The Adopter Gets His

Admittedly, I'm stuck on a groove. Trying to get a handle on my job as only child and caretaker to my narcissistic adoptive father, who has Lewy Body dementia. He lives in a special unit of an Assisted Living facility. In short, I'm seething with resentment because I'm the only person in his life and I am responsible for someone who never acted like a parent. Instead, I parented this child-like man since I was a child.

So why didn't I cut him off? Because I was so caught up playing the good adoptee and being overly responsible and rushing around trying to cater to him that I didn't even realize until ten months ago just how screwed up he was...and I was. BTW, he was diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder about a year ago. Finally.

You reap what you sow.

You get what you deserve.

You get as good as you give.

What you do comes back to you.

I'm sure I could come up with some more, but why bother? Okay, just one more. He had it coming.

Oh, the irony!!!

Just the other day, I posted about a disturbing chat with my Dad. He confirmed my adoptive mother didn't like talking about it with me because my curiosity about my heritage was not important, that it hurt my mother to discuss it, that he thought adoption was ugly and "leaves a bad taste in your mouth" and that my mother didn't like to think of me "that way" and would rather pretend I was theirs.

So....

Dad called yesterday and sounded like his old-pre-dementia self. He was lucid and said he'd just realized he'd been imagining things. I explained he was having hallucinations and that it was part of his "problem" and did my best to reassure him.

Apparently, I wasn't sympathetic enough because he said peevishly, "You don't know what I'm going through. This is terrible way to live and all you can say is, Uh uh, I understand (imagine mocking in girly voice). But you don't. You'll never understand what I'm going through."

And then he went on to say he never knew what was real and what wasn't and how maddening it all was.

Well, how about that.

The man who...

(a) said my curiosity about my adoption particulars was not important,
(b) informed strangers I was his biological child (in front of me),
(c) told me I was a German Jew because he admittedly wasn't paying attention to the social worker (I'm Hispanic, my birthfather - or, "the man who made you" as he's usually referred to, was a blond Mexican national with German ancestry),
(d) told people I looked like my dead adoptive grandmother (again, in front of me)

To recap, my Dad said I'd never understand what it was like to not trust your environment because, who knows, it might not be real.

Well. How about that?

Of course, I wanted to say, "How do YOU like it, Mister? It sucks, doesn't it? You try living in make-believe world for four decades and then we'll talk."

Of course, I didn't. I'm not cruel. That would probably consitute elder abuse.

I must have spent all evening thinking up witty comebacks. None of which I'd ever dare utter.

But the whole thing IS rather karmic. Subject your adoptive daughter to a life of lies and pretense and what do you get in return? Hallucinations. I mean, how fitting is that most cruel of punishments?