To feel so sick, sad and guilty?

[DomesticDisgrace]

Growing up there was just me and my two alcoholic parents who if I'm honest gave me a truly awful childhood/life until I moved out at 17. Underneath it all they were great people but very damaged. My mam left when I was 12 though and my dad tried to hold the fort, working nights, minding me but also drinking a lot and shouting, wrecking the place, throwing me out etc.

They later got divorced and sold the house, split the money but almost as soon as the money hit their accounts my dad had a stroke and I looked after him but while he was recovering my mother got diagnosed with terminal cancer and the next day I found out I was pregnant. I looked after her then but myself and my dads siblings tried to convince him to buy a little place instead of squandering all his money away and paying rent but he wouldn't.

I had a little girl and my mam died 11 days later leaving me her half of the money and I vowed to use it for a home for me and my daughter and the following year I bought a little 2 bed and now two years later I'm 26 and mortgage free (but broke!)

My dad is renting a little bedsit and I had to take some stuff in for him that his brother was minding and I just felt racked with guilt that here I am set up for life technically with his money, while he's stuck in a little bedsit. I feel so sick and sad about it, I'm usually a hard nut but there was something pathetic about him leaving his worldly goods here. I wonder should I offer to share a room with DD and let him move in, though I don't think he'd like that either as he has a long term girlfriend who is also an alcoholic.

Oh I must be premenstrual because I'm very teary here reading all your replies! Thanks so much.

I wouldn't have entertained asking him if it wasn't for taking his stuff in the other day. God it just made me so sad, it seemed so wrong like it should really be the other way around.
Clearly I'm having a moment of madness though because it simply wouldn't work and I'd never jeopardize my daughters stability for anything.

Thanks again I had nobody to run it by in real life because obviously my friends view of him would be very dim after everything they've seen over the years but now he's just a man whose aging rapidly (yet not even 60 yet, very scary!)

The best way to look after an alcoholic family member is to keep a safe home away from them for you and especially for any children/grandchildren to live in. Any caring you do has to be done at a slight distance or the alcoholism will suck you and your dd in and ruin your lives too.

It's up to you how often you see your dad and what else you do for him, you can adjust that over time if you need to but please for your dd's and your own sake keep your home as a safe place of your own, don't invite him to live with you.

supercosy you're so right, I can handle his friendship or whatever strange relationship we have now, purely because he's at arms length. Even then I sometimes have to bite my tongue.

I'm really glad I've posted this, I feel a thousand times better though still weirdly emotional about it all!

I get it, I really do. You have to be strong and believe that you deserve better. It is deeply confusing and you probably have so many conflicting emotions. I had no understanding of things like this before I met dp because my childhood was very stable and happy. I do now though, having cared for her mum for several years now. Some days she is so demanding and unpleasant (usually about DP) that I could scream, at other times she is vulnerable, ill or even kind and grateful (not so much!).

It is like an emotional roller coaster and for some reason we feel permanently guilty! However, in my sane moments I know that we are doing the very best that we can for her and that we can't work miracles. Keep your distance, look after yourself and your Dd and know that you are brilliant and inspirational even if you don't feel like it!