It was horrifying to discover that he was a hoarder. We had no idea.
My mom and dad's marriage was exceptionally brief, of which I was a product. When I was one, my mom took me and we left California and my dad behind and went to stay with my grandmother in Indiana. My mom was terrified of my dad. She said he had started doing drugs because he would talk to people that weren't there, and have breaks with reality. My dad denied doing drugs.
Stalemate.
After about a year in Indiana, my dad promised profusely that he was fine, and my mom seemed to think it was safe to return to California. We did.
They divorced anyways, and visitation was split up. I saw him every other weekend, and then during the week as he picked me up from school. My parents had me late in life, and my dad had already been given an early retirement from his job, which allowed me afternoons with him. He would always take me to an ice cream shop, and he would order mint chip ice cream and chocolate chip ice cream, large, in a cup. I would get the same thing as my dad because my dad was awesome.
As I got older, I sensed that there was something amiss with my dad. He would occasionally blank out, and get fidgety. He would mutter to himself. I was also dealing with my own mental health that I write about here, but I could still tell something was off with him.
My dad was an odd one. He would suddenly disappear for months on end, with no one able to reach him. Then he would phone my mom in the middle of the night, warning her that the government was after him, and that we should be careful. When those things happened, my mom told him to stop picking me up from school, and she started taking off of work to take me home as my private school did not have buses. She figured he was back to drinking and drugs.
Then one day, he would show up on our doorstep, bathed, dressed and completely in his right mind, acting like nothing ever happened. He would help my mom move something here or kill a spider. He would be charming and laugh and tell jokes. He was a funny guy with twinkling green eyes. My mom would allow him to start picking me up from school. The cycle would repeat. Each time, he disappeared for longer and longer periods of time, until I hardly saw him. I didn't really know what to think.
One day, my dad had picked me up from sixth grade. He had just re-appeared in my life again, and I was happy to see him, although he seemed agitated in the car on the way home. I was doing my homework in the kitchen. I heard someone talking. I figured it was the TV.
After a few minutes, the voice rose, and I could clearly tell it was my dad's voice, and not the television. Perhaps he was watching a movie or sports, and was yelling for his team or something.
My dad didn't really like sports.
He was on the phone, then. I went back to finishing my homework. He continued to argue, and I heard profanity coming louder from the living room. I looked at the phone receiver.
We only had one house phone, and it was in the kitchen. The handset was still on the charger, and cell phones were not yet a thing. Only wealthy people had cell phones. That meant that my dad could not be talking on a phone.
Curious, I walked across the kitchen and peered around the wall, where I saw my dad flailing punches towards an unseen enemy, his eyes were glittering and unfocused, and he ducked and dodged and jabbed, right then left. He yelled profanities at someone unseen, and answered questions that only he could hear.
I was glued to the spot. My survival instinct told me not to make a sound, not to intervene in any way. My options were to grab the handset and risk my dad seeing me, or run outside in my bare feet to a neighbor, who I didn't know.
I risked the handset. I waited until my dad had his back turned to me, screaming things like "I'm going to kill you, you motherfucker!" as he would fight and kick and punch the air.
I grabbed it. I didn't know what to do, so I called my mom at work. I told her my dad was yelling at nothing, having a fight with an imaginary person. She told me to hide outside and wait for her.
I slipped out the side door and waited in the front yard, shaking, hearing my dad's deluded screams from inside.
My mom worked just down the road, and she was there within two minutes. I told her what was going on and she took the phone from me. She cautiously went inside, and called my dad's name a few times. The screaming stopped.
She took a few steps inside, calling again. He answered normally, as if nothing had happened. She asked him if he was ok. He said he was fine, why?
She said that a neighbor had called her, hearing shouts coming from inside. He said he didn't know what she was talking about. She told him he could go home now, that she was off work early. He asked why she didn't call, and how I got outside. I fibbed and said I was playing in the front yard. He admonished me not to do that without telling him in the future.
Somehow, at 11, I know there would not be a future time. My mom explained to me later that day that she had left my dad when I was a baby due to episodes like these, and she thought he was on drugs. She asked me if I wanted to see my dad again, and I said no. I had been so terrified that he would hurt me. I know now that he was having some sort of psychotic episode, and I feel guilty for abandoning him.
Two weeks later, my mom applied for and accepted a position across the country. She had a telephone conversation with my dad, telling him he was not well, and that this would be the best thing for me. He signed over his visitation rights, and it was submitted to a judge. 3 weeks later, we packed. The day before we left, my dad brought me flowers and gave me a hug, telling me to listen to my mom and that getting out of the city would probably be a good thing. He fidgeted and then left.
That was the second-to-last in-person interaction I had with my before he died, 16 years later.
I occasionally received the odd birthday card, or a phone call. Sometimes he didn't make sense and he would babble on and on. Other times, I wouldn't hear from him for two or three years. His phone would be disconnected, and move without giving a forwarding address. Then he would pop up. One year, he called me on New Year's eve to warn me that the government was after me, too. I sadly hung up after telling him I loved him.
One day, I got a call from a distant relative in California. They said my dad was in the hospital, and it was not looking good. They said I should talk to the doctors. The doctors told me my dad was admitted to the hospital, ranting and raving and rail thin. His bloodwork was abnormal, and it turned out he had terminal stomach cancer. The doctor couldn't understand why my dad had not sought help, as this cancer is highly treatable and the symptoms severe. The doctor also asked me if my dad had a mental illness, as he had some mental episodes in the hospital. He mentioned schizophrenia.
I told him I didn't know exactly, since I had not been around my dad much, and he tended to disappear for years at a time. I mentioned that he was known to be a drinker, and my mom thought he did drugs. The doctor said his drug and alcohol screen was negative. So his hallucinations weren't from substance abuse.
I bought a plane ticket. My extended relatives in California offered me a room to stay as long as I needed. I made plans to stay for two weeks, to process what was going on and what was going to happen.
The last time I had seen my dad was when I was 11, and he had always been fit. The man I looked at now looked a hundred years old, and weighed about 120 pounds, much too thin for a 6 foot man. He cried when he saw me walk into his hospice room, and held out his thin arms that were peppered with bruises and IV lines.
I cried, because it was sad. He hadn't been a drug addict. He had been mentally ill all those years, with no one to help him. When asked why he didn't go see a doctor when he had started vomiting blood a year earlier, he said he thought the doctors would report his ill health to the government, and that he wouldn't get the spy job he was in line for. That made me cry, too. He was so happy in his delusion. His delusion killed him, although it was technically cancer.
I visited him every day the next 2 weeks, and signed him out from the hospice. He was so weak that he couldn't overpower me if he tried to escape. On the first day, he told me his caregivers at the hospice were spies, and I needed to help him escape. He wanted me to take him to the airport, and give him $20 so he could buy a plane ticket and fly to another country. He congenially offered that I could come with him, if I wanted to. He then wanted me to buy him a plane ticket tomorrow so he could visit me and see how I was living. I quickly realized that trying to tell him he was hallucinating made him agitated and angry, so I changed tactics, acting as if his derangement was plausiable.
I told him I could do those things, but I needed some time to get supplies. He would nod, as if that was an explanation. He would then move onto another topic, talking about how he wasn't really ill, he just had some stomach problems. He would then stare off into space for a long while, and then he would turn his faded green eyes on me and bring up a childhood memory as clear as a bell, laughing and joking with me as if his mind were clear and sharp as ever.
My dad loved Christmas-time, and it was December when I visited. I took him to a mall in Southern California notorious for their over-the-top Santa's village and huge tree. He was entranced by it, and just wanted to sit and watch everything from above. He told me he wanted tea, and I ordered it for him. He then pushed it away, saying it could be poisoned. I told him I had watched the barista make it all the way through, and that it wasn't poisoned. I took a sip. He watched me warily for a few minutes, and decided I must be right. He drank the tea, and asked for another, also making me promise to watch it being made.
The two weeks went by fast. He drifted from sanity to delusional, like a balloon drifting in the wind. It was hard to keep up with him sometimes. He frequently asked me to help him escape to a safe house, where his spy boss would pick him up. I would sit in my rental car after taking him back to the hospice and cry.
My relatives showed me pictures they had taken of my dad's apartment. They had gone there after the hospital had called them about my dad being brought in weeks earlier. His apartment was a hoarding nightmare, with soiled clothes, rotten food and papers stacked up to the ceiling. There were small rabbit trails that led from room to room. He had stopped bathing and packed his shower and bathtub with anything that could fit. I knew from my own OCD diagnosis that hoarding is an OCD illness. I looked at those shocking pictures and learned then that I had inherited it from my father.
My dad's mental health story haunts me to this day. If my dad had mental health intervention and care, he would still be alive today. I may have had a better relationship with him. He could have been less delusional, and sought help. He might be around to hold his granddaughter.
In the end, the hospice doctor and nurses agreed it was likely schizophrenia that caused the delusions. His hoarding was due to OCD.
He never got help, and it killed him, although cancer was the agent.
They divorced anyways, and visitation was split up. I saw him every other weekend, and then during the week as he picked me up from school. My parents had me late in life, and my dad had already been given an early retirement from his job, which allowed me afternoons with him. He would always take me to an ice cream shop, and he would order mint chip ice cream and chocolate chip ice cream, large, in a cup. I would get the same thing as my dad because my dad was awesome.
As I got older, I sensed that there was something amiss with my dad. He would occasionally blank out, and get fidgety. He would mutter to himself. I was also dealing with my own mental health that I write about here, but I could still tell something was off with him.
My dad was an odd one. He would suddenly disappear for months on end, with no one able to reach him. Then he would phone my mom in the middle of the night, warning her that the government was after him, and that we should be careful. When those things happened, my mom told him to stop picking me up from school, and she started taking off of work to take me home as my private school did not have buses. She figured he was back to drinking and drugs.
Then one day, he would show up on our doorstep, bathed, dressed and completely in his right mind, acting like nothing ever happened. He would help my mom move something here or kill a spider. He would be charming and laugh and tell jokes. He was a funny guy with twinkling green eyes. My mom would allow him to start picking me up from school. The cycle would repeat. Each time, he disappeared for longer and longer periods of time, until I hardly saw him. I didn't really know what to think.
One day, my dad had picked me up from sixth grade. He had just re-appeared in my life again, and I was happy to see him, although he seemed agitated in the car on the way home. I was doing my homework in the kitchen. I heard someone talking. I figured it was the TV.
After a few minutes, the voice rose, and I could clearly tell it was my dad's voice, and not the television. Perhaps he was watching a movie or sports, and was yelling for his team or something.
My dad didn't really like sports.
He was on the phone, then. I went back to finishing my homework. He continued to argue, and I heard profanity coming louder from the living room. I looked at the phone receiver.
We only had one house phone, and it was in the kitchen. The handset was still on the charger, and cell phones were not yet a thing. Only wealthy people had cell phones. That meant that my dad could not be talking on a phone.
Curious, I walked across the kitchen and peered around the wall, where I saw my dad flailing punches towards an unseen enemy, his eyes were glittering and unfocused, and he ducked and dodged and jabbed, right then left. He yelled profanities at someone unseen, and answered questions that only he could hear.
I was glued to the spot. My survival instinct told me not to make a sound, not to intervene in any way. My options were to grab the handset and risk my dad seeing me, or run outside in my bare feet to a neighbor, who I didn't know.
I risked the handset. I waited until my dad had his back turned to me, screaming things like "I'm going to kill you, you motherfucker!" as he would fight and kick and punch the air.
I grabbed it. I didn't know what to do, so I called my mom at work. I told her my dad was yelling at nothing, having a fight with an imaginary person. She told me to hide outside and wait for her.
I slipped out the side door and waited in the front yard, shaking, hearing my dad's deluded screams from inside.
My mom worked just down the road, and she was there within two minutes. I told her what was going on and she took the phone from me. She cautiously went inside, and called my dad's name a few times. The screaming stopped.
She took a few steps inside, calling again. He answered normally, as if nothing had happened. She asked him if he was ok. He said he was fine, why?
She said that a neighbor had called her, hearing shouts coming from inside. He said he didn't know what she was talking about. She told him he could go home now, that she was off work early. He asked why she didn't call, and how I got outside. I fibbed and said I was playing in the front yard. He admonished me not to do that without telling him in the future.
Somehow, at 11, I know there would not be a future time. My mom explained to me later that day that she had left my dad when I was a baby due to episodes like these, and she thought he was on drugs. She asked me if I wanted to see my dad again, and I said no. I had been so terrified that he would hurt me. I know now that he was having some sort of psychotic episode, and I feel guilty for abandoning him.
Two weeks later, my mom applied for and accepted a position across the country. She had a telephone conversation with my dad, telling him he was not well, and that this would be the best thing for me. He signed over his visitation rights, and it was submitted to a judge. 3 weeks later, we packed. The day before we left, my dad brought me flowers and gave me a hug, telling me to listen to my mom and that getting out of the city would probably be a good thing. He fidgeted and then left.
That was the second-to-last in-person interaction I had with my before he died, 16 years later.
I occasionally received the odd birthday card, or a phone call. Sometimes he didn't make sense and he would babble on and on. Other times, I wouldn't hear from him for two or three years. His phone would be disconnected, and move without giving a forwarding address. Then he would pop up. One year, he called me on New Year's eve to warn me that the government was after me, too. I sadly hung up after telling him I loved him.
One day, I got a call from a distant relative in California. They said my dad was in the hospital, and it was not looking good. They said I should talk to the doctors. The doctors told me my dad was admitted to the hospital, ranting and raving and rail thin. His bloodwork was abnormal, and it turned out he had terminal stomach cancer. The doctor couldn't understand why my dad had not sought help, as this cancer is highly treatable and the symptoms severe. The doctor also asked me if my dad had a mental illness, as he had some mental episodes in the hospital. He mentioned schizophrenia.
I told him I didn't know exactly, since I had not been around my dad much, and he tended to disappear for years at a time. I mentioned that he was known to be a drinker, and my mom thought he did drugs. The doctor said his drug and alcohol screen was negative. So his hallucinations weren't from substance abuse.
I bought a plane ticket. My extended relatives in California offered me a room to stay as long as I needed. I made plans to stay for two weeks, to process what was going on and what was going to happen.
The last time I had seen my dad was when I was 11, and he had always been fit. The man I looked at now looked a hundred years old, and weighed about 120 pounds, much too thin for a 6 foot man. He cried when he saw me walk into his hospice room, and held out his thin arms that were peppered with bruises and IV lines.
I cried, because it was sad. He hadn't been a drug addict. He had been mentally ill all those years, with no one to help him. When asked why he didn't go see a doctor when he had started vomiting blood a year earlier, he said he thought the doctors would report his ill health to the government, and that he wouldn't get the spy job he was in line for. That made me cry, too. He was so happy in his delusion. His delusion killed him, although it was technically cancer.
I visited him every day the next 2 weeks, and signed him out from the hospice. He was so weak that he couldn't overpower me if he tried to escape. On the first day, he told me his caregivers at the hospice were spies, and I needed to help him escape. He wanted me to take him to the airport, and give him $20 so he could buy a plane ticket and fly to another country. He congenially offered that I could come with him, if I wanted to. He then wanted me to buy him a plane ticket tomorrow so he could visit me and see how I was living. I quickly realized that trying to tell him he was hallucinating made him agitated and angry, so I changed tactics, acting as if his derangement was plausiable.
I told him I could do those things, but I needed some time to get supplies. He would nod, as if that was an explanation. He would then move onto another topic, talking about how he wasn't really ill, he just had some stomach problems. He would then stare off into space for a long while, and then he would turn his faded green eyes on me and bring up a childhood memory as clear as a bell, laughing and joking with me as if his mind were clear and sharp as ever.
My dad loved Christmas-time, and it was December when I visited. I took him to a mall in Southern California notorious for their over-the-top Santa's village and huge tree. He was entranced by it, and just wanted to sit and watch everything from above. He told me he wanted tea, and I ordered it for him. He then pushed it away, saying it could be poisoned. I told him I had watched the barista make it all the way through, and that it wasn't poisoned. I took a sip. He watched me warily for a few minutes, and decided I must be right. He drank the tea, and asked for another, also making me promise to watch it being made.
The two weeks went by fast. He drifted from sanity to delusional, like a balloon drifting in the wind. It was hard to keep up with him sometimes. He frequently asked me to help him escape to a safe house, where his spy boss would pick him up. I would sit in my rental car after taking him back to the hospice and cry.
My relatives showed me pictures they had taken of my dad's apartment. They had gone there after the hospital had called them about my dad being brought in weeks earlier. His apartment was a hoarding nightmare, with soiled clothes, rotten food and papers stacked up to the ceiling. There were small rabbit trails that led from room to room. He had stopped bathing and packed his shower and bathtub with anything that could fit. I knew from my own OCD diagnosis that hoarding is an OCD illness. I looked at those shocking pictures and learned then that I had inherited it from my father.
My dad's mental health story haunts me to this day. If my dad had mental health intervention and care, he would still be alive today. I may have had a better relationship with him. He could have been less delusional, and sought help. He might be around to hold his granddaughter.
In the end, the hospice doctor and nurses agreed it was likely schizophrenia that caused the delusions. His hoarding was due to OCD.
He never got help, and it killed him, although cancer was the agent.
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