Charity - No Pain, No Gain

Something shrink wrote about, few blogs back, has really got me to thinking.

He wrote that charity hurts or that is what I picked up from the posting.

Maybe was just another reason for me to go on a mind fuck, or twist it in with my own twisted thoughts, but I don't see what I do for my Dad as charity but it does hurt. Well, actually it is the doing things that don't seem to alleviate any of his pain that hurts.

His latest posting in regards to a daughter's attitude to her mother's deteriating mental state also hit a spot. Not because I view my father as vile or evil (he isn't at all but that is his view of himself) but it is the impact of someone's illness on another that hit me.

You can't really understand that until you are in it. I don't think. For sure you can empathise by imagining yourself in that position and wondering how you will feel or react but, in my experience, how I have thought I would react is different to how I react. As in, I liked to imagine myself as being able to handle anything with stoic bravery and rallying on to the bitter end, with a stiff upper lip and a hug and the reality is I chop and change...sometimes I am pretty upbeat with Dad..whatever he says to me and try to reassure him that we will get through things, together.... however, his behaviour and illness takes him. Then another time I see him and I am desperately trying to hold myself together as he pours his pain out.

I don't think this is charity. Charity is something that is separate to family ties. To me it is an organisation, or person, doing something for someone they aren't that close to....They aren't, for want of a better word, obligated to.

By using the word obligated, it makes it sound like Dad is a chore. Now, crunch point sometimes it feels that way to me. Perhaps because he isn't the Dad I used to know, rely on, look up to. Perhaps because his illness has changed him so much and it is so difficult to face his demons (especially when I am not quite sure what they are) whilst facing my own. I don't know. It gets complicated for me but to know someone is so miserable, so lost in life, so destroyed it is bloody hard to keep trying to see the light and then show it to them.

Am veering off on tangent but getting back to the title.... The saying may well be that charity begins at home but it is much more than charity that is going on between Dad and me. It is a fight for his survival and in some ways mine too.

I don't think charity is painful because people can opt in and out. They can decide what/who warrants their charity, family relationships are different. Well they are to people who care about members of their family.

And not having a pop at Shrink for what he wrote. It made me have a re-think about my views and what charity means to me (or not as the case may be).