Backstory-  my dad came to visit me these last couple days. He’s in his 70s and I really picked on him for his driving. He is my FP, and I know I am very lucky to have him and our relationship.

However I was just reflecting about this theme of thoughts my dad has shared over the years, which is basically that he sees himself aging and he hates it. 

He’s not a remotely emotional-displaying man. He’s a mathematician and the type of dad that only knows to try and offer to fix something. He’s a problem solver. 

What gives him meaning and happiness now, is me, and my happiness. I snap at him, i bark at him, I make comments about how he’s become worse at driving, I get frustrated with him because I have to repeat myself, because he’s slowly hearing isn’t great. I’m not always that exemplary daughter that brings him joy in my intelligence, and my wit. Sometimes  I am just unkind. And it’s so painful think and recognize  that it’s the most natural thing coming out of me. I am never less aware of my behavior and how it effects someone than with my dad. I just assume that total and utter unconditional love from him, and so yet I bat at him for the stupidest shit. I’m hyper criticizing him. 

He literally worries about what’s going to happen to me when he dies. He’s not worried about dying. he’s worried about what’s going to happen to me. It’s like truly ME that makes him happy. And me not being happy is so much more painful for him because it is literally why he exists still, through the pain of watching himself age. To watch me be happy. And I’m not. 

I’m not happy, and he knows it, and he suffers as I much as I do, as a person without bpd, just as much.

I feel so endlessly terrible of how behave at times, and the repercussions are so does he.