Turn a blind eye....
It's time for me to actually say what's on my mind. No more "I just don't want to talk about it" or "I don't know what to say" and "I don't know"....
My dad came home from work today. He came upstairs to say hello. Then he started talking to me. He said he's been telling everyone, so he wanted to tell me too...
He went on to tell me that he's been on Prozac for the past two months. That he's been depressed his whole life... that this is the first time in 50 years he's been living he's actually felt great.
I knew he's been depressed... I knew he was depressed. I knew he still was depressed... I didn't know he went on medication for it a while ago... I've overheard my mom telling him he should be on something... I've overheard her saying he needed to calm down... I've heard her saying he needed to not be so upset with us all the time....
I knew he was depressed... I just didn't know everything.
I turned a blind eye.
I turned it a thousand times and more....
Once he started talking, he didn't stop for another half an hour. He told me everything.
I'm glad the lights weren't on... I didn't want him to see the tears in my eyes.
I cried.
I listened.
I didn't say a word.
I just let him talk.
He told me he's always felt like he's been living two lives. His "inside" life and his "outside" life. His outside where he pretended that everything was great and that he was happy always... and then his inside... where he felt like he did everything wrong, and no one liked him...
Just like I feel.
He told me he'd get upset with my mom... he'd yell at her.
He would yell at us.
He would threaten to hit me when he got mad at me... sometimes even grabbing my arms tight in the process.
He would threaten to hit my brother.
I think he hit me only once... not as in a spank when I was younger... but actually hit me. Just once. I ran up to my room crying. He came up not even ten minutes later terribly upset. He cried. He told me he was so sorry. That he didn't mean it and that he would never do it again.
That didn't stop the threats, of course.
I never would forgive him. I never gave him the chance to apologize. I wanted nothing more than to have him go away.
I saw the empty wine bottles. I saw him always with a glass of wine in his hand...
Magically, that wine would last throughout the whole night... or that's what I thought.
Magically, there would be an empty wine bottle on the sink every other night or so. Maybe every few days.
My mom didn't drink much wine during the week.
But there they were. The empty wine bottles.
His magical refilling glass.
I turned a blind eye.
I wondered why he got so upset so easily.
I wondered why he would yell at us over the smallest thing.
I cried when he'd yell at me for getting a B- in something. Or a C+ in a class I was trying hard at.
I was wondering why he'd get so frantic over things.
I turned a blind eye.
When you see empty wine bottles up on your kitchen counter every few nights, you remind yourself, "Oh, that's normal. Everyone's parents drink that much wine."
You tell yourself, "Mom probably is having some too. You just don't see her with it."
You think, "Dad isn't really drinking that much wine. It only seems like he is."
You say, "Dad must have had a very hard day at work today. Or something. He wouldn't get mad at me for doing something that minimal... would he?"
You believe, "It must be something I did. I must've made him mad. I had to have done something. He always drinks wine. Why would it start to affect him like this now? No... it must have been something I did."
I turned a blind eye.
You see what you want to see.
You ignore what you can't let yourself believe.
You try not to see things that hurt you.
When you do, you tell yourself it's your fault.
Or that you're being silly.
When really, you're just scared.
You're scared that you're going to say something wrong to really set them off.
You're scared they're going to yell at you.
You're scared that you're going to screw up immensely.
After we finished talking and he gave me the hugest hug, I listened as he walked down the stairs, playing with the dogs. I listened to him on the phone, laughing.
I listened to him.
Happy.
He told me the Prozac is really working. He's never felt this great.
He told me he's not going to drink as much wine anymore.
My mom actually made him see the doctor to try and fix the problem. She noticed the wine drinking. She confronted him about it. She has before. He turned a blind eye too. He didn't think he was drinking that much.... This time... he saw it. He just saw it and new he had to do something about it...
The Prozac is helping. He's never been happier. And he's telling everyone how happy he is.
After he went downstairs, I cried.
I cried hard.
These are things I never wanted to acknowledge. These are the things I thought would never ever happen to my family. But they did. They happened. They can happen to anyone. Some are just luckier than others... I'm lucky enough that my dad did something about it before his drinking got worse. I'm lucky.
I never told anyone this. Not anyone. Not Melissa. Not Aimee. Not Michelle. Not Josh. No one.
And people wonder why I hate alcohol so much....