'When you are abandoned by a parent as a child, you develop a kind of primal fear. You have to learn to deal with that'

Actor, singer and theatre maker Joy Wielkens has a father wound: she grew up without her father and only met him years later. That turned out differently than she had hoped. 

“In 2011 I made a performance about my father:  Papa was a rollin'… nobody. It was my third solo after  Negra in 2009 about the search for my black identity. They were all autobiographical performances, but the last one went a step further. It was about my fatherless youth, but there was also a kind of hope in it: that my father might be in the audience one day and come to me afterwards.”

No regrets

“That never happened, but I did find him and meet him a year later, in 2012. The first time I saw him, under the supervision of a social worker, was a disappointment. I don’t regret meeting my father, but it didn’t go as I had hoped and it certainly wasn’t the perfect picture. I thought he was a horrible man. He only talked about himself and the highlights of his life.”

Nothing to lose

“Afterwards I complained to the social worker, I thought he hadn't given any answers. To which she said: 'But you didn't ask him anything.' I thought that was a special insight. At the same time I was afraid that he might be frightened by my questions and disappear again, that I would lose him immediately. She then said: 'Ask all the questions you have. Hopefully you will get an honest answer. If he doesn't want to contact you anymore, let it go. Before this conversation you didn't have any contact either. You can't really lose anything.'”

Father wound

“During the second conversation I asked him questions. He answered them and he also said that he had made selfish choices. After that I actually didn’t see him anymore, I didn’t feel that need. But I was in pieces. I think that everyone who was abandoned by a parent as a child develops a deep fear. And no matter how strong or successful you are, you have to come to terms with it. There is always that primal wound, the fear that you will be abandoned again. I went to therapy, put the puzzle pieces back together. Now, eleven years later, I look back on it with more compassion for myself and for him. I am glad that I went for it, that I dared to do it. What it evoked was not easy, but it was incredibly valuable.”