Crappy parent, health scare, etc
June 14, 2019 11:24 PM Subscribe
I have a rocky relationship with my father and he's getting an MRI next week.
While he was physically present and provided for my material needs (which is more than many can say, I know) he was also belittling, critical, angry, and physically and emotionally abusive. He berated my mother and I every night for years. He threw 9 yo me into a wall one time. My mother excuses him from everything, saying that's just how he grew up. My mother is depressed after years of his treatment and might also be an alcoholic, and she and my father are a perfect closed loop of dysfunction.
(Yet, my father is also funny and cynical and smart and we share many of the same weirdo nerd interests. It's complicated.)
He is currently in the middle of a health scare and is undergoing an MRI soon. Instead of being present and comforting my mom, I have exited stage left, emotionally speaking. I know my behavior is hurting her and I know she needs my support. I'm bitter and resentful about a variety of things, including the fact that I did a lot of emotional labor for my mom growing up. Dealing with grief in particular is hard for me because I handled so much of my mom's grief growing up (there is a long backstory for that, but not relevant to this question.)
This is all sending me back to when I was a kid, and I would wish sometimes that my father would just leave. It's not a nice sentiment but that's how I used to feel. The house was lighter without him in it.
I think I need tips on how to handle this with more grace. It's going to come up this weekend when I do my father's day phone call. I think I've started grieving even though we don't even know what's wrong with him yet. Yes, I am in therapy but I find it really hard to talk about my childhood in there because I know I had it so much better than other people did.
If you've had this experience, how did you get through it? How do I show compassion for them without feeling like I'm stuffing down and silencing a part of myself?
While he was physically present and provided for my material needs (which is more than many can say, I know) he was also belittling, critical, angry, and physically and emotionally abusive. He berated my mother and I every night for years. He threw 9 yo me into a wall one time. My mother excuses him from everything, saying that's just how he grew up. My mother is depressed after years of his treatment and might also be an alcoholic, and she and my father are a perfect closed loop of dysfunction.
(Yet, my father is also funny and cynical and smart and we share many of the same weirdo nerd interests. It's complicated.)
He is currently in the middle of a health scare and is undergoing an MRI soon. Instead of being present and comforting my mom, I have exited stage left, emotionally speaking. I know my behavior is hurting her and I know she needs my support. I'm bitter and resentful about a variety of things, including the fact that I did a lot of emotional labor for my mom growing up. Dealing with grief in particular is hard for me because I handled so much of my mom's grief growing up (there is a long backstory for that, but not relevant to this question.)
This is all sending me back to when I was a kid, and I would wish sometimes that my father would just leave. It's not a nice sentiment but that's how I used to feel. The house was lighter without him in it.
I think I need tips on how to handle this with more grace. It's going to come up this weekend when I do my father's day phone call. I think I've started grieving even though we don't even know what's wrong with him yet. Yes, I am in therapy but I find it really hard to talk about my childhood in there because I know I had it so much better than other people did.
If you've had this experience, how did you get through it? How do I show compassion for them without feeling like I'm stuffing down and silencing a part of myself?
Yes, I am in therapy but I find it really hard to talk about my childhood in there because I know I had it so much better than other people did
I think you need to find a way to overcome or work around this attitude, as from the outside it reads like this will be a serious barrier to you making progress in therapy. While there are many times in life when it's appropriate to be grateful that you have/had it better than other people, doing individual therapy around childhood trauma is not one of those times. It's more of a put-on-your-own-oxygen-mask-first scenario.
Yes, you had it better than some people growing up. But you also had it worse than a lot of people; there are many adults for whom he was also belittling, critical, angry, and physically and emotionally abusive. He berated my mother and I every night for years. He threw 9 yo me into a wall one time isn't true, adults who grew up without this kind of fear and abuse.
It's okay to take a step back and say, "wow, some of the things that happened to me growing up were really crappy, in ways that still impact my emotional state and relationships". This can be true at the same time as it being true that some people did have a worse childhood than yours, either emotionally or in terms of material needs not being met. Their suffering being "objectively" worse (in scare quotes because I don't believe there's a lot of actual objectivity to be had in this area) doesn't really matter in terms of the impact of your childhood on you.
I've been through this cycle myself (our fathers sound similar), and it was only when I managed to break down the huge barriers of fear and shame around talking about the way I was treated as child (including plenty of feelings like the ones you express here, around feeling ashamed and guilty for being as messed up as I was by things that happened to me growing up because they weren't that bad compared to others' experiences and I did mostly get my material needs met [although often conditionally/with tremendous emotional strings attached]) that I began to make real strides in feeling like an actual person, with a sense of self and self-worth, no longer plagued by chronic depression.
I totally understand how you get into this mindset, as I've been there myself, and it's often reinforced by the kind of parenting you describe (I got a lot of messages in childhood from abusive family members about how I was better off than starving children in Africa or whatever, that what they were doing to me wasn't "really" abuse because I was mostly clothed and fed appropriately, etc.), which can make it harder to disentangle from as a perspective. The ideas that are stopping you from doing the work that will make all of this easier were likely put there by the people whose treatment of you means you need to do this work in the first place. I know that's fucked up, but I really believe you have to push past this mindset and see it as yet another byproduct of the sick system you grew up in if you want to stand a chance of healing from it in the long term.
I realise this isn't explicitly an answer to the question that you asked, so in summary my recommendation for dealing with the place you're in right now is actually to ignore as much of the interpersonal stuff as you can (it's not your job to be anyone or anything for parents who failed in their job of protecting you and raising you in a safe and healthy way when you were defenceless and they were the adults in charge), but take this opportunity as a gift and an encouragement to get serious about therapy. In my experience, it only works properly when you poke really hard at the stuff that hurts the most, even though it's so tender and shameful and buried that it feels sometimes like you can't or shouldn't talk about it at all, and keep poking it until it doesn't cause that big hot hurtful shame/pain/fear reaction any more. And to do that, you need to be able to talk about it in the first place.
posted by terretu at 2:46 AM on June 15, 2019 [25 favorites]
I think you need to find a way to overcome or work around this attitude, as from the outside it reads like this will be a serious barrier to you making progress in therapy. While there are many times in life when it's appropriate to be grateful that you have/had it better than other people, doing individual therapy around childhood trauma is not one of those times. It's more of a put-on-your-own-oxygen-mask-first scenario.
Yes, you had it better than some people growing up. But you also had it worse than a lot of people; there are many adults for whom he was also belittling, critical, angry, and physically and emotionally abusive. He berated my mother and I every night for years. He threw 9 yo me into a wall one time isn't true, adults who grew up without this kind of fear and abuse.
It's okay to take a step back and say, "wow, some of the things that happened to me growing up were really crappy, in ways that still impact my emotional state and relationships". This can be true at the same time as it being true that some people did have a worse childhood than yours, either emotionally or in terms of material needs not being met. Their suffering being "objectively" worse (in scare quotes because I don't believe there's a lot of actual objectivity to be had in this area) doesn't really matter in terms of the impact of your childhood on you.
I've been through this cycle myself (our fathers sound similar), and it was only when I managed to break down the huge barriers of fear and shame around talking about the way I was treated as child (including plenty of feelings like the ones you express here, around feeling ashamed and guilty for being as messed up as I was by things that happened to me growing up because they weren't that bad compared to others' experiences and I did mostly get my material needs met [although often conditionally/with tremendous emotional strings attached]) that I began to make real strides in feeling like an actual person, with a sense of self and self-worth, no longer plagued by chronic depression.
I totally understand how you get into this mindset, as I've been there myself, and it's often reinforced by the kind of parenting you describe (I got a lot of messages in childhood from abusive family members about how I was better off than starving children in Africa or whatever, that what they were doing to me wasn't "really" abuse because I was mostly clothed and fed appropriately, etc.), which can make it harder to disentangle from as a perspective. The ideas that are stopping you from doing the work that will make all of this easier were likely put there by the people whose treatment of you means you need to do this work in the first place. I know that's fucked up, but I really believe you have to push past this mindset and see it as yet another byproduct of the sick system you grew up in if you want to stand a chance of healing from it in the long term.
I realise this isn't explicitly an answer to the question that you asked, so in summary my recommendation for dealing with the place you're in right now is actually to ignore as much of the interpersonal stuff as you can (it's not your job to be anyone or anything for parents who failed in their job of protecting you and raising you in a safe and healthy way when you were defenceless and they were the adults in charge), but take this opportunity as a gift and an encouragement to get serious about therapy. In my experience, it only works properly when you poke really hard at the stuff that hurts the most, even though it's so tender and shameful and buried that it feels sometimes like you can't or shouldn't talk about it at all, and keep poking it until it doesn't cause that big hot hurtful shame/pain/fear reaction any more. And to do that, you need to be able to talk about it in the first place.
posted by terretu at 2:46 AM on June 15, 2019 [25 favorites]
Compounding the terror of health scares of the type I think you're talking about is the feeling that there's a whirlpool opening up and it's going to suck you into it.
Have some confidence that you can set boundaries. Being present and taking care of some of their material needs (even if you’re not emotionally engaged) will be reciprocal to what you experienced as a kid. It might assuage what what's gnawing at you. Pick a few ways to help out - like some driving and groceries but make it clear that you can't be on call 24/7.
I hope your family gets some good news from the mri.
posted by bonobothegreat at 5:22 AM on June 15, 2019
Have some confidence that you can set boundaries. Being present and taking care of some of their material needs (even if you’re not emotionally engaged) will be reciprocal to what you experienced as a kid. It might assuage what what's gnawing at you. Pick a few ways to help out - like some driving and groceries but make it clear that you can't be on call 24/7.
I hope your family gets some good news from the mri.
posted by bonobothegreat at 5:22 AM on June 15, 2019
It’s okay to lean on your therapist if this stuff is causing you problems. If anything, your awareness that you had it better than many people is proof that your issues are valid and worth discussion with your therapist.
I’ve become convinced that many / most people - and I am one of them - mishandle family health crises because they simply don’t know what to do. So I’m going to break it down into a script[1]:
1. Call Mom and Dad on Father’s Day. Make sure you speak to both of them. Ask about the MRI. Listen to what they say. Try to be positive. End the call with “I love you.”
2. Call Mom and Dad the day of (or evening before) the MRI. Make it a short call: you’re thinking of them and you want things to go well. Ask them to call you afterwards. End the call with “I love you.”
3. Talk to Mom and Dad after the MRI. Find out how it went. Ask how they’re feeling. Ask when they’ll get the results. Ask them to keep you informed. End the call with “I love you.”
4. The results will probably come back fairly quickly. But if you don’t hear anything within 2 days, call Mom and Dad and ask how they’re doing. End the call with “I love you.”
5. When the results come back - I hope that you will all experience a great sigh of relief. If not, do your best to be supportive. Ask to be kept informed. End the call with “I love you.”
You’ll spend an estimated 2 hours on the phone with your parents. Did you see the movie La La Land? If you could make it through the 2hrs8mins of La La Land, you can “stuff yourself down” for this. It might help to focus on how you’ll feel a month or a year from now: you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that you took the High Road and did things right.
[1] FWIW, I didn’t just make this up out of thin air like some unpaid intern writing clickbait for Buzzfeed. I’ve personally lived through both sides of this situation, more than once. I’m sharing stuff I learned the hard way.
posted by doctor tough love at 5:58 AM on June 15, 2019 [6 favorites]
I’ve become convinced that many / most people - and I am one of them - mishandle family health crises because they simply don’t know what to do. So I’m going to break it down into a script[1]:
1. Call Mom and Dad on Father’s Day. Make sure you speak to both of them. Ask about the MRI. Listen to what they say. Try to be positive. End the call with “I love you.”
2. Call Mom and Dad the day of (or evening before) the MRI. Make it a short call: you’re thinking of them and you want things to go well. Ask them to call you afterwards. End the call with “I love you.”
3. Talk to Mom and Dad after the MRI. Find out how it went. Ask how they’re feeling. Ask when they’ll get the results. Ask them to keep you informed. End the call with “I love you.”
4. The results will probably come back fairly quickly. But if you don’t hear anything within 2 days, call Mom and Dad and ask how they’re doing. End the call with “I love you.”
5. When the results come back - I hope that you will all experience a great sigh of relief. If not, do your best to be supportive. Ask to be kept informed. End the call with “I love you.”
You’ll spend an estimated 2 hours on the phone with your parents. Did you see the movie La La Land? If you could make it through the 2hrs8mins of La La Land, you can “stuff yourself down” for this. It might help to focus on how you’ll feel a month or a year from now: you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that you took the High Road and did things right.
[1] FWIW, I didn’t just make this up out of thin air like some unpaid intern writing clickbait for Buzzfeed. I’ve personally lived through both sides of this situation, more than once. I’m sharing stuff I learned the hard way.
posted by doctor tough love at 5:58 AM on June 15, 2019 [6 favorites]
You are SO me. Our society (including all the Facebook reposts from our friends) says we owe our parents everything and then some unless they actually sexually abused us or beat the shit out of us every single day. And then I watched a Saturday Night Live 2019 Mother's Day skit where the daughter didn't remember a single bad thing that the mother did but the mother remembered it all, and the weird thing was that all the comments said "that's what mother-daughter relationships are like" when in my experience I'm the one who remembers all the bad parts and my mother doesn't believe (or at least admit) that she ever did one single thing wrong.
If your therapist assumes that you straight up love your father or something like that (for instance, by telling you to just hug him more like it's easy when there's nothing easy about it), you might need a new therapist. Other than that, your kind of problems are supposed to be what therapy is for. After all, most people in therapy are relatively well off which is the only reason they can afford therapy in the first place (although the Medicaid expansion is changing that somewhat). Therefore, it is a given that most of the problems of people in therapy will not be as bad as many other people's, yet they still go to therapy.
Are you an only child or close family member? If not, don't fall into the trap of "but I'm the only one who lives nearby". Do your parents have caring friends and neighbors that could help? You need support. You may also find that it is easier to love and care for parents the older and weaker they become. But you will still need your own life and an escape. Every day.
posted by serena15221 at 6:07 AM on June 15, 2019 [3 favorites]
If your therapist assumes that you straight up love your father or something like that (for instance, by telling you to just hug him more like it's easy when there's nothing easy about it), you might need a new therapist. Other than that, your kind of problems are supposed to be what therapy is for. After all, most people in therapy are relatively well off which is the only reason they can afford therapy in the first place (although the Medicaid expansion is changing that somewhat). Therefore, it is a given that most of the problems of people in therapy will not be as bad as many other people's, yet they still go to therapy.
Are you an only child or close family member? If not, don't fall into the trap of "but I'm the only one who lives nearby". Do your parents have caring friends and neighbors that could help? You need support. You may also find that it is easier to love and care for parents the older and weaker they become. But you will still need your own life and an escape. Every day.
posted by serena15221 at 6:07 AM on June 15, 2019 [3 favorites]
Someone else has always had it rougher. Your biggest struggle is your own biggest struggle (mefi truth), and you get to have your feelings about that. Perspective is useful, but it doesn't make your pain go away. If you had a broken leg you'd go to the ER, even though there are people in the world with legs that have multiple or worse breaks, or legs that are mangled, or no legs at all. You'd still need your leg fixed.
Working through childhood trauma in therapy usually takes a while. So maybe raise this with your therapist by talking through short term strategies as far as how you want to handle this, how you can engage with your parents while maintaining appropriate boundaries, what ways you can help and be present while also taking care of yourself, etc.
Honestly I've been talking about my childhood (which was much less difficult than yours) in therapy for years and I still haven't figured out how to make peace with it. And my most difficult parent is now having a health crisis and even though my heart feels like an ice cube and I am definitely not at peace I can still, to my surprise, do what I need to do to help her. My childhood was not your childhood, my parents are not your parents, my brain is not your brain, YMMV. Feel free to PM me if you'd like to talk.
posted by bunderful at 6:23 AM on June 15, 2019 [3 favorites]
Working through childhood trauma in therapy usually takes a while. So maybe raise this with your therapist by talking through short term strategies as far as how you want to handle this, how you can engage with your parents while maintaining appropriate boundaries, what ways you can help and be present while also taking care of yourself, etc.
Honestly I've been talking about my childhood (which was much less difficult than yours) in therapy for years and I still haven't figured out how to make peace with it. And my most difficult parent is now having a health crisis and even though my heart feels like an ice cube and I am definitely not at peace I can still, to my surprise, do what I need to do to help her. My childhood was not your childhood, my parents are not your parents, my brain is not your brain, YMMV. Feel free to PM me if you'd like to talk.
posted by bunderful at 6:23 AM on June 15, 2019 [3 favorites]
I tell myself I don’t need to make any larger decision or come to a unified resolution about my relationship with my parents. I can take it day by day and moment by moment (phone call by phone call). I try to be comfortable in the uncertainty and confusion rather than force a “this is how I will deal with my parents for the rest of their time here.”
posted by sallybrown at 6:36 AM on June 15, 2019
posted by sallybrown at 6:36 AM on June 15, 2019
You know what? I was sexually abused by family for years, my childhood included regular corporal punishment and I was sucked into my parents‘ acrimonious divorce. And I think your childhood sounds terrible, your dad did you wrong and your mom failed you in a big way. And if you were to drop both of them right now I would understand.
The optics for people who don’t know about this are terrible, of course - but you rarely get personal epiphanies and break downs when it‘s convenient, you know?
I don‘t have good advice, just wanted to say that you are so, so justified in everything you decide to do to distance your self now.
posted by Omnomnom at 6:43 AM on June 15, 2019 [1 favorite]
The optics for people who don’t know about this are terrible, of course - but you rarely get personal epiphanies and break downs when it‘s convenient, you know?
I don‘t have good advice, just wanted to say that you are so, so justified in everything you decide to do to distance your self now.
posted by Omnomnom at 6:43 AM on June 15, 2019 [1 favorite]
Hi! I'm from a similar background, and any time there is an illness or death in my family a lot of stuff comes up, often from having to deal with someone you don't normally have to deal with much anymore. One of the worst things, for me, is the triangulation that happens when you live with a tyrant like that; they get into all your other relationships. So it's hard to do the best for your mom and for your relationship with her, because it doesn't exist completely independent of your relationship with your father, and hers with him, and it gets really complicated fast.
So, therapy can certainly help, but at a time like this I think it's important to find temporary tools. My mother actually gave me some advice that has really helped. When told there is a crisis going on and that your help or presence is needed, make a plan and-- as far as practical-- tell them what it is. If there is a question of traveling to see them say, "I can come out there for x number of days and go to doctors appointments with you. Is that good? If not, then what is good?" Or if you are not traveling, whatever support they are asking for that you can give, say you can give that. But not just sort of being available 24/7.
For me, going out to see my father when he was ill was so hard I can vividly remember sitting in that seat on the airplane thinking "Oh f*** me, I have just got to get through this somehow." But I had my return ticket and I kept a mini journal, partly to keep track of details of my father's care and information to pass along to family. But also, seeing him felt like sort of a crucible to me, and like as messed up as it was, it was going to be important somehow. And it was. The serious illness and/or death of a difficult parent is a big transition. Don't demand too much of yourself. People will act how they'll act; you'll feel how you feel. Try to give yourself a pass for anything that doesn't go perfectly.
Sending you all the best wishes.
posted by BibiRose at 8:43 AM on June 15, 2019 [1 favorite]
So, therapy can certainly help, but at a time like this I think it's important to find temporary tools. My mother actually gave me some advice that has really helped. When told there is a crisis going on and that your help or presence is needed, make a plan and-- as far as practical-- tell them what it is. If there is a question of traveling to see them say, "I can come out there for x number of days and go to doctors appointments with you. Is that good? If not, then what is good?" Or if you are not traveling, whatever support they are asking for that you can give, say you can give that. But not just sort of being available 24/7.
For me, going out to see my father when he was ill was so hard I can vividly remember sitting in that seat on the airplane thinking "Oh f*** me, I have just got to get through this somehow." But I had my return ticket and I kept a mini journal, partly to keep track of details of my father's care and information to pass along to family. But also, seeing him felt like sort of a crucible to me, and like as messed up as it was, it was going to be important somehow. And it was. The serious illness and/or death of a difficult parent is a big transition. Don't demand too much of yourself. People will act how they'll act; you'll feel how you feel. Try to give yourself a pass for anything that doesn't go perfectly.
Sending you all the best wishes.
posted by BibiRose at 8:43 AM on June 15, 2019 [1 favorite]
I was not physically abused, and it took me until my thirties to realize that I WAS emotionally abused. I know you think a lot of people had it harder than you but there is something especially hard about emotional abuse in that it leaves no physical mark so it is easy to deny. For me, being able to say "this was emotional abuse" and not just a difficult parent-child relationship was HUGE in my healing process. If you can't talk about this with your therapist, you are basically wasting that therapy money.
"I know my behavior is hurting her and I know she needs my support. I'm bitter and resentful about a variety of things, including the fact that I did a lot of emotional labor for my mom growing up."
Do you see the contradiction in your statements here? You are still being asked to do emotional labor for her, maybe not explicitly, but through the conditioning of your childhood. In therapy circles, this is known as FOG — fear, obligation and guilt.
You are NOT obligated to take care of your parents in any way. You are not obligated to take care of your parents in any way. You are not obligated to take care of your parents in any way.
Their obligation was to take care of you.
posted by Brittanie at 9:09 AM on June 15, 2019 [2 favorites]
"I know my behavior is hurting her and I know she needs my support. I'm bitter and resentful about a variety of things, including the fact that I did a lot of emotional labor for my mom growing up."
Do you see the contradiction in your statements here? You are still being asked to do emotional labor for her, maybe not explicitly, but through the conditioning of your childhood. In therapy circles, this is known as FOG — fear, obligation and guilt.
You are NOT obligated to take care of your parents in any way. You are not obligated to take care of your parents in any way. You are not obligated to take care of your parents in any way.
Their obligation was to take care of you.
posted by Brittanie at 9:09 AM on June 15, 2019 [2 favorites]
Yes, I am in therapy but I find it really hard to talk about my childhood in there because I know I had it so much better than other people did.
This was my life for a while. I found it incredibly validating to have my therapist listen to my stories of childhood neglect and emotional (though almost never physical) abuse and say "Wow, that was pretty fucked up." instead of minimizing or dumping it back on me as "the sensitive one" who shouldn't have been bothered by whatever happened specifically because (as my parents would always tell me) "other people had it worse."
So it's hard but moving to a me-first attitude is probably a good plan in your situation. Your mom wants support. She can want that without it creating an obligation in you to provide it. You can try, but you can put yourself first "Hey mom I know you're hurting and you're in my thoughts but I can't really be there for you more than this right now." You may need to step back a little from your mom+dad's dysfunction. She is with him. That is a choice that grownups can make. You do not have to either be with him, or really manage your mom's bad feelings that are coming as the result of her bad choices now that you are grown. You can be sad for them, but plan to take care of yourself. Your parents should have taken better care of you, both of them.
In terms of your dad's MRI... you don't know what you don't know. Try to distract yourself and not get caught in your family's web of misery around it. Do what you need to do for self-care. Be communicative but not at the expense of your own mental health. I am sorry, this is tough.
posted by jessamyn at 9:36 AM on June 15, 2019 [2 favorites]
This was my life for a while. I found it incredibly validating to have my therapist listen to my stories of childhood neglect and emotional (though almost never physical) abuse and say "Wow, that was pretty fucked up." instead of minimizing or dumping it back on me as "the sensitive one" who shouldn't have been bothered by whatever happened specifically because (as my parents would always tell me) "other people had it worse."
So it's hard but moving to a me-first attitude is probably a good plan in your situation. Your mom wants support. She can want that without it creating an obligation in you to provide it. You can try, but you can put yourself first "Hey mom I know you're hurting and you're in my thoughts but I can't really be there for you more than this right now." You may need to step back a little from your mom+dad's dysfunction. She is with him. That is a choice that grownups can make. You do not have to either be with him, or really manage your mom's bad feelings that are coming as the result of her bad choices now that you are grown. You can be sad for them, but plan to take care of yourself. Your parents should have taken better care of you, both of them.
In terms of your dad's MRI... you don't know what you don't know. Try to distract yourself and not get caught in your family's web of misery around it. Do what you need to do for self-care. Be communicative but not at the expense of your own mental health. I am sorry, this is tough.
posted by jessamyn at 9:36 AM on June 15, 2019 [2 favorites]
It's a really normal coping mechanism to say to yourself, well, it was bad, but other people had it worse so I shouldn't complain, because there is always someone who had it worse. It doesn't matter if someone else's experience was worse than yours. What matters is that your dad abused you, and it was bad. I could tell you about the number of times I tried to excuse my parents because they didn't sexually abuse me or throw me down the stairs, like some of my friends' parents did, but it doesn't make anything your dad did okay and you're allowed to have complicated feelings about all of it.
You don't owe your parents anything, at all.
You don't have to call your dad tomorrow. You don't have to call him ever. You don't have to participate in his care, or his MRI, or his life. You don't have to be the dutiful child to someone who couldn't be bothered to be a decent parent.
Give yourself some space to think about what YOU want. Part of this can be making a list of what you feel obligated to do, and then how you feel about that and what you want to do. If you do decide to call your folks tomorrow, you can put limits on the call - time limits, have to go suddenly if dad says something terrible or if you start having feelings you don't like during the call.
Also, please do bring this up with your therapist, and talk to them about why you've felt like you couldn't bring it up before.
Best wishes.
posted by bile and syntax at 11:03 AM on June 15, 2019
You don't owe your parents anything, at all.
You don't have to call your dad tomorrow. You don't have to call him ever. You don't have to participate in his care, or his MRI, or his life. You don't have to be the dutiful child to someone who couldn't be bothered to be a decent parent.
Give yourself some space to think about what YOU want. Part of this can be making a list of what you feel obligated to do, and then how you feel about that and what you want to do. If you do decide to call your folks tomorrow, you can put limits on the call - time limits, have to go suddenly if dad says something terrible or if you start having feelings you don't like during the call.
Also, please do bring this up with your therapist, and talk to them about why you've felt like you couldn't bring it up before.
Best wishes.
posted by bile and syntax at 11:03 AM on June 15, 2019
There's something about the raw vulnerability of health scares or, frankly, death and dying that really makes us feel vulnerable. It's an intimate connection to be asked to or feel obligated to be a support for someone undergoing a health crisis. I still feel a twinge of guilt about not going to my father more when he was dying of cancer and not being able to support my parents more as they both dealt with that. I could have gone. I probably should have. But I also had to come to terms with how afraid that made me feel, how vulnerable it would have felt to be able to do that. And I couldn't. Because I could not get past the various bullshit and trauma from my childhood. One thing I have come to realize over the years after my father dying and over the years of becoming a parent is that when I was a child, I was a child. Not actually responsible for any adult around me! When adults made choices – to drink too much, to not manage their anxiety and depression, to rage over the household at length, to be violent, to cover up and minimize – those choices are made freely by the adult but not by the child. You were a child. They were the adults. Their adult choices have consequences. My father, regardless of his addictions and mental health, gave away his role as father. He threw it away by being a shit father. The things he chose as an adult and the way he chose to parent created the gulf between us and, sadly, I have no way to heal that gulf. Some stuff done to you as a child is fairly indelible. He tried to fix things and that was appreciated but it did not result in the kind of relationship between us that would allow me to be there for him in his most physically vulnerable state and love him as deeply as some other parent on another timeline who hadn't been horrible. It's taken me years to just let that be.
My point is, to be this kind of support is to be intimate. And while it is sort of passingly sad that you can't provide that kind of intimate support, it is a natural consequence of your upbringing and you can only do what you can do. I actually really like the idea of the scripts above. There was a not-insignificant chunk of my father's personality that was wonderful, really wonderful. So fuck him for the bad behavior that ruined the rest of it. The part of him, especially in his later years (after I was grown) that worked on himself, managed his alcoholism, went to therapy, made it so I could have a pleasantly surface father/daughter relationship was great. But that is all I could do. And it honestly wasn't until after his death that I was able to start healing myself and my relationship with my mother.
Be kind to yourself. Sending you hugs.
posted by amanda at 11:50 AM on June 15, 2019 [4 favorites]
My point is, to be this kind of support is to be intimate. And while it is sort of passingly sad that you can't provide that kind of intimate support, it is a natural consequence of your upbringing and you can only do what you can do. I actually really like the idea of the scripts above. There was a not-insignificant chunk of my father's personality that was wonderful, really wonderful. So fuck him for the bad behavior that ruined the rest of it. The part of him, especially in his later years (after I was grown) that worked on himself, managed his alcoholism, went to therapy, made it so I could have a pleasantly surface father/daughter relationship was great. But that is all I could do. And it honestly wasn't until after his death that I was able to start healing myself and my relationship with my mother.
Be kind to yourself. Sending you hugs.
posted by amanda at 11:50 AM on June 15, 2019 [4 favorites]
Your mom doesn't need you. Your Mom is an adult, so once you said, "Wow, yeah bad!" to her you have done your basic responsibilities so far as she is concerned. She might like to use you for an emotional dumping ground, we all like to have someone who listens to us and holds our hand, but you are her offspring, and it is more appropriate for her to use one of her peers or the appropriate professionals surrounding your and her care.
Of course, if you and your mom had a mutually supportive relationship where you both felt better after emotional mutual support time that would be different. Since you won't feel better after spending emotional roller coaster time with you, it's not appropriate for you to spend that time with her. It would be harmful to your relationship with her if you spend that time. You are not those people. If you were that type of people you would know and you would be rushing to cling to her. But you are not that type of people and it is not wrong that you are not that type of people.
If someone tells you or her that your mom should be getting emotional support from you - such as a health professional - that is evidence that your mom is not someone that you actually can support, since the health professional has identified that they can't support her either and are trying to fob her off on you.
Complex relationships are always harder on you than the good ones. If a good parent dies your primary job is to deal with pure grief, and gratitude. If a not-so-good parent dies you end up having to deal with multiple emotions - grief and gratitude are appropriate to almost all but the worst parent, because even very bad parents have done your laundry, or cooked you supper, or brought home an income, or done one or two things that contribute to you. Of course when they have also hit you, snarled at you, and done harmful things to you, that grief feels wrong and like a failure to understand the world. You can end up asking yourself, "What is wrong with me that I am scared for that bastard??" Nothing is wrong with you. You are appropriately sad and scared because the someone who once provided you with some security is no longer going to do so. Grieving and mourning, and being scared for the loss of someone whose absence or death will improve your life is absolutely appropriate, healthy and normal.
When my partner's father died, he grieved and the thought that kept recurring was, "Who will I go to now for advice and guidance?" It kept recurring until he thought - "But I never could go to him for advice and help! He would just laugh at me and tell me to figure it out myself."
You may want to look at your father's impending mortality with similar questions. What are you afraid of? What are you losing? You are probably losing some things - someone to laugh with, and someone to share your unusual interest with. Those are the things that you are justified in being afraid of losing.
Some of what you are losing is your own identity. You are your father's child and have had some of his personality rub off on you - the sense of humor and the special interests. If you needed to define yourself you would mention that you have those interests. So this part of yourself is under threat. When your father is gone you will no longer be his child, but someone who was his child. And you will no longer be someone with a partner in those special interests. You may find that with him gone you lose all interest in those things.
One important thing you are losing is someone you hate. You are losing all chance to rage at him, to hurt him, to get revenge, to make him sorry for what he did. There will never be any contrition, there will never be a chance for him to make it up to you. It can never be made fair after he is gone.
But again, realistically, he almost certainly never would be able to make it up for you, let alone be willing to make the attempt. Until he dies you can keep the hope of justice in your heart; once he is dead it becomes undeniable that there will be no justice. At that point you have only the choices of staying emotionally damaged, or forgiving him when he has done nothing to work towards that forgiveness. Neither option is nearly as attractive as the scenario where he tells you how much he loved and admired you and how he wishes he had been kinder, and how he has a great gift for you that he has been saving for you - maybe a multimillion dollar inheritance, maybe his kidney, maybe some wisdom that he appeared to have when you were a very small child and he was always so much wiser than you, back when it was ridiculous to argue with him and tell him that he was being mean and should always be kind to you, when the adult logic and the adult reality all defined you as the bad child who was getting what you deserved when he was violent and cruel instead of kind.
But there is no reality to that justice. You can hunger for it desperately, yet whether he lives or dies you will never get that justice. Nothing can give that justice. Nothing can unmake the past. When he dies you will not lose that justice because it was never a possible thing.
All you have is what you have - a shared sense of humour and some unusual special interests on the good side of the ledger - You can try to have gratitude for whatever he contributed to the household and you, in the line of toothbrushes and electricity bills, and changing light bulbs and getting up on Christmas morning, and macaroni and cheese. But if you do not feel that gratitude it is not there, and there is a good argument that you do not have to feel grateful to him who was such a damaging parent, but can feel grateful for those things instead to whatever has brought bird song and dawn light and the sensitivity of your skin, and that moment of pleasure and release when you have been watching some dumb comedy and laughed and laughed until briefly you forgot that you were in pain. You don't have to feel grateful to him.
But to get through the next few days, and weeks, and years, no matter whether the MRI means that he has cancer and will be dead in three weeks and four days, or if it means that he has cancer and will be boring with medical appointments for the next seventeen years, or if it comes back as nothing at all and nothing has changed - to get through whatever time you have left with him, you can only lean on that share sense of humour, those special interests and the fact that you are both human beings with a shared language.
Day to day boundaries around the huge devastating loss that his parenting left you with, the damaged sense of self that he caused, that's where you start. Boundaries mean you choose whether to see him, whether to stop seeing him, whether to keep the injury and rage and grief inside you, or to release it on him. Your choice. It means that if he says something hurtful, you choose whether or not to say good bye and hang up the phone. It means that if he makes a joke that cracks you up you choose whether or not to say good bye and hang up the phone. It means that if he tells you to do the impossible - like solve your mother's griefs - you don't even consider it, you don't attempt it, you choose instead whether or not to say good bye and hang up the phone.
You have all the choices. You can leave the phone on mute and never speak to him again. You can call him up and release venom on him. "I am hoping, hoping so hard that the MRI means you will die in disgusting pain and helplessness! You deserve it for everything you did to me. It's justice." You can call him up and keep it light and distant, "Yeah, Mom says you'll be in for a few days, heck, you lucky, the hospital has air conditioning, it sweltering out here." You can call him up and make a few of those jokes, those cynical - buffering, distance producing jokes that make strafing runs at a discussion of shared pain and then blast away again. OMG, we're bad. Or you can call him up and get into the tough stuff, love or hate, "I don't want to lose you. Did you ever feel ashamed when you told me I was worthless? I will feel some peace when you are gone. I will never feel peace."
You will decide what choice you pick according to how strong you are that day, or that moment, and what your imperatives are, whether you just want peace at all costs, whether you need to say it while he is still alive to hear it, whether you feel charity and forbearance, whether you feel impatient, whether you are taken by a wish to share absurdities, whether you want to spend time with him or talk to him or not. Your mother and your father will have their agendas and their desires, be weak, or strong or suffocating, or rejecting, be in denial, need to talk - but you will still be the one with the choice.
You will probably pick status quo. Most people do. Most people find it easiest, and in the short run most successful, the least likely to be damaging to themself. If you pick not to rage against your father it will be because you doubt it will leave you feeling better. If you choose not to make a commitment to be supportive it will be because you doubt you have the capacity to be supportive, the willingness to give when you yourself are still suffering from want. But whatever you pick, you get to pick what is the right choice for you at the time.
posted by Jane the Brown at 7:30 AM on June 16, 2019 [3 favorites]
Of course, if you and your mom had a mutually supportive relationship where you both felt better after emotional mutual support time that would be different. Since you won't feel better after spending emotional roller coaster time with you, it's not appropriate for you to spend that time with her. It would be harmful to your relationship with her if you spend that time. You are not those people. If you were that type of people you would know and you would be rushing to cling to her. But you are not that type of people and it is not wrong that you are not that type of people.
If someone tells you or her that your mom should be getting emotional support from you - such as a health professional - that is evidence that your mom is not someone that you actually can support, since the health professional has identified that they can't support her either and are trying to fob her off on you.
Complex relationships are always harder on you than the good ones. If a good parent dies your primary job is to deal with pure grief, and gratitude. If a not-so-good parent dies you end up having to deal with multiple emotions - grief and gratitude are appropriate to almost all but the worst parent, because even very bad parents have done your laundry, or cooked you supper, or brought home an income, or done one or two things that contribute to you. Of course when they have also hit you, snarled at you, and done harmful things to you, that grief feels wrong and like a failure to understand the world. You can end up asking yourself, "What is wrong with me that I am scared for that bastard??" Nothing is wrong with you. You are appropriately sad and scared because the someone who once provided you with some security is no longer going to do so. Grieving and mourning, and being scared for the loss of someone whose absence or death will improve your life is absolutely appropriate, healthy and normal.
When my partner's father died, he grieved and the thought that kept recurring was, "Who will I go to now for advice and guidance?" It kept recurring until he thought - "But I never could go to him for advice and help! He would just laugh at me and tell me to figure it out myself."
You may want to look at your father's impending mortality with similar questions. What are you afraid of? What are you losing? You are probably losing some things - someone to laugh with, and someone to share your unusual interest with. Those are the things that you are justified in being afraid of losing.
Some of what you are losing is your own identity. You are your father's child and have had some of his personality rub off on you - the sense of humor and the special interests. If you needed to define yourself you would mention that you have those interests. So this part of yourself is under threat. When your father is gone you will no longer be his child, but someone who was his child. And you will no longer be someone with a partner in those special interests. You may find that with him gone you lose all interest in those things.
One important thing you are losing is someone you hate. You are losing all chance to rage at him, to hurt him, to get revenge, to make him sorry for what he did. There will never be any contrition, there will never be a chance for him to make it up to you. It can never be made fair after he is gone.
But again, realistically, he almost certainly never would be able to make it up for you, let alone be willing to make the attempt. Until he dies you can keep the hope of justice in your heart; once he is dead it becomes undeniable that there will be no justice. At that point you have only the choices of staying emotionally damaged, or forgiving him when he has done nothing to work towards that forgiveness. Neither option is nearly as attractive as the scenario where he tells you how much he loved and admired you and how he wishes he had been kinder, and how he has a great gift for you that he has been saving for you - maybe a multimillion dollar inheritance, maybe his kidney, maybe some wisdom that he appeared to have when you were a very small child and he was always so much wiser than you, back when it was ridiculous to argue with him and tell him that he was being mean and should always be kind to you, when the adult logic and the adult reality all defined you as the bad child who was getting what you deserved when he was violent and cruel instead of kind.
But there is no reality to that justice. You can hunger for it desperately, yet whether he lives or dies you will never get that justice. Nothing can give that justice. Nothing can unmake the past. When he dies you will not lose that justice because it was never a possible thing.
All you have is what you have - a shared sense of humour and some unusual special interests on the good side of the ledger - You can try to have gratitude for whatever he contributed to the household and you, in the line of toothbrushes and electricity bills, and changing light bulbs and getting up on Christmas morning, and macaroni and cheese. But if you do not feel that gratitude it is not there, and there is a good argument that you do not have to feel grateful to him who was such a damaging parent, but can feel grateful for those things instead to whatever has brought bird song and dawn light and the sensitivity of your skin, and that moment of pleasure and release when you have been watching some dumb comedy and laughed and laughed until briefly you forgot that you were in pain. You don't have to feel grateful to him.
But to get through the next few days, and weeks, and years, no matter whether the MRI means that he has cancer and will be dead in three weeks and four days, or if it means that he has cancer and will be boring with medical appointments for the next seventeen years, or if it comes back as nothing at all and nothing has changed - to get through whatever time you have left with him, you can only lean on that share sense of humour, those special interests and the fact that you are both human beings with a shared language.
Day to day boundaries around the huge devastating loss that his parenting left you with, the damaged sense of self that he caused, that's where you start. Boundaries mean you choose whether to see him, whether to stop seeing him, whether to keep the injury and rage and grief inside you, or to release it on him. Your choice. It means that if he says something hurtful, you choose whether or not to say good bye and hang up the phone. It means that if he makes a joke that cracks you up you choose whether or not to say good bye and hang up the phone. It means that if he tells you to do the impossible - like solve your mother's griefs - you don't even consider it, you don't attempt it, you choose instead whether or not to say good bye and hang up the phone.
You have all the choices. You can leave the phone on mute and never speak to him again. You can call him up and release venom on him. "I am hoping, hoping so hard that the MRI means you will die in disgusting pain and helplessness! You deserve it for everything you did to me. It's justice." You can call him up and keep it light and distant, "Yeah, Mom says you'll be in for a few days, heck, you lucky, the hospital has air conditioning, it sweltering out here." You can call him up and make a few of those jokes, those cynical - buffering, distance producing jokes that make strafing runs at a discussion of shared pain and then blast away again. OMG, we're bad. Or you can call him up and get into the tough stuff, love or hate, "I don't want to lose you. Did you ever feel ashamed when you told me I was worthless? I will feel some peace when you are gone. I will never feel peace."
You will decide what choice you pick according to how strong you are that day, or that moment, and what your imperatives are, whether you just want peace at all costs, whether you need to say it while he is still alive to hear it, whether you feel charity and forbearance, whether you feel impatient, whether you are taken by a wish to share absurdities, whether you want to spend time with him or talk to him or not. Your mother and your father will have their agendas and their desires, be weak, or strong or suffocating, or rejecting, be in denial, need to talk - but you will still be the one with the choice.
You will probably pick status quo. Most people do. Most people find it easiest, and in the short run most successful, the least likely to be damaging to themself. If you pick not to rage against your father it will be because you doubt it will leave you feeling better. If you choose not to make a commitment to be supportive it will be because you doubt you have the capacity to be supportive, the willingness to give when you yourself are still suffering from want. But whatever you pick, you get to pick what is the right choice for you at the time.
posted by Jane the Brown at 7:30 AM on June 16, 2019 [3 favorites]
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posted by Elsie at 2:16 AM on June 15, 2019 [8 favorites]