Internal Family Systems therapy has helped me understand and work through this a lot.
I have a very robotic "manager" part that spent a lot of time running things for me. It takes input from the nearest authority figure and precisely meets expectations, but doesn't feel, doesn't internalize, doesn't connect.
It was protecting a lot of confused, vulnerable little parts that had been kind of pushed out of conscious awareness when I was young, because it sounds like we had similar fathers.
I heard this great line that really helped crystalize part of it for me too:
When children are dealing with unstable parents, they don't doubt the parent. They doubt themselves. They don't stop loving the parent. They stop loving themselves.
It's a process I'm still working through every day, but at least it finally feels like I'm moving forward, not backward or spinning my wheels in place.
I have a very robotic "manager" part that spent a lot of time running things for me. It takes input from the nearest authority figure and precisely meets expectations, but doesn't feel, doesn't internalize, doesn't connect.
It was protecting a lot of confused, vulnerable little parts that had been kind of pushed out of conscious awareness when I was young, because it sounds like we had similar fathers.
I heard this great line that really helped crystalize part of it for me too:
When children are dealing with unstable parents, they don't doubt the parent. They doubt themselves. They don't stop loving the parent. They stop loving themselves.
It's a process I'm still working through every day, but at least it finally feels like I'm moving forward, not backward or spinning my wheels in place.