My Narcissistic Father....The Drama Queen

I wouldn't say my narcissistic adoptive father is a hypochondriac. (I was - now completely recovered - but that's another post)

He uses both real and imagined illness to get his way. And to get attention.

By the time he actually got sick, I'd already had it.

The first time I can remember him pulling a You-Did-This-To-Me-Stunt was back in the late sixties when he and my mother finally broke down and took me to Disneyland, which was less than 15 miles away. I must have been around eight. My mother had a bad back. My father suffered from a highly selective inner ear disturbance which could make him dizzy, depending on just how badly he didn't want to do something. I wanted to go on the rocket ship ride, but couldn't ride alone. They tried to talk me out of it, calling me stubborn and selfish. It was the one ride I really, really wanted to go on. About a minute into it, Dad started shouting and gesturing wildly and people started screaming below and the ride stopped. We were carted to the medical station, where the staff got an earful about how I'd done this to him because I was so selfish and stubborn. The day at Disneyland was cut short and, once in the car, my Dad perked up and ate a hearty meal that evening at his favorite restaurant.

Perhaps the biggest drama - the one that fills me with resentment today - is the one that took place the weekend I moved to college. I have no idea why I let them go with me. After all, I was footing the entire bill. They'd refused to loan me a dime. Getting into the college was perhaps the most important thing that had ever happened to me. But I was not destined to enjoy or relish the experience. My father got stomach pains the afternoon of our arrival. Sure enough, he wanted to go to an emergency room. My mother blamed me. I had made him sick because I was cold and selfish for leaving them. So I was forced to take him to emergency while my mother went shopping. And spent the next 24 hours at the hospital as the doctors ran tests. Of course, nothing was wrong with him.

Fast forward.

My father, showing signs of Lewy Body dementia, is (forcibly) checked into an assisted living facility.

The transition is a nightmare. My needy father turns into a sniveling, voraciously needy wreck...calling me up to a dozen times a day. When the head nurse says I need to put my foot down and quit answering the phone, assuring me she'll take care of him, he fakes a heart attack.

By this time, I am so trained to think that any non-compliance on my part is enough to (almost) kill an adult man that I feel guilty as hell trying to belatedly erect what is commonly referred to in the self-help literature as, "boundaries."

The nurses calls saying she's pretty sure he's faking, but called 9-1-1, anyway. Then she calls back, giggling, saying I'll never believe what had just happened. She and other staff had surrounded my father and gave him lots of comfort and reassurance while they waited for the paramedics. He perked up. He sat up and began joking and laughing. When the staff saw he was okay, they began to drift off and my father got up and acted very agitated over the "abandonment." So she said, half-teasing, "You know, _____, the paramedics are almost here. Should we tell them to go home?" or something like that.

And you know what he did?

He flopped back on the bed, clutched his chest and began to gasp.

The dementia had impacted enough of his judgment to allow him to carry on with an old act in front of an observer. But it was an old and tired act. And to have it WITNESSED by a third party was incredibly satisfying. Finally, independent confirmation that he was a faker! The nurse said she'd never seen anything like it! She said, later, that my father was possibily the neediest, most difficult resident she'd come across. Bonus!!!

Knowing my parent is such an emotional con artist isn't enough to totally throw off the burden of responsibility I feel toward my troubled father. I feel less burdened. Less responsible. But not, unfortunately, totally free. At least not yet. But it's a state I'd like to achieve. Desperately.

I know some readers have left comments about health and manipulation in the last post, but feel free to leave your stories, observations or thoughts on how to Get Past Guilt.