5 Things My Dad’s Disease Taught Me

I loved my dad, and he had some serious mental health issues. Although I didn’t know the specifics when I was growing up, he probably suffered from depression, anxiety, and some sort of paranoid psychosis. I found out his diagnoses much later in life when my siblings and I took on responsibility for his care. As a kid, I did notice his weird behaviors and his struggles with inner demons. I even developed some of the same conditions, particularly depression and anxiety. But despite the many drawbacks of growing up with my dad’s peculiarities, I took away some incredibly powerful lessons for living a healthy and empowering life. He taught me these life beliefs both as consciously expressed values and by less-consciously lived example.

1. It’s Going to Be OK

My dad had the book “I’m OK, You’re OK,” and although I never read it cover to cover, it echoed his ever-present optimism. In his whole lifetime (he died at 83), he never really got better, or at least not in a way that was obvious to me. He managed to function somewhat marginally in terms of life skills and relationships, but for some reason, he never lost touch with a positive outlook. He’d talk about the things that weren’t going well or that he was still struggling with, and he’d always end with an upswing, like “I’m still working on it!” Or “Things will be better tomorrow.” I picked up this attitude, and so even when I’d be living in fear-based, catastrophic thinking, there was always part of me that believed somehow everything would work out. It’s going to be ok.

2. Never Give Up Hope

Along with that omnipresent optimism came a persistent willingness to try something new. My dad was always trying something to help himself feel better. He read, he wrote, he worked with a therapist, he took photographs, he did creative projects with art and photography, he meditated, he listened to books on tape and music and chanted prayers. He walked in nature, he talked with me and others, he studied and upgraded his technology to support his art and photography efforts, he wrote poetry. My dad demonstrated how not to give up, to persist, to keep looking for answers, and to never give up hope.

3. Feelings are Important

In a world and culture that seemed to deny feelings, my dad honored them. He may not have been the best at noticing or understanding them, but he did pick up on them more than any other adult in my life. He got stuck in his feelings, carrying around old wounds from childhood in full and sometimes embarrassing view. He asked me about mine, and listened when I attempted to talk about them, even if he wasn’t the best at helping me find ways to work through or resolve them. Partly because of his level of awareness and effort to work on his own feelings, I gained the confidence in my 30s to unbottle all my stuffed emotions and find ways to let them go. I’ve learned how to identify, process, and let my feelings go. It’s true freedom. Feelings are important.

4. The Past has Power

I remember when my dad mentioned as we approached a particular calendar date that it was a relative’s birth or death date and he had feelings around it. He showed me that it’s important to be aware of events in the family and their impact on one’s emotional health. His knowledge of family trauma, history, and stories gave me insight into my own responses to my origins. I learned to pay attention to the cycles of the year and the calendar in terms of family events and emotional realities for myself and others around me. And I watched how even though he had amazing awareness of the past and its impact on his mind, he was unable to let go of childhood trauma. I saw how trauma contributed to the destruction of his mental capabilities, and I realized that it wasn’t enough to be aware of the past and its power, but to be truly healthy, one had to process and let it go. The past has power unless you let it go.

5. Home is in Your Head

This one took a long time to understand. My dad’s disease made him uncomfortable with any place he physically lived in for any length of time. At first, he’d be ecstatic when he moved to a new place, but after awhile, it became the most horrible place ever. He’d shift all his paranoid thinking to the staff, the facilities, and the other residents. His constant refrain then would be, “I want to go home.” He was never satisfied with, “You ARE home, Dad,” because clearly, he didn’t feel that way. No matter how “homey” we tried to make his rooms, he would become desperate to escape. What I finally realized was that he would never feel at home in any place, no matter how closely it matched his fantasy, because he was not comfortable in his own head. The torture went on in there 24/7. It taught me that external conditions have nothing to do with whether I feel at home in the world. Home is in your head.

What have you learned from your parents?

Photo by Derek Thomson on Unsplash