From the vortex of grief: On toxic positivity

 I have not written for a while now, because I have been upset at my reality and the dissonance between that and what I wanted. I had expected my father's recovery to be slow and arduous, but I was completely unprepared for the emotional state it left him in. I have seen my father as a strong and resilient individual, and he has overcome many setbacks in his life. And so, I expected this setback to be temporary too. That within no time, he would go back to an optimistic state of mind and take on his old roles in the family. Maybe not physically, but at least emotionally. 

But what has happened is the opposite. He has been extremely depressed; his emotions are very fragile. In the middle of a normal conversation, he would start sobbing. At first, I didn't even know how to react to this. I was just frozen, trying to take in this new identity of the man I had known all along as my father. Gradually, it worsened. He slept very poorly, restless all night, crying out in pain. He freaked out when my Mom left his side to go to work. He would incessantly call for her or the caregiver, even though there was no reason. My Mom, exhausted already from all the work, and now with no sleep, lost her temper many times. Understandably so. 

I too started feeling the weight of this every time I visited home. Once, I went there and sat next to him. He stopped talking to me after a couple of minutes and started groaning in pain. Continuously. I sat there for fifteen minutes, trying to tune out the sounds, feeling tortured. I tried my best to distract him, but in vain. Nor could I console him. He just wouldn't engage. He was lost in a world I couldn't pull him out from.

After a few weeks of this, I too lost my patience. I was horrified at the amount of sleep my Mom was getting, and how appallingly my Dad was behaving. During one visit, he again complained of incessant, chronic pain. Five minutes later, he asked for my Mom, and insisted that she come immediately even though she was working. I lost it, and scolded him. 

Why don't you understand? She has to work. She can't stay by your side the whole day. The house will not run itself. There are expenses to be paid.

And what is this incessant whining over your pain! Get over it. It's been months since it has happened, and people have been through worse. Stop wallowing in self-pity. Find something to do and be positive. You have so much to be grateful for.

My Dad was heartbroken after this tirade of mine, and said only this: I expected better from you. You told me the same things everyone else has been saying. You too do not understand.

I did not care. I was furious that day, and could only see how his attitude was making everything worse. I left shortly, feeling nothing but anger and resentment for him. Why couldn't he be like all the sick people I read about in books? Being happy to be around family, taking an interest in other people's lives, and hopeful of progress and recovery. It would make everything easier, and for once, visiting him would actually make me feel happy. It would make my Mom feel better too. It was not just fictional people I saw as beacons of positivity, but real people too. I had joined a support group for people who had suffered from a stroke, and many people there had a positive and optimistic attitude. So many of those were less fortunate than my dad. It infuriated me that I had to deal with this on top of everything else.

Even though I consciously stopped thinking about this interaction, it stayed at the back of my mind. A few weeks later, when I recounted this incident to a friend, he told me: Honestly, I don't know how I would react in your father's situation.

This got me thinking. I asked myself the same question. In his shoes, what would I do? Would I be able to feel grateful for the small things? Would I be able to stay positive? Honestly, I wasn't sure. There was a decent chance I would react exactly like him, feeling helpless, cornered and dependent, hating every minute of my existence. Who was I to lecture him on positivity? Yes, things might have been easier for all of us if he had stayed cheerful, but didn't I love him anyway? Shouldn't I support him more because he felt so depressed and sad? When my own friends and connections had told me to stay positive, I'd felt even more lonely. Because they refused to even hear my story and accept it. It invalidated my experiences and made me feel guilty that I was sad. As if it was my fault that I felt so awful all the time. And yet, foolishly, here I was, subjecting my father to the same.

The next time I visited, I sat next to him and listened to his accounts of pain. I held his hand and listened, because I had no words of comfort to offer. I did not say that things would be fine, because I didn't know that. After a while, he opened up to me, and told me that he has lost his ability to smile. What do you mean?, I asked. He said, I try to smile, but the muscles don't comply. I was shocked, because I didn't know this about him. I had just assumed that he didn't want to smile. In fact, many times, I had felt despondent over this very fact. On his birthday, I put in so much effort to make him happy, and I only expected a smile in return. But he had looked at me stone-faced, and I'd felt miserable. I'd really missed his smile and laughter, things I used to get in abundance before. But now, I felt sadder, because I'd been so quick to judge. I simply assumed that he didn't want to smile. I never thought about whether he could. He told me other things that I hadn't known. At the end of this conversation, I realized there was so much I didn't know about the present version of my father. I had to stop expecting what I'd gotten from him in the past, and instead make an effort to get to know him as he was now. And to be more accepting of his emotional state, no matter what it was. Positivity and gratitude have to come from within, and not by force. Forcing either only makes it worse for the person going through a difficult time.

That day, after I left, my Mom told me that he slept peacefully. He'd told her that he felt lighter after my visit. This is not an easy journey for me. Even after this realization, there will be times when I stumble, times when I lose my temper and snap. But I hope to be a kinder daughter. One that will make her father feel unconditionally loved. Most of the time, if not always.