It was like living in a nightmare. There were panic attacks, severe paranoia, fear, social phobia, isolation, severe depression where he would sleep all day and not want to do anything but talk to me. It was very scary, seeing him like this and not knowing what to do. I provided him with a lot of reassurance and patience, letting him know everything was going to be okay. His routine became part of my routine; grocery shopping, bedtime, and meal times were always the same day and time each week. If he was off his routine even by five minutes, he would have a panic attack.
For me, it was very mentally draining, but I found myself still able to make time for self-care. It’s been four years since he’s gone back on medication after deciding he didn’t want to live that way anymore. Life has become much more manageable. His panic attacks are very minimal, he doesn’t stay in bed, has gone back to work, and visits friends and family. Now he’s living his dream and is drumming again. He’s become the man I knew when we first met.
In the past, I always tried to treat mental health conditions with compassion. My father and I had a very special bond, despite everything he put us through. Late at night, he would wake me up and we’d sit at the kitchen table while he talked for hours. I was the only one he talked to like this and I know it helped.. He would feel a bit better afterward. It really hurt me to see him in pain. He was out of control, physically and mentally. My grandmother told us that she had taken him to psychologists as a teenager and they diagnosed him with manic depression. However, in the 1950s and 60s, doctors didn’t know much about this issue, so he was never medicated. We may have had our ups and downs and fought like any normal father and daughter would over boys, me wanting a life, and more, but we were very close.
Even though he died in 2004, I continued to experience triggers and flashbacks to his physical, verbal, and mental abuse. Luckily, the nightmares have now disappeared. I look back at how things were and I still think to myself, “This actually happened?”