tromboneliness

Hi, all --

I need to dump out some stuff, and it's hard to find a sympathetic ear, because none of those people out there (waving toward the window, as I do in meetings to indicate "people without a program") understand what I'm talking about, which you guys do.

Anyhow, as you probably have gathered from the stuff I post from time to time, my father (89) is my primary "qualifier" for ACA. He is a raging, alcoholic control freak, and for the 46 years I've known him, acts as though he is a superior form of life and that his family members work for him -- that was true of my mother and sister when we were growing up, and now that my mother is gone (as of last November), is still true of my sister and me. Sister lives 3000 miles away from Dad, while I live about 50 miles away.

My Dad fancies himself a Traditional Greek Patriarch™: He is master of the house, everyone reports to him, and he always assumed -- despite the fact that this is Suburban America we live in, not a traditional Greek village where huge extended families stay together forever, and the patriarch spends all day at the coffeehouse arguing politics with other crusty patriarchs while their wives cook and clean all day -- that despite our conflicts that led to my sister and me moving away, we would eventually Come Back To the House and Take Care of Him, because he was a Traditional Greek Patriarch™ and was thus entitled to such treatment.

It's a longer story than that, but just to cut to the chase, my Dad has been going downhill rapidly since my mother died. He has, however, flatly refused to move out of the big old suburban house he bought in 1964. He has managed to take my 62-year-old cousin George hostage -- George has been living there for over a year, having needed "a place to stay" when he moved back from the West Coast after 30 years out there. I guarantee George did not think he was signing up for a role as my Dad's final caretaker -- but that's what seems to have happened.

Anyway, why I'm posting this is that we have reached the endgame. My Dad is in a serious state of decline. He won't eat much, has little interest in doing much of anything, and looks awful; the phrase "skeletal remains" comes to mind. He'll get up for a few minutes, sit up at the kitchen table or on the couch, but needs to "go lie down" after even 15-20 minutes of that. He knows very well that he needs to eat, but won't do it. Yesterday, he told me -- and I quote -- "I need to start eating more, or it's all over." I said, "Ya, I think that's pretty much the story." I brought him a vat of pasta and sauce that my wife (a terrific cook) made, in hopes that some hi-carb nutrition might help get some weight back on him -- but he wouldn't eat much of that.

A few days ago, Dad's cardiologist sent him to the hospital for a couple of days to be looked at and tested in various ways. They found nothing wrong and concluded that he just needs to eat. He says, "I go there and have all these tests, and they just tell me what I already know!"

Okay, fine. But what's really going on here, in my estimation, is that my Dad is playing one last game of chicken, with me and my sister. His goal has been to stay in the 1964 house until he dies -- he says so and flatly refuses to consider any alternative, such as assisted living, etc. He just will not budge. Beyond that, though, he is still trying to engineer his Traditional Greek Extended Family™ ending: me and sis move back to the house. We do not want to do that, because the same alkie-parent-dysfunctional-control issues that have always been there are still there. If I moved back, it would cost me my marriage and my sanity, in that order -- and I will not sacrifice those two hard-earned parts of my life on the altar of filial piety.

As I see it, my Dad is telling us, "OK, you two ingrates -- either you move back here and take care of me (read: go back to being my indentured servants again), or I'm just going to up and die on you, and you'll look like the heartless spoiled brats you've always been!" He has made a conscious decision to die, and nothing we're going to do is going to stop him.

Do you see what I'm getting at here? My Dad has always been a control freak -- my sister moved out when she was still in high school, as soon as she could get a part-time job and rent a room somewhere, because she was sick of his constant monitoring of her every move, especially when it came to boyfriends and so on. For my part, I pretty much just kept my mouth shut and put up with his petty despotism -- but eventually carved out a life of my own and moved out of state.

My Dad has plenty of money -- it's not as if he's out of options other than for me and sis to move back in. He simply refuses to budge in any way, shape, or form. It's a game of chicken -- he won't move, and now, he won't eat. You could say he's clinically depressed, and to that end, he has seen my mom's psychiatrist, who started him on Prozac a week or two ago. Fine -- that may help. But I think it's not that he's depressed -- it's that he has deliberately decided on this course of action -- before he checks out, he's making one last show of force, to control, manipulate, and otherwise shame his children into doing what he wants them to do.

He has no right to do that, but that's what he's doing. If it makes me look like a heartless ingrate, so be it -- but I AM NOT MOVING BACK INTO THAT HOUSE, PERIOD. I don't care what people think -- that's their problem.

But this does not make me happy at all. Please do not offer advice -- that's not what I'm looking for, and the program is not about giving advice. It's hard finding anyone to talk to about this stuff, though. Thanks for listening!

T

dothi

He sounds very desperate to me. Alcoholics like that have a very hard time being alone. They need their emotional hostages. I can imagine George does what he can to avoid the verbal abuse, leaving your dad looking for someone else to dump on.

Hold strong, tromboneliness. You're doing all the right things.

nelco

Thanks for sharing that. I have family issues and often just want to talk about them to someone who will listen. I understand the sickness in my family and even more so since I got sober and in recovery myself. I know I cannot change the situation, I can only change me but sometimes I just struggle with acceptance around it. It hurts and I just need to talk about it from time to time.

GiveLove

Sometimes their choices are very difficult to stomach. But this is his choice, his life. I'm sad that it's affecting you in this way, but I'm glad we can serve as a sounding board for working through what must be some pretty wild feelings.

takincareome

Yes, I have to echo what everyone else has said. Watching someone make these kinds of choices is never easy. I deal with it daily myself with my mother. But you've drawn your line in the sand, and you have very valid reasons. You're doing all the right things. Be true to yourself and no one else. Sending big hugs to you.

tromboneliness

Thanks. Ya, George does get "yelled at" some by my Dad -- who is, nonetheless, terrified at the prospect that George might leave (which I'm sure he won't). So Dad resists any attempts at "meddling," i.e., any change in anything whatsoever that might alter the day-to-day status quo. Because any change in the day-to-day status quo might (in his mind) mean attempts to get him to leave the house and go to assisted living or something. Horrors! Three square meals a day, and no need to cook, clean, or do anything other than get up, go down the hall, and hang with your friends all day! Try and tell him that, though.

For awhile, another one of my cousins -- in her 20s -- was also living with my Dad -- like George, she needed the free housing. But he was a control freak with her, too, always monitoring her comings and goings the same way he did with my sister when she was a teenager. He constantly talked about her, why she was "always running off for hours at a time," how she supposedly was sneaking off to see her "married boyfriend" (which may conceivably have been true -- my young cousin has her own share of personal issues; her sister committed suicide last year, which is another long story), as if that were any of his business, and so on. She finally got fed up and moved out -- partially because my Dad's sister (her grandmother) needed a caretaker, a role she has taken on.

My Dad keeps the cordless phone right next to his bed at all times, and the second it rings, he answers it. This is to prevent George from answering the phone, because that might lead to... I dunno, George actually having an unmonitored conversation with someone... which might lead to a change in the day-to-day status quo... and on it goes. For now, at least.

Frankly, if my Dad just keeps dwindling and quietly expires (as seems likely if he continues refusing to eat much), that might be the best for all of us, including him -- I certainly wouldn't want him to go through an ordeal of hospitalization, gadgets and feeding tubes, the way my mother had last year. I'm not sure if I can take another episode like that.

Stay tuned!

T

dothi

Wow, that reminds me a lot of my AF. He built our house with NO privacy - no doors on the bedrooms, no insulation in the walls, nothing. The only phone was right in the kitchen/living room area, and he often "napped" in the living room. I truly believe that being deprived of privacy is maddening - that it's an underplayed human need. Not having it will make you sick, especially if compounded by an environment where you already cannot express yourself.

Of course ask my AF about this, and he sees nothing wrong with it. He also sees nothing wrong with walking into his teenage daughters bedrooms unannounced (how can he knock if there's no door - how helpless of him). If we yell at him, we're just being b*tchy teenagers. He makes no connection whatsoever with this sick, sick behavior and the fact that my sister and I never visit home anymore.

I am waiting like you are, tromboneliness. I have no intention of going home before AF passes away. His body can't take the binge drinking anymore (he's sick for days afterwards) and he still smokes like a chimney after having a lung tumour removed a couple years ago (put there by the gov't, if you ask him).

Sorry, not trying to highjack your thread here. Just relating to the content.

Iwanttoheal

Tromboneliness, I read your post with tears in my eyes. You are a Greek family living in suburban America. I am part of a Scottish family living on a tiny offshore island in the UK. Yet our stories are the same. I understand your sadness. I admire your courage. I relate to your being manipulated into a position of being the heartless ingrate that you've always been. Keep strong and keep looking after yourself.

IWTH xxx

tromboneliness

Highjack away -- we're just sharing stuff!

The no-privacy thing does not surprise me. I remember reading an article, some years ago, about a couple who designed their "dream house," one feature of which was that... it had no interior doors. They moved in, and after living there for awhile, started to find that they were increasingly tense, and eventually were at each other's throats constantly. After some analysis, they figured out that the problem was -- NO DOORS! If I remember the story correctly, they installed doors and lived happily ever after, or at least that fixed most of the problem.

As I say, it does not make me happy at all, to have to run out the clock on my Dad like this. He has a lot of good qualities that I'm not mentioning here, and I will miss him when he's gone. But that does not change the fact that at the end of the day, he's... well, a raging, alcoholic control freak, as I say. And that quality is dominating all others, as we near the end. It's too bad, but that's what we're dealing with.

T

lostbutterfly

That could have been my step dad I was reading about. I moved right across the world to get away from him, but unfortunately, my mother is still under his control. She has to have his permission to spend her own money that she earns herself.

I'm a heartless ingrate too, in England!

Wascally Wabbit

My mom is getting old too. I won't get into my life story, but living with her would be completely out of the question.
Then, I start feeling terrible about how she will be needing old age care.
I can't physically help her, and I could't even stand the non stop complaining.
But I love her.
It's awful.

dothi

Whoo validation!

My sister and I still make the occasional mention of the importance of doors in human privacy. Thanks for that.

Iwanttoheal

It was my dh who taught me the importance of respecting the privacy of our own two children.

Doors were never respected in my family of origin. Without realising it, I perpetuated this behaviour by walking unannounced into my children's bedrooms. When my son was around 13 (when he went to secondary school and started closing his door) my dh started knocking on his door and asking if he could come in or he would knock on the door, open it a fraction and eg tell my son, it was time to leave for school. I can remember standing there in absolute amazement thinking wow, this is wierd but it is SOOOOO the correct thing to do and from that point I changed my own behaviour. A closed door was a boundary to be respected. Everyone needs their space.