It's no secret that my dad is really insensitive and I'm majorly struggling with the things that he says to me at the moment. He never seems to realize that the things he says are triggering, insensitive, and rude, and I'm not assertive enough yet to tell him that he's really pushing me over the edge sometimes.
He really does not have very good people skills and he thinks that the things that he says are jokes, but they really do sting. Yesterday I was eating an apple for snack and he walked into the room, pointed at me, and "jokingly" told me that I was a pig. When I'm eating meals, he often walks in, peers over my shoulder at what I'm eating and then asks something along the lines of- "are you really going to eat all of that?"
I'm not sure how to deal with things like this because I feel like it should be so obvious not to say such things. If you daughter just got out of an eating disorder treatment center, how can you possibly think it is a good idea to make such comments while she's eating? How can you be so ignorant as to not realize that they're hurtful?
I've talked to my therapist about it and she told me that she's heard it herself when he's been in the room with her. Everything he says is always put so negatively and he doesn't even notice it. He's very overly critical and I almost feel like saying something to him would just be a lost cause.
My therapist asked my permission to speak to him about it but I told her that I thought it would be a bad idea. My dad is very uptight and unpredictable, and things often blow up when he's told that he's wrong. Last time she talked to him, he blew up and started bashing me and listing off all of the things that I had done wrong in my entire life.
I'm just not sure how to deal with it and it's really going to be a struggle to recover when comments like this are repeatedly made. I wish I had the confidence and assertiveness to tell him that he's saying hurtful things, but I don't and never have. I'm completely at a loss because this really shouldn't be an issue, anybody with common sense should know not to make comments like that to someone with an eating disorder.
Why don't you try writing him a note or email about it? Like when you told him you needed help for the eating disorder. Leave it some place where he'll find it, and then like... go somewhere. this way he has time to read it and calm down before you come back. It's hard enough to get better without those kind of comments and you really don't need that kind of shit in your life right now.
ReplyDeleteI think it'd be an okay idea if your therapist talked to him too, but idk if you should be there when he does. I think if you are he'll just blow up. but maybe she could talk to him alone and that would help?
either way, you should say something to him because what he's saying is really fucked up and he needs to be made aware of that.