I might be crazy?

My dad's been really sick his whole life. Diagnosed with Bi polar, manic depression at 27.

His father wasn't well either, he beat him and my grandmother into a bloody pulp whenever he hit the bottle which was often. My dad left home at 15 scared for his life on a motorcycle and rode all the way to Edmonton.
That's where he eventually met my mom, knocked her up stuck around for 4 years trying to hide the mental illness until it over came him and they divorced. At the time my mom just thought he was a fucking asshole! Mental illness in the eighties was not really discussed or at least not really taken seriously.
My dad spun out and went back to Toronto and dated and worked manically. He drank and smoked and self medicated himself as much as possible.

He then met Melanie my now step mom they have been together since i was 6, so 22 years.
She has stuck by him through thick and thin. He was hospitalized in 1997, his depression goes in 7 year cycles. He spent 2 months in St. Paul's Hospital undergoing electric shock therapy. Yes that's right! They still were doing electric shock therapy in 1997 as a cure for depression.
My dad still Say's that if he hadn't undergone the treatment then, that he wouldn't be alive now.

I remember being a teenager growing up with a manically depressed father and being angry, really, really, angry. The thing was he would take his crazy out on me all the time and i didn't really understand because i was 14 or 16 years old. We fought all the time. Sometimes about serious things and then sometimes he would catch me off guard and freak out about the way the table was set. Our house was a battle ground and my step mom was left to referee.

I started to get pretty heavy into smoking weed. It was a great relief to not think about anything but myself and the cool way the world looked and my body felt. I was self medicating as well.

It was around 14 that i realized i wasn't into any of the guys at school... if you get my drift.
So i guess i had a lot on my plate when i was a kid? But i still feel lucky to have gone to school in Vancouver which was such an openly gay city. My father and Stepmother were more than supportive and still are to this very day.

My dad hasn't really worked in hmmmmm? like 15 years. He has a doctor in Toronto that he says can't even grow a beard he's so young. But he's supposed to be the best!

Over the last few years my dad and i haven't been getting along. It might be the distance? I just don't feel apart of his life the way i used to. I think the selfish, pot smoking, teenager in me is relieved to not have to deal with his disease on a regular basis.
It takes over everything! To the point where you start to feel crazy yourself. In fact they tried to take me into St. Paul's when i was a 15 and told me because his kind of mental illness is genetic that i may be sick as well. I remember i was trying to hold back my tears and anger as the doctor told me they wanted to test my blood to see if i was going to be "like" my father.
I told her to go fuck herself and walked out of the hospital.
I have never been tested.

In hindsight i wish i could have been kinder to my father over the things i truly couldn't understand because of my teenage youth. I wish my mother could have been stronger and tried to understand. I wish my stepmother didn't have to endure the fights and anger we both dished out at each other on a regular basis.
I wish my dad wasn't sick with crippling depression. He's so charismatic and talented!
But what are you going to do?
The world is what we make of it.
I think I'll pick up the phone and give him a call.