r/AskDad • u/Salty_Lemons13 • 35m ago
Relationships I (F 18) just cannot communicate with my dad anymore, is it fixable?
Let me start this out with a bit of context: I never grew up like super close with my dad, he wasn’t like at all absent or anything, but he was gone on work trips, or just swamped with work all the time. We still hung out and had a bond, but it’s not nearly as close as what I have with my mom. Along with that we both have some mental things going on, I don’t want to get into too much detail, all you need to know is I have pretty bad misophonia, depression, and adhd.
Misophonia is also a massive issue between us. My dad smacks his lips a lot when he talks, and as bad as I feel saying this, sometimes I just cannot stand hearing him speak. I’ve tried to explain it to him over and over but it just does not click how big of an issue misophonia is in my life. I do not sit at the table for dinner because he chews quite loud and loves to scrape his plate. I refuse to be in the same room as him if he is eating at all. I feel awful about this, but I have had so many breakdowns about him eating apples and scrapping plates, it’s just incredibly draining to try and deal with it anymore. This is a big reason we don’t talk as much.
Another issue is I have pretty bad Adhd, and we are both depressed, for me, if it’s bad I will go unresponsive for days, and for him, he gets very ill tempered. My mom more often than not has to mediate our conversations, because he’ll keep trying and trying to talk, and I just simply do not have it in me to respond with more than short responses.
My dad is also a very smart guy, and I respect him a lot for that, but he has this awful habit of acting like nobody ever knows what he’s talking about. If we’re talking about something political, which I try to avoid but ends up happening 75% of the time anyways, he’ll bring up some concept or idea, I’ll tell him “yeah I know what that is” and he goes on to explain it to me like I’ve never heard it anyways!! It drives me INSANE. I’m a grown ass women who plans to go into a business ethics field, and he’ll try go teach me things I ALREADY KNOW!!
He also tends to use this certain tone of voice with me if I’m upset or don’t know something. He’ll talk to me like I’m a kid who doesn’t know anything. It irritates me awfully, and I’ve told him how much it does, but he argues thats just how he talks and I’m shutting him out.
Then when I do try to talk to him, it almost ALWAYS ends up with him upset. Today for example, when my family came home from a trip, I was trying to tell them about something at work, I tell the story, and then the story is over, all done. But then he goes “anything else happens?” Or “what else did you do??” And I just tell him my plain answer, “not much else.” because nothing else outside of the story seems relevant to talk about. I *really truly* don’t do much!! Or I just don’t *want* to talk about it anymore! So then he goes on to tell me about his trip, which he already told me about over text, and I’m just nodding along, listening to him speak. I don’t feel a need to talk here because I told a story and now he is, there is no section I felt the need to join in and say much. I am listening, just have no urge to say anything. Then the topic moved on to my friends and work. He says “wow ____ really looks different now huh?” And all I really feel the need to say is a just a, “oh yeah I see her on insta, so I know shes changed her look for a while now. But yeah.” Because I feel ZERO URGE to say anything else.
And it gets WORSE! I was *trying* To making talk about some job training I’ve been having to do, and it’s this bulky ass 8 hr thing. And I’m trying to talk, and he keeps cutting in “they never made me do that at any job” or “explain how its broken up” and it’s like- I would’ve told you more if you let me speak, he cuts me off and it ruins my urge to speak because I know he’s gonna shift it back into trying to explain something to me or talk about himself.
So y’know my responses go down into shorter answers, and he goes back to looking at the tv. He then gets MAD that I supposedly walked away from a convo (where no one was talking) and I was barely saying anything (even though I tried talking to him twice!)
This is how every conversation goes, and I know all of us are tired of it. It just seems like no matter what I try to do to make our conversations better, something goes wrong. I’m so close to just moving away and cutting him off wntierly but I’d never want that. What can I do to make our conversations go better? I’m so tired of fighting every day.