I am in severe distress over the state of affairs with my 60yr old father. He has been suffering from chronic affective schizoid disorder all my life. My brother, sister and I experienced constant instability, shame and confusion as a result of his illness and its repercussions. We moved constantly and luckily had a very strong mother who desperately supported us all emotionally and financially. During more lucid periods my father showed great love and kindness and what he could not give emotionally he gave with presents and money that I know we never had. Because I knew that this illness was destroying his life and relationships I sympathized with him, and developed an overly sensitive caretaker role with him, feeling somehow that if i loved him enough, or tried hard enough, he would get better. My sister became quite angry and has an extremely volitale attitude towards him, feeling her life has been robbed of normality.

My parents divorced when I was 19 and while I was happy for my mother's chance at life I was angry that this person was being abandoned. Luckily his parents accepted him and he continued to live there for the next 13 years, with almost no relapses. After a few years we were all able to move away and begin to build our own lives without the burden of our difficult childhoods weighing us down. Though I have experienced a lifelong severe depression and repeated suicide attempts I was able to survive. I moved to another city, stopped my destructive behavior of 10yrs and achieved my lifelong dream of becoming a fashion designer. 5 yrs later my father started to have more relapses closer and closer together. There was only his brother and elderly parents to care for him but eventually the time came when they could no longer emotionally sustain it. This spring's relapse rendered him homeless and I flew back to see what could be done for his situation. After 2 weeks of the same pleading to keep him hospitalized for treatment, hours of phone calls to social workers, doctors, NAMI, and nursing care providers I came to the realization that there is very little hope. Because of his diagnosis and age (60) he is not eligable for normal nursing homes or assisted living. He is not dangerous or abusive, but his illness could create dangerous situations (smoking in the house, driving, etc) He is more careless than crazy and its strangely comforting to think of him as senile rather than mental.

After visititing only 2 mental health facilities I would almost rather he be homeless than in such unliveable conditions. He is a highly decorated war veteran,extremely intelligent with an MBA and West Point degree, and is "with it" enough to NOT stay in such a place anyway. Because of his disability he also receives financial aid and makes enough to live alone. He is religious and donates almost half his income to charities for the poor and hungry.

Which brings me to now. He has acquired an apartment and is living alone for the 2nd time in 30 years. He had tried to live alone a couple of yrs prior through the VA but was evicted after only 2 months. My sister encouraged him to move to the west coast to be closer to all of the kids, but now that he is here and we have all seen him, we are terrified of being sucked back in and have limited contact with him. We are overwhelmed with the prospect of his care. We all know he is not well but are so exhausted and don't know what to do anymore. I feel like I have to let go but feel tremendous pain and agony over the prospect of abandoning him. This experience has colored all of my relationships and because of my dad's experience I feel that I must constantly prepare for a life of isolation and alienation. I feel that there is no love in this world, no hope, and no help. I fear that he is vulnerable not only in simple ways, like not being able to care for himself, but to predators who would likely take advantage of him.

I know that this will end tragically. It has been tragic all along. I am tired of hearing that i must toughen up and think of myself when I have watched this person's life slowly become destroyed. I am tired of hearing that I should open up to others when i have continued to feel the misunderstanding and abandonment of people that I love.

Please let me know how to get through this so that I can concentrate on my life again. Please tell me that this will not continue to destroy my ability to enjoy life.

Dear M,

I happened to read the story of your life and your father, and noticed there were no responses although you wrote some weeks back. Unfortunately I have no words of advice or quick solutions, but my heart went out to you upon reading your story and I just wanted to tell you so. I will pray for both you and your father. I am the adult child of two alcoholics, a different story, but have suffered, and I recognize your suffering, understand the yearning to just have normalcy, hear your love for your father and can understand the wordless cry that it is not fair that you are spending your whole life affected by this. Yet you are. May God strengthen you and give you peace, help you focus so you can live in the moment and not be robbed of that, too,
give you the gift of detachment so that you can deal without being sucked in.

Cyberhugs to you and your dad.

B.

Wow, This read like something I could have wrote about my life. You see my mother was manic/bi-poler/schizophrenic. She sadly lost the battle with her disease last fall and I know how hard it is to balance it all but, you have to find your Owen balance no one can find it for you or tell you what is right. This is someone you have already raised once after that you have to do whats right for yourself first and then what you can for them after that. Just like a parent who has raised a child. As kids we raised our parent and now their is only so much we can do for them. We have to live our owen lives first and help and include them in the areas and time we feel safe and comfortable with. I know you feel responsible for him in many ways but, you cannot let that run your life and bring you down.
I learned this the hard way and I hope you can do it as well it is often like walking on a high wirer but, in the end it is something you have to do after they are long gone we have have to have our owen lives left and the one hope I have from everything that I went through and my mothers death at only 56 is that it might help someone else. I hope that you and your other siblings our close and remain that way because no one else in this world can understand it the way you all can but, keep in mind you should never cross what each other chooses to do or not do for your father into your relationship with each other. Each of you has to chose the path that is right for yourselves and it may not be the same but, if it is the right one for you it really cannot be wrong.
I hope this may in some way help you and not just come off as rambling .
Good luck and may god bless you all.
T

i wish i could say something positive, but i'm at about the same place as you, and i don't see a lot to be positive about. even if i could get my dad some help (getting past the resistance of my mom, his minimizing, the entropy, the self medication, the stigma)--i wonder if that would be more cruel than letting the present course play out. how much anguish would it cause if my dad *did* manage to get help--and see what a waste his life has been because he lived in torment unnecessarily, how imaginary the impediments were, how happy he might have been if he had just gotten help. i think feeling better would make him even more bitter for what he has lost or never had.

my mom is still there micromanaging, obfuscating and caretaking. her health is poor and she's emotionally brittle after so many years of anger and conflict. i have no idea what she will do when he dies. i wish i could just detach and live my life, but i seem hopelessly stuck--trying to do all in my power to help, but knowing it isn't up to me.

i have long felt that my life will only really begin when they both have died. i feel cheated that i have never had the support of a normal family. it will always be painful, and i don't know if i will ever be rid of this issue. for many years i have outpaced it, lived my own life, but now with his decline, i am sucked back in because my mother is not capable of dealing with the medical aspects of his health. she's in denial about the seriousness of his physical condition and totally rejects the obvious mental issues. she thinks he chooses to be the way he is. she refuses to deal with the mental illness issue head on because she fears my father's wrath for "exposing" him, and she fears his medical doctors "won't doctor him anymore" if they knew the truth about him. when i suggest speaking to the doctors about his emergent need for psychiatric help, she gets very upset, not knowing what the outcome would be--and complaining she will have to live with the consequences if i "out" him. she thinks honesty and a request for help will make things worse. she has to live with him, and so i give advice but do not intervene. and i wait for the day that i get the call that he's killed himself. i expect that he will o.d. and my mom will probably try to cover it up. he's already intentionally over medicated--my mother refuses to believe that it was a "suicidal gesture". she minimizes what he does more and more each passing day, while bitterly complaining about his fresh attacks and emotional cruelty. he is in excruciating emotional pain, lashes out indiscriminately and will be that way til the day he dies. i feel guilt beyond reason. survivor's guilt and he's not even dead yet.

anyway. i don't have much encouragement, but you are not alone. i wish you all the best and hope we both have the compassion we need to survive and thrive.

this too shall pass.