How do I [28 f] tell my dad [57 mtf] that I don't want to see him, but it's not because of his transition?

Oh boy. First things first--yes, my dad does still use male pronouns. No, in using them I am not trying to disrespect him. If he ever asks that I refer to him as a she I will respect his wishes. This is not about me not accepting him, and is more about him not accepting me. Also, this is long and convoluted--I'm sorry and thanks to everyone who's willing to listen.

A little back story: My dad is a tough person to get along with. He's pompous and honestly pretty awful, but he's always gotten away with it because of his intelligence and his prestigious job. He was never physically or sexually abusive, and I don't think that he's a monster... I do love him, more than anyone else in my family in fact, mostly because my family sucks. But he's an awful communicator, is very negative, and is very harsh. He also lives far from me-- since I was five years old he's lived in a different country from me, and during my childhood I only saw him about twice a year when we would visit him--for two weeks during the winter and for a month during the summer.

One of the many ways he's been awful is that he's always been very hard on me and my two brothers about our weight. Both me and my brothers became varying amounts of overweight after my parent's divorce--I think my dad had the right to be concerned, but he did not handle it gracefully. Every summer during our month long stay at his house, we would have to do hours long workouts and go on strict diets. He always had a ridiculously big weight loss goals for us, like 10 kilos of weightloss in a month, and he was always disappointed that we wouldn't meet it. We were allowed trips to restaurants on the weekends, but almost everything we ate was joked about as being fattening, and fat jokes were made constantly. Me and my brothers would all have daily weigh ins, and if we gained even half a kilo he would be disappointed and would say that we were on our path to an early grave. He also frequently told me that I would be prettier if I was thin.

Despite his attempts, I went from a fat kid to a fat teen. But as you could imagine, as I hit puberty my dad's comments started to affect me more and more, and I eventually became very fixated on my weight. In my late teens I developed an eating disorder, mainly in the form of binging and purging and chewing and spitting, which led to me losing a lot of weight. After losing 40 kilos and going from obese to underweight, my dad's words to me were "you look good, but you could still lose more around your hips." I lied and told him that I lost my weight healthily, because he had often told me that eating disorders were stupid and "only idiots lose weight in stupid ways."

Eventually, I stopped seeing my dad as I became an adult. My mom passed away when I was seventeen (suicide), and when she passed he stopped his scheduled visits because of some drama with my aunt, who I stayed with in order to finish up my final year of high school. I still saw him for the first few years, but only a couple times. He constantly offered to pay for a trip to visit him, which would be like a paid-for vacation, but I would always say no, because I didn't want to deal with his comments about my body and everything else. Occasionally, he would visit my country because of his work, and he would want to take a detour to see me, and I would always lie my way out of seeing him. Despite this, I did love him, and kept up with him online. It's now been six years or so since I last saw him.

The current problem: About five years ago some very stressful life events occurred--and I attempted suicide. I was held in a mental facility for a few weeks as a result. When I came out, I was put on new medications which helped immensely but gave me a ridiculously huge appetite. With my history of binging foods, plus this new ridiculously huge appetite, I started going on huge binge-fests and gained a large amount of weight over the course of four years or so. Even when I weaned off my meds it was like my brain went from 0 to 60 and I couldn't stop binge eating. I sadly went from underweight back to obese again. Finally, about a year ago, I realized that I was doing serious damage to myself, and I went on new medications and stopped binge eating nearly as often. I've since stopped gaining anymore weight, but losing weight has still been difficult. As many people who has struggled with an eating disorder will tell you--even the most well intentioned attempts at weight loss quickly turn into doing a huge slew of unhealthy things, and it's very hard and sad to put myself in that head space again. After a whole year I've only managed to lose 5 kilos out of the 45 k or so I need to lose.

My problems is, my father has increasingly started to want to visit me, but he has no idea about my big weight gain. I have been speaking to him semi-regularly (once a month or so) via e-mails and phone calls, but he has never mentioned the weight gain or eating disorder. He hasn't seen photos of me, because I hate how I look and never take or post photos of myself (even all my vacation photos on Instagram are just of my boyfriend--depressing, I know.) I am terrified of seeing him and really don't want to deal with his shock and his comments. I'm scared that it'll lead to some sort of mental break where I'll either start bingeing hardcore or start purging and be obsessed with weight loss. With little notice and without me or anyone else asking to, he started to plan a three week long vacation to visit my brothers and I in August. I was able to think up excuses to not have him sleepover, but to not see him at all? I keep scrambling for some sort of excuse or lie, and I can't think of any. I have no idea how to tell him that I don't want to see him.

To make things trickier--in the time that I haven't seen him, my dad started privately identifying as transgender. He recently began hormone replacement therapy, and I believe is planning his coming out within a year. I am the only person in the family that he has told so far because, according to him I am not judgmental unlike my brothers or his siblings. He has not stated as such, but he has largely hinted that he wants to see me the most out of everybody, because I am the only person that knows and accepts that he is trans. I feel as though if I don't explain myself clearly, or even if I do explain myself clearly, that he will think that I am avoiding him because he is trans and that he will be heart broken. That is not the case at all. I will admit that it's been odd for me--it's not been as easy as when one of my friends transitioned, for example--but I still love him and accept that this is what he needs to finally be happy, and maybe hopefully he will be less miserable and negative all the time. In fact, the only part I hate about his being trans is that I feel sad that I am expected to boost him up on his looks and his body while he always trashed mine. As awful as it sounds, I want to love him from a distance, where I don't have to have him invading my mind with negative comments--about my body, about my life, about everything...all while also being expected to constantly praise him for being beautiful and to shower him with the love and acceptance he never gave me. I want to be the bigger person (haha) and do that for him, but I just can't mentally handle it. I can call him beautiful and support him and give him what he needs, but not in person. And I don't know how to wiggle my way out of seeing him. Help?

Tldr: My dad lives far and I haven't seen him in about six years, and he has started to plan a vacation in August to see me. His constant comment on my body throughout my whole life is a huge part of why I had an eating disorder in my teens and early twenties. In the last five years, I stopped binging and purging and instead just began non-stop binging, and gained weight. I am working on it finally but am still fat--he doesn't know this. In that same time my dad came out as trans to me, which is partly why he wants to see me, because I accept him when no one else that knows has. I don't know how to avoid seeing him, or if I even should, because I am terrified of him seeing me fat again, and of all the nasty comments he will make.

Submitted June 03, 2019 at 06:48PM by throwawaymydadplz http://bit.ly/2EO4e9m