And we’re back. Let’s talk current family situation and what I want to do about it. In the last post, I talked about the history of my family dysfunction. That was not the point of my post, but it’s what was apparently on my mind.
My father has dementia. He’s had it for roughly twenty years. He’s nearly 85 now, so it was early-onset back then, but it’s just dementia now. Since I only see him once a year or so, it’s easy to see the decline from year to year. In addition, they could not come the summer of 2020 or 2021 for obvious reasons, so when they came in the autumn/winter of 2021, the decline was stark.
To be clear,he still had most of his faculties most of the time. By the way, I always mix up faculties and facilities. Every time. But, even when he was in his right mind, he was still…just a bit…off. It’s like a Vaseline smear on a lens. Not all his synapses were firing, and you could not assume he knew what you were saying/doing.
Here’s the thing, though. He was still himself, even when he was deep in his dementia. That made it difficult to tell when he was being a jerk because of his dementia and when he was being a jerk because, well, he’s a jerk.
I know you’re not supposed to say that about someone with dementia, but it’s true. My father has always been a self-absorbed, bitter, calculating man who cared not a whit about anyone else around him. Or rather, he only cared about other people as it pertained to himself.
Related: it’s really difficult to be honest with people about my parents. The Great American Myth is that families are everything and that parents will do anything for their children. Well, that’s what people give lip service to, but don’t actually support. Still, the belief that parents LOVE THEIR CHILDREN AND WILL DO ANYTHING FOR THEM runs deeeeeeeep.
It’s not true, by the way. I mean, most parents love their children, I presume, as best theey can. Most parents will do what they can for their children. But to say that every parent loves their kid more than anything in the world? Nah, I don’t believe that. In fact, in the United States, roughly 600,000 cases of child abuse were reported in 2021 (I’m sure that’s vastly underreported), and that was the lowest number of reported cases in five years (prior). This was according to the Children’s Bureau at the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Administration for Children and Families (ACF), which is a governmental agency.
It’s similar to how when I used to say I did not want children in part because I was afraid I wouldn’t love them, people would reply that it was different when it was your own children. Meaning, of course I would love my own children. I never said anything, but in my mind, I was thinking, “That is clearly bullshit as there are millions of abused children in the world.”
I wished I had known that it was possible for parents not to love their children earlier in my life. It would have made so many things easier to take. Because I bought the myth that every parent loved their children with all their heart, I accepted that many things wrong with my relationship with my parents was my fault.
I keep talking about my relationship with my parents as if it were singular beacuse it really was. Or rather, I had a relationship with my mother (in a way), but my relationship with my father filtered through my mother. I have often wondered if my mother had stepped back from my relationship with my father if it (said relationship) would have been better. Probably not, but it could not possibly have been worse.
My mother triangulated. Whether she did it on purpose or not, I don’t know, but the end result was the same. I think it was because of her rampant anxiety and her pathological need to make sure my father never felt an iota of discomfort, but that’s just me.
Speaking of the latter, that’s something that is rearing its ugly head now. I’ve always thought (and have told her) that she should not cater to his every whim because it only reinforced his selfishness. I don’t know if he could have grown because he was never given the chance. My mother treated him like a toddller, really, anticiptaing his every need, even when he didn’t have one.
Now, it has come back to bite her in the butt. My father won’t leave her alone and can’t stand to be out of her sight. If her attention is off him for even a second, he throws a tantrum. Yes, he has dementia, but I think at least some of it is him sliding further into the behavior she encouraged in the past. She still can’t stop herself from catering to him, though, and I still think it’s not the best thing to do. I’m not as militant about it now, though, everything goes out the window now that my father is deep in dementia.
After my medical crisis, I fully accepted that my parents did not love me as a person and that my mother had me pretty far down her list of important people. She has said that my brother and I are the most important people in her heart, but she certainly doesn’t act like it. I acutally called her on it once because it was empty words. I said by her actions, my father was first (and only, really), and she was silent for several seconds before saying, “Well, you two are number one in my heart.”
That was her silent concession that I was right, but there was no way in hell she could admit it out loud or even to herself, really.
After my parents went back to Taiwan, things held for a year or so. Then, my father got rapidly worse. And he’s steadily declining. I saw them on Zoom a few weeks ago, and I was shocked at how different my father looked. I could barely recognize him, and I had seen him about a half year ago (again, on Zoom. Or a video? Something like that). My mother looks like my mothers–just older.
My father is obsessed with his age and he asked if I would recognize him on the street. I would, but just barely. I told him of course I would because I have no problem lying about things like that. Especially sa it didn’t really make a difference in this case. There was no gain to telling him the truth, and why not soothe his battered ego?
That’s it for now. More tomorrow.