Without Fixed Address 4

As it became evident that I was not well enough to find work my father turned completely against me.  Living out his retirement years did not include me in his plans and I think he feared being stuck with me till his dying day.  I also wanted to get on with my life but felt too paralyzed to do anything.  I knew I was mentally ill, likely with some form of PTSD and also that my father would be the last person from whom I could expect support or compassion.  He also resented me for changing my name and on several occasions while drinking would declare to me that we are not father and son.  I can't say that I blame him but it was difficult living with this sense of no forgiveness ever.

Christmas crept up on us and he asked me to go grocery shopping with him on the twenty-third for the Christmas dinner he would be making.  When we got the groceries back to the house he said that he trusted I had made other arrangements in Vancouver for Christmas Day because I was not going to be made welcome in his house while he served Christmas dinner to my brother and his daughter.  That night I was going to drown myself at a secluded beach nearby.  I don't know why but I felt a supernatural force forbidding me to draw near to the water.  I knew that God had set his angel to prevent me from destroying myself.

When I returned to the house my father was screaming at me from behind his closed bedroom door in his high pitched pathetic little old man whine for leaving the porch light on and that I should leave and never bother him again.  Christmas Eve I became gravely ill.  Dad didn't care.  In the morning I had to leave.  I struggled up to the road where I caught a bus to the ferry.  It took me several days to recover while house sitting for my friends in Vancouver.  I knew I had to leave but no one was willing to offer me a place to stay while I got on my feet and others turned against me.  Thus the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder became entrenched with me and every single Christmas since, barring it seems this year, became for me a traumatic event.