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About 2 weeks ago, my dad went to the hospital with what turned out to be congestive heart failure. I'd been expecting this for some time - heart problems run in his family, he's a smoker and a drinker, and he's done a decent amount of cocaine, so it was more a matter of when than if. I type medical reports for a living, so I'm aware that heart failure can be managed, and generally trust modern medicine to do so.
I don't, however, trust my dad to manage his health, and this news immediately sent me into a panic, especially as I hadn't spoken to my father for months, and I haven't seen him in person in almost a year. The last time I saw him was the day before Father's Day. He was camping at a local hot springs because he'd been kicked out of his apartment and was scheduled to start a 6-month jail term that next Monday. As his birthday falls very close to Father's Day, I thought it triply important to visit him, for moral support, and perhaps to reassure myself he was okay.
He wasn't okay. He hasn't been okay for a few years now, though it's hard to tell exactly how long because it was a slow slide into psychosis and, to be honest, when things get stressful I disconnect. I'm told it's related to PTSD, but it's this almost physical sensation of separating my brain from my body, and I go into robot mode. I can only tend to one or two things at a time, don't answer the phone, etc. Usually I make sure that one thing I tend to is work, because losing my car and apartment is terrifying enough to get through that disconnection, but otherwise, I'm disconnected. So, timelines get fuzzy, but it was about 3ish years ago dad started talking to people who weren't really there. He also wore a tinfoil hat, and listened to public radio because he thought it was the only thing that blocked transmissions from getting inside his head.
He'd already been spiraling out of control with drugs, but he ended up at a church that uses ahayuasca as part of their sacrament; and as a concept, I'm fine with that. But the ahayuasca was, for dad, the tipping point between holding on and a complete reality break. His whole life fell apart, and my heart broke along with it. A major part of his break was being ultra-paranoid and ultra-angry, and he saw the drugs and alcohol not as the cause of any problems, but as a coping mechanism for the things that were happening to him, an innocent victim. For instance, it wasn't that drinking on the job caused him to get fired; it was that he drank on the job to deal with the stress of his bosses picking on him. That sort of thing.
So, last year, the last time I saw him in person, I met him at noon at his campsite, and he was already drunk. He pulled on his blue velvet cloak with the tassel on the hood, and showed me around. He tried to introduce me to people, but he whispered, so that the watchers couldn't read his lips or hear his words... which meant none of us could, either. His campsite was strewn with garbage and dirty laundry, and when I tried to pick some of it up he got very upset, because everything was right where it should be - in fact, where it needed to be, or Bad Things would happen.
I left pretty quickly that day, which I'm not proud of, but I couldn't handle that stress. So when dad popped up out of nowhere (Georgia), in the hospital, I disconnected again. All I wanted was to help dad, all I could think of was what I could do to make his life easier and better and help him be closer to the person he once was. But all it did was put me behind on work, and behind on school, and left me in a vortex of sadness and guilt and existential angst because no matter what I do, I can't help him, and I'm wasting both of our time. I thought this would feel like giving up, but I actually feel set free. I'm not connected to his problems any more, though I am still connected to him. He's my dad, and I won't give up on him, but giving up on my life and my priorities is a big waste all around. He detoxed in the hospital; it's the first time in that 3ish years I've spoken to him sober. It was good, even if half the conversation revolved around losing his blue velvet cloak and replacing it with a green one, but I'll take what I can get.
I don't, however, trust my dad to manage his health, and this news immediately sent me into a panic, especially as I hadn't spoken to my father for months, and I haven't seen him in person in almost a year. The last time I saw him was the day before Father's Day. He was camping at a local hot springs because he'd been kicked out of his apartment and was scheduled to start a 6-month jail term that next Monday. As his birthday falls very close to Father's Day, I thought it triply important to visit him, for moral support, and perhaps to reassure myself he was okay.
He wasn't okay. He hasn't been okay for a few years now, though it's hard to tell exactly how long because it was a slow slide into psychosis and, to be honest, when things get stressful I disconnect. I'm told it's related to PTSD, but it's this almost physical sensation of separating my brain from my body, and I go into robot mode. I can only tend to one or two things at a time, don't answer the phone, etc. Usually I make sure that one thing I tend to is work, because losing my car and apartment is terrifying enough to get through that disconnection, but otherwise, I'm disconnected. So, timelines get fuzzy, but it was about 3ish years ago dad started talking to people who weren't really there. He also wore a tinfoil hat, and listened to public radio because he thought it was the only thing that blocked transmissions from getting inside his head.
He'd already been spiraling out of control with drugs, but he ended up at a church that uses ahayuasca as part of their sacrament; and as a concept, I'm fine with that. But the ahayuasca was, for dad, the tipping point between holding on and a complete reality break. His whole life fell apart, and my heart broke along with it. A major part of his break was being ultra-paranoid and ultra-angry, and he saw the drugs and alcohol not as the cause of any problems, but as a coping mechanism for the things that were happening to him, an innocent victim. For instance, it wasn't that drinking on the job caused him to get fired; it was that he drank on the job to deal with the stress of his bosses picking on him. That sort of thing.
So, last year, the last time I saw him in person, I met him at noon at his campsite, and he was already drunk. He pulled on his blue velvet cloak with the tassel on the hood, and showed me around. He tried to introduce me to people, but he whispered, so that the watchers couldn't read his lips or hear his words... which meant none of us could, either. His campsite was strewn with garbage and dirty laundry, and when I tried to pick some of it up he got very upset, because everything was right where it should be - in fact, where it needed to be, or Bad Things would happen.
I left pretty quickly that day, which I'm not proud of, but I couldn't handle that stress. So when dad popped up out of nowhere (Georgia), in the hospital, I disconnected again. All I wanted was to help dad, all I could think of was what I could do to make his life easier and better and help him be closer to the person he once was. But all it did was put me behind on work, and behind on school, and left me in a vortex of sadness and guilt and existential angst because no matter what I do, I can't help him, and I'm wasting both of our time. I thought this would feel like giving up, but I actually feel set free. I'm not connected to his problems any more, though I am still connected to him. He's my dad, and I won't give up on him, but giving up on my life and my priorities is a big waste all around. He detoxed in the hospital; it's the first time in that 3ish years I've spoken to him sober. It was good, even if half the conversation revolved around losing his blue velvet cloak and replacing it with a green one, but I'll take what I can get.
