Word vomit incoming. I honestly just desperately need to vent. At the beginning of this week, it looked dire for my dad (74). He had an accident a few weeks ago and fell off a ladder trying to fix the HVAC in my parents’ attic. Busted his head, fractured his neck and broke multiple ribs. He was in the hospital and rehab for a while, then came home where my mom really struggled to take care of him. He collapsed a few times before being hospitalized again with multiple pleural effusions. He was losing his mind so bad on Monday that my mom asked my sister and her husband to fly down from Michigan this week (sis hadn’t seen him since before the accident) as she didn’t think he’d make it to see them at xmas. I picked up my sister and bro in law at the airport on Tuesday and had a great convo in the car on our way out to Katy. We both didn’t want him to suffer and hoped this would all go quickly as it seemed like the best possible scenario for all of us. My dad is not the most pleasant person in the world. I grew up terrified of him and his rage. He and my mom fought constantly but she stayed with him because he provided a level of material comfort that she didn’t receive in previous relationships (she met him after she had me as a single mother, he adopted me in court around the time me sister was born). My sister (3 years younger) used to beg my mom to divorce him. I wanted to hate him too but the anger I had was drowned out by the pity I felt toward him. He had no friends, he was relentlessly negative about everything. He would blow up about *something* (the blacks or the Mexicans or Democrats or some horror p*rn he’d seen on the local news) every single night at dinner. He was a very fearful, paranoid man who claimed to love Jesus but was filled with bottomless hatred and fearful distrust of everyone. My mom excused the behavior by blaming it on his rheumatoid arthritis and claimed I was being “too sensitive” when the rages and fights made me cry as a kid. I was never told my feelings were okay. Negative feelings were not allowed in our household, not sadness or anger or any questioning of what we were told. I escaped into the rockets because they were one of the few things that brought me joy from ages like 8-18. I ate my feelings. I stuffed my face with garbage because hyper-palatable processed food gave me comfort I couldn’t manage to give myself. I pulled out my hair root by root, causing embarrassing bald patches all over my head throughout my childhood. I neglected my oral health and overall hygiene. I did my best to avoid my dad whenever possible and treat him with kid gloves. I walked on eggshells and knew what to say to him to put him in a good mood. I didn’t realize I was conditioning myself to neglect my own feelings and push myself aside for my parents. My sister was the stubborn rebellious one, I was the “peacemaker”. I feel so stupid now for feeling so proud of that role my entire childhood and seeing my sister as selfish. I was so ****ing wrong for that. She is the strongest, loveliest person I know. When I finally went to therapy in my 30s I was shown how much I’d been living for them my entire life. Lighting myself on fire to keep them warm. I started accepting that I could no longer be responsible for their feelings. Even though both of my parents were emotionally stunted by their own insanely traumatic childhoods, they were now adults and shouldn’t depend on me to make them feel okay. They hated that for a while. Really did their best to guilt trip me, but I knew I ultimately had the choice to not feel guilty if I didn’t want to. I stopped going to church with them and stopped going out to see them every Sunday until I felt that they were starting to respect my boundaries. My healing journey has been a bumpy ride. I do hot yoga nearly every day but still deal with bad chronic back and neck pain, now in my late 30s. Still find myself numbing out with weed and alcohol even though I’ve largely quit both. Still falling back into binging habits because I can’t manage to let myself fully feel my emotions. Still holing up and avoiding my friends and fighting the urge to completely blow up my life again and again to start over. Though I’ve found god again (the god within, not the god of religion) I still struggle to stay in the now and not ruminate about things and get depressed about the past and anxious about the future. The past few months in particular I have been working on accepting everything as it is, not reacting emotionally to life’s circumstances and trying to trust the universe to give me only what I need to grow and get better. Well, most of this week I was filled with so much hope. I truly believed this was all meant to happen, that his death would be the impetus for the healing I’ve longed for for so long. That this would be how I could release decades of repressed feelings and accelerate my transformation into a whole, fully self actualized person. My mom is ready to be a widow. She was already looking into buying a vacation house in Michigan to reconcile with her sisters up there. My dad was the reason she was estranged from everyone. Thursday evening I bought some carrot cake and banana pudding (his favorites) and met my mom and sister at the nursing home to discuss palliative care with him and the case worker. He refused to eat anything we brought and said he was ready to die. I stayed with him when they went to tell the case worker to simply make him comfortable. While they were gone for about an hour, I had a tearful, cathartic conversation with him. He told me he was sorry, that my sister and I “deserved better”. He cried and cried and said he couldn’t handle the pain, that he was ready to meet Jesus. He told me more ****ed up stories about his dad and grandpa that put a lot of his actions growing up in perspective. I told him that I loved him, and that despite everything I truly believed he was the parent I was destined to have, for better or for worse. He truly seemed remorseful. My mom and sister and her husband then came back and told him the case worker believed he could get better, and that he should remain in rehabilitation for 2 weeks before considering palliative care. His demeanor changed in an instant. Instead of being ready to see Jesus, he was ready to get better so he could go back to Bible study. Instead of having no appetite, he was suddenly eating his dinner and the treats were brought him and drinking tons of water. He decided he had to stay alive until November to cast his vote for Trump, lol. He was motivated to do his PT when before he refused to move. It was like he had a brand new lease on life. It may have been the happiest I’ve ever seen him. I was happy for him when this was happening, because it seemed like his will to live returned. He kept saying his death was “cancelled” and seems to earnestly believe he can recover. We were all very encouraging because this all happened in the blink of an eye. My sister read his medical records to him, which indicated that he’s overall very healthy aside from the injuries. I woke up today (Friday) feeling so depressed. I was ready for him to die, and now he’s found the will to live again and who knows how long this will all drag out. My mom seems very fake-happy. My sister is excited for him but they’re going back to Ann Arbor tomorrow and she is only planning to call him once or twice a week (she does boundaries much better than me lol). He seemed depressed today because he knew my sister is leaving soon and he knows I can’t/won’t come out there every week to visit. I plan to call but I know he’s going to be horribly lonely and depressed most of the time and he hates having only my mom around (to his credit, she can be super annoying). But I cannot offer to be his rock through all of this. Deep down I know his rapid bounce-back was only due to having his whole family rallied around him being encouraging. It seems like he could decline rapidly again and lose the will to live if we (my sis and I) don’t stay in touch, which we won’t, because we simply don’t have the bandwidth. He is a vortex of neediness right now (as he’s been our entire lives) and I can’t stop dwelling on how sad he is and how depressing this situation is. I’m afraid our emotional neglect of him will kill him in the coming days/weeks. I’m even more afraid he’ll live for months or even years more. If I’m not careful I am going to spiral into some old habits in the coming days/weeks so I’m hoping I can pull myself out of the mire now before it spins out of control. I came home tonight after spending the last few nights with my family and just ugly cried and begged god/the universe for guidance. I need to write about it(hence this post), I need to talk about it with friends this week, I need to get back in therapy ASAP. I feel so much pity for my dad at the moment, it feels like I’m back in my childhood. I feel guilty for being ready for him to die, and now being disappointed that he’s full of hope now and already improving. I hate that I expect him to lose the will to live again once my sister is back up north and I’m not coming out to see him every weekend. I’m already dreading the depressing phone calls I’ll have with him, trying to help lift his weak spirits while secretly hoping he’ll give up. I’m trying to remind myself this was supposed to be, that there is a reason the b*stard wasn’t taken yet. There’s gotta be a lesson in here somewhere. I’m just overwhelmed with everything and the prospect of trying to preserve my sanity while still showing him kindness and grace. Thank you for letting me vent. It feels good to get these feelings out even if no one ends up reading this.
That is a lot to take in and hope it helps you cope with things to vent. I don’t have any good answers or advice but please vent away.
hey finals, nice to see your name pop up after a while. i don't understand what you're going thru, but hope it all works out well for you, dad, and the fam. <3 <3
I am sorry for all you have dealt with and are dealing with. Very complex and deeply rooted emotions and I can say I understand in some ways based on personal experience. You didn’t ask for advice…and I won’t give any. But please try to stay strong and remember he makes his own choices and you are not his life crutch.
Oof. Just oof. Mega ****ing biblical level oof. My kneejerk thoughts are that hopefully his near-death experience and your come-to-jesus talks with him would have unearthed the possibility for you and him to have a different type of relationship going forward. Something more healthy, more positive. His neediness makes sense. Your inability to carry that burden for him makes sense. His assumed impending downward spiral all makes sense. I have no answers. Hell, I doubt there even is an answer. The axiom I lean on when faced with situations like this is "put your mask on first". Meaning that, if **** hits the fan and the cabin depressurizes, make sure you are receiving the oxygen you need first and foremost to continue on. You cannot help anyone if you are grinding yourself to dust on someone else's behalf.
Everyone your family probably needs their own therapist. Using you as a crutch is no bueno. If therapy is expensive some churches might have counseling for him to get outside his comfort zone with his new second to last chance in life. Bucket lists should be motivation to get out of that pit of loneliness he's been stuck in. Sounds like no one wants to return back to the way things were. When I checked out Biden's age, I realized he and my dad were a month apart if he were alive. He was diagnosed with stage three colon cancer on 9/11 and fought for every day of his life for four more years. I grew up watching him suppressing his emotions and blowing up over trivial triggers, but those grueling chemo treatments, surgery and radiation humbled him like I never saw him before. When he passed away, everyone was exhausted, especially my mom who was the primary caregiver. For you, his attitude regressing made it conflicting with several complex emotions. It's good you had chances to bury some hatchets and had some closure. Sometimes people cling so tightly to their traumas/blame that the grip is still there even when the cause has long departed. Finding that empathy and forgiveness isn't easy with broken parents. The work you put in as an adult can never override indelible grooves carved in your childhood. Probably realized it with the self medicating. You can only acknowledge and accept them, then you can understand the mindset and decisions you made weren't the same adult you are now. Then you can try forgiving that inner child like you would a friend's child. And even even you make peace with that, you still have uncovered consequences from growing up in that environment like learning to give boundaries or paying attention to your own needs without feeling uncomfortable from it, etc. Maybe uncovering why it's worth it, such as writing and finding adventure in your own yearly bucket list is the reward for investing in someone who feels emotionally and psychologically battered from their own kin. As for whatever stunted feelings your dad's going through, if you're sitting in a Boeing plane with a missing door, you secure the oxygen mask securely on your face before you do the same for children or the elderly. It's not really on you to forgive and uplift your parents out of duty and obligation. They're grown ass people who lived the way they wanted with you around. Guilt or outward pressure is the last motivator to make you spend more time with them. It wouldn't be an issue if he had a brighter and more loving approach as a person and father. I know you didn't ask for advice, so take it for what it's worth.
Maybe he truly will become a better person out of this experience. You never know. You just make sure you take care of yourself and your mom/sis however you can. If he demonstrates true Christian change then all will be better for it. If not and it's just another faux-change, separate as much as you think you have to for your well-being and that of your family which you clearly love. From what you shared you seem to have your heart in the right place and done as best as you can so far. Praying for you and your family.
Take heart; he will die soon. Most boomers who didn't destroy their bodies for decades with terrible diets, smoking and alcohol destroyed their bodies and souls with crushing guilt, fear and hatred (hence the orange pustule that currently dominates the news cycle). My father in law passed away last month after a long Alzheimer's decline. He was always a tyrant in his home. My wife is in deep grief but my mother in law seems like a new person. Painting her house, planning trips, buying a new car, letting the dog sleep with her. Sometimes the best thing a person can give their loved ones is to go.
I lived in Michigan for a couple of years, I don’t know if he’s from there but I ran into the most bitter hateful people and become one myself Look out for you
That is a ton to deal with and each issue seems like it has 87 different layers of complexity which add to the weight of dealing, coping and moving forward. Maybe venting is the best possible thing that can be done. I don't think it's possible for every situation to have a tidy solution that will wrap it up nicely. This definitely seems like that kind of situation. Keep venting as much as you like.
