PTSD. Even My Kids Discriminate.

I’ve had PTSD from an early age, and when it was first diagnosed in 2017, I had many years of fatherhood already in play. I admit - I’ve been a father that has had to work extremely hard to have even basic communication with my kids. Part of this is the fear of the words I issue, and how those words may lay on their own self-interpretation. I was raised in an authoritative and often abusive environment, and I have to work to communicate outside of that frame.

Having noise triggers resulted in me masking my hearing, or removing from the understandably loud existence of children. To not do one of these mitigators was to react with yelling and anger. Just typing this makes me horrified. But it is my path to talk through this and hopefully sew seed for change.

My kids told me that when I finally did get help, it was too late. Telling someone this is discriminatory, because it closes the book, no opportunity for reconciliation, no chance for healing, and no acknowledgement of mitigating factors. Basically, it’s saying “you’re broken, bye.” If I had somehow harmed them criminally, I could understand this. But I didn’t, and haven’t. I’ve only worked hard to survive. My “crime” is not knowing how to communicate with them. Even my wife discourages me from talking to them. I do not know how to deal with this, so I keep my nose to the grindstone. To say I feel alone is an exponential understatement. None of this feels reasonable.

To my kids, I’m irredeemable as a father, father figure, or even as a family member. Oh, they’ve depended on me to eat, keep safe, and have their basic needs (and more) met, but there is no redemption for my disability or disability response.

I’ve realized that I cannot be attached to their judgement or refusal of me. If I dwell on it, it hurts egoistically, because I truly do love having created and having met and overcome extreme odds to keep them safe. I admire their existence, wish it included me, and yet, they have the indelible mark of my DNA on their lives.

Lots of kids have fathers that abandoned them. I want my kids to know that I haven’t. I want them to know that love them, and I WANT relationship, I want to have connection, and yet there was a point, and I don’t even know how this happened, that I have been “not allowed” to talk to them, even if they are right next to me. I realize how weak this sounds. I’m just being transparent.

All of us have some sort of cross to bear. Mine, to date, is that I’ve chased true intimacy, and there is still a piece of me that doesn’t trust it.

Intimacy is proceeding to and past the point of vulnerability without judgment.

Maybe one day, I’ll surrender to intimacy. If I find it available.