Daddy Issues

I have been a daddy's girl for as long as I can remember. When we were younger my mum went to work and my dad was home with us girls till we were all at junior school. If something needed to be done then daddy would do it. Apparently, that was my go-to response to all questions my mum asked me as a child. Do you want some milk? Daddy do it! Shall we get you dressed? Daddy do it!  You get the point. And that is the way it has been throughout my life. He worked hard, as did my mum. He cooked the Sunday roast and watched the F1 while my mum did the washing and ironing. He did all the DIY and decorating. If a bulb went he would change it. If the dog shit on the carpet he would clean it up. He was the typical family man. As I've grown older my feelings toward my dad have changed drastically but deep down I am still his little girl. The baby of the family.

Unfortunately, nothing stays the same. People change and so do our feelings. I love my dad but it hasn't been easy to like him of late. Of course, there were times during my childhood that he was the devil for rejecting my requests or grounding me for missing my curfew but these feelings actually have substance now I'm older. My coping mechanism is weak to say the least. I bury my head in the sand and bolt my emotional doors shut in the hope that the problem will miraculously disappear. This is in no way a good rule to follow but it has been the thing that has gotten me through the past few years. But by shutting down and 'blocking' it out I am just feeding the issue. But I lie to myself and everyone around me about my true feelings. I go to work, do the shopping, cook the dinner and paint on the protective mask in the hopes that it won't slip and my lie won't be revealed. Something has stirred in me recently and I've decided that life isn't a masquerade ball. I cant walk around hidden behind the mask. I have to confront all my demons and take control of the emotional anchors that are weighing me down. This isn't going to be an easy process and I don't know if I'm fully prepared to face it all but the alternative is not an option. My daddy issues are real.

My earliest memory of feeling embarrassed by my dad - for want of a better word - was when I was in junior school. I was maybe 8 or 9 years old at the time. My dad came to the school, and as he stood amongst all the other parents I became very aware that he was older than most of them. See I wasn't embarrassed by his age, I was worried that some other child would pick up on my observation and use it to taunt me. I don't think that ever happened but once that worry was in my mind it became a source of dread. My dad was just shy of 40 when I was born and this seemed like a huge age when I was younger. As I've grown older I've been able to appreciate the difference. He is older and wiser and he just as good as any other dad out there. When I was little, my sister and I would pretend to fall asleep on the sofa so my dad and brother, respectively, would have to carry us upstairs to bed. I love those memories and so many more. When he delivered flowers for a florist and would let me ride round in the van with him. When he worked late night at a petrol station and would bring home treats for us in the morning. All of these memories add up to a pretty fantastic childhood and fortunately, nothing can take any of that away from me. But no amount of good memories can take away the pain of my dad's recent ventures. Or the fear of losing him.

On November 11th, 2015 I had to call an ambulance for dad. His chest was tight and he was struggling to breathe. We were taken to the nearest hospital where they carried out a lot of tests. His heart rate was too high and his blood pressure too low. We watched from the corridor as he fell in and out of consciousness while doctors appeared in every corner. By the end of that day the consultants believed he had mild heart failure but we were told that medication could rectify this. 2 days later he was told that a stent would need to be fitted. Dad reassured us that this was a small procedure and nothing to be worried about. Roll forward 7 days and dad was in surgery undergoing a quadruple heart bypass. The wait was endless and nothing can ever prepare you for the loss of a parent. Lucky for us it wasn't his time to go and within 2 weeks he was back home where he belonged. It was a very slow, long recovery but he was getting better and that was the main thing. Although we had been prepared to aid his recovery, we were not prepared for the effect the operation would have on dad as a person. He was withdrawn, impatient and irritable. We figured this was all a part of the healing process so we cared for him as best we could. He asked mum if she would mind him going away for a month to visit my uncle and further his recovery. Mum welcomed the idea and wished him well on his journey across the world. We looked forward to him coming home but he wasn't the man who had left. In fact, he was never the same after his operation.

At the age of 69, my dad made the decision that he wants to move away to another country and live out his days there. This would all be fine if he was carefree and single. But he is not. He is still very much married to my mum. 37 years of marriage, 4 children, 7 grandchildren and 10 pets later.  Another crushing blow is that our family home of 25 years will be sold to fund his migration. Now I have known about this since last summer and as heartbreaking as it was to hear, I never really believed that any of it would happen. When my mum told me she pointed out my lack of reaction and this was my way of rejecting the information I'd just been given. My first thought was that my mum shouldn't tell anyone else, including my siblings. I figured that if no one else knew then it wasn't really happening. That was my first lie. I also figured that as they continued to live under the same roof that he would change his mind and stay. That was my second lie. Unfortunately, my mum wasn't in agreement about who should know and told my siblings accordingly. For fuck sake! Now I'm not the best person to force into a conversation, especially when the subject is something I so vehemently deny. Over the course of the next few months, I had no emotional acknowledgement of what was happening at home. I avoided the reality by staying away and avoided being at our family home. On the occasions that I made an appearance, as fleeting as it may have been, I could not escape the issue. My mum would try and talk to me and each and every time this just unearthed an angry beast. She would talk to me when we were in a moving car - she wasn't stupid, she knew full well that I'd have to sit there and listen as she talked, this didn't however stop me contemplating an action movie dive from the car. See the problem was, I blamed her for him wanting to leave. I blamed her for him being so 'unhappy' at home. None of this was true but I needed to blame someone and for reasons unknown, I couldn't bring myself to blame my dad. My third lie: I was still the daddy's girl I've always been and he was just being silly. Mum had upset him and he was lashing out. None of this was true of course but to blame my dad would be to accept what he was doing. And that just wasn't an option. Over the months it grew harder to cover up. More and more people found out and contingency plans were made. He began sorting through the house, patching up any DIY and sprucing up where needed - all in preparation for the sale of our home. In recent months he has started to nag me about sorting out all my belongings. I have been in the same bedroom since we moved into this house. 25 years worth of stuff is not easy to sift through, especially when you're unwilling. But this week I have bitten the bullet and started the arduous task of sorting and disposing of the things I possess. In one sense it is a royal pain in the arse. Who wants to spend their free time boxing up books or throwing out birthday cards from their 8th birthday (ashamed to admit that is true, many birthdays and many boxes of cards have been unearthed) In another sense it is quite cathartic. Finding memories of old lovers and jeans that I haven't worn for years adds to the therapy of throwing things away. Now, this may sound like I've accepted the situation and I'm working through it. That is just another lie. As I do all of these things I am completely numb. Morphine is a softer hit than this. But the necessity of my actions has outweighed my desire to run from it. If truth be told, I have nowhere to run to.

No matter how deep my head is buried, there is no getting away from the parts of my life that cause me stress or worry. I need to accept the impact this situation has had on my life and my relationships. It took me a long time to realise that none of it was my mum's fault. She is the victim in this situation. But my accepting this, I also had to accept the choices my dad has made. He wants a divorce; he wants to sell our family home; he wants to move to a foreign country. These are all the things that he wants and we all just have to accept them. I'm not quite at that stage. Truth be told, I'm a million miles from it. But I will acknowledge that it is all going to happen, no matter how much I cry or drag my feet. The heart wants what it wants and who are we to stand in the way of that. I'm not angry with him for wanting a better life, in a warm country, with no mortgage but I am angry about the ripple it has had on my family. At my uncles funeral, my mum's family ignored him pretty much. My brother thinks he is an idiot. He gets annoyed everytime we talk about it. My eldest sister gets angry and upset. My middle sister gets really upset. And then there's me. I get uncontrollably angry - when I allow it. I live in a morphine state day to day and this is the only way I know how to cope. I don't want to be upset or angry or heartbroken because he has caused it. And but causing it, he has caused the pain. And with that pain comes ill feelings. I don't ever want to hate him for what he's doing but how can I move past this? By shutting down to this, I have shut down to other aspects of my life. I fell out with my sister just before this revelation and we haven't really spoken since. Ordinarily, this would have been awful and it would have really upset me but I feel nothing. The same goes for T. We row, he gets angry and I just sit there. We talk about issues we have and I hear him but I don't listen. I've completely lost the ability to be supportive of other people's needs. By closing myself off to the issues I have with my dad, I have provoked problems in other areas of my life. I have lost a job I loved, struggled financially and become a lesser person. I can sit here and identify all the bad points but I cannot feel the impact of any of them. The repercussions of my emotional blockades have shut me down completely. I fear that there will be a dam effect and once the floodgates are opened I will be in a worse state than I am now. But which is actually worse? Accepting my dad's decision and building a new life without him or living like the Tin Man and waiting for my heart to unearth itself? I know the right choice to make but at the age of 31, I am very much stuck in my ways. Opening up and working through my emotional cesspit is a daunting task but its one I have to face. 

My final thoughts... Dorothy said there was no place like home. Sometimes we have to build new homes and that's ok. Afterall, home is where the heart is, and I have plenty of hearts around me full of love. I just need to accept them