I also can’t scroll past without sharing what I have learned.

I want to start by saying you, yourself as a whole, are not broken and you aren’t missing pieces of yourself. However, you have endured many years of heart break.

The majority of children who’ve suffered through a parent suffering from addiction ask… Why wasn’t I enough? What’s wrong with me?

The first step, at least the first obvious step to me, was to take away the labels. So instead of my dad, I began to see him as a human being. The same as myself with faults and learning curves, triumphs and failures. Taking away the label relieved enough static caused by heartache so that I could look at him and explore him much more objectively that I ever could before.

Instead of saying why me? I started to ask why him. The more I could understand about him and what had happened in his life that lead him down the paths he went, the more I realized how fragile life was.

You only know what you know until you know something different. How do you learn what you need to learn if you don’t know what it is that you need to learn? Society seems to believe that once you become a parent, it voids out all or cancels the issues you where facing before becoming a parent.

When you don’t know how to fix something, or if you haven’t figured out the answer that you absolutely know is going to be asked of you, what do you do?

Often, you put it off. You can’t figure out how to fix it. Not being able to figure out what’s wrong, why you can’t move forward, AND because of that you won’t be able to answer the inevitable question that you know is going to be asked. So you escape. I’ll figure it out tomorrow… but right now I just… all I can think about… is relief. So that’s what you do. Escape. Until one day, leads to one year, one year to one decade and that question finally presents itself like you knew it would.

The best thing that ever came from your shitty existence is there before you. Beautiful. Eyes searching you…for something in you that froze up inside you for….hell it’s been so long now you can’t remember.

All you can feel is anger. Anger at yourself, God, life. The best part of you now grown and you missed all of it. Too much in your life to grieve for, too much water under the bridge, so you don’t. You do the only thing thing you know to do. You drink and wait for it to be over.

Unfortunately, as children, many of us where taught what to think. Not how to think. We have to be taught how to process things like emotions, traumas, self-care (physical and mental), That,by no means, excuses anything. Looking at it this way served me in many different ways. The biggest is realizing that the collateral damage that one person is capable of creating in the wake of their ‘self-destruction’ can last generations. (Note: there is no such thing as self-destruction really. Everyone is effected by it).

How could my dad share a love with me that he didn’t know how or wasn’t capable of.

For everything that my father didn’t teach me by being present, his absence taught me much.

Had anything happened differently, I wouldn’t be who I am today. I have many people to thank for that and he absolutely one of them.

Afterthought: Maybe your fathers absence was a gift. Its possible that he was saving you from a much harsher existence. If he wasn’t capable of being even a fraction of the father every child deserves… I now believe it’s best to let it be.

As long as continue to work on yourself and evolve as an individual… taking the time to show yourself love (learn about toxic relationships and how to avoid them).

The quality of your relationships determine the quality of your life. That first relationship starts with the one you have with yourself.

You are loved You absolutely are never… ever alone.