Crossed Narrative Analysis

connected to me taking more responsibility. I am the creative force who is going to make that

happen and that is beautiful.

There is emotion behind that. It is tears but not sadness. It is a moment now right now

of appreciation and knowing the preciousness of all of this. My anger my struggle my sadness

- there is a preciousness that all is not lost. I used to feel that if my dad had died I would have

been so unfulfilled. But now I can have some of those yearnings fulfilled and we have

moments

like that now. Seeing this now helps me to be at greater peace with the past. Even though I

didn’t get what I wanted then we can still create some of that now.

As a boy I was required to be tough and strong and I did not fit into that. I was not able

to ask for help or to even say I don’t know how to ask for help. That was isolating for me. The

part of my story that I think is a very, very powerful is the gender role idealization around my

dad. Strong, drinking beer having fun, “He is like the poster boy of what it means to be a

man”. I am totally inadequate to live up to that and developed a core belief I am inadequate as

a man. There was this interplay between this idealized picture of my father and who I was at

that time as a little boy with anxiety and didn’t even know it. I felt like the opposite of him and

the ideal man he represented. Some part of me was asking what is wrong with me and feeding

a shame cycle with self-hatred towards myself as a man.

There was this power dynamic between me my father that played itself out with the

females in my life. My father had the power and ruled with an iron fist. I tip toed around him.

The message in my family was men are supposed to have more power and power over

females. I was disconnected with the masculine because I saw this violent face. So even