I don't think I'll ever have a father and daughter bond with my dad
Ever since I was young I’ve never had a father and daughter bond with my dad. And honestly, I doubt I’ll ever have to the point where I think its all irreversible. I grew up in a West African household so its self-explanatory that most parents are typically strict, especially in terms of education which is somewhat understandable because they came to the UK for a better life, so that they could raise us, me and my siblings as their children to have good careers etc. So I can acknowledge that and give thanks to my parents for doing that for me, my mum I know my siblings 100% can argue the same that she is the parent who we are most closet to the parent who I can laugh, make jokes and gossip. But my dad on the other hand… my mum told me that he always had some kind of ‘anger issues’ or whatever, ever since I could remember he’d always shout even if I made the littlest mistakes or even get hit if I did something wrong, I mean that is common in these West African households. My dad also main focus was on me and my siblings needing to take our education seriously, in primary school (elementary school) my dad would shout at us whenever he caught me and my siblings playing our devices when we were downstairs in the living room and start threatening us saying ‘if we don’t go and revise we will get dealt with’ so then it slowly started to become a habit whenever our dad would come home or go downstairs we would quickly panic and literally sprint all the way upstairs to our bedroom. Which still happens now, but anyways one thing I hated the most was parent evenings (basically where your teacher would discuss how you were in the classroom) I would always be scared when my dad came, because he would end up shouting at me literally infront of the teacher so loudly when mentioned about my quietness in the classroom and my shyness which made me not contribute in lesson. All I remember in my life is just him constantly complaining and I have other memories I’d probably not want to bring up on here, whenever he calls out any of my siblings name or mine I always get scared, panicked. Like I remember one time I was in the kitchen and hearing the sound of his voice scared me. Also my dad always thinks he’s right actually no. He believes he’s right he doesn’t want to be proven wrong, this fucking annoys me. And also he acts so hypocritical, like one time he forgot to turn off the tap and literally flooded the bathroom LMAO water was everywhere and my mum had to clean it up and he said everyone makes mistakes but if it was one of us he would get furious or whatever. Also I hate the way he speaks about my mum like she’s inferior to him, in African households men are supposed to be the one in charge right but I remember one time he was pissed off at my mum and I was helping him out to fill out some paperwork and he would regard her as ‘useless woman’ or ‘stupid’. My dad also loves to just hop onto assumptions all the time, like one time he said oh you guys don’t love your own father just because we didn’t buy him the cookies/biscuts he liked because it ran out. Like come on, and I’d be like ‘I never said that?’ and he’s like well I know. Also I remember like 4 weeks ago like my mum and dad was speaking in the living room, and before that it was all of my siblings, including I and my mum just chilling in the living room but we immediately went upstairs because my dad came downstairs, you know the crazy thing me and my older sister we haven’t gotten hit for like years because my dad became somehow realised, oh they are adults 18 and 19. But he would still occasionally belittle us and be rude to us. Especially when my dad accused me of lying whenever I truthfully told him I didn’t know how to fill out his fucking forms to do with housing, banking etc so much and he would start shouting at me as always which would constantly drain me. But recently that 5 – 6 year streak of me not getting hit by my dad ended a week ago, I’d admit I made a mistake in accidently burning his food so he started slapping me like hardly. My mum wasn’t here as she was in another country visiting her family and was actually arriving the next day what’s so crazy is that the day before and the past following days before I got hit I had scary dreams of my dad and one was him hitting me and shit for making a mistake during that same day I felt uneasy. And after that I was honestly fed up, sick and tired of this household I remember telling my parents I wanted to live at university my mum said okay my dad just started shouting saying ‘if you decide to live there you will see what happens’. IM JUST SO FUCKING tired man I just feel the depression slowly starting to consume me again after that situation. I know my dad had a bad upbringing , I’m not going to explain it but I can somehow understand a little bit. But honestly just because you went through this shit don’t mean you have to treat your kids horribly. Okay maybe he can be nice sometimes but it’s just confusing to the point idek anymore. My dad would say family business is family business after cps/social services got called after my brother told the school that our dad hit him. So I don’t know anymore, I really think no matter what in this universe, in this life I wont be able to have a good relationship with my dad. I still do get a bit jealous seeing people have amazing relationships with their dad. But now I accept that… it just can never happen. It’s not meant to be because I cant even visualise how a good relationship with my dad looks like, it makes me feel uneasy. Maybe things are better this way if he became nicer, stopped shouting at us every single day etc.. I would constantly just have flashbacks to the way he treated us in the past. Whenever he talks badly about my mum or gets into an argument with my mum I get flashbacks, unwanted memories. Luckily my siblings don’t remember that moment, or most of the moments our dad disciplined us but I do. Sometimes I wished I didn’t have such a good memory, It feels like im carrying the burden of knowing, all alone. In all of my dreams my dad is evil, and it always ends up with me running away.