The, I'm sure, long awaited conclusion of my thoughts about my parents is finally here! To tell you the truth, I have been working on this for the entire interim. My constant thinking about it or my several rewrites keep bringing me back to the same place. Every time I try to work through the issues in their entirety, I end up further entangling myself in the deep web laid for me by my father. I whittled all my ideas down to one single paragraph:
I have asked myself some questions addressing the issues brought up by Scott Adams. Do I have any favors left to give or any secrets I could entrust to my father? No. He has shown me that my favors are unwanted or unaccepted, and I don’t entrust secrets to people who then use them to try to control me. Do I have anything left to gain from him? No. All he had to give me were lavish gifts. All I wanted was acceptance or respect, no strings attached, no subtle manipulations to make me “better”. My father only gave me the latter, paying only lip service to the former. Then I had one final question for myself: Can I live with the knowledge that I can never prove myself to him? This answer I do not yet have, but I can truly say life is more peaceful now than it ever was. I would trade many things for a little peace, the most prized of which is the need to be accepted by my father.
That's my conclusion. When I feel the need to justify myself, I realize I am merely stuck defending myself against the individual attacks and not properly addressing the source and the premise which all these issues spring from. My father creates a web, from which he can obtain a level of control over those entangled. I feel sorry for everyone stuck in it. I feel sorry for him, in a way, though it won't change my response. I have made mistakes, but have done nothing wrong. I'm okay with that. Donald is right. I think about this too much. It's time to "let go of those who don't love you, and embrace those who do."
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