#also i finished this at 8am after staying up all night out of stubborness. and then i woke up at 3:30pm

[illuminatitramp]

I guess I should post the backstory to my dad so anyone who read this blog knows what’s going on:

My mom is 62 and my dad is 65, I'm 25

My parents love me a lot and most of these issues were/are caused by their inability to overcome their own mental and emotional issues and I'm worried at this point it's too late to actually do anything about these issues because my parents have spiraled too far out of control with age. Before I moved out, these issues were less noticeable because of all the commotion of having 4 siblings to hang out with and also not as severe. Now that they haven't had anyone else living with them for 5 years, my parent's have kind of fed off of each other's issues as well as spiraled more out of control and I'm at a loss

Tl;dr: How do I have a connection with my dad who has severe adhd, insecure, stubborn, and practices toxic masculinity and how do I have a connection with my mom who spends most of her time trying to reach enlightenment because she also is insecure. And how do I approach an issue neither really has the capacity to acknowledge at the moment? Is it my responsibility to try and "save" them or reconnect?

First I'll start with the current issues

Right now it's just me and my dad because my mom is stuck in a different state with my sister due to a stay in place order. So, the only person he has to hang out with is me and because we're hangin out so much I've noticed a lot of unhealthy behaviors.

He has severe adhd which he refuses to take medication for because taking medication means relying on something external which would mean that he's weak or something. Toxic masculinity is a thing here. At one point I started taking medication for my depression and he was against it because "strong people can stick it out and push through" so I didn't use any medication for a long time.

Because he refuses to take medication, he can never be mentally present for anyone not even himself. He wants to constantly hang out, but when we do, he's focused on other things. Last night we were watching a movie I was excited to show him because it's one of my favorites and 10 minutes in I hear a customer service voice over the phone directing him through a number menu. I ask if he wanted to pause because I noticed he was flipping through a catalog of parts and he said "no, we're watching it together" and brushed it off. 20 minutes later I hear pages flipping and ask again and he brushed me off again.

He's very insecure and stubborn. I can't give him any suggestions or criticize anything without him either getting defensive or changing the subject. The other day, I made some banana bread with chocolate chips. It was still warm so a bunch of chocolate stuck to the plates, probably a tablespoon. when he was finished, he tried to give the plate to our chihuahua to lick clean. I immediately took the plate away saying "nononononono you can't give a dog chocolate what the heck??" and he got defensive about it saying he had scraped most of it off and how I was making our dog sad because he was about to get a treat but didn't.

This insecurity also ties in with his adhd. He does think he's worthy if he's not productive all hours of the day and hinks the same of others. He also thinks that if someone takes a day off that means they're depressed and sad. He talked to me the other day about spending too much time on the internet and that many people get stressed out from it because it prevents them from being productive. I told him that I don't base my self worth on how productive I am and since I have to be in quarantine for 2 weeks I might as well spend it doing what I like to do.

This stubborness is become dangerous as he's unwilling to follow corona virus guidelines. He's been to the store constantly for mostly unnecessary things and he keeps saying that it's been a week since I got back and since I haven't shown any symptoms it should be fine to have people over and go hang out with other people. I tell him "No, it needs to be two weeks and even then I wouldn't risk it because you've been going to the stores a lot. If you think it should only be a week then you can go ahead and tell the scientists in charge and the government that they're wrong and why.

He can't be direct about anything or just plainly say something. This is an issue that both of my parents have. This has also caused danger to the pets living with them. With my dad, instead of just asking me to do something, he'll show me how to do it and then just assume I'll be doing it from then on (we split housework and stuff of course). So, the other day he showed me how to give the ferrets their medication because he wasn't going to be at the house for a couple days and said he was showing me how to do it since he wouldn't be there to. His plan was to leave at 6-7 am and the ferrets need their medication at 8am and 8 pm. I got up as planned at 8 to give them their medicine and notice that he was still here so I went back to sleep. Come 11, he wakes me up and asks if the ferrets are ok and that he checked on them a while a go and they didn't look so good. I tell him "I was only supposed to be taking care of them when you weren't going to be here and since you were still here I figured business as usual" (I should've checked, I know. This was a poor decision I made when I was tired) and then instead of just saying what he wanted or figuring out a plan he just said "I'll be in the garage, " (which was really saying, I'm busy so take care of them when you get a chance). To highlight the importance, if their medications are more than 30 minutes late, there's a good chance they'll have minor seizures and could die. Instead of coming in at 8 to ask me to do it or just doing it when he noticed they were in trouble, he waited 3 hours and even then wasn't direct.

He can't handle any situation that's more than ice cold. Whenever an issue comes up, he either a) changes the subject or b) trails off and walks away. This is very unhealthy and it's clearly taking a toll on his mental health. The biggest issue is that it prevent him from even acknowledging an issue or admitting there's a problem. Even if it's in a movie he'll just scoff at it or make some sort of comment about how a character is hysterical (He scoffs at emotional women the most, he's a bit sexist). Last night we were watching a movie and the main character's best friend died and she was bawling and my dad said that she should calm down and get a grip and that the movie was a little over the top (which really means that he doesn't like the movie. If he says something is any less that amazing or great he's really implying that he really didn't like it).

On top of all of this I think he's getting dementia or something which as you can imagine compounds with the adhd to be a nuclear combination.

Now, onto my mom. It's not as detailed because I haven't been able to spend very much extended time with her

She has depression and recently retired. So, she basically spends all her time now trying to become enlightened but this really means she overthinks everything and spends all her time reading into things. So this results in a very sensitive person who thinks anything less than excited means someone is mad or annoyed. I'm also sure that she thinks like this because after being married to my dad for 20 years, that's how she knows he isn't happy. Except, not everyone is my dad.

She also doesn't address issues very much and gets sad when I prefer to spend my time alone. The only difference is that she's more passive aggressive and melodramatic.

Both her and my dad are very focused on having something to look forward to. My parents buy a lot of stuff they don't need and waste a lot of money. For example, I've cooked big meals so that we have left overs and don't have to cook or go out, and then they'll make more food or go out to eat anyways and let like, $100 of food in the fridge go to waste. I don't cook big meals anymore, but when they cook they still plan for leftovers even though I know they won;t eat them. They probably piss out 10-15k a year if I had to guess. They recently bought an old porsche which they sometimes drive, but the allure has worn off and now they don't take very good care of it. At one point they took batter care of the car than they did their own pets. My mom texts while she drives it and gets mad when I tell her to stop.

A lot of things are black and white. I either love them or I hate them, I either am successful or a failure type of stuff. Recently, I became worried that I would get corona and end up with a bunch of medical bills because I don't have health insurance from my job. She said that since I'm paying for all my own stuff now, I would just have to add them to the 20k in loans I'm already paying of and that I should hope to not get sick. So, I'm either fully independent or not at all and should come home or something. She lives with my sister mostly and my sister spend half her time with her boyfriend at his place, but my mom gets sad when my sister wants to spend more time with her boyfriend that her mom. My mom is very lonely since her only friend in my sister's town is my sister. She pretty much thinks that because my sister wants to spend half her time with her boyfriend it must mean that she's trying to get away from my mom or something which isn't true at all, like, children need to rely more on other people as time goes on otherwise they're going to be a mess when their parents die.

Lastly, I want to talk about how all of this really kind of made me and my siblings fucked up. One of my siblings kind of because the mom assistant and the other one became and absolute entitled bitch. One of them joined the army, but I don't talk to him much and the other works on a farm and my parents don't even know if he graduated the college they were paying money for. Personally, I grew up thinking I wasn't worth anything if I wasn't constantly doing something. This led to an extreme burnout and I'm still struggling with it 5 years later. I picked my career based on getting attention because I have daddy issues. My dad has adhd and there's no way he could give 5 kids his undivided attention when he wasn't even mentally present for himself. So, now I have 20k in debt for a career I realized I don't even like that much. It's also a career that is very hard to succeed in and is gig based making on average less than minimum wage. With my current SO, this need for attention causes some problems because I become very insecure and sad if I'm not getting constant encouragement ad validation. I know it's a little insane, but it's really hard to rewire my brain and I'm so glad he's been so patient. Anyways, feeling the need to be productive to have any self esteem at all, I became addicted to a certain drug known for making someone more productive so I could become impossibly productive. This made me burnout a second time and I'm still addicted like an idiot. Growing up, the avoidance of issues and a lack of ability to take responsibility meant that I learned to ignore any issues I had personally or externally. When I did bring them up, I was told I was just getting annoyed because of my depression and anxiety. So, I never really learned to stand up for myself and instead learned to hate myself for not being able to control a lot of my external environment. Two of my siblings also experienced severe burnout and I think they're also still struggling with the outcome.

Any attempts to discuss anything has been met with avoidance and when it's turned into an actual discussion, nothing changes. My parents have done a lot for me, but I'm starting t feel like they think paying for a fancy college or giving me material things is the only way they know how to connect. Even if I address issues as they come up, they will never come close to addressing these deeper issues. It's really hard to deal with and I know they're trying to have a real connection, but they can't because their own issues are getting in the way which is the saddest part. They can't even begin to handle them because their specific personalities prevent them from even admitting they have a problem. Guys, I am really at a loss and my dad refuses to even try going to family therapy or doing anything to just talk yet he acts like he really wants to have a connection. My mom is a counselor and has been trying to get them to go to marriage counseling and he refuses saying that counselors are for people who can't fix their own marriage and that going means that the relationship isn't work or some bullshit. My mom lives with my sister half the time because health issues require her to live in a different climate and she's honestly been so much happier being away from my dad and she always comes up with an excuse for why she has to stay with my sister more. Growing up seeing how my parents interracted led me to think that was a healthy way to have a relationship and made my first relationship very unhealthy.

This whole thing is such a mess and the family is really dysfunctional. I really want to have a real connection with my parents and afaik they want one as well, but at this point it's impossible to ignore the elephant in the room but my attempts are met with apathy which just makes it worse. So, I guess to start I want to ask how to relate and actually hang out with someone who has adhd and a bit of dementia as well as how to approach these issues in a way that helps my dad admit that there's an elephant.

#my dad #explanation #my mom #mess #bad relationship #adhd #dementia #stubborn #toxic masculinity #bad parenting #unhealthy #dysfunctional