Father's Day

[Enaila]

Looks like Father's Day is a common trigger for people as I noticed some old posts on it on this site. I know I find father's day a time when lots of commercials are reminding us to remember our fathers, but those well intentioned commercials and specials can really bring up some sad or scary times in my life.

My dad suffers from being bipolar and is not someone I feel safe around. I think of things I wish he had said to me or ways he could have shown he cared, but know it is probably only wishful thinking and does he really matter anyway? He was physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually abusive. What makes me think he would change?

Then I think about how my boys must also go through reminders their father is gone too. He died from his addictions. He too was abusive to me during our marriage and prior to me getting the boys and I far away enough to be safe.

What makes a father? I feel cheated in some way. I feel angry my boys father cared more about alcohol and drugs than his family.

 

[Changing4Best]

I'm so sorry you had to suffer like this and at the hands and minds of your fathers, both yours and your son's. Bipolar is something I suffer from, but I hate abuse and have not perpetrated it onto others, instead understanding all too well how it feels to be at the receiving end of it. I don't always express my feelings of love well, but I do give hugs. Being bipolar is an awful thing to suffer and one who suffers it can attest to its traps and hold on the emotions, which will come out in strange ways one way or another, even when I try to control them.

I am medicated now, but was not always. I do remember my year of anger, until I simmered down. It was mostly noise that triggered me, as I recall now. Just thoughtless noise caused by neighbors who played loud music, who stomped up and down the stairs that were right next to my apartment and who sometimes argued loudly. Arguments are a trigger of mine, as my parents argued every day of my childhood. My father was the angry one, but then he would insight my mother to anger in response.

None the less I loved both of my parents and for the most part, they treated me well. It was eachother that they mistreated with their anger and arguments.

Anyway, I don't own a TV, so I cannot be the victim of such ads from that source, but I guess I will run into such ads on Youtube and so on this week. I guess I will just press "SKIP AD" when it is available to me. That should solve that. Don't you wish you had that option with your TV? I guess you do. Just prerecord the shows you want to watch and then fast forward through all the ads!

 

[KeepingTime]

Father's Day is really hard. But my fathers been gone for 25 yrs now...which I guess is a good thing...even tho that's hard to say.

But I have a really good husband who is a great father to my daughter that was from an abusive addict husband. And my father in law is still alive and he is a really great man too. I have a hard time viewing him as a father figure just because that role was filled by a sick pedophile for me growing up.
Blah blah Blah
Anyway I try to focus on the two men in my life now who are really good to me and celebrate them. And try not to feel too cheated that the one who was supposed to love me couldn't.

@SheilaKathy i am bipolar also. We really tend to get a bad rap. I've had many bad moments too and hospitalizations but pretty stable for the past 10 years.

 

[Enaila]

Father's Day is really hard. But my fathers been gone for 25 yrs now...which I guess is a good thin...

I didn't mean to insult anyone. I should have said father who is bipolar and refuses to take his medicine as that is a sign of weakness to him. My ex was also diagnosed as being bipolar, but he self medicated along with his prescribed medicines. Both men were unpredictable, could be violent one minute then kind next minute, and I always felt like I was walking on eggshells our on a rollercoaster. Having bipolar didn't make them less human, how they handled it did.

I had a father-in-law who I loved, a foster father in law, and grandpas, but all have died. This was all in the last few years. My uncle was someone I could confide in as well, but he too passed away last August.

You did help me realize that my mom's boyfriend of the last two years has been nothing, but sweet and caring to my sons and myself. He is there if we need help and thinks of us when he is out and about. I think focusing on him may help this year. He has shown more compassion in two years than my father ever did.

 

[KeepingTime]

@Enaila I wasn't offended. Don't worry. I know it's the nature of the beast so to speak because of the unpredictability of the illness. I'm sure there are moments in my life that I wouldn't have wanted to live with me either.
I feel badly for what I can only imagine it was like for my daughter. I tell her I wish I had been a better mother. She assures me that I was a good mom. But she grew up being terrified to be like me. (She is dx as bipolar too)
I know there were times when my mind was convinced that the doctors were trying to poison me with meds! But even during those times I wasn't violent to anyone but myself. There's never an excuse to be violent. Especially to your children.
Sometimes I try to explain away the things my dad did to me as "oh he must have been bipolar also" but my t says being bipolar doesn't make someone a pedophile. I guess I think it might be easier to think he was crazy than the thought that he willfully did the things that he did.

You have had so much loss and you ask what makes a father?
I wouldn't know the answer to that if it weren't for my husband...who never gave up on me (we just celebrated 20th anniversary) and he has treated and raised my daughter like I could have only dreamed of being raised.
We don't get to pick our biological family but I'm glad you do have one positive male figure in your life in your moms boyfriend. I do think it helps to celebrate the positives...no matter how small. We will never get back what we "should have had" but sometimes we can find a glimpse of that in other people. :)

Thank you for starting this thread. Sometimes I get caught up in resenting the fact that I have to celebrate Father's Day that I forget that even tho it's not for my father, that I do still have a reason to celebrate the men I do have in my life!

 

[Enaila]

Was trying on some clothes today and I hear a father saying such kind things to his 11 year old son. He was encouraging the boy to try on a new style of clothes and when boy came out, the father told him how nice he looked and what a fun day they were going to have together. I listened with tears in my eyes, and thought to myself how much I wished I had heard such positive things from my father. I guess if I write another letter to my inner child, I will have to remember how just a few kind words can make a difference.