When asked: “Who are you?,” many respond with their name and vocation. For instance, “I’m Gordon and I’m a Lineman Apprentice and Public Speaker.” Notice though, how transitory this introduction is. For years my go-to was: “I’m Gordon and I’m the Manager of Men’s Officials Development at US Lacrosse." Before then it was: “I’m Gordon and I’m a student at XYZ university.” Even further back it was: “I’m Gordon and I’m a lacrosse player.”

All of these were roles I fulfilled or actions I performed which were conflated into my identity because that is a part of how our culture works. That’s not a negative or a positive, it’s just the way things are. What I’ve found telling about my permanent recovery is that the more I tie myself to things that are certain, regardless of time or my present situation, the better able I am to bounce out of a rut. When I was “Gordon, Senior Instructional Designer,” that identity fell to pieces as soon as I was in the psychiatric hospital for an indefinite stay. While it isn’t a cultural idea I grew up with, reading about how we grew as a species in books like: “A Hunter-Gatherer's Guide to the 21st Century: Evolution and the Challenges of Modern Life”, I’ve taken to answering life’s more existential questions with identities that are less function-specific and more familial.

When my depressed mind asks: “Who in the hell do you think you are?” I can answer the same way my tribal ancestors did to a journeyman wandering into camp: “I am Gordon, son of Louis.” That’s all that needs to be said. This mental exercise ties me to something unshakeable — I am me and I’m from my father; he is from his father, and so on and so on. It’s a remarkable technique to remind me of the fact that I’m alive, and I’m inextricably linked to someone important to me.

This won’t work for everyone. For some their fathers were never in the picture or they were but are now significantly estranged. I’m grateful that my father is still plugging along to reach his life goal of living to 100, and that he and I pulled closer together when my illness threatened to shatter our relationship.

“I’m going to beat the piss out of you!” I screamed into the phone. Not caring that my astute psychiatrist was jotting down notes on my behavior while I bent ferally over his desk and poured expletives out to my dad. After hanging up he asked what I was going to do and I was pretty straight to the point: “I’m driving home to punch my dad’s face in.”

That never happened. Men have a high capacity for violence only outmatched by younger men, but it’s tough to keep that kind of anger going at any age. A thirty minute car ride home cooled me off enough to only give my dad a withering stare as I slinked to the basement. My father unfairly bore the brunt of my anger in the early and middle stages of my recovery. Through my teens and mid-twenties I’d shout at him for his lack of knowledge, lack of tact, or for no other reason than he was an easy target for abuse. I’m still ashamed for my behavior but grateful he stuck with me, and one moment in time crystalizes how my dad endured my resistance.

I can’t remember which suicide attempt it was, but I had been released from the hospital and was downstairs watching something. I had long before shut down communication with my dad and his only insights into how I was doing were conversations with my mom. She and I were having a tense discussion when we heard a tremendous crash and hard footfalls toward the basement door. “What happened?” my dad exclaimed, not going downstairs but scared enough for my safety that he ran to the threshold of the steps. My mom said that nothing happened and he responded that he heard her say “Oh my God,” as if she might have found me dead. Some part of his mind mixed random sounds and he effectively daydreamed the worst scenario a parent may imagine.

Even worse, we were so estranged that he wouldn’t race into the basement on the chance that I was still alive because I had such resentment toward him. I was angry that he didn’t understand my depression, which doesn’t make much sense in hindsight. He and I both didn’t know why I was the way I was. What drove me to consider ending my life? Why could I barely rise out of bed? Why was I so unmotivated? For a man who self-admits to never having a suicidal thought he couldn’t relate to my experience in any meaningful way. He only had what I would offer, and at that time I offered little.

He stayed my father, but because he was the target of my rage he had to do so at a distance. It took years of longer and longer conversations before we established boundaries:

• No jokes about my mental illness

• He could ask me how I felt

• He could not give me advice or try to fix me on a bad day

We had to work at our relationship, and I’m grateful that we were able to do so. Now, my dad and I are quite close. We still keep to the rules set years ago, and we are more graceful with one another. We have conversations every few mornings, sometimes lacrosse related and sometimes just about life and the challenges it presents. I’ve come to value his opinion more in my thirties than I ever did in my teens and twenties. This is because I aged enough to experience what is best encapsulated by Frank Herbert: “There is probably no more terrible instant of enlightenment than the one in which you discover your father is a man - with human flesh.”

I expected my dad to know me without me telling him anything. Because fathers are in charge. He took care of our family, provided for us, and taught us. I felt it the height of betrayal that he didn’t know what to say to me when I was suicidal. But he wasn’t super-human. He was, and is, a man. Limited by what he knows, and it is my continued responsibility to explain why I am the way I am. The more he knows about mental illness in general and about my experiences specifically, the better he can respond when I am in the dark. In many ways, this blog and my work with Mental Agility is an ongoing project to share myself with my father. I feel that if I can explain my challenges in a way that makes sense to him that I can explain them to anyone. He gets a little insight into how I am mentally with each post, and many of our wellness conversations start with: “That was a really great article…”.

So this Father’s Day I write this for everyone to read, but really it’s a love letter to my dad. Thank you for staying with me when I hated myself. Thank you for loving me from a distance when I kept you away. Thank you for showing me that it is possible to empathize with someone who has experienced what you never will. Most of all, thank you for being my father.

featured image photography credit - Madison Jubin