Moving on with what's left of my life

It seems that last 8 months have gone by so fast, I can't decide if that would be positive or negative. I probably learned a lot of valuable lessons of life but they took so much time and energy for me that I kind  of skipped other things in life that matter just as much.

After couple year of being partly on my own, coming home only and not even for every weekend, I developed a different way of living. Weekends with family were relaxing, spending time with pets, enjoying outdoor activities etc. On the other hand, dad's drinking got bigger and bigger issue and in the middle of schooling, those weekends turned into good and bad ones. I had a life of my own, then by the end of the week I was desperatly hoping for a good weekend in another life, with family. No matter what, the negativity, sarcasm, disgust, fear, hate and lonelyness changed us all, even in good times, we drag them along, preventing ourselves from becoming happy.

Friends told me not to feel so guilty about family's situation, not to blame myself for it. In last couple months I stopped feeling responsible for everything but I know being a part of it for so many years - I now believe it was always existing, alcohol(ism) was always somewhere in our family's subconsious - makes me just as guilty for it as everyone else is. We're human, we make mistakes, but we also make or don't make decisions.

Only recently I decided that I want and can change it, that I can help dad and the family and I can help myself to a better future. The quest changed it's path in the meantime, as others didn't want to move on with me, I kept on going with one purpose only - to change myself. Hopefully, I will succeed and if so, hopefully, my family will start following my steps on their own path.

Things turned out this way that I'm still spending more time at home than in my appartment at the city where I have a job. Dad's doing really good, however I can't agree with him on the way he wants to solve the problem. I hate watching him drink a glass of wine or beer and seeing as mush of shame because we all know, because we all 'monitor' his every sip, as there is the fear of wanting more after the last sip of that one glass. It kills me to know that these feelings most likely won't ever be gone, not the way he (we) is thinking now. It kills me to see others move on in nearly exactly the same way they did before, just hoping that this it it,  that we're done with it - not even thinking about changing their own ways as well as dad's trying to change his. It is his decision, he is the one to be strong and fight against the need for more but things like alcoholism don't evolve because of one reason, they are the result of multiple factors, including lifestyle, relationships, family's attitude towards life ...

At this point, again, I wish to do it my way and follow my beliefs. I want to move out for real, go back to what I want to live like, get back my friends and social life and at least in the very last thought that would cross ones mind be a positive example of how things can change and not the negative selfish bastard who left others struggle on their own ...

Mom and dad are buying a new bed

The other day mom and I were walking down the street, talking about new bed they'll buy with dad. We went to couple stores together a week earlier and she was telling me about the offers and prices of another shop she went to. I just bought a new bed last year and man, does it feel good to sleep in it! Anyway, that's why I want them to buy it as soon as possible so that they can have a good sleep again after a long time.

Walking down that street, talking about different options, what would be best for them, how they'll be paying for it ... in the middle of all that I had a flash: Wait, I'm supposed to be the husband here?!

In case you didn't catch that before, my dad doesn't do shopping as much as he doesn't talk much. His patience is sometimes nonexistant. Mom's (nearly) a shopaholic in comparison and indecisive on top.

No wonder she likes talking to me about the issues she has, issues they have with dad. I'm glad that she finds comfort in me but I feel like it went to far recently. I really do feel like she wants me to be a friend and husband for her, much more then I am supposed to be her daughter. Hard to explain. But it might be that she transfers what she's missing in her relationship with her husband to her daughter, the good listener (yeah, I talk a lot, but I can listen as well, if I concentrate ...).

Psychiatrist's reaction to this was: 'What do you think she'd do if you'd stop 'being the husband' for her?'

I might just try that ... Just not in the 'buying bed' case - they need it ASAP! :)

Only us kids can't help him now ...

My parents' childhoods were made of book series material: both lost their dads when they were couple years old and the life that followed was even harder than it was already before.

Grandma (dad's mom) raised three little kids on her own from their early years when they couldn't even remember what their dad was like. Being a nurse, always at work and living in her late husband's village, life didn't spare her. The kids were looked after by aunts and grandparents. Later, dad's granpa moved in with them because they couldn't stand his drinking at his house. He was a good man and all, my dad's role model no.1.

Mom was the oldest of three kids who lost their parents when she wasn't even 10. After dad's death my mom's mother was left with the kids and a whole load of debts not being able to finish the projects of dad's company, she soon left north to be able to earn more money. The kids were divided between three families of relatives, which were good to them but they were separated and often felt like intruders in other families. Mom's second family lost their father rather early as well.

Following this, my childhood was rather special as well, having parents who leart parenting on their own. I haven't forgotten the pain they caused us so many times but I don't blame them anymore. We have good relationship now, especially with mom, with whom we're actually great friends who can talk about everything. Well, recently I kind of started getting on her nerves and I don't really know where we're at anymore. I've been working on understanding dad, his past, his present, his feelings and fears ... I hated the feeling of blaming him for the whole situation even though I rationally realized it's not his fault, at least not entirely. Talking to him, even though we're both rather slow and quiet when it comes to talking about feelings, talking to mom and grandma about life before us kids, seeing his real effort and him being now more aware of his actions related to alcohol, all that helped me a lot.

It helped me stop blaming him and being hurt by nearly everything he did. And it helped me transfer my negative feelings towards mom.

I faced her couple times lately, I put pressure on her because she only complains and mumbles everytime she doesn't like dad's actions and because of the way she radiates negativity if dad's by any chance happy or making jokes, her thinking he must be drunk to do that. Yet, all she does is give him her Look (if you knew my mom, or me in fact, you'd knew that look that could kill, if it were possible) and mumbles so that everyone else but him actually hear her comments. We talked about it and she confirmed what I was afraid of - she gave up. She has no more energy to fight once more with alcoholism, all she seems to be able to do is hope everytime dad tries to stay sober.

I can't stand this, I can't stand the fact that I've done the next step, invited her several times to come with me in search for help, and she doesn't want to do a thing. I respect her not pretending and giving me hopes anymore that she might go with me next time, yet I can't respect her for what she said the other day:

"I tried, I did everything I could and it was useless. Only you, his kids, can help him now."

WTF?! What kind of a parent are you to leave kids deal with an issue like that on their own?! Where's being a CHILD go together with FIGHTING ALCOHOLISM?

Facing psychiatrist, facing myself, facing my dad

After all this time, I wanted to blog again – and blogger is down! Irony? Sarcasm? Coincidence? Just my luck?

I don’t really want to talk about any of this as life is playing one pretty damn interesting game with me right now, keeping one thing for sure, I’m definitely not bored. I started writing because it helped me in dealing with issues before, in my teenage years. Soon after the begining I didn’t want to write anything more, it was making me even more depressed thinking about it all, writing it down, re-reading it … feeling like I’m not actually DOING anything about it.

At that time I also found out about a place I can afford, a nonprofit organization, where I could talk to someone who knows more about fighting alcoholism and made my first appointment with a psychologist. I cried the whole hour and spoke franticaly, obviously very hard to be understood at all. But the reaction to my first action was more than I expected. At that moment, simply having a professional to listen to you and plainly and directly tell you that you’re not the only one going through such a thing, even more important, giving you a positive image of the future, meant a lot to me.

Going home, looking down, hiding my cried out eyes, I’ve had a lot to digest. Thoughts, ideas, options, actions … I went to the place couple times now and moved on a lot. I told my whole family I’m seeing a psychiatrist about dad’s drinking, invited them several times to come with me. Dad doesn’t know about this. I think.

But after a little while the pressure was too hard and my personal life stood still in a place that I didn’t like for too long, I needed to face dad. I wasn’t able to talk to him about how I feel, about how it got too far, how the situation hurts and influences us all. So I wrote him a letter.

Even after couple weeks, even months, I start crying remembering his reaction. I got the sweetest txt from him as I wasn’t at home at that moment. Sweetest because it was so much like who he was before all this. Straight and honest, without sarcasm, disappointment, anger or any other negative feelings I expected of him. I don’t remember when was the last time or if he ever told me before that he loves me, us – his family.

Dad and I used to had ups and downs that could go on for months. We now successfully moved to positive, open and direct communication, we talk more, we fight less. One day I even managed to tell him in person what the whole family was afraid of telling him for months. How his body is physically addicted to alcohol. How he was taking drugs for abstinence crisis for couple weeks because the doctor figured him out on his first morning in the hospital after the accident.

He now knows. He knows I know. He knows he can talk to me.

Yet we’re stuck in this vacuum of silence, waiting for … waiting for what?!