I felt the need to share my experience after seeing this photo and caption. I hope that it falls in front of the eyes that need to see it. The kind of pain experienced by the abandonment of a parent is something many of us feel compelled to pretend doesn't affect us because we usually know we were not in the wrong. But it is a private deep pain, and it exists, and even when you think you don't feel it, it's still affecting things all the time.
My feelings about the father who abandoned me changed a lot over the years of my life. When I was little I just wanted a dad. When I was a teenager, I talked crap about him (because his rejection hurt more than I could articulate to anyone). When I was 16 he apologized to me. I didn't care about the apology. It was the acknowledgement that I didn't cause him to reject me. HE was defective. 4 days after the apology he was killed in an accident. And I found out that even as he apologized he was betraying me in such a way that is too unbelievable to not be fiction. But it was real, and it was the ultimate wound. I spent my 20s angry at him and myself.
In my late 20s I finally forgave him (and me) and made peace with who he was. I found out that his childhood was horrific. I saw him as a human being finally. I sought out people who were his friends so they could tell me positive things about him. I learned that the things that made him eccentric and weird to so many people, the things his father tried to beat out of him, were the qualities everyone else loved about me. He had contributed certain things, and even his absence was a contribution once I learned to view it that way.
I'm in my 30s and I will never get over the rejection. I've tried. I've rationalized, I've forgiven. But, it's seared into me in a place that is so deep that I'll forever send lovers packing long before they want to leave.
