Where's TD?

[TDWoj]

For the second time in two weeks, my father's disowned me. This time it was my fault - he was bleating on about how the real estate agent was going to cheat him out of the money from the sale of the house, so he was going to sell the house privately, and he was going to get me to put an ad in the paper for him. I made the mistake of telling him that I was reluctant to help him since any time I helped him, I never did it the way he wanted, and I ended up on the receiving end of a lot of heartache. I would do anything for him, I was just skittish about helping him because of the last debacle.

He hung up on me.

When I finally got him back on the line, he declared he didn't need me, he didn't need anybody's help, I was to stay out of his life, etc. etc. and that I was never to expect any help from him ever again.

I can't deal with this any more. On the one hand, I feel guilty because now it looks like I've abandoned him, that I've let him down - yet again. I'm now "the enemy", someone who takes advantage of him (I did ask him for money because of work being scarce - I hadn't wanted to, but I didn't know what else to do, who else to turn to. I knew it would come with a high price, but I didn't think it would this high of a price.).

I realise he's 91 years old, and he spends too much time by himself. I realise he's probably slipping into dementia - his paranoia is much worse now than it was before, and he's becoming even more verbally abusive than he used to be (and that's saying something).

But I can't be on the receiving end of his verbal abuse any longer. I just can't take it. I feel awful - awful because I'm so unlovable even my own father can't stand me. I feel awful because I can't help him, and he's my father despite all the problems we've had. I would do anything to help him - I just don't want to be abused at the end of the day for it. And that makes me feel guilty because, if I were a really noble daughter, I should take the abuse.

I feel absolutely horrible, right now.

 

[Lollipop]

TD, If you put it out here I am going to respond!!!
If you can't do it the way he wants you let him handle it
and back off!
You have enough going on now than to add his problems!
I know he is your dad and you love him and when he dies
you want have another yeh........ Heard it all before!
My dad died at a very early age and the last conversation
we had was not that great! It took some time and some
talking but I got through it!

You need to pull away from him or let him know he can love and accept
you as it is or don't call you anymore!

Each of these episodes is pulling you further down, don't do it!


It may be the wrong advice coming from me! But it does get to me to read these things!

 

[Amos Stevens]

Sorry to hear this TD...only thing I can think of to say is to give it some time of silence & hope he contacts you soon.Take care

 

[katw_03]

Td

I'm sorry TD, I know how it feels when a family
member lashes out at you. I hope everything
turns out well with your Dad & you! Kat

 

[TDWoj]

His paranoia is getting worse, and the way he flies into rages at the slightest offense makes it really difficult to talk to him since one never knows what's going to set him off - and, obviously, it isn't good for him, healthwise, either.

He's always been a bitter, angry man, who, for some inexplicable reason, hates me - that hatred simmers under the surface, covered up by comments like "you're my daughter, I love you," until rage makes him let go and tells me what he really thinks of me in words designed to cause the maximum damage to my psyche. He's a man who, once he makes up his mind that someone has done him wrong, will never speak to that person ever again - that person, in effect, is dead to him. So it's hard for me to tell if this is just crystallisation of his character or if he's starting to slip into dementia.

I'm sitting here watching the clock. Two weeks ago, when he flew into the last rage and started haranguing me, he waited until 8:30 (my time) to call. It's now 8:10....

-TD, sitting here, in silent dread of what may be coming

 

[TDWoj]

TD is at home, freaking out.

I know this is going to sound weird, but from time to time, I get this really weird feeling, like somebody is squeezing my heart.

Every time I get one of those feelings, someone I know dies of a heart attack.

Before you all start pooh-poohing, this has happened too often to be a coincidence.

It started when my mother died - how I knew she was dying when I was in a completely different part of the hospital, I don't know - but I knew.

It happened again, when a friend of mine died of heart failure. I wasn't anywhere near him - it wasn't until a few days later I found out from a mutual friend. And again, when my cousin died - his daughter had come by my office, and I couldn't speak to her - I was practically choking. She called me later that night, having only just found out that moment that he'd died that afternoon - when she was with me, in my office. And again when a woman I knew from visiting her in her shop frequently - I went into her shop every day after work. That day I didn't - I had this horrible feeling of dread, and I didn't go in. I found out the next day, she'd died suddenly that morning. I knew my grandmother was going to die the day she died, as well.

I've had it with others - not always with people I knew personally, but people I felt I had some connection with.

And now, I'm having it again tonight. It's so powerful, my hands are shaking. I haven't had this feeling for years.

I'm hoping beyond hope that if I "tell", it won't come true.

 

[Lollipop]

Did they all die of heart related problems or other problems?

 

[TDWoj]

Did they all die of heart related problems or other problems?

They all died of heart-related problems. If they didn't, I don't get that squishy feeling.

I'm still having it. I wish it would stop. I'm dreading waking up tomorrow, because I think I know who it might be.

 

[Amos Stevens]

Well maybe we can try to blame this time on something you ate TD? Hope hope

 

[TDWoj]

Well maybe we can try to blame this time on something you ate TD? Hope hope

It's a weird situation, insofar as if I "tell", it doesn't happen; if I don't, and it does happen, you've only got my word for it that I had the "feeling", hence why nobody believes me.

Having told, I haven't heard anything yet, so I've got my fingers crossed the pattern still holds.

 

[Storm]

Hope your dad comes around. It's hard when someone gets like that. Can't do right for doing wrong eh?

 

[TDWoj]

Hope your dad comes around. It's hard when someone gets like that. Can't do right for doing wrong eh?

Well, he's sort of come 'round, but it's still very touch and go with him. His paranoia is what's worrying me more than anything. He's absolutely convinced that if he gets an estate agent to help him sell his house, he'll be cheated out of the monies from the sale. I tried to make him understand that's what contracts are for - they protect him as well as the agent, but he wasn't buying it. So he's going to sell the house privately. He doesn't understand how much work that involves, but since I know nothing, I should keep my mouth shut.

<sigh>

He's also convinced himself that the home care people have him marked down as a terrorist. I made the mistake of telling him the kinds of questions they have to ask their clients in order for them to be sure they are going into a safe environment. One of the questions was, "Are there any guns on the premises?".

He worried that like a dog with a bone overnight and called me up the next morning shrieking at me that just because he was a concentration camp survivor, they're accusing him of being a terrorist. When I tried to explain to him about Health and Safety regulations, he shrieked at me with added fury, saying that I was against him, I wasn't on his side, I wasn't any daughter of his - BANG - he hung up on me.

(This was the big to-do three weeks ago; last week's was when I told him I was leery of giving him any more help based on the results of the last time I tried to help him, which was the matter of the home care people, and BANG! - he hung up on me again.)

I have been, as you can well imagine, something of a wreck for the past few weeks.

For the first time in about 14 years, I found myself considering suicide as an option.... such was the level of my despair.

Being much tougher now than I was 14 years ago, though, I let the idea go, albeit regretfully, after a few hours. I realise that this is God's punishment on me for some massive sin I committed when I was a child and that I'll just have to bear it for the duration.

 

[Lollipop]

Originally posted by TD
For the first time in about 14 years, I found myself considering suicide as an option.... such was the level of my despair.

Being much tougher now than I was 14 years ago, though, I let the idea go, albeit regretfully, after a few hours. I realise that this is God's punishment on me for some massive sin I committed when I was a child and that I'll just have to bear it for the duration.
__________________

I am glad you were strong enough to let the idea go! Suicide should be reserved for the terminally ill, the mentally ill and those who place no value on there life!
If you would open your cold heart that your parents left for you and love yourself you might find happiness and maybe the love of another!
I said if you post these kinds of things I would respond, rather you like it or not!

 

[katw_03]

Td

Well, he's sort of come 'round, but it's still very touch and go with him. His paranoia is what's worrying me more than anything. He's absolutely convinced that if he gets an estate agent to help him sell his house, he'll be cheated out of the monies from the sale. I tried to make him understand that's what contracts are for - they protect him as well as the agent, but he wasn't buying it. So he's going to sell the house privately. He doesn't understand how much work that involves, but since I know nothing, I should keep my mouth shut.

<sigh>

He's also convinced himself that the home care people have him marked down as a terrorist. I made the mistake of telling him the kinds of questions they have to ask their clients in order for them to be sure they are going into a safe environment. One of the questions was, "Are there any guns on the premises?".

He worried that like a dog with a bone overnight and called me up the next morning shrieking at me that just because he was a concentration camp survivor, they're accusing him of being a terrorist. When I tried to explain to him about Health and Safety regulations, he shrieked at me with added fury, saying that I was against him, I wasn't on his side, I wasn't any daughter of his - BANG - he hung up on me.

(This was the big to-do three weeks ago; last week's was when I told him I was leery of giving him any more help based on the results of the last time I tried to help him, which was the matter of the home care people, and BANG! - he hung up on me again.)

I have been, as you can well imagine, something of a wreck for the past few weeks.

For the first time in about 14 years, I found myself considering suicide as an option.... such was the level of my despair.

Being much tougher now than I was 14 years ago, though, I let the idea go, albeit regretfully, after a few hours. I realise that this is God's punishment on me for some massive sin I committed when I was a child and that I'll just have to bear it for the duration.

In the past I had considered that option. I often wondered what purpose
I had on this earth. But I chose life! Hard times are ahead because of Mom's
early onset of Altzheimer's & Dad's cancer, but because I have a place(here)
to come and talk, I can forget all about the sadness for a time. TD, if you
would ever like to talk, just PM me....Because we care.....Love, Kat

 

[TDWoj]

Thanks, Kat. I haven't felt that way in years, not since getting over chronic depression that pretty much set in from about age 15 to to my mid-thirties. I lost a lot of my life just struggling to convince myself there was a reason to stay alive.

I rarely called my parents while my stepmother was alive, because, frankly, I'd had enough; I only started calling my father twice a week since my stepmother's death in 1998. He's never been as bad as this, well, at least, not since 1998 when I went to Nova Scotia to see him and my stepmother, both in hospital (she in Halifax, he in Antigonish), and he started railing at me about a terrible person I was (I'll spare you the details of what he actually said to me, but it was pretty clear from that point onwards he harboured a deep-seated hatred of me that is always just simmering under the surface, poison looking for a way out to destroy me).

I try to live my life in the best way I know how. Need a shirt? I'll give you the one off my back. If something needs to be done and no one else wants to do it, I'm the first one in, no matter how dirty or unpleasant the job. I don't lie, either for someone or to someone. I'm scrupulously honest, and when I give my word, I keep it.

I don't think I'm that bad of a person, taken altogether. A bit rough around the edges, sometimes, a bit opinionated (but only about things I care about); I try to treat people fairly, and, despite being badly burned for being too trusting, I still think most people, if you deal with them honestly and fairly, will do the same with you.

Dealing with my father's paranoia is something so far out of my realm of experience, I feel like I'm on another planet, and I don't know what the laws of physics are. One wrong move, and everything could explode. I have no idea how to deal with this, and it's started to shred my psyche again.

 

[TDWoj]

I am glad you were strong enough to let the idea go! Suicide should be reserved for the terminally ill, the mentally ill and those who place no value on there life!
If you would open your cold heart that your parents left for you and love yourself you might find happiness and maybe the love of another!
I said if you post these kinds of things I would respond, rather you like it or not!

Odd that people say that I have a cold heart; I don't, actually.

 

[Lollipop]

Odd that people say that I have a cold heart; I don't, actually.

Maybe you don't and if not I do apologize, it comes across to me that you do or you want us to think you do! But then again that is how each of us interpret things! Please have a good day!! And be happy!
That is all each of us want for the other, is to live a life of happiness!
And I do want this for you TD! Maybe I will go away soon and leave you alone, but until then I am going to be here!
You know I am not good at writing and expressing myself in the professional manner you do, but you know what I am saying!!
Lolli

 

[katw_03]

Lollipop

Maybe you don't and if not I do apologize, it comes across to me that you do or you want us to think you do! But then again that is how each of us interpret things! Please have a good day!! And be happy!
That is all each of us want for the other, is to live a life of happiness!
And I do want this for you TD! Maybe I will go away soon and leave you alone, but until then I am going to be here!
You know I am not good at writing and expressing myself in the professional manner you do, but you know what I am saying!!
Lolli

:apeace: Maybe you will stay for awhile, Lollipop
Don't even think about it!!

 

[Lollipop]

:apeace: Maybe you will stay for awhile, Lollipop
Don't even think about it!!

We are going to hijack your thread TD!

Kat, I see we have alittle spunk this morning!
What'ca be doing? Eh?

 

[TDWoj]

Just had the most charming conversation with my father. He seems to think I haven't got the sense God gave little green apples; he's planning his funeral and is telling me how to manage his affairs when he's gone. I know if I put a foot wrong, he'll sit bolt upright in his coffin and give me dressing down for not doing it his way....

-TD, not knowing whether to be annoyed or amused by her father's attempt to micromanage things which will be beyond his control after his demise