Father, Did My Pain Ever Cross Your Mind?

A few days ago, I had a conversation with my boyfriend that quietly shifted something inside me. It was simple, almost casual. But somehow, it opened a new perspective I didn’t know I needed.

The morning that led to that conversation started abruptly. My father called me out of nowhere. No small talk, no check-in, no warning. Just anger.

The message was short and sharp: I wasn’t allowed to see my boyfriend anymore. For people who know pieces of my story, maybe this wasn’t shocking. But what confused me was how sudden it was. No discussion. No attempt to understand. Just a command delivered through raised voices.

Later, when I told my boyfriend about it, he said something that stayed with me:

“Those in power will always attack those who are vulnerable. And here, you’re the vulnerable one.”

At first, it sounded harsh. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense.

My father has never threatened my boyfriend. He’s never called him, never told him to stay away from me. All the pressure has always been directed at me.

Why? Because my father doesn’t have power over him. But over me, he believes he does.

That power comes from many things.

He’s my parent.

He’s a man.

He’s older.

He believes he’s more experienced.

Those four things are enough to create a sense of superiority, as if authority automatically grants the right to control, to decide, to forbid. He wants obedience without conversation.

That’s when I realized something uncomfortable: even the relationship between parent and child isn’t free from the politics of power. There are hierarchies, expectations, control. And the vulnerable are often the ones who carry the weight.

But maybe it isn’t just about my father.

Maybe it’s about how authority is taught to operate — unquestioned, unchallenged, inherited. Maybe this is how power sustains itself: by normalizing obedience and framing control as care.

This reminds me of philosopher Michel Foucault's idea that the most effective power often works subtly through ‘normalisation’. Control is disguised as a form of care or tradition, so that we feel guilty when we try to question it.

We are told it’s love. We are told it’s protection. We are told it’s “for our own good.” And somewhere along the way, fear learns to wear the mask of concern.

And I can’t ignore the fact that this dynamic is also gendered.

Daughters are watched in ways sons are not. Daughters are told to be careful, to be quiet, to be obedient. Daughters are reminded that their choices carry the family’s honor, reputation, morality. As if our freedom is more dangerous. As if our love is more scandalous. As if our mistakes are less forgivable.

We are guarded like something fragile, yet blamed when we break.

As bell hooks writes, in unequal systems, ‘love is often used as a tool to justify domination.’ When a girl's freedom is restricted for the sake of ‘honour,’ it is often more about maintaining social control than about the child's own safety.

It makes me wonder how often control over women’s lives is justified in the name of protection. How often silence is rewarded as virtue. How often obedience is mistaken for respect. How often love becomes a threat the moment it is chosen freely instead of approved.

What hurts is not only the restriction. It’s the erasure of my agency. Decisions about my life are made as if my voice is optional — as if being someone’s daughter permanently disqualifies me from being my own person.

The irony is painful: all my efforts don’t seem to matter. The grades, the sacrifices, the compromises I made in my education, the dreams I set aside to keep peace — none of them change how little space I’m given to decide my own life.

I did everything right. I studied hard. I tried to be understanding. I tried to be patient. I tried to be grateful. I tried to be the daughter they could be proud of.

And still, my choices are treated like threats.

It’s exhausting to always be the one pressured just because your position is considered “lower.” Exhausting to feel like your life is always orbiting around someone else’s expectations, someone else’s ego, someone else’s rules.

Sometimes I wonder when it will end. When will they see me as someone with her own voice? Will they ever understand without something breaking first?

Because power rarely gives up quietly. It tightens its grip. It calls itself love. It calls itself tradition. It calls itself care.

So when does protection turn into possession?

When does guidance become domination?

When does love stop listening?

A few days ago, my boyfriend’s words helped me see the pattern. But seeing something clearly doesn’t always tell you what to do next.

Maybe disappearing for a while is how you start finding yourself.

Maybe understanding power is the first step toward reclaiming it.

Or maybe this is just another question without an answer yet.

I don’t know.

I’m still standing here, somewhere between who they expect me to be and who I’m trying to become... wondering which version of me will survive in the end.