Which sounds pithy, but honestly it's true: your father was actively avoiding having any emotional interaction with you and was acting specifically to make your emotional needs stop being part of his experience of the world or anything he needed to pay attention to.
Like it's not even, "I am failing at being the emotionally invested parent I should be, but if I buy this candy it will make up for it and my kid will know I love them because I give them things*", it's (from your description) literally the equivalent of oiling the squeaky wheel: "this thing I do not want to experience is happening, I will apply money/stuff, the experience will stop."
And that's emotional neglect. So.
(*or the patented Tony Stark "I know I am absolutely Hell to deal with but have neither the capacity to apologize in a way that's not also going to make you hate me more, nor apparently the ability to STOP, here I will find you your heart's desire as your payment for dealing with my shit.")
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
regna
Re: . . . BABBLE ALERT? Ahem.
Date: 2015-09-24 10:00 pm (UTC)Which sounds pithy, but honestly it's true: your father was actively avoiding having any emotional interaction with you and was acting specifically to make your emotional needs stop being part of his experience of the world or anything he needed to pay attention to.
Like it's not even, "I am failing at being the emotionally invested parent I should be, but if I buy this candy it will make up for it and my kid will know I love them because I give them things*", it's (from your description) literally the equivalent of oiling the squeaky wheel: "this thing I do not want to experience is happening, I will apply money/stuff, the experience will stop."
And that's emotional neglect. So.
(*or the patented Tony Stark "I know I am absolutely Hell to deal with but have neither the capacity to apologize in a way that's not also going to make you hate me more, nor apparently the ability to STOP, here I will find you your heart's desire as your payment for dealing with my shit.")