I asked my mother if my dad loved me or ever wanted me.

It’s 12:49 am Wednesday, July 7th, 2021, I am giving a talk to a PRU later today on mental health, and I think I’m going to base my talk on the power of vulnerability now.

I digress, So I was sitting rolling a *redacted* and I decided to play Kwabs, but the old skool stuff, the stuff I had seen him play live yeaaaaaars ago, In particular his track Getaway, his version performed live with just a piano is one of the most beautiful pieces of music I’ve ever listened to personally (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QwYcJsr2Wg)

And suddenly I needed to write, I needed to feel, I needed to put these feelings down, and look at the takeaways. I needed to see this from a different lens real quick.

As the title suggests I’m very sure you get the gist of this piece, I would like to first point out, this is not a piece to discredit, bash, or tarnish any reputations or anything, but a personal story of my mind, personal trauma, and how it unraveled in the space of 2–3 days.

Since Friday, I’ve been feeling unstable, and for the life of me, I couldn’t pinpoint what on earth was actually wrong. There were no new factors introduced that may have set me off, but here I am feeling hella ill and emotionally unstable. (Please understand within this weekend I had a lengthy chat with Wretch32 about his book and our upcoming book club, a DOPE house party, even saw my boy who flew in for a shoot—, it should have been a good weekend lol)

Then it hit me like a ton of bricks out of nowhere, the question hit me as I was sitting on my bed just being — Did my dad really love me? almost like it appeared out of thin air -and the waterworks started with no control. Now to add some context here — I’ve written about my complex relationship with my father before, and for some reason, this writing is a positive outlet for me so here we are again.

Our complex relationship led me to cut communication with him for a good long while, (a situation both of us could rectify at any moment if either of us wanted to — but I guess I’ll continue to write and he’ll continue to wonder hmm..)

There are questions I should have asked a long time ago, but I told myself I don’t care about the answers, and these questions would creep up every once in a while, whenever my mind was free and wondered, or whenever I achieved something, or friends would speak to their dads. Me not asking these questions led me to look to male mentors as father figures and trying to impress, building for people who may or will eventually see me as expendable as I may not be blood. I guess I had/have the idea of having a dad actively supporting my creative endeavors.

Don’t get me wrong on the flip side, I work with young people, with an innate want to give them the type of support I felt I should have received, this may be a by-product of the trauma I may feel, but with unchecked trauma, even this byproduct can become tainted right?

Anyway listen, the main takeaway from this is — Don’t leave it till it's too late, have the important conversations, ask the difficult questions, have the uncomfortable talks. Why? So you don’t end up 30 something years now realising that you have trauma stemming from childhood and potentially ‘daddy issues’ *shudders*. Eventually, when all is said and done trauma doesn't just disappear, you really have to face it, unpack it and do what you need to do.

Yo one thing about me, no matter how many days I cry, and beat myself up, and feel like I’ve been dragged to hell and back, is I promise somehow I will return laughing and telling a joke.