I am temporarily living with my parents again. Long story short, I was dating a girl for 6 years, we had our own apartment and plans for marriage, and then it all fell apart. I'm recovering and staying at my parents place to pay off student loans. I'm including this because it's important to note that I see my father everyday.
Dad just turned 71 earlier this week and at his birthday dinner with myself and my younger sister, he told us that he thinks he's going to die soon, that he's felt bad for a long time and he wants us to prepare for it. He's been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and he's known this for at least 3 years. My middle sister is a nurse and has tried to educate him on what to eat and what not to eat, and all of us have been supportive of this. We used to play the "blood sugar game" when all 5 of us happened to be at the parents house at the same time, all of us doing blood sticks and see what our levels were. While he acknowledges that he has diabetes, he won't change his diet and refuses to do anything healthy for himself. He's losing his mind because he can't sleep for more than 90 min at a time before he has to wake up and pee. He'll go right back to sleep, but he doesn't get the sleep he needs in order to think normally. All of us have been slowly monitoring his decline.
At this point I should give a little background about mom. My parents have been married for about 40 years, in that time they've been unhappy and divorcing for the last 20 years. Although all three of their children have advised them to move out and told them that they'd be much happier away from each other, they just won't do it. They hate each other. I'm explaining this because without me, there would be no one looking out for him, no one to stop him from making bad decisions like eating pieces of cake. They live together, but they're only roommates. My father pays 90% of the bills while my mother bleeds him dry. They both have terrible communication skills and basically ignore each other unless they're yelling at the each other, paying yearly taxes, or passing each other on the way to work.
My father is retired, but has his own side business which I help him with from time to time. Other than his business, he doesn't do much of anything unless he's watching television from the 50s and 60s. He's overweight and getting fatter, has a bad knee, failing mental faculties, his wife hates him, he's finally feeling his age, and i'm fairly sure that he's depressed because of all this. Any time you talk to him about depression his answer is "I'm not depressed". I'm fairly sure that he believes if he were to "have depression" then that would mean something is wrong with him, and THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH HIM, NOOOO. My father is dumb and stubborn, and although I wouldn't want to tell him to his face, I've lost a lot of respect for him in the last couple of years, but I still love him.
He and I talk about his diet and how poorly he eats all the time. I've told him that he's killing himself with the way he's eating, but he won't make any real change. He has made small changes, but I keep finding cans of coke and bottles of pure maple syrup in the refrigerator. I've been learning how to cook so that I can guarantee that he at least gets fed something better than Mcdonalds or whatever other garbage he feeds himself, (he can cook eggs and that's about it). He refuses to start using insulin because he believes that once he starts using insulin he will never be able to stop. I know that at his age that's most likely true but we've told him many times that people who have type 2 diabetes can stop using insulin if they get to a good point thru diet and exercise. I have no expectations for him to diet and exercise, I just want him to start taking insulin. I think that his quality of life would be greatly improved, but as I've said above, my father is stubborn and stupid. He doesn't want to inject himself so the only real option to him is an insulin pump, and that is a big step for him.
Sorry for the rambling page of text, I'm just getting everything out that I think might be relevant. I've become his care taker and I just don't know what to do anymore. I need to do something about this soon, I've started to avoid him because I can't lie to him and let him think I've OK with his behavior. Most times we see each other we have small fights. Like I said I think he's depressed and I don't want to be a source of his unhappiness, but I feel uncomfortable with him killing himself the way he is and thinking that i'm fine with it.
He's my father and I love him, but his constant refusal to make positive change is starting to make me care less. I'm at the end of my rope and I'll listen to any advice
tl;dr: Dad has diabetes, depression, failing mental health, makes very poor choices and refuses to do anything good for himself. I'm the only one helping, what do I do?
Submitted March 24, 2017 at 12:54AM by awayaccountthrown http://ift.tt/2mwYXeV relationships
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