Recently my adopted father passed away. I’m still dealing with it and it is rough. I have spent the past 30 yrs taking care of one family member or another in their elderly years. First my grandparents then almost immediately my father. I state this so there is a frame of reference.
So my question has a basis. When my grandparents passed away my father really crawled in the grave with them. My grandmother extracted a deathbed promise from me to watch over my father. So I took my responsibility very seriously. I gave up my life completely to care for him. But we found out he was suffering from depression.
Now like most death, there is a process of recovery and we all go through it at different rates. My father never seemed to recover from my grandparents deaths. We found he was a bipolar depressive but we could never get him to seek help. He always said that he could fool any psychologist so he didn’t think they were any use. I took care of him for over 20 yrs. Dealing with his depression as well as I could given I had zero experience and couldn’t get him to seek help.
Eventually he just gave into his depression. And there was nothing I could do to motivate or change the situation for him. He wouldn’t seek help. He eventually crawled into his bed and started sleeping up to 16 hours a day. It was only when I threatened him with calling a ambulance that he would get out of bed. It was a bit of a slow process. He was a vibrant person at one point. The man who passed in my fathers bed wasn’t the father I knew. He had changed into a surly old grouch who had no use for anything other then his MASSIVE sugar fix.
My question is this. WHY? Why do some ppl suffer from this yet totally refuse to seek help? My father was eccentric. I was good with a little crazy. We never thought anything about
his two AM cleaning or his 12 midnight times for moving furniture. That was just who he was. But what he turned into was far beyond a little eccentric behavior. Why wouldnt he seek help? Anytime I would try and take it on myself to find him help he would go all postal and threaten me with removing me from the house.
I’m just trying to get a handle on all of this as I’m not the kind of person who gets depressed. Frustrated yes but not depressed. I have had depression before when I was in my teenagers years but that was just puberty. Why would some choose depression instead of life?
Post Edited By Moderator (getting by) : 5/9/2020 10:26:00 AM (GMT-6)