Learning to stay true to myself and my identity

19.11.2021

I love my dad with all my heart, and I always had lots of trouble with my mother instead. When I was 5 years old my parents split up, which was quite a traumatizing experience itself, but when my dad started having a new family when I was around 12 years old, it even got worse for me.

I lived with my mother and siblings in Europe; his new girlfriend was in Canada.

My whole childhood my dad always traveled a lot for work, all over Europe, Asia, and America and Africa, so I was used to that already. I remember myself just waiting for him to come back home, to have these precious moments with him; when he gave me so much love, attention, confidence and was simply there for me. But when he was not there, I was in fear and pain and just waited until he is back to take care of me.

When he came, I did everything to please him, said yes to everything, was up for anything and I would pretend I like everything just to be loved by him and was secretly hoping he would stay.

I didn’t dare to say that. It was about situations if I liked his food, the activities he planned, a holiday trip, his music taste simply everything coming from his side I would honor with all my respect and love.

So, my dad kept on traveling, trying to balance 2 families on two different continents and his work. Not really being able to take good care of either of them. I realized that he could not 100 % commit to what he wanted in live. I don’t judge him on that, he has his reasons for why he acted in that way. Anyhow, I got hurt by that, a lot.

Around 5 years ago it then happened, that my dad got sick and passed away a few months later.

When he died, I felt that a part of my identity is passing away as well.

He was the person I love the most, my character was built on him. I always thought that this would be the worst person for me to die. And then it just happened so fast and rough.

I worked hard to be able to cope with that, I started going to therapy, meditation retreats, practicing yoga, reading books, watching videos, talking to my family and friends about that.

And it was only then when I came to realize that by saying yes to everything, that I have a character built on pleasing people to be loved.

I keep finding myself committing to things and people I am not fully invested in. I say yes, let people in my life, situations, and tasks, which I, if I would stay true to myself, I would not invest my energy in. I am a people pleaser and I want to be loved for that. But still, I am not willing to give a 100% of myself.

Because I was so committed to my dad and all his messy decisions, I didn’t learn to stay true to my own decisions. I didn’t learn to say no.

I recently read a quote that says: “You can have anything, but you can’t have everything”. I wish my dad would have read this quote and would have lived accordingly to that and would have taught me that.

I think your identity is what you commit yourself to. And I need to learn, to realize what I want in my life and how to stick to my decisions.