Buzzword is, itself, a buzzword now.

Snapshots:

1. This Post - archive.org, megalodon.jp*, removeddit.com, archive.is

^{I am a bot. (Info / Contact)}

I just found out my dad had another stroke. My mum kept this from me for four days because she was "busy" and didn't want to worry me. I'm not happy about this. Background: my dad had a serious stroke 14 years ago, at the age of 51, and it's left him permanently incapacitated. For illustration he can walk for limited distances (around the house) but very weakly and slowly. His speech is slurred. He wears adult diapers. Last Wednesday, he had another one that affected the same side of his body. He's been discharged from ICU but is still hospitalized, and it's not clear to me what this new stroke means - whether it's going to undo all the progress he made over the last 14 years. For more context, I now live thousands of miles away from my parents for career-related reasons and only see them twice a year. We are not close, but I have to admit that my dad's stroke affected me tremendously (I was 15 years old then) and a big part of my coping mechanism was to distance myself emotionally, to pretend it wasn't really happening because it was simply too much for me to process. Now it's happening again, years and years down the road. It doesn't seem as serious as the first but it brings back a lot of old feelings, of sadness and helplessness and guilt. I feel so fucking bad for him. I hate that he has to suffer again on top of the pathetic, limited excuse for a life he has been forced to lead for 14 years. The selfish part of me wants to keep running away and pretend nothing is new. But I also feel so fucking guilty that my mum has to deal with this alone and I can't be there for work related reasons. It doesn't seem fair that I get to live the life I always wanted while she deals with all the shit on her own. I have a hard time expressing my emotions. For the record, I rarely ever cry and usually internalize all my negative emotions. I found out around 1.30am and talked to my mum till 2. My fiancé was there the whole time and he was...vaguely sympathetic but didn't ask for the details until I shared them with him. Then I sat alone at my desk trying my best not to cry while he laid in bed. I guess I don't blame him for not noticing, but I didn't want to be like, "HEY COMFORT ME PLS", especially when he seemed so...uninterested? Finally I gave up, sat up beside him in bed and started crying softly because I couldn't really handle it anymore. I think he was tired, and perhaps it would have been too much to expect for him to sit up and hold me like I needed. Instead he just kind of lay on his side with his eyes shut and half-heartedly patted my knee while I cried. I began to feel like I was going to have a meltdown and made a mad dash for my anxiety meds. I rushed to the cupboard and grabbed one and chopped the bar in half to the right dose. At that moment he said in an annoyed voice, "can you please not stomp? The neighbours can hear." I fully agree that I should have been aware of the force of my footsteps. Living in an apartment with thin walls requires consideration. But, fuck. I wish he hadn't said it to me like that, in the moment. I badly needed him and felt scared to ask/didn't feel like I should've had to ask - and it hurt so fucking bad that he cared to tell me off for the noise I was making instead of being there for me in the moment, like his priorities were jumbled. I said in a quiet voice, "I don't give a fuck", and he turned over to face me with his back. This set me off and I started full on ugly-crying in the bathroom. Eventually he got up and touched my arm, but told me to take a walk with him downstairs or just get in his car and cry there so the neighbours wouldn't get woken up/think he was domestically abusing me. I refused to move but forced myself to stop crying. He did begin to try comforting me then, which I appreciated. He also apologised for being "rude" or inappropriate with telling me to stop stomping (apparently he was annoyed because he thought I was doing it on purpose???) but I can't fucking get over his initial reaction. It feels so fucking callous to me. If I'd heard him sniffling I would have been there with my arms around him, immediately. Even if I thought he was being too noisy, I would have tried to quiet him gently. As mentioned - it's hard enough for me to ask for help because I don't want to feel like an emotional burden. And this reaction - the impatience and knee-jerk concern for what the neighbours might hear rather than my emotional state - makes it harder and harder for me to have the nerve to seek emotional support from him. To be fair - it was late, he was tired. He put in effort to listen to me in the end. I was being truly inconsiderate and a bad fucking neighbour - but etiquette wasn't exactly the first thing on my mind, you know? It still hurts that he would not get up to hug me or ask me if I was okay, but only to tell me off harshly for stomping. Again - I agree that I should have been more conscious of the force of my footsteps. But for fuck's sake, I was running to pop my meds. Was he a jerk or am I being unfair? When we got in bed, I said, "hey, for future reference, it's hard for me to ask for support but -" and he cut me off by saying "yeah you already mentioned that, I don't want to stay up till 5am talking when we have things to do tomorrow [Saturday]." Now he's sleeping but I can't despite being all dosed up on Xanax. tl;dr Fiancé did not ask me if I was okay or comfort me when I was first crying over my dad's stroke (when I rarely ever cry or break down); instead told me to "stop stomping".