TL;DR: My Dad is a fantastic parent, but a complex man suffering from many issues and can be difficult to deal with. He's not really open to counseling, so as a family what are other ways we can support/help him?
I'm sorry this is a long one 😐
Here’s some basic context:
- My Dad (62) lives with my Mam in a small village
- He has always been an anxious person.
- He's been unemployed for 10 years +, few dribs and drabs here and there, but nothing steady.
- He doesn’t really have any friends or family (only my mam’s by proxy)
- His brother owns the local shop + pub. But he and my Dad fell out and have not spoken in years so Dad is cut off from the community and from the place he grew up and worked as a child.
- His sister was exiled from family for marrying outside the faith. She died of illness 20 years ago, my Dad was the go-between when she was outside of the family. This caused a lot of heartache.
Okay, that's some of the background, these things have definitely fed into a lot of what's happening now and the current issues he faces that contribute to his depression.
Issues:
- Isolated: Even before Covid, he had become very isolated, spending nearly all his time in the house, mainly on his phone.
- Phone addiction: He uses his phone as an escape from reality, which feeds into paranoia about issues in the world. It also makes him more forgetful, like he walks around in a daze / is unable to pay attention. (Conspiracy theories, anti-vegan, bitcoin, gold, are basically his main topics of conversation - some of what he says is prob true and I've no problem with it - the problem is its all he talks about)
- Lack of perspective: due to all the isolation and lack of engagement with anyone other than his family, he’s has forgotten how to interact normally with people. He talks ‘at’ you rather than to you, and doesn’t really listen or take in what you say, which is so fucking sad to realize. He often repeats himself, and sometimes it’s very difficult to follow what he’s talking about, as he launches into things without any context.
- Possibility of early-onset Alzheimers?: My grandfather suffered from this, so it’s a distinct possibility that Dad might get it too. And in the past 2 years, my dad’s own memory has started to deteriorate - impacted greatly by phone usage and isolation (we think). He sometimes doesn’t remember events/people/places that he should definitely know. I think that he’s super scared about this possibility and is refusing to acknowledge the possibility.
- His self-worth & image are completely tied to employment: Because he’s not working he is afraid to be seen in the locality, particularly in case people ask him what he’s doing these days. He cares so much about what people think about him… And while I know this is a generational/male thing. IMO honestly, nobody in this parish could give a fuck whether my dad is working - the only one that really cares is him. Because of this, he limits himself so much from interacting/getting out and about - for fear of, “what people would say/think about him.”
- He avoids conflict by changing the subject: He can be extremely hypocritical, and often when he poses a point or argument if you refute him or ask for more information, he changes the subject or derails the conversation. This makes it very hard to engage with him in a meaningful way. A few years ago he attended some counseling sessions, and the counselor said she couldn't pin him down. Her summary was 'I'm literally chasing you around the room here'.
- He has anger issues: A lot of this is due to his family history/frustration with himself. But in the past when drinking his mood would swing violently. One minute you’d be having a laugh, next he’d be full-on shouting at you for little or no reason.
Violent incident last year:
- While drinking last year after getting into an argument with me and my sister (over nothing) He smashed a glass against the wall when my sister wouldn’t accept his apology for what he’d said.
- Since that incident, he has stopped drinking (which is great).
- And he went to counseling (10 sessions) at our behest for his anger. This was helpful, and he has been better in many ways since, however he just talked about the anger in these sessions, and since he has stopped drinking considers the matter ’dealt with.’
Current situation:
- Only mam and dad are in the house together 24/7 because of covid. This is definitely making things harder, particularly my mam as she’s the one that has to listen to him all day. Myself and my siblings come home when we can, but hard with restrictions.
- He is “working” on a community initiative at the moment: This is something he’s passionate about and is a noble idea. However there is very little money in it, it’s also not a business/product that you can tangibly sell or do something with. He spends the majority of his time during the week preparing for meetings, trying to connect people together… however all this connection is great, it doesn’t seem to go anywhere or have the possibility of a solid outcome. He “works” on this stuff all week doing “research” ( spending lots of time on his phone. He rarely takes a break at the weekend to do nice things with my mam - and plans they have can often be put on hold when he has to write an email that can’t wait (when in reality it totally can))
- My mam definitely feels used - he always wants to bounce ideas off her 24/7... but rarely listens to what she has to say. He puts little value on her opinion and makes her feel very used.
- In this way, his problems completely take over her life. And because of this and his behavior she nearly always has to give out or nag him to do things… which she hates doing. (She’s super conscious of his state of mind and hates to give out, but he treats her very poorly at times i.e., lack of respect with housework, the value he puts on time together, and he never wants to do anything new/interesting or talk about a shared interest, he is very self-obsessed - always has to be reminded to buy her gifts for Christmas/birthdays etc. Or fobs the responsibility off on us.
- At the moment they’ve reached a bit of a stalemate, whenever she gives out to him about any of the above issues, he often changes the subject or just goes quiet until they start talking about something else.
Does anyone have any idea how to approach any of these issues? I feel like my Dad is a pretty complex person and he deals with a lot and is super hard on himself about a lot of things. I would love to see him stop and enjoy life more. In a perfect world, he’d go you counseling and be able to work through a lot of this, but I really don’t think that’s likely. We’ve broached it in the past and it's not something he wants to do.
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