Original link: https://blog.guhub.cn/on-everything/childhood-and-father.html
After arguing with my father twice, I completely gave up communicating with him. As I moved toward a larger world, my personality flaws continued to emerge, and it seemed like they were trying to break me down a little bit every day, making me miserable. This made me think about my childhood, my father’s role in my life, and even wonder if the thousands of “me” in this society who are constantly struggling have experienced the same silent suffering as me.
lingering loneliness
This may be a common problem with all INFPs , at least many I know, although I can’t say it, I can feel that they are struggling like me.
You don’t hate socializing, you just like being alone. Socializing with others is charging, while you are socializing, you are charging; when you are alone, you are charging, and extroverts are draining when you are alone.
This theory is not uncommon to me, and I can see it on various social platforms and video sites. Let’s call this theory the “Social Battery Theory”. There seems to be a lot of people who agree with this view, believing that it explains their state pretty neatly. Maybe, but not for me.
I’m always alone, but I crave attention. Not the desire to be the center of attention1, but the desire for someone to listen to me, to care about what’s on my mind, to know what I like and dislike, rather than just asking me every day what I had for lunch, how much Wake up bed. I long for the feeling that someone can rely on trust .
I don’t get that kind of attention because I’ve never had a friend like that.
It seems that when I was very young, at least since elementary school, I had one or two friends around me, or a group of friends who often played together, and no matter where I was, I was a “third party” inserted between them. “. I can’t get a friend like that, why? I started to think.
Probably because of social incompetence.
Looking back at my childhood, in my free time, I was all alone. My parents are very busy and always come home late. During this time, they are all homework and electronics with me. When I was very young, my father had a computer in his store. He registered me with a QQ account and added a bunch of friends I didn’t know. Since then, whenever I have a long free time like a weekend, I will go to the store and sit in front of the computer for a day. My parents are busy beside me, occasionally asking me to help, almost eating time to speak.
I was the only one at home during the fragmented time after school. After finishing my homework, I sat on the sofa and watched cartoons. I got a tablet when I didn’t know how old I was, and it became my pastime for a while. I don’t know how long it took, I also had a computer at home, so I never went out.
That’s how my life seemed to go until high school.
Alone, facing the screen.
I vaguely remember a friend I used to play with when I was in elementary school, and a kid from a family next to my father’s store would come to play with me from time to time. Before I started middle school, I liked to go to my cousin’s house on weekends to find him. Play. Now, it seems that there is not much contact, why?
I can’t stop.
It is true that electronic products are always harmful, but there may be deeper reasons behind this “social incompetence”.
Perhaps this reason is hidden in my subconscious, the desire for someone I can rely on and trust, hoping that he will appear in my life at some point and end my damn loneliness. When he shows up, I’m desperate to keep him and not let him escape. All the others have no meaning to communicate until that person is there, just my playmates for a while, so I’ll let them slip out of my life so easily.
And that trustworthy person has a name called “Father” .
This may be the Daddy Issue that Europeans and Americans often say. I’m so desperate for someone to fill the “father” gap in my life that I always cry late at night: Why is no one willing to accept me? Why does no one want to know me? Even after sunrise, there are so many interesting people willing to chat with me and do all kinds of interesting things, but it can’t fill the gap in my heart.
In my short life, there are two special people, I don’t know why I fell for them, but the common reason is their smile. Perhaps that smile was something my father failed to give me. That smile is a sign of recognition, because when I see that smile, I can’t believe that someone is willing to show that kind of emotion to me. My father never cared about my studies, he only occasionally mentioned my studies, which he didn’t know much about, in conversations with friends and relatives.
That smile was so precious that when I met it, I was reluctant to let it go, and I ended up with scars.
The loneliness of childhood and the absence of my father made me unable to face the lonely road ahead.
A sense of security that never lasts
It’s funny to say, I’ve grown so big, I’m still afraid of the dark.
Before or after moving, my bed and my computer are never in the same place, and I always like to write code until midnight. I can’t remember how many times I was afraid to turn off the lights in the hallway and living room because I was afraid, the few times I worked up the courage to turn it off, it was always with music or video on my phone, staring at the screen with a flashlight and walking to the bedroom inner. Even being in a corner of a room that isn’t illuminated by light always makes me nervous. When other people refresh the video at night, they are not sleepy and pass the time, but for me, many times it is to eliminate the fear in my heart.
This may have something to do with the loneliness I mentioned earlier, because when I’m scared, it’s when I’m alone.
Maybe it’s human nature to be afraid, but what about delusions?
It may be a bit heavy to say that it is a delusion, but it is true. As I write this article, I look behind my back more than once. I remember when I was reading the back room series 2 , I saw a creature called Kitty, although it was not hostile, it walked without sound, it likes to observe humans, it comes to you when you don’t know it and scare you A big jump. After reading Kitty’s description, I look back in horror every time I think about it.
I grew up fearing sharp objects more than anyone else, be it knives, bamboo sticks, or axes, even if they were in a normal place, when someone picked it up, I would choose to avoid it. I also have a habit, when there is such a sharp object on the table, I will point it towards a place where no one is at the first time. But if I hold it myself, I won’t be afraid even if I look into my eyes.
This may be because of the fear of being hurt , because of the trust I have nowhere to put.
I’m afraid of being hurt because I don’t have a “father” who can protect me from being hurt, at least, I don’t feel like there is such a person. So I’m scared, I’m scared of being hurt, and the worst part is, I don’t feel like someone can save me, even though I know I can turn to many people for help.
My father’s absence has filled me with panic as I search for support.
Incomprehensible inferiority complex and self-blame
Although I don’t like the high school head teacher very much, his words have left a deep impression on me to this day.
I was so scared in the last mirror, I don’t know where the low self-esteem came from.
At that time, he was looking for someone to shoot a short film on the theme of “healthy eating”. I was originally in the director group, but because I was fat, I was taken as a negative teaching material. I was very reluctant at first, but I was happy to have someone laugh with me while filming. But I didn’t think so after the filming, because he showed the short film in front of the whole class of parents during the parent-teacher meeting.
At that time, I felt the fear again, not the avoidance of harm, but the fear of accusation.
I am afraid that people who see that short film will make a bad evaluation of my “performance”. I am afraid that some people will think that I am not good at acting. I am afraid that some people will think that because of me, the standard of the whole short film will be lowered. Although, thinking about it, that’s pretty unlikely, and even if it did, I wouldn’t care. However, in the face of fear, my reason does not seem to be able to work very well. All of this seems to stem from my inferiority complex.
Although not as miserable as many people, I am also someone who has experienced Chinese-style “comparative education”. I don’t seem to have been “compared” for a long time. After I entered junior high school, after I had good grades in my class, I was rarely educated by my parents because of grades, although they didn’t care much before that. Having said that, even now, I can often hear from my parents’ relatives and friends that I am a “parents’ peace of mind” child.
Maybe, maybe I really did give my parents some peace of mind, just a little too much.
Unlike many of my peers, I’m not a kid who always hears blame but not praise due to busy parents, I’m a person who rarely hears blame and praise. It always makes me wonder “Am I doing good enough?” “Are they satisfied?”. Such doubts make me constantly doubt my image in their hearts, but I can’t always get the answer, so I can only guess, and most of these guesses are negative, because…
Always plan for the worst in order to succeed.
Maybe, subconsciously, I always guessed that I was a bad child, maybe people often praised me, my mother would care about me from time to time, but my father always kept silent. The longing for that unrecognized recognition suffocated me little by little.
This has really affected my life, and with anyone, I’m always guessing what they think of me, even if I know I don’t care. After moving to the new home, my father gave me his study room. Of course, I organized the desk and bookshelf inside, and put my own things on it. But every time he opened the door and walked in with a blank face, and took his things from the cabinet under the bookshelf, I always wondered: is he unhappy, or is it because I occupied the study that originally belonged to him , but I do need a desk, I can’t fit a desk in my room, and the cloakroom in his bedroom would have had a bigger desk and a bigger cabinet, but there’s something in it that he might have been looking forward to before he moved. Do what I like in this study, but I have to compromise because of my needs. Is this disappointing him? Will he blame me for this?
That’s it, my father’s silence made me always feel that I didn’t deserve what I deserved, and made me fall into endless inferiority and self-blame, even blaming my own existence.
This lack of identity has literally killed the original me.
society’s sorrow
I remember shouting out this sentence in a rage during an argument with my father:
Then why did you give birth to me?
I believe many people have said this. I believe there is a deeper reason for everything than it appears, and I say this definitely not out of anger, but as a strong indictment of my patriarchal society 3 and my endless disappointment with the world.
If I ask my parents, especially my grandparents, including most of the elderly in Chinese society, what is the meaning of life, they will answer me with a standard process: study, find a good job, find a suitable wife Settle down, continue to earn money to support the family, have a son , and give the family a good life. The most important of these is “to have a son”.
To give birth to a son is the belief of the older generation, the dross of the new youth.
The old society always put “inheritance” in front of all other important things in life, thinking that this kind of thing should be done when you are old, and it is very keen to discuss the gender of children. son” method.
People also think that the son is the pillar of the family, and should be strong and brave. He gave him family responsibilities that he should not bear, but he refused to give him a little care.
Maybe it’s not that people don’t want to, after all, it seems a bit too cynical for me to say that any parent doesn’t want their children to be healthy and happy.
Indeed, it is not unwillingness, but inability. Most people in this society are not capable of educating one child, let alone two or even three. And the idea ingrained in people’s minds makes them feel that everyone should have children. However, giving birth to a child means nurturing a child who came into this world ignorantly and doesn’t know anything, through constant guidance, good education, and proper care, into a complete person.
I didn’t become so-called “completely human” because, as I mentioned before, my loneliness, my low self-esteem, my sense of security that I was never there. I know that parents have to provide financial support for their children, which takes up most of their lives, they are suffering, and I should be grateful, but I was not asked to bring me into the world, they chose to have me born. If they make such a choice, they will have to pay the corresponding price, which is not my responsibility.
Emotional support is a necessary part of a person’s growth, and obviously, I don’t get it, and neither I nor many “children” like me get it. This is the dereliction of duty by millions of parents around the world for not fulfilling their responsibilities in educating their children. They make an incomplete person, they let the “child” suffer, and they can excuse themselves with “I feed you”, even if they only do half of their responsibilities.
This may be too demanding for everyone, so that’s why not everyone should have a baby at a certain time. Humans are not animals, and the purpose of human life is not to reproduce. Humans have more and more complicated things to worry about than animals. Unlike animals, they can spend all their time on foraging and raising offspring.
However, I don’t blame my parents, because they too were poisoned by these thoughts. What I blame is this unreasonable society.
This article is reproduced from: https://blog.guhub.cn/on-everything/childhood-and-father.html
This site is for inclusion only, and the copyright belongs to the original author.