Dear Father,

For the longest time, I've been hearing my own father say to us, "I'm leaving. I don't need/want you" after almost every meaningless fight. Even though he did not actually leave, I think I've always lived in that fear of him actually leaving, basically since I was just a few years old, and I think somewhere deep down started to hate him. For threatening to leave his family. For threatening because he's "the man of the house and what he says goes." For so freely hurting any of his family member's feelings like a walk in the park. Divorce had actually been brought up, that maybe she should maybe just file for a divorce and make it happen already, if she's suffering so much. But she carried through every time he verbally abused her, threatening to leave the family. While I really do admire her strength, I think the damage to me has been done long ago, and he continues to create newer scars that I need to somehow ignore.

Like today he again flipped out and said he's no longer related to us just because he got mad.

That fear and hurt run deep, and I feel like maybe I may be projecting a form of that fear to my relationships with others, that I subconsciously never want to lose anyone in my life. I never wanted someone to not like me, to not want me around. Pastor Park is right, that I'm a people pleaser to most people. 

It all made it so much worse 

God help me