I feel we are living in a world of "Grey area" because growing up I have seen lots of instances where two ideas easily blur the lines of reality and cause me insane amount of pain that nobody could understand. A couple of months ago I had a little family issue. This was between my Dad and I but the whole family got involved. Infact unfortunately some loved ones also got involved and that made me feel so ashamed of myself after.
I see myself as a calm guy who doesn't easily get emotional and hyper over problems (at least that's what I think of myself) but there's been very few instances where I act out of character. I could count how many times I've done that and trust me in my whole existence that wouldn't be up to 10. So anytime it happens I go through weeks of depression before I recover. I wouldn't want to bore you would the whole details of what happened but I would like to document the lessons I learned out of it.
Now whenever an issue happens between you and anyone, the possibility is that:
- one party is wrong the other is right
- both parties are wrong
- both parties are right based on their perspective.
It's only a neutral person who is not emotionally connected to any of the parties that can righly judge between the two. Because I saw some people take my father's side and some take my side. And I know they did that not because they listened to the full details of the matter but because of loyalty to one party. My father and I are good now but the lessons I learned live on with me.
While he was explaining he's side, he kept talking about what he has done for me growing up and due to that I shouldn't have the right to "disrespect" him as he puts it. I have judged myself and apologized for raising my voice and walking out on him out of frustration. That I think was wrong for me to do based on my culture. We are taught to honor our parents so I agree to have dishonored him.
But I don't think honouring people means they have the right to do whatever they want to you and you should be okay with that and act like it's a normal thing. They called me ungrateful just for complaining about what is being done to me. No not just complaining, I knew my Dad actually lied during the issue, in fact he also know he did but just to keep his rep, or only God knows what he is trying to keep, he never admitted it even to me privately that son "I'm sorry for putting you through that kind of hell." He kept projecting to those who wanted to understand the matter that I was an ungrateful kid just so they wouldn't dig deeper into the matter because he would have fell flat there.
Ok I could have also explained myself beautifully to them, but I was in a bit of a conundrum. My Dad is a reputable man in society and the work he does has a lot to do with reputation. If I prove him wrong, which I could easily do, I know it would affect his work. Keeping quite also meant being seen by lots of people as a terrible human being as he painted just to get away with what he had done secretly.
Yeah, in some parts of the world children are taught to say fuck it and let it out. I wasn't brought up that way, and well maybe that's why I suffered. I mostly end up protecting and helping people to my own hurt which is very wrong to do. Best decision for me in this situation is to kindly move away from him and relate with him from a distance. It's a very hard thing to do because I have lived close to him my whole life.
He's not a bad man, he just doesn't know how to say he is sorry and sometimes would just guilt trip you into apologizing when clearly you and him both know he was wrong.
The Main Point here.
He took care of me growing up, and even till today he does sometimes help when encounters some difficult situations financially. But does that mean he can do whatever he wants to me and I shouldn't talk about it? Does that mean he can frame me anyhow he wants and it's okay? Should gratitude allow him to lie about me to others and I shouldn't defend myself?
I see he has done good for me and because of that I chose not to defend myself, as defending will hurt his reputation and affect his work. I also see he has done bad to me by lying, misrepresenting me just to save himself and not acknowledging he has done me anything.
He has done good for me and done bad to me.
If I give you money and slap you after, what should be your response. Don't take the money and cut relationship of course, but what if it's your own father. What if when he did the good it was a time you were handicapped and couldn't help but take the good.
I sincerely don't know the answer to that yet. Probably as life goes on I would know and make a blog about it. For now I think I'm capable enough to not take help from him so it's time to distant a little bit to gain my sanity as a human being.
I Don't think gratitude should be a handcuff to take any level of abuse and not complain about it.
Credit:
My thumbnail was generated using Chatgpt, and gifs from the Inleo editor.