My father insists on a version of past events that is not true, where he supposedly helped me pay off debt when in reality I paid it off by working FOR YEARS. He doesn’t say it as something he’s proud of, but something I owe him and haven’t “thanked” him for (?). He is extremely stubborn and old enough to definitely not remember things well.
He does this kind of thing with my siblings as well and it’s come to the point where we feel that all we really were for our father was a money burden, be it true or not that he helped us financially at some point.
How can I come to terms with the fact that he’s not gonna acknowledge the truth no matter how many times I explain it to him, despite the anger and frustration I feel towards him for claiming something he actually DIDN’T do for his kid while minimizing my own work and effort?
Very well said, and the story sounds very familiar. Mindfulness and reprogramming yourself to essentially react with positivity rather than negativity is a good way to describe what worked for me too.
And if that sounds like a good approach to anybody else, I found a lot that stuck with me in the philosophy of stoics and buddhists.
To be in control of your state of mind — by working with your brain and body and not against it btw — is to be in control of your quality of life, within reason.