Bad Craziness

This past week: Time for Father to leave the facility he's in. He is adamant that he is going home with round the clock help. My brothers and I have a number of conversations with his physician, his nurse, and his social worker. We determine, independently and objectively, that he would be better off going to a non acute rehab facility than home.

He could have his bed moved to the ground floor, and he could shit in a porto john. His house isn't set up for a handicapped person save for the wheelchair ramps (which we built for my mother five years ago). I don't see how he's going to be able to take a bath. He will get drive by rehab three times a week, but it won't be very thorough. And it's going to cost $72K a year.

At the nonacute rehab facility, he will get comprehensive therapy four times a week. He could get stronger, be fitted for a prothesis, learn how to walk with it, and then go home with some assistance. Cost is probably the same, but medicare will cover it.

Which is a good thing, as he is running out of money. His burn rate is significant, because he refused to sign up for medicare and has been paying for my mother's nursing home out of his pocket (80k a year). He runs out in three years if he doesn't sell his house or go on medicare.

And so we reported this to our father Thursday morning by conference call, and let me tell you that he was loaded to hunt bear. He was just waiting there, in his hospital bed, stewing and thinking about how we was going to let us have it. It was the rudest conversation I've ever had, and I didn't say much during it. He was unrelentingly hostile. He mocked my older brother for making a recommendation to him, the physician, when we were all mere lawyers. He claimed that live in help at his home would cost him $6,000 per year which was imminently affordable. I pointed out that worked out to $152 a week, considerably less than the minimum wage, he took my fucking head off. "OK Mr. Lawyer, I made a mistake. I don't know shit." And he set after me.

My older brother tried to cool things down by asking both of us to stop fighting. When he wouldn't let me speak, I screamed "FUCK" in exasperation and told Lee that my father never liked me, does not like me, doesn't listen to me, doesn't know how to behave and doesn't even want to try - and this was all a fucking waste of my time and not to rope me in to this shit again. And I hung up.

My father called yesterday morning to summon me to his bedside to resolve things between him and me. I've been through this particular exercise quite a few times with him over the years.

The first time, he said he did not remember specific incidents of abuse, and that most of what I remembered did not happen. I was infuriated. I did make sure to check with my younger brother to verify that I wasn't crazy and all the shit I remembered - the empty bottles in the trunk of his car, under his bed, in his closet, being locked in a room for three days.

I think the single most traumatic memory I have is of being locked in my room for three days and being forced to memorize a random page in a history book so that I would "do something perfectly once in my life. He was enraged and out of control, and he tested me and then terrorized me when I failed every hour he was awake and not at work. I had come home with a 76 or 78 in a science test.

When he was at work, my mother had no sympathy for me. She wouldn't let me out of my room. She made me study memorizing that history book page. I don't remember much else about it except wondering if I was going to have to kill myself to get out of this insanity. I didn't study very much. I fantasized about killing him, killing myself, running away.

Last time we had "the TALK" he was going into the hospital to have his big toe cut off, and he told me he was sorry that he was such a shitty parent. He said he didn't realize he was being one while he was being one. I gently told him to worry about his health instead of his failings as a parent. I even said "It isn't like children come with instruction manuals." I was trying to be polite.

A week later, he was yelling at me again.

So I wasn't anxious to have "the TALK" again. In fact, I wasn't going to have "the TALK" again. I told him I wasn't going to visit with him. He asked why not, and I told him that he was unremittingly rude, that I'd warned him that I wouldn't help him if he was abusive, and I was done. He asked me if I'd ever considered the possibility that some of the things I remembered didn't happen, and at that point I lost it.

I told that he could be as hurt as he wanted to be, and could get as made as he wanted to get, but I'd been apologizing for him all of my life, from during my summer jobs at the hospital at which he practiced to the current medical care regime, and I'd spent decades trying to please him only to fail because he didn't know what he wanted. I told him that he enjoyed being rude to people. He told me he didn't want to lose a son, and I told him that he already had. He said "well, that's certainly clear enough." I told him his legacy was one of failed marriages, infidelity, drug abuse, and nomadism among his children, and to be proud of it. I told him that if you kick a dog enough times, he'll bite, to which he said "I know that from this call." He said "OK, you blame me for everything." I said "no, I don't, we are responsible for what happened in our life, but you helped cause it. He told me he was shocked by this news - absolutely shocked. I asked him if he really thought that his yelling at me all of the time really was going to endear him to me? I told him I couldn't be responsible for his delusions. Then I hung up.

Later in the day, my father decided that he wanted to go to a nonacute rehab facility. He scheduled a conference all with his children this morning. My older brother asked me if I wanted to participate, and I declined. He said that was probably for the best, since my father had said he wanted to have "the TALK" with my older brother and said a few provocative things.

They had the call this morning, and my younger brother reports that he was well behaved, and tried to ask him what "was up" with me. I chuckled. I don't think I could have been any clearer.

And here's where we stand in life with father. It's bad craziness, and it's ugly, and it's insane, and I JUST WANT IT TO STOP. I wrote all of this shit out with the thought that I'd read it tomorrow and start to determine whether I'm being an asshole or whether I'm justified cutting off my relationship with my father because he really is a "toxic parent." But now, at 3 in the morning, I just want it to stop. I don't want to have "the TALK" with him. I don't want to hear that the evil I remember never happened. I don't want to have to listen to him yell anymore, and I don't want to clean up after he's shit on something again.

I also wrote this shit out because I just can't believe that this kind of crap goes on in any other family. This is seriously fucked, from my father's behavior, the trama I feel when he cranks up his war with me, and the dissipation of his fortune because he's afraid the other Jews in town will gossip if he goes on Medicare. It is at times like this, and they are increasing, when I wish I was part of a different family.

Is your family like this? Do the members of your family treat each other like shit? Do you have a serial adulterer in the house? A recluse? A morbidly obese asshole?