This is pretty long and just one of those getting-it-out-in-writing things, but even for those who don't read it, if anyone would be willing to share their experiences with an abusive parent passing away, I would like to read others' stories.

I know that I have a lot of unresolved issues regarding my father, things deeply buried and pushed away for several years. But my father is very likely going to die soon, and I guess part of me is trying to prepare for it in advance somehow, or at least try to predict how I might react when it happens. My emotions regarding my father most of the time are very suppressed and only surface rarely and unexpectedly, and then it's usually be ugly, though brief.

All throughout my childhood my father was very abusive - emotionally, mentally, verbally, physically and sexually. But he was also a typical manipulative, Jekyll & Hyde slimeball. I was extremely isolated and didn't have any childhood friends, and my mother was more so the NPD rejecting/neglecting type. So my father was like my only 'friend'.

From my childhood perspective I tried to focus on the "good dad" and the "friend" and disassociate from the bad parts. Like both my father and I were very into herpetology. So we would set up big aquariums together, then catch baby turtles together, and then watch the baby turtles together at night. That is also when some of the abuse took place. So it was like my brain really emphasized the memory of my "best friend" watching turtles with me, and disassociated from the abuse.

The older I got though the more my father hated me, because the more I reminded him of my mother and the more independent and questioning my personality became. He started to become more rejecting and nasty, more overtly abusive as opposed to a more covert, incestuous abuse. I can vaguely remember the pain of losing my "best friend" but not that much, I think it was mostly suppressed and still unresolved.

Instead I had to think with more of a survival mentality. By my teen years my father had become a dangerous threat not just to me but also my younger brother and my mother. He was becoming increasingly unstable due to alcoholism. So I had to choose between trying to salvage a relationship with my father and trying to protect my brother, and I chose the latter.

After the divorce my father's neuroticism and alcoholism just kept getting more severe, until he lost his job and received a restraining order for buying assault rifles and making death threats against his coworkers, and also showing up to work drunk all the time. His new wife left him, and the downward spiral lead to him losing his house and everything by the time I was an adult.

The way it worked out is that almost right after I went No Contact and tried to cut him out of my life, suddenly he has alcohol dementia, is physically very ill and at risk of becoming homeless. Ever since I've always been really torn about the whole thing, although most of the time I try not to think about it. I keep tabs through the grape vine on what is going on with him, but I don't initiate contact.

The last time I even saw him was years ago when he showed up to a large family function uninvited, and I almost shot him with my revolver because I had flashbacks to him threatening to murder my mother and bowing revenge against us all. I saw him come around the corner at the church and went into instant fight/protect mode.

But, he was very feeble compared to my memories. He was malnourished, and seemed a lot shorter than I remembered him, with a drawn face and a lot of grey hair. He looked really bad. The alcohol dementia was also obvious. He had a hard time talking, forming words or keeping his train of thought. He seemed intimidated by me and couldn't look me in the eye (I never actually pulled my gun out, so it wasn't that). It felt like the twilight zone, like a bizarre dream. I could tell I was feeling things but couldn't identify them or really, truly feel them. All muffled and stuffed down, as usual.

Over the years I've received various updates. Someone gets him into rehab, he refuses help and leaves. Been through that multiple times. He's homeless on the streets, then the family gets him into a shelter or group home, then he leaves and effs up his life again. At one point I got a phone call informing me that he was found trying to eat out of dumpster at a McDonalds. Another time when he lost an apartment that he was found surrounded by mold and feces and almost dead.

Every time I don't know what I feel. It's like a flurry of emotions that run under my surface, I can't identify them or hold onto them, and then they're suppressed quickly again. A reel of memories of my "best friend" in childhood, "my dad", and a reel of memories of a monster doing terrible things, and a flickering present day reality of a feeble, demented old man. But every time if I wait long enough, he gets back into a home or rehab or something, and for a little while, everything is 'okay' again and I don't have to confront those feelings for a while longer.

Well recently he was in a group home, and he left of his own will. He decided he would rather live in his car and be drunk all the time. The updates kept coming in. He would get arrested for shoplifting but they wouldn't press charges because he was obviously homeless and ill. Then recently the police found him in his car and he was extremely sick, so they rushed him to the hospital. From the hospital they moved him into a rehab center.

Well he left the rehab center, a shock to no one, to go back to live in his car, not eat and constantly drink, while also being very sick. That was a couple weeks ago. At this point he is very ill, very malnourished, and living in the cold in his car, subsisting on nothing but alcohol.

I know that he is going to die soon. It's hard to explain but, on top of all of the obvious evidence, I just have a deep gut feeling. I can just feel that he is going to pass from this world soon. Most of the time I don't think about it, but when I do I feel a terrible and strange feeling that I can't label. Sometimes my hands will shake. I can't even figure out what I should / shouldn't do, if anything, I can't hardly think well on it and can't even identify or grasp what I feel about everything.

A week from now I'll be going down to the state where my father and most of my family tree resides, for the holiday. It will probably be my last chance to ever see my father alive, if I could even find him. I don't know if it's important that I do, or important that I don't. Thinking about it makes my whole face sting.