I've missed Psychcentral in the time that I haven't had internet access... even though I don't get replies all the time I've relied heavily on this site to vent things that bother me. After a while of not being able to get to this site, and not having anyone at all to tell anything to I ended up crying/sobbing alone in my car. I didn't realize how important it is for me to get out all of the things that happen to me, and I don't have anybody to tell things to except my ex who most people seem to think I shouldn't even talk to anymore... the point is I've missed you all terribly, and I was wondering what people thought about this most recent situation that's been bothering me.

Since my parents' divorce when I was 10 my mom has tried to turn me and my brothers against my dad. And it worked. He had made some serious mistakes in his life, but had never emotionally abused me in the way my mom did and continues to do. Recently he died, and I never got to repair the relationship. I didn't even know he was out of prison when he died. I had written him a letter when he first went to prison telling him not to even try to talk to me anymore, and that letter was brought up multiple times by different family members at the funeral. Almost the entire time that my parents have been divorced I would think that I saw my dad somewhere in a crowd, or at a store, or in a car going by, and then realize that it wasn't him. Mom practically had us all convinced that he would try to kidnap us if he could. Now I still have those feelings of seeing him out in the world, but then it hits me that he's dead, and that isn't possible. I miss him a lot. I regret not trying to live with him when the divorce happened, I regret not writing him a letter when my feelings about wanting to talk to him changed, I regret letting my mom ever turn me against him, and I regret not letting the only parent I have who truely cared about me back into my life and the relationship that was lost when he died.

Every time I think I see him it hurts because I forget that he died, and it just hits me all over again to remember. I'm hating my mom even more than I already did because of her role in all of this, and her continual unsupportive/mean attitude towards me. I've been trying so hard to just deal with her until I can move out, but it's all piling up on me, and I can't stand her. Does anyone have any advice on how to deal with this?