I’ll preface and say I have been out of college for 9 years, I’m 31. But something has bugged me. This happened 10 years ago.
My college experience was bankrolled by my dad, who, 10 years ago was pre-diabetic which rendered him basically bipolar. At the same time his mother was dying of Alzheimer’s and those two things is what prevented me from leaving my small town for college.
So, I had lost an opportunity to go to Northern Arizona University and had constant threat of being violently threatened and screamed at and basically forced to tolerate it lest my entire college future be thrown away by him at a whim for several years.
What exactly could an early 20-something a decade ago have done to alleviate that without the violent retaliation that my dad had been threatening? Because I feel like I failed at some fundamental level in college because of this.
Have you seen a therapist? I think it would be very helpful. More so than asking strangers on the internet. I’m seeing a counselor myself and I highly recommend it.
I agree…seeing someone is a good idea. Plus…you need to celebrate what you have and look forward, not backward. You can’t change what happened in the past for you. And others in these types of situations likely don’t have the same issues you had.
I agree that seeing a therapist is a good idea. We can’t change our past, so it’s not a wise use of time & energy to dwell on it. Concentrating on moving forward will give you hope - and therapy will give you tools to figure out how to do that. Bad things happen to good people all the time. It’s absolutely possible to move past those things. The past does not need to define the future.
In the copper mine I worked at I did get some counseling, dealt with confidence issues for years over this. It was a horrible blow to lose something I planned so much for in high school.
I have recovered a good bit of my confidence in the years since, but the social aspect I fear I’ll be forever lacking.
Moving a thousand miles away and not going to college until classified an independent student is something that some people choose. No matter how you deal with it, it’s the kind of thing that permanently changes a person.
My dad put in all kinds of fight between 2010-2014 to exactly prevent me from doing that, even up to physical threats. Hell, he DARED me to do it. He wanted me to fail at that. Granted this was after the NAU plan fell through and I had a thought for graduate school back east.
Are you at a place in your life where you are happy with the choices you are currently making?
If you are, then celebrate that accomplishment, because not everyone gets there. If you are not, perhaps move your focus to the present and what you can do now and in the next 1, 3, 5+ years, with a concrete plan.
Try to cultivate forgiveness for past you. You were doing the best you could at that time. Your best revenge is to live well. Do whatever it takes (therapy, self help) to make sure the person in the mirror does not want you to fail, and view anyone else who does in the rear view mirror.
Well, I am a homeowner now. I’m single and unmarried, do have money in my pocket. And am looking at some prospective young women. But that is all in the small town that I never left, that distant horizon and new places I hoped for in high school is that great “what if”.
On one hand I can forgive myself, I was only 19-21 during the Great Recession at the time this all took place. I didn’t have much money, and that’s why I turned to dad’s purse strings. The area I live in got hammered by that recession and there was almost no work until 2012. But on the other hand it’s hard to forgive myself because I allowed myself to be rolled over by his bad behavior. I got bent over to an irrational bully basically. Most young men in their early twenties are super confident due to successes at that stage in life, and because of this the first half of my twenties I had confidence issues. And my personal pride screams “no!” when it comes to reconciliation. It’s something that I’m working on.
As for the future, I want a wife and kids, live a real quiet peaceful life with a woman who I hope is college educated. But for now, I’ve decided that next month I’m going to travel to Flagstaff for a week to explore, party, whatever, to gain a sense of closure.
Not trying to excuse his conduct, but (if the above assumption is true, or was even a formal diagnoses), then maybe it’s helpful to realize (now that you’ve had some distance) that this was not entirely him acting, but his mental illness, to whatever degree.
Which also means it was not directed at you, the daughter, but directed at the person in his immediate circle, which happened to be you.
Sometimes it’s easier to deal with trauma, if you can think of it was having been at the wrong place at the wrong time - vs. having been targeted.
I’m glad you’ve been able to get some help. FWIW, I was in a similar situation 30 years ago, with an abusive mom and a dad who did nothing to stop it. My parents unenrolled me from school after my first semester and I ended up leaving home that January (technically, I was kicked out, but the expectation was that I’d live in the yard until I was let back in the house. I surprised my mom by actually leaving when she told me I no longer had a home).
My boyfriend from school came and got me, I lived in a friend’s dorm for a few weeks and then I got a job as a live-in nanny. I went to the financial aid office and offered to pay them pretty much my whole salary every week if they’d just let me come back, and they helped me file for financial aid as an independent (I can’t remember the technical term, but basically because I was self-supporting my parents’ financials weren’t counted). The family I worked for really liked that I was trying hard to be in school, and they allowed me to use their car to get to campus and take classes while their child was at school. My Junior year, I got an RA position that gave me on-campus housing.
It really helped that despite having bad parents, I grew up in a town where almost everybody went to college – there was never one speck of doubt in my mind that I’d finish school somehow, so the question was never “will I/can I do this,” it was always “How am I going to do this?” That made everything seem a lot less scary.
Just for the record, I’m male. I do have a sister, but at this time in 2011 she was running around with boyfriends and never home. I do feel it could have been a case of both, being in the wrong place or just merely targeted for being there.
You’re quite fortunate to have had a boyfriend to bail you out. Back when my thing happened, I was 19-20, and a bit overweight and not quite attractive. I didn’t go on so much as a first date until I was 21, a Junior at ASU taking night courses. After coming back from grandma’s house after she died in 2012, I was basically stuck back in my dad’s house for a few years and we didn’t talk. It was tense.
The knock-on affect of that was I also live in a predominately Mormon town so that cut me out of quite a lot of the dating pool, and the non-Mormons had moved away. I basically lost out on any sort of healthy college age dating experiences in a bigger university town when dad completely lost his marbles, and I didn’t want to bring a girl into that.
I’ve basically never been in a healthy relationship since then, even what with the few girlfriends I had in my twenties. I have talked to the therapist about this a few months ago.
Basically, I had been dealing with PTSD from the age of 20 to about 24. 25 is where the turnaround finally happened.
It’s good you found a therapist and are moving forward. Good luck! If you feel you should relocate elsewhere, research the options opportunities and drawbacks and think them through.
Congrats on taking care of yourself appropriately, that can be hard to do.
Your father’s behavior was not okay. I want you to hear that from a complete stranger – what he did, how he behaved, regardless of reasons, was not okay.
You did the best you could in difficult circumstances, with no power to avoid or change things. That’s not failure, that’s survival.
I wish you all the best in your future – keep your chin up, and be proud of the road you have travelled as proof of what you can weather.
Yes, there were so many ways that I was incredibly lucky (having someone who could come pick me up, going to a college in a town wealthy enough for me to be able to find nanny jobs, having a helpful financial aid office, getting an RA position). I try hard to be mindful of that. I hope I didn’t give the impression that I thought what I did is something you should have done (or were able to do) – that’s definitely not what I meant!
I’m so glad you’ve sought help (and been able to get it). Making it through what you have is a triumph, and I hope that things continue to improve for you.
I’ve been thinking of taking a trip to Flagstaff to check things out again. Friends are egging me to do it, just for the social aspect. Just looking at the satellite and street view images the campus has drastically changed since 2010.
I’m 32 now, not in debt, own a home. I’d feel a bit out of place.
Since my last post my dad contracted colon cancer and had most of his colon surgically removed, so basically he’s laid up for the next year.