When your idols come crashing down

A story about my relationship with my father

Gaslighting

When I was 5, I remember thinking my father was the coolest, smartest person who could do anything he wanted. My father was a morally sound man, did not want to cheat people, believed in honesty and not harming others. But he also had his fair share of issues, he was an alcoholic and was possibly depressed.

I didn’t get to spend a lot of time with my father, he was never emotionally available. He never had time to go out on family outings. Whenever I went out, be it shopping, eating, or travel, I always went with my mother. I distinctly remember this one weekend afternoon, I couldn’t have been any older than 12. We had planned to go out as a family (this phrase will forever haunt me). My father, cancelled last minute, and I was distraught. After looking forward to spending time with both parents for a long time, all my anticipation was in vain. I began sobbing and, as any kid who didn’t get their way would do, started throwing a tantrum. I cried and begged him to join, but to no avail.

After I’d been sobbing for a while, my father told me I have the innate ability to disappoint myself, and it was my fault I was upset. This happened multiple times, we would plan to go out, he would cancel, I would be disappointed and he would point out that I “ have the ability ” to make myself sad.

I believed this for the longest time. I thought I was the one making myself sad, and it wasn’t his fault.

Broken promises

I did not recognize the gaslighting till a few days ago (I’m now 24), when my aunt mentioned how my father had promised to take my mother to Switzerland for her 50th birthday (she’s 49, turns 50 this November).

Now you might be wondering why this redemption story is under a subtitle called broken promises. And I would argue that this is barely redemption for all the time he missed, or it would have been had he not killed himself when I was 19.

Now it's not entirely accurate to characterise his death as suicide. He died of complications from a damaged liver, the result of his years of alcohol abuse. Now we could argue all day if that was his fault or not. I could argue that he chose to drink himself to his grave instead of spending time with his family, but one could also argue that his alcoholism was a symptom of depression and he was a victim. I would be willing to give him a pass, had it not been for the following chain of events.

His death…

How did my father die? It wasn’t overnight. The first indicator of his poor health was back when I was in high school, maybe 15 or 16. There were concerns about his health, so my mother took him to multiple specialists and therapists, to attempt to solve both the liver issue, and potentially the underlying mental issue. My father was an adamant, egotistical, intelligent man. He did a little of his own reading, and the doctors could no longer convince him he had a mental issue ( I feel disgusted that I was impressed by his “Intelligence”. More on that later). And my father went on drinking much to my mother's dismay. With great mental and emotional strength, my mother unilaterally decided to have my father forcefully committed to a rehab facility.

I cannot tell you how destroyed I was watching the man I looked up to all my life getting carried away by clinicians of the rehab facility, but I stood with my mother’s decision, and still do to this day. This should have been my first clue that he was not the man I thought him to be.

My father being the arrogant man was unfazed by the rehab. After spending a couple of months there (during which he was sober), he came back home and immediately started drinking in protest. He was angry about being committed against his will.

About 2 years after, I remember I was sleeping in my parent's room with my father, and my mother was sleeping in my room. This was the arrangement as my father complained about my mother’s snoring, and she did not see it as a problem. It was early in the morning, about 6.30. My father was awake, and watching TV. I was sleeping, but aware that he was up and aware that the TV was on. I heard a violent shaking and looked up to see my father having a seizure.

We immediately called an ambulance and took him to the hospital. His liver was severely damaged, and we had to be extremely careful and take every measure to keep him alive. He couldn’t smoke in the hospital (oh did I tell you he was a smoker too?), so he had severe withdrawal symptoms from nicotine, and as a result, was constantly annoyed, and annoying everyone around him. He was weak, incapable of logic and was basically a toddler throwing tantrums. One day, when it was my turn to spend the night at the hospital with him, I heard him calling out for me from the bathroom. I went in to see my father without pants, on the floor incapable of getting himself to stand up. My idol was literally crumbling in front of my eyes, and yet I could not help but NOT feel sympathy. I was angry, he had treated my mother, my family and me wrong. I helped him up and walked him back to bed.

Remarkably this was not the end, he somehow recovered a little and was discharged from the hospital. To his credit, he did listen to our (me, mother and other members of our family) advice and quit drinking, and I do commend him for at least trying (handing out consolation prizes).

His Ego…

But Alas! this last effort of quitting drinking would be undone by his own ego. I was sitting outside my hostel in college, talking on the phone to my dad. And he was telling me how he was not going to take his meds because of some argument he had with my mom. I don’t remember what the argument was, but I wasn’t emotionally mature enough, to tell the man I looked up to my whole life, to stop being a BITCH. So instead, I tried my best attempt at conflict resolution but was unsuccessful. A week later he passed away.

Back to the promise

Now he had a chance at redemption, promised my mother one trip that was more than 20 years overdue, and fell short one more time, just to disappoint one more time.

Why am I writing this?

Honestly, I don’t know. When I heard the story about the promised trip from my aunt, my heart broke. I could not contain my emotions, I was so severely heartbroken that I sobbed thinking about the broken promise, and that led me to think of what a shitty father he was, never giving us time. Even now I could not write this without crying my eyes out. I simply do not have the tools required to handle these emotions yet.

But I can learn things. I idealised my father because I thought he was smart, smarter than everyone, smarter than my mom. This was enforced by everyone that knew him lauding his smarts. It was also reinforced by my childhood conditioning. Coming from a scholarly family, I was told intelligence was the paramount trait, and I believed it. This led me to idolise my father. His emotional unavailability also made his attention a scarce valuable commodity to me, and I did everything in my power to get him to pay attention to me, recognize me, hopefully, spend time with me.

My mother on the other hand was always there for me, supported me emotionally, financially and morally. She taught me what was right, what was wrong. She helped me study, she fed me, she even occasionally took me to my cricket and swimming classes (which my father never did!). And I took her attention for granted. I, very wrongly, did not value her attention and opinion.

I realised I had been idolising the wrong parent.