S6 EP15: Catherine's Story - A Fathers Rejection At Age 5

Catherine Hickem’s story is grounded in lived experience navigating trauma and its long-term emotional impact. Catherine's father was her everything as a child, a loving, doting, wonderful Dad. One day, when she was just 5, it all changed , out of nowhere, and her life would never be the same again. Her journey reflects how early life challenges can shape patterns, relationships, and identity—and more importantly, how those patterns can be recognized and worked through over time. Catherine talks openly about her journey back to a meaningful relationship with her father. From heartbreak to redemption. 

https://www.parentingadultchildrentoday.com/

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 1:30

Welcome to another episode of Well, that fucked me up. I am your host, Luke Cobson, and today we're joined by Catherine Hickham. Hi, Catherine. Hi, Luke. How are you today? I'm splendid today. Whereabouts are you dialing in from in the world?

SPEAKER_00 1:46

I am in Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

Very good. And I'm in LA in the United States. Been here for 11 years. So it doesn't sound like I'm from here, admittedly, but here I found myself. So there we go. That's great. We're glad that you're That's great. Well, thanks for coming on. Every week we have a guest who comes on and we discuss surviving life-changing events and experiences. Um and that can be a one-off event, it can be a series of events, it can be physical, it can be mental, it can be emotional, it can be relationships, it can be jobs, it can be um anything that's knocked you off course um along the way. And what that did, how you dealt with it, um, and the journey through. So, Catherine, with all of that, where would you like to begin?

SPEAKER_00 2:41

Well, Luke, my story actually starts when I was five.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

There we go. Five years old it is.

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Five years old it is, and it was a it was a interesting journey because it actually impacted who I am now.

SPEAKER_02 2:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

And what I have spent my whole life um doing. So let me kind of give it to you in a short nutshell.

SPEAKER_02 3:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

Um, first five years of my life, I had just this incredible relationship with a father who was very tender. Um, every there would be these, you know, he would tell me bedtime stories, he would tuck me in. Um, you know, I would go fishing with him, I would go, he loved to go to wrestling matches, so I would go to those. I mean, it was it was just he took me places with him, right?

SPEAKER_01 3:28

Oh, that's so lovely.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

And it was very sweet. Yeah. My dad also happened to be a minister, right? So let me put that in context.

SPEAKER_02 3:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

So one night my mom was homesick. She was pregnant and she was homesick, and I was at church, and my dad was um the the minister of this church. Yeah, and so I was sitting in a pew by myself, and this family comes in and sits down. I've never met them before, and they have a little girl, she's sitting next to me, and halfway through the service, she taps me on the shoulder and she says, Can you show me where the bathroom is? Being the helpful little five-year-old, I said yes and took her to the bathroom. Stood outside, was very quiet, no, no commotion, no anything. But as I'm walking back in the church after she's gone to the bathroom, my dad stops his sermon and he says, Kathy Taylor, you sit down and don't you ever do that again.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

To you.

SPEAKER_00 4:26

To me.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

So now I have been publicly shamed and humiliated in front of a congregation for doing nothing wrong, absolutely nothing wrong, right? So I am crushed. I am so incredibly crushed. And from that night on, my father, my my father was not the same man.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

Uh I, you know, I am feeling every moment of this. And that's sorry, you carry on because I've got plenty to say about this.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

Well, it was it changed my relationship with him for the next 20 years. And it it just it was he was great, and the next minute he was as ungrate as he'd been great.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

So and survival is what I went into.

SPEAKER_01 5:16

I am feeling every second of this because I had a I had a very similar relationship with my father, and I don't remember, honestly, I don't remember anything from before 10 years old. And my father similarly started off as a loving, doting dad, and then as his unhappiness came through uh in the marriage, in business, losing he lost some money, he was a drinker, he had some gambling problems, his anger started to shone through, and he used to just berate me and criticize me and um make me feel like I was worthless. And although this was more of a manipulative emotional abuse over many, many years, which has honestly completely and utterly changed the course of my entire life. Now, thankfully, for the better, I feel exactly what you must have felt when your dad did that to you in that moment. It must have been a complete shock to your system.

SPEAKER_00 6:25

It was a it was a blind-sidedness that you don't ever you can't be prepared for, right? Because it was a complete 180 from anything I had experienced with him. And from that moment on, he was distant. He I would lay awake at night listening to see if my name would come up when he and my mom would talk. We lived in a very small house, yeah, and listened to make sure that I would pay attention to anything that he said, right in order in order to not have to be publicly humiliated again.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

And that went on from five to 15. You were completely traumatized. You were you were and your entire nervous system was re rebooted in the wrong all the wrong ways from that second onwards.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

Yeah, and and Luke, recognize this is another element to this is that from the time I was five to the time I was 13, I had 12 people in my life die.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

Four childhood friends. I had four siblings of childhood friends. Yeah, I had four very key adults, with the last one being my maternal grandmother who was the life of my she was just the light of my life, and she was killed by a drunk driver when I was 13. Oh my gosh. So I had all that loss with nobody to help me process what all loss meant. And I had a father who I I prayed every day to be invisible to avoid the public humiliation.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

Did his behavior towards you, you said that he became distant? It sounds like do you think he felt guilt and shame over what he'd done to you? And the easiest thing for him was just to retract it the way he was to you, or had you disappo had you disappointed him? He was what what was all that?

SPEAKER_00 8:31

It was it was back in the 60s, especially if you were a person who was in ministry, yeah. You better have your own household in order.

SPEAKER_01 8:43

Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:44

Because your credibility completely destroyed if you had a wayward kid.

SPEAKER_01 8:51

It's so old-fashioned, and also wayward isn't. I mean, I guess it's getting up and leaving the sermon and coming back could be I I bet you half the people hadn't noticed.

SPEAKER_00 9:01

It would have been it would have been different had it just been me with someone else. Yeah, but he didn't have context, he didn't take the time to be curious, he didn't ask questions. He was so concerned about what it looked like, yeah, which meant he was very fear-driven, yeah, right. And so with all of that in mind, what became very clear was I have to be invisible in order to quote survive.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

My gosh. Now I this is what there's lots of amazing similarities here. And you know, I would remember coming home from school 11, 12, and I would see my father's car park parked outside the house, and I wouldn't go, I wouldn't go home. I wouldn't go home, I'd walk around the block, I'd go and sit in the park on a bench, I'd be terrified. And that is no way to feel about your family home, the sanctity of safety. Right. And what does that do to a human being, you know?

SPEAKER_00 10:00

Well, and and you know, if I'm gonna go ahead and just put it all out here, right? I had a very I had a mother who to this day, my mother is still alive, and she's 91 years of age, and to this day, I've never heard my mother raise her voice ever. Wow. So my mother would not engage with my father is it related to any kind of emotion? Yeah, and so my mother didn't rescue me from him, she didn't protect me from him, per se. So it was me having to deal with him, and so I just figured out the best way for me to deal with him was to be invisible.

SPEAKER_01 10:37

That's really interesting, really. And my funnel let's say my mother was she unfortunately was on the on the receiving end of his um anger as well. She loved him dearly. You know, my father passed away, and my mum's still alive too. And interestingly, I had a uh I had a friend of mine die in a road traffic accident in front of me when I was 12. So it's you know, and again, similarly, the family was fracturing at that point. So I didn't my mum did everything she could to support me, but that not long after that, my dad left. And so it just that the tumultuous like childhood upbringing when you don't have support of your parents. So, as a father right now with two teenage sons, I'll make sure they know they're loved, I'll make sure they know they're safe, I'll make sure I support them, I encourage them, I give them confidence where sometimes they might not have confidence, and do my very best to be a very good father to them. In the only way I know how, because when you're a parent, you're just like everyone else, you're figuring it out as you go along, right? I did I did take on my father's drinking habits, which I, you know, finally knocked on the head seven years ago, and that was rough, and that was all stemming from all of my feelings when my kids came along. I started to feel these feelings of how I was as a child and how lonely I was as a child and how scared, fucking terrified I was as a child. And I had to work through all of that stuff, you know. Our parents, and it's easier said than done, but our parents' job is to keep us safe and give us love. And it doesn't sound like that is what you got from your dad at all.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

No, you know, there was a part of me that knew he loved me in his way, but it wasn't a way that was comforting or it was a head knowledge, you know, in terms of like I knew he meant well, but at the same time, I knew something inside of me that knew this was not my problem.

SPEAKER_01 12:40

Yeah, so funny. I'm sorry I keep going on about similarities, but my mom and my mom listens to all these episodes, and she always says, you know, dad, you she says, you know, your father loved you in a in his in his own way. And I'm like, great, that's not good enough for me. Right. Because I didn't see that.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

Well, so let me tell you because there's more to the story, guys, right? Um we have from this goes from five to fifteen. So at 15, I try again. I go to my dad, I set up an appointment to go see my dad's secretary to see my dad, but I make an appointment with the secretary. Yeah, so I show up at his office and I walk in, and he's shocked to see me. Yeah, says, What are you doing here? And I said, Well, dad, I've come to talk to you about our relationship. I said, I want to be close, but I think we should talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:30

And he threw me out of his office.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 13:33

Right?

SPEAKER_01 13:33

He said, You go home, we'll talk when I get there, and that talk did no, so he was an avoidant there.

SPEAKER_00 13:42

He completely blew me off.

SPEAKER_01 13:44

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 13:44

Again, and I went back into I have to survive, I have to be invisible, I have to do a workaround, the best I know how.

SPEAKER_02 13:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

So I know, and all along the way, Luke, I would go see a guidance counselor to talk about my to talk about what so it was in elementary, it was um Miss Burkett, who was my guidance counselor, and in middle school, it was Miss Massey, and high school it was Miss Barber. Yeah, those were the three people that over the course of my academic life that I would occasionally go talk to because I needed someone to talk to.

SPEAKER_01 14:23

Oh my goodness, and thank goodness for those people. Thank goodness for the people. We we have those at uh where my sons are at school, and my eldest is funny enough, he had an early meeting with the counselor this morning because he's there was a little bit of back and forth with one of his teachers, and you know, they wanted to clear the air, and those counselors are amazing humans, and there are a lot of kids that don't have they might have single parents, and then from those single parents, they might not have any parental support or any kind of feeling of love either. And that can 100% send you to the wrong side of the tracks.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

Well, and and having at least knowing that there was someone out there, and you know, at least that there was someone, you know, it may not happen often, yeah, but I at least didn't feel like I was completely cut off from all things, right? Yeah, so I so I go to college, um, I start seeing a therapist in my sophomore year of college, and I see a therapist for the next three years to my stuff. All right, I get married, um, I finish graduate school, and at 25, I decide I'm gonna have a conversation with my dad.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 15:35

And so I went to him and I said, Hey dad, I said, I still want a relationship with you, but it can't be the way we've had it, it has to be different than how we've had this relationship. And by that time, I had worked through my pain, I had worked, I had forgiven him, even though he had never asked. I had personally forgiven him because I didn't want to bring my anger towards my dad into my marriage. Yeah, that was really important to me.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

Yeah, incredible.

SPEAKER_00 16:03

Right. So I have this conversation with him, and here's what he said. He said, Kath, I made a lot of mistakes with you. And he said, I can't undo the mistakes I made. Wow. He said, The only thing I can do is give you my word that I will be the dad that you needed, not the dad that you had.

SPEAKER_01 16:24

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 16:27

And from that moment on, I had the most amazing father that had ever lived. I'm about to cry. How lovely. It it is wow, it was such a tender relationship.

SPEAKER_01 16:42

Wow. And what what sort of reflection do you think he'd done? Like what had changed for him? Do you because obviously through your college and your courting and marriage, he wasn't around, like were there family lunches and things, or you just didn't see him at all?

SPEAKER_00 16:59

I I really didn't see him hardly all it was you know, I might like two or three times a year for a few days at a time. Um, because you know, we were in school, graduate school, starting a career, yeah, you know, hook up at the holidays, yeah, occasionally back for something, but it was very, very interesting because I just remember saying, you know, I want I want a relationship with you, and I think he had enough time and distance, yeah, realize what he had lost.

SPEAKER_01 17:33

Wow, and all those years, and all those years, all those wonderfully important memories and years of your childhood and teen years and support that you needed, and college, and I got in and the thing, and I met someone getting mad, you know. Right. I mean, quite quite I'm about to say quite grown up of him, but quite mature of him to know that it wasn't too late and that he could have your forgiveness.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

Yeah. Well, I was, I will tell you, it it was a you want to talk about a 180 again. Yeah, it's just almost a 180. And from that moment on, I I there were I never had a crossword with my dad. Not 133. He he was my biggest advocate. He was my it it's it was so sweet. I'd go home and see him. I'd be like, you know, in my 50s, 40s, like I guess that's like my mid-40s. And I'd say, Hey dad, I've got to run to the drugstore or the grocery store to eat anything. He says, Well, here, let me let me go with you. He says, That way you'll be you'll be safe.

SPEAKER_01 18:43

Wow. Wow, it's incredible. And so how how did that make like that? Must have changed. Did you feel the the reverse wiring of your nervous system happening after all of this time?

SPEAKER_00 18:57

It was it was such a gift, Luke. Right. It was a gift. One, it was a gift because I was ready to embrace that side of him because I'd done the work too, right? I the healing work, the forgiveness work, but I wanted I wanted to be restored to that relationship, right? Because I think our parents are so key to our sense of self. And you know, being a therapist, because that's what I did for a living, yeah. Um, I just knew and understood how deep a father wound can impact so many other things.

SPEAKER_02 19:31

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

And so the idea that I had a chance, a second chance in adulthood, and he took advantage of that to make sure that like he was always like, I'd say, Hey dad, what do you think about? And he'd say, Now, are you asking me my opinion? And I'm like, I am, I'm asking your opinion. He'd say, Okay. It was like he was always careful not to give an opinion unless asked for, right? Wow. So he was very respectful of boundaries, he was very respectful of how I parented our kids. Yeah, he was very um, he he was like a protector in in his way, but he didn't overstep his boundaries. He was just, I'm telling you, Luke, I could not have asked for a more perfect 33 years. And so what changed?

SPEAKER_01 20:16

What what what what was the light switch for him? Do you think? Like was this in the real life?

SPEAKER_00 20:21

He realized what he had lost. I think he realized he had parented the way he'd been parented, and that he realized I had been a good kid all along. And that he could trust me to be who I was, yeah. And you know, and behind my back, he would just talk about how great I was and how wonderful I was and all those kind of things. But he was, and I loved the way he loved my children. He was just an amazing grandfather to my kids, and so I was really blessed. But what it taught me, so because you know, so what do I do now? I help parents who are estranged from their children. That's that's my that's what I do. I help people repair the damage that exists in their relationship with their adult children and don't know how to make that happen.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

So it's the parents coming to you to risk to try and repair the broken relationship with their kids, adult kids, rather than the adult kids coming and wanting to repair the relationship with their elderly parents, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 21:26

Well, I and here's the thing is like I've got you know, I've I've had it both sides. I've had kids saying, you know, my mom is crazy, how do I handle her? Yeah, of course, you know, or what you know, or I've had parents say, Okay, look, I'm you know, they're not talking to me. I really don't have a clue why can you help me? Right. So I've had it on both sides. Right now, my focus has been on parents, yeah, because I think they didn't get the memo that parenting changes when their kids leave home. They have kept parenting the way they've always parented, yeah, which is running into the propeller blade of why it's not working.

SPEAKER_01 22:04

Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_00 22:05

So from that perspective, it's like my I tell my story. Um, when I do a webinar or I do any kind of talk, I always tell my opening story of redemption. Yeah because I'm such a big believer that one we need the healing, we we need the healing, we need the restoration as if we can possibly get it. Because when we don't get it, we take that wound and we pass it down to the next generation in some way, shape, or form. Of course, and I don't want that for other people, it's too powerful. So I'm you know, I can look back and tell you that the first, you know, like my 20 out of 25, my first years were really, really painful, really lone, really hard. And yes, something bigger than me stayed with me to keep me focused. This really isn't about me, this is about them.

SPEAKER_01 22:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:01

And I went into this profession that allowed me to grow, that encouraged me to heal, that really called forth the best of me. So I've spent the last 40 something years of my life helping parents and helping families. And so, you know, I've had this incredible pro privilege of being with people in their deepest, darkest pain, but also being with them in those amazing moments of rest. And healing. And I think I'm a better person. I would not volunteer to go through my childhood again.

SPEAKER_02 23:39

Yeah. I wouldn't. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:41

I wouldn't either. But boy am I glad that I allowed it to work for my good and not for my bad.

SPEAKER_01 23:49

So what's great, what's interesting about that, Catherine, is that most of the guests that come on the show will say the same thing. I wouldn't want to live through it again. But if that's what it had to take to get me to where I am today, then so be it. Right. So I never had that kind of um makeup with my dad. Like it just it never happened. I tried to talk to him. He drank he was drunk most of the time when I was trying to have the kind of straight-up conversations with him about how he had made me feel as a child. He just didn't in one ear and out the other. And you know, I think he knew deep down. Um and we were good, we were had a good relationship till the end, more or less, but then he died quite quickly. He got he was uh cancer, and then it straight like just died straight away. It's crazy. And um so I had a good goodbye with him, but uh did I have closure? Don't don't think I did, and then you you you I take that with me, and then I I drank and drank and drank. I just didn't know how to cope with the trauma that I had suffered and the trauma I was feeling, and I didn't even know that's what it was that I was feeling. And then as a result of finally quitting drinking getting sober, I started to work through all the shit that was swirling around my brain and my body, and and I and I it's amazing. Working through it is is the best thing I've ever done. You know, and this podcast included talking to like-minded people like you and hearing our journeys, and I am from the moment I stopped drinking and started to repair the damage that I'd done and the damage that people had done to me and come to terms with everything and stopped living in guilt and shame and fear, that's when I started living my life. And and it's just been uh an incredible journey ever since. Of course, there's ups and downs, good, but mostly good days, and it's it's thrilling. But to do the work is also terrifying, but you've got to take the leap, right?

SPEAKER_00 25:50

Yeah, well, and it's it's about do I really want to fully live, right? Or do I want to stay completely numb and and disconnected from being alive? And you know, I remember, Luke, I was when my my grandmother was killed, I shut down for about two and a half years. And I remember I was about 16 and a half, and I remember thinking, You have you're at a crossroad. Yeah, you've got to decide whether you're going to actually heal, jump back in and take the risk of loving because with love comes the risk of being hurt.

SPEAKER_01 26:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:30

But I don't want to not live fully, and I don't want to not know love.

SPEAKER_01 26:35

Correct. You're speaking my language, and and I didn't put myself back into a relationship after straight after my marriage. Now I'm in a long-term relationship. I have a lovely girlfriend. We've been together for years, and she's never seen me take a drink in all the time we've been together. And so she knows a very different side of me. And I'm in really good terms with my ex-wife, who I put through hell with my addiction, you know. Um, but my fear was yeah, just to dive into another loving relationship because rejection as a child is so damaging. And that's what you went through. Uh and that's what I went through. And it's horrific. I can't even put it into words what it does to a human being to be rejected by one of your parents. It's horrendous. And um yeah, amazing. Well, well done for being here and telling your story. And we did it. Here we are, you know.

SPEAKER_00 27:34

Well, I you know, I my heart and my hope is that people find hope.

SPEAKER_01 27:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:40

Um, you know, that because I really do believe that it's never too late to be a great parent.

SPEAKER_01 27:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:49

Once you make the decision, yeah. That you're willing to look in the mirror and to own your part of whatever that means.

SPEAKER_01 27:56

Yeah. So, Catherine, how can our listeners get hold of you? We'll make sure that there's some links in the show notes to website. Is that the best bet? Social media.

SPEAKER_00 28:06

I would say, you know, yeah, I'm on TikTok. Um, the name of my organization is called Parenting Adult Children Today. Very good. And so um it's it's I'm on TikTok's uh Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, you know, all the things. And my and then there's the the website, of course. And then um book coming out in August called It's Never Too Late to Be a Great Parent.

SPEAKER_01 28:31

So I love I literally love that. I I could because I can't even imagine how many people are going through as parents. You living as a parent with regret for not having a relationship with your child must be as damaging as the child who feels rejected by the parents.

SPEAKER_00 28:49

It's in the pain that I see on a daily basis.

SPEAKER_01 28:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:55

Parents who are incredibly suffering.

SPEAKER_01 28:58

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_00 28:59

Um, and not having a clue as to why. I mean, so don't understand what they did or what they're doing, yeah, that caused all this pain. Yeah. And that's, you know, I can probably tell you within two minutes why it was greater.

SPEAKER_01 29:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:17

And they and like I said, good intentions, but good intentions don't translate to safety and emotional.

SPEAKER_01 29:25

So no, it takes a lot of work and a rewiring across, you know, wow. Um, Catherine Hickam, thank you so much for coming on the show. It's been amazing. If you're listening to this podcast right now, you can go to the show notes and you'll find Catherine's links to all of her amazing social media. And maybe you can give us a link to the book um for when that comes out as well. Um, just remains for me to say thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story and your wisdom.

SPEAKER_00 29:53

Oh, thank you so much, Luke. It was wonderful being with you. You take care.