How I Dealt with My “Daddy” Issue After He Passed Away

The trends of divorce seem to be more and more popular across the globe based on Crude Divorce Rates (the number of divorce per 1.000 marriages) from OECD countries. CDR in 2018 is higher in compared to 1970 and in many OECD countries (Belgium, Greece, Israel, Korea, Luxembourg, Norway, etc.), their CDRs more than double over the period. OECD report on marriage and divorce rates.

In Indonesia, South Tangerang’s office of the Religious Affairs Ministry recorded an increasing divorce rate in 2018, with up to 3,500 couples separating in compared to 3,000 in 2017. The divorce rate represented nearly half of the new marriages registered in South Tangerang, which were 7,000 to 9,000 per year. The Jakarta Post.

Knowing the truth, I feel obliged to share my experience going through the consequences of divorced parents. Underage children mostly continue their living under the custody of their mother. Therefore, there is a possibility they become more and more distant to their fathers as what I have experienced.

I hope this story will help a strong child somewhere to cope up with their difficult times. A broken home doesn’t mean a broken you.

Growing up in a “broken-home” family

I was raised in a so-called “broken-home” family. My parents divorced when I was seven years old. As far I as I can remember, my memory about their relationship was filled with a loud argument, cruel words to each other, and physical abuse.

The time they divorced, my father left our house. I was much closer to him compared to my mother. I would company him reading the newspaper and mumbling about politics, the economy of the country, or discussing the book that he was reading. And suddenly, all of it was gone.

My father was very dear to me, and he was not the best communicator of all. Since he left, there was never any more birthday call, he was just absent, and every time we met, he didn’t show much interest in my life. As a child, it was a difficult time to digest. All I felt was ‘why he didn’t care or love me?’

Growing up in Jakarta (Indonesia), divorce was a taboo topic. The society had a horrible stigma about broken home kids. Parents often told their children not to play with me because I might grow up to be a naughty kid and gave them a bad influence.

The feeling of rejection and loneliness was overwhelming. I couldn’t speak much about this. My mother was working 2–3 jobs to put food on the table, and in general, people do not talk much about feelings in the culture I was in.

How it impacts me or why I choose to deal with it?

As a kid, the feeling of rejection and the needs of approval pushed me to be an overachiever. I had so much to prove to my father that I deserve his affection and to the society that not all broken home kids will be a bad influence. Since elementary school, I worked hard to excel at school. I ranked the 1st top student in the class for six years straight. I also won a lot of competitions from reading a poem, writing an essay, speech contest anything I could sign myself.

As the times go by, there were more to this longing. It translated into my biggest fear and how I built my self-esteem. Throughout the adolescent years, I had a massive fear of commitment and trust issues. I would be in a relationship with a man for years and will leave them instantly for the little mistake that they did. I fear that one day, I might marry a wrong guy and let my children get through the same pain as I did.

I was also once in an abusive relationship where I would tolerate a man to be both verbally and physically abusive to me. It got to a point where I realized that I start to fall in love with men with similar characteristics to my late father.

“Here’s the deal. How their father treats their mother is one of the most important things that ever goes on in a kid’s life. If a father treats the mother poorly, not only will it influence the [daughter] ‘s choice of partners later in life and what she’ll tolerate in terms of abusive or unkind behavior, but it will also influence the girl’s self-esteem.” Barbara Greenberg, Ph.D. Quoted from Vice.com’s article.

I defined my self-esteem with achievements. It all came down to how high was my GPA, how much trophies I could bring home. I started my business from a very young age, bought my car. I fill my empty void by doing a lot of work at the same time to keep achieving more than I could cover the longing of acceptance from him. Deep down, I wished he would tell me how proud he was to have me as a daughter and how sorry he was for not being there as I grew up.

Sadly, wishes never came true, and he passed away a week before my 21st birthday.

His death was the most challenging moment that I’ve ever felt in my whole life. I thought I was okay. I went to his funeral without expecting that I would be sad about losing a man that was never there. How do you grief for someone who was never a presence in your life?

But no one ever taught me about death. No one ever warns me that death will change your perspective of someone. With death, you can only remember what he has done right, not what he has done wrong. Being confronted with his lifeless body, I could only scream “why have you never called?”, “why didn’t I ever know if you love me?” “why I will never get to hear if you are proud of me?”.

Only through the closet friends of his, they told me how much he bragged about me joining world debating champion in Berlin, how he is proud that I grew to be a striving young woman. He brings all these words to his graveyard, and I need to process all those different realities and continue living.

The awakening moment

I buried all the sadness with the best strategy I know for life: to get busy. Although I think about it in my alone time, I dreamt about it a lot, until four years after his death. I found myself unable to concentrate on work anymore and was in deep sadness. That deep that I often have to close all the curtain to block any sunshine. I would cry, remembering how sad life turns out.

Despite the sadness, I was always clear of what I want to achieve in life. I want success in my career and a happy, loving family. I knew that these two is the key fundamental things that make me truly happy. I know that I could never achieve it without confronting my demon and accepting reality once and for all.

How I deal with my “daddy” issue

Get an expert help because you can’t fix this on your own

I knew there’s a solution somewhere, somehow. I kept reading about the daddy issue and how to deal with it. I tried different ways, such as sharing the sadness with friends, which gives some closure but will not be enough to fix the root of the problem. In the end, I conceded that I could not solve this problem alone. I don’t have the expertise or skills to deal with it. I started to Google on some expert help. I was particular in searching for the one who focuses on family and childhood trauma.

I found a counselor, and she was expensive compared to my income at that time. I had to prioritize the sessions and gave up a lot of other activities to made it happen.

Her expertise was to help patients to get rid of emotional baggage from the past through Eye-Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing method. Throughout the therapy sessions, I learned how complex our brain works, how it posses and remember several moments in our unconsciousness and shaped our thinking and behavior.

It surprised me that I had a memory of when I was seven years old. I was refusing to go to bed because I was waiting for my father to come home. I didn’t realize how much his absence in my life has affected me in my unconsciousness and reflected the person I was becoming and how I treated my relationship with men.

Look for a support system

At that time, I was dating a man (now my fiancé). I told him about my childhood and how I’m trying to deal with my demon. He was very supportive of it. He would drop me to the session and wait in his car because I was not comfortable to let him in. After a while, he even joined the session to listen and support me. He gave me a lot of long hugs after the session, it meant a lot for me.

Going through this difficult situation, do choose some supporting system that you think is capable of supporting you to get through it. It might not be your family. It could be your friend or people that have gone through the situation. Most of the time, the people who love you will be happy to help you get through this situation.

Self-reflection: Monitor your feeling and be honest about it

During the months of therapy, I become more sensitive about my feelings and behavior. I would note down what I feel and what event trigger me to the emotions. For example, I hate when someone is multitasking, checking their phone when we are having a conversation. I would tell my counselor about this, and we will process that going back to my childhood feeling. I realized that it triggers the sense of abandonment that I felt in my childhood. The counselor and I will work on how to relabel this message in my unconscious thought.

After having almost a year session, I hardly have any nightmare about my childhood anymore, and I could recall my childhood memory without having to cry or feel depressed about it. I finally accept the reality that my father loved me, and he didn’t know how to show it. We are all human with our flaws.

At the end of the session, the counselor suggested me to write my feelings to my father, visit his graveyard and let him know as if he was listening. And I did. I never visited his cemetery since he passed, I didn’t know what will I feel, and if I will be strong enough to face it.

I wrote a letter for my father, explaining how I truly feel inside, and on top of all thanking him. He had made me the person that I am today. He had led me in success in such a young age through his absence and live the life that I am proud to live. He taught me about independent and resilience. After all, he taught me that as much as you love someone, they have their way of loving you. He also taught me, if you love someone, say it, show it before it’s too late. I left the letter at his graveyard, and I finally accept reality and embrace it.

The life that we are living is a lottery of birth. We never choose where we were born and from which parents. Deal with your reality, face your demon. May the uniqueness of our story will bring us to better places that no one has the opportunity to go.

To me, it is resilience, love, and hard work.

Have you called your parents and tell them you love them? It’s indeed a blessing when you still can hear their voice and their “I love you too.”

In memory of my beloved father, Erwan Hutagalung.