Originally Posted by
Pachipro
GCL, since I know you you will read this, I will quote some of the finer points made by others to refresh your mind before making my own statement.
I cannot believe that your father is the same age as myself. I think he just doesn't know how to properly raise a family or to be a good father. Maybe he is right and the military is a way out for you although I would think twice about it these days. I believe he is trying to tell you something here. Maybe he is hinting that you need to get out of your environment. I don't know. In my case my father never insinuated. He acted. Maybe as a way of helping me back then.
GCL, we ALL go through periods of depression at one time or another. My father was also a classic alcoholic and gambler. He was never at home when we were growing up. He and my mom used to fight all the time and holidays were to be feared as a child as they would always fight. They were hardly ever happy and either were we four kids. I was the oldest.
I left home, with the "help" of my father, at the age of 17 and joined the military. My father knew that my life would probably not turn out well and that he was not there for me as I started hanging out with the wrong people and not studying at school. So one day, shortly after I ran away from home, he introduced me to "his friend", an Army recruiter, and I was sucked in hook, line, and sinker.
Personally, I saw it as a way to get out of New York City and start a whole new life. The all volunteer Army had just started in 1972 and the only requirement for joining the Army then was a high school diploma. So I buckled down the final six months and barely passed. I was so eager to get away from my home and experience the world that I went to basic training the day I graduated!
Although not fun, the military changed me and "made a man out of me", so to speak. I learned to think and act on my own and to think about others. One thing (among many) it taught me was that you, and you alone, are responsible for your actions and not anyone else. The Army sent me to Japan and my life changed forever.
All was not peaches and cream in Japan either as I went through a terrible bout of depression after I got out of the military in Japan and started attending college. I married a Japanese woman while in the Army and divorced shortly after I became a student. I was alone and far from home. About a year later my depression set in. I also had thoughts of suicide as "the easy way out". But I stuck to my guns believing that all will be right with my life and the world some day and that I, and I only, am responsible for my actions and the way I feel. Sure enough it was.
My depression was so bad that I would often write, from one to four, smilely faces in my pocket diary each day to gage how I was feeling. I never saw a counselor and overcame it on my own to my own joy later on. I came to believe that it was me who was causing my depression and not anyone or any circumstance around me. Sometimes I just wanted to feel sorry for myself and have a private "pity party" as a way to justify my feelings.
At first I blamed everyone. My parents, my childhood, my ex-wife, my school, Japan, the Japanese, the military. I tried to blame everyone and everything but ME. But I soon came to the realization that neither one of them was the cause of my depression. The cause of my depression was me and how I was thinking and feeling and how I chose to react to it.
As I look back on it today, some 25 years later, I am glad I stuck it out, and my belief that all would turn out ok turned out to be true. Maybe it was some kind of spiritual test. I don't know. However, I believe I passed it and my life has turned out better than even I thought it ever would be and I never again let myself get depressed again. Although some of my experiences after that bout of depression warranted me being depressed again, I NEVER let it control my life, mood, or feelings again no matter how bad things were or seemed to be. Back in school I would probably have been voted "the one least likely to succeed." Today I am more successful than many of the more "smarter" kids back then.
I never had a real, or any relationship for that matter, with my father until after I returned from Japan. And it was I who instigated the relationship. After all he was my father and I would do my best to for forge one. However, I never blamed him for not being there for me, or for yelling at me, or calling me stupid when I was young as I came to realize that had his own demons to fight. I understood it and we became very close, although not as close as I would have wanted, until the day he died 5 1/2 years ago at the age of 68 from emphysema. No doubt because he smoked 3 packs of cigarettes a day. He never gave up his drinking and chose to instead drink at home instead of going out. Of course he apologized for not being there when I was younger, but he did turn his life around, re-married, and lived a fruitful rest of his life and did his best to have a good relationship with his children. I still remember today the last words my father said to me on the phone. He said, "Joe, I'm proud of you for the way you turned out." Two days later he was dead.
Those words (and they still do today), meant more to me than anything he ever did, or didn't do, while I was growing up. They made me feel good, and proud, that I did stick it out, made a good life for myself and got through the most difficult of times when killing myself would have been the easy way out. It made me proud that I can look back on it today and say, "I did it all myself, with no help from nobody." I can still remember today, a little voice in my head telling me to "JUMP" while I was standing on a platform waiting for a train while in Japan during my time of depression. I'm glad I never heeded those voices. And I am glad that I am the one who, later on in life, forced myself to forget the past and have a relationship with my father.
You are still young GCL and have a full, rewarding life ahead of yourself. Trust me. I have been there, done that, and thought that. No one can improve your life but you. In fact your strong interest in Japan and the Japanese language my just be that part of you that is telling you to stick it out because there are better, brighter days ahead of you. And they may just be in Japan which I am sure you will enjoy and it may just change your life for the better and forever!
Good luck to you GCL. The beauty of the internet and this forum is that you have friends, are liked, and there are people willing to listen to you and help you with advice. But you, yourself must take the first step in helping yourself, believing in yourself, and trusting that things will get better. Peace.
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) but at the same time the mental and emotional sides of your life apparently just keep getting worse and worse. Sow what gives this time ? what's up with that? 
