dBPDf almost died and I didn't feel anything at all.

[NightwingingIt]

I am 20 years old, going to a commuter college and still living at home with three of my sisters, my mom, and my diagnosed BPD dad. I found out about my dad's diagnosis about a year ago, my mom told me. According to her, he accepted his diagnosis at first, but has since decided that he was never actually affected by a PD. If he knew that I knew, he would loose his mind. My childhood was like a lot of y'alls, I'm sure. Walking on eggshells, helping around the house where he refused to, a couple of suicide attempts, screaming matches that lasted for hours, and silent treatments that lasted for days. You never knew what kind of mood he was going to be in when he got home, when the garage door went up, my siblings and I scattered, and if there wasn't stomping and door slamming, you hoped it was safe to leave your room. Sometimes you were right, sometimes you were wrong.
Finding out about his diagnoses was a mixed bag. At first I felt relief. Reading about it almost had me in tears. I had always known something was off, but was never able to put it into words, and then suddenly, there  it was. Feelings I couldn't even identify laid out neatly. It was an explanation for this back and forth, hot and cold. It felt like finding solid ground for the first time in my life. Of course, that feeling didn't last. I started to get angry. I don't hate my dad, and I'm very aware that he's hurting, too. It's just that, the people I love most don't deserve to live with the ticking time bomb that he is. (And I'm working on believing that I don't either, which shouldn't be as hard as it is.)
The thing that's been eating me up, is that last December, just before the holiday's, my dad had a minor heart attack, with a massive block. 99% clog in two arteries. He got stints put in, and he barely had any medical issues from it, before and after. It was a serious issue, even though he got lucky enough to not have a serious heart attack from it. The thing is, when my parents told us, I felt nothing. Complete indifference. We might as well have been talking about the weather. I did what I always did, I played pretend and put enough effort in to escape back to my room. But the longer I've sat with this, the worse I feel about it. What kind of a person does that make me? I didn't care even a little when my own dad almost died. Forget about all of our history, what kind of person doesn't care when another human being dies, yet alone someone who they grew up with?
What's wrong with me? He's been doing better. Progress is painfully slow, but it's still progress, and yet, I can't seem to find it in me to be around him. Where I should have been worried about my dad's health, instead, I found myself imagining his funeral. And I felt more dread for having to sit there and listen to everyone tell me how horrible his death would have been and any speech I may have had to give instead of the idea of my father being dead.
The guilt of that is eating me alive. I can't concentrate, even more than usual, I sit down to study and find myself zoned out, thinking about how awful I am. There were times in my life when I thought he was a monster, but I'm starting to worry that I'm the more monstrous one. I worry that the way he is broke something inside of me when I was young. I mean, it feels like there has to be something wrong because he almost died, and I'm still here selfishly worrying about my reaction to it more than his health, and yet, I still can't find it in me to care about him.
I don't exactly know what I was hoping to accomplish by posting this. But I feel like I just need it to be out there, because I am losing my mind by bottling it all up.
Thanks for letting me vent,
NightwingingIt

[Ziggiddy]

Hi NightwingingIt  and thank you for your post.
Please let me reassure you first that however you're feeling is just how you're feeling - it doesn't make you a terrible person although I can understand your feeling guilty because you have had an unexpected reaction. Please believe me that people have all kinds of varied reactions to sudden health issues or bad news about relatives etc even when those  family members are easy to get along with and within strong loving bonds.
How much harder to navigate your feelings when you have been through shock after shock as you seem to have been.

It must have been nerve racking for you as a child just keeping safe from your father's changeable moods. Then you have had the relieving and yet unnerving discovery that he may have BPD - that in itself takes a lot to assimilate. You have to pretty much recast your whole life and relationships into a new context to make sense to you. it's exhausting and emotionally taxing.  And you are doing this whilst trying to study! I would be overwhelmed in your situation.

You have possibly  encountered emotion overload or what some folk refer to as  compassion fatigue. Right now, you have so much to process that you simply do not have the resources to cope with the extra stress of your dad's heart attack.
Maybe you can just work on accepting that this is how you feel and not criticising yourself for it? hard I know but one step at a time. Your feelings are your feelings; being mad at yourself or disappointed in yourself for  feeling the way you do is understandable, but maybe you can make some room in your heart for that too? try looking at it without judgement? Just like ok this is how I feel and maybe later I'll feel differently?
I hope you can take it a little easier on yourself. You've had enough pain
Ziggiddy

[NightwingingIt]

This is a really sweet response and more than I hoped to get out of this. I hope you're right, and I know I'm very hard on myself, it's one of the many thing I'm trying to work on in therapy.
Thank you!

[Ziggiddy]

I'm glad you are getting professional help. It is a struggle to come to terms with difficult parents and getting support and validation is no end of help. Do come back and tell us how it goes. You never know when your story might help someone else and writing it out can be very helpful.
Best wishes on your healing journey