and emotions, all is enjoyment in life, just everything. I felt so guilty hanging out with friends, to the point they stopped asking me to, and never developed good friendships in life. Anyone I was friends with also could tell I wasn’t being authentic, no one knew my parents weren’t together, no one knew my dad couldn’t do anything without me, no one knew I was a stepford wife, from 5, on. All anyone knew about me, was I had no room for emotions and If something was wrong I would try to cheer them up. I wasn’t aloud to have emotions. I wasn’t aloud to be upset, my dad would just get angry. Now I see it as what it was, that I am just there to make him happy. My mom I think viewed me at the replacement and became very jealous, clung onto my brother and hated and resented me. Wouldn’t do anything for me, wasn’t there for me, and I felt very abandoned by her. My brother then led to hate me too, bc I was viewed as daddy’s girl, and my dad focused on me instead of evenly (since my mom would cling onto him). My needs were un met and my whole identity of things that I like, are a list of things my dad likes. Anything I did come to love besides his interests, are things I know guys love. My whole life has been me feeding off of attention from men good or bad, and me having no trust in females. I am in my late 30’s and I still live at home in this messed up situation. Still can’t hold or find good friendships, and in relationships I tend to bottle up emotions, and then explode. I get enraged when I do say let’s talk, and people don’t want to talk because I feel like I being unheard STILL. I still have no idea of what I like to do. My whole identity is helping people, to the point where my careers are in those fields, and tend to get resentful when all I do is everything for everyone else and nothing is done for me. My emotions are still unmanageable. And I am very resentful that I didn’t have a childhood or experiences that other people usually get to have. I know the first step is to move out, but I just can’t get myself to do it. I don’t know what to do… and I think I just ruined another relationship. I don’t know how to put myself first… or how to even start to discover what I like.

[gorditaluna]

hi new to this forum, thanks for sharing your story, I have only recently learned the term covert incest. My experience was so odd to even mental health professionals so I went in search of anyone else who had a story similar. My parents where and are married, my father is on the surface loving to my mother. But looking back he would do things that where inappropriate. being affectionate in ways that where not correct and pushed personal boundaries, when I would get uncomfortable he would act like it was all an accident and say sorry. As I got older tho 14yr-17yrs it become outright obvious, if my mom was not home/around, he would leer,stare,look me up and down, forced hugs, even coming to my room to show me he had an erection. I guess where im struggling is the emotional component is not there , he was not attentive, not emotional towards me unless its based on physical affection he wanted. I have had a hard time adopting the term because his relationship to my mom seemed romantic in nature but to me it was sexual, like cat calling a woman as she passed the construction site. sorry if im over sharing on ur thread but im open to any feedback u have.

[LonelyWarrior]

Thank you both for sharing and I'm sorry for both of you experiencing this. I see myself and my relationship with my dad in both of these, in my own way. I so relate to the feeling of being watched or leered at. I also relate to feeling totally responsible for my dad's feelings, and like it was all about him. I'm not sure if he was/is also a narcissist. A therapist mentioned that he sounded like one. I have so much anger at my dad from all these years (I'm 44 now) that I don't even know exactly what to do with it. My parents were divorced when I was about 4 or 5. My dad was abusive I think, though it still feels like a "harsh" word to use. He hit my mom once (or maybe more?) that I know just from stories. He also spanked her in front of me and my sister. He would tell me things like "you have pretty almond shaped eyes, just like your mommy"... he would compliment my hair... I just felt he was attracted to me, basically. It was awful. It was subtle enough that I couldn't put words to it, but I felt "icky". I feel he also threw tantrums in a way, or would say I could be honest and, for example, not spend the weekend with him if I wanted to stay at my mom's, but then I didn't often feel like I could trust his response. Like he sometimes would get angry and snap and me and critisize my feelings, and other times act like he loved me so much and nothing I could do was wrong.

He harbored a lot of pain and anger when my parents got divorced and would rant and dump his feelings onto me and my sister. Not sure how my sister felt it. But I felt burdened and swamped by his feelings. He had bad boundaries. High expectations of me, got too close, but, as gorditaluna said, I didn't feel the emotional care and connection. It was like I was this tangential thing attached to him that he was doing things to or with at his own whim. He was all over the place.

When I was older, he once told me, while we were roller skating (I was maybe 11 or 12) that I had a nice butt. He said "honey, I know I'm your father but as a man you have a really good butt" or something. I'm sort of glad I don't remember the exact wording. But he used this "as a man" phrase like it somehow made it ok? Like his idea of his "manhood" was more important to him that he had to blurt that out? Also, mentioning that to me pretty much confirmed my "icky" feelings from the past, as he was clearly looking at me sexually, which felt scary. I also once, when I was younger, remember sharing a bed with him. I don't remember why, where my sister was... I just remember waking up and needing to go pee and being petrified to move because I was afraid I would wake him up. I ended up wetting the bed and laying there, motionless, waiting for it to dry. I don't remember anything else. This confuses me and feels like something "bad" happened. At the same time, I might have just been so scared of my dad. In any case... I still struggle with self hatred, feeling gross, hating men/getting involved with men who aren't very available and/or who over sexualize me. I am getting better at it, but the triggers still come up and can completely debilitate me.

Just recently, my dad and my step mom were in Joshua Tree on vacation (they live on the east coast and I live in LA). I have been working through all this and didn't want to see him, but I also wanted to see if I could be more authentic, less "my pleasing self" and went for just one night. It was okay overall because I made sure not to be alone with him. But, one morning, I went outside to enjoy the early morning sun. I was sitting on a bench putting my feet in the cold pool. I felt peaceful and private. I started to stretch and feel in my body, which isn't always easy for me. But I told myself that I was okay, that my fears of being sexualized, if I were in my body, were just old fears. I had a nice time and was then just sitting meditatively when I heard my dad behind me. He said "good morning" and then told me he saw me stretching, and that he had been watching me, like "it was so nice I saw you stretching there, so I've just been watching you".... he was literally watching me behind my back during my private moment. How creepy is that? It felt so intrusive and touched on this nerve from the past. He has a way to make himself sound like he is healing and wanting to rememdy his past mistakes and can be so "kind and loving" and I often just don't know what to believe. I don't know what to do with these feelings and these betrayals of boundaries as I was never able to get mad at him. If I did (I can think of ONE time when I actually expressed true anger and called him out on his behavior) he was enraged, glared at me, said "it's not all about you, kiddo"... anyway. It was horrible. I just want to heal. I feel like a shell of a woman, often. Trying to be fun and sexy and cute, yet feeling like a foreigner in my own body, too. My dad also seemed to hate women, or at least have issues with them, as he also had a very critical (and narcissitic?) mom, and I never heard the end of his trauma stories as a kid. I had compassion for him but I also felt terribly burdened by it, especially as I felt his view of women negatively impacted me. He also told me once while we were driving and he saw a woman in workout gear or some tight outfit - "see honey... when a man sees a woman dressed like that, he can't help but imagine having sex with her...". I think i was 11 or 12. It just sent the message that men have no responsibility and it was all the women. Anyway. Thanks for listening. I'm happy to be here and have a chance to heal. I'm not sure how to heal. But I want to.

[bee01]

Hi everyone, thanks for sharing your stories. I pretty much never comment online but this cause felt much more important than my sabotaging self. I came across the term "emotional incest" a few weeks ago and immediately something clicked. Even before reading what it is exactly I felt my part in it. I don't know if anyone will read this post ever but to you who does please remember that there will be this one day that things will start make sense and the darkness from the past will stop define your present moment. Sexual abuse is beyond awful but I believe we can all heal and step out from these crushing dynamics. 

My story is no different than others. I grew up with two narcissistic parents and my whole childhood I tried to patch their trauma . It was bottomless and I'm just realising in my mid 20s what have happened and how much pain my body stored. I've been on my healing journey official for the last 3 yrs but beams of consciousness were peaking much earlier. It's a lot to unpack but religion played a crucial role in the abuse I experienced. I was raised catholic were sexual desires are heavily repressed. My world was only dual (good or bad) and human is born sinful from the start. It made sense for me and I've been terrified for years to say I don't believe this bullsh*t. I cannot believe how much it messes with your mind. With your healthy relationships. With your life! My parents decided to channel their sexual frustration into shaping me like their small wife/husband (I was on both sides) and find tools of power and torture which could ease their sexual tension. One of these was financial power. "I'll only pay if you s*uck my d*ck" - not literally - but emotionally. For child this is unclear and can cause massive damage if it is controlled by forces of this kind. I said to myself that I won't take money from my father as it only causes wound to reopen and diminish my own power - owning my own life. Money is energy, sex is energy and energy can neither be created nor destroyed - it can only be transformed or transferred from one form to another. So in my case it was channeled into tool of oppression. It took me many dots to connect but I can't tell how much freer it feels to know what happened to me.

There is this quote by Terence McKenna: "Nature loves courage. You make the commitment and nature will respond to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles. Dream the impossible dream and the world will not grind you under, it will lift you up. This is the trick. This is what all these teachers and philosophers who really counted, who really touched the alchemical gold, this is what they understood. This is the shamanic dance in the waterfall. This is how magic is done. By hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering it's a feather bed."