My father has Schizophrenia

Acceptance


I date a lot. Never sleep with them, but take advantage of the New York City dating scene. For the first time in a year I have a crush on a guy. He is 25, cute, smart, has a good job, and has good friends. We have been dating since the start of the New Year. The fact that I have opened myself up enough to like someone and allow them to like me back is a miracle. As all my friends say, I usually eat boys for breakfast.

Yesterday I was supposed to go out with him and his friends and he did not contact me until very late. Late enough for me to get the hint that he did not actually want me to go. Earlier in the day I was at my girlfriend’s house on LI and on the way back to the city I started to think about the rest of the night. I kept wondering why he had not contacted me yet and thinking about a conversation we had two weeks ago about commitment. During our talk he said “At this point I usually start to fade.” I presented a similar response to him and we agreed that it was good to be open with each other. Remembering this dialogue and already starting to build up my protective walls, a rush of emotions began. First there was anger; Anger because I had stopped dating other people and feeling stupid because of the choice I made. Then there was insecurity. The questions of what I had done wrong, what miscommunicated messages I sent, and what kind of impression I made on his friends. The third stage was emptiness; the kind of emotion that we feel when we get the call that a loved one has passed away. I turned to the window, put the hood of my jacket on, and started to cry. In an effort to contain my sadness I took out a piece of paper and stated to write. Knowing that I am not a good writer, I did not have the pressure of needing to reread my work. It was pure emotion on paper.

Within 20 minutes we pulled into Penn Station and I walked toward the exit. On the way out I checked my phone to see if he had made an effort yet. As I expected it was 5:30 PM and our dialogue was blank. An x-coworker was at a bar on the east side, consequently near this guy’s apartment, and wanted me to come have some drinks before I went home to get ready. It was pouring outside when I went out to get my phone messages and smoke a cigarette. As I stood there in the rain, looking at the tourists, and the dark city lights I felt really lonely. There must have been 200 people within my line of vision and yet I felt so alone. My messages were not going through to my x-coworker and the failed attempt to talk to my mother ended with her voicemail. I thought that I could catch a cross-town bus going east so I set out into the monsoon like weather. I walked 50 ft and was soaked, so I took refuge in the closets store: H&M. 1 hour and $150 dollars later I was not feeling any better. I couldn’t understand these emotions I was having, but I continued on my journey to the east. Out into the monsoon I went and another 50 ft further I gained refuge in another store. This time it was Sephora. Feeling raw, insecure, and confused I looked at the make-up mirrors as I passed by and noticed all the imperfections on my wet and foundation-streaked face. I walked up to a consultant, pointed to my face, and asked her “could you fix this please?” She responded immediately with a smile and a hand signal to the organic section. 9 PM and no response from the boy on his way to breaking my heart or from my x-coworker, I set back out into the monsoon. Short stops into Victoria Secret and Zara reminded me of the money I wasted on Valentines Day outfits and just added to the already overwhelming emptiness I felt.

Reaching Lexington Avenue was a miracle. In excitement I felt my phone vibrate; it was he and my girlfriend from LI. I took a puff from my cigarette and checked the text from my girl, “did this kid respond yet?” I said, “Yea I am checking now.” I opened the dialogue and all it said was “Hello.” I respond to my girl and she says, “Are you kidding me, you can’t go out with him now. He should have contacted you during the day like a gentleman.” Despite my desire to ignore what she was saying, I knew that she was right. He and I exchanged a short dialogue and despite the fact that I was a block from his apartment, my instinct told me that I should go home. I jumped in a cab and headed uptown. Within 10 minutes I get the message “I will be at the party at midnight.” My jaw dropped open in disbelief. Did he just tell me that he was going to his friend’s party and send an uninvite message? I copied the conversation and sent it to my girlfriend. Within 30 seconds I got a message from her fiancée that said’ “You’re kidding me right? Dead that shit asap – you will have to deal with his commitment phobia forever and you have too much to offer to settle.” I put the phone in my bag, got into my apartment, and put the pieces of my new spring collection in my closet. I could not believe that our courtship was going so well I would receive a response like that from him, so I asked “are we going together?” 10 minutes passed and I did not get a reply. My girlfriend messaged me again and said, “Seriously I am being nice, you have guys asking you out all the time. There is no reason why you should excuse behavior that would normally be unacceptable just because you like him.” I reflected on what she said and responded to him immediately, “I made other plans, send your friend birthday wishes for me.” All he responded was: “Okay.” I sent his response to my girlfriend and her reply was priceless, “Okay and moving forward…”

Fatigued from the most emotional day I have had in at least a year I fell right to sleep. Around 4:00 AM I woke from the scariest dream I have ever had. I was catatonic, just trying to move, trying to escape this awful reality, of trying to scream as loud as I could “why are you doing this? What are you doing?” Finally my vocal cords became useful and screamed “what are you doing?” The scream was so loud that I am sure it woke up my roommates, but neither of them came into my room. Flashes of my dream began to seep into my shook reality. A heavy feeling came over me and I started to realize what had happened: I was sitting in the living room of my father’s house and he was upstairs using a chainsaw, probably to silence the voices in his head. I was on the phone trying to get my service reactivated because there was no landline in the house. He came downstairs clothed in his regular wardrobe: a polo shirt, khaki pants, and boat shoes. I could practically see the steam coming of his head he was so angry. He said, “Get the fuck off the phone.” I looked at him with innocent eyes and said, “Dad what are you doing.” Somehow he had a remote control and started to pitch it at the wall behind me. Yelling at me as he continued to play catch with this dangerous object. He started to come closer and my fear took over. I could not run because there was nowhere to go. I could not yell “Why are you doing this?” loud enough to get an answer. I just pressed the send button on my phone and could hear the disconnected message repeated over and over. He came closer and closer. Screaming at the top of his lungs I could not understand what he was saying, I just knew I wasn’t safe. It all happened so fast I could not even figure out how to move. I was paralyzed. He caught the remote and threw it a foot above my face and I heard it crack and I screamed “why are you doing this get away from me” so loud that I woke me up.

I checked my phone and it was 4:14 AM. I was in Manhattan at my apartment, it was still pouring outside, I was completely safe, but I was in complete shock. I have not talked to my dad since an hour after my college graduation when I was in a car service on the way to the steakhouse with my mother and aunt. He said,

“Just because you graduated college does not mean that you are good enough to work in the real world, you will never do well enough to be a true success. In addition to this, you better remember who paid for your undergrad because you owe me now. Your mother did not do anything.” I responded with, “Thanks Dad”.

I put my phone down and looked up at my mother with tears in my eyes and repeated what he had said to me. She and my aunt in concert said the phrase that I have been hearing my entire life: “He does not mean that, you have to remember that he is sick.” As if this sickness is an excuse for me to grow up having to walk on eggshells.

I grabbed my computer and “Googled” the word that I have spent 20 years trying to forget: Schizophrenia. One of the first links was a discussion board for children of schizophrenic parents. As I started to read the stories my anxiety level progressively started to decrease. The loneliness that I felt back at Penn Station dissipated. I felt like I was reading thoughts and feelings about my childhood, the situations that I have not thought about in years. These raw emotions reminded me of the writing I had started on the train. I jumped up and got the papers out of my purse. I started to read my stream of consciousness:

“I’m so hurt, I’m so disappointed. What did I do wrong? This is the first guy that I actually opened up to and I got burned. I have to figure this out. Why is my immediate response to feeling inadequate to try and get revenge? Is it possible that there is a direct correlation between not being good enough for my dad to get better and the pattern of taking that pain out on guys I date by hurting them? Now subconsciously I have matured from this unhealthy behavior and am slowly opening up to myself and my friends. This has been a great experience. I then met a guy who I felt I could open up to, I did, and I am being rejected. It is interesting that my immediate response is to think of ways I can hurt him or make him angry instead of stepping back and accepting that this is just part of dating."

I remembered thinking that my feelings for this guy were much stronger then they should be for only a few months in. It’s because this is the first part of my maturing project. This project is about being honest with me after 25 years; denial about the correlation between my father’s sickness and my fear of commitment is real. It is evident in my fear that getting to close to my friends will just set me up to be left alone, that I need constant reminders from my Mom and step dad that they will always be there for me, and my complete inability to allow a romantic interest into my life for fear that I will never be good enough and they will see my imperfections and leave. This is my first blog post and the first time I have even said this stuff out loud. I ask that you do not criticize my poor writing ability. I am writing this to begin the maturing project of being honest about how my father’s schizophrenia has affected my life. As I was growing up, the excuses: “he’s just crazy” or “he’s sick get over it” were the focal points of my denial. Blacking out bad experiences has become my specialty.

One episode where my father locked me in an elevator when I was 10 kept me from going in elevators until I moved to NYC and had to deny that the event ever happened. Then there was the time I told him that I did not want to swim in a pond because it was dirty and picked up the chair he was sitting in and threw it at the wall behind me. I ran into a neighbor’s house and called my mother. She picked me up and repeated the famed excuse: “He is sick.” The last situation I am recalling now is from 12 years old when he picked me up from dance practice. We were driving down the highway and he started to have an episode. He told me that he was going to kill us by driving into oncoming traffic. So at the next stoplight, I jumped out of the car and sprinted straight into a restaurant. I ran to the back and called my mother collect. I whispered: “Mom, Dad is trying to kill me I am going to hide in the grocery store please come pick me up, please!” I ran out the back door of the restaurant and into the grocery store. I went straight to the meat section where I could see the parking lot without being obvious. I could hear my father yelling for me. My anxiety increased as he got closer and closer. Finally he found me. As he was walking over, my mother pulled up and I dashed past the cashiers, through the small shopping carriage doors, and into her car. We drove away. As I cried and cried I heard the same sentence “He is sick. You have to remember that he loves you, but he is sick. I will not make you see him again.”

Despite the fact that “He is sick” I still love my father. The part of me that thinks I will someday get a knock on the door and my Daddy will be behind it is totally unrealistic, but I know I can’t be the only one that believes it. Being honest with myself hurts a lot. This pain I have felt today as I was writing this is 25 years worth of material that I may never get over. The only thing I can do is accept the fact that it exists, it is part of my past, and affects me today. My goal in this discovery process is to break this stuff down to its rawest form, accept it, become stronger from it, and move on.