Gabriel Mizrahi

Or maybe the answer you land on is, some relationship, but

with less contact or less frequency or less intimacy, or I just have to be a little bit more careful with myself so I don't get as hurt by them when they don't meet me the way I wish they would.

My guess is that that's probably where you're heading, at least for a little while.

I also have a feeling that that's going to make it easier for you to continue to love your dad while protecting yourself and becoming the scapegoat, as you put it.

Because if you refuse to be the scapegoat in the first place, which is something that I would definitely encourage you to play with, then you might feel less resentment toward your dad for allowing you to be in that position at all.

There's so much to say about that.

But I wonder if you might be looking to your dad to do something for you that you now need to do for yourself.

Yeah, exactly.

And another consequence of that shift might be

you might start to have some compassion for your dad.

Right now, all you see is how he's failing you, or a lot of what you see is how he's failing you, which again, totally understandable.

But if you put down the scapegoat role, if you stop trying so hard to apologize over and over again, then you might start to see how your dad is in a way failing himself.

It's probably not that he doesn't love you,

It's that he doesn't have the capacity for conflict, for sturdiness, the conviction to say to his wife, honey, I see that you're upset.

You need to take a breath and listen to what my daughter is saying for a moment.

You know, maybe stop melting down and reciting the ABCs and blaming her for everything and work on this with her.

He just can't do that.

But it's really hard to have that compassion when all you're in touch with is your own pain and your own need, however fair and appropriate that need is.

Yeah, totally.

Great parallel.