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Emotionally Absent Father

As a university student and later at work, I often tried to connect with a professor or a manager to seek advice, suggestions, help with something that wasn’t related to work or education. I just needed someone manly enough to guide me through small issues such as caring for my health. After nearly 7 years of graduating from university, I realised I was looking for a father-like figure, a male role model to seek connection with.

My father always has been emotionally sleeping; as if he is emotionally dead, but physically alive. Surprisingly, he comes to life when he NEEDS to help or guide others of my or my brothers’ age. He has all the time, empathy, knowledge, and mental capacity when it comes to helping those who never cared for him nor did they ask for his help, guidance, assistance, etc.

Surprisingly, such people are so common in my relatives. Fathers ignore their own sons emotionally, and when the sons grow up emotionally abandoned, and the side-effect, usually self-abandonment in education, work, etc., kick in, another elderly male steps in, uninvited, to sort things out. Quite surprisingly, the elderly male figure himself has done to his own sons, the exact same thing that he is trying to help another man’s son with. Another elderly male figure then steps in to help his sons with life issues.

If fathers don’t abandon their sons emotionally, their sons would never end up with need to be guided, counselled, etc. by outsiders.
 
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Yes indeed, and thank you for writing that @FreeSoul. Those without fathers or with emotionally distant fathers are not just at much, much greater risk to be abused by others, but will have a much harder time finding emotional stability in life themselves, whether they are or are not abused.

Let's also talk about mothers. Sons need emotionally available mothers as much as fathers, but society wants boys to separate emotionally from their mothers as soon as they can walk, basically. Boys who can't get and aren't allowed to get emotional support from their family members will grow up very, very confused.
 
Those without fathers or with emotionally distant fathers are not just at much, much greater risk to be abused by others, but will have a much harder time finding emotional stability in life themselves, whether they are or are not abused.
Yes, absolutely. I have been experiencing emotional instability, one possible cause is an emotionally absent father. I cannot think straight, and often have lots and lots of anger, suspicion, confusion, doubt, worry, helplessness, etc.
Only recently, during the past 1 year, I realized that I have been craving to be guided, validated, respected by a fatherly figure for my goals, ambitions, decisions, experiences, etc. Though I had been doing this subconsciously for nearly one and a half decade, as I mentioned in the earlier post, but never realized. A big reason for this realization is due to journaling which I took up very seriously since the start of Covid-19.
Let's also talk about mothers. Sons need emotionally available mothers as much as fathers, but society wants boys to separate emotionally from their mothers as soon as they can walk, basically. Boys who can't get and aren't allowed to get emotional support from their family members will grow up very, very confused.
Mothers need to be emotionally available towards boys as much as towards girls; after all, boys too were once a part of the mother, she gave us birth, and we are still humans and need love, care, and emotional support regardless of how old we are.
One difficult thing for me as an adult is I tend to please women, completely strangers, kind of kissing a**, which I possibly do because of my mother being emotionally unavailable. This, I believe is my subconscious way of trying to please my mother so that she would love me and give me emotional care and support. This too, quiet fortunately I realized during the journaling.

Another thing that really bothers me about emotional support for boys is about my nephews who are being neglected by their fathers (my brothers) just like our father neglected us.
I've seen a 13 year old nephew being bullied by a relative, and his father who was present over there, not only didn't do anything to protect his son, but turned away his face and let the bullying continue.
Another nephew, less than a year old would cry and seek his father's attention, but his father, my brother, would continue watching useless and unimportant videos on YouTube.
I sometimes had to step in to protect and babysit my nephews because I couldn't stand them being abused, bullied, neglected, abandoned, etc. just like my father did to me.
Like father, like son.
 
That "suck it up" mentality is absolutely the #1 reason men don't get help.
56 years old and my trauma happened in the hospital at 11 years old after I got whacked in the eye with a hockey stick. The more I think about it the more I believe that incident was why I lost sight in my eye.
The more I think about it too the more I am amazed that there was no mental health stuff that went on around all of that.
I know one of the big reasons the story never came out and got buried in my head was because of how bad it would have hurt my dad. He always seemed to take everything around the accident pretty hard and beat himself up that I didn't get around the clock nursing.
Its the nightmares and everyone's "of course you have nightmares" coupled with male "suck it up" mentality that ended up with a near total meltdown about this time last year. That and the fact that when I found out I had Addison's/Thyroid almost thirty years ago there was no diagnoses for PTSD.
Now a I realize there are a ton of symptoms common between the physical illness and the mental injury, enough that when things really went wrong I thought it was Addison's meds out of whack and the nightmares were back.
Finally I got to help but I can't help but wonder how much sooner I would have gotten there if not for the "I'm alright Jack" male attitude.
 
i am a 27 almost 28 year old male and i experienced rape, physical abuse, and sexual assault on a near daily basis until i was a teenager. when i escaped my circumstances i did enter periods of dangerous behavior that exposed me to more trauma that i believe may also qualify. there were periods i resisted and was told that i chose it, because i entered the situation willingly. i am gay and i have been told that being raped made me gay. i have struggled with the aftermath of these incidents for most of my life. i try not to let it in. i have a family now and it is no longer important.
 
@Freddyt and @grief - welcome. I am so sad you have to be here but I am glad you found us here at MyPTSD - and I'm even more glad you're reaching out to the subset of us men here. I am a strong believer in the power of men coming together in healing.
Finally I got to help but I can't help but wonder how much sooner I would have gotten there if not for the "I'm alright Jack" male attitude.
It's an open question. No doubt this attitude does few of us with real trauma issues any favors. But I hope you're not blaming yourself, either - all of us men swim in the same water, and are just acting the way we learned we should.
there were periods i resisted and was told that i chose it, because i entered the situation willingly.
That's bullshit. It wasn't your fault. It was NEVER your fault.
i am gay and i have been told that being raped made me gay.
And that's yet more bullshit. If rape, abuse, or assault made us gay, there'd be a hell of a lot more gay guys.
 
I lived my entire life thinking I was bi-sexual because I was sexually abused as a child, that is just until a few years ago (I am 60 yrs old). So I am just posting to back up @somerandomguy 's last 2 statements. It is never the victim's fault and being a survivor of rape, abuse, assault, does not cause us to be gay or bisexual. Took me a while to believe this and then even longer to understand it, but it's true. Even if you derived some pleasure from the abuse it doesn't make you gay, it is just the way a normal human body responds to touch, even to bad, or unwanted touch. Sorry for interrupting, I just thot it deserved to be said again.
 
It's an open question. No doubt this attitude does few of us with real trauma issues any favors. But I hope you're not blaming yourself, either - all of us men swim in the same water, and are just acting the way we learned we should.
No, like I tell people, I didn't get PTSD, someone gave it to me. The hard part of that is I can't blame anyone because it was all shadows, both eyes were covered and it happened in the middle of the night. Ghosts....
 
Emotionally Absent Father

As a university student and later at work, I often tried to connect with a professor or a manager to seek advice, suggestions, help with something that wasn’t related to work or education. I just needed someone manly enough to guide me through small issues such as caring for my health. After nearly 7 years of graduating from university, I realised I was looking for a father-like figure, a male role model to seek connection with.

My father always has been emotionally sleeping; as if he is emotionally dead, but physically alive. Surprisingly, he comes to life when he NEEDS to help or guide others of my or my brothers’ age. He has all the time, empathy, knowledge, and mental capacity when it comes to helping those who never cared for him nor did they ask for his help, guidance, assistance, etc.

Surprisingly, such people are so common in my relatives. Fathers ignore their own sons emotionally, and when the sons grow up emotionally abandoned, and the side-effect, usually self-abandonment in education, work, etc., kick in, another elderly male steps in, uninvited, to sort things out. Quite surprisingly, the elderly male figure himself has done to his own sons, the exact same thing that he is trying to help another man’s son with. Another elderly male figure then steps in to help his sons with life issues.

If fathers don’t abandon their sons emotionally, their sons would never end up with need to be guided, counselled, etc. by outsiders.
I can relate to that alot. My dad was just an insane violent and abusive alcoholic. Even when In brief periods he was better I just was in so much fear of him that I couldn't trust going to him for help or guidance.
 
I lived my entire life thinking I was bi-sexual because I was sexually abused as a child, that is just until a few years ago (I am 60 yrs old). So I am just posting to back up @somerandomguy 's last 2 statements. It is never the victim's fault and being a survivor of rape, abuse, assault, does not cause us to be gay or bisexual. Took me a while to believe this and then even longer to understand it, but it's true. Even if you derived some pleasure from the abuse it doesn't make you gay, it is just the way a normal human body responds to touch, even to bad, or unwanted touch. Sorry for interrupting, I just thot it deserved to be said again.
i am very pleased that you were able to come to terms with what happened to you and even if you feel like you were too late learning it i am of the believe that it is never too late to continue healing. and you needn't apologize for interrupting. i did barrel in here and dump a lot of things on all of you. i am at the point now where things are beginning to exit out of me like verbal emesis.

these are things i have never sought assistance for or any type of outside input. only that which was told me in abusive settings or by my abusers. the word seems silly to me, the idea that they are my abusers. that is, people who abused me. that i am a victim at all. now that i work with law enforcement i am exposed to hundreds of abused children all the time. i recognize myself in them.

That's bullshit. It wasn't your fault. It was NEVER your fault.

the message i have received my entire life is that i am at fault in some way. even reading this as words on a page from someone who i have never met before, it has had a powerful effect on me. i thank you very deeply for your replies, all of you. i have never allowed myself the opportunity to hear these words instead of the ones in my mind echoing voices from those who ought never speak a word again. there is so much power and horror in silence.

my husband knows certain things but in his words, he has "guessed." i've never been open to him about any of it. but it is difficult to hide in some circumstances as you can imagine. my family are patient with me. i think perhaps i have a problem with opening myself up, even if that would result in kindness, which i am very much in need of. my soul is lonely.
 
It's not just you, @grief. The average amount of time the typical man takes between being abused and opening up about his abuse is 20 to 25 years. And this is an average, so many men take much longer.

We routinely describe a 20-25 year prison term as a long sentence.

Loneliness is endemic to men who have been abused. Trust is not easily re-learned once it has been lost through trauma. My abuse took place as an adult, and since then I have ended up with zero friends - I was not like that pre-abuse. So you have a lot of company.

Some men recoil at being described as victims, and personally I don't think that word is useful for describing someone who is not actively being abused. The term I prefer is "survivor." Maybe you could try that on and see how it fits.
 
I beleive I am guilty of having used both the word "victim" and "survivor" in my last post and I apologize. I should have made the distinction between someone who is actively being abused (victim) and someone who had been abused (survivor). I agree with @somerandomguy that the term 'victim' isn't useful to describe someone who is not being abused. I never liked the term either and would quickly correct anyone who used the term victim to refer to me....I prefer the term "survivor" much more.

And to be clear I didn't start getting help for sexual child abuse until I was in my late 30's.(close to 40), It takes time to heal enuff so that we can get assistance from others, and even then, it is difficult at first. Keep talking and reaching out. It can get better.

and one last thing...

My dad was just an insane violent and abusive alcoholic. Even when In brief periods he was better I just was in so much fear of him that I couldn't trust going to him for help or guidance.
I could have written the same words about my father and now that I know, I feel our friendship is being strengthened @Survivor3 which is great because I don't have many male friends.
 
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