My family and I went to a restaurant. We're 2 brothers (I'm the middle) and parents.
During our way to the restaurant I joked about World of Warcraft (video game) with my little brother and my father attempted to hush me when we were on our way to the restaurant as I enthusiastically talked about it. I externally ignored it and continued talking about it. He emotionally ranted about it in a "don't you have anything else to talk about?" manner.
Now I have an extremely high sensitivity to negativity, they have a bad impact on me deep inside. I have depression I believe comes from my father's anger issues, especially during childhood. I took allot of burden because of his own inner problems over the years, lots of discouragements, hardly any encourages. The discouragement had more energy than the encouragements (the bad would be said loudly and angrily, while the good would be said silently and calmly).
So during the restaurant, I found myself falling to depression. What I know is negative statements take time to drop me down from inside, so all my life it's been hard to tell what cripples me down, but now I know. They depress me. So near the end I confronted my father about this, not understanding why he finds a problem with talking about a specific subject with my brother, and considering my attempts of recovery he should be more thoughtful. He said his own reasons as to why he did that, didn't apologize but put me down more by saying a "It's your choice to feel bad" kind of statement.to which he replied "ok, then I won't deal with you". He also asked "Don't you care whether this subject interests other people around you or not?"
Me: "No I don't care, I talked about it with my little brother"
Him: "See? So it's about you!"
Things got more heated I said to him in the face "I feel bad because of you", more angrily.
He ranted a "Selfish you(me) and the world" statement, to which I replied "You are not the world".
He's biased, irrational and all my life I had to take those burdens not just at home, but outside of home, because of HIM.
I sat at our outdoor parking spot and my mom came, told me she talked to him about this. He told her he did not mean to offend me and that he felt threatened by me.
She said we both have to make an effort to improve the situation.
I told her as a son, I have to see an example from my father, only then I will improve.
She also told me that I can next time tell him about my feelings more gently.
I had an experience where I apologized gently about something minor which irritated him badly. Instead of forgiving, he continued ranting angrily. So being nice and gentle won't work, and I don't intend to be nice and gentle. He doesn't deserve it. He's the one who must SHOW (not just say) it's possible, else I won't improve for him. It doesn't work that way. This means I keep taking his own burden with me.
My mom told me she was torn inside from seeing me like this, and said she will think of something to work it out. I felt she was in deep inner grief, so I hugged her.
I don't know what else to say. I kinda feel like crying a bit.
I just hate those trapped feelings caused by having had to contain such burdens over my lifetime. I want to take care of the cause of depression, and if I have to "seem threatening" to do it, I will.
I don't deserve the burden of others.
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