My Father and Me. A Legacy of Depression.
My cousin, who is 10 years older than me, has been regaling me with stories of my father from the memories she holds. Which are different from mine.
She recalls a young, handsome man with a wry sense of humor who, to horrify his mother-in-law, took the liver pâté and molded it into the shape of a cross. (We are Jewish, the family was more observant back then than it is today.) Or during the Passover holiday where he took a magic marker and wrote "Kosher for Passover" in Hebrew letters on the scotch bottle because he wanted to drink.
Father issues
The father I knew intimately and the one with whom I grew up was unpredictable and an alcoholic. Our home quivered unless we knew he'd calmed himself with a couple of glasses of Johnnie Walker Red. I was a sensitive child and when I used to cry, which was frequently, I heard, "Stop crying, or I'll really give you something to cry about."
He got sober when I was 12, but he'd been medicating a depression with the booze. When he stopped drinking, he retreated into his bedroom. He'd lost his job as an analyst on Wall Street due to his drinking, but he never worked again. Instead, our mother had to go to work to support our family.
I inherited his depression
My father’s depression is my legacy. His DNA transmitted to my DNA that I should also carry this illness for my entire life. When I was in therapy with my last psychiatrist one of my greatest fears was that I would end up like my father.
She'd reassure me that wasn't going to happen. "You are getting treatment," she'd tell me. "You're on medication." That distinction took years to sink in.
My father was absent through so much
Over the years of my adult life, my father retreated even further. I was too mired in my illness, in my depression, fighting my demons, my chronic suicidality, and my urges to cut and starve myself to comprehend this. My father never visited me in the hospital, despite my racking up over 20 admissions.
In 2008, following a brutal depressive episode that required six inpatient admissions and a course of ECT, I took a part-time job as a social worker 10 minutes from where I'd grown up and from where my father still lived.
Soon, my brother started calling me. "Dad needs some help with his grocery shopping. Can you go over there after work?" It was hardly a request I could refuse.
Caring for an aging parent with depression
The first time I walked into his apartment with the groceries, I recoiled from the mess and the stench. When I turned on the light, roaches scattered. The apartment smelled of stale body odor and garbage not taken out from the chute. In the refrigerator, moldy cheese stuck to the shelves. I put the food away and left there as quickly as possible.
This went on for a couple of years. My brother and I eventually convinced our father to move up to a studio apartment in Connecticut near my brother, where we could do damage control. Upon making the arrangements, we found our father had neglected to pay his rent for the past 4 months. He was declining physically and cognitively. One day I took him to the emergency room, and he was admitted. He declined quickly and was transferred to a palliative care facility where he passed away.
Rage and resentment following his death
I expected to feel a sense of relief, but instead, I was filled with rage and resentment. That I never heard from him I was good enough or that he was proud of me. Now that would never happen. After he died, I spiraled down into a suicidal depression, and 11 months after he passed away, I attempted suicide.
Coming to terms with my father issues
With the help of my psychiatrist, I came to terms with the knowledge that my father did the best he did with what he had and what he was given by his parents. We also surmised he might have had undiagnosed schizoid personality disorder. He perhaps should not have been a parent, but neither was he the monster I'd made him out to be for all those years.
April 13th was the 11th anniversary of his death. Rest in peace, Dad.