Was your alcoholic parents ever diagnosed with anything?

Old 06-13-2010, 06:50 AM
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Was your alcoholic parents ever diagnosed with anything?

My father was apparently told that he has "depression" although I don't believe that he is or ever was depressed. I have never seen him exhibit any signs of depression other than just generalized rage. He was also diagnosed with AADD which I think if much more plausible. He claims OCD, but I think that is just a smoke screen to try to justify being a control freak and a jerk.

I believe that he has a personality disorder, either explosive personality disorder or Anti-social, and that the doctors told him that he is depressed as a way to get him to take his pills.

It makes me mad in a way that this "diagnosis" of depression just gives him one more way to minimize and distort things. He is able to dismiss years and years of profound, frightening, and dangerous mental illness with a harmless euphemism. Makes him sound almost like someone that we should all feel sorry for rather than the bizarre and violent lunatic that he actually was all those years. Instead he is just depressed, like all he needs is a hug or something.
cobra8 is offline  
Old 06-13-2010, 02:25 PM
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Hi Cobra,
It's so typical of an alco, to bring it all back to themselves. When I was 20 I finally plucked up the courage to tell my father what a violent brute he was to me when I was younger and when he was drunk and he just turned the whole thing round telling me what a tough time of it he had, and that he was often depressed and suicidal. He said he went to the bridge a few times to throw himself off and then lost the courage..........typical coward that he was. he still never acknowledged what he did or apologised for it...........and that was that!!
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Old 06-16-2010, 03:05 PM
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Have you discussed this in anyway with him? Is that an option for you that you could have a discussion about how you feel?

Does he now how you feel?

IMO it does sound 'all about him' - maybe you need to try and make him understand the world does not revolve around him, that fine he suffers from mental health issues but he put a lot of issues on you too.
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Old 06-17-2010, 05:34 AM
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My parents never sought medical treatment for what was obviously depression. They are of the generation that viewed depression as a weakness of some sort...character flaw or cowardice...who knows? Even today mental disorders carry the same stigma. Society has recognized the need to treat depression but still nobody wants to be open about it. Say like high blood pressure or diabetes. People with these conditions will discuss it without shame and embarrassment but depression?...no, still in the closet. So, my dad spent most of his life self medicating with alcohol and my mother as co-alcoholic enabler. She didn't drink but still had ACOA from her childhood that carried into her adult life.
Now, I am certainly not saying that if both parents were medically diagnosed with depression when I was a child things would have gotten better. My parents were masters at denial and they would most likely would have ignored any medical opinion.
Later in life my dad, after over twenty years of not drinking (different than sobriety) relapsed and really went off the deep end. He eventually accepted the fact he had depression and drank alcoholically. This was a big step for this man. Today he is doing ok and that is good for him. Mom on the other hand has been a tough nut to crack and honestly, I have let go of trying to fix her which I have always done in the past. Feels good knowing I can let go and live my own life. I recognize guilt for what it is, a useless tool of shame. I know I am good man that has survived a tremendous amount of chaos. It is important for me to pull away from toxic situations and focus on my own life.
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