i have a lot of mixed feelings about going home for the holidays
I am not the same person they all knew prior to me moving away. i am stronger. I am independent. I am different in each and every way. Yet the second im surrounded by family, they put me into a box declaring my identity to their own standards.
I am most dreading staying with my father who shows love through food. I am struggling yet conquering an eating disorder that I’ve never shared with him, and now I have to deal with turning down his huge breakfast proportions and then feel bad for essentially rejecting his love.
I got a christmas card in the mail from him, his girlfriend, and their 1 year old baby. It was one of those cardstock collages that you make on the internet that you mail in the masses to everyone in your address book. I can’t help but resent them. It stated “happy holidays from..” and their names. Am i excluded because I no longer live there? If i did live there, would i have been included? I think I’m overthinking it.
The last time I saw my dad, I had a panic attack in front of him due to his lack of interpersonal communication skills and silencing my point of view. I ended up bashing my head against a wall as i was hunched over hyperventilating. He went in side and told my partner, whom he met the first time during that trip, and told her “good luck dealing with that.” i’ve never been so offended by him and shown the exact opposite of soft love. I deserve a better dad; one who knows how to alter his love language to communicate successfully with his first born.
