Worth Living Ambassador Khrystle Rea
Khrystle Rea is a certified health and fitness coach who helps women kick anxiety to the curb naturally. She has gone from being fearful to fearless and now she shows others how to do the same. Khrystle has been on a life-long journey learning how to heal her emotions and live a truly balanced life. Her goal is to help others, so their journeys are not as long or tedious as her’s has been.
Just Because He is My Dad Doesn’t Mean He Belongs in My Life
When your parents divorce when you are only one years old, it is easy to grow up feeling a bit confused.
At a young age you are unable to understand what is happening.
All you see are mommy and daddy fighting. All you feel is the animosity between them.
It is easy to think it is my fault.
My parents divorced when I was one years old and for a few years after I would still see my dad. When I was nine it all stopped. Something changed. He disappeared. He no longer saw me, called me, wished me a happy birthday, and I had no idea where he lived.
How could someone who was responsible for me being created all of a sudden abandon me?
At one point he cared. At one point I was his world. At one point he was able to actually show me his love for me.
I felt abandoned and boy did it light a fire in my gut.
When I hit middle school my anger was full blown. I felt unworthy and I looked for it outside of myself. I attracted the wrong kind of attention because all I wanted was a father figure.
My idea of a dad was someone who supported me, came to my sports games, listened to me, connected with me; he would be around and remember my birthday.
It is the birthday thing that hits the hardest. He created me and when he sent emancipation papers a few days after I graduated college he put the wrong year. Talk about a stinger – at that point all I could do was laugh and think ‘this bozo doesn’t even know what year he had me.
For years my dad proved to me that he could never be what I wanted.
It took me a long time to realize that and stop wanting him to be something different.
I had to learn to accept him for who he was. Even to this day I think of him as a sperm donor more than anything else.
He was absent.
He couldn’t tell you anything about me.
If we were to pass each other on the street right now he probably wouldn’t even recognize me.
So what do you do in a situation like this?
How do you move past it when you can’t even talk to the person you are in a conflict with?
And if you do have a chance to talk to them, they do not have the ability to have the conversation you are seeking.
You heal on your own.
For majority of my life, this has been the issue that has hurt me the most.
I have spent hours and hours in therapy and using alternative healing practices to heal.
The feeling of abandonment and not being wanted.
How could my own father not want me?
It stings, even today.
But I have learned how to rephrase it in my mind.
I see who he is and how he will never be what I wish he could be.
I accept him for who he is and I am grateful that he gave me life.
Everything he has done has allowed me to become who I am now.
And I know he loves me, but in his own kind of way.
The anger has been the most challenging to let go of.
What has worked best for me is writing my dad letters expressing all I need to say and ripping them up. This takes the thoughts out of my body. Ripping up the paper keeps me from going back and mulling over it all. Once it is written and ripped up, it is done. I stop thinking about it.
Underneath all the anger is a deep sadness. I am sad at the loss of the relationship.
I was once his everything and now I am his nothing.
To make it better, he is connected with my other two siblings who have a different mom than I do.
It is challenging to not take it personally and I always feel that there is something wrong with me.
I have learned though there is nothing wrong with me.
I didn’t do anything. It isn’t my fault.
He is human too and he is limited.
How I feel is all my perception.
I have accepted that we are not meant to have a relationship in this lifetime.
The last time we spoke was maybe in 2012 and that may only have been through text messages.
As I have learned to love myself, I now realize that in order to protect my emotional well- being I really can’t be connected to my father. The door is never shut, so I have no doubts I will talk/see him again in the future, but for now I am okay with how things are.
Just because he is my dad doesn’t mean he belongs in my life.
Fully accepting that was huge for me.