Father Issues

Image credit: Ashling Larkin

Finding out that the man who had raised me wasn’t my biological father was the beginning of the new me. What ruined the former me was knowing that the man, who I had desperately tried to impress growing up but could never seem to, was just a man who had taken me on.

It opened the door to all my unanswered childhood questions. Why I looked mixed race and why my siblings were noticeably darker. Why they had a different surname. And why my younger sister was named after his mother and not me. It also meant that somewhere in this world another man had decided that I was not deserving enough of his love.

Would I have described myself as suicidal? No. But all my insecurities were heightened and I began hating my existence. If it were not for my two children and partner I would have given in to that split-second thought and walked in front of the 453 bus.

It didn’t help that I was already estranged from my now step-father. Dealing with that situation was a rollercoaster of its own. Being 15 years old and trying to understand how the man that first held your heart could erase you from his life… My identity had been severely compromised and my self-worth was now in question.

At the age of 24 you would think I’m adult enough to understand that sometimes these things happen. But not to me. I wasn’t supposed to be that girl. The girl who was unwanted by the person who was supposed to show me how I should be treated. Rejected by the one who is supposed to walk me down the aisle and give me away to the man who would go forth and do the same for our daughter.

Allegedly, my being half black was the reason my real father wanted nothing to do with my mother and I. If that was the case, then I never stood a chance. How can one be willing to be intimate with a person of the colour they claim to dislike and refuse to accept the consequence of that action? How do you even begin to try and decipher that you were created by someone who never wanted you?

They say depression isn’t real. That it’s for the weak-minded. Although I knew I was strong, the voices in my head blinded me from what I knew and forced me succumb to the dark cloud shadowing my life. I didn’t know how long it would take for it to pass or if I would ever find my way through it.

Yet here I am. Somehow finding a way to understand that my worth is not defined by those who have let me down but by own my actions and my own thoughts. I suppose what I’m trying to say is: no one should have the power to destroy you.

You are who you are.

Do not let it break you.

Allow it to make you.

Zara Watfa is a 24-year-old mother of two from south east London. Whilst working as a full time manager in her local bookmakers, Zara started her own blog in January 2018 and has since spent all her spare time creating copious amounts of content to share with future readers.

Ashling is a Scotland-based comic artist, illustrator & animator. She graduated in 2016 from DJCAD with a 2:1 Bdes(Hons) in animation and has since been doing freelance work at the Dundee Comics Creative Space at Inkpot studio, while also working on her current ongoing project, a fantasy-adventure webcomic called “The Enchanted Book”.