Please help advise- hypochondriac parent

[Gohackyourself]

Hi there- this is long but I so need some advice.
I'm not sure whether I'm ok to post here though as do not want to offend anyone with a parent with serious illness-
My father retired 2 years ago and since then has rapidly gone downhill with fictitious illnesses , aches and pains etc.
Now I know everyone will say he's bored needs to find a hobby etc, we ve spoken to him till blue in face.

He's married to my step mother who I guess has become immune to it all and does not help with running him to various hospital apps etc so falls to my partner and I.they've had a very rocky marriage and he's been deeply unhappy all of it so this adds to the problem.
This week he's had six dif appointments for various ailments.
Because he gave terrible symptoms to a doctor he's now been through a full range of scans , ct scans, ultrasounds ecg etc.
All that's wrong is he's got a trapped nerve in back and a knee with arthritis but he's adamant he's got Corbus equine syndrome (been ruled out) and he says he can't excersise as his knee so bad, yet has money to pay privately if he wished.
The upshot is(if you ve got this far) is he is malingering, got too much time on hands and winding everyone up in family with this hyponchondria.
But on downside I'm in a new 1 year relationship and it's getting me down so much I'm starting to rant all the time to my partner.
Sooooo how do I shut off from this shite from my dad, mentally block it out and get on with my life(I'm 42, I can truly say my dads always moaned, from my mother walking out on him, his dad dying when he was two and constantly striving to get to xxx in the bank , getting there and wanting more, wanting to reach retirement ) it's been never ending, it's like he's almost wishing he had some proper illness.

Please please help?!

Bump

Is there anyone else you could rant to?allow yourself a brief arrrrrgh moan and then move on? He has made his choices- don't let him ruin your life.

He may have genuine Health Anxiety - he may not be "bored" or malingering, it may genuinely be a torment to him. My Step mother had a benign tumour then went into sever health anxiety and had convinced lots of doctors to do investigations, prescribe unnecessary medications, etc. It was awful.

But it was a mental health issue and she was genuinely ill. There isn't much you can do if he doesn't want to help himself. My step mother is completely lost in her health anxiety and has wasted 20+ years of her life refusing to see that it is a mental health issue and that she actually doesn't have any health problems.

It's not very helpful - sorry - but maybe he is just one of those people who only know how to communicate through moaning - as you say he has always been like this.

It may help to look at a little bit of transactional analysis - to learn how to communicate more and to find a way to avoid him repeatedly complaining.

Why won't his wife take him to appointments?

If he's got money to pay for private testing, he can pay a taxi and/or professional carer.

He is not your responsibility.

He will not change. Fact. He has been like this all his life. The only thing you can do is try to not let him affect your day to day life/happiness. Like a PP had said, do you have someone in your life you can have a good moan with? OR make a pact with your DP that you can have 10mins a day to have a good bitch about the situation and then you table it/leave it and the stress behind you and enjoy your life. It is sad that he is like this but you shouldn't have to suffer for it. Make yourself a priority.

Thank you all.

Unfortunately someone said "he is not my responsibility" but he is, he's my parent but I seem to have taken on the role as rescuer/Parent/.

I know it starts with me, not letting him get to me- but after 42 years I'm broken . I don't know where to start really.
I'm reading some toxic parents books and I can see some things to practice- one is not letting him have the "how are you" question asked after him!!
Verity- you say that she was genuinely ill in the end with mental health but I assume she had to get to a place to accept this.df genuinely hits the roof if anyone dare suggest it's anxiety/depression.
I can't get over the lack of willingness to help himself... grr

But he's not your responsibility. He's got to take responsibility for himself first - yet he's abdicated all that. It doesn't mean you have to pick it up though. Even his own wife has refused to. What does that tell you? He's using you.

To be blunt there are 2 options.

You stop accepting responsibility for a perfectly capable adult and don't pander to him.

Or you let it continue and it will drag you down with him and make you ill and miserable.

My family have been there. I watched a family member put up with this sort of stuff because she was too soft to stop doing it. It made her ill and miserable. She suffered because of this persons selfishness and like you wouldn't accept it wasn't her problem and martyred herself.

Don't do it.

Correct shesno, his wife has got bored and fed up of it too but then she's part of the problem and always has been for him. He/she stayed for financial reasons only and am sure they are bitter/bored and fed up with each other.hes depressed/anxious/anxiety ridden.
An suddenly I find myself in same shoes because of him.

In an ideal world you would all say I stop . Great, I'd say same - it's the how!?!

Taking people to hospital appointments is torture imv. I'm very impatient and all that sitting around drives me nuts.
I would drop him off and get him to phone (public phone if he doesn't have a mobile) when he's ready to be picked up. How do you find time to do all these appointments. Or can't he take a bus.
Your going to have to toughen up and leave him to get on with it. Either you live with the guilt for not running after him or you keep on with what your doing and get wound up. .

My fil is like this, and after 8 years of the bullshit I've had enough. I don't listen to it anymore, and I certainly don't pander to it by visiting or arranging hospital trips. These illnesses always arise when he's been behaving like a twat to make you feel guilty.

He's just recently been told he likely has cancer(i spoke to the dr myself so am sure) and I feel very, well neutral(can't think of the word I want) I guess. The bullshits caught up.

Sounds like depression to me. Fil was like this. Convinced it was the end, nothing could help him, he would die of whatever fictitious disease happened to be in his head at the time, paranoid about everything. He eventually got so bad that he was sectioned and diagnosed with depression. Your Df may go up the wall at the suggestion but he needs to hear it.

In an ideal world you would all say I stop . Great, I'd say same - it's the how!?!

With reading the books and gathering opinion on mn you are coming to realise this is not your responsibility and probably a behaviour that has been conditioned into you (and lots of us) as you grew up.

Easy for me to say and more tricky to achieve - but possible - with practice - understanding this is merely a behaviour pattern you are addicted to. It's controlled only by your thoughts which, like all of us, are often based on false ideas and beliefs. And only temporary.

So you have a 'thought' which tells you to feel guilty if you don't do A, B and C. Acknowledging every thought and every feeling but not allowing it to convince you to do anything you don't really want to do is the way forward.

You are likely to do this in all your relationships so maybe practice changing your behaviour with an easier person to start with. Practice saying 'no' without even giving a reason. A 'no' does not have to be justified. You have the right to choose. You are not here to rescue anyone - other than you. It has to start with you.

I like to think of it like a caveman. Imagine you're a caveman and you have a family to look after. So you hunt every day and you come back and feed everyone else first. You only every feed yourself last. You continue like this for years until you are too exhausted to hunt and then no one gets fed and everyone goes hungry.

You're allowed to feed yourself first. It's not selfish - though you were probably made to think so. (telling yourself this in your mind is only a thought and always changeable, remember.)

Start today - do one thing you really want to do and don't do one thing you really don't want to do. Break out of your prison!

Thank you all ever so much.
All of your comments are positive.
Rizlett it's a very good analogy for sure.
I'll try start today on family picnic with df!!!!!

Despite my caveman analogy - it doesn't mean you can scoff the whole picnic!

Also with learning new ways of response try not to beat yourself up if you miss some opportunities - its more about giving yourself a pat on the back for recognising them and if not this time then next time you'll have a better response.

Enjoy the fun in noticing how you get drawn in.