Alex

Before we get into today's episode, I wanted to give you a heads up that we're talking about some pretty heavy themes, which some might find upsetting. Take care while you're listening.

Alexander

Bombs are going off left right centre – alright then let's have another one then, let's have another explosion. You know what I mean? Let's have a whole frigging war. Why not? Cause that's what's going on right now. That's what my life is. It's complete chaos. So bring it on, bring it on.

Alex

Picture it: your father is lying in a hospital bed. He’s in a coma, relying on life support. It’s on you to make the ultimate decision. The doctors come into the room. All eyes are on you. What would you do?

Alexander was struggling with burnout. He’d left a job he loved because of the toll it was taking on his health. And then – the phone rings. It’s Alexander’s aunt, calling with bad news about his dad.

Alexander

His heart has stopped. He was rushed into hospital by ambulance, he’s on a life support machine. And the prognosis wasn't great.

So we had to get down there and I drove with my mum. We both drove to the hospital.

The family were there. There were a number of faces I hadn't seen for a good few years. You know, extended family, probably about 15 people in the waiting room.

There was a certain amount of anxiety, because this situation was intense and extreme, and it was a situation that I couldn't have ever imagined experiencing.

But one of the first people to speak to me was a woman called Jo, who was my dad’s partner, who I’d never met.

My dad was ashamed of the situation. He’d been having an affair with her for years, while still being in a relationship with my mom. And even though my parents were separated, because he’d spent so long having that relationship in secret, that just carried over.

There was a calmness from her. She was very calm. And her calmness I appreciated.

And then it was a case of just waiting. There were a couple of my other aunts who were with him and when they came out, it was a case of going in to see him.

We see that he’s on a machine. He's not moving, he's artificially respirating, non-responsive in a coma. And I’d seen him only a few days previously on his birthday – was the 31st of January.

There is that feeling of it being surreal, dreamlike quality. But it's almost the situation of let's just bring it on. Bombs are going off left right center or other way let's let's, let's have another one, then let's have another explosion. You know what I mean? Let's have a whole frigging war. Why not? Cause that's what's going on right now. That's what my life is. It's complete chaos. So bring it on, bring it on.

The nursing team did tell me, and the doctor told me from the first day that they were gonna do everything in their power to bring him through.

Five days later in the waiting room, the doctor had said basically his heart has stopped on numerous occasions whilst he's been with us. We've restarted it each time, but we've had no sign of any brain activity. So what we need to do is we need to take him off the machine and see if he can survive by himself. We need to let essentially nature take its course because without any brain activity, clearly that's not life. If his heart does stop, we will have to Institute a, a DNR or do not resuscitate. We want you to agree to that.

So the next day the nurse said to me, have you had any thoughts about what was discussed with the doctor. There were four of us stood around the bed.

Making that pronouncement, making that statement, essentially we are agreeing to take him off life support. It almost feels as if you are moving him one step closer to death, and nobody wanted to do that. Nobody wanted to take that decision.

I just remember that moment when all the eyes were kind of looking at me…. like, what are we gonna do here?

Alex

So was it driven by fear, that the other members in the room, the other three or four people in the room, said to themselves, I don’t want to make this decision. I’m going to give that to Alexander. Or they subconsciously go - who do we respect and who’s the eldest son? Okay, Boom: Alexander.

Alexander

I think it’s a combination of things. I was the eldest son. His mum, my grandmother, she couldn’t handle it. So she was out of the picture in terms of making that decision.

It's the level of responsibility, isn't it? It's just unfair. I'm sure fear to a certain extent plays a part. You don't want to be seen as giving up sort of The Godfather, isn't it? I didn't give the order. I wasn't the one who gave the order. You know, and then Hyman Roth said it doesn't matter who gave The Order, this is the life that we chose. If it needs to be done, it needs to be done. And it was almost this kind of sense of people knew it needed to be done. But no one wanted to actually articulate that. Because then there's there's a sense of tangible responsibility. But, of course, the reality is that if he can't survive without a life support machine, he is already dead. And it's being able to acknowledge that which was so difficult. And I think that there was there was that conflict, that inner conflict, on the one hand, we understood it on a logical level, we got it. But making that statement, it feels pretty big.

Alex

When the All eyes are on you, how long did you have to then make the decision? And then what did you say?

Alexander Lindsay

I thought the decision had already been made, we'd already talked about it as a collective, it was just a fact. nobody was saying anything. And as I said, the focus was on me, people were looking at me. So because of decisions already made, and it was the way I saw it, it was clearly the right way to go. I articulated it, but it probably was very quick. It was probably only a second split second, but it felt much longer. You know how it does, because the way that I was expecting it to be was that we kind of just sort of looked at each other and we sort of nod together collectively say, yep, that's what we decided to do. But definitely silence. Everyone's staying still statuesque, looking at me. Oh, okay. Well, okay, so I'm the spokesperson. Yes, this is what we decided to do. I said to the nurse. Yeah, we agree that it's time for him to come off the life support machine based on all the information that you've told me, we've had the conversation with the doctor had the conversation with you, based on all that information, we believe that this is the right step to take at this stage. He said, I can assure you, it is the right thing to do. But it must have been so difficult. And I really respect you.

Alex

I'm gonna ask you what I think is quite a weird question. With men. I feel like there's this deep sort of yearning for respect. Did you feel a sense of this sort of ego massage of everyone respecting you so much to go, you know, what this is the guy, he's the leader of this sort of this scenario that really affects us all is to lose a loved one.

Alexander Lindsay

No, no. The way that I saw it was I'm a very logical person. So I completely agree what you're saying before, you know, we like to feel respected. But I think for me, what's more important than that, is compassion and connection. The way that I saw it was is that we'd all been through a horrible situation together. And we had to do our best to manage that. And that's all I felt I was doing, I was doing the best I could to manage the situation in the best way possible. I think there was a part of me that did sort of afterwards feel I was glad that I was able to do it. More for my own sense of self respect. Because I think the true respect that matters or the respect that comes from yourself, but it wasn't about me, that situation was not about me, I just did what I had to do. But I wasn't looking at it thinking that was an ego massage at all, I was just thinking, I'm glad we got through that. And obviously, the role that I played helped us to do that as best as we could. Because the scars are still there, the scars will always be there from that situation. I've got to say that has always been one of my strengths is the fact that I can look at a situation even in a situation as emotionally raw as that and make the decision that is logical. Because I can see down the road, I can see, no good comes from going for the short term fix. We had a complicated relationship, but I don't want my memories of my father to be this inert body on a bed. If he can't come through this by himself, we have to move on. He's the doctor is telling us in the nicest way possible, his brain dead? That's what the doctor is telling us? How can we proceed in any other direction. And I could sense the emotion in the room. I can't handle this, I can't deal with this. The cold and logical, maybe slightly sociopathic part of me was able to make sense of that, and separate it from the emotion and say, This is what we need to do. It's like this is horrible now, but we have to take this pain. Now in order for that pain not to be compounded anymore.

Alex

You're not allowing the emotion to override the logic, you're able to kind of see things as they are be present in that moment. And your mind is not elsewhere.

Alexander Lindsay

Yes, that's it. And I think actually, rather than compartmentalising, I think it's actually a synthesis of the two. I think it's that the logic and the emotion were together. And I could kind of see on a level of what I felt. And on a level of what I could perceive, those two things came together and I was on the level of this isn't just the right thing to do from a practical perspective in terms of the doctors are going to do it anyway. And it's going to be much more difficult if they have to make the decision rather than we having to make the decision on the emotional level. It was a sense of how we would feel in that scenario, if it were taken out of our hands. And if we were to continue going down this road of you know, because at this stage, it's day five, you know, how many days do we keep going and going with no response, his heart keeps stopping, it gets restarted, it keeps stopping and gets restarted. You know, how long do we keep putting ourselves through this? So it was a synthesis of both feeling and saw, that gave me the conviction to say this is what we have to do.

Alex

How did you feel when you first found out that they were having an affair?

Alexander Lindsay

I was not surprised. It's a weird situation. It's a morally very ambiguous, dubious situation. I reflected. And I said to myself, well, I don't want to shatter my mom's illusion of what is going on here. I don't like it. It doesn't look good. But there always felt there was something not right. Particularly my dad, there was something up right about him. Psychologically, he wasn't straight up. He wasn't honest. There was something conflicting and confusing about him. I never truly could get a handle on where he was coming from. And it took me a few years to realise I think the guy was narcissistic, to be honest, I'm not a psychologist, I can't give the clinical definition. But he was quite manipulative. And you couldn't trust a lot of what he would say, you know, he would say things and it may be true, but it may not be right toss a coin. You don't know. You couldn't separate fact, from fiction. Sometimes I think he struggled to separate fact from fiction.

Alex

How did that make you feel that you couldn't put a finger on who this man was, and the this guy was your father

Alexander Lindsay

is distancing? It's very distancing. Because how can you truly open up to someone that you don't trust? You can't. And that was the thing for me, it was it meant that I couldn't really see him as a true outlet. I couldn't see him as a true role model. And I couldn't see him as a true outlet for my feelings and my emotions, I would talk to him and we would have a relationship of sorts. But it was always strained by the fact that I lacked respect for his dishonesty, and his manipulation. And that was a part of our relationship. I was the only person out of our close family to tell him that I knew what he'd been doing eventually. And the reason that I said it is because he was directly telling me his own story about why him and my mom broke up. She was distanced from him. She was emotionally pulling away from him. And I said to her, Well, I don't need to stop here. You had an affair, you've been having an affair with someone for years. That's why she distanced from you emotionally. That's why the relationship broke down. So don't treat me like I'm an idiot. Because I'm not and I know what's been going on and no one else wants to tell you, but I will. Because if I'm going to have a conversation with you, I am going to waste my time by pretending Okay, so that's the situation. I know it don't treat me as if I don't because I'm telling you that I do.

Alex

I can hear you get in. There's like visit there's a visible sort of anger in your voice. Well, yeah, you still you still have that now.

Alexander Lindsay

That's something that will stay with me. This is this is personal stuff, isn't it? I mean, this is I'd rather be treated like a cunt than an idiot. You know, I'm saying like you told me, you know, you have a go at me, right? You know, I don't like it, you know, and I'll deal with it if it has to be dealt with. But I'd rather be in solid, you know, you anchor you this, that and the other but don't treat me like an idiot. Because Because you're wasting my time. And you're underestimated me don't got time, either to go through the facade. If you thinking that I'm this little crap, you're not I mean that you can tell whatever you want to, and I'm just gonna suck that up. Right? That ain't how it works. And that particularly hits home when it's someone who's she that doesn't it.

Alex

The idea of letting go for men is very difficult. Sometimes we hold on to things. I mean, I'm curious to know whether you kind of felt like you held on to the, the anger with the way he treated your mom and having an affair for so many years.

Alexander Lindsay

I think hold on to is the wrong expression. Because you can accept things without forgetting that they happened. And when you do things when you betray people, when you behave in ways which cause pain and misery and suffering. There are consequences, right? The pain, the misery, the suffering that you cause, so you can't ever be dispassionate about that. I care. I love my mom, I love my dad. I love my brother, you know, I this is a family right? And when you see someone causing people that you love pain, I got a problem with that. It doesn't mean that I have to cut you off. It doesn't mean that I have to fall out with you. But that will never go I will always remember that. And I will do my best to forge a pathway forward. But that never involves cutting away the reality of that experience.

Alex

So even though you're not forgetting that, is that informing your decisions or informing your the way you are? with people,

Alexander Lindsay

it doesn't have to be the totality of the relationship with that person. So no one's perfect. I've done things and I've looked at myself and said, I should have done that. And, you know, I'm not proud of my behaviour at every stage of my life, you know, with my ex girlfriend, the things that I did and the way that she forgave me for certain things. I looked at her as some kind of Angel I'm like, and I know that she didn't forget. But the love that she felt for me meant that she could tolerate it. Not like a doormat, but just in the sense of love. I see you're not perfect, but I love you anyway. And that's, that's me, right? I can love you without thinking you're perfect. And if we do get on to talking about certain things which cause pain and cause harm, then I will express that i The emotion is real. The emotion is always attached to the memory, but I don't have to keep on focusing on it right

Alex

Is emotion always attached to the memory? For me, difficult emotions like guilt and sadness dissipate with time. So I could just see the memory for what it is without arousing those negative emotions within me. The look they all gave Alexander. He's the assumed leader and all eyes are on him. I'd have felt pressure if everyone was looking at me, waiting for me to make a decision. I think I could have made the same decision as him. But I'd have been left with an anxiety of had I made the right decision or not. Alexander's relationship with his father was a complicated one. Our fathers can shape us in both positive and negative ways. It left me wondering one thing, can Alexander forgive his father for the way that he treated his family?