Impending doom and my father

Ohhhhhh I don't feel good. I rarely do, but now I don't feel good in a different way than usual. My head hurts and I feel sick and I feel like something terrible is on the horizon. A feeling of impending doom.

Maybe it's just over tiredness. I was so shattered today; I was supposed to be 'working from home' this afternoon but I was too tired to focus and ended up in bed at 5pm. I have been trying to process everything from my therapy session yesterday but I'm losing my focus and when I tried to think through what we talked about earlier, it seemed very long ago.

I slept until 9pm and feel guilty that I haven't done the work I was supposed to do. I went back to bed at 10.30 but this feeling of doom was taking over and I felt if I lay in bed much longer I was going to switch to Little C. My husband was cuddling me which was helping me to feel safe but then he turned away and I felt alone and scared. I didn't want to switch to Little C though because I knew she would probably wake him and he's so tired, he needs his sleep.

So I decided to get up and have a cup of tea. I still feel guilty and anxious about tomorrow and aware of all the bad things from the past and suddenly feel so much sadness about the struggles my family are going through, and I feel somehow responsible, like it's my fault that someone is unhappy because I should have been doing more to help them with their problems.

Or maybe I caused all the pain and heartache in my family. Maybe this was God's way of punishing me for being evil. Maybe I brought all the pain on my family.

It's one of those thoughts that you know sounds completely irrational, but still continues to nag at you over the years: everything bad that ever happened in my own and everyone else's lives, is my fault.

My headache has come because this anxiety is working on me and I've been avoiding it and now it's manifesting itself in a physical form.

Tomorrow I am seeing my dad. I have seen him about three times since he moved away three years ago. I always dread seeing him. He caused me so much pain and hurt me so much, but he has never apologised for the way he treated me. He just wants to play 'happy families' when he visits and then doesn't even contact me the rest of the year. I go along with this stupid game because somehow I figure that if it makes him happy, I can put up with seeing him and 'passing myself' once a year or so.

But it gets harder every time. I am being friendly, making conversation, acting like I don't notice the little slights he still throws at me even now when I see him. But I can hear someone inside me screaming at him: "You have no idea how much you've hurt us! You have no idea what she is going through! I hate you! I hate you!"

But this time tomorrow it will all be over again for another while and I will feel the relief that inevitably comes with realising I don't have to think about him again for another while. As long as I can control myself. One part feels we are being dishonest and should confront him. I tend to agree but I know I'm not strong enough to do that and I know my father. It wouldn't go down well.

And yet after it all; after a lifetime of abuse and hurt and after the constant reminders that he doesn't care, I still feel guilty that he's here for a week and I'm only seeing him for one evening. I feel I am letting him down.