Escaping the Father Wound: Breaking Free Without Giving It Power

We don’t like to talk about it.

Especially men of my generation.

But there’s something many of us carry quietly — a fractured, unspoken ache:

The wound of a father who never really showed up.

It’s not always obvious.

Sometimes it looks like silence.

Sometimes like control.

Sometimes it’s blame, withdrawal, manipulation, or just an unsettling absence when it matters most.

For years, I thought if I tried hard enough, was good enough, calm enough, forgiving enough —

I could earn the love that never came.

I thought it was something I’d done wrong. That maybe I just wasn’t enough.

But here’s what I’ve come to understand:

A father wound is never really about the child.

It’s about a man who was wounded long before we ever arrived.

A man who never broke the chain that broke him.

A man who made others carry the weight of what he refused to face.

Recently, I reached out to my father following the death of my mum.

She had one final wish to be buried with her daughter — a simple request that only he could authorise.

It wasn’t about him. It was about honouring her.

But instead of compassion, I got control.

Instead of understanding, I got ultimatums.

Instead of a moment of shared grief, I got silence and blame —the same old patterns I’ve seen my whole life.

And this time, I didn’t fight.

I didn’t explain, defend, or beg.

I simply said, “Enough.”

No more.

I didn’t react — I reclaimed.

Because I’ve learned to set boundaries.

I’ve learned that healing means not playing the game anymore.

It means no longer seeking validation from someone who weaponises love.

My father’s story is one of deep personal pain.

Torn from his birth father at age three.  Raised by a man who wasn’t his own.

Bullied by his step-siblings.

Shaped by a strict household and family dysfunctions that left him closed, bitter, and deeply fragmented.

His childhood was a map of abandonment and emotional neglect.

But rather than heal it, he repeated it.

He fell out with his own mother before she died. With his sisters. With my sister. With me. With old friends. Even with those who tried to love him.

It’s a pattern. One that always ends the same: Someone else is to blame. Always.

But not this time.

Because the cycle stops with me.

The most powerful thing I’ve ever done wasn’t shouting back.  It was removing the hooks he used to pull me in.  It was moving forward quietly — with peace, not power.

Because some people don’t heal.

Some people can’t face the pain they carry.  So they project it, control with it, lash out from it — just to avoid ever feeling it.

I understand that now.

But understanding doesn’t mean accepting the harm.

I decided long ago that I will not carry his wound any longer.

Instead, I’ve been channelling my grief into something honest and healing: sound.

I’ve been letting the vibrations move through me — not just as music, but as medicine.

Because grief lives in the body, not just the mind.

It settles in our fascia, our nervous system, our cells.

And sometimes, the only way it can leave is through resonance.

I’ve been using music to help the emotions flow —

letting my voice and my instruments release what my heart has held for too long.

Each note softens the edges.

Each tone brings me closer to calm.

I believe the body remembers what the mind tries to forget.

But I also believe we can release it — not by force, but by sound.

By allowing ourselves to feel it all, safely.

By letting sound speak the words our grief cannot.

I write this as a way to honour all of us who were shaped by a parent’s pain

but refuse to let it shape us anymore.

So if you’re reading this and you recognise yourself —

know this:

You are not broken.

You are not unworthy.

You are not the problem.

You are the generation that says, “This ends here.”

And that is no small thing.

The wound may have started with our fathers.

But the healing? That’s ours now.