This sends me back to a chapter from Mind and Motivation by Missy Bernard Welton:
Miriam H. was a vibrant, talkative thirty-five-year-old who was building a successful career in finance. She enjoyed the lifestyle of a single young professional, with a large circle of friends and a variety of regular activities that included cooking classes and swing dancing. Several months before commencing treatment, however, she was passed over for a promotion at work. Shortly afterward, she served as a bridal attendant in the nuptials of a younger sister. These two events caused her to reevaluate her life, mostly in the form of a running internal critique of her own value and abilities. An interview with Miriam showed the progression of her self-critical thoughts:
Miriam: I had this speech in my head, like a tape recording. “You’ve been deluding yourself all this time. You thought things were okay, and they really weren’t….” It was as if my life were being lived behind a facade or a veil, and someone had lifted the veil off and I could see how ugly everything really was…. My happiness was an illusion, and now I was being shown the reality.
MBW: And the reality was…?
Miriam: That I wasn’t really valued the way I thought I should be…. That I had been kidding myself. People pretended to think a lot of me, but when push came to shove, there were a number of other people that were held up as superior. I was in a lower category, like, a lesser category. Something seemed to tell me that I should try to isolate myself as much as possible, and prepare, because those incidents were just the beginning, and the end was coming soon.
MBW: The end?
Miriam: That the end was coming, and that it would be a relief. That I could hurry it up. I was in control, you know? It was all up to me. And the more I hurried it up, the sooner I would be free.
Could this be why Dad has stopped communicating?