Father issues - still - again......

GotToChange

My daddy issues have been disclosed on here before (nothing dreadful!) so I would hate to go over it all again... suffice to say that this time, my problem is how to clear my head - and, just as importantly the physical remnants of what has in the end become a pointless and non-existent relationship (he's still alive, so it's not that haha).

This may seem crazy but the letters and emails that have been exchanged (or not) over the more recent years are really (almost literally) weighing me down. One of the main reasons is that it has been so futile; no matter what I have said, he has blown hot and cold; ignored, rejected and rebuffed my efforts; demanded that I respond to him when told and yet not initiate any communication of my own accord unless agreed by him. Blah blah bloody blah. It goes on. I am sure that no-one would want to read the whole sad tale again - so my request is for suggestions of how I can sort out the crapload of mail and notes and emails, so that - as I cannot bring myself to burn or delete everything - my head can be a little clearer. I am not crazy but the way this has got to me makes me wonder what is wrong when I simply can.not stop this stuff depressing me.

So here's what I want to find a way to organise and (yes) store; in the simplest and clearest way that I can:

Letters that he has written - which started with one out of the blue in 2009. Recently (since last year), he hads written hard copy letters again as I told him that I had no email.....
....emails and emails.
- some were unsent and although I have separated these into another email folder, ideally they should be in line with the ones that I actually sent (or not?)
- some had attachments which were the main content (in a Word doc) - again, some were sent and some never sent and of course the Word doc is also elsewhere on the computer
I have a handful (well, 4) of birthday/Christmas cards, which I have saved with the envelope so I can remember the year they were sent and which country he was living in at the time
I have also got many many scribbled notes that were meant to be included in letters but I didn't dare, so are now a record of how I felt at the time
I also sent him some handwritten notes which were enclosed in pretty cards, so I took photos of these and they too are either in Pictures (itself a muddle) on laptop or still on the phone itself. I would also like to get these into date order somehow....

I have also drawn up several timelines of my life and how it has connected with his; I cannot seem to produce a definitive version. It is messy and very sad....

I also have letters that he sent to me from 1986 (when I got married; he was supposed to give me away but "had to to return to France" two days before the ceremony....) to around 2000, before email was the choice of means of communication quite so much.

*sigh*

I just think that (apart from every other s****y thing in my life) if I could just corral and organise this lot, it would help me so much. Please don't tell me to burn it all.... who knows, it could be source material for a play or TV show, haha.

It is the kind of thing that I could help someone else with (exPA and lover of organising and streamlining) in a previous life but in this case I am too central to to be able to see straight.

I also moved at Christmas and hate the house I am in so feel that I want to be ready to run away given the chance to cannot and will not put down roots or ties, so that is something I need that probably plays a part in my inability to just put it all to one side as I feel that I would want to escape from here if I could and stuff like this is like wearing concrete boots.

Any ideas my lovelies????

Oh, and I am very scared to scan and load all onto a computer as I was burgled after moving here and laptop and all OU coursework stolen, so even though I hate the thought of paper, I would not feel safe storing it all paperless-ly....

CH27

Why are you holding onto so much negativity & sadness?

GotToChange

CH27 wrote: »

Why are you holding onto so much negativity & sadness?

Well that's the $24,000 dollar question - and I don't really have an answer.

I guess it could be said that that's all I've got. There has never been anything else - if I dispose of these "memories", there is nothing left....

Also though, he is a man who will say that The Past must not be mentioned - but will then refer to it himself and I have to be able to recollect what happened. As I am unable (thank God) to keep it in my brain, the letters and emails etc. are what may laughably referred to "evidence"....

(And my Mother is the same. Much too long a story to drone on about....)

McKneff

You need to go to counselling to get this out of your head and move on with your life.

Do you really want to be spouting stuff like this till the day you die.

I say this in the nicest possible way, you need to get a life, looking forwards, not backwards.Your life will change dramatically.

CH27

GotToChange wrote: »

Well that's the $24,000 dollar question - and I don't really have an answer.

I guess it could be said that that's all I've got. There has never been anything else - if I dispose of these "memories", there is nothing left....

Also though, he is a man who will say that The Past must not be mentioned - but will then refer to it himself and I have to be able to recollect what happened. As I am unable (thank God) to keep it in my brain, the letters and emails etc. are what may laughably referred to "evidence"....

(And my Mother is the same. Much too long a story to drone on about....)

The past is exactly that! Past!
For your own sanity you need to enjoy the present & look to your future.
Live how you want to live. Don't be dragged down by him & the past.

GotToChange

McKneff wrote: »

You need to go to counselling to get this out of your head and move on with your life.

Do you really want to be spouting stuff like this till the day you die.

I say this in the nicest possible way, you need to get a life, looking forwards, not backwards.Your life will change dramatically.

Are you asking me this because you have read my previous posts?

If so, I utterly agree with you.... but, how do you think Counselling will get it out of my head?

Even so, I can be "jogging along" without it in my head and then he pops up - because he feels like it. I am being punished for existing, I know that.... but....
....part of why I keep the letters is because I forget to "hold a grudge" and I behave like a sad Labrador puppy, but with fewer brain cells and less personality.

elsien

Do you have to organise them?
If you can't bring yourself to get rid, can't you copy the emails/documents onto a memory stick or disc or store them in some sort of online cloud format.
Then zap them all off the hard drive, pile all the papers etc in a box or suitcase and store them in the loft or somewhere, sort of out of sight/out of mind.
Then you still the option in the future of burning them or organising them. And in the meantime if they're out of the way they're not hanging like a black cloud over your head.

thorsoak

Look - there is only one person who can change your attitude towards your father - and that is YOU!

Only you can decide whether or not you are going to let this man continue to drag you down further - or whether you are going to cut the emotional strings and let yourself live a full life. At the moment, all you seem to be doing on these threads is fuelling the negativity that has been such a large part of your life for so long.

If your father died tomorrow - what would be your regrets? That you did not have the father that you think you should have had? Or that you did not say the things to him that you wanted to, but dared not voice?

bossymoo

It sounds like you need to learn some ways of removing his control over you. Start by deleting the emails. Accept you are your own person. Not his person, he does not, nor did he ever, own you. He can tell you how to respond or what not to do. But you actually decide whether to follow these orders or not.

Once you believe you have a choice in all of this, it will become easier to break the reactionary habits.

You do not have to remember things just because he says so. You do not have to wait if you want to contact him. You do not have to reply because he demands. And so on.

Accept that, currently, you are adding fuel to the situation, you are enabling the behaviour. Once you realise that, and realise that you cannot change another person, only how you react to them, you are half way through the battle. You will realise that whilst you have felt powerless in the past, you in fact had the choice all along to say "No! Come back and talk to me when you are prepared to be reasonable!"

You really can do something about this. And that puts you to the advantage, because it really does sound like he is beyond change.

GotToChange

They have been stored in a casual way until this point.... and seem to feel like a black cloud hanging over me no matter what I do.....
Organising them (if possible) is the only thing I can think of doing. It's the mixture of formats, sent and unsent and my issues with how it makes me feel that are the main stumbling blocks.


The hilarious part is that it is so repetitive that I am actaully unlikely to forget the main and major themes....

CH27

GotToChange wrote: »

They have been stored in a casual way until this point.... and seem to feel like a black cloud hanging over me no matter what I do.....
Organising them (if possible) is the only thing I can think of doing. It's the mixture of formats, sent and unsent and my issues with how it makes me feel that are the main stumbling blocks.


The hilarious part is that it is so repetitive that I am actaully unlikely to forget the main and major themes....

Exactly! Destroy the lot & the cloud will start to lift.