Not happy, sadly
My dad killed himself on April 9th 2008.

Growing up he was the best dad he could be to me. He hadn't had the best start in life himself, but he met my mum aged 29 and I was born when he was 31, and he adored us both. I'm an only child and money was tight when I was younger - my dad was self-employed and trade wasn't always great - but when he did make money he saved and saved and saved. He ended up paying for my entire university costs, including paying my loan back, and was as proud as anything when I graduated. He worked hard to pay off the mortgage on my parents' house, and he was careful with pensions and investments and so on. The abject poverty of his youth had left a deep scar on him and he was determined that neither me nor my mother should ever have to live like that.

Don't get me wrong, he wasn't perfect but he was mine, and even though we didn't always get on I miss him every single day.

He got ill after his business partner's wife was ill, in the summer of 2007. The stress got to him and he began getting paranoid that the police were after him. Psychosis is a scary, terrible, horrible, irrational thing, that takes someone's mind and grows like a cancer inside it. What is horrible about mental illness is that people are quick to dismiss it, it's almost like that because they can't see it it's not real.

It is very, very real when it drives a man to jump off a bridge, you know? We'll never know why he chose that day, whether someone spoke to him or whether a police car was behind him or something silly, but he was on his way to an appointment and never made it. He was "missing" for 24 hours, which is the most horrendous thing ever. The police divers recovered his body and the police, actually, were brilliant, lovely to me, my mum and my husband, and as kind as they possibly could be.

I am determined to be outspoken about suicide because it is so misunderstood. My dad wasn't a coward, he wasn't running away from his problems, he was simply very, very ill and took a tragic way out of it. My mum is happily remarried now, and we're all getting used to being a blended family. She lives mortgage-free and my dad left a tidy sum of money meaning that she is set up to live a comfortable life - but she is careful too and has reinvested most of it so that it eventually will come to me (and at the moment she is paying for an OU course for me out of it - thanks dad, I hope you can see how well I'm doing!)

All the money in the world can't replace my dad, and I would give it all away if it meant I could have him back, and honestly one of the saddest things about the entire thing is that he never got to spend all that carefully saved money in his retirement. I would have loved for my parents to take off around the world when they both retired, and I wish the silly bugger had lived long enough to do that.

If you have a good dad and he's still around for you - go give him a hug from me, okay?
(clumsykisses, Sun 28 Nov 2010, 22:47, 6 replies)

Good post
People that don't get on with their dad's for petty reasons should take note from this.....
(bROKEN aRROW PUA HVI Master, Mon 29 Nov 2010, 10:42, closed)

I completely agree
I'm really sorry for your loss. Your Dad sounded like a great bloke and it's an awful shame that mental illness took hold.
(BearWithLittleBrain, Mon 29 Nov 2010, 12:56, closed)

Thank you
He certainly was. He'd be blushing at my gushing about him though :D
(clumsykisses, Mon 29 Nov 2010, 22:02, closed)

I always think that
But people never do.
(clumsykisses, Mon 29 Nov 2010, 22:02, closed)

first click of the week
is yours.
(Deligrams, Mon 29 Nov 2010, 15:10, closed)

Why
Thank you.
(clumsykisses, Mon 29 Nov 2010, 22:03, closed)