I’m just going to jump right on into it…
A couple months ago I found out my father was diagnosed with one or more mood disorders (I say it this way because he not as open about it); more likely than not the same ones I was diagnosed with back in 2011.
I of course sympathize with him because I’ve been through the same thing he seems to be going through right now… the depression, anxiety, hospitalization and feeling like you absolutely need someone, anyone to understand whatever this is that has decided to attach itself to you… to make its home in you. I know how it feels to need to know that your have at least one person, especially family, who will stick by you in spite of whatever you have been diagnosed with and what you’ve done because of said diagnosis. I get it.
Yet all I want to do is disengage.
Maybe it’s because through experience people more often than not have taken a more hands off approach when it came to me and my issues… maybe it’s because it’s him. The fact that he was not even making any attempts to be a father throughout my life and now all of a sudden HE needs ME and loves me so deeply… and needs me to love him in that way too.
Maybe it’s because I’m upset that when I’ve needed him the most he wasn’t there, yet now that the tables seem to have turned I HAVE to be there for him… because when things got overwhelming for him and didn’t go the way he thought they should have he ran and now I want to run; because thinking about him going through this stuff makes me relive everything I have gone through, and I DO NOT want to go through that again. Ever.
Just maybe…
All this time I spent away from him, trying not to be like him… and yet here I am, essentially dealing (or not dealing depending on how you look at it) with the older male version of myself, knowing that if it were someone else I would have absolutely no problem with it.
Obviously, or maybe not so obviously, I’m going to stick this out and stand with my father. I just pray he gets well, and that no one holds it against me for being honest, since that’s the whole point of this blog. Hell, I wish other people around me were honest about this kind of stuff and I hope that more and more people begin to be as expressive without fear or in spite of it. If I can stay strong, you can too survivors. Much love.