Evolve, Purge, Repeat

I have been a very inactive and sporadic poster to these forums for quite some time. I have missed these forums and many of its posters and so I think I will maintain a journal as a means of clearing my head.

A small update for those interested -- I am a few years into my professional career in accounting and finance, I am licensed, and I am putting some money away every paycheck to build a fund for an engagement ring. I have been dating my girlfriend for about a year and a half now and we live together. She is everything I could have ever wanted in a woman. She is funny, vibrant, intelligent (surgical resident), ambitious, fiercely independent but fiercely loyal. She is also very beautiful, strikingly so. There are many aspects of my life where the use of the word "luck" would start a quarrel with me, but this is not one of them. I am lucky to have met her and to have my love for her returned in equal force.

It didn't feel right to resurrect an older journal because it would be the continuity of something that no longer reflects my reality. The PTH in those threads will have said and done things that are no longer representative of my thoughts or feelings. It felt smarter to start something new here.

More to come.

PTH, this is truly awesome news. I hope things continue going well in your life and please keep us updated. Great to see you again!

Yes, good to see you back here, PTH. Right on.

I'm so happy for you. It's so great to hear you are happy. Your gf sounds lovely; I like her already

So many more good things to come, I'm excited for you.

Thanks everyone.

I'm leaving for Pittsburgh with my girlfriend after work. The small-town life in a small state gets suffocating after a while, so we occasionally break the monotony when she has both Saturday and Sunday off by traveling somewhere in the 4ish hour range. Sometimes that's Charlotte, NC or Columbus or Cleveland -- this weekend it's Pittsburgh. I set up reservations for some really cool brunch/dinner places so it should be a good time. I'll also give a mini advertisement for Hotwire. I absolutely love the site. I'm staying at the Westin downtown for the price of a Motel 6, which makes these little excursions a lot more affordable.

They also allow me to escape from the strange family dynamic my dad is creating. There was a time for the past 1.5 years or so that I saw him very infrequently despite us being a 20 minute drive from one another. I think in terms of raw number of hours spent hanging out, my mom probably surpassed him just from her trips to here from Florida. When he remarried he placed himself into a new and chaotic family life. I know it sounds snobbish to say, but they were the type of people with whom we'd have never associated, and for very good reasons. The oldest son of his second wife is a perpetually unemployed drug addict. The oldest daughter dropped out of high school after having a kid at 16. The mother has all the wisdom that one expects to find in someone who'd allow my dad to move in with her and her kids after a couple of dates. Dad was reeling and he thought he would be the influence that brought them up to his level. I told him at the time it was a mistake and that it never works like that -- it always goes the other way.

Predictably, things went south for him. Around six months or so ago, he mixed a bunch of Tylenol and alcohol and sent me a few cryptic texts. They were the kind of texts you expect to receive from someone saying goodbye. He was treating me as if I was a moron, but I could read between the lines. I expected to receive a phone call from someone at some point telling me had tried something. I know it's cold to phrase the "suicide attempt" of one's father in this way, but I don't see Tylenol and alcohol as a legitimate attempt. This was a means to an end for Dad, not the desire for an end. He was hospitalized and told the psychiatrists and doctors it was a mistake. He tried that lie on me as well. He had to know I didn't believe him, but I didn't press the issue. There was nothing to be gained in embarrassing him just for the sake of proving to him that he couldn't fool me, even if he fooled the doctors.

I knew he would try again, but I was determined to not care. I was mildly surprised at how easy it was not to care. His second wife sent me the occasional unpleasant text for not involving myself in the situation. I was angry. I told her if he isn't interested in seeing what his grandchildren will look like then that's on him -- I will not be emotionally held hostage by him. She asked me if my dad had ever behaved this way with my mom, if he had ever made an attempt while married to her. I admit to being petty here -- it gave me pleasure to tell her that he had not. I also told her that she didn't want me to involve myself unless she wanted me to strongly advocate for leaving her and her chaotic family. I don't know if I've ever disliked a group of people more than her family, but it was my dad's life and not my place to tell him who he should date or marry. It was also not their place to tell me I'd have to passively endorse it by showing up and being around them.

Dad is, if anything, very predictable. He made a second attempt. He was committed and sent to a mental health facility two hours away. He spent the better part of a week there. When he came back he seemed to have regained his old form. I saw remnants and enjoyed brief moments where it felt as if I was talking to the man who raised me. He told Renee he'd had enough of her kids, gave her money to find her own apartment, and threw all of them out of the house he was living in -- an encouraging sign. He is now in good spirits -- the best I've seen him since the first divorce. He still is making strange decisions. He still approaches work and money with a passivity that he never had when I was young and depending on him, but maybe that familial responsibility was the only thing that motivated him.

I've learned one thing from all of this -- it is very important to not have heroes. Dad was mine. I looked up to him and wanted to be him. He was Superman. Now I question whether he ever truly wore the cape. Maybe I glamorized Clark Kent through the eyes of a child. I guess there is no Superman.

And, maybe it's worth questioning whether trying to become something or someone that was fictitious in the first place, because you once wanted to be him/it, is a right path to be on.

Maybe if there is no Superman, trying to don the cape you thought he was wearing, and emulate a character that doesn't exist, and maybe could not have existed (because he was superhuman in that fantasy) is worth re-thinking.

I'm just coming upon this now, so your weekend get-away is past you now, but I hope you guys had a good get-away up there. Pittsburg has a ton of stuff going on.

The fault was in the execution and not in the principle, and the only fiction was the extent to which he sold me on his ability to live up to his own lessons. He was an angst-ridden nihilist with a limited emotional range whose motivation and marriage was duct-taped together by his sense of obligation to his children. He was and is terrible at picking women. He was and is loyal to people who don't deserve it. He naively expects reciprocity from people who will always choose to take and never give. These are not minor flaws.

Dad has the map and knows the path his ship should steer, but he throws himself against the rocks and is content to be subjugated by the sea rather than its Ahab. He wishes it were otherwise or he wouldn't have gone out of his way to instill certain values in me. It worked. I never hitched my wagon to a toxic relationship with a woman. I never let an employer pay me less than my worth. For him, this would be a Herculean effort. For me, it requires no cape.

You are right to say there's no need to chase Superman because Dad transformed these banal human orientations into an emotional heaven that his efforts, his little Tower of Babel, could never reach. For me, no such strain is necessary. I do it as easily as he chooses the wrong woman.

I'm so sorry to read all that has happened with your dad. That must have been so hard for you. You are a strong person.

I hope things get better for him, and that you will be able to have a new relationship with him emerge in the years to come.

It's possible. It may not be up to what you thought as a child, it'll be different. You have more say now in help create it. And establish your boundaries.

He's human. Strengths, weaknesses. Now adult to adult. There's a certain freedom in that, really

Parents are heavily flawed people. I remember realizing my mom was human, fully human when I was 25. Human and not godlike. It wasn't until much therapy of my own I realized how very very flawed she was and .. still how greatly and vastly I love her. Now though, I am free to be myself and not idolize humans who are flawed.

My father is ultimately hopeless and for that I have enormous pity and love him too.

Yes, I think in a way our relationship has become much more complex because I'm aware of his humanity rather than his perceived heroism. If I'm honest, there's a part of him that scares me -- to see someone so capable voluntarily let everything fall apart. It's like watching me drop the ball through the eyes of someone else. I don't like it very much, but I don't really feel as if I've been the victim of anything by watching him do this to himself. He's free to make his choices and I've long since stopped trying to convince him of anything. Pity is a good word.

Now for something lighter -- I've just realized how large my collection of good shoes is getting. I just collected them and snapped a picture -- I hope it shows up here. It's a mixture of Carmina, Allen Edmonds, J Fitzpatrick, and Carlos Santos. I've been collecting for a little while and I've gotten really good at polishing and care.

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Then I got a few leather jackets and then a denim jacket. Some of these pictures will probably show sideways -- I'm so bad at stuff like that. Oh well. Over the past 2 years or so I've tried to be pretty conscious of clothes and how I present myself. I never bothered through high school and college.

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Hi! So glad to hear about your fiancé! But sorry to hear about your father. I hope things go upward from here. Please don't distance yourself from him - my father died nearly 20 years ago, and I think of him EVERY day, and miss him. We were on good terms at his passing, but I truly regret that I had times when I was estranged from him - very similar reasons to you. Life us too short!

I've made an effort to maintain a relationship with him, but he is exasperating. He can't drive because of his DUI. He's shut himself in his little rented property doing whatever accounting work he can remotely for random clients and then drinks himself stupid while watching the same TV shows over and over again. This is a guy who has essentially given up on life, and I can't say I particularly enjoy being around that attitude when he makes choices that guarantee nothing will change.

I love my dad, but I don't love being around him anymore.

Ugh.

That is certainly the definition of resignation, isn't it. That sounds so depressing. Like, depression just oozing out of him and no doubt, that's tough to be around. You probably feel pretty helpless.

This does show up something, though, that is worth noting: his demise really has (and had) little to do with the second marriage and that family. They would appear to be some kind of catalyst, but they are certainly not the cause -- nor were they ever -- of his low expectations for himself, and along with that, asking for little. This is about self-worth, and as hard a pill as this is to swallow, there is no silver bullet from any external source that can infuse you with a sense of worth and purpose. And conversely, there is no one that can take it away.

Those dynamics were already there within him, and the forces around him were more or less indicators of what road he was going down, within himself. They were just symptomatic. Otherwise, once freed from those toxic circumstances, that burst of him seeming to return to his old self would have stuck, but it didn't. It was a temporary relief from something much more pervasive within him. So, that might present a different way of seeing that family than you have been in the past, as determining his downfall.

He has a chance now to make anything of himself. But he's abusing himself, and no one is there doing that to him but himself. He could decide to throw out the booze cans and bottles, find some project that might interest him that takes his mind off himself, start eating healthy food, and decide that with his few remaining years, he has living yet to do and what does he want to do with that?

I sort of see life as a string of carnival scrip we get handed. "Hey you, take these," says someone, out of nowhere. They're just pressed into your palm. And now you have them. Why? Who knows. Who knows why you were just given the opportunity for free, to ride on all these rollercoasters and go to the haunted house, play at darts and miss the target so many times, and taste the sweetest things you'll ever know? It seems to me, it's the beneficence of some mysterious immortal, curiously generous decision-maker with no face and no known qualities other than picking you out for the task and the adventure. But here you are and you've got these scrip without asking, in your hot little hand. And you can use that scrip up on whatever you want at that fair.

As I am right now contemplating the very likely self-murder of a longtime friend (just awaiting news from the medical examiner), I'm doing a lot of thinking about that decision, either premeditated, or suddenly impulsive, or slowly by abdication of oneself from oneself (see Emily D.ickinson's "To Banish" for that line's exact wording), which is what your dad is doing. All the ways that can be accomplished. And it all leads to the same root causation, as I see it: a lack of ability to see any value in the scrip one is still holding, knowing that there is still value there. Yes, you can throw it away. But why? Why not finish it up while you've got it? You're going to use them up eventually, so there's only so much more you can get out of them. You won't be here forever, at this gig.

Best part is, you don't have anyone telling you how to use what you have in your hand -- that, you tell yourself, or you feel society tells you. But you really do have a choice, and a lot of people who are out of their scrip would love to trade places with you so they could have just a few more.

But here you are, ready to leave the fair grounds and toss them in the garbage can, saying, no thanks. It's just such a waste. I've been there, too. I get it. But it's still such a goddamn waste.

Once someone is really sunk deeply into that inertia and apathy, though, it's a vicious cycle. And you know that from the inside out, too. Depression is a sneaky beast, because it strips you of your own sense of power to turn the lights back on. You just keep sitting in the dark feeling defeated, as if abandoned and without recourse, forgetting you have the power. It's really good at throwing hoods over people's heads that way and holding them hostage.

You know that once you're in that hole, you can't see anything outside of it. But that doesn't mean the anything else doesn't exist. It doesn't mean you don't have scrip in your hand anymore; you're just too numb to feel it. And then you'll numb yourself more to numb the numbness, ad infinitum.

I never give up on the idea that someone can find their way out of this rabbit hole.

But you have to recognize it for what it is. Your dad's drinking is worsening depression that is already screwing with his mind. So he is not able to be reasoned with. Again, you know something about this. "Making good choices" is not interesting anymore once you've stopped caring, and we can thank plummeting levels of neurotransmitters in a response to low levels of positive and affirming experiences for making this the snarl that it is.

So I wonder if you've told him straight up that you want him to get help. Not ER/ICU or inpatient ward help, but ongoing counseling, so that he can at least explore why he has chosen to resign himself. You need to put to him this: that he is now abusing himself the way no woman ever has. And why is he doing that to himself? Is he at all interested in the choices he's making, even if those choices are self-destructive ones? Can he be curious about why he's lost his curiosity? There is a part of him that could conceivably stand outside, in a meta-awareness of himself, and ask that simple but enigmatic question. But he needs a skilled other person to work that riddle out with, to walk him through his own descent, so he can figure out how to reverse that process.

I also think that it would be good, and important, if you could arrange to see a counselor WITH him. In blunt terms, drag him in there, saying you would like him to do this for your sake (and I do think as someone who might understand explicit words about duty, he may respond to that? and it's true, because losing him when he might still be salvageable is something you may one day feel some regret about) as well as his own. You of course can't save him from himself. But you can be instrumental in lighting enough fire under his ass that at least he gets up from the couch for an hour and transports himself to another couch where you'll be sitting by, with a cool and rational head, the one that has come to prevail in your assessment, as you do some of the talking he is not as articulate to do. And then when he sees that it's not gonna kill him to be in front of a person who is listening and caring to hear him talk all about himself, and it doesn't make him a sissy man, you can let that momentum take, as it might (and hopefully will). Sometimes, we need to get the ball rolling when someone is stuck in that hole and has lost their digging implement and the will to even dig. He might even benefit from medication, for a short time, to jump start some things (and make no mistake, this has become a chemical imbalance without a doubt), but I would never recommend that in place of psychotherapy. He has a lot of crap festering that he has NEVER dealt with properly, and his story really isn't that unique, so it's within the realm of those who have hit rock bottom like this and recovered. People in this state HAVE pulled out of it, and there is no reason to think he is more far-gone than anyone else before him. I would strongly recommend a male therapist, for obvious reasons.

It seems to me that this might be one way you can do something proactive to help him. It's you helping him, but eventually, him helping himself. And I also would wager that even if he might be quite resistant at first, he may fortunately have the personality to be amenable to the idea, at very least to humor you if you say it in a rather authoritative way, not as a gentle suggestion. Perhaps you could arrange with a few friends of his (and maybe your bro, if he can muster a genuine hope in the effort) an "intervention", so it's strength in numbers. I think an intervention would also show him how many people care, care what he's doing, in a coordinated fashion. But you would actually do some leg work and go with him at first to the therapist, maybe for a couple of times (and perhaps even more than that, as "family therapy"), because he is not going to be able to start talking with the kind of clarity, emotional intelligence, and sense of focus you will have.

I think he just might have it in him to follow you if you lead. He may be blessed in that he is less immovable on the matter than some of his relations have been. lol

Oh, and clearly you need a second shoe rack. Your shoes are having babies!

The problem for him seems to be living his life once the therapy session is over. Dad has no problem sharing his problems with strangers. He suffers from a desire to overshare, even with strangers at bars. He can talk about his life and his problems with ease, and he seems to enjoy having someone examine it with him. I think a part of him loves that kind of attention, and that is why I am loathe to give it to him, whether it be rebuffing his attempt to emotionally blackmail me or refusing to play along and legitimize his issues.

He has turned into a master of excuses and broken promises. I don't want to involve myself in his recovery because I know that it would bear no fruit. He has to want to fix this and it can't be because of me or anyone else. Plus, I never involved him when I was at my lowest. That is the difference between Dad and I. I had a sense of shame and pride. For all of my past drinking and problems, I never stopped being a high performer. I never used my problems as a means to excuse poor performance. I never broke promises or commitments. I never sent him cryptic texts that he knew to interpret as a goodbye.

We're both adults now and he no longer needs to feel as if he has any responsibility for me. If I have kids, I won't be asking them to serve as role models for my own behavior. I don't care how old we all get -- that dynamic should never play out. All I'm doing is what he told me to do -- the difference is I believed in the power of those words and he didn't.

First things first:

The problem for him seems to be living his life once the therapy session is over.

So has he even GONE to therapy sessions? I am not talking about a time-limited period inside a facility where he has been involuntarily committed.

I'm talking about REGULAR, ongoing therapy. Once a week with a therapist that he develops a one-on-one relationship with over the course of many months, if not a few years.

My guess is no, but correct me if I'm wrong.

I imagined he would be a good candidate for the reasons you described about his personality -- that he is not averse to sharing with whoever will hear him, and so would open up fairly quickly and easily with someone tasked with the job. And he wouldn't be trying to outsmart them, either, he'd just be presenting himself as is.

He went once a week for about a month, but unless he's committed enough to uber to sessions then he won't have a reliable means of getting to them. If he treats those appointments the same way he treats work (and my guess is he would feel even less of an obligation than that), then I can't imagine he could be counted on to reliably show up. That isn't a symptom of his aversion to therapy, he's just an all around unreliable person right now. I wouldn't trust him to show up to my wedding.

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Hearing you hit that note at about 32 seconds perfectly with the guitar still gives me goosebumps every time. We all die, but your music will live forever.

^Yeah.

That's awesome.

I debated writing in here again but I suppose it can't hurt anyone.

As good ole Rust Cohle realized, life is a circle. I am somehow unable to escape this story line. My dad tried again, and again he was unsuccessful. His heart really isn't in it and I don't know what he's expecting. The cynical part of me is winning in my evaluation of him. It feels like he is manipulating the system. He is getting his mental health issues documented and building a case for state assistance so that he won't have to work again.

I don't envy my brother. He is living with dad but they operate on different shifts. My brother works nights so he isn't forced to watch him implode, but he was there for this attempt. My uncle and aunt woke him up after calling the police and EMS -- apparently, my dad texted a family friend of his intentions and this was all relayed to them behind the scenes. Dad drank a case and took 40 tylenol pm. It's a far cry from a shotgun or cyanide. My brother said Dad was just stumbling around, mumbling, crying to himself like an infant. Like a baby.

They took him to the hospital. They recommended he stay for 10 days. He got out a few days ago but for the next few months he will be attending therapy sessions on weekdays from 9 AM to noon. He's got his food stamps, his assistance. He texts me that the sessions are all going well.

I'm not a nice person. I know that. I can't bring myself to kick him while he's down, but I am pretty indifferent about seeing him again. I'm nice via text because any other route feels cruel, but I don't respect him. I think that's the death knell of our relationship. My respect for him is gone. It took a lifetime for him to build his empire of dirt and moments for the water to wash it all away. There are a ton of lessons there but they only tangentially brush up against this saga.

The icing on the cake is my brother's angst. I didn't hang out with him last weekend like I usually do because I wanted to spend time with my girlfriend. We've both been very busy lately and it felt like it would be a good time to really invest in one another, our relationship, because I know what happens when you don't tend to your garden and take everything for granted. He didn't seem to understand that -- he went off on me, started talking nonsense, talking about how his life wasn't worth living either. I said nothing for a while, just a simple text: "Ok Dad." He should get it. He should understand I don't need this bs from two fronts.

Family is a waste. It's a burden we don't choose and I will unshackle myself from the cannon ball of their love that they wish to tie around my ankle. I won't do this to myself and I don't care what it does to my image or reputation to shun them if I have to do it.

Maybe the crazy is genetic, but my brother and dad are much more alike than anyone is comfortable admitting. We've all experienced depression at points in our lives, but I am the only person with a sense of shame and with good manners. When I wanted to die I still had the good sense to know that the most convenient thing to do would be to position oneself in the bathtub to minimize the mess. That's the sort of person I am. I can see the argument for dying. I don't arbitrate the veracity of their claims. They can do what they want as long as they do it only to themselves. Instead, it's texts, it's state assistance, it's family members crying and asking me to do something.

Not my job. Like Pontius Pilate, I wash my hands of all of this. Life is difficult enough.

Of course, the day could come where the girl and the friends are gone -- there would be no constant, no foundation for me after this, but there isn't one now. They are not pillars. Their love is quicksand. They threaten to swallow me whole if I let them.

I strive forward.

What do you mean by this:

I'm not a nice person. I know that.

And this, in bold:

Of course, the day could come where the girl and the friends are gone -- there would be no constant, no foundation for me after this, but there isn't one now. They are not pillars. Their love is quicksand. They threaten to swallow me whole if I let them.

Here's something to think about.

Imagine your dad at age...let's say, 10. Old enough to understand some of these ideas (a 4 year-old doesn't really understand what addiction/welfare/all that is about), but young enough to still be a child, wanting what all children want: to grow up and make big dreams come true. Young enough to still be a child.

Imagine your dad as a child.

And someone shows him a crystal ball of him at this age. Shows him his life as it is now. And says, "This is how you're going to end up."

What do you think that child would do with that information? Embrace it? Be happy?

What do you mean by this:

 

 

 

And this, in bold

 

I'm not nice in the way people use that word. I am pragmatic first and compassionate second, so when people reap what they sow I am almost completely uninterested as to why they decided to make a series of unintelligent decisions. Why? Because the context never affects how I feel about the situation.

 

As for the second quote, I am merely saying that nothing is guaranteed. It's possible that my girlfriend and I could break up. It's possible that relocation and life in general adds distance and separation between me and my friends. I've never maintained friendships with people once I've left a state. I've simply found new ones. The point of all of this is to say that when you can't rely on your family and you don't have a relationship with them, the capricious nature of life can always leave you vulnerable and searching for pillars of strength upon which to rely. For some people those pillars are their family. Not mine. My family is a black hole of failure seeking to swallow me up within it.

 

I don't know what Dad would do with that crystal ball. The example of his own mother didn't seem to dissuade him from following that path. I think it's easy to say the 10 year old wouldn't be happy with his future.

Evolve, Purge, Repeat. The process begins again as the relationship I had with the woman who I believed would be the mother of my children is over. I don't regret any aspect of the two years we spent together. I am a better, more experienced, and more well-rounded person because of this relationship. While it wasn't my decision to end things, I am not angry at her at all. I was sad, I'm human, I'll admit to being crushed the first few days, and today is only the tenth day. I didn't do anything creepy or degrading. I didn't beg her to stay. I didn't try to make her feel bad. We've been cordial to one another and I think it will stay that way. I think we can even be friends once the dust has settled. She's completely moved out and I'm in the process of redecorating and replacing everything I need, laughing all the while at how much better I am at decor because of her.

I've been really fortunate to have my friend Craig through all of this. He couldn't have been better throughout this process and having him has made this much easier to stomach and process.

It's just been a little surreal. I know this is a reflection of me and a personal flaw, but I look at most people and just find them cripplingly boring, whether it's in conversation or outlook. Chatting with other women in just a friendly way post-breakup has been slightly horrifying at every age demographic. Oh well. Maybe I'm just not suited for marriage, lol. Maybe I'm the 2 year guy, that seems to be where most of my serious relationships implode.

If I was bitter I'd say my consolation prize is that she's taking it even harder than I am. We loved each other in the purest way possible, and when something like that ends it's tough.

I have never been more successful, more confident, more "together" than I am right now, and yet it is over. I'm curious as to what kind of guy I'll be when I start approaching women again because I really don't know. I am an insanely picky person, probably more picky than what my assets warrant, so the odds of dating seriously again are crazy low. At the same time, I don't think I want to be the dude trying to get the smell of stripper off his suit, either. We'll play it by ear, I guess.

Maybe this should be "Purge, Evolve, Repeat". I like it that way.

Looked at that way, it's not that bad a way to live life...kinda keeps you evolving.

What do you mean by, she's taking it harder than you are? How so?

About being picky...and maybe where I can't "afford" to be...I know that story inside out, myself. But I still say, it's better to stand by what you value, and also, your own value. In the end, I think it's worth it -- taking the chance that holding out for something really suitable means you are prioritizing being happy with someone over merely having someone, which to me defeats the purpose.

I'm so glad you're redecorating. That's awesome. Makes the artist in me wonder what you have up on your walls (or are you just changing up the furniture, lol).