Messages By: teachme21

When reading your message all I was thinking about is my own dad and how I stand in our relationship with him. I too have trouble letting go of how he is and not being able to accept just that. I too still wish he was different and that I could accept him and love him more than I do now. It is hard to even love a man who is so different than I am, and the way I think about what is appropriate or not.

I mean, I love him because he is my father, but I don't feel the love that I for instance feel for my twinsister, or my older sister, or my mother. It's hard to come to terms with that.

I think the main thing is, to stop being vulnerable around him. It's like your mom has said, lower your expectations of him. He's not the 'perfect guy' you thought your dad was when you were growing up. He's a grown up that makes stupid misstakes and unfortunately he's the one living with the consequences.

It's like Dr Phil said, if you need HIM to do something that will make you able to get past this, you may have to wait a long, long time. So YOU yourself need to do something to make you able to get past this.

You have your own life now, that is good. Focus on that. You don't want your baby to pick up on the anger and resentment you feel towards your father, so that your baby grows up with this same anger and resentment. Babies pick up more of your emotions than you would think at first. They know.

Just accept your dad is who he is, and make sure you let go of the anger and resentment for what he has done in the past. I know it is hard. I am struggling with that every day with my own father. And sometimes i do well, and other times I go hard against him and we get into a fight and I feel I am even more vulnerable than before.

I guess what I am trying to say is, stop giving your dad the power over your life and over the way you feel and experience things. Stop letting him put a dark cloud over your life when you think about him. Just accept him for who he is and let him be.

Concentrate on you and on your own family.

Sending you much strength....

Petra

Your message is a bit.. well contradicting. On one hand you say you know that special person is out there for you and sooner or later you'll find them. But on the other hand you point out all of your 'weaknesses' and try to let people feel sorry for you and agree that indeed it is very hard for you to find that special person.

Your whole message, except that last sentence is very negative. You portray the people you meet as supervisual "only want money, sex, goodlooking man", you feel your life just sucks "you don't want to be in my shoes" and on top of that you talk badly about the way you look "not good looking / disabled". Do you honestly think with that attitude your special person will just fall madly in love with you just by the sight of you?

No, and you know why? Not because of your looks, but because of your vision on life. You have such a negative look on life that you are driving people away. People will not want to come close to a person that is thinking they are not worth one second of their time. Because that is what your message is portraying. A lot of selfpity.

Look at your GOOD qualities and accept the lesser qualities. No person is perfect. Everyone has their own flaws. And just because you are disabled or not so goodlooking, doesn't make it any harder for you to find a good mate, than a person who isn't disabled and 'better' goodlooking.

LOOKS aren't that important anyway. Yes, it is the first thing you see, when meeting someone. But honestly, do you judge someone by their cover? Do you run away from someone who doesn't look like a Claudia Schiffer, or a Tom Cruise? I would say not.

Make yourself be important and goodlooking and a good party TO YOU.

Because the person you have portrayed to be in your message, will not be able to keep a special person in their life, simply because they themselves don't think they're too special.

Petra

First and foremost, I think women might feel reluctant in coming close to you, because you yourself are reluctant in letting them come close.

You have to accept that you are who you are. Make sure you get all the facts straight about the physical intimacy part, by consulting a doctor whom you trust so your thoughts are correct and not just based on your feelings of anxiety.

I personally believe that sure, seeing a man (or woman) in a wheelchair might 'scare' people at first (if you even can call it scaring), but it's all about how the one in the wheelchair is behaving that will either subdue the scare or make it worse and you'll never see that person again.

If you have a good outlook on life, if you are totally happy with yourself, if you feel you still live a fullfilled 100% good life even though you cannot use parts of your body, than THAT is what you will shine from your heart.

People are drawn to positivity. Trust me on that. People are not drawn to others who have doubts, who have fears that block them from being who they truly are.

Just try that and see how that goes. It's an uphill battle, but like with every mountain, once your at the top, it's going to be an easy ride down the mountain and home again!

Petra

Let me first tell you, that I am in NO way trying to hurt your feelings, be cruel to you or am talking like I am miss Perfect. No one is. Just like you are making all these assumptions about me, you have no idea how my life has been, you haven't walked in my shoes, nor have you with any other person you meet. 

You read my message, which was only posted to HELP you, and make it out to be completely negative towards you, even hurtful and what not. Try to read my message, and any other message you get, with a positive view and you'll find people aren't just there to hurt you.  

Personally I don't think if by some miracle I was able to walk in your shoes for a certain time, I would feel differently. It's all about your view on life.  

Every person comes with a lot of baggage, a lot of experiences in life. But it's all about how you deal with those experiences. Life, like so many have said before, is NOT easy and we just have to deal with whatever comes our way. You can't pick the events and you can't sit down and just feel sorry for yourself because you seem to have gotten the 'worst life there is' in your opinion. Obsticals are there to cross. You find a way to deal with it, and if you can't have what you want, you learn to live without it. Life itself should be your greatest victory. YOU alone can make it the best (or worst) you can possibly can.  

Everyone struggles with this, and so do I. And with my words I am only trying to show you a different side of things.  

If you feel your view on things helps you in your life, then please keep this view. But if you are bored with it, think that it is getting you no where, then why not listen to what other people say. You don't have to agree with everything, you don't have to even follow their words and see for yourself. The only thing YOU need to do is decide what works for you.  

I'm thinking, since you got here on the board for help, you would want those opinions, wouldn't you? 

I'm sorry you think you are not special, that you haven't got something in you that makes you unique in life. In God's eyes, EVERYONE is special, everyone is unique. Why else would he have created us? Why else would he have let us live our lives, even though there are a lot that aren't doing what he is all about, that kill each other, that hurt each other?  

Why are you keeping the biggest compliment of God away from your heart? Even if you are not a believer in God, that notion alone should give you a more positive look on life. Everyone is unique.  

Petra 

Hello all,

Lately things have been going very downhill for me and to be honest.. I'm ready for some advice, so please.. if you have anything to share with me, please do so.

First off, let me tell you what's been going on.

I'm a 28 year old woman, living in my own place and feeling very happy about it. I've had a rather turbulent childhood, growing up with a dad who has been very agressive towards me, my 2 sisters and my mother. Agressive both physically, but mostly mentally.

Now, I have been dealing with this the best way I know how, talking about it, getting help and just going through it.

The last few years things have been a lot better. My dad hasn't been agressive towards me or the rest of our family and even though he had the tendency to have bad days where you had to be careful what you say to him, things have been better.

Anyhow, the last 2 weeks things have changed for the worse. My mum, whom I am very close to, wanted to spend the day with me, just the two of us. So we set a date and my mum was brought to my house by my dad, who had planned to go fishing that day, so mum and me could have some quality time.

To keep the story a bit short. Things got completely out of hand. I refused to let my dad cook dinner that day because he admitted to wanting to do that because he felt 'awkward' around me. So I told him, this is my house, you are my guest and I want to cook you dinner. When he continued to try to pursuade me, I told him, I would not eat his dinner. I was getting so frustrated that he was AGAIN taking a distance from me because of his feelings of awkwardness around me. Which by the way I don't know where they came from.

Anyhow, my dad left and didn't return until well after dinner. He let me and my mum cook dinner, didn't bother to call or whatever, fine. In a way I was glad and for a moment there I thought he wouldn't return.

But he did. He returned and the first thing out of his mouth was towards my mum; "We're going home. Right now."

My mum who had told him before coming to my house, that she wouldn't leave without a last cup of coffee, said the same thing. One cup of coffee and she would have come home with him.

But noooo, he didn't want to hear it, she had to come with him, right then, right there.

So, since that was my house he was in, I told him that if he was going to pick a fight, he could do it outside and I ordered him to go. He refused. He wasn't going to go without mum and if I wanted to have him go, he said, I had to drag him out of my house.

Well, I wasn't about to do that, because that would mean he had a reason to get violent with me.

I told him he was being a childish ass (excuse the language, but at that point I was boiling over his disrespect for me, for my mother and for the fact that he was in MY house getting all dictator on me) and he tried to slap me across the face.

So I told him, I would call the cops if he didn't leave right now.

You all can imagine things were rapidly getting out of hand. With my phone in my hand, he finally left, but not without trying to kick my cat as he raced to the door and spitting my sister in her face.

My mum and my sister and me were all so shaken up about all of this, that we shut the door behind him, turned the key and my mum then stayed with me for more than a week to sort out her feelings.

She said things like 'I can't believe how I managed to destroy my life', 'he has such a control over me and I don't want it anymore' etc. etc. I told her to take the time in my house to think over what she wanted to do, because frankly for her this was the last straw. He had crossed the line and she needed to think about their relationship.

Everyday he called my house, demanding her to come home. He even sent me a text message saying to butt out and asking how long I was planning on intervening and being childish. When all I did was give my mum time and a quiet place to rethink about her relationship.

Dad blamed me and my sister and he didn't apologize or even contact me or my sister about what has happened.

Now, last sunday mum went home with a clear mind; they needed to talk, they needed help from outside. Someone who could help them with their issues. She told me and my sisters things had to change or else she'd be gone.

We dropped her off at her house, didn't go inside with her, just because me and my sister didn't feel ready to confront our father, and that was that. My mum hasn't gotten in contact with us, until my sister decided to pick up the phone yesterday evening and ask how things were going. I called my mum after that and to be honest... It was what I had feared.

Mum was all cheery, saying they had a good and long talk that sunday, and dad had been so much better to her, bla bla bla. I asked her flat out if she would get help from outside, but she said that wasn't necessary, things were going much much better.

And this is where my dilemma lies... I know this is her life, and she alone can decide what to do with it, but I feel somewhat violated.

First off because me and my sister were really targetting for the fact that we gave her a quiet place to stay. Dad had been telling a lot of people his side of the story (and as you can imagine that was all about poor dad, and evil evil daughters) and so me and my sister are really on the hot seat right now. But we wanted to give mum this time and now.. it seems like it has been all for nothing. Mum has decided to close her eyes once more. She doesn't see or want to see how he STILL treats us. Like he has no daughters, like we are bugs that need to be squased below his shoe.. When I tell her this, she's all like 'I can't do anything about that'.

Secondly, I still can't get peace and quiet to work on my issues with dad. I am just so worried and I fear that this same thing will happen very soon. Very soon, mum will be crying again and telling us she has messed up her life with staying with him and..

I just feel torn.

On one hand I want to help her, on the other I feel like 'you got my help and you didn't do anything with it'. Can you guys help me out here with some advice....?

I know it's been a long story, but I felt like I needed to give you full detail in order to get your best replies... My mind is tumbling around and I just feel so saddened by everything. Powerless is the better word I guess. How can I turn this all around?

I'm not ready, nor do I know if I'll ever be ready, to have my dad back in my life. He has hurt me one too many times right now.

Please.. if you have advice, how small it might be, post a message and help me out here. Thanks. 

Petra