These words have haunted me all my life and i haven’t even known it. It’s the message i’ve been given every day conciously and subconciously for nearly 30 years. I have no idea what it means for your father to be pleased with you or proud of you, just for who you are. My children will be told so obsessively it will get embarassing.

My spirituality keeps me going and on the path, and i revel in it. Its amazing what we all take for granted and look down so easily on others for. I’m not naive or ungrateful enough to imply that i am somehow less fortunate than a person who’s father has passed away - at least i still have the chance to deal with these things as mine is still here for me to have a conversation with. What i do suggest is that it is a different issue when it’s half-measured and confused because of that. Half a dad can often be harder to contend with than one who’s not there at all.

Today is the day i learnt about the relationship of fear with anger.

Every few weeks i try to get along to the Tuesday service at the Acorn Christian Healing Centre in Hampshire because its like a petrol pitstop on life’s motorway for me. It’s one of my favourite places in the world for its peace and unbelievable collection of wise minds, along with the L’Abri Fellowship Centre which is also close by for when i need time to study in the quiet. I didn’t sleep well and was so incredidly agitated and tired from the night before, but that’s always ok when you go to Acorn. It’s a place for the weary to lay down their burden for a while and soak up the kindness and compassion on offer there.

The hilarious thing about Acorn is that every time i go, the damed sermon/talk is always directed personally at me. Today it was about fear - not the “oh dear” kind, but the crippling, paralysing kind. In Christian terms, its known as that feeling where you have to get out of the boat to walk on the water.

As the talk went on, i just got incredibly emotional and was absolutely fuming. Really fucking angry. But as the minutes went by, i started to realise that it actually wasn’t anger at all. It was fear. Holy shit. I’m scared? Is that what it is? It feels like anger? How the fuck did i miss that and what exactly am i scared of around these old ladies? Later on as we were praying, the ladies i was with at the time said they felt me physically shaking (not badly, just unsteady) and i had no idea whatsoever. All that time and i had presumed that the massive aggression response that precipitated yet another verbal onslaught from me was my righteous wrath. But in a lot of cases it wasn’t anger, and isn’t anger.

I talked it over in philosophical circles as i often do, and the consensus was that the difference between the two is that anger is typically a temporary emotion that serves a specific purpose (e.g. to warn us of impending danger), and longer-term adrenaline pumping is about chronic pathological fear. The response to fear is fight, or flight. Flight’s obvious, but fight exhibits the same actions and response as anger. Seems simple when you put it like that, but not so simple when you’re in the middle of it. Fear is about the anticipation of what might come, not what is happening in the moment or happened in the past. Fear is a fat ugly prison warden with no propensity for being liberal to her prisoners.

My eyes always dart around - when i watch myself on video (painful) i always notice that i am forever flicking around looking everywhere. Looking for where the next threat is coming from. That’s not a bad thing, it’s only bad when it gets pathological.

I learnt that if we look on anger being a fire, then fear is the wood and logs that make up the fuel that drive and sustain it. Until we remove the source of the fuel, the fire will keep burning and raging away. Fear invades our lives so mercilessly that we often can’t tell the different between when we’re scared, hurt or angry. We get these things confused, especially when someone’s throwing stuff at us emotionally that seems over-the-top or almost irrelevant to the situation. To control our lashing out, we need to control the basic primal fear that is rooted so deeply into who we are. That’s when we need to go right back to the beginnings of when we picked it up. Once the demon is named, it’s a lot easier to cast it out. That root is the father, once again.

Who is the father and what does he do? That’s an easy question for those who have experienced it and a very hard one for those of us who haven’t. It must seem blatantly obvious to you. It hasn’t been to me. Dad is the one who is ultimately strong, powerful and invincible. He protects you and makes you feel safe when you’re scared. He is the one who fights your corner, shelters you from harm and the one you run to in times of trouble for his strength, kindness and magnaminous durability. Safety is the key word here. You respect and fear his strength, and obey his authority. He sets the rules and boundaries and enforces punishment, as well as validating your growth and worth. The father is the most powerful and invincible thing in the world.

The trouble comes when the father is that powerful figure, but also a source of fear rather than safety. Suddenly the most deadly of fears is instilled - the world is no longer safe. There is no comfort or shelter. You are running. You are terrified. There is no home, no rest and no-one to protect you. Fear takes over and runs so rampant that it becomes a personal institution. But its not the average fear an adult feels, but the overpowering and terror-inducing childish sense of fear that cripples and paralyses you. And it stays for life until you revisit and rewrite the mental VCR.

The very same thing happens when a father disappears or dies. Suddenly that sense of protection and security is gone, and fear takes over. But it can be worse as there is the sense of rejection that sets in from a child presuming that Daddy leaving is their fault. To a child, everything is their fault. When we revisit it as an adult, we know it wasn’t our fault, but we didn’t have the emotional mechanics back then to understand that. But the feel sticks and rots in the background. Nothing is secure and abandonment lies in every relationship. Fear underlies everything we do whether we know it or not.

Such is the precious mind of a child. Better to hang a millstone around your neck and throw yourself to the water than face the punishment due to anyone who harms a hair on the head of the little ones.

I feared my father. I didn’t recognise it for a long time as fear, but it was fear. I feared him in a way that was pathological because he is from a generation of men who grew up being beaten at home and in school, and it “never did them[me] any harm”. What they failed to realise is that the harm it did them was teaching them that violence does no harm to children. It does do enormous harm. It makes them terrified of anyone who has power over them and teaches them to expect and fear violence at every corner.

I was beaten for my “own good” with all manner of implements why my sister listened silently scared that tonight was the night when her father killed her brother. I was held down screaming in “restraint” with my neck pinned to the floor by my father’s knee until it nearly broke and routinely crushed after he brought down the door i had barrocaded with my bed and chest of drawers. His favourite was the “half nelson” arm lock that drove my face into the carpet. It was all disguised as “discipline” for my appalling and exceptional behaviour. My fault. I was an evil child that caused all the suffering in my family due to being “willful” and “rebellious”. It was only later that i learned to spot those responsibility-avoiding lies for what they are. When it comes to abuse, the hidden message is what you miss, even if you hear the words and mop up the blood.

My father’s own mistake was that he failed, and still fails, to see the difference between discipline and punishment. Discipline is about teaching a child to use their will to exert self-control, and punishment is an act that enforces a small degree of suffering deliberately to show one’s actions in life result in consequence. Both are acts of love, and entirely separate. Having discipline is not eating that extra cream pie or waiting for something. Punishment is being confined to a step on the staircase to indicate shame. Discipline is not beating a helpless infant to scare the fucking life out of them so they don’t do it again. I learnt quickly in Africa that pain arising from punishment means very little and its about the aggression of the person beating that does the evil work.

Learning what a father is and what a father does is so essential to those of us with that ingrained fear because we are programmed against our will to repeat the same behaviour - it is the only template we ever knew and hence the reason abuse of any kind is passed down the generations.  Most carry it on an its too late to resolve the damage after its been done. The challenge for me and my sister is to rebuild and re-program emotionally so we don’t repeat it. I’m so incredibly proud of Jose for the amazing mother she is. She is literally the perfect mother. I can’t fault her in any way - Kristian (Zair) is a child who lives without fear and has the spirit of a lion with a huge smile on its face. He amazes me. She amazes me. I hope i am half the dad she is as a mum.

Fatherhood’s one main aim is to bestow masculinity and award a son his name and his prowess. In my case, i have always been a bad son. My The pets my father has kept are even “manipulative” and “know exactly what they are doing”. Nothing is ever good enough to earn his acceptance, approval or pride. His justification is biblical in many cases, and his demands are full control by dictat, to be the one who advises and that i live out the things he didn’t achieve. In my mind, he is even beyond the reach of God (now that is insane). For the unintiated, abuse is not just doing something, it is not doing something. Parenthood comes with a responsibility to validate and support the emotional and spiritual growth of your children. Not supplying that or actively restricting it is forsaking that is abuse.

It was my fault. My behaviour was the reason i was terrorised. I made him do it and provoked it. If i had been a better son i wouldn’t have had it. If i was like the other kids there wouldn’t be a problem. If i had been a good son and obeyed his parents, and not been born the unwanted, petulant, disruptive miscreant i was, we would have lived a delightful life with no problems and my parents wouldn’t have suffered the stress that led them to divorce. If i had been more like my gentle and quiet sister everyone would have been happier. I didn’t deserve boundaries because i was his property and his to do as he wished with me. If i hadn’t willfully misbehaved and rebelled my father would love me. If i had been the way he wanted me to be, he would be proud of me.

All fucking horsehit lies. Every single fucking one of them. But lies sown into the heart because they were fed into the mind of a child. A father should love his children unconditionally. If you want to know why i could murder him without a second’s thought, that’s why. My counsellor liberated me from them by explaining that my uncontrollable behaviour was entirely healthy and natural because i was simply reacting to a very negative home environment. It wasn’t my fault after all.

The wound for me was being forsaken and rejected. Press that wound in me and you get trouble - a massively violent reaction that wreaks absolute havoc and unlimited destructive potential. They say that to anger someone is to conquer them. If you anger me, i’ll fucking conquer you instead. Becoming attached to someone uncovers that wound and results in behaviour like that in January and February. Love me and then either forsake me or sell me out, and despite it being expected because i’m waiting for it, out comes my fear and the world starts spinning from my rage. That rage is driven by that pathological fear and is instinctual defensive anger.

Each of us have a trigger that provokes that terrible and ingrained pathological fear. It is so insidious and long-term that we don’t know it’s even there. It generates and fuels anger that controls us every minute of every day. It’s childish and entirely primitive, and runs on the rules and framework we recorded into our minds when we were small. That fear feels like insanity - like a total nervous breakdown and loss of control as the adrenaline takes over. We do things that don’t make sense just to satiate the mad anxiety building up and hitting us in the chest. Madness results. The more fear there is, the more ridiculous our actions. That is why i forgive the one that hurt me the most. I see through what’s happened to the fear driving it.

If you listen to “Kick Down The Door” (a tune i wrote a while ago) when it gets released next year, you’ll know exactly what it’s about now.  The chorus is pretty harsh: “my turn to kick down the door / i’m not frightened and small anymore / i will repay you / i will punish you / i’m coming to kick down your door“. It’s dedicated to “every smile you stole from me”. One of my favourites. “Where Were You” and “Wake Up Screaming” are in a  similar sentiment.

What is so incredible about opening up and facing your demons is the remarkable greatness it brings out in the people around you that you bizarrely aren’t surprised by. The support i’ve received has been extraordinary - even from people i don’t know who’ve dropped by and felt compelled to email me.

From the gorgeous and heavily-pregnant George:

Good for you Alex. I wish you a lot of luck. And patience really is a virtue. I can’t wait for you to prove that to the world.

But the last word is Jenny’s.

Tears are not a bad thing as they are a release that most people are afraid to have. Tears are something people feel they have to hide and be ashamed of. Fuck that - tears are an emotion that has as much right to exist as smiling or laughing - its an emotional release and for people to be human and complete you must be able to accept the good and bad side of emotion. I personally am proud of you (sorry dont mean to be patronising) for confessing to tears and having the emotional abilities to be able to recognise them for what they are. I have seen many councellors and not one of them has told me that it is bad to cry or good to hold you feelings in so fuck it. Be proud of who you are - for what you are dealing with and having the bollocks to face it head on and not hide for it is something to stand up and be rpoud of. Fuck anyone who says thats wrong and you shouldn’t be vunerable. There aren’t many people who could contend with what you have and come out the other side but you have - you may not be smiling yet but you will be one day.

“No weapon that is formed against you will prosper; And every tongue that accuses you in judgment you will condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, And their vindication is from Me,” declares the Lord.