An Unrelenting Father Wound
A Previously Withheld Essay
This is an essay I wrote the night before I changed the entire course of this Substack. It represents the exact moment the realization happened about my writing and the core of my motivations. It was not until I was able to write this essay that I realized I had named everything incorrectly. I did not publish it that night, and I was unsure if I ever would. After the weekly meeting with the friends who have helped me walk through the uncertainty of my faith, I was able to share it with them, read some lines aloud, feel the weight of what I wrote, and even tear up as I read a part of it out loud. It reminded me of the power of what my writing has been able to do for me and why I continue to write and the power of sharing it.
I sat all day today running an anxious loop. I was trying to solve a problem about what my next career move would be. At the end of April, I left a career at a company I had been at for the past thirteen years. I left not because I was not good at what I did, I left because I knew how unhealthy I had become in that role. I needed to change course if I was going to continue to grow healthier for my family.
I ran various different scenarios about what I could do with my life now at the age of thirty eight. Could I go back to school and get the PhD I originally wanted before I decided not to continue with schooling? How much would that cost, and could that turn into a career that is meaningful and I would be proud of?
But in reality, the question I am really asking is if he would be proud of it.
Most of my life drive has come from one sole aim to prove: am I worth it?
A father has many symbolic meanings: provider, protector, guide, and supporter to name a few. To me, all of that could be summed up in the symbolic meaning that said, “you are valuable to this world and I am glad you are here.” When my father was present, I felt that with every fiber of my being. I felt all of the layers of the symbolic but most of all I felt that his love and affection for me always answered the question of my worth. When he was engaged and interacting with me, I knew the answer was yes.
But my father struggled with that question himself. His own relationship with his father was a strained relationship. I remember asking my father how he got addicted to meth and his answer was pretty simple. His father was absent as well. Not in a drug use and abusive way, but in an emotionally and physically distant kind of way. My father desperately wanted the same question that I desired to be answered by his father, and it was met with a metaphorical no.
What is the most upsetting and damaging part about childhood trauma is that our mind is thirty eight but our emotions are still nine. When we get wounded at a deep subconscious level, our emotional age does not progress and we get trapped in the age of the trauma. My thirty eight year old self knows my father loved me and that he was suffering from his own wounds. But my nine year old emotional subconscious is still screaming, “was I not worth fighting for? Am I not worth it?”
As I lay on the couch with my wife tonight, I was able to get to the core of the anxious searching for the perfect next career move for me. I was able to cry and tell her the desperation I have to be seen and understood at a level that would combat that programming that is trying as hard as it can to answer the question that I know cannot be answered.
My father died a distant alcoholic who only met my oldest daughter twice and died one month before my second daughter was born. In some ways my subconscious is saying, “the question has been answered, you were not worth fighting for.” So my subconscious has fought to drive me to performance to challenge that answer. I am going to be the most successful person I could possibly be to prove that wrong. It has been doing that ever since I left my house at twelve and did not live under his roof any longer.
It was there under the surface driving me as I strived for every new achievement that I thought would prove my worth to him. If I could just be more amazing than everyone else, it would be undeniable and he would be overcome with awe at my achievements, and he would decide that his self destructive tendencies could be stopped and his love and admiration for me would force him to give up his vices. My accolades would overpower his weaknesses and addictions and I would have a father that finally answered that question with a resounding, “YOU MATTER!”
Then one day, he was gone. The ability for him to change the answer to that deep visceral existential question of my value is no longer possible, and I was left with an answer that I am still desperately trying to disprove to this day. When I achieve a milestone in my career or someone notices a painting that I did, or something that I built and says, “wow, that is amazing!” I think subconsciously, “you see that dad, I matter.” Every achievement is me trying to tip the scale back in favor of my value that is being weighed down by the weight of my father’s corpse on the scale.
My cry was therapeutic tonight. Not because it answered the question, but because it allowed me to accept the weight that I still want that answer. It also allowed me to dwell on the fact that my test has some flaws in it. It assumes my father’s abandonment and inability to overcome his own issues from his childhood are predicated on my value. My test at its core is flawed. It puts my father in a position that he could never truly answer.
But here is the rub: he should have been the one to answer that question. For whatever reason biologically, we are predisposed to want our fathers to answer this question. There is a reason the father archetype exists. But my father was a damaged child that was always going to struggle to answer that question the way he should have answered it. It does not excuse my father’s failings outright, but it does allow me to have kindness towards the little boy my father once was that did not get that question answered for him either.
The battle with this question is far from done. I am still wrestling with my value and worth to this world. I am still deeply unsure about if there is a grand meaning for all of my suffering and if me being on this earth means anything more than a random chance. I will need my wife to continue to ask me what is wrong and for me to take the time and ask myself what is driving this anxiety. My body always knows before I do.
I have to slow down, be present for the grief, and let the tears come.