AITA For not wanting to keep in contact with my severely ill Father?
I (20, student) never lived with my dad growing up. I only saw him around 10 times a year at most. My childhood was pretty unstable, domestic violence, constantly moving, etc. I’ve struggled with bad anxiety for years. And have just come out of one of the worst burnouts/depressive episodes of my life. For the past few years I’ve had trouble keeping up with consistent texting even with close friends.
My dad has severe gastroparesis and Crohn’s. He’s in and out of hospital constantly, cannot eat food, and can barely keep water down without rejecting it. His health issues have been going on for as long as I can remember. He lives hours away and we can only really see each other now in the summer. For the past few years our entire relationship has been the exact same script on repeat: I message him once every few weeks (used to be a couple times a month) with some variation of “Hey, how have you been?” He replies something like “Hey, I’ve not been well [hospital/pain details], love you loads.” I send back some version of “I’m really sorry to hear that, I hope you feel better soon ❤️.” Then it loops.
This past year, the empathy I had for him has all but disappeared. The constant low-level guilt of feeling entirely responsible for him. I feel exhausted and I just want to be able to live my own life, without all this. In my darker moments I’ve caught myself wishing he would just go away. I know that sounds awful. He’s never really been a father figure to me, I’ve never gone to him for advice, never been emotionally open with him. For a long time he has told me I am his reason for living.
A couple weeks ago he messaged me about coming over to my city for a few days after he gets paid on the 7th, and for once the conversation wasn't despairing. After the 7th, I was waiting for him to message me (point of contension whether I should have followed up). Today (11th), he messages me with "Hiya, have you forgotten about me or something", then mentions how he cannot make it. This whole thing has brought back up all my feelings about my Dad that I had managed to put away.
I know the “right” thing is to reach out more consistently but I am so drained and overwhelmed with schoolwork to want to message him back, and now I am leaving him unread. It makes me feel selfish as hell. AITA?
For context (family side of things): My dad has apparently had stomach issues since he was young, but a lot of my family (and one of his doctors) thinks some of it is in his head or attention-seeking. I know that sounds wild, but it’s part of why some relatives roll their eyes at the whole situation. He is not religious, but about 8 years ago his condition was “cured by Jesus” after Four guys prayed over him and all of his pain was gone in an instant. For a year or two he was completely pain-free and fine until he eventually got sick again. He’s had a really hard life (alcoholism, drug use, etc.), so I used to cut him a lot of slack for that. Regardless, he is in a lot of pain.