The relationship we had when I was growing up was not a good one. I believe he has NPD and that my mother is codependent. This has been brought up by several mental health professionals over the years, based on my descriptions of my father's behaviour and my parents' relationship and mine with them, and also my own relationships, which I'm just beginning to sort out in therapy.

I get very angry when I think about all the things that have happened, and for a while my dad seemed to be getting a lot better. But then he had a mild stroke a few years ago and regressed and became worse than he was before, and is now even more illogical about it. The things he does and says make no sense and there's no talking to him about it. For a while I politely refused to ride in his truck because he was lashing himself to the middle seat belt because the driver's side didn't work, and then expecting me to sit in the middle seat belt. He thinks that a solution to this is to take a needle and thread and sew old parts of the seat belt together, ie. if it looks fine it must be fine. It takes very little to set him off and make me, or anyone else who contradicts or even appears to him to be contradictory, the bad guy.

After a small breakdown this summer, I'm just starting to come to terms with the fact that I can feel better in my own life if I avoid the situation all together, and remind myself when I see him bullying someone that they are a grown up and can handle it in their own way. There's nothing I can do to change him, or help others deal with their choices in their relationships with him. All I can take care of is me, but that's getting trickier by the day.

The immediate problem is that he is alienating family members, and cutting off opportunities for me to see them because if he doesn't like them - and I am a an extension of him and therefore my desires or opinions do not even exist - I can't see them either, or will simply not be told that there is or was an opportunity. I have only recently realized that this has happened for my entire life, that he has always decided for me what relationships I will have with my family, and that there was a whole side of the family that I didn't get to know because he has no respect for my mother's family. He has become a perpetually sulking four year old. Anything I do is aggravating, I'm not allowed to see certain family members, or can only do so on his terms (I'm 30!).

And now my brother and I have planned a 60th birthday party for him on Saturday, and called my aunt to invite her and my uncle (his brother) and my cousin. My aunt told me that my father told my grandmother that my uncle was not welcome at the cottage this summer (it's my grandmother's cottage!), and that he is sure that my uncle doesn't want to see him any more than he wants to see my uncle. I have no idea what this is about, and neither does my aunt or anyone else. I'm shocked. She thinks it might have something to do with his behaviour at my parents' annual new year's day dinner, when my father sat sulking in front of the television in his living room while everyone else sat in the rec room and enjoyed each other's company. I didn't understand it then, and I'm even more confused now.

I'm tired of his constant drama and need to be the center of attention and everyone should do what he wants and feel what he feels and think what he thinks, and everything is everyone else's fault.

My grandmother brought a large envelope of old family photos so that I could borrow them and scan them into my computer and make copies for people. My father started to get upset about this because he had borrowed some of these pictures several years ago and apparently used photo editing software to clean them up, so I guess he's mad because I'm borrowing them now? And also, "In five hundred years, no one is going to care that any of these people existed", so it's stupid that I'm bothering to copy photos of the family I care about and whose history interests me. And as we were looking through the photos he went on this rant about one of my grandmother's sister's husbands, who apparently didn't get along with my grandfather (he was the same as my dad, go figure) and according to my dad, said something rude at my grandfather's funeral.

I'm also finding out that a lot of people in the family are avoiding my dad now, so I'm also cut out because he's my father. I missed an opportunity to get to know a wonderful lady who was his cousin, who passed away a couple of years ago. No one even told him when she died because people are sick of his crap. I'm really upset that he is doing this to the family, and I don't know how much of his behaviour I can forgive or chalk up to the stroke (we tend to do that these days, I don't know how my mother bears it), since he was always like this, just not as bad.

This is really sad to say, and sounds pretty mean, but when my grandfather died, the family had a sigh of relief, except for my father who I suppose couldn't fault him because he's exactly the same. So now my father is the squeaky wheel that's threatening to tip the whole cart, and if I say anything to disturb it and it tips, it's all because of me. My fault for not putting up with his crap like everyone else does just to keep the peace.

His birthday party is on Saturday and I know certain people will be there and certain people won't, and I feel awful about the whole thing I love my family but the time I have to spend with my father is very uncomfortable, always has been, and is now worse because as an adult I can see what's happening and get told things by other family members.

I don't know how to deal with him. I'm torn between keeping the peace by keeping my mouth shut, or telling him what I really think and risk my relationships with everyone else - I'll be a bully if I call him a bully, that's how the logic goes. There wouldn't be much of a relationship to lose with my dad, but I don't want to upset everyone else.