Killing My Father, One Day at a Time

This is the true story of how I am the source of my dad's depression.

My dad is depressed. I haven't seen him actually happy since I was five or six years old. Therefore, I am forced to believe that it is my fault.

There are other factors.
He hates his job.
He hates being poor.
He hates that his band never plays.
He hates that my mom achieved her dreams when his are so far out of reach.
He hates where we live.

And, sure, those things play their parts.

But here's how I see it:
If my dad hadn't gotten married, hadn't had a kid, he'd be in California. He'd be on tour. He'd be with the best friend he lost to a pipe dream in LA.

But he did have a kid, and he isn't in California.

Now, when I was about six years old, my dad left. In later years my mom would reveal to me that he left because he felt that he wasn't good enough for us, and that he wasn't good for us. She said they both cried, a lot.

I don't remember how long he was gone, only that it felt like a long, long time. Mostly what I remember is him giving me something or taking me somewhere every time I saw him. There was a plaque on his nightstand that said 'I love you.' It wasn't from my mom. My mom saw this other guy, this guy that I hated, but I can't remember if they were dating, or if that was just my assumption, but either way, I was glad when I never had to see him in my house again. I remember there was a lot of fighting, and I remember my mom telling me that we were moving to New York--without dad.

Let me pause for a moment to tell you that there have been a lot of close calls on our living situation. Before I was born, my parents almost moved to California. After the split, my mom and I almost moved to New York. Later this would happen again and again.

Now, eventually my parents realized they didn't want to fight anymore, or be apart anymore. They needed each other, and they got back together.

But my father wasn't the same man, and he would never go back to being happy, like he was when I was very young.

In later years, when I was capable of conscious thought, I always had good grades, and my parents were pleased with this.

However, as I got a bit older school became an actual challenge to me. I was not used to this. I did not know how to cope. My grades fell in middle school, though I managed to pass everything. But eventually I got sick of the challenge, and sick of hating the vast majority of my peers. And because I was the last to leave each morning, one day I just stopped leaving.

At this point, I don't even know how many days of school I missed in the eighth grade, but I would have to say upwards of forty. My parents were no longer pleased, and they started paying more attention to my academia, because I was doing so poorly.

When I started high school, I was relieved, because I detested everything about middle school, except the few friends (three) I had made, and the one I had managed to cling to from elementary school. At first, I excelled. I made honor roll with a 3.8 GPA in the first semester.

However, I hated my high school almost as much as my middle school, so this did not last long. Even though most of my classes were easy (geometry and Spanish 2 were the exceptions), all of my grades fell. Freshman year was terrible--I hated my school, I hated my peers, and eventually I grew to hate all of my teachers. I started having panic attacks, and I would have done anything to escape that school. Or so I thought.

Over the summer, I convinced my parents, by finally admitting to the crippling stress and anxiety I was suffering from. My dad was disappointed. My mother was distraught. Finally, more from her will than his (which depressed him further. "No one listens to me!" was all we heard for weeks.), I was taken to the guidance office to withdraw from my school.

However, I was convinced against doing so by an assistant principle, who revised my schedule for the following year according to what would make me happiest there, and I left the office hoping for a good year.

This was not the case.

My sophomore year, overall, was even worse than freshman year, by a long shot.

I liked some of my classes and most of my teachers, but stress outside of school became a factor very early on.

Very near the beginning of the year, my cousin, who went to my school, was in an accident. The reports say he was car-surfing, which, admittedly, was incredibly stupid on his part, and he fell off the car. Three families--mine, his, and another family of cousins--were in the hospital that night. It was a school night. I had a ton of work. It was past midnight. But we wouldn't leave until we knew what was happening.

After hours and hours, the surgeon came into the waiting room. He delivered grave news. He said the surgery was done, he had done all he could do, but my cousin had taken a lot of damage to his head, and he had about a 20% chance of surviving through the night.

Needless to say, we were speechless. It was a room full of crying mothers and aunts and cousins frozen with fear.

To our amazement and immense relief, he made it through the night. He didn't wake up for a week or more, and when he did it was obvious he'd taken a big hit, but he was alive.

No less than a week after his surgery, I found out that a boy I'd gone to middle school with had killed himself.

I didn't talk to many people in middle school, and I had only conversed with him a handful of times, if that, but it was still hard to hear. The realization that someone you know has the will to take their own life can be earth-shattering.

I thought about it every day. Every time I talked to someone I wondered, does this person want to die?

I hadn't known him very well, but it really hit me hard.

And then, shortly after that, a teacher at my school died.

Now, mind you, my school only has about forty teachers, and about six hundred students. Pretty much everyone knew her.

She had been my English teacher the year before. I was upset.

The day after it happened, the whole school was a wreck.

No work got done. Every teacher devoted the day to her. Students cried in the halls. Poems were posted in her honor, portraits of her were hung.

Around every corner you could hear a sob. More hugs were given that day than any other.

And even though these things happened at the beginning of the year, the last of them in November, their devastation seemed to echo throughout the year.

I struggled that year more than ever. I failed a full year of algebra two, and a semester of AP world history.

Now, it may seem like none of that was important to the topic of this post, but it was back story.

My parents haven't been satisfied with my grades since my struggle with school initially started. Even in the first semester of freshman year, when I made honour roll, I got the occasional complaint that I had a B in Spanish, or the like.

But now, in my junior year, I'm trying really hard. I'm doing my absolute best, I think.

I have two C's. Today, my mom told me two of my grades were below eighty and they needed to come up to A's.

My parents', especially my dad's dissatisfaction with my grades has caused me to be absolutely unable to take any pride in any academic achievement.

When I see a grade on an assignment, or on a progress report, my initial thought is, not good enough.

My dad is a genius. And he expects me to be every bit as smart and academically successful as him, and I don't think it's fair. I am not him.

But my average grades lead to his disappointment leads to his depression.

I'm not good enough, and that depresses him.

Recently I’ve been considering the possibility that he sees through the mask of contentment and composure I’m sometimes forced to wear, and that may be a factor as well. As I’ve mentioned previously, I have a history of anxiety and panic attacks. Anxiety is constant for me, and although my panic attacks have decreased in frequency and severity, I still have them sometimes. I think I have mostly recovered, but I have been depressed in the past.

But does my dad know that?

Can he possibly know I’ve been depressed? As they say, it takes one to know one.

And I have wondered, does he view these things, my anxiety and past depression, as character flaws? When he looks at me, does he see someone inferior who can’t even cope with every day stress?

To me it just seems like another aspect of his vision of the perfect child that I can’t live up to.

Another thing I’ve considered is that my existence has not only kept him from California, but forced him to settle in one house, in one city, in one state.

When my dad was a kid, he moved, a lot. He lived in Connecticut, Oklahoma, Florida, Hawaii, and Morocco, to name a few places. He moved around so much that he became comfortable with it. He was scarcely in a place long enough to establish a sense of home. So after I was born, we moved a lot. I can remember nine different houses scattered throughout Florida, but I am assured there have been more than those.

Eventually, however, my dad was convinced that as a parent he needed to establish consistency for his child. So, even though it meant leaving his comfort zone, he stopped dragging my mother and I across the state, and we settled in one house. We’ve moved twice since then, but stayed in all three houses for several years.

Even though my dad isn’t the nomad he once was, my mom and I agree that he still doesn’t know what ‘home’ is. Never able to establish one as a child, he seems to have forgotten the meaning of the word, and no matter how much we try to make this house a loving environment, he only sees it as a place to sleep.

I think he sees this too, and I think it hurts him.

I think it hurts him to see us try so hard and not have it make any difference.

Every time my father asks me to do something, whether it be sit with him while he smokes outside or play Rockband, I feel like I have to say yes, even if I have other responsibilities.

If I refuse anything like that, even if I give a pleading look and tell him I have a million years worth of homework due the next day, he sighs, looks away, and tells me he won't be around forever.

Am I wrong to look at this as foreshadowing?

In all honesty, every day he works I fear he won't come home.

Every day he's home before me, I'm worried I won't find him alive.

This fear has led me to stop venturing into his dark and smoke-filled lair to say hello when I get home from school, and that has hurt him, too, my mother often tells me.

And, yes, that also makes me feel incredibly guilty, but ultimately my selfish fear won't allow me to slide open the door and peer inside to see if he's alive, so I just wait for him to come out for a drink and try to convince myself I've imagined the hurt I see in his eyes when he realizes I've come home and not said anything.

And that's how I'm the source of my dad's depression, and in effect, he's the source of mine.

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[Calypso]

I'm sorry you feel like you do. How you feel does doesn't mean its true. I feel terribly sorry for you.