How to accept that I probably never going to make my father proud?

[Tyer]

This is probably gonna be chaotic and hard to understand. My brain isnt really able to focus or concentrate right now. Its all jver the place.

After, once again, having a terrible fight with my father, Its visible that hes unable to see that Im never gonna be what he wants me to be.
I fear that if I cut any contact with him, that we both fall into a dark pit. And I dont want to be responsible for losing another parent.
But getting into those sensless argues over and over again, in which he never grasps what I really want (even tho I keep repeating that i just want at least one person that asks me how my day was.) ... Its agonizing.
Im so close at losing it again.

I want him to stop.
I want him to stop demanding me to be something that I cant be, no matter how hard I try.
I tried my hole life and it crippled me. Im done with it.
he also refuses to accept that Im happy the way I am.
Just because I keep asking people to pay a little attention to me.

Theres to much going on to fully explain everything. Im just so tired of constantly explaining myself. Being attacked on all sides just because nobody even tries to understand my reactions and emotions. (People just dont seem to have a clue how humans functions.)

How can it be that I have to listen to other for 4h straight about their things, providing them ideas and help, but as soon as I try to talk about my stuff they start to get bored and critize me?
As if Im not getting bored over their stuff, but i still activly listen and think about it and ask question and show interest.


How is it wrong to expect others to do the same for me?

People abd my dad constantly tell me I have to pay attention and show interest, but they dont have to do that when im the one talking?
Theres a serious issue!
And Im sick of it!

"Its because youre different!/better in that topic!"
What?! ... so im too good? To be of any worth?
Im too boring to be treated with respect?
And when other are better in topics and I ask them for help, all they do is laugh and telling me I have to learn it myself? Excuse me, what?
Then why the hecc do i gave to help them?
And if i tell them i dont want tk help cuz they dont do the same for me, im suddely "arrogant", "delusional" and "crazy"?

And then people wonder why I keep snapping?
(....i guess my surounding isnt really of the smart kind...or...am i just too stupid to understand how worthless i am? I Dont want to keep playing that crazy game, and that makes me "antisocial"?
Actually...i rather be "antisocial" then being treated like crap for showing respect and care. ...)

Once again I feel just invalidated as a lifeform, as a human being.

I want to stop. Just to stop getting mad at people. But Im also so scared of what I might become, if I cut the ties to everyone I care about and love. I dont want to become a cynical, spiteful creature that invalitates others.

More issolation and Im seriously getting problem from which I cant recover from.

I dont want to give up.
...i dont know whats going on. I just want someone that asks me how my day was.
I dont understand why thats too much too ask...

How can that trigger my father into calljng me his biggest failure...

Why isnt it okay to be a failure? Im tired of trying to be anything.
I never did harm others on purpose.
I never took drugs or took alcohol. Im not doing any criminal activities ....all I am is being something that cant be seen.
Im just autistic. I never did anything else.
I cant be "normal". But nothing I did was in any way antisocial or harmfull to others.

My dads issues shouldnt be mine.
...i guess i have no other choice then to get some space and drawback from him.

If anyone else has an idea, please tell me.
Im kinda desprate.

Im willing to listen to any idea. No matter how weird or dumb.
I just want to avoid getting another psychosis from stress. Or panic attack. Or doing something really really stupid, just because I cant take it anymore.

(Dont worry. Im quit good in handling my depression and dark thoughts. I know how to reach out and know where I can find help if it gets really really bad. Im also in therapy.)(I just feel so...alone and misunderstood. It got so bad that i have a hard time even explaining it anymore because its just too much things at once...
I just want to be allowed to tell something that makes me happy. But im even physically unable to do it. Like, everytime i try my brain gets blank. Nothing comes out. Like selective mutism.
As if im so warped over all those accuring devestating fights, that i got some type of blockage to even try.... any suggestions how to train opening up about my favorite matters? My surrounding isnt safe for that...i tried....thats one of the issues...)


Or if anyone has similiar, or not so similiar but still fitting, own expiriences, please share it.

I could need some pain sharing. Or nice words.
Or a joke

 

[Aspychata]

So sorry to read this. If your father is type A, alpha type, perfectionist, you will never satisfy him. My father graded my runaway letter for grammar. I came back to the house, because as a tween runaway, there was no place to go. I was ill equipped to scale living on my own. He took out the letter and pointed out the mistakes. Nothing else was said. Another time l let him down.

 

[Tyer]

You must have felt so overlooked. (Probably the wrong word, but I dont know a better one right now.)
Im sorry for you too.

Im curious tho, did you feel or know if he loved you? or wasnt he the type of dad that got feelings for his kids?

some expect a lot and are not really emotionally invested, but one still can see sometimes that some somehow love their children.
While others straight up dont seem to even see their own kids as humans.

I think my dad loves me. At least he did say that in the past. He certainly did when i was still a child. I guess the younger i was the less i was a failure to him.
He never really bothered with me. My issues was always my mothers "duty", because she was "good at it". Calling himself "not good with such matter". (Which is a double standard in a way, cuz he keeps demanding from me "you just have to learn the things youre not good at" <which i certainly do! Im slow and not as good as others, but i DO! Different then he!> he cant even do it himself... which is kind of ....well....double standard.)
My mom died two years ago. So he cant shove me off to her anymore.
He is now full blown confronted with me. And it annoyes him to the core.

the more i "rebell" and show my "frustration" the more i see some sort of disgust in his eyes. The more he sees that im not willing to obey his "advices", the more he thinks im "delusional" and "need to learn the real world".
Im basically just waiting for him to hate me so much, that he kicks me out. (Im currently living with him because of my health issues.)

i never felt comfortable showing him my real feelings. I tried so hard to help my family when mom died. I overdid it (thats why my health got so much worse.)

feelings cant get bottled up forever, at least not mine. One day i cried infront of him. And he looked so disgusted. I never felt such a pain just from being looked at, and i knew alot of looks that disaproved of me. But to see someone i love with such a disgust over my tears.

I felt so sick and as if he had just punched me in the face and gut. A cold wave run my spine down.

So... I think, Im losing the believe that my dad still loves me.
It feels like he just wants to fix me, that im "too corrupted and delusional", he waants me to be "healed", to "be like everyone else", so i stop annoying him. (Even tho thats exactly the reason i got so sick. <The constant stress on my body.> which i keep telling him, but it only hits deaf ears. he appearently must thinks biology is nonesense.)
Because he just has no idea how to handle me and refuses to believe or accept me.
Im FINE, i just need to be left alone. And then and now i need some social love. (I basicaly want to be treated like a cat.)

For him, to think, that i cant be like everyone else, is the biggest nightmare.

Unable to realize that its his words, his attempts to "help me motivate", are the stones i trip over and over and over again.


Sorry... I keep on ranting about my dad.
It wouldnt be such an issue, if i wouldnt value him so much. (Hes actually quit smart or..no maybe i should say intelligent. Thats why i cant understand why hes unable to grasp the things i right out tell him in the face, again and again.)
If i wouldnt want to make him happy and proud of me, i would be way better Health wise already.
(But i cant just leave. I could try...but...its kinda risky.)

Welp...
what can one do... most kids love their dad/dads. Or at least want him/them to approve of your existence.


Dads let their kids strive for success, to go work and develope as far as one can.
But it has also sideeffects. Especially if one cant met expectations.
Its not easy to be a dad, especially to be a good dad. And good dads arent always what one thinks a good dad should be.
A good dad doesnt even necessarily need to like their own kids.
...but... it feels nice when dads show that they dont hate their kids.

 

[WhitewaterWoman]

I am so sorry you are going through this. My father was not the type to give praise. It was always that I should do better, no matter how good it was. I was always a disappointment to him.

I cut him off twice. Once at age 15 and then again around 27 or so. I gave him a bit of a chance in my 20s to see if he could be civil and appropriate. He couldn’t. Hence the second cut off.I never saw him or interacted with him again. And I don’t feel the least bit sorry about it.

It would have been nice to have a loving, caring, supportive father, but that was not present in the cards I drew.

It seems to me that if you must live with him, you at least can stop expecting, or hoping that, he will give you what you need and want. I hear you saying you have repeated your argument many times and he doesn’t get it. He probably won’t. Let it go.

In general, over my life span, I have found that people approach me and tell me all their problems. Even strangers. Like you, I rarely encounter someone who will listen to my problems or feelings. (This forum is an exception. People are very kind and supportive here.)

You can only get from you father that which he is able to give. Let it go. If you stop putting all your energy into a dead end relationship, you will have energy and time to find or see others who may have at least some of what you need.

 

[Tyer]

I am so sorry you are going through this. My father was not the type to give praise. It was always that I should do better, no matter how good it was. I was always a disappointment to him.

I cut him off twice. Once at age 15 and then again around 27 or so. I gave him a bit of a chance in my 20s to see if he could be civil and appropriate. He couldn’t. Hence the second cut off.I never saw him or interacted with him again. And I don’t feel the least bit sorry about it.

It would have been nice to have a loving, caring, supportive father, but that was not present in the cards I drew.

It seems to me that if you must live with him, you at least can stop expecting, or hoping that, he will give you what you need and want. I hear you saying you have repeated your argument many times and he doesn’t get it. He probably won’t. Let it go.

In general, over my life span, I have found that people approach me and tell me all their problems. Even strangers. Like you, I rarely encounter someone who will listen to my problems or feelings. (This forum is an exception. People are very kind and supportive here.)

You can only get from you father that which he is able to give. Let it go. If you stop putting all your energy into a dead end relationship, you will have energy and time to find or see others who may have at least some of what you need.

Know what. Thats probably exactly what I wanted to hear. Thank you for youre kindness and attention.

All of you who read this or bothered to answer. Thank you.

 

[Aspychata]

It's important for you talk about your feelings. You are acknowledging the hurt, frustration, uneasiness of the entirety of your relationship with your father. He may see you and think of his failures and try to superimpose his disappointment on you. But you aren't a failure, you don't need his approval to love yourself. Is it possible for you to find some therapy?

 

[Xinyta]

I feel your pain. It honestly hurts me reading this. I'm digging through my own tramas right now and my stepmother is a huge focal point in my life, like your father is in your's.

Though one thing that I am learning is that you cannot change people. Just who you allow in your life. And the hardest choices, are the best made ones.

For me. I am grappling with my past more than my present. But it all feels real in my head. I feel like I had to dig past 100 feet of negative comments, hate, and insults, all directed at myself. My self-loathing is monster of a problem.

It all stems from two factors. Desiring a mother, since my bio-mom abandoned me and Dad when I was still a baby. And trying to get love from my stepmother.

My stepmother is 100% the opposite of anyone you'd expect to be a mother. She, to put it lightly, is a foul human being. She is a major narcissist and control freak. She has intense psychosis and neurosis. And if you have the audacity to dare do something, without her input, in the house or with any activity. She will scream at you, use every curse word in the dictionary, and call you things like 'stupid' and 'retard'. All because it was not done HER way, and/or done without her.

My Dad was absentee both physically and emotionally. He worked all the dang time. And when he was home. He was watching tv, screwing around with his phone, or snacking. Most times, it was all three. He is in his own world and if you try to talk to him about anything, he'll try to make it about him or will not be paying attention in general. He did that to me recently when I tried to talk about my situation mentally with him and opened up about how I felt not having him around and having to deal with a psychopath of a stepmother everyday. He turned it into it being about him and how he was a 'lost child too'. Though my Uncles and Aunts call bull on that. My grandparents raised all of them right. My grandpa got weird later in life, but he was still a actual father to all his kids. From what my Uncle tells me, anyway. But yet my Dad hates his Dad and thinks he was a totally crappy person. Though my Dad needs to look in the mirror, because he IS what he thinks his own father was.

Truthfully. Because my stepmother didn't pan out how I liked, I looked to my Dad to save me. But that never came. Yet I continued to hope well into adulthood. But now it's just... bitter. A very bitter taste in my mouth that I'd expect my Dad, a very insecure humanbeing, will save me from another very insecure humanbeing. Even though it's well past the point where my stepmother isn't in my life anymore.

I now find myself battling my dependency trap. Expecting others to tell me what to do, or to do things for me. Since 'I can't do it myself'. Which is the biggest load of baloney on the planet. I have no idea what I'm capable of and I use to be indifferent if that ever changed or not. It didn't matter. I have been broken for nearly 30 years of my life. The latter 12 years of that was living on my own, which only added on to my turmoil, because I got booted there by my stepmother and my Dad just went along with it.

The last 3 years has been trying to figure out the mess I have just been talking about. It's been tough. And it only getting harder. But I want it to be, because I cannot hope to get better without adversity. No one can.

 

[Jumpinbare]

Also sorry to read all this. I wish he could drop his delusion of what he expects from you. We all can change, but we have to want to, then do the work. It sounds like he doesn't even want to. I'm so sorry.

 

[Hypnalis]

@Tyer

One option you have is to get better at handling NTs.

That won't magically fix your problems of course. And it takes quite a long time.
But it will (100%) help.

I have to note: a lot more people want the result than want to work on achieving the result.

That's ok: it applies to most people to some degree. But this is harder because it has to be done alone (AFAIK - working together with other "students" would be good if it was possible).

In terms of effort, think of something like adding 15kg of muscle to a slightly underweight 75-80 kg male body in a home gym. certainly possible - but easier if you did it at a friendly gym with some "gym bros" to provide guidance and support.


BTW: there are people (more these days than in the past) who demand the right to stay the same.
Clearly I'm suggesting a kind of self-improvement, but choosing not to do that is a valid adult choice.
You don't have to explain your decision to me

 

[AspieChris]

My mother would say to me every single day for years, “When are you going to quit that dead end job and go to college?” Every day….

My father actually nearly drowned me when I was 19 because he was hoping to ‘bond’ with me after a lifetime of neglect.

You are not alone in this suffering. I didn’t ask to be born and somehow it’s my job to make my parents whole? I spent many nights of my youth thinking I would teach my mother a lesson by committing suicide because of this.

It sucks. It hurts. It lasts forever. We are enslaved by the wants and needs of so many others, and ours seem to never be considered. Any relationship should be 50/50, but I always found ones that were more like 90/10 (me giving the 90 and getting back only 10).

If I have a dog and it bites me repeatedly, I’m getting rid of it. If a car breaks down constantly and it will cost more than it’s worth to fix, it goes to the junkyard. And some relationships aren’t worth pouring endless amounts of energy into repairing. I’m not suggesting you remove your Dad from your life, but maybe it’s not your responsibility to fix a man who is obviously not interested in repairing his relationship with his own child.

 

[Aspychata]

@AspieChris , l like the way you worded this. I don't want to admit this at times, l signed up for a relationship l put my whole life effort into trying to keep something alive, which was really dead all along. This applies to parents, to fake friends, to fake love interests. But for some reason, we buy the snake oil, and we can't accept defeat, we
can't accept the loss of mom, or dad, or friend, or love interest. It's as if we convince ourselves, that our validation is only legit if someone accepts us. When in reality, we must love and accept ourselves first. Why is this such a horrible lesson to learn? And because l have suffered so much defeat, l can no longer recognize true friends anymore. I confess l have done this with my mother, a handsome aspie guy, and a clearly out of control friend.

 

[Seladon]

My Dad was absentee both physically and emotionally. He worked all the dang time. And when he was home. He was watching tv, screwing around with his phone, or snacking. Most times, it was all three. He is in his own world and if you try to talk to him about anything, he'll try to make it about him or will not be paying attention in general. He did that to me recently when I tried to talk about my situation mentally with him and opened up about how I felt not having him around and having to deal.He turned it into it being about him…

@Xinyta ah you’ve met my father I seetrying to get him to share, connect or take accountability is like getting blood from a stone, there’s no ‘there’ there.

Really though, sorry to hear you went through this at the hands of this uncaring old man, you didn’t deserve to be treated that way.

It’s amazing how these uninvolved neglectful self-absorbed Dads suddenly turn around when they start to get old, play victim, and want—even expect—their kids to nurse them and clean up after them. It’s the gumption of it all for me.

 

[Xinyta]

You are not alone in this suffering. I didn’t ask to be born and somehow it’s my job to make my parents whole? I spent many nights of my youth thinking I would teach my mother a lesson by committing suicide because of this.

This hits home rather deep. I remember the number of times I've wanted to commit suicide after my relationship with my roommate feel through. There was a lot of thoughts. My stepmother's voice in my head, my own thoughts insulting me. Calling myself a failure. A horrible human being. A waste of life.

But I told myself "If I do this. I let my stepmother win." That thought pissed me off enough to divert the thought process to want to off myself.

It sucks. It hurts. It lasts forever. We are enslaved by the wants and needs of so many others, and ours seem to never be considered. Any relationship should be 50/50, but I always found ones that were more like 90/10 (me giving the 90 and getting back only 10).

If I have a dog and it bites me repeatedly, I’m getting rid of it. If a car breaks down constantly and it will cost more than it’s worth to fix, it goes to the junkyard. And some relationships aren’t worth pouring endless amounts of energy into repairing. I’m not suggesting you remove your Dad from your life, but maybe it’s not your responsibility to fix a man who is obviously not interested in repairing his relationship with his own child.

This is a really good way to look at it. The definition of insanity is to repeat the same thing over and over endlessly, expecting a different result. It never ends up working how we think. Psychological traps of this nature are insidious like this, though.

It’s amazing how these uninvolved neglectful self-absorbed Dads suddenly turn around when they start to get old, play victim, and want—even expect—their kids to nurse them and clean up after them. It’s the gumption of it all for me.

Totally. Though my Dad hasn't gotten to that point where he expects help from people all the time. But he does act like a victim when it cones to the topic of my grandfather. And I guess he expects everyone to feel bad for him. But he really just needs to get over it. Which I know he won't.

 

[AspieChris]

Here’s the crappy part. Finding a way to balance your own needs with a life where dad is still part of your life can be so stressful that it feels hopeless. And people like that seem to be able to walk away from an argument and easily forget it, while it consumes your thoughts for years sometimes. Yet the world teaches us that it is our responsibility to conform to their wants and needs, forsaking our own.

My relationship with my mother got much better when I moved into my own apartment. I could choose the amount of her b.s. that I could handle. It also illuminated the depth of her selfishness and eventually drove me to give myself an ultimatum. Let’s just say I chose to live.

My only advice us to make it through today. Then begin planning a transition into independence. When you finally begin to feel like you don’t need this person, it’s gets easier to walk away from an argument before it begins.

 

[Tom]

I would say focus more on meeting your own goals and expectations. That a parent might have expectations is pretty common, but actually of very little consequence in your life. If you meet them great, if you don't oh well. It's not your purpose in life.