It’s with a very leaden and heavy heart that I have to finally concede that my father, Dad, is – so it would seem – beyond redemption fucked up.
Nobody really wants to get to that point, particularly with themselves or a close loved one, of giving up hope. But my dad’s negativity and insecurities, his constant fussing worrying anxiety, are so ultra-corrosive that…
Well, he simply wears you down, till you have to give up and leave.
We’re supposed to be here – at his home in Hardwick – ‘dad-sitting’. Or looking after him. But his constant low-level fussing is, for me, unbearable. One of the stock reactions one can have is to try and ignore it, or let it just wash over one.
But that’s like just allowing oneself to sit in a bath of acid. It eats away at you. Having bitten one’s tongue for what feels like eternity, one finally snaps. It’s all sooo horrible!
And the worst of it? It’s all – or very nearly all (as good as dammit) – totally avoidable and unnecessary.
It starts to feel like absolutely everything is subjected to this worrying process. It may not be 100%. But whatever the actual quantity of anxiety, it’s way too much. It is, very literally, unbearable.
It’s clearly unbearable for Simon himself. And it’s ultimately unbearable for anyone around him. It’s too sad for words.