I had the opportunity to have a talk with my mother while we ran errands this morning. I usually don’t spend much time with her lately because of busy schedules. I was talking to her about how upset I was at the various things my dad has done in the past, and talking about it got me kind of stirred up.
My dad used to work as a home-health care nurse. He worked with patients who were often termanally ill, oftentimes deciding to spend their last days at home with family. He would administer morphine for them. When they pass on he is supposed to return the leftover morphene to the pharmacy or wherever, but instead of that he took it himself to support his morphine addiction. Since the morphene was unaccounted for, the families would not get reimbursed for the unsused portions, he was basically stealing from them. This happened a few years ago, and because he was totally cooperative and went to rehab to get over the addiction, he didn’t have to pay any fines or serve any jail time. The whole concept of him doing this disgusts me so much. Him and the rest of his family including my brother act like it never happened.
When I was younger my dad very heavily stressed 2 important principles- don’t lie and don’t steal. He was so strongly impressing these principles on me that I had always thought he must have been a bastion of honesty and integrity, but its just devastating to discover that he was a huge hypocrite who lied to my mother through half of their marraige about infidelity and drug addiction. When I found out his misdeeds, I spoke out to him in an extremely concerned and upset manner, and he tried justifying every single damning misdeed I brought up. Nowadays, its like I’m invisible to him, he doesn’t have any interest in helping my mother support me through school, doesn’t come down to visit (my parents separated about 6 years ago and my dad lives 250 miles away). He drifted away, and the less I’m around him the less I even identify him as my own father. He left my family broken and in shambles and went off to start his own little happy family blithely ignorant of all the suffering we’ve endured the past 6 years.
Sorry bout the rant, its just been piling up for a while. To talk to my brother and listen to my brother try to defend him simply infuriates me. There’s no escaping what he did, pretending it never happened won’t make my anger subside :mad:
Regardless of his past misdeeds if his interactions with you are going to be filled with your shaming anger, despite of how justified you may feel it is, it is unliklely he is going to want to have much to do with you.
You need get beyond that and develop a somewhat larger overview and see your father as a weak and falliable human being in addition to being a schmuck. If you can’t get past your anger and connect with him as a person, not a demon, it’s unlikely his attitude toward the situation or being emotionally invested in a relationship with you (and helping you) will change. People are often damaged goods. At some point you have to stop being angry and make the best of what you’ve got.
Your dad may very well have believed and lived by the virtues he instilled in you…until he became an addict. Addiction does strange things to people.
You sound pretty young. Sometimes it takes a while to see that parents aren’t the superheros we want them to be. Maybe you could try writing him a letter and get a dialogue going that way.
That sucks. Try to let go of the anger because it does you no good. At least you learned to be honest from him even if he was a hypocrite. You may want to consider Al-Anon to help you get over the hurt and anger.
This is something that should be stressed. Addiction will take over your life until the only thing that matters is your drug. Family, principles, integrity…it all becomes second place.
hajaro had an excellent suggestion…attending Al-Anon or an equivalent organization may help you understand your father’s behavior.
Its hard for me to give up feeling angry about it. I know its kind of silly for me to carry a grudge for so long, but I’ve felt that if I try and get over it I’m somehow tolerating his behavior. He never acknoleged that he made mistakes, never admitted or confessed that he did anything wrong or illegal.
He went through rehab because he was more or less forced to if he didn’t want to go to jail or ever have any chance of having custody of my younger brother. I’m angry because I feel all the changes are superficial.
A lot of combat veterans got addicted to morphine. It’s scary stuff.
The fact is that it really doesn’t matter who you are, how good and honest you are. The morphine will make you do things you never dreamed in order to get it. I’m pretty big on personal responsibility, but your father went through something with this addiction that had nothing to do with his character. It was the morphine, not your father.
And, he didn’t get away with it. Breaking the addiction is supposedly one of the most excruciating experiences a human can go through.
Right, wrong or indifferent your Dad screwed up. But it still seems to me by reading your testimony of high integrity and moral fiber that whatever you think of your Dad has little to do with the good job he apparently has done in lieu of his own personal shortcomings.
More often than not the performer does more justice to the music than the composer.
Incubus, I can understand the anger. But it is hurting you more than anyone else.
If he cared enough about your character to tell you not to lie and steal, then surely inside he must be ashamed of his own behavior. Sometimes people don’t talk about their shame.
It is tough learning that I parents are just like everyone else. They screw up.
Find some healthy outlets for your anger – sports or anything that requires physical exertion.
He is the only father that you will ever have. If you help him to heal, you will be helping yourself more than you would ever believe.
Your feelings aren’t “wrong.” You feel what you feel. But do you really want to rent space in your head to so much anger?
My father was the kindest and most generous person that I have ever known. Other people who knew him would say that too. On the morning that he died in a nursing home, someone stole from him. If I can forgive the man that stole, can you?
Just because you let go of the anger does not mean that you have to stop believing that what he did was wrong. You don’t have to justify his actions to forgive him. Just accept that he did things that were wrong – and still is by not being a part of your life – but you forgive him and move on. This is totally for YOU so that you don’t have to live with anger anymore. Otherwise it will eat you up inside. Why should you suffer?
Incubus, considering how strongly you say your father stressed honorable behavior when raising you, I wonder if you have considered how he may feel about himself now, after betraying his own principals. Someone else has already mentioned that your own anger and disappointment may be driving him away from you; to this I would like to add that possibly he is so ashamed of himself that he cannot stand to face your disapproval.
I’m pretty sure I understand how you feel; it’s very hard to accept that our parents aren’t the perfect god-like creatures we believed them to be when we were youngsters, especially when they do something so contrary to the character of the person we believed them to be. It feels like a betrayal, and creates doubt in our minds about every single thing they have taught us - including the fact that they love us.
It would be better for both of you if you could simply accept that your father is a flawed human being (as are we all) who made a terrible mistake, and forgive him. You may do some things later in your life that you aren’t terribly proud of, and it would be nice to think that your father would understand that you made a mistake and still continue to love you, wouldn’t it?
I’m not saying that your feelings aren’t justified - of course you are angry and disappointed, and rightly so. I’m just saying that both your life and his would be much better if you could heal this wound.
Have you considered trying to get some counseling to help you cope with this situation? I don’t know where you live or what your exact situation is, but some sort of low-cost or free counseling should be available to you. Many colleges and universities provide such counseling - or therapy, if you prefer that term - to their students at no charge. In Alabama there are state-sponsored ‘mental health centers’ in each county that provide counseling/therapy and charge on a sliding scale that is based on your income; you might check and see if there is something similar available in your location. Also, many private-practice therapists will use a similar sliding scale rate so that lower-income folks (such as students) can take advantage of their services. This needn’t be some long, drawn-out affair - it may only take a very few visits for you to resolve this with yourself, and you’ll be able to focus on your present and future with a clear mind.
(FWIW, I’ve been in therapy for a couple of months now, and I’m enjoying the hell out of it. YMMV.)
Tons of excellent advice in this thread already, but I thought I’d add my bit, too.
