The last phone call with my dad

[Our abuse recovery guide]

Both of my parents died in 2010. Mom went first. Dad was a man-child who was on 44 prescribed pills a day. A hypochondriac along with his extreme narcissism. Sis and I conclude that the pills killed him. He couldn’t manage any part of his life on his own. Nothing. He was the brand of narcissist that was made by being spoiled, not necessarily abused in ways that might be framed. He crumbled when mom died. He couldn’t support my sister and I, but he damn sure needed support. I couldn’t give that to him. I had nothing for him, but Sis stepped in and utilized her wits to get us through. I still feel bad for not being able to help her. I’ve told her and she understands.

After mom died, dad realized that he was alone. He started to reach out. I avoided most of his calls, and he had moved himself and mom 1000 miles away. I basically wrote him off as a POS that didn’t deserve my time.

I called my parents out on what they had done to me in my early twenties. They denied it. I was gaslighted and left the exchange doubting my reality.

Anyway, he would leave voice messages asking how I was doing. He’d tell me that he loved me. /insert barf emoji/. I answered his call one last time. He started to go into how I wasn’t that bad of a kid and that I didn’t deserve everything I got. I stopped him. I knew that he was making it about him. My blood boils just by typing that last sentence. Looking back, I had my dad, a full blown narcissist, in the palm of my hand. A man that abused me in a weakened and vulnerable state.  I almost wish that I would’ve engaged him and called him out just like I did in my twenties. I wonder if his response would’ve been different. If so, it would have been a manipulation.

The last voicemail I got from him was of him sobbing and telling me to please call him because he was so alone. /insert barf emoji/ again.

He ended up in a coma. I made the trip. I wrapped his Rosary around his hand and placed the Crucifex in his palm. After Sis and I agreed to take him off of life support, I drove to the hospital that night with his Walkman and a Buddy Holly cassette. Buddy Holly was his favorite. I didn’t say anything to him, I just put the headphones on him, sat for a while and left. He was dead the next morning.

I’m not sure why I did that. Last minute approval? I guess that I just needed to get that thought out. BTW, I miss the barf emoji.

[JNChell]

Both of my parents died in 2010. Mom went first. Dad was a man-child who was on 44 prescribed pills a day. A hypochondriac along with his extreme narcissism. Sis and I conclude that the pills killed him. He couldn’t manage any part of his life on his own. Nothing. He was the brand of narcissist that was made by being spoiled, not necessarily abused in ways that might be framed. He crumbled when mom died. He couldn’t support my sister and I, but he damn sure needed support. I couldn’t give that to him. I had nothing for him, but Sis stepped in and utilized her wits to get us through. I still feel bad for not being able to help her. I’ve told her and she understands.

After mom died, dad realized that he was alone. He started to reach out. I avoided most of his calls, and he had moved himself and mom 1000 miles away. I basically wrote him off as a POS that didn’t deserve my time.

I called my parents out on what they had done to me in my early twenties. They denied it. I was gaslighted and left the exchange doubting my reality.

Anyway, he would leave voice messages asking how I was doing. He’d tell me that he loved me. /insert barf emoji/. I answered his call one last time. He started to go into how I wasn’t that bad of a kid and that I didn’t deserve everything I got. I stopped him. I knew that he was making it about him. My blood boils just by typing that last sentence. Looking back, I had my dad, a full blown narcissist, in the palm of my hand. A man that abused me in a weakened and vulnerable state.  I almost wish that I would’ve engaged him and called him out just like I did in my twenties. I wonder if his response would’ve been different. If so, it would have been a manipulation.

The last voicemail I got from him was of him sobbing and telling me to please call him because he was so alone. /insert barf emoji/ again.

He ended up in a coma. I made the trip. I wrapped his Rosary around his hand and placed the Crucifex in his palm. After Sis and I agreed to take him off of life support, I drove to the hospital that night with his Walkman and a Buddy Holly cassette. Buddy Holly was his favorite. I didn’t say anything to him, I just put the headphones on him, sat for a while and left. He was dead the next morning.

I’m not sure why I did that. Last minute approval? I guess that I just needed to get that thought out. BTW, I miss the barf emoji.

[Irish1477]

He ended up in a coma. I made the trip. I wrapped his Rosary around his hand and placed the Crucifex in his palm. After Sis and I agreed to take him off of life support, I drove to the hospital that night with his Walkman and a Buddy Holly cassette. Buddy Holly was his favorite. I didn’t say anything to him, I just put the headphones on him, sat for a while and left. He was dead the next morning.

I’m not sure why I did that. Last minute approval? I guess that I just needed to get that thought out. BTW, I miss the barf emoji.

This says so much about who you are as a person. No matter what he had put you through, in his last moments, you did what you could to bring him comfort.

Could it be it was less about approval, and more about you trying to bring him peace for once in his life?  And I understand how even acknowledging that potentially brings out the need for a barf emoji.

[zachira]

I hear your sadness and anger about how painful it was dealing with your dad when he was dying. I can't help but wonder if there was a part of you that was hoping for a different ending, perhaps a chance to tell him how he hurt you and have him listen for once and apologize. I believe we never give up wanting to get the love we deserved from our abusive parent/s, and having a decent goodbye can heal a lot of wounds. We know in our hearts that we will not get the healing goodbye yet I believe there is strength in continuing to want it. To me, it says you still have hope for other loving relationships in your life, and you could never treat anybody including your father as badly as he treated you. You are indeed a loving father to your son, and perhaps being the kind of father you wished you could have had could be the best way to heal your wounds from childhood.

[JNChell]

Irish, I don’t know what it was. On the way to the hospital I had concocted what I was going to say. When I sat down beside him, I couldn’t do it. He was dying, and I couldn’t make that harder for him. Dying is a big event. He was so vulnerable. I’ve never seen a person as helpless as they are while dying.

My dad was made to be the way that he was. I’ll give him that, but that’s all he gets.

[JNChell]

Hi, z. Thank you for joining. Yes, I wanted closure. I’ve never really gotten that from anyone. Not from my parents and not from S4’s mom. There are in betweens, but I don’t know what closure feels like.

perhaps being the kind of father you wished you could have had could be the best way to heal your wounds from childhood.

I think about this a lot. It’s a fine line, though. I have to be careful with that. He will need independence, not enmeshment.
I can’t be the polar opposite of my dad. Actually, I’m nothing like him. He was a coward POS. I had plans to drag him out in the yard and do to him what he did to me. He got too old before I could. I’m sorry if that sounds disturbing, but that’s how I felt for a while.

z, I wanted genuine love from my dad.  For whatever reason, my dad couldn’t deliver it. There were moments when he was playful, but those moments don’t outweigh the chaos.

[zachira]

One of the hardest parts of having a seriously disturbed parent/ partner/sibling is the parent/partner/sibling can do nice things for us at times and appear to love us.The people I know who are emotionally healthy are the same kind caring calm person most of the time especially in the most stressful circumstances. Those who have split personalities can be nice at times, yet we never know when the melt down is coming and in what form the mean disintegrated parts are going to show up. I think we want to believe that the nice side means love and caring for us, and in some cases maybe it does. When the mean behaviors show up, it certainly can feel like the worst betrayal especially when it comes from a parent. Your father may have been trying to show he cared for you and to apologize in some small ways before he died, and yet he could not do it because the negative parts of him outweighed the good by a long shot. My mother seems to be trying to make amends with her children before she passes on, and she is failing miserably at it. It is all so sad and heartbreaking.

[JNChell]

z, thank you. How is your mother trying/failing to make up for the past? Do you think that she is actually recognizing her wrongdoings?

[zachira]

To Answer Your Questions:
I was kicked out of Christmas in 2017 by my siblings for no apparent reason. I always did Christmas for my mom, especially the decorations. I made no effort to come for Christmas 2018, though I did send mom a Christmas decoration which my brother would not give to her ahead of time. Mom told me this was the only Christmas decoration she had. Mom always gave us such a wonderful Christmas and owns some of the most beautiful Christmas decorations I know. I was rightfully advised not to tell mom why I was not coming for Christmas in 2017. It really hurt for me to treat her this way, yet I could not do it without her becoming terribly upset and making life terrible for everybody. Since then, she has tried to send me all kinds of money, thinking she could buy my love. She was really dysregulating a few weeks ago and calling me every day; I found my nervous system was so dysregulated by this that I had to delete her voice mails and not take her calls. She finally started just calling me once every one to two weeks, and her calls have been much more reasonable since then. On one call she asked me to come and take care of her for a week to give my brother some relief and I said I would love to do it, and my brother would not allow that. She said she knew he and I were not getting along and did not press further which is a big step for her. Normally she would have made a big scene and never stopped nagging my brother and I until we made up. I believe she has some capability to act like a normal person; it just takes time and lots of patience, much more than for a normal person.
Recently mom shared that she wants to leave the house to my brother. It makes sense in that I don' t think he has the capacity to find a nice place to live something my BIL and I agree on.
Mom does have limited abilities to see her wrong doings. A lot of it has to do with timing. She has zero insight most of the time, as she is extremely dysregulated and on all kinds of psychiatric medications.
I try to comfort myself by realizing that nobody wants to truly be a bad person and be disliked. It is just that some people are so dysfunctional they have a limited capacity to do the right thing most of the time.
I don't know if answering your questions will provide you with any comfort. Your parents were certainly way more abusive than mine, and you have a lot more to forgive.

[JNChell]

Ok, z. It doesn’t matter how much, or how less we were abused. There’s no barometer for that. What matters is how we feel about the way that we were treated. There are so many variables. It’s how we feel, girl. We’re on the same field here. All of us.

I’m sorry that your family has turned on you. For what it’s worth, I don’t have much family. My sister and I’m slowly talking to my Godmother again. You’re a very intelligent person. That’s easy to see. With that being said, do you want to have relationships with people that hurt you? I’ve read a lot of what you’ve said here on this forum. You deserve more. It’s not just about boundaries and not getting caught up in triangulation. We can talk about that all day long. You’re very astute and pragmatic. I appreciate that in a person.

I’ve seen you hang on to a family dynamic that is hurting you. I’m not judging, I’m only saying what I see. I don’t know how it feels to be struggling with this with a parent that is still alive. I know that it hurts you. Do you plan to ride this out?

[zachira]

Unfortunately, I cannot go NC with my family members for different reasons. Thanks for saying I deserve better. I agree with you. I am starting to feel that I deserve better, and more and more I am surrounding myself with people I can have healthy relationships with. I am also feeling good when I am alone most of the time, and the tapes of being unlovable are rarely playing in my head. Yes, it really hurt to have my siblings turn on me. I did so much work on becoming a happy healthy person in my own right, and my siblings turned on me in the most cruel ways. My therapist told me in the beginning not to run, and she was right. I needed to do my own work to be able to face reality and running away would have been avoiding healing. Now, I am facing the backlash  for no longer being the scapegoat by just mostly being comfortable in my own skin, and not so hurt by how my siblings keep escalating the mean behaviors. For now we are on a honeymoon period which will only last so long before the next cycle of cruelty begins. My plan is to go as LC as possible and NC will never be possible because I would no longer see some of my wonderful relatives. Thank you for your support and care. My heart hurts when I hear how your family and the mother of your son have hurt you. You are on a long journey and things will get better with time if you practice staying present with your feelings and processing them, so you are no longer as overwhelmed by the past or what is going in the present that is just plain unfair and mean.
P.S.
Thank you for referring to me as intelligent. I was appointed to be the scapegoat because I am not brilliant like my siblings. The same thing happened with one of my uncles on my father's side of the family. I now see that I was lucky in many ways not to be worshiped as brilliant as I am able to have true friendships whereas my siblings don't really have any friends because they expect to be idealized for their superior intelligence.

[JNChell]

z, I was also the scapegoat. I’ve often read that the scapegoat is chosen because she/he is strong enough to accept the burden. Or, basically be a whipping post. You and I aren’t unscathed, but we also didn’t cross over into darker territory. A lot of members talk about this. We’re ok, z. We just have some work to do. Our abusers are lost. You’re going to be fine. You are intelligent. Don’t compare yourself to them. You’re a good person. That’s all that matters. It’s truly that simple.

[JNChell]

zachira, I was in a hurry to catch up. I’m sorry.

I am also feeling good when I am alone most of the time,

I think that I am as well. I’m not sure. I don’t like it, but it’s necessary.

the tapes of being unlovable are rarely playing in my head.

Good. You’re gaining ground. You are loveable. You deserve love after all that you’ve been through. Everybody deserves love.

Now, I am facing the backlash  for no longer being the scapegoat by just mostly being comfortable in my own skin,

Give that backlash back to them in the gentle way that is zachira. It’s not your’s to own anymore.

P.S.
Abusers aren’t brilliant people. You are. Keep that in mind.

[JNChell]

z, what is one of your favorite songs?