A few days ago, my father, the king of nightmares, died. I was one of the people who signed the papers to take him off of life support. I made sure that I wasn’t doing it out of vindictiveness or for my wellbeing, but because he wouldn’t have wanted to live like that. The man was manic most of the time. Part of the reason he was in the hospital in the first place was because of his mania, he would have balked at spending the rest of his life in bed.
The rest of his family refuses to believe he had any mental illness. Depression and anxiety are women’s diseases, something shameful for a man to admit. When my mom told my uncle I had bipolar disorder he said, “No, she doesn’t. She’s too smart for that.” As if mental illness is something only stupid people get. Some of the most gifted minds to ever walk the Earth have and had some sort of mental illness. Anyway, my father was clearly manic the last time my boyfriend and I saw him. He was in the hospital for a quadruple bypass, and he wouldn’t stop talking about conspiracy theories and even tried to do one armed push ups on the floor. The psychiatrist he saw diagnosed him with schizophrenia and gave him Seroquel, but his energy level was clearly manic. At the time, I had wondered where I inherited bipolar disorder from, after seeing him, I had no doubt.
The last visit also put things into perspective. I used to worship my father when I was younger, but that soon turned into fear, hatred and finally apathy. I don’t love my father. I haven’t loved him for a long time, but at least instead of someone who consciously abusive, controlling and manipulating… someone almost totally evil, I now understand that he suffered from a mental illness and couldn’t control how it influenced his actions. I know in his normal times he loved me, not so much as a person, but as a possession. Perhaps, if he had taken his medication and received treatment I could have discovered if he was capable of seeing me as an individual and not as an extension of himself.
I read this post and I felt compelled to comment. My mother is Bipolar. She was not diagnosed until I was 11 years old and even then it was a struggle for her to take her medication as she thought self medicating with pain pills and liquor were a better fit. My childhood was a complete nightmare with her as my only parent and the constant manic episodes (she left me in a parking lot once in an effort to get rid of me). She has been on her medication since 2004 and has not had any episodes since then. We have since mended our relationship and I have forgiven her. I wish with everything in my heart that you could have experienced that with your father before he passed.
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