I got a notification from WordPress that it was my seven year anniversary of when I began this blog. I decided to go back to my very first post, which was on January 17, 2013.
I am not really sure where to begin, so I will just start writing and see where it takes me…
I am in my 30s and have read pretty much everything ever published about being the child of an alcoholic. I know all about the roles (I am a hero), the shame, the dysfunction, the warnings…
Well, not much, yet EVERYTHING has changed…I am now in my 40s, my dad is still a drunk and I can now add a very long, very dysfunctional relationship with an alcoholic to my resume. I became the dreaded cliche- the daughter of an alcoholic who ends up dating an alcoholic. The only silver lining to that was that I did not marry him.
My father has been in the hospital or a rehabilitation/nursing home since Christmas Eve. He suffered through a coma and once he was well enough to be moved physically, he went through a mental psychosis, caused by withdrawal or the sedatives. He was irate, hateful, violent, and confused. He thought he was at McDonald’s, he flicked off my two year old niece and said “fuck you” to her when she said goodbye to him, he thought another patient was my mother and yelled at her all day for ignoring him, he believed everything was a conspiracy against him, he blamed my mother, sister and me for “doing this to him”, he asked what plane I took to get there when I live ten miles away, he refused to eat..I could go on and on- his behavior was incredibly disturbing and upsetting.
He seems to be doing a little better with his mental facilities, but physically is very weak and will be moving to a rehab center again tonight. So, now we are up to two different hospitals, two different rehabilitation centers, at least a dozen different doctors and more nurses than I can count. It is exhausting.
My therapist AND my sister’s therapist asked why we go visit him so often, especially when he is being so nasty and verbally abusive towards us. I honestly do not have an answer for that. We have tolerated his behavior for so long. I think a lot of it is feeling like we need to be there for my mother, but I cannot and will not ever understand her loyalty or sense of responsibility towards him. It has just been a very stressful beginning to the new year, after what was arguably the worst year of my life.
Speaking of which, my ex (the above mentioned alcoholic and subject of MANY of my blogs) decided this would be the opportune time to try to reinsert himself back into my life. After not hearing from him for months (at my request), he texted me asking about my father. I contemplated for a while how to handle it and then decided maybe he was just being nice. I gave him some details about my dad and nothing about myself. He basically took the opportunity to fill me in on his life (which only made me pity him) and then proceeded to keep texting me until I had to kindly ask him to stop.
SO much has happened during the past seven years- it is impossible to sum up. Yet, that famous quote is eerily accurate: “the more things change, the more they are the same.”
Anxious ACOA 