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I love you, dad

notch.tumblr.com

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Re: I love you, dad

#191

Post by loboman »

diego wrote: post #73
jbail wrote: post #6

That gave me chills. I'm constantly impressed by people that have the ability to share their personal life with the world in an honest way that reveals the vulnerabilities we all share as humans. It is so much more refreshing than the opposite, where we pretend our lives are perfect and we never experience moments of doubt or melancholy. It is rare to see someone make a post like this. This is precisely what makes it…

You may be interested in my post from yesterday. http://longposts.com/1990082

I'm sorry. Best wishes for your wife and you.

Re: I love you, dad

#192

Post by gregpilling »

jacoblyles wrote: post #51
king_jester wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to have kids and want a partner that is into that, that's fine. However, being self-centered and wanting to be a parent aren't mutually exclusive, as I have met adults whose parents were/are extremely self-centered and that factored in heavily into the abusive situations those adults lived in when they were children. > And I am very sad to see that all other families are crumbling. I'm not really sure wha…

Actually, the crumbling of the family is quite new. The past 50 years has seen a rapid and sad dissolution of the family: http://dalrock.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/p70-126_pdf_hist_...

Your chart shows just that there are more single mothers. What the chart fails to indicate is that 40% of babies are born to unmarried couples these days, many of whom are a happy couple but just not married. It is a reflection of changing attitudes about marriage, and a failure of data collection. There has always been families of all sorts - single moms, blended families, happy and unhappy marriages, etc. (source: wife who is a sociology professor).

Re: I love you, dad

#193

Post by chris_p »

speeder wrote: post #7

I am very happy that my parents are married to each other, and my alive grandparents too, and that they don't have issues like this (what my father "abuse" is coca-cola, he rarely drinks, and noone smokes). And I am very sad to see that all other families are crumbling. I am seeking a girlfriend that wants to be a mother, and I am not finding, most of them are self-centered, and come from divorced families, the only…

> and come from divorced families

What does this have to do with the rest of your sentence? Are you implying that people who come from divorced families are more self-centered?

Re: I love you, dad

#194

Post by riffraff »

bad_user wrote: post #65
riffraff wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with being impressed, but I am not sure the opposite of being able to share is pretending we are perfect. Maybe, it's just being unable to. My dad passed away eleven months ago, no day goes by without thinking of him, and I may be able to get to the end of this without crying, but I can't manage a blog post.

There's no shame in crying and it is great therapy. When losing somebody close, do cry until your tears run out.

sure, it just makes writing stuff a bit hard :)

Re: I love you, dad

#195

Post by adeaver »

nollidge wrote: post #151
edw519 wrote: post #45

Notch, if you're reading this, my deepest sympathy. I understand the devastation of losing a parent; I lost my mother about a year ago. I'm still not "back to normal" and don't know if I ever will be. I used to do art, music, and comedy, and even practiced my religion, often just for her. I loved to make her laugh and it was so easy to make her proud. In the past year, I have done none of that stuff and don't know wh…

There's no such thing as "back to normal" after trauma. You just settle into a new normal.

I second this. My dad died over 20 years ago and I still feel the lose some days. I still sometimes think I see him in a crowd.

You never, ever get over it. Just get passed it.

Re: I love you, dad

#196

Post by illuminate »

jacoblyles wrote: post #59
kristofferR wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand - when you strongly discourage something and decide to make doing it wrong/immoral, you also make it very taboo and stigmatized to talk about, which can be incredibly dangerous. This is very obvious with illegal drug use and sex, problems related to them (drug addiction and unwanted pregnancies/STDs) are much higher in places where it is strongly discouraged, stigmatized and hard to talk about. Ther…

Alcoholics Anonymous famously has "turning your life over to a higher power" as one of their 12 steps. They also provide a very open community. They seem to have some success.

"They seem to have some success"

The rate of preventing relapses is (as far as I'm aware) no greater than those who attempt to quit without the steps.

Re: I love you, dad

#197

Post by BigglesZX »

adeaver wrote: post #195
nollidge wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no such thing as "back to normal" after trauma. You just settle into a new normal.

I second this. My dad died over 20 years ago and I still feel the lose some days. I still sometimes think I see him in a crowd. You never, ever get over it. Just get passed it.

As someone dealing with my parents' shift into their "older years" and wondering about the future, I found myself quite moved by this. Thank you for sharing it.

Re: I love you, dad

#198

Post by run4yourlives »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #160
diego wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may be interested in my post from yesterday. http://longposts.com/1990082

My aunt went through the same situation. She became clinically depressed for several years after going through the IVF process several times. She was on medication and had completely withdrawn from life. It wasn't until they decided instead to adopt a child from Korea that she changed, almost overnight. After the successful adoption, my aunt completely changed. All she ever wanted was a family and to raise children.…

Damn, This.

There are options available for people that want to have a family, and god knows there are far to many children out there that can really, really use a loving parent or two.

As a father of two I may come off as smug here, but I can tell you that the first year of a child's life is more going through the motions. The following years are really where you can make a difference, and where they certainly make a difference in you.

I seriously hope once they are over their grief period, that couple takes your advice. A child out there could have his life changed forever because of it.

Re: I love you, dad

#199

Post by run4yourlives »

mnicole wrote: post #68
redad wrote: post #2

My father has substance abuse problems too (alcohol dependency for 20 years) and it has destroyed his relationship with my siblings and my mother, he's going to lose what little he has left very soon and I genuinely fear he's going to do something very similar to what is mentioned here. I am the only child that will talk to him without contempt and I have long since left home. He lost his own father very recently and…

AA's founder originally believed that LSD had potential to cure substance abuse, and although he later stepped away from that belief to make religion a bigger aspect of it, researchers believe that it is far more likely to help than even AA itself. There was additional information (along with personal experiences) in a recent Reddit TIL that may be of interest to you - http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1…

I won't argue the science, since you're likely correct, but taking one substance to counter the effects of another doesn't do anything to address the root cause of the problem.

It's no use curing alcoholism only to have it replaced by gambling, drugs or sex.

The issue is that the addiction is used as a crutch to avoid dealing with the real problem. Until you deal with that real problem - and some of them are extremely difficult to "deal" with, so I'm not trying to downplay this - you will not really be "cured".

Re: I love you, dad

#200

Post by mnicole »

run4yourlives wrote: post #199
mnicole wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AA's founder originally believed that LSD had potential to cure substance abuse, and although he later stepped away from that belief to make religion a bigger aspect of it, researchers believe that it is far more likely to help than even AA itself. There was additional information (along with personal experiences) in a recent Reddit TIL that may be of interest to you - http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1…

I won't argue the science, since you're likely correct, but taking one substance to counter the effects of another doesn't do anything to address the root cause of the problem. It's no use curing alcoholism only to have it replaced by gambling, drugs or sex. The issue is that the addiction is used as a crutch to avoid dealing with the real problem. Until you deal with that real problem - and some of them are extremel…

Part of why it is so effective is because the perspective changes it induces not only lessens the desire to divulge, but changes the outlook you have on life that is causing you to do it in the first place. It's not a "cure" rather than a means to get people to look at their life differently, which is what motivates them to go an opposite direction.

While they can provide a social outlet for support, I don't think that AA or religion can have such an immediately life-altering impact on someone as much as they, themselves, can.

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