He was a complicated person. Alcoholic and unmedicated bipolar, with no wish to recover from his issues, completely self-destructive.
I had traumatizing moments with him, I broke my skull because he wasn’t looking once, he drank himself to near death a number of times, me and my sister found him almost dead a lot of times, skinny as a bone, not eating, with a bunch of wiskey bottles around him.
He tried to strangle my grandfather once. Given my grandfather was abusive when he was a child, that’s no excuse anyway, he was just a mess.
My mom told me a few days ago that when I was five years old I told her I didn’t like him, that he made me feel bad, but he was the only father I had. My mom doesn’t know if he abused me or not. I had false memories of sexual abuse as a child, that everyone classified as false memories, but I don’t know and I have my doubts about that.
He was also a generous person, and a funny person. Had a great sense of humour and a lot of good friends.
I became an alcoholic too, but at least I’m on the recovery path.
Here’s to good fathers!
How about your father, what do you have to say about him?
Abusive mouthy and a fool. He treats my kids good and he knows to keep his bull in check around me and my little ones i might have forgivin him but i would break him in half if he even attempted the crap he did to me to my children. But hes getting old and calmed down hes mostly just mouthy.
It’s a good sign, I think, that you can point out his merits despite all the bad experiences you’ve had with him. Don’t feel bad about saying that when you were 5, my 7 year old sister tells me like every other day she never wants to talk to me again because of some minor argument (like I don’t like some song she likes) then 5 minutes later she totally forgets and is happy again. Little kids react way too much on any emotions they have, unlike us as adults since our brains have matured way more.
As for my dad, I never met him before he died, so I actually don’t have any feelings toward him as a person. I do towards the concept of him, but when I talk to my stepdad or see someone else with their dad, for example, I never think of him. I don’t even understand the people who feel sad over things like people they only knew as a statistic in a death count. I just don’t get it, the concept flies over my head totally.
I have a step dad and biological dad. Both are fantastic people in my lives, but i’ll talk about my step dad. So my parents got divorced around my second birthday and a few short months later my mom met my step dad. My first memory is actually the first time I met him. I was asleep and peed in my pull up so I ran out to ask my mom to change it, which is when I saw my future father. I got scared and turned around and ran away back to my room. My step dad is fantastic though, has always been there to support me and help me out. He’s kind, caring, and extremely generous. Even though I’m not ‘his’ kid he is my dad and I’m his son. The reason I talk about my step dad as opposed to my biological is when I was 6 we moved to Texas away from my bio dad so my step dad was my main influence of who to be like. They’re both great though, just real great people to know.
my father went undiagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. I remember his drinking a lot he still does but just beer. I remember the cheating and abuse towards my mom.
my father in law is just an ass, he took my phone and I ordered a new safelink phone and i’m pretty sure they will hide it from me. I guess he told my partner I better get better soon i’m slacking on my chores.
my bio dad ditched my mom before I was born, wanted nothing to do with me until he found out I was a college grad, then I was diagnosed and he ditched me again. then he got cancer, died, and left me a farmhouse on 50 acres. Of course my half siblings by him got to split three other houses and a camp between them…one of those houses was a 500K property in NY state, the other was farm on 500 acres in montana, and the third was somewhere in Alaska on something like 60 acres… The camp is in my state, but is a fully furnished 4 season cabin in a high class area. Also the estate included three insurance policies for a total of 1.2M and I got none of that… Tho my half sister who is a year older than me paid for the repairs on the farmhouse that was left to me, because she felt bad after coming to visit it with me. She had thought it was more intact. The new heating system will be in Monday, then installed on Wednesday!
My step dad was more supportive of me when I was a little kid and a teen. After my diagnosis he got a little ‘edgy’ around me. Now hes a total jerk who thinks I shouldn’t be allowed t be in public places without an armed guard to keep me from hurting people or something…
In the last month my relationship with my family in general has gone down hill big time. But trust me, it hurts a hell of a lot more to have a dad who loved you suddenly becomes a monster than it does for a guy who never really cared to leave you high and dry…since I have experienced both I know this.
I’ve heard more than one guy say, “I swore I’d never be like my dad, and I turned out just like him.” I’m not too worried about that, though. I’m not going to have children.
Woo you scared me for a minute, I had to check if it was Father’s Day here! That would have been awful timing considering my dad threw a nasty fit last night and everyone’s been avoiding him like the plague today.
My dad is complicated like yours though thankfully he hasn’t really harmed anyone physically so far and is not an addict. Similarly to yours I believe he also has an undiagnosed mental disorder, either depression or anxiety, which leaks out as extreme rage. It’s been bad ever since we were kids, our mom always got the worst of it. We spent many nights as children listening to him curse her out until she ran off crying. We hated him. He gets “set off” by completely random things and an extreme number of things and also has issues w control and needs things to be certain ways or he gets upset.
Anyways last night my brother’s girlfriend stayed over 10 minutes later than he wanted (never told him any curfew or that he wanted her gone by a specific time) and my brother decided to make ramen and save it in the fridge for later instead of eating it in front of him awkwardly. So he lunged at my brother and my mom was afraid he would hurt him so he turned on her instead, anyways my 12 year old brother witnessed the whole thing, apparently she had to threaten to call the police, he broke things, cursed everyone out, insulted our mom until she cried, physically held her mouth shut to stop her talking and was completely irrational. Ever since he lost his job he’s been worse then ever, according to my brothers.
I just feel awful. We had to have sibling conference last night because my brothers were so shaken. Apparently my mom has had to stay at a hotel at least once this year and my parents barely sleep together anymore. Both parents are in denial of the seriousness of the situation and how badly it effects the kids. I’m talking w my therapist next week about what the plan of action should be. He is anti-mental health field and getting him to agree to therapy would be quite a challenge especially when he doesn’t acknowledge he has problems. Underneath his problems, when he’s not being controlled by neurosis, he’s actually a good guy who really loves his family.
I realize what exactly the paradox is I received from my Dad is. We want to fix things and receive no criticism for it, even though we like to give some ourselves. Perhaps the first step is validating myself and then the critic and their critique. And then finally using it to make my “fixes” better.
My father is an interesting man. He is the kind of person you could shoot ten times but not kill. He would still go to work the next morning.
A few years ago, his body began destroying his eyes bringing him much pain; he gets weekly injections in his eye that slow the process. Sadly, he is already half blind. However, he still works everyday at a hellish job that requires over 12 hours a day with 6 of those hours being between 11PM- 5 AM.
He doesn’t talk much, but is a brilliant man. He is a self-made man who thrives on artifacts and mathematics. He collects things. So much that in our old house, no one could get into the door. He is a bit scared of me some days and other days misses me. He is a good man. He is a fighter. He does this to put me through college I suspect. I could not be more grateful.
It isn’t all bad!