My kids and my emotions - LONG
Beyond Abuse
Registrant
This is one that I don't really understand and I must admit that it's getting to me a lot. I have two beautiful daughters. Through my own mistakes (LONG story) I lost touch with them for twelve years.
Last year my eldest daughter (19) found me. I had left enough trails for them ... just in case. We chatted on email and IM for three months to get used to each other and she was very excited and chatty, then my youngest (16) contacted me. In September I went to visit them. They live in England with their mother and I live in the US (I am English). I was nervous and full of anticipation but when they walked into the room I felt nothing, and for the three days that I was with them I felt nothing. When I was alone with the eldest she ran from me, she wouldn't look at me, she was scared of me. When I got back to the hotel on the Monday I cried for four hours, and that was the last time that I cried. My eldest, whom I so wanted to get to know me, won't talk to me and hasn't since we met. My youngest is all chatty but very emotionally unstable ... 16 year olds are that way I seem to remember, but she is closer to me.
So, that being said, I don't understand why I don't feel anything. I don't feel like their father ... I don't feel old enough to be their father, I don't know them. I hold on to the memory of the oldest one. She loved to be with me, she loved to play and was more a "daddy's girl" than anything else, whilst the youngest was too young to remember me. I have fond memories of them both but I have nothing in my heart for them, and that disturbs me greatly.
After all the years of anguish after letting them go, and after all the years of denial about being a survivor I just don't understand why I don't feel anything. It's like I left me behind somewhere and I can't find me again. As I sit and look at the things going on around me I notice that I am a bystander and not a participant. This disturbs me too.
I suppose the question is why don't I feel for them? What did I do to "me" to feel this way? Has anyone else ever felt like this?
Last year my eldest daughter (19) found me. I had left enough trails for them ... just in case. We chatted on email and IM for three months to get used to each other and she was very excited and chatty, then my youngest (16) contacted me. In September I went to visit them. They live in England with their mother and I live in the US (I am English). I was nervous and full of anticipation but when they walked into the room I felt nothing, and for the three days that I was with them I felt nothing. When I was alone with the eldest she ran from me, she wouldn't look at me, she was scared of me. When I got back to the hotel on the Monday I cried for four hours, and that was the last time that I cried. My eldest, whom I so wanted to get to know me, won't talk to me and hasn't since we met. My youngest is all chatty but very emotionally unstable ... 16 year olds are that way I seem to remember, but she is closer to me.
So, that being said, I don't understand why I don't feel anything. I don't feel like their father ... I don't feel old enough to be their father, I don't know them. I hold on to the memory of the oldest one. She loved to be with me, she loved to play and was more a "daddy's girl" than anything else, whilst the youngest was too young to remember me. I have fond memories of them both but I have nothing in my heart for them, and that disturbs me greatly.
After all the years of anguish after letting them go, and after all the years of denial about being a survivor I just don't understand why I don't feel anything. It's like I left me behind somewhere and I can't find me again. As I sit and look at the things going on around me I notice that I am a bystander and not a participant. This disturbs me too.
I suppose the question is why don't I feel for them? What did I do to "me" to feel this way? Has anyone else ever felt like this?