Absent Father

You would expect a parent to be someone who pours all their love into their children. A role model. Somebody who builds people up. Encourages you.

It's not the case for me. My father has always been somewhat absent in key moments of my life. I wouldn't say that he was never there. However, when he was, I never felt supported by him. When family is the focus of conversation, he always brings up ways we fail. Never our accomplishments, never our interests, never anything good. I grew up with a misconstrued perception of family. 

I have always felt smaller than my father. Not because I lacked in any way, but because he tells me I do. I am a burden to him even when I help him with tasks he doesn't know how to do. 

If I lash out in any way about the mistreatment. He tells me that my words don't hold weight because I have nothing to show for it. That all my accomplishments are worth recognizing. I don't have the greatest self-esteem as a result. 

When things don't work out for me, he always seems to know why. He's always corrective about my faults. 

That when things go wrong, I'm always the reason why. 

It makes me feel terrible and sad because all the actions and decisions up until now in my life have been in the pursuit of conventional success. It makes me feel that everything I have done is meaningless. That I should just give up.