I spoke to Bill today. Bill is what I call my dad when he is not acting very dad-like, when I have to play some other role in his life besides daughter. It was the first time I had spoken to him since the confrontation - which, by the way, went something like this (note - AJ had spoken to him first and done all the hard work):
Bill: Don't even start with me, I already got a lecture from your sister.
Me: I'm not lecturing you, I'm worried about you.
Bill: Blah blah blah, justifications for drug use and drinking...AJ is overreacting and always worries too much anyway...I was only 19 when you were born and I have the right to do things now I would have done when I was in my 20's if I hadn't been a father...I get up and go to work every day...My family has nothing better to do than gossip about me.
Me: Please don't patronise me by pretending I don't know my own father and changes in his behaviour...I'm worried about you...I want you to be around and sober when I have a family...I will support you through whatever you need to do but you have to own up to this...
Bill: I have already started to cut myself off from those loser friends...I'll change, everything will be fine...I don't need AA or any other support...Tell your sister to stop overreacting...I have to go now.
Me: I love you, that's why this is so important. I love you too much to just shut up and watch things get worse.
Bill: I have to go (voice breaking).
The whole conversation lasted about 20 minutes. He had become quite adept at excusing/justifying his behaviour, which scared me more than anything. Most of it was what I expected, I suppose. AJ was delighted - perhaps everything was fine? We agreed that we would just need to trust him for now.
So with that in mind I phoned him. He answered the phone, sounding groggy, and immediately explained why he sounded groggy. We exchanged pleasantries, he told me about the marching band he is a member of and how well they are doing and chatted about my house. We never mentioned the previous conversation or anything discussed therein. I was relieved it didn't come up.
I am starting to doubt myself a little, thinking about all of the things that seemed like such clear indications of his addiction now and trying to explain them in other ways. This would be easier than facing what I believe to be the truth. We all do that, really, find ways to avoid facing the truth. It will slap us all in the face eventually. It always does. You can't hide from what is real forever. Or can you?
Sometimes I look at my father's life and wonder if there is any point in doing the right thing, looking after yourself or minding your money. Bill doesn't do any of those things, yet he seems to be able to lie to himself enough to sustain some semblance of a life. Maybe I should let him live the way he wants to live. I mean, in reality, he could either hit bottom and start finally recognising the problems. Or maybe the problems are all from the point of view I have developed as a result of my new found 'middle-class' status? No. That's bullshit. He is screwing things up. Fact is, he doesn't care because he doesn't have anything to lose anymore.
He told me once that the only thing I could ever do to disappoint him was not come home. My parents love to do this to me. Place all their stock in me doing exactly what they need me to do. When he thought it was temporary, Bill could not have been more supportive of my move to Ireland - "go and experience things for yourself" he said. What he meant was "go and get it out of your system then come back here and provide me with some more purpose and direction for my life." I have always felt the consequences of "leaving" my parents. When I was twelve I "left" my mother by choosing to live with my dad. Two weeks she later climbed into a bathtub with a bottle full of pain pills and made her first attempt at suicide. It was my fault, she would later tell me. Without us, her life had no purpose. I had abandoned her, and so she tried to abandon me. Bill is the same, even though he would never admit it. I've lost count of the amount of times he says he has "nothing to go back to" or that he has no real family outside of my sister and I. For as long as I can remember, my mother has told me that having me saved her life - that if I had never been born she would have killed herself years ago, either intentionally or through drink and drugs. I remember her saying this to me when I was very young, and continuing to say it throughout my adult life. Dad is forever saying that he doesn't care about anything or anyone except AJ and I, that we are the only things that matter in the world. They think what they are doing is letting me know how important I am to them. What I think they are actually doing is making me responsible (in my own mind) for their well being.
Call me one of those people who blames their miserable existence on their parents, but I think I have been fair to them in previous writing so I am just going to say it now. Weren't they supposed to be responsible for my well-being? The adult in me recognises the pain my parents experienced throughout their lives, especially their childhoods. The social worker in me sees that they were both abandoned by their fathers, hit when they did things wrong (and sometimes when they didn't), were surrounded by alcoholism, poverty and despair. I know that they are doing the best they can. But the daughter in me is just fed up with it all. Just as I must now cope with the consequences of my upbringing, surely they must cope with their own? I recognise and accept that eventually the tables turn and children look after their parents, but I was hoping for a bit longer in the role of dependent child. I can't remember a time in my life when I didn't feel like I needed to be there for them, look after them. Or if I wasn't looking after them, I was feeling guilty and horrible about it. I know that all parents need their children, I just think that they should be careful to hide that need - to not make it so burdensome. I want to love them, honour them, respect them. I want to still need them.
After my grandmother died, my mother completely lost it. The day before the funeral she locked me in the car with her, sitting in the parking lot of Barnes and Noble for almost two hours. She told me that she regretted not saying so many things to her mother, so she was going to say them to me. Her way of ensuring there would be no secrets between us. She mechanically described her suicide attempts in great detail, the thoughts going through her mind at the time, how she felt about me when she was at her worst. I felt like my skin was crawling, like I was going to be sick. I had imagined those moments so many times before, and now she was giving me the details to imagine them in high definition. I lit a cigarette to distract her attention - force her to start chastising me for smoking instead of continuing, but she ignored it. She told me I had to know, even though it was hard. It was the same justification she gave when I was thirteen and she came into the dressing room an hour before my school play and told me about the abortion she had the year before, and how she believed breast cancer was her punishment. Sitting there in a smoke-filled Honda Civic my mother did what she had always done - she got the things she needed to say off her chest regardless of the consequences for the recipient of those weights. When I resisted, told her I couldn't listen anymore, she told me I hated her. She told me that she always knew I would never be the kind of daughter she deserved - that her only hope now was having grandchildren who would love her... but I was depriving her of that too, probably intentionally knowing me. It hurt less than you might think, because I stopped needing my mother a long time ago.
Since I was a teenager I have been bracing myself for my mother's death, anticipating it with every phone call or bad mood. I made myself ready to accept a motherless existence from a young age. Every extra bit of time I have with her is just a bonus. At the moment she is doing extremely well. Great job, happy, together. But I have seen that before in her and I no longer trust it, no completely. Now I feel like I am doing the same all over again. Except now I have to ready myself for losing Bill; Dad. Figuratively and literally. I already lost what we used to have. I already know he'll not forgive me for leaving and not coming back. Perhaps if all of this had happened before my mother's nightmare years I would be more sad, more empathic. Instead I just feel like skipping all of the pain, sadness, worry and drama and going straight to brace-mode. Cold, emotionless, willing to just ignore the truth so I can avoid the pain that goes along with it. I don't want to do it, but I can feel myself being pulled in that direction.
Reading this back to myself now I feel like such a hard bitch. I am ashamed of myself for feeling this way. But at the same time I can't worry and fret and feel guilty anymore. I don't have it in me - she has drained me of all of that. I have nothing left to offer Dad except the truth; that if he doesn't sort things out, I might just have to get used to life without him.
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6 comments:
That's a very tough problem with your parents. I don't feel at all qualified to offer any sound advice, but it looks like there's a role reversal here with your parents acting like children and treating you as the parent who should be looking after them.
They're telling you they would be lost without you, but they aren't your responsibility, you are theirs since they brought you into this world. You shouldn't feel at all guilty or inadequate because you can't give them what you want, and you're in no way a hard bitch.
My 86 year old mother would hate to lean on me in any way, she's proud of being independent and making her own life. It's a very difficult situation your parents have put you in and I really don't know how you can resolve it.
You'll never be what they want you to be, so there's no point in trying. It seems to me all you can do is leave them to get on with their lives and hope they don't get into a complete mess.
There should be an organisation to help people cope with demanding parents. I bet there are plenty of people in your situation!
My god. DO NOT feel guilty. I cannot imagine how painful it must have been for you to be forced to sit there and listen to your mother spew like that for hours. I know this might sound mean, but I am APPALLED that a parent would subject their child to that sort of brutal honesty. You are not her friend or her spiritual counselor, for god sakes, you are her CHILD. She and your father owed it to you to protect you as a child and teach you to walk on your own without them.
To saddle you with the brunt of their problems, expect you to problem solve for them AND then blame you when things didn't go their way?
You owe them your support and love. You are not their saddle horse. Love them (as I think you do) but never feel responsible for them. They are their own keepers and you should never have been put in such a precarious position in their lives.
I think it amazing that you have turned into such a level headed, warm, kind hearted adult.
Be safe.
Nick,
Deciding whether or not my parents are my responsibility is a problem I have grappled with for a long time. Some kind of support group would go down a treat, frankly.
Don't ever worry about providing advice - most of the time I think what I am actually looking for is understanding. And you tend to provide that in spades.
Maria,
I feel comforted by your being appalled by my mother's behaviour, but terrible for portraying her in a light which others find disturbing. Thank you for all of the kind things you said about me. I imagine as a mother yourself you would find a daughter criticising her own mother a difficult issue.
I think I should add that there are many, many things my parents did well - and that they loved me as much as any parents love their children. They're just human, and sometimes not as grown up as I would like them to be.
I would just like to reiterate what Maria said. I think she is spot on in her assessment.
Although we should never have to parent our parents, I think at some level, a lot of us start doing that, or feel like they are doing it. I think it is often nothing more than choreographing our behaviour around our parents feelings...and I think this can happen at a very very young age, but it can be a behaviour that is very hard to let go of. I grew up with a father with a severe compulsive disorder, and I know that I started trying to parent my parents in that scenario. I would blame myself for both his feelings and my mother's feelings, and somehow that gave me a sense of control over something that was radically beyond my control. Sounds crazy. But I reckon it is a fairly normal thing to do in response to the emotional landscape I was brought up in, and all the unpredictable traumas associated with it.
I just wanted to say that I resonate with how you have felt in relation to you parents. Of course, we are not the same, and I don't pretend to know what it was like for you. It sounds like you had a far rougher ride than I did. But, I imagine the journey, for both you and I, would be toward letting go of parenting our parents. Letting go of the responsibility we feel for them. This is a very painful task. Maybe a support group would be a good thing. Maybe not. I know I am trying to work through it myself, but that maybe says more about my trust issues than it does about the benefit of co-dependency support groups.
I wish you well on your journey. The very fact that you have written these words, and have decided to share you story, is an extraordinarily significant step. You are a brave soul.
May the road rise up to meet you, and the wind be always at your back, may the sun shine warm upon your face, may the rains fall soft upon your fields.
Anon,
Knowing others have shared experiences is an important step in not feeling alone - as well as feeling like you haven't failed in your response to those experiences.
I think it is less brave for me to share those things here, as I am beyond chastisement or correction from other family members. My sister finds discussion of this topic unbearable, and often criticises me for what she sees as my interpretation of these events (her experience with my parents was very different than mine, probably due to her age and nature). It would be a far braver thing for me to raise these questions with my parents, and face the potential consequnces.
Another time and place, perhaps.
You are still brave. One step at a time. Everyone is entitled to their own perception of events and situations in families...and it may seem bizarre at times how different our accounts can seem, even though we experienced the same family. What we really experience is each individual's dynamic within the family.
One thing I had to let go off in my family, was hoping that they would understand me, and see things the way I saw them...but I realised that we can never expect this of people.
We always need to weigh up, why it is we are communicating, when we do choose to do it. Oftentimes it is because we are hoping to invoke change. However, we can only be responsible for ourselves, and words aren't the magic spells we hope they would be at times.
but, it still very healing for us to get some self-disclosure, even if the externals don't change in the slightest.
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