The Needy Needing the Needy: Why I am a cold hearted bitch

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.

My Father's Eyes

I am a daddy's girl. I have always been a daddy's girl. Da-da was my first word, I never went anywhere without holding my daddy's hand (right up until I was about 14), and I always thought I was lucky to have the best dad the world had ever seen.

When I was little, dad used to call me 'Velcro,' because I was always attached to him. He is massive, 6"5 and pushing 250 pounds, and I used to love to curl up in his lap and bury my head in his chest. It felt like such a safe place, warm and soft. He smelled like Irish Spring soap, cigarettes and Polo cologne. He has a deep voice and a hearty laugh, and sitting in his lap you could feel his whole chest shake when he spoke. I look almost exactly like him, always have, and I remember being very proud of looking like him. Whenever people commented on my green eyes I would tell them with pride "they're my dad's eyes. They're just like his." Dad was always the funniest person I knew, as well. He could make anyone laugh without even trying. One more reason to be proud. Everyone wanted to be friends with my dad; the funniest, tallest, cuddliest man in the world who had green eyes, listened to the Cure and wore Red Chuck Taylor All-Stars when he picked me up from school.

My dad didn't live with us when we were young, but we saw him every weekend and sometimes during the week. He took us shopping and out to dinner. He bought us bikes and let us shift the gears of his pick up truck while he drove. When I was 13 years old, I begged him to let me live with him and eventually he did. My mom insisted that as soon as he had to enforce rules he would cease to be the great hero I believed him to be - but she was mistaken. I still thought he could do no wrong.

Living with dad was just what I hoped it would be. I woke up each morning to the smell of hazelnut coffee brewing and the sound of dad ironing my school clothes. He took time off from work to make sure he never missed one of my field hockey/basketball/softball/lacrosse games. He made scrambled eggs, french toast and bacon for dinner and never pestered me about doing my homework because he knew I would have it done. When I was 16, he let me have his car and bought himself an older less expensive one. He picked out my prom dresses, listened to me go on and on about my day at school, and didn't shout too much when I broke my curfew. We would stay in together on a Friday night and watch movies, snuggled up on the couch as if I were still six years old. On the day I graduated from high school, he gave me the refinished hope chest that had belonged to his grandmother and we cried - him holding me so tight I thought he would break my ribs. When he dropped me off at college later that year, my grandmother said he had to pull over several time on his way home because he was so upset. On my wedding day, I practically had to hold him up during the father/daughter dance as we both sobbed our way through Into the Mystic. I'm not saying he was perfect, but I loved him. He was my daddy.

Then things started to change. I know - things are supposed to change. I am an adult now and my father has a life of his own. But in the last few years, I began to notice that the man who had never had a drink in front of me before I was 18 was suddenly drinking all the time. When he came to visit me three years ago, I could hardly get him out of the pub - and the visit ended with me confronting him and him leaving in the middle of the night without a note. The day before my wedding, I stayed in his hotel room. He came in at four in the morning, so drunk he couldn't even talk, and passed out in his clothes with the lights on. An hour before my wedding, my husband had to usher him out of the hotel bar to get changed when he found him doing whiskey shots in his shorts and t-shirt. No matter what time of day it is when I phone him, he is never in work and always seems out of it or tired. Yes, I suppose when I think about it I have known something was wrong for a long time now.

Last night, my sister AJ called me. She had pre-warned me that it was going to be 'heavy,' so I braced myself. She told me that dad has a drinking problem (no shock there), that her fiance had seen dad doing cocaine (OK, shocking - but maybe he just did it that once...), and that our uncle has confirmed that he has a problem with drugs (Oh. Shit). No, I wanted to say, not my dad! Not my perfect dad with the gold-green eyes who listens to the Cure and smells good and wears red Chuck-Taylors. Not the man who held my hand at a Red Sox game and told me that the greatest thing he had ever done in his life was have my sister and I. Not the man who held me up and told me to smile as I walked down the aisle to my husband. He wouldn't do that! But unfortunately it has been so long since I have seen that man, so instead I just sighed and said "I had a feeling."

I had a feeling? How could I have had a feeling and just let it go? For ten years I have been working with people with addictions. I know the warning signs, I know the destructive results, I know what they need to do to get help. I had a feeling? Was I just going to wait until he was too strung out to function? Wait until he, like his own father, became so ill that he forgot the names of his children and grandchildren? When did I think it would have been an appropriate time to say or do something? When he drove home drunk some night and killed someone else or himself? No, no action necessary here. I had a feeling, but hey - he's a grown man right? I am sure he can handle it.

And poor AJ. Poor AJ who until now has managed to live in her happy little bubble, unaware that her parents were human and fallible. Poor, poor AJ who still secretly thinks our parents might get back together, who plans to fix all of our parents' financial problems when she finishes school and gets a job. For once, not only did I fail to shield her from the mess that is our family - I am taking a back seat and letting her face the music first. Because if I am really, really honest with myself, I am not sure I would confront him if she weren't going to. How can I? How can I tell him I know that he has become exactly the thing he has fought so hard not to become? The thing he has hated his whole life? How can I let myself acknowledge that the man who called me Velcro and picked out my prom dress and told me I could be anything I wanted is spending all his money on drink and cocaine, can't hold down a job and has been lying to us? I know that I have to do it, but I am not so naive that I don't know what I am about to lose - and that is the most frightening part of telling him that I know what's going on.

My friend once teased that my life was like an episode of Jerry Springer. After this I am starting to think he is right. "I love my manic depressive mom and coke head dad - but I had to get away because I got an eating disorder and became a neurotic perfectionist" could be the title. Or maybe "Every time one of my parents finally manages to stop screwing up their life, the other one starts screwing up theirs - and I am so selfish all I can think about is how it affects me." Maybe if we all went on TV and duked it out we could finally get some resolution to it all. Maybe if I hadn't seen this coming for so long I could be as sad and sympathetic as AJ seems to be. But right now I have to say I am more mad than anything. I don't know who I am mad at, but I am definitely pissed off. Pissed at my family for ignoring the signs, pissed at myself for seeing the signs and doing nothing about it, pissed at my grandfather for setting my dad up for a life of addiction, and pissed as hell at my father for taking away that man who smelled like cologne and cigarettes who used to let me climb up his legs to do back flips and danced with me in the kitchen.