u/BKKraya

HEAVY CONTENT(you can handle it), all humans can.

I failed in at least 2-3 of my main life projects-to compensate for being fatherless.
The failed projects lasted from when I was 14 to my 28th.
Those lasted years, each.

The idea was to somehow learn from the environment by analyzing breadcrumbs of behaviour I picked up from other men. Men who seemed to have more sense of themselves than me. I had some intuition of being a man or what a man should be, but they weren't strong enough. I was still just a kid. Fatherless, having present, female caregivers(grandmothers, mother) that resented everything male in me, one alcoholic and the other emotionally absent grandfather.
My father's uncle did a double homicide(wife and her lawyer), then the father's suicide when I was four. My childish, boyish spontaneity was attacked at its roots of showing. I didn't, couldn't have myself in that environment growing up. I think that's one of the worst things a man can be without.
The missing father was never convincingly disclosed to me. It wasn't that weird to me, because he was missing most of the time. It was wartime in my country and he was on the front.

My brain learned to pick up the breadcrumbs then. After some time, I figured he wasn't coming back. My body never got the memo. I had a strong sense that the attacks on the most fundamental child impulses were wrong. Those were performed in such ways and in such timing that I sensed I had no other choice but to play into it, just to not be cast out completely from my family of origin. My only way out was me, embedding the decision somewhere in the back of my mind: "I'll take care of it one day." - I was 7. I was a spitting image of my father. They hated everything I represented as a person, including the resemblance of the man who destroyed us.

All the abuse and all the roles assigned to me infected my whole being. The missing father made the toddler think he's the cause of him not being there. At 14, the decision wasn't to learn more or upgrade, it was to erase that infected boy from the mind completely. The solution of a young teenager was to imitate the archetypes of masculinity like Bond or McClane (Die Hard)-my first mistake project. Picking up breadcrumbs from my environment and movies. It backfired at 23, the woman left me(I wasn't a saint), but did everything I disclosed to her as my thinnest spots under my skin.

Another project was to work so hard to gain some self-worth, maybe meet a woman and have kids. Those attempts ended in erectile dysfunction, again and again, at 27, with some good nights in between.

The rage, the desperation and the failures made me think in 2 ways. Ending myself wasn't an option, my father did it. Going into crime to 'give it back to the world' and simultaneously make some money was the other. I would be 'great' at it. I was lucky my self-criticism was so severe that I couldn't get rid of the doubt about everything I am as a person. Including the decisions. Those all had to go through some rigorous examination to avoid the possibility of a catastrophe. Like the one with the father, decades ago. Going to my ATM to clear out my bank account so I could buy a gun, the self-criticism hit me:
"What are you doing? You're going to have kids some day, what then? What the fuck then?"

A thought that haunted me for a month, or two. The dilemma burned me out. 250 hours/month of work, heavy drinking and less than half-nights of sleep didn't help either. It brought me to the 3rd way. To actually, finally, find out who I actually am, since I never got the chance to do it. After that, I'll decide on the weapon.
I had no clue how I could do that, but it was a non-negotiable. I tried religion and psychology. Then, I remembered the decision: "I'll take care of it one day". The first thing that came to mind was: "How the fuck did I know that at that age?!" It was like a ray of light was shed on something in me that could actually be worth a damn. I applied the religion/psychology education I got from the books and worked on it.
It was 8 years ago. Not so long ago I found out I was actually fighting CPTSD. It's a clusterfuck of many smaller symptoms making a whole system. Clamping those together makes it complex. Meeting all the filth, all the virtues in myself without filter and unapologetically protecting it with my life is my next project. Getting there the hard way never needed a father figure or a role model. I had it all in me.

Fuck censorship.

Take from this what you wish.

HEAVY CONTENT(you can handle it), all humans can.

I failed in at least 2-3 of my main life projects-to compensate for being fatherless.
The failed projects lasted from when I was 14 to my 28th.
Those lasted years, each.

The idea was to somehow learn from the environment by analyzing breadcrumbs of behaviour I picked up from other men. Men who seemed to have more sense of themselves than me. I had some intuition of being a man or what a man should be, but they weren't strong enough. I was still just a kid. Fatherless, having present, female caregivers(grandmothers, mother) that resented everything male in me, one alcoholic and the other emotionally absent grandfather.
My father's uncle did a double homicide(wife and her lawyer), then the father's suicide when I was four. My childish, boyish spontaneity was attacked at its roots of showing. I didn't, couldn't have myself in that environment growing up. I think that's one of the worst things a man can be without.
The missing father was never convincingly disclosed to me. It wasn't that weird to me, because he was missing most of the time. It was wartime in my country and he was on the front.

My brain learned to pick up the breadcrumbs then. After some time, I figured he wasn't coming back. My body never got the memo. I had a strong sense that the attacks on the most fundamental child impulses were wrong. Those were performed in such ways and in such timing that I sensed I had no other choice but to play into it, just to not be cast out completely from my family of origin. My only way out was me, embedding the decision somewhere in the back of my mind: "I'll take care of it one day." - I was 7. I was a spitting image of my father. They hated everything I represented as a person, including the resemblance of the man who destroyed us.

All the abuse and all the roles assigned to me infected my whole being. The missing father made the toddler think he's the cause of him not being there. At 14, the decision wasn't to learn more or upgrade, it was to erase that infected boy from the mind completely. The solution of a young teenager was to imitate the archetypes of masculinity like Bond or McClane (Die Hard)-my first mistake project. Picking up breadcrumbs from my environment and movies. It backfired at 23, the woman left me(I wasn't a saint), but did everything I disclosed to her as my thinnest spots under my skin.

Another project was to work so hard to gain some self-worth, maybe meet a woman and have kids. Those attempts ended in erectile dysfunction, again and again, at 27, with some good nights in between.

The rage, the desperation and the failures made me think in 2 ways. Ending myself wasn't an option, my father did it. Going into crime to 'give it back to the world' and simultaneously make some money was the other. I would be 'great' at it. I was lucky my self-criticism was so severe that I couldn't get rid of the doubt about everything I am as a person. Including the decisions. Those all had to go through some rigorous examination to avoid the possibility of a catastrophe. Like the one with the father, decades ago. Going to my ATM to clear out my bank account so I could buy a gun, the self-criticism hit me:
"What are you doing? You're going to have kids some day, what then? What the fuck then?"

A thought that haunted me for a month, or two. The dilemma burned me out. 250 hours/month of work, heavy drinking and less than half-nights of sleep didn't help either. It brought me to the 3rd way. To actually, finally, find out who I actually am, since I never got the chance to do it. After that, I'll decide on the weapon.
I had no clue how I could do that, but it was a non-negotiable. I tried religion and psychology. Then, I remembered the decision: "I'll take care of it one day". The first thing that came to mind was: "How the fuck did I know that at that age?!" It was like a ray of light was shed on something in me that could actually be worth a damn. I applied the religion/psychology education I got from the books and worked on it.
It was 8 years ago. Not so long ago I found out I was actually fighting CPTSD. It's a clusterfuck of many smaller symptoms making a whole system. Clamping those together makes it complex. Meeting all the filth, all the virtues in myself without filter and unapologetically protecting it with my life is my next project. Getting there the hard way never needed a father figure or a role model. I had it all in me.

Fuck censorship.

Take from this what you wish.

Books read in the beginning:
John Bradshaw Healing The Shame That Binds You", On: The Family
Paul T. Mason - Stop Walking On Eggshells
Alice Miller - Drama Of The Gifted Child
Marie-France Hirigoyen - Moral Harassment

Their books opened my eyes before I could even name any single emotion besides anger. I was deep in dissociation.
From their research and reports, I started to use journaling as an outlet for my head full of thoughts. It didn't have to make sense at first, it just had to go out of my mind, somewhere else.
The next step was me writing down my behaviours from some situations that bothered me on a day they happened. It didn't have to be connected to the books at first, my first person description and my questions it produced was enough.
After some time, I concentrated more on the knowledge that started to 'sit'. Their theories and experience with other patients described in the respective books made me try to connect the patterns onto my life.
At first, nothing much was happening, but I didn't quit(the best technique). After some time of being persistent and wanting to write it better, more coherent, more correct, the emotions in me, by writing the journal entries somewhat right, started to move. The 'somewhat right' was just enough so my brain can catch a grip of what's happening to my body. -that was me catching a "hit"
A 'hit' is when an emotion actually wants to go 'out' and I have to feel it to help myself. Feeling the emotion connected to the narrative I've written in my journal was at first only discharge. Some of the behaviours returned later. It frustrated me, but then I've read in one of the Bradshaw's books about corrective experience.
Later, when I found another 'hit' from my journaling, I applied the corrective experience technique. It's actually letting yourself feel the 'hit' emotions as fully as I was ready to, but with being aware of the event in your memory that started the 'hit' in the first place and apply your adult knowledge to change the verdict from the original one to the 'adult', knowledgeable one.

Journaling was my outlet, to some of you it might be something else or even some other technique. Not taking away anything from the meds, this was done without medications, on sobriety. This was my way and it doesn't have to help you. But it's worth trying if you didn't alredy.

Hope you're all well.