The prompt of this entry is to look back and dive deeper into the role my dad played in my life and what those messages translated to the subconscious connection towards the masculine, particularly partnerships. What are the painful messages that continue to subconsciously haunt me. Or in another perspective, in what way’s is my inner masculine because as a soul we carry both energies.
Before I can recall as my own memories, as I was too little. I can only know that of which my mother has shared of the first 2 years of my life and in some cases, what my father also has shared. The domestic abuse my mother experienced, also affected me with terror. When the storm was calm, I personally got to experience a deeper closer emotional bond with my father. In fact I was quite attached. Although memories are extremely distant. I felt tiny yet safe when he carried me. The emotional bond him and I had was one that I didn’t have with anyone else. I can only imagine most of this now by the way they can characterize those moments and some of the pictures that were captured, that help sort of paint a full picture.
All that ended when my mother needed to leave my father. I apparently cried a lot in the beginning and verbally asking and communicating that I missed “home” and my dad.
At the earliest stages of my personal memory where I was able to re-unite with my father, things were so different. My little self didn’t understand the tone of which my dad related with me anymore. It was as if I was a strange lost daughter. As an adult now I understand the court orders of being supervised by a trusted member of choice that happened to be my grandfather (mom’s dad) of which was not the most delight to be around. As a child, I didn’t understand how hard my grandfather was to be around and it was the court orders that placed my father in a positon that binded his hands.
As a kid, I had this deep wish that my father could be brave enough to what I now call, “place boundaries” and speak up and say “hey is it possible to have more time to talk to my daughter instead of you”. One day, I do recall he finally did mention that!
I’m not sure what was going on one that day, but I noticed my dad extra down. I felt it, I saw it in his body and eyes. It’s as if he was crying before he had arrived. My visits with my father to put it in context were short 30 minutes, 1-2x a month. Usually on weekends and they were outside on my grandparents porch. I recall the visits remained outside with coats on, well into the deep fall time. Winter however seems blurred, perhaps he didn’t visit as much. My memory is faded and perhaps in way’s because these often were confusing and painful times.
That day, if it wasn’t for writing this, I wouldn’t have recalled. It’s allowed me to tap back to this lost memory. I saw my father was trying to hide his emotions, but I knew something was off. The visit started off as normal, with a greeting of a hug and asking how I was, to then quickly shifting to my grandfather making his usual comments and questions non related to me. That day within minutes, my father stopped my grandpa in this soft and sincere and exhausted tone “oiga, me puede dar unos minutos con mi hija” (translated: could you give me a few minutes with my daughter). I had yearned for that moment for a long while. I felt overwhelmed with all the thoughts and emotions I was feeling simultaneously. I felt so happy to be able to bond, but it also felt foreign.
My grandfather stepped away further from us and he at one point stepped inside to ‘use the bathroom’. In that moment, I remember my dad caressing my my face and a tear dropped from his eye. I wanted to ask so bad what was wrong. Why was he sad, but I froze and I was scared. I felt partially paralyzed by what that question could mean. What response would I receive and I didn’t want to ruin that moment but I cared so much. My dad mustered to get out the words, ”te quiero mucho siempre y quisiera que estuvieras conmigo” (translated: I love you so much always, and I wish you were with me), before he quickly wiped his tears as we heard my grandfather coming back out.
The message of fear that was tucked away, when safety and the emotional bond was present made me feel mostly loved and cared for. The emotional bond of him carrying me, him feeding me, foods that normally babies or toddlers don’t eat, like BK, shrimp, Chinese food and peanuts. He would sit with me peeling one for himself and peeling one for me. The nicknames and his affectionate yet funny words and the way he altered his voice. He often used cuss words in Spanish to demonstrate his loving affection lol. The safety he brought when I would get to nap and sleep next to him and feeling the warmth of a body.
Then, that came to an abrupt end that I intellectualized as an abandonment. That sudden abandonment has been more traumatic/painful than I realized. I coped by repressing those feelings by telling myself I wasn’t important and didn’t matter for so many years, followed by anger and confusion. I tried to make myself strong by never asking about him, questioning him directly and avoiding thinking of him altogether. When he was brought up, the shame of it all made me tell others that I didn’t know his whereabouts or even going as far as saying he was dead.
The sudden abandonment of not only his emotional bond but also his physical abandonment was an imprint not only in my brain but also the body. I recognized I never fully felt “safe” to trust the masculine. Part of my anxiety has been that I subconsciously fear a sudden abonnement from the masculine figures in my life. I often questioned mainly to myself how much am I loved and cared for by them, especially if they don’t express it easily or often. Anytime someone withholds communication or the emotional connection, I realized it would bring back these same intense feelings. I had yet to fully connect that underlying tone of fear and anxiety that has lived in my body of what feels like it’s in alert mode for that sudden abandonment.
The anger I felt for not standing up for me like a strong man should as a kid were my deepest thoughts. His inability to protect me anymore made me angry. If he didn’t hurt my mother, we could still be a family and I wouldn’t have to experience the pain. Pain that felt confusing and too much for me and had no one to express it with verbally or through the body. All I could do was push it down.
Working through bringing attention to this painful monster in the closet. Once you expose that creature, with the bright light and start to guide it towards the door so it can be cleared out, it no longer holds control over you. Those monsters aren’t real, you are safe. With lots of breathing, grounding, taking yourself physically and mentally to a safe place. Soothing through movement – exercise, dancing, walking, shaking especially in the sympathetic stage in our nervous system. music/beats, self-soothing reminders, and actually feeling into those feelings when they arise are all a part of how to move beyond and above it. Learning to recognize all this allows me to stop projecting the fear, the anger, the pain, etc towards most often our partner subconsciously.
This has been my personal experience. And while abandonment for example is probably one of the most painful wounds shown to me by my father regardless of how unintentional it was or wasn’t, even through talk therapy as helpful as it has been to logically point out the details, there was a key element missing. As an adult I have had raw vulnerable moments where I had one on one talks with my father about this and having his apology. Sharing some of his thoughts and experiences of his actions and decisions and admitting the mistakes didn’t put much of the dent I continued to experience through the body and anxiety. For that is what was consistently the most alive. Our brains can only handle so much in it’s short vs long term memory. It is the painful events that we often remember the most because it is those that our nervous system picks up and keeps the imprint so that we can protect ourselves in the future. But our nervous system often isn’t connected “present” with our logic. So it all get’s meshed and confused. Therefore living in a state of anxiety that was created years ago and all the suppressing kept it trapped in the closet that does not recognize the logic of time and difference in people. It simply knows THIS happened that was caused by a MALE and this is what I LEARNED and FELT from it. That was TO MUCH I CANT. Talk therapy or simply becoming aware of the difficulties adults go through, understanding being an adult doesn’t automatically mean perfect. Understanding human behavior is like the workout of fitness, but without the consistency and the diet you don’t get very far. The same applies to this.
Abandonment is that where is the core wound many of us share. But the differences of the way we experience it, sometimes looks different. I experienced essentially both way’s in which we can experience it. Through Dorsal Vagal Complex or FREEZE of our nervous system where we continue to keep the monster suppressed and we protect ourselves so tightly that we often don’t experience or feel at all. The internal “thermostat” is way off balanced and in the “frozen” state that numbs us. We don’t trust our internal personal thermostat to be the ones to let us know when things start to get too hot and dangerous that logically as adults we know I am capable to protect myself.
Unfiltered 