In this report Steve wrestles with facing feelings and hopes to find some catharsis by talking about something that he doesn’t find easy to deal with.

Yeah, this is Steve, it’s the 7th of March. I just thought I’d try something different. And like do a real time report on something I’m really not fond of and that’s feelings. I’ve just had a phone call off my daughter saying…

‘Oh, dad, my brother’ obviously my son.

We don’t speak and haven’t done for a long time.

‘…Is coming to my house at six o’clock, shall I tell him you’re going to be there?’

So I said  ‘Yeah‘.

Anyway, two minutes later, she phoned me back.

She said ‘Oh, I’m sorry, dad, I should not have told you now, but he doesn’t want to see you.’

And I explained ‘it’s cool. it’s alright.’

 I went straight in to that I don’t know if it’s denial or know what it is, but I went straight into that mode.  

‘Oh, don’t worry, he’s got his reasons for not wanting to see me. Same as you are for wanting to see me,‘

All that ballocks and then when I put the phone down I thought I didn’t mean a word of that you know, because it’s not all right. I keep telling myself this narrative that’s self-taught that things are alright…and they’re not. That’s not right, it’s not healthy for my daughter, my youngest daughter, to be caught up in this.

The whole picture is I’ve got three kids, two – a brother and sister, and then I had my youngest to a different person.  Later on in life and I brought up my youngest daughter, my other two, because of addiction they got took off me. I got all that stuff. They all got took off me but [name removed for privacy] is the only one who got returned to the family like so, yeah, I don’t really know what I’m saying here.

I just wanted to try something a bit reactive and I had a conversation with someone, let’s put it that way this morning, and they encouraged me to try and do things differently, so this is me trying to do things differently. I’m just wondering like. You can’t just be me who is terrible at feeling and facing them.

I’m trying to sit through it and just see what but I swear to God I’m cringing inside. And my own voice and my own actions in doing this it’s like UGGGH and I wonder if that’s a part of the change process and I wonder if what I’m doing now and not doing what I normally would do and just being in denial, talking about it, if that’s causing the fetal position inside that’s just curling up thinking ‘Oh my God this is painful’ and the reality is more advice from the person I spoke to this morning if I stop thinking about myself and, you know, maybe look at it from my son’s perspective.

Maybe he’s in a lot more pain not having a father. Maybe he feels terrible. I don’t really know where I’m going with this, but just… I suppose it’s cathartic to talk about this painful stuff, and it is painful and it’s shameful as well, you know?

However, my only saving grace is I do have a faith, I do believe in God. And I also believe it’s not in my time anyway. You know, I can’t fix the whole relationship thing with our children, if I could I would have done it years ago, I really would. And the truth is, the only reason I don’t try and contact my other kids is not because I’m scared of rejection.

Sometimes I am, but I’m also scared of acceptance. Because if they accept me, then I have to step up and be like that dad all the time. Anyway, yeah, this probably didn’t make sense but the message in it all is to see if it’s cathartic. Only I will know that but we’ll see.

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