OTWOMD | Bluepanjeet.Net

When I was a 3rd year proper in nursing, I did not take the final exam in my Socio-anthropology class because my professor was so engrossed with objective type exam. You know what I mean: matching type, true or false, Identification etc. And those kind of test are the ones that I loathe (I am more of a multiple choice and essay type of exam kind of person), specifically because it enables students to memorize in verbatim the lesson instead of actually understanding it. So as a completion requirement, I made a deal with my prof., that instead of giving me a special test, I would rather conduct an informal baby thesis regarding a topic which I really wanted to do ever since. With the problem “Relationship of deviant behaviors to father wound issues�, I conducted my descriptive type of study with 1000 student respondents (500 girls, 500 boys). To cut the ramblings short, the informal study obtained the following results:

 

Father and Son by Ronan Keating and Cat Stevens

1. that 87% of the respondents have actual father figure wounds (either they have no father, they are emotionally distant to their fathers, they are abused by their fathers and they have consistent conflicts with their own fathers).

2. 72% of these respondents who have father figure wounds have manifested deviant behaviors (drug addiction, bullying, vices like smoking and gambling, alcoholism, perversion, hostility and aggression, attention deficit, promiscuity, theft, vandalism etc.)

3. 30% have engaged themselves in drug addiction.

4. 83% are alcoholics

5. 63% are sexually promiscuous

6. 87% showed tendencies to perversion, aggression, hostility, and attention deficit.

7. 25% engaged in actual bullying in class or outside the room (these are my soul mates)

8. 4% have stolen something

9. the remaining 28% of those who have father figures claimed they are normal or denied any involvement with deviant behaviors.

My conclusion: deviant behaviors is directly related to father wound issues.

They say that every son wears the mask of his own father. What you are about to read is my personal story about this father issue. I have thought of this many times yesterday and I think it is about time to share my experience so that I can somehow help others, or at least others may have someone whom they can relate their own story with.

My seedbed

My father was the 5th among my grandmother’s 9 children. At a young age he lost his own father. From then on, he became the breadwinner of his family. At the tender age of 5, my dad worked as a shoe shine boy to earn an income so that he could feed his entire family. His brother (my uncle) was 10 years older than he was, but he was useless in the family, for what he only cares about is his friends and drinking buddies.

At age 12 my dad worked in a gasoline station. During high school he was very popular here in our place because he is so damn good at basketball. He was a high school varsity back then. His future is very promising because many scouts from top universities are eyeing for his inclusion to their pool of players. But that dream of my father was short-lived. In his third year in HS, he was made to quit his studies by his brother because his family can only send one child to college. So he opted to work in an auto shop, again earning a living for feeding his family, while his brother wasted the college money for his revelry and who knows what else.

In short, the dream of my father did not materialize because of his experiences. I used to think of him as the male version of Cinderella because of the cruelty which life brought to his very young age. He grew up among the street kids and bums. But my dad was a fighter. He did not use his lack of education as an excuse for poverty. When my mom and dad got married, he already had his own battery shop. With all of his hard work, he acquired a quality which up to this day I never been proud of: his very short temper. His experiences made him that way that is why I cannot blame him.

I Came Forth

When I was born, my dad became so proud of me that he named me after him. In the presence of my father’s friends and barkada (clique), I was so popular that whenever they see me they would shout “utttooooyyyy� (their term of endearment for me back then). But one thing I noticed as I grew up is his fondness of children which I never really understood back then. As a child, I used to get jealous of those kids whom he use to borrow from our neighbors and relatives. They would stay with us every weekend and my dad would give his attention to them. In every fight I had with these kids because of jealousy, my father would always take the side of those kids. In short, I grew up until my high school years competing for attention of my father. I was wondering at that time why my father would borrow kids from our neighbors and relatives. Was I not the only son he had? Was I not good for him.

My jealousy with these kids was replaced with anger during my puberty. My aunt in the U.S. commissioned my father to manage the construction of her house. My dad do not know anything about construction back then for he was a mechanic-slash-battery man, but he blindly obliged because his siblings are very important to him. During the four months of the construction, my father lost most of his customers, thus he closed his shop. With that, my father lost his income, lost his job and become a bum for the first time in his life. In addition, considering that he was in his forties, he was experiencing the mid-life crisis so it was very hard for him to cope up with his situation. But I never understood it all.

The conflict

Because of the things that transpired in that specific stage of his life, his temper became worse. At the age of eleven (the age of identity foundation and courting) I was left in bitterness and despair. I was supposed to see the dawning of the adult world where all should be sunshine and rainbows, but mine was all rain clouds and thunderstorms. My dad would come home from the construction having all these problems thrown at his shoulders: payroll, absences of laborers, defective materials, delay in deliveries etc. It is not even his house for crying out loud. His temper and anger were displaced, and sometimes projected at me. He would scold me in front of the workers with all the swearing one could ever imagine. Moreover, because of those construction stuffs, he required me to come home as early as five o’clock. My friends at school were already courting girls so I also jumped in the bandwagon because of the raging testosterone inside me. But my curfew prevented me from operating according to my developmental stage, but I have my ways. So in some instances were I would stay late at school just to be with someone whom I really had a crush on, my father would come to school with a 2×2 (dos por dos) wood in his hand only to smash my behind with it, as I run towards our house in humiliation. That is not all, every time he gets angry, he would pull my shirt on the neck hole and drag me outside our house, kicking me and spanking me for the whole neighborhood to see. I tell you, there was no day that I was never dragged outside our house and my mom could not anymore keep up with buying me new shirts because all of them were either ripped or torn from my father’s grip.

The worse became worst when my aunt started living with us (she’s a spinster and does not have kids of her own). She never knew how to deal with kids so I always end up arguing with her while my cheek get its horrible dose of bit** slap from her calloused palms. She would always blame me for everything and I used to talk my way out. This made my father angrier, for in our family, a kid talking back is a mortal sin. Yet I was a stubborn as a mule. I know that I have a reason and a right to be heard from all the false accusations that my aunt was throwing at me, but to no avail.

Every time my father comes home from construction, I always make sure that I am behave and alert because any minor mistakes can either break my bones or break my spirit.

I became angry with him and hated him for what he did to me. That’s why at the age of 12, were most of my contemporaries are enjoying the company of their own fathers may it be in basketball, fishing, or simply teaching them how to court girls, there was no father beside me. I taught myself of the man stuff by observing and learning things from my own barkada (clique) and their own fathers. He was there, but he never really made me feel that he was. So instead, I just created in my daydreams and wishful thinkings a fictional father figure of which I concocted out of the personalities of my friends’ respective fathers. Unknown to me then, I was compensating for my father’s failure to guide me in my most critical stage. The hate in me for him was so intense that I kept it inside me until my seminary days.

The Burst

When I decided to enter the seminary, I was turning 21, and most of my relatives thought that I was just escaping from my father. But the truth is I really felt the call to serve. Unknown to me, my father wound would still haunt me in my formation.

When my family brought me to the seminary, my dad was secretly crying in the car. He never wanted me to leave for the formation because he loved me so much that losing me was like losing his father all over again. I never knew this until the time when I had my first leave and hanged out with some of his friends, which they told me about it. My father kept everything from me maybe because of the man that he is, and apparently the man that most fathers are.

Inside the seminary during my first three months of stay, the jealousy issues and my rebellion to authority surfaced during my unguarded moments. This made a terrible impression on my formators and our psychologists. During our initial evaluation, I nearly flanked because of these stuff. But instead of kicking me out on the shallow basis of my attitude, My superior saw something in me, different from my fellow formandees. Aside from my “alleged� excellence in academics, having talents, generosity of spirit, leadership and faith, my superior saw me as a wounded man who needs to be guided, trimmed and molded like a clay in the potter’s hand. So I stayed in the formation and was transformed into a new creation. My evaluation improved and I thought I was doing well already, enough for me to reach my dream to be one of those men who are wearing the brown garb.

After a year in the formation and unknown to my brothers and formators, the father wound was still inside me, haunting me even in my dreams. My situation also worsened because of my father’s bellyaching of my entering into the religious life plus the fact that my family needed my help financially during that time. I fought as hard as I could about my feelings of going out but whenever I tried to, my father wound gets in the way, thus rendering me vulnerable to crisis 24/7 of my stay there.

I made a decision to get out of the formation, and wrote a formal letter to my immediate superior. But like what I mentioned before, my superior saw something in me. He would not let me go unless I told him the truth of what was bothering me. I was left with no choice except of telling him everything. I was so hesitant before, maybe because of the fear that he may not understand what I am about to convey. But knowing my formator who was very understanding and holding back any judgment against people, I decided to tell him my crisis. After a short pause, I burst my own bubble.

During our conversation I cried so much that everything around me became so blur because of my swollen eyes and the tears that drowned my visual field. He gave me reasons not to go out. And being a psychologist himself, he offered me his help by playing surrogate. Though this is out of the rules in the formation, yet he risked his office just to help me.

The Goodbye

In my years of stay in the seminary, my formator became my friend, confidante, brother and a father at the same time. He would always give me his full support in everything I do and gave me his unwavering trust. Aside from my regular classes with him, his room became my own classroom, giving me advices and lecturing me about life and everything about being human, about vocations and certainly about God. I discovered so many things about myself including my unguarded mode of operation, my flaws and my inner dynamics. He thought me things, which, cannot be learned from school or cannot be read from any book for that matter. His views made me see the sunshine and rainbows that I was looking for during my puberty. He put together the missing pieces of my identity and gave me enough nudge to discover who I really am and what my dreams are. He played as my surrogate father. The same fictitious father that I concocted out of my wishful thinking which became a reality.

From then on, he would do things that my father deprived me of having. He would tease me with girls who come to our seminary regularly. He would make these practical jokes in me and I ended up irked. He would brag about me in front of his confreres in the order as if I was really his son. He also explained to me the side of my father. I never understood it really, for I still have angst for my dad, but I would ponder and remember everything he taught me in my heart. He even gave me a book entitled Tuesdays with Morrie, which became my favorite read and had made a tremendous impact on my views about life, relationship, friendship, love and family.

From my wounded being, I emerged from my cocoon. I thought I would finally recover from my psychological father wound. Until one day in my human formation session, our seminary nun psychologist suggested that I should straighten up my father issue with my own biological father. Because I really wanted to be whole, I ask for permission to go home for three days to talk, heart to heart with my father including my family. But I failed. My father was not that open. So I came back to the seminary feeling frustrated and disappointed on what had happened. That was the turning point of my decision. Though I have so many reasons of getting out of the formation, resolving my father issue was one of those.

I filed a letter for permanent leave, which means, I quitted my slot on the formation. It was hardly granted and soon I found myself outside the comfort of my seminary home, trying to resolve what is left of the conflict between my father and me. Though it is hard on my part to leave the formation wherein all of my superiors became my surrogate fathers there, but still, my director was right. The love of your own father is different indeed. As I packed my things inside my room, I was deeply thinking that I could not be a father to the people of God if I myself cannot experience the meaning of it in my very own father. I cannot give what I do not have.

In my purpose to resolve my father wound, for the first time in seven years, I once again lived with my father under the same roof. There were adjustments (big time) but there were more of a give and take relationship. Through the years, the wound slowly healed but it was always refreshed whenever my father’s temper would flare up from time to time and blame me for petty things, which I did not do. My father showed to me how he loved me by giving me enough space on things which I wanted to do but the man that he was, was very much still there. That is why in everything good he did for me since I lived again with my parents, never really made impact on me. It is as if my heart was so stifled with hate for him that whatever good he does to me has no more effect on my calloused mind. In my heart, I was so wrong. I know, I should have given him the chance. But it was my father wound that inhibited me from forgiving him, the very same wound that haunted me in my seminary formation, and the reason why I eventually went out to resolve it. God knows that I want to forgive him at that time but I was not yet ready. It was not yet time.

Being a father

As my gradual healing of my father wound slowly progressed, God gave me another experience that truly helped me in my road to recovery from the wound. When I was hired as one of the university professors here in our place, I thought teaching was my only job description. But I was wrong.

In my first six months of stay in the university, I gained the respect of the students by being one of their much-admired, highly acclaimed, coolest professor-slash-clinical junkie that the College of Nursing had. I became so hyped that even in my own faculty circle I was pampered and spoiled by my colleagues as their “bunsutil� (youngest brother). My being a childish and childlike freak made everyone liked me and wondered what’s in me that channeled such high enthusiasm and passion for nursing and innovating some of the most boring forms and methods of teaching ever known to man. All of this I credited to my mentor in the seminary for it was he who taught me everything that I used in my day-to-day dealings with people, situation and life.

But with this popularity also comes great responsibility (ala spider man). My students began flocking to me every after class and free time, dragging me from corner to corner and asking me if they could have a private talk with them. They saw in me someone they can trust and pour out their problems with. That is why in my stay there, it was obvious that I was not only a professor, but also a guidance counselor. Every time I would go home, their negative energies were heavy on my shoulders. I never do much effort in my teaching routine but every time the day ends, it is as if all of the personal and psychological problems of my students were placed on my back for me to carry the whole night through. I felt I was a toilet bowl were all of man’s stinking garbage are flushed.

But with all of these I managed to experience what being a father was all about. I firsthand experienced the same experience of my mentor being my surrogate father in one of the students there. I met the kid at a student’s party and he was very reserved, awkward and troubled (I can sense these things). He was high on drugs that night but he carried it well that even some people in the party did not notice his constant clenching of mouth and lips. We began to sit at the same table because the main host insisted. The night was doing good until the topic on the table was about the father figure. Apparently some of the student’s on that table was talking about their problems with their own fathers, so I kind of related and began telling and explaining them the reasons why and the truth behind it. Everyone listening to my explanation seemed so lost because they admit that they cannot understand what I am going at. In short, my explanation was too deep for them to comprehend. Until this particular kid began explaining to them, what I meant about how their own fathers loved them even to the point of hurting them and abusing them etc (I should talk!).

I was impressed by that gesture. No one in the table knew what I was talking about, except a kid who was so awkward and distant to me finally made sense by being the only one at the table who totally comprehend what I was talking about. The students became skeptic, understandable because they have their hate with their own fathers. But to my surprise, this kid was backing up everything what I was talking about as if he can read my mind. Soon he became one of my closest friends in the school. He then began to pour out to me his god-forsaken life, his own father figure wound, his dysfunctional family background and all of his cans of worms including his dependence on drugs, just like what I did to my mentor back in my seminary days.

I saw that what was happening between my student and me, was also the same thing that happened to my mentor and me. It was a repeat performance of my seminary experience, but only this time, I was in the shoes of my mentor. I then began to apply to the kid everything that my mentor taught of me, and few months time, he was a changed man. He stopped using drugs and his conversion became so popular in school that girls who used to dump him before began to have actual crush on him even though his physical appearance was not that attractive (do I really have to mention that?). In short, he became my protégé for holiness and goodness. He was a brother and son to me while I was a brother and father to him. We have the same father wound. We have the same personality type (I made him took the personality test) and we have the same stubbornness that our life made us that way. The same stubbornness that made me scold him one day.

He was tempted by his old friend to try again using drugs. It was a one time shot but for me it was the start again of something evil. So I confronted him and scolded him. It was my utter concern for his life (brilliant in class as he is) that made me angry at his stupidity. He was quiet and never said a thing. But I can see in his teary filled eyes that he felt that he failed me. Until he blurted out the words: “I’m trying so hard to change and absorbing everything you taught me, but you should understand that this is all fast paced for me. Give me time to heal my wound, and in due time all will be fine�.

What he said struck me. I was trying to be a beacon for this kid but ironically, he was the one who enlightened me.

The Conversion

The words of that kid hit me like a raging bull. I was always in a hurry to resolve my conflict with my father that I never thought that time is my only ally. It is time and not me that could heal the wound.

From then on, I began to take notice of my dad. I soon started noticing the warts in his forehead, the obvious skin pigments on his arm, the darkening of his toes, the loosening of his skin, the slow paces that he make in his steps, and the kyphotic (curved) figure of my father. He was nearing his old age.

I cried when I realized that there is not much time left for me to finally make it up to him. For the first time in my life I finally understood him. Sure he has still his flaws, but my mentor was right: “he only did to me what he only thought was right in upbringing me� and I cannot blame him for that. No son or daughter has the right to question the way his parents have brought him or her for it is the only way they know. No matter how imperfect my father was yet behind those imperfections was a sincere intention of bringing out the very best in me.

My father had his own wicked experience in life, he only finished third year high school, has lost his own business out of concern for his own sister and mended his ways for me. Now do I have the right to blame him for all the things that happened to me?

My father is not perfect. He was neither a holy man nor an evil one. But one thing’s for sure… he did a good job in being a good father to me despite and in spite the wounds that he caused me because if not for him I would have ended up as a miserable piece of garbage littered on the street. I owe him what I am today: A man of faith, A man of Dreams, A man of principles, A man of good will and a man he would certainly be proud of. I had never tasted any drugs in my entire life, never been hooked into gambling, never been a womanizer and never fathered a child out of wedlock. I should say that what I am today is mostly because of him.

The wound that he left me is finally healed. Though a scar, yet it will just remain as it is inside my heart as a reminder of my personal history: immobile, painless, and pigmented.

In 2004, I have Finally forgiven my dad. As of this writing, whenever I remember the beating and humiliation he caused me, there is no more feeling of self-pity, no more pain and no more tears in my eyes (Johnson’s baby shampoo?). These are confirmed that I have finally put everything behind, for me to go on with my journey in life as a whole person, fully human fully alive.

Father and Son

Now, my dad and I are already in good terms. I am able to drink with him and share stories with him. I cook food for him and somehow give him advice when he needs it (vice versa). I assist him in his weird ways of treating his poultry, fighting cocks, piggery and his goats. When he was in the states, my mom gets angry with him because the call cards that they bought was consumed by my father talking only to me and telling me his experiences. We were like two friends talking over the phone. I tell you, my mom could not talk to me except when I ask my dad to give the phone over to her. My sisters teased me that I am my father’s chika-mate (gossip mate).

We share jokes from time to time and the most important thing of all is that, he is now afraid of swearing in front of me because he knows that I hate it when he unconsciously blurt out those “magic wordsâ€? with all the perfect intonation and exclamation points that comes with it. Whenever his temper flares up, I pacify him, and ask him what the matter is and offer him my help and solutions in whatever “pettyâ€? problems he could not seem to solve, including finding things which he lost deliberately. Funny thing is, whenever he is mad, I’m the only person in our house that could tame him, maybe because he has gained respect for me. I would not say that my dad is afraid of my anger, for my father is one heck of a tough dad. He is just afraid of losing me again, not so much physically — but emotionally and psychologically.

I am blessed to experience the feeling of becoming a son and a father at a very short span of time. I am very grateful to my surrogate father for letting me feel what I missed about my dad and to my surrogate son for letting me experience what its like to be a father. And I am especially grateful to my dad for upbringing me the best way he can.

They say that every son wears a mask of his own father. I agree. Me and my father have so many similarities. I am a polished version of my father. And I’m very proud of that. He is my Father, and I am his son. No matter how I tried to distort my history and deny it, the truth will always insist that we are Father and son.

This Father’s day, My salute and respect goes to my own old man and to all the fathers out there, warts and all.