Although the alcoholism and drug addiction were treated, his trauma, shame and deep-rooted feeling of unworthiness to be loved—even from his own child—remained for decades. My father had a strong desire to be available to me, but the absence of healing from his high school traumas and the ensuing shame left him, in many ways, incapable of bonding, connecting and responding in the nurturing, present and attuned ways that both of us wanted.
