I have anger toward my father

I can't say too many bad things about my life growing up. My brothers and I had a roof over our heads, we were never hungry, and both of our parents were present. My mother was always a gentle and happy person. She did anything for her kids. My father, on the other hand, had issues. He struggled with anxiety and depression for most of his life. The effects of his mental illness marked me and my brothers deeply. From a very early age we were indirectly forced to cope with my father's instability.

I remember being afraid of him when I was very young. He used to stay in his room, dark and gloomy. Anything we did that resembled joy and playfulness could potentially anger or disturb him. I'm sure he had moments of short lived happiness, but I really can't remember any. Growing up we grew accustomed to his illness, but that didn't make things any easier. We had inadvertently fallen into his world. I was the eldest, and for reasons beyond my own comprehension, turned out to be the most affected.

Strangely, I inherited some of my father's symptoms. While I see myself as a total opposite, I'm probably the person most like my father. I have worked really hard not to be like him, so over the years I have taken my own depressive personality and shaped into something very unlike him.

I developed anger toward my father. I feel that his failed attempts to understand life have crossed over into my own. My search for meaning has often driven me to try to understand my father's madness. He would stay up late at night (and still does) reading book after book, taking disorganized notes on infinite notebooks, writing distorted versions of a reality that only exists in his own mind, and talking about his shit like if it made any sense.

Even after years of moving away from him, I still receive a phone call every now and then. I have to listen to my father talk about his childhood (the same stories over and over again). He asks me for advice. I try really hard to help him objectively. But deep down, I know he will only take two or three words that made sense to him and add them to his distorted discourse as he sees fit.

I have secretly read his notes. I have seen my name on several pages. I don't understand what he is trying to find and don't think he'll ever find anything. He is getting old and is alone in the world. All he has are his books, his notes, and his severely distorted memory of what his life has been. Maybe I'm not really angry… maybe now I just feel sorry for the guy.