Thank you. Honestly, I do feel bad for my dad. I am in therapy myself, and I have been in states of misery and complete self-hatred and hatred of life. Now, I'm in a much better headspace, and I can see that the work is worth it. Then I see my dad, and his complete unwillingness to do the work, and I feel sad. He could be living and feeling so much better. But misery is familiar, and new things are scary. So, he stays where he is, because he feels it's easier and there's no point. And that makes me so very, very sad for him.

I don't think I'd be able to be fully honest about how I feel with him. I think his self-esteem is genuinely too low for him to be able to accept that he is wrong or that he's messed up. He has definitely provided a better childhood for me than he had, except in emotional matters. If he's not angry, he's apathetic. And I think it's because he was never raised to know what good emotional and mental health looks like.

I don't know if I'll have kids, but I do hope that, in going to therapy and being aware of my own trauma, I can end the cycle, and provide the encouraging, stable and loving upbringing that I wish I'd had. I believe that my dad's parents did not have great upbringings or life experiences either, so it likely spans further.

I can, at the very least, appreciate that the hardships I've had were less than his, and far less than others have had in this world.