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

thorsoak

Could you not create a folder for all emails from/to sperm donor, then block and delete the folder? You don't have to open them all in order to move them!

You could then direct any other emails that arrive direct to a delete folder so you wouldn't have to read them. Why should you bother if he is offended by your actions? Are you not offended by his actions?

GotToChange

Mojisola wrote: »

Can't you do a search and bring up all the emails from him and then do a one-click deletion? I can with gmail.

Oh yes, I would do that to delete - but not to download (d/l).
Previously, I had gone through them and created one big Word doc. with them all in, in chronological order and with notes of what might have been attached (pic or so on).
I've now lost it.

I just cannot quite manage to delete them all.

Mojisola

GotToChange wrote: »

May I just ask though, how I cut off contact with them when there is so little (certainly not enough - you would think - to warrant the amount of headspace that it "demands") communication anyway. A

It's not the time you spend in contact with them that's a problem - it's the space you keep in your head and your life for them all the rest of the time.

It's like cutting off a big plant at the root - once the source has been severed, you can let the rest die off. Before long, all that space in your head that they were filling will be available for more positive things.

GotToChange

thorsoak wrote: »

Could you not create a folder for all emails from/to sperm donor, then block and delete the folder? You don't have to open them all in order to move them!

You could then direct any other emails that arrive direct to a delete folder so you wouldn't have to read them. Why should you bother if he is offended by your actions? Are you not offended by his actions?

There is such a folder (not called Sperm Donor though....:D) - in this email address/inbox that he would no longer use as I faked it being closed down.

It is within the folder that is seems impossible to do much more than delete - or move to another folder - without opening the email itself, so in order to copy the text of them, I have to go into them, as it were....

heartbreak_star

Do it. Delete them all. Or - if you can't bring yourself to do that - set up another email address and get a friend to change the password on your current address and not tell you.

You'll have a panic, you'll probably hide for a while...but then you'll come out and realise hey, I'm still here, deleting all those emails didn't matter, and I'm stronger for it

Please, please go to your GP though.

HBS x

GotToChange

Mojisola wrote: »

It's not the time you spend in contact with them that's a problem - it's the space you keep in your head and your life for them all the rest of the time.

It's like cutting off a big plant at the root - once the source has been severed, you can let the rest die off. Before long, all that space in your head that they were filling will be available for more positive things.

Exactly!!!

And without brain surgery (kidding), I have no idea how to achieve that. It is as though the amount of contact and amount of brainspace the relationship uses are inversely proportional.

Again though, this is so dominant at the moment because of my mistake of calling him, his follow-up letter and the thought of him coming to this country pretty soon. It has been a sad and miserable ripple effect, rather than one good thing leading to another, one bad thing as set off a negtive chain of events.

I am not normally so overwhelmed by it but it is always there as an undercurrent, I know that. So there is still a very big problem for me because even when they are not in touch with me or making it difficult/hard/unwelcome (no matter what) to be in touch with them of my own volition, the knowledge that they don't want to be (in part because they have made me such a loathsome person; ironically) makes me so sad and, in some senses, not a normal person and someone who it may be easy to class as a failure.

Mojisola

heartbreak_star wrote: »

Please, please go to your GP though.

I second this. What you're [STRIKE]trying to do[/STRIKE] - going to do - is not easy.

Get support from wherever you can. It doesn't mean you're weak - if you had a broken leg, you'd use crutches - it's just a different form of help.

GotToChange

Mojisola wrote: »

I second this. What you're [STRIKE]trying to do[/STRIKE] - going to do - is not easy.

Get support from wherever you can. It doesn't mean you're weak - if you had a broken leg, you'd use crutches - it's just a different form of help.

Thank you for the vote of confidence and push in the right direction.

As for going to GP...hmmm, I know I should and I think I should be able to - but when it comes to it, I lose my nerve* and they don't seem to see me as someone who has real real problems as it doesn't show on the surface.

*As in, if I could go today, fine, great.
But if the appointment isn't for over a week or two, by then, I will feel that I am "OK" and must not waste their time and , even if I go, be unable to make myself understood.



(This does not mean that I don't want to help myself.....)

Mojisola

GotToChange wrote: »

As for going to GP...hmmm, I know I should and I think I should be able to - but when it comes to it, I lose my nerve* and they don't seem to see me as someone who has real real problems as it doesn't show on the surface.

*As in, if I could go today, fine, great.
But if the appointment isn't for over a week or two, by then, I will feel that I am "OK" and must not waste their time and , even if I go, be unable to make myself understood.


(This does not mean that I don't want to help myself.....)

I think it's quite normal to think your problems aren't important enough - as an outsider hearing them, I think you're wrong!

Would you find it easier to have a talk with one of the nurses first? We have some very experienced nurses at our practice who are very understanding of the problems people hide and/or don't recognise as being as serious as they are.

MakeupAddict_2

GotToChange wrote: »

There is such a folder (not called Sperm Donor though....:D) - in this email address/inbox that he would no longer use as I faked it being closed down. (

But that's just game playing. How does it help? From an earlier post:

I moved and did not give him my new address, but his brother then passed it on so he felt inclined to write. But then, when I write back, I am told that I mustn't.

Even after the call on 1/7, I actually changed my number so that the call he would attempt the next week would fail.


These are all forms of passive aggression. What are you hoping for? That he'll have a 'd'oh' forehead slap moment, and think 'that's it, she's beaten me, I'm going to be a proper dad from now on'? Not going to happen.

I don't know how old you are or how successful you feel you are in other areas of your life, but where your parents are concerned, you're still a little girl desperate for their love and approval, and like a child wanting a new toy you're trying to manipulate them into giving it. You need to take real, not pretend, control, to be an adult and find a mature response.

First step is going to be the hardest, to accept that they aren't going to turn into storybook parents. You've tried game playing, being a good girl, sharing (telling them about your horse as an example) and none of it has changed them. And then you need to lose the fear of who and what you'll be if you let them go from your life.

MuAx