How to honor a father... even when there has been abuse

Effects of abuse healed

Father's Day was always very difficult for me.

For many years my mother, brother, and I suffered cruel mental and physical abuse from my dad. In those days I thought that all families lived the way we did. When the media finally began discussing familial abuse in the 1970s, I realized that our family was not at all like most other families and that we fit all the criteria for a dys-functional family. When I realized that, Father's Day became even more repugnant to me.

By the early 1990s my parents had divorced, and my dad no longer spoke to me because I "sided" with my mom during the divorce proceedings. I can honestly say that I thought I had moved beyond all the abuse. I had read several books about family abuse and had used self-help workbooks and audiotapes by prominent family abuse experts. Gradually, however, I came to understand that I was not fully healed.

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