I just spent the last hour typing up a post to put in [email protected] about how I observed a beautiful moment with a father and his 3 year old son.
The son was a fan of a wrestler named L.A. Knight. And he was set to make his grand entrance, and have his match, live in front of 57k people.
We were in the stadium, in line for merchandise. The line was really long. So the dad realized they would miss L.A Knight's match.
Logically the smart thing to do is bring your son back to your seats. Give up your place in line, and try later. Or evdn online later.
Instead, this dad, who was clearly also a fan of L.A Knight, and wanted to see him asked his son: "Do you want to stay in line? Or go see L.A Knight?"
And the kid picked staying in line. The dad confirmed with him "If you stay in line, you'll miss L.A Knight in the ring. He's coming out now."
And the kid chose to stay in line to get L.A Knight merch.
And the whole moment was beautiful to me. The idea of a dad respecting his kids opinion is foreign to me.
I grew up with my dad telling me to shut up and do it his way. Always his way. Still to this day, it's always his way. My mom left him because he was controlling. My sisters (who are not his kids, but he helped raise them) don't talk to him because of how he treated them.
I'm 40, and now he's elderly, and I barely talk to him. Sometimes I feel guilty until moments like this. Where I'm reminded that still to this day I don't speak up when I should. I don't ask for help when I need it. I just suffer in silence, just as I always do.
There have even been times in the past where calling 911 for someone else having an emergancy was the right thing to do. Hearing gunshots on your street. Seeing a woman hanging out of a car screaming for help. But not calling 911, because nobody wants to hear what I have to say. Nobody wants to hear from me.
And at Summerslam, I see this kid saying he wants to stay in line. And the dad just confirms, and explains the consequences that he'll miss L.A Knight, but the kid insisted on staying in line. Despite it not being the smart choice. It was the "wrong" choice. If I were in that position, my dad would have ended it with zero input on my end. But here this dad was respecting his sons choice. His three year old son.
And as I typed to a wrestling community what I intended to be a beautiful story, I realized it's only beautiful to me because of my own repressed perspective. Everybody else just would hear a story about a normal dad doing normal dad things. Loving his son. Respecting his son.
And nobody would get why that would make me cry.
So I deleted the story before I posted it, and began to realize that even though I'm 40, and should be past all this, it still hurts, and I'm a deeply broken person.
And now I'm wondering, has anyone else had these moments where they realize that they've just been repressing pain for 30 years to the point where a normal loving relationship can cause jealousy, but also an intense heartwarming moment?
I don't know how to describe it. That moment was just 10 minutes out of this kids life that he'll not remember. The dad won't deem it important, so he won't remember this by now. It was a meaningless moment that in a loving relationship happens everyday. But to me, the idea of a dad respecting his son making a "wrong decision" had me supressing anger, sadness, and heartwarming joy, but also knowing how weird I was for that. And so I shut up, and repressed it. Only in trying to retell a heartwarming story did I realize it was coming across as bitter and jealous, and thats when I realized thats MY issue. And I don't know where to go from here.
Have you ever had a moment like this?
I learned of my father's death weeks after the fact. My involuntary reaction was an emotionless, "huh." I think I was forty eight years old at the time.
I hadn't spoken to him for over thirty years, and had suffered decades of nightmares that he'd found me.
After learning he had passed, the nightmares finally ended, but the lifelong fight or flight tendency to keep to myself and never rock any boat remains.
My sister has said that she's jealous of my daughter because we have a pretty close father/daughter bond - something my sister never knew and never will.
In my fifties now, I generally avoid human interaction as much as is physically possible. While I could cite other reasons as to why I'm this way, I can confidently point a rigididly extended index finger at dear old dad as the foundation of it all.
My parenting duties complete, I mostly just exist waiting for the sweet sweet embrace of death when I'll no longer have to go make money for the man or pretend that I enjoy the saccharin sweet small talk of co-workers who don't give two shits about me or anybody else, but professional decorum for the win, right?
I don't even look forward to weekends because those are just two day stints of solitude doing chores so I'm ready to go make more money for the man on Monday.
You are not a machine and you have the right to happiness. I hope you find it.
I recommend therapy, if you haven’t tried it, and if it’s not working, I suggest different therapists, or different types of therapy. It’s okay to tell a therapist you’re not getting much out of their style/your relationship with them, and ask for their assessment of what you should be looking for. Then go look at that. Keep trying until you find something that clicks.
If it helps, in your shoes I would view it as a continuation of your parental duties. When she moves out, or maybe has kids of her own, you can continue the relationship with her and your grandchildren as your genuine, authentic, and - perhaps - happy self.
I spent several months last year actively looking for a therapist. I'm not talking a single casual Google search and done. I'm talking months of calling, emailing, physically driving to. The only therapists I could find who were taking on new patients and would accept my insurance were magic Jesus Crystal types whose "therapy" was little more than thinly veiled proselytizing.
Given how it seems people need to go through several therapists to find the right one, I gave up after failing to secure the first.
I almost fell for that whole better help scam but fortunately it was exposed for the personal data mining nonsense that it is before I signed up.
I know it is tough, I know the process is a pain in the ass, and as someone who has been through at least five therapists, it can fucking suck. I really do encourage everyone to keep trying. Having a stranger sworn to secrecy that I can dump anything and everything on is good. The fact that she can take all that information and come up with a plan for how I can tackle everything is amazing