One of my friends from school told me about an incident recently where on a class trip to a different country one of my favorite professors got extremely drunk and sexually harassed one of the students on the trip (I’m on purpose not discribing the incident because I know it can be a trigger). From what I can gather, it was pretty bad and it actually happened. I point that out for the next part. I told my dad about it because I wanted to get it off my chest. I knew this was probably foolish because he’s one of those anti “me too” people . He loves debate and I don’t think he can physically stop himself from pouncing on the opportunity (this has caused him to lose multiple relationships; he can’t help himself and I realize that now). He really made me feel like shit about it. I understand that you want to have a level of skepticism with these kinds of things because of false accuasations. But the person who told me and the person who suffered the assault are both good friends of mine. He got all up about how I was “assuming” stuff. I believed my friends. This isn’t some story on the news, this is people that I love and care about. But nope, according to my dad I should just consider the possibility that my good friend is a liar who ruined a professor’s life for no reason. I asked if we could talk about something else (which by the way he said I could always ask to change subjects) and he told me “no” and “sorry the conversation didn’t go the way I wanted it to”. I thought I could confide in him because hearing about this made me feel really sad but having the moral high ground or whatever is just too important to him. It made me go into a panic and I completely lost my appetite even though I was very hungry (I am pretty underweight by the way which has caused health problems so this isn’t trivial stuff). The only way I could feel my hands again was by taking an aspirin while my sister called me so I could hear her voice. I ate as much as I could but I didn’t really even wanna look at him. There really isn’t any point in me talking about how much this upset me with him because it’ll just lead him into talking about “woke” or whatever bullshit some YouTube channel told him to believe. What a “free thinker” he is!
Dad caused me a panic attack by being... - Anxiety and Depre...
Dad caused me a panic attack by being insensitive (TW:sexual assault)
Your father is an out and out misogynist who blames women for men's behaviour and will victim blame instead of putting the blame where it belongs - 100% on the perp.
He is one of types of men who always think women are lying and assault is their fault. No wonder he can't get a woman and keep her with an attitude like that. Disgraceful.
It must be really difficult to live with someone like that. I don't know if that helps but I believe I would try to avoid any topics with him that can lead to an argument. Somehow I suspect you would tell me that almost everything leads to an argument with him.
I am in a strange stage of my life now when I have accepted the nature of humanity. Which means that I accept each and every human the way they are. I also accept myself the way I am. People do not cause me emotional harm anymore since I project their behavior onto them and their opinion or behavior has nothing to do with me or my reality.
Are you a believer? If you are, I would like to give you one more thought. People like to twist the truth and play with reality. But it does not change it in reality and truth is truth no matter what anyone thinks or says about it. And even if no one sees or believes it, God knows and if you have God you have everything.
Your father sounds like an emotionally immature person. It's not about having a conversation, it's about how he's right. It's not about you needing to process this difficult information, it's about his compulsion to shout down something that is difficult for him to think on. It's not about what support you need, it's about tip-toeing around eggshells so he doesn't blast you for not parroting what he needs to hear. It's not about what you know to be true, only what he believes to be true. It's not about you, it's about him when it's actually about you. I wish I could tell you he might change, but my experience with people this small is they never do. I'm sorry for what you're going through. I'm sorry for what your friend endured. Try to be there for them because they'll need more people like you to be supported rather than more people like your father who would rather tear them down .
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