This is long, will try to stick to the facts and not ramble too much.
My Dad (56 M) and I (26 F) have a very strained relationship due to his mental illness and drug abuse. I am at the stage it's starting to impact my mental well being and happiness which of course, my DD (4) can pick up on.
My Dad had a very rough childhood, suffered lots of abuse, physical from his mother and also sexual from a family friend for many years. This has had an impact on his life ever since.
He suffered a break down the year I was born and was in and out of hospitals and he continuously took overdoses in the hopes of killing himself but never completed them. He missed my first two birthdays as he was in hospital. He was diagnosed with clinical depression as far as I am aware and was put on medications and underwent ECT.
After my third birthday, he left my mum, found himself a flat and went to University. What I remember and what I am told is that in the 5 years he was at University and the three years he was working after he completed his degree, he was very stable and lived a normal life. I lived with my mum but I do remember my Dad coming down on the train every weekend and taking me out to the cinema or for lunch and as I got older I then began to be allowed sleepovers at his house. Everything was going well, after doing his masters, he got himself a job as a college lecturer, had himself a nice girlfriend and was financially and mentally stable.
When I was 11, he took me on Holiday to America, there he met a women. We arrived back home in the July, he flew back out to see her in the October, proposed, she accepted and they were married the following July. He sold all his belongings and upped and left. At the time I don't think I could quite understand what a big deal it was but since having my own child, I do feel slight resentment towards him over his decision as as a parent myself I would never leave my child to move across the world for a person I barely knew.
So he moved to America, came off his medications as he believed he didn't need them anymore since he was so happy with this new lady. Surprisingly, they were married for 12 years but most of those years for her were miserable due to my dad and his behavior, he couldn't hold down a job, barely slept and was very argumentative and negative. When they got divorced, he moved into a flat still in America and began getting picked up by the police on several occasions as he was wandering the streets barefoot saying people were after him, he also called the police to his flat once as he said there was chinese people in his flat but when police arrived they could see he was hallucinating. He swore he was not taking drugs to bring this on. He was then diagnosed with Bi Polar disorder.
About 2/3 years ago, we decided it be better if he moves back home as other than his ex wife, he had no one in America. So he moved back, upon his return he lived with me for the first 5 weeks, bearing in mind I'd had very minimal relationship with him until this point, which were a nightmare. He is prescribed morphine as he has genuine back problems and it was clear he was abusing it, he would be slurring his words, falling asleep standing up with his mouth open drooling, he was very confused, a lot of what he was saying didn't make sense and was stumbling about the place.
When he moved into his flat, he got a job doing taxi driving for a few months, but ended up getting in to an accident with a passenger in the car where he flipped the taxi, the police were on scene and apparently he was sober and was taken to hospital but since I wasn't there this is what I am being told through him. He lost his job after the accident and since then things have gotten increasingly worse. He very rarely leaves his flat, he barely washes, his flat stinks, sometimes he is awake and aware but most of the time he is out of it, not making sense. He has once admitted to me that he self medicates with morphine but all the other times when confronted about it he denies it.
His stomach is bloated, all he seems to consume is milk and fresh orange juice, he has blisters all over his feet, his face is dry and flaky, his hair is never done and he spends most of his days in his pajamas. He is uncooperative with CPN's, he refuses counselling but then he lies and says in fact that CPN have never been in touch with him and that counselors have told him they cannot help him, this I know through his doctor to be untrue.
He will call me in the middle of the night for a chat, because he thinks it's the middle of the afternoon. He has a car which I am insured on and have most of the time because to be honest I need it daily, he doesn't leave his flat and also I don't think he's in any fit state to drive. He uses it as a bargaining chip for me to visit him, so say I have been busy with college and haven't managed a visit in a few days, he will call me and demand I bring the car to him immediately as he needs it for x y and z, so I take it to him and it just sits in his drive for days. He would rather have it sitting there and let me and my daughter wait on buses just to be twisted. If I don't return his calls straight away, he leaves me voicemails telling me that since he can't get a hold of me I must return his car. Yet, there are days on ends where I call and call and call him and he doesn't answer. I can't even count the amount of times me and my daughter have been at his door to visit and we can see him sitting in there through the window and he just ignores us and doesn't let us in. He never even acknowledges his behaviour and whenever I bring it up, he claims it is my attitude that is the problem. He totally deflects.
He claims I'm only interested because of the car and maybe he's right. I am sick of visiting him and him talking a load of jibberish, stumbling about like an 80 year old man because he's out of his face. I am sick of him taking no responsibility or accountability for his behaviour. I have offered him so many solutions to his problems yet he does nothing, just sits in that flat all day. I come to his door to take him to appointments and he just doesn't answer the door.
I am the happiest I have been in a long time and I feel the only stresser in my life is my Dad. I feel obligated to continue being there cause he is my 'Dad' by blood, but that's it, I have an amazing step dad that has been in my life since I was 5 that has shown me what a real Dad is like and my blood Dad ain't it.
Tonight, my Mum and step dad, seeing how stressed out I am with this ongoing saga have offered to buy me a car. I am going to take them up on this offer and return my Dad's car to him. I think it will be very freeing as he then won't have any control over me.
Am I right in then distancing myself or am I being out of order?
Don't know if this even makes sense, it's so long. I just can't deal with him anymore but just feel I'd be the most awful cold hearted person in the world if I turned my back, he literally has no one else but it's him that has put himself in that position.