Death of an abusive parent

March 13, 2013
My abusive father is dying. I rose above it all - just as I knew I would when he finally far far far too late in the game reached out to me and my brother.

I worked ceaselessly got hospice in place and backed it up with a care provider to fill in the gaps - when hospice could not be available. This relieved me of the sense that even though he abandoned me emotionally all my life, I would not mette out the same cruelty to him.

He even managed to take jabs at me in the past few weeks, with one crisis after another. He removed me as medical advocate, ok - YEAH! I was for my mom, and it was far different from the way things are unraveling with him. I feel no love for him. He is a misogynist, a low-life lying stupid pathetic human who never earned the right to call himself my father.

My brother has power of attorney and legal power of medical advocacy. I was listed, but my father pulled me off. This is my area of expertise. I was my mother's medical advocate and it felt like an honor. He pulled me out of the documents as med. advocate to take another jab at me - and frankly I am relieved. He sickens me.

My father? I hate him. I hate the way he abused me, physically, mentally, spiritually. I am empty - WHAT I AM GOING THROUGH IS SO INTENSE, I AM GRIEVING THE FATHER I NEVER HAD. He was a mean cruel wolf, I consider myself a human raised by a wolf, he is/was a control freak, manipulator and went out of his way my whole life 100's of times to slash me down verbally, debase me, degrade me - never once acknowledging my gifts, my skills, what a wonderful kind lovely beautiful woman I am. NO VALIDATION. Instead he tormented me - held everything over my head, vilified me - when I extended myself - for over a year to be there for my mom when she was dying 2 years ago this month. ALL FEELINGS ARE VALID AND NORMAL. It IS normal to grieve an abusive, abandoning parent - as we are grieving the loss of the dream, of what we desperately needed and wanted and were born entitled to.

Every newborn child comes into the world with the right to be loved unconditionally, parented with structure, compassion, guidance, healthy rules and boundaries, forgiveness, kindness - and honesty.

I received none of that growing up. none. I have no apologies, and am not surprised at the pain I feel now watching him decline. We die as we have lived. He has made choices that now contribute to his feelings of isolation.
No friends visit, his brother will have nothing to do with him, I am done - I can no longer face the toxic cyclonic crazy energy that surrounds this energy vampire who is listed as my "father" on my birth certificate.

My heart is broken into pieces. The first man in my life - taught me growing up - how undervalued I was, hammered at my self-esteem. It turns out I am so beautiful and it took - decades for me to look in the mirror and see it in my face, my shape and my heart. I AM BEAUTIFUL IN EVERY WAY. It is because I looked at him and his alcoholic behavior - and from as young as I can remember, told myself - this is everything I do not want to be. And I am not, I am greater - stronger, gentle, giving, kind, compassionate, real, honest, and have done recovery work to claim my life - and have already began living my bucket list!!! As he passes so does the anguish and still that sense of Armour I must use when we speak, the anguish and anger that accompanies our stilted empty conversations. I am 54, and this is the hardest thing I have ever faced. I have God, I have the divine, the great spirit. Rooted in this is my spirit and my life's intention to be all that I am in any given moment.

I want to thank you for showing me that I am not the only person that is confused on what to do. I am a survivor of child abuse (physical and mental) and domestic violence from the hands of both my parents.

To sum it up, I was abused since I was born. But I finally got the courage to get away after a traumatic event in 2003. I have been estranged from my parents and siblings since then. My children and I moved about an hour away from where they were living and tried to stay "hidden". In 2005, they found us and since our TRO expired, there was nothing I could do. They bought a house about a street away from us. Unfortunately, due to financial reasons, we have never been able to move anywhere else. So, at least once, every week, we see their car drive past our house.

Yesterday, I was bored and decided to go on FB and search for people I know, just to see how people have changed. That is when I found my siblings. On their page it stated that their mother (who is my mother as well) passed a couple of weeks back. Needless to say ... I am in shock and am confused. I truly do not know exactly how to feel.

I feel happy, because that is one less person that I have to worry about trying to harm me or my children. But I feel sad, because she did give birth to me, and was my mother. But I also feel angry because no one had informed me of the death. I mean it wouldn't be that hard to drop a note in my mailbox while they were driving by at night. I am also upset because though I tried my best to shield my children from my family to keep them safe, they may later in life ask where their grandparents are.

I believe in respecting the dead. But did I and my children not deserve an apology from my mother for what she made me and later my children and I go through? Or at least the common courtesy of letting us know that at least one of them is gone?

My children and I are alone, I guess you can say. We don't have friends or any family members except for their uncle/my brother-in-law, whom we live with. We've lived in fear for so long that I have no idea how to process this information.

My father emotionally and verbally abused me growing up. He is still a part of my life and he now has cancer, and has been having mini strokes. I think about the possibility of him dying all the time. Sometimes I think that it would make it so much easier. That I would feel relief and not have to worry about dealing with any of his s**t anymore. And I wouldn't have to worry about the way he treats my brothers either. I could finally stop being so protective. But then I think about the good times we had together, the times where he helped me, and treated me well, and I know I would be crushed if her were to die.

It is conflicting emotions for me. I guess I will just have to deal with it when it happens.

My mother passed away almost two years ago. She was an unhappy, manipulative, negative person. She triangulated her children so that my brother, sister and I were separated emotionally. She scapegoated my sister and me, my sister is 7 years older than me, my brother 4 years older. When my sister left home, my mother was was able to fully focus on me, especially since my brother left for college around the same time and he would not be a witness to her behavior.

That being said, she had prepared me nicely to take on that role as she treated me with little concern during my childhood, criticized me constantly and created hysterical scenes over things that should not have caused her to react this way. I was always the one to apologize to mother for causing these events. She never came to me to apologize. She would accept my apology and then tell me I should not behave that way again, when in reality it was her . She would chase me around the house and scream and yell until I completely fell apart and would sob and cry, then stand over me when she reached her goal and continue with her tantrum. She would smile at me when in my sobbing I told her I hated her. My destruction soothed her.

My brother was the good child. He is a good man, but I know to this day that he suffers from being the one who escaped much of my mother's wrath. It was only when she was about 92 that my brother was through being the good child. He saw what she was. She didn't like that, so she then turned on him. It was easier for my sister and brother during my mothers last 15 years because she lived near me, I was the caretaker. The both lived out of state and only say her once a year, if that. The did speak to her on the phone and it was never pleasant.

When my mother passed away at 94, I was the one who made decisions, I was the one who wtayed with her in the hospital day after day as she came closer to death. I was the one left with all her belongings, I was the one to pick up her ashes and the one left to scatter them. My brother and sister both came when she died. They did not want anything she left. The left everything with me.

She had written a letter to my brother saying it should only be read to me after her death. Of course it was a self-serving, hateful letter that even after he death wounded me deeply. As I went through her belongings, I found a another letter addressed to me. Inside the envelope was a letter she had torn up, but left for me to read in an envelope with my name on it. It was devastating to read, however it was also confirmation that my memories of her were valid.

I still have not scattered her ashes. For some reason, I am just not ready. I don't know why. Maybe I have magical thinking that I need to keep them to keep the hope alive that somehow I will find a way to accept who and what she was. Or another fantasy I have is that I will find some positive memories of her that will comfort me and allow me to scatter her ashes in a kind and loving way. Conflicting feelings hold me back from scattering her ashes. I am filled with dread when I even think of touching the container the ashes are in.

I am in therapy now and one issue of course is my mother. I have so many abusive memories that have come out. I am trying to understand that she had her own MI issues and never sought treatment because she always thought her behavior was acceptable, everyone else was wrong, anyone who disagreed with her or tried to help her was wrong and evil. It was black or white. No in between.

I grieve what could have been. I see some glimpses in my memory of a few times where she was pleasant. I don't however recall any time that she was loving, kissed or hugged me or validated me. I laugh at myself thinking her ashes can give me what I never had.

In reading my post, I know it is time to scatter the ashes, they are what they are. Nothing can be done at this point to change the past. I am somehow fooling myself into thinking there is a kind and loving mother in that box.

I pretended my whole life that I was OK. After she passed away somehow I lost the ability to continue to pretend and her passing, coupled with a life changing injury, sent me into a deep depression. The last year especially has been horrific depression wise.

I want to scatter her ashes, yet I want to keep them. Who the hell knows why I would want to keep them. I guess in the end, it is saying goodbye to my dreams of a having a loving mother. I am terrified to scatter them. Somehow I feel compelled to keep them. I just don't understand it.

Hello everyone,
This is my first time on Psych Central forums - I joined today when I learned that my father had died in his sleep last night.

My father physically abused my brother, sister and I due to his anger/control issues, and instead of apologizing (after a severe episode) he'd buy us something or take us somewhere - so I have good memories and traumatic memories..

I was put in to foster care at the age of 12, and shortly returned home due to my siblings not speaking out (they were, like me, terrified of his wrath) - I returned home and my father told me that he could no longer love nor trust me the same way he did my brother and sister. That because of my actions, he couldn't walk down the street without people staring at him like a monster. I believed him, and believed myself to be the worst kind of spoiled brat, until my sister told me the truth at the age of 24.

I stopped speaking to my parents when I discovered the truth, that I had not lied or exaggerated in any way about the chaos/terror that went on in my house, and before I could gather the courage to confront them about this, he died.

I always thought I would be free when he passes away - because he couldn't condescend me or hit me again - instead I feel crushing guilt and sorrow that so many things we left unsaid between us. I wanted to hear him say he was sorry, that he loved me, that he was proud of me.. instead I have to live with the fact that he said the exact opposite and never treated me the same as my siblings (as they didn't "tattle" on him).

I feel alone, and I feel like I am a bad person for ignoring him for the past year or two, we never made amends or even saw eye to eye on what happened to our father-daughter relationship, and now I have to live with never having told him the truth.

Maybe that is for the best, maybe he would have said more hurtful things to me if I had "come clean" - but I can't help but feel terrible that I never told him.

Does anyone know what I am going through? or have any words of advice to offer me?

I'm really sorry for your abuse and the death of your parent. No matter how abusive parents are, kids have love for them and loss of parent still hurts.

My story - My father molested me multiple times. But it's his words which broke me. Most of my teenage, I only remember his ridicule that I was too stupid to do anything. On most days I just used to feel "I don't why my father even comes back from office." He often told my brother and I when we were teenagers that he's going to leave us (he never did). His wonderful advices for my life included "Never get married....become a career woman." He controlled me with sheer presence.

One day, when I was watching TV, he walked in the room. He didn't order, ridicule or anything. With a friendly voice....he said "can we watch this instead?". I obliged.

When the program ended, he just left after wishing me good night. I couldn't control my thoughts.....I just said in my mind "life would be so perfect if it would have been just mom, brother and me...." and out of the blue a thought came "I just wish dad would die"...even though he didn't say or do anything that day.

Believe it or not...he suffered a near fatal stroke 2 days later. He survived but his mobility severely reduced. He had to resign from his job. He started getting double vision. 5 yrs later, he died.

When my mother gave me the news of his death over the phone....the first thought that came to my mind was "good....he won't molest anyone anymore."

I didn't cry much at the funeral. I didn't cry much even after that. But I remember crying a lot whenever I heard some songs....I felt really sad and sorry for his fate....he had become very child like after stroke....it also felt like losing your child who depended on you for their safety.

Slowly....I fell into depression. They say people who were in a bad relationship are more likely to fall into depression after the person's death, because you have no positive memories to cherish and you blame yourself for being resentful towards them. Heck...in my case, I wished for his death....though not consciously....it just came suddenly in my head.

During the course of my depression....I finally admitted to myself that my father had sexually abused me (till that day, I convinced myself that it was a figment of my imagination). Initially, I defended his actions (oh....maybe it was work pressure....maybe because grandfather was dying with cancer...maybe he was sexually abused himself....blah blah).

Slowly...I learned to accept that it happened without defending him. Then slowly....I became angry at my father...especially when I think about how he robbed my childhood....how badly he screwed up my brother and turned him into a narcissist.....how he made my mom burden all responsibilities of home....while he took responsibilities he liked...earning money. He used his daughter to gratify himself. He held my mother in a sham marriage, fooled her and kept her in a delusion that it's a perfect marriage by showering a few praises.

Today, when I think about it....I have a few fond memories of my father. He did a few good things in life. But that still doesn't make him a good person. He was the adult. He could have seeked help. He didn't. He probably might have guessed that the abuse will damage me....he didn't care.
I also like to think that I had 2 different fathers - one before stroke....the abusive jerk and one after stroke...a softie who showered affection who had become baby like.....but NEVER regretted any of his actions.

All in all....he was extremely WRONG in doing what he did. I thank him wholeheartedly for providing us with food, home, education and occasional love. I thank him for taking care of my mother......since according to her, she's had a "happy, blissful marriage."

I took care of him when he suffered stroke. Even if he were to magically reappear, I would still take care of him. If he needed a kidney from me to save his life, I would happy to give him. My love for my father is still unconditional as every child has.

But that love does not erase the anger I have for him. It doesn't change the fact that he abused us, ruined our childhood, left me some scars for life. I will NEVER forgive him for that. He failed as a parent.

If a person has to be appreciated for a good deed....they also have to be reprimanded for their bad deeds. A parent may get the nicest book, healthiest food and softest bed for their child, but if they are abusive towards them....all these actions really mean nothing.

Finally, where it leaves me with my dad - On some days I have fond memories, on some days I have bitter. I thank him for all the good things he did for us, but I also cannot forgive for his abusive actions. I don't want a "sum total of good actions minus bad actions". It will continue to remain dysfunctional. I have emotionally distanced myself from him.

I am happy and sad at the same time. Happy because I would never be abused by him and molested by him again. Sad....because he was my father and after his stroke, we had become a little closer .I however have to live with the fact, that I would ALWAYS feel guilty and responsible for his death....because I wished that.

Only two weeks have passed since my father died. He was not a very nice man although did have some very fine qualities.
I've never lost someone close before my father. I want to just grieve for the loss, but to do that I have to hold him in a dishonest light. When I start to allow myself to feel plain sadness and nostalgia I have to stop so I don't remember him as I wanted him to be instead of how he was.
I feel foggy, detached, mixed up, and my head or stomach have taken a leading role in making me feel ill.

I do not want to get called into the darkness of depression over this.
My body won't let me ignore it.

Where to begin?

My father died 2 years ago and that was when things got complicated

I am an only child and when I was little my dad was my hero, the best daddy in the whole world to me. He would play games with me and we had a lot of fun. But when I was around 5 yo he started drinking. His choleric nature showed more and more and I got really confused because he was not the dad I knew he was becoming scary and angry. I did not understand why one day he is really nice and next he is really mean to me and shouting at me for nothing.
With time he was nearly never nice again and only the "scary" father would be present. I felt really sad and I missed my "nice" dad. When I got older I realized that dad is never coming back and that this father looks like him but he is not the same person. I did not really have the chance to grieve him though.

When i was 18 yo I left home and my parents divorced. I had to go and "check" my father every weekend. He started to just drink all day long and did not care about anything. Did not clean his place or wash himself. He made a lot of debts, crashed his car, ruined his house... I had to pay a lot of things and organize so he would not end up homeless. He was still being very verbally and emotionally abusive to me. I worked full time and studied university at the same time. Nodoby from my family ever asked me if I need help or if I am coping ok, nobody cared. And me being me I did not say anything and just did everything in my power to seem OK.

When I was 24yo my father got cancer and was ill for 2 years. He was home the whole time his mother helped me because he needed basic care 24/7 and I was at work. That were hard times. He was in a lot of pain and I just felt pity for him. I only wished to hear him say sorry, to explain why, to make it all better ...but that is a movie stuff doesn´t happen in real life. He just died.

I felt great relief and guilt for feeling this way but that was about it. I already lost my dad when I was 5 years old.
Week after my father´s funeral my mother got diagnosed with terminal brain cancer with expectancy to live aproximately 6 months. She decided to fight and had brain surgery, chemo and radio therapy and all that. She got better and is still here 2 years later.

Unfortunately since my father´s death and mother´s diagnosis I went numb and became completely out od energy and motivation. I have great difficulty finishing my school where I have last step to take to have masters, I don´t do my job at all. And I had a breakdown and kinda lost it. So here I am.

my dad died when i was 10 . he was physically abusive. he got sick from cancer. i watched him go from powerful and scary to meek and mild man. paralyzed. in a hospital bed in my home. i was still scared of him when he was sick. i wouldnt go around him. when he died i was sad. i felt like my anger killed him.

Katy: You lost a parent...grieving isn't dishonest....no matter what kind of a parent we have......it is natural......loss is painful, no matter what that person was like. Allow yourself to feel ALL of the feelings that you do. Feelings aren't right or wrong, the simply are....you might want to sit down and write about all of your feelings also.....perhaps write a letter to him.

I found out today my mother died. I feel nothing. No grief, no anger, nothing. She hated me and told me this every day of my life, as well as physically abuse me whenever she felt like it. She was a horrible mother towards me,but not towards my siblings. So...here I sit with my glass of wine and a television movie(Aliens, I live in the UK)feeling pretty good about life. There's just one thing. I feel awful about having no reaction. Am I a horrible woman? No. Am I sub-human? No. I'm grateful she's not around to hurt me anymore. I'm 57 years of age and I feel...free. Freed from her unprovoked rants. Freed from her verbal and physical abuse. That's probably how you and many of us here feel. For us having no reaction to the death of an abusive parent is normal. We don't have to justify our feelings...they just are as they are. It's an honest reaction to the past we suffered with these nasty parents. I say we mourned them already when they were alive. We grieved the loss of the abusive parent over their lifetime. Now that they're actually gone we have no more emotion to give. I shall pour me another glass, take a sip, smile and whisper,'' You can't ever never hurt me again.''

Yes you need to grieve whether you were treated good or bad. Death is a hard thing to handle, but maybe it was a blessing in disguise, you probably wouldn't have been able to get where you are today, an you are stronger for it.

When my dad commit suicide, and he was my abuser I was pretty confused. I hadn't been in direct contact with him for a few years but my sister was, so I would get updates. I did not go to the funeral either. To complicate it my dad had bipolar 1 and I am the only other one in my family with a dx of bipolar 1 as well. Add that to his suicide and I was so confused. Will I be him? Are we destined to be alike. Anger that this is the only thing he has given me etc. I felt numb to it for quite a while. I cried once for about 2 minutes and that was all. I felt guilty for that and a bit worried really about what kind of person I was.

I felt a real sense of loss that because he was dead he could never appologize, he could never make amends or try to change and make it better. Somehow after all the abuse I still somewhere in the back of my mind held onto some hope that he would change, that he would value me.

My dad had a ruptured brain aneurysm when I was 5. It was a life changing event for me in a very negative way. Tho he survived he then became an abuser and was never the same man. This is when all my emotional problems started. Well a year after my dad died I had a cat scan that showed what looked like two brain aneurysms. I had to wait a few weeks for a cerebral angiogram. Those were some of the longest weeks of my life, as I have my own children and am a single mom. And once again I felt like he was some how capable of reaching beyond the grave to inflict a final blow, a final way to say..see you are going to have to suffer as I did or be like me. I am the only child who has seemed to inherit his illnesses. Illnesses that seemed to have helped him become what he was. It is not a good feeling. Knowing I was the least liked by him, and seemingly most linked to him.

I honestly probably did not handle his death very well. Luckily I got through that and have tried to make peace with it. I don't notice the aniversary dates, fathers day comes and goes without a thought. I just tired to let it all go and not look back. When I look foward it really doesn't matter, my life is good and continues moving on.

But I am nothing like my father. I am strong, compassionate, loving, generous, and brave. I have fought my way to recovery from Bipolar, from an eating disorder, from being a homeless youth and have built a strong loving home for my children. I have created a life where I feel bliss, I have more than survived. I am a beautiful being with the heart he never had and could not kill. And with that I have compassion for his life and try to understand that which even I cannot comprehend. That is something I try to remind myself of when I ever do think about my father. I can't help notice how different we really are.

It's hard when an abusive parent dies. It's not easy to talk about it with others, it's not your usual greif. I felt isolated in that. And there really is no right way to feel about it or deal with it, for the most part I just felt confused about how to feel or what I felt at all.

I had an abusive grandmother and when someone told me she died, my response was, "I hope hell has enough room for her."

All this is helpful for me to read, thank you all.

My abusive parent died a few years ago, sometimes I forget that they are gone and I get scared again, then I remember reality, they are gone, I am that much safer.

Their passing is a big relief for me.

I lost my abusive dad after finishing my freshman year in college (the first time around). I had grown up living with him (parents split when I was 11), so mainly it was preadolescence through 18. Before the divorce, my dad was distant, at work, or absorbed with my mom (often in a fight).After the divorce, a lot of his rage was directed at me. So yeah, physical and emotional abuse.

I went NC with him after moving out for school. He had my brother and sister convinced I was the whole problem, that I was the out-of-control son. And it's true I fought back and became addicted to a certain level of conflict with him (it was attention, if nothing else). But I was also simply trying desperately to simply survive. I was terrified. I also just really needed to be loved and cared for. And I really was...well, I won't get into it. But yes, he even had one of my dorm mates (who tried to reach me after I went NC) convinced that I was really just on a bad path and completely neglecting him. Several months later, after he persisted in trying to contact me, he died of an anyeurism.

So back to the original question. How did I deal with the death of my abusive parent? Well, now that more than a few years has passed, I've made peace with him and developed some compassion even. But, when he first died, I remember going through shock. Shortly after, I remember having moments of resentment and rage ("How could he? He's gone and I never got my full peace of mind with that......I hope he rots!"). Other times I was feeling really low and down on myself. I felt like such a failure as a son. So yeah, I would definitely say I mourned his death. And now, I'm at peace with him. I am at a point where I know that he loved me, despite anything that happened.

I haven't read through all the responses. I think this thread goes all the way back to like 2010? But thanks for keeping this thread going. And my heart goes out to anyone dealing with the loss of an abusive parent. My thought is that you still mourn. It's a loss. Thanks again...

I find this thread really interesting because the thought of my brother dying crosses my mind kind of regularly. Not in a "I'm going to kill him" way, more of a "What happens when he dies" way. It actually worries me because I don't know how I'll feel. If I feel sad, I'll kind of feel like I shouldn't and if I don't, I'll feel heartless. People who don't know about the abuse will expect me to be sad and I genuinely don't think I could hack it if people started apologising and giving their sympathy. If I cried, I think I'd cry for my parents - that they'd lost a son. Because I'd feel sad for them but not for him. It really confuses me so I've just been reading some answers and I still don't know how I'll react.

Thank you all for responding.

Before my mother passed away a few years ago, I had written (and mailed) two letters to her over the previous nine years. I finally had "had it" with her being so verbally abusive and cruel to me. My father is still alive at age 89 but "lays low", lives his own life and never demands any attention. Growing up, he was neglectful, abusive physically and emotionally (and sexually inappropriate toward me on two distinct occasions). I was beaten for things I shouldn't have been punished for at all (potty training accidents,etc). I was often left alone from the age of two (in the car, at home and on vacation). My mother allowed my father to physically abuse me and was very neglectful to me (and later to my two younger brothers as well). She left my baby brother in a hot car sleeping on a summer day and he was taken by police to CPS where she had to beg and plead to get him released back to her with promises to never repeat such neglect (which she did repeat again not long after that). I was left alone at a lakeside resort with my first (of two) little brothers who was getting his first teeth and wouldn't stop crying. My mother was out on the lake with my father in a boat fishing. The lady who ran the resort was furious with my parents for leaving a six-year-old with a teething baby. My parents who were humiliated packed us up and we left the next morning. Five years later, my youngest (3-year-old) brother fell off of a wet log after a rainstorm while we were left alone at a mountain lake campground when our parents were out fishing (again). His head was bleeding profusely and at age eleven, I didn't know how to stop the bleeding. Luckily, an older couple was in the campground and could give him first aid. My parents were given another well-deserved tongue-lashing. (There were many more such incidents over the years). After we all grew up, my mother appeared to be in denial of all these things. She expected to be treated with love and respect, telling others that I was the bad one all those years, not her. Anything that rubbed her the wrong way was cause for nasty sarcastic criticism of ME. When I finally at age 52 wrote and mailed the first letter to her, I felt immense relief to have it off my shoulders and onto hers. (I knew I could not talk to her in person so I had to communicate with her in writing). After a few months, she contacted me in a way that indicated she was somewhat sorry and would "behave" if I would allow her back into my life. Sadly, three years later, the situation was back to the same way it had been, leaving me no choice but to write her another letter, this time even more scathing in my descriptions of the wrongs she had committed toward me AND my daughter. Many of her so called friends had walked away from her (and my father had left her for someone else years earlier). Predictably, a few months later, she contacted me and said she "Would do things differently if she had it to do over". So very tentatively, I resumed my relationship with her. Over the next six years, she DID finally improve in her treatment of me (because she knew what would happen if she didn't). Although she still did some hurtful things, as a result of just being herself, we actually did have some nice close times over those last years before she died suddenly of a stroke. So, in conclusion, my writing (and giving her) those letters, was definitely good for MY sanity and caused HER to do some soul-searching that she would NOT have done otherwise. If I had not written them and given them to her, I would be the one still carrying all that hurt. Since she passed away, I have felt a sense of freedom and feel that I'm conducting my life in a more productive way now.

I was abused by my father and it will be a year this month when he passed away...Talk about mixed emotions.....relief,guilt for not feeling sad, disgusted by the times I almost felt sad, and wishing that he would have been a good father so that I would have had a chance at a decent childhood and healthy adulthood...I feel like I have to keep his entire side of the family away, because I have nothing good to say....I'm thinking some are very upset about the fact that I didn't go to his funeral, oh and I felt guilty for that as well since only two family members know about the abuse....my own mother passed judgement on me not going to his funeral....her reasoning....he is still your father....I have trouble processing that because she was one of the two family members that know.....anyway, I'm sorry if my thoughts seem scattered....I'm usually a little better at writing but with this topic I chose to just let it flow......with all of that said, my point is I can relate.....hugs to you...hugs to us all

It is some comfort to read posts on this topic. My mother died last year and she was emotionally abusive towards me throughout my life. I felt I really struggled as a young adult to become my own person, especially without her support. Gradually over the years as I got on with my life I forgave my mother a little bit for all the hurt she had caused but she never changed or felt any guilt for how she had behaved towards me. She had many issues I think in her own childhood that she never dealt with properly and she did tell me once that she had been sexually abused and that her parents had abandoned her as a teenager. Ironic how she did the same to me. I grieved 2 weeks before she died but on her deathbed she was really horrible to me. She said some terrible things and continued the abuse on her exit from the world. I walked out of the hospice 6 days before she passed away. I had stayed longer than I should have for my own mental health. When I left I felt nothing. It was as if all the grief I had felt had been wiped out by all the anger I was currently feeling. The following week when she died was really odd as I didn't cry at all. My inability to grieve since has worried me as it doesn't feel normal but I don't think I will grieve for her now. I am still trying to come to terms with it all somehow.

I agree with those who say it is not your usual grief and it does feel very isolating.

It seems to me it was almost like closure.
It is finished.
Is that how it feels?

Sent from my SCH-S720C using Tapatalk 2

Yes it does feel like closure but I am still struggling to understand why she treated me the way she did. My brother is an undiagnosed Aspergic (I think). That has caused me much more grief over the past few months in itself. His behaviour has been very upsetting for me and I am struggling to deal with that. It's been a truly awful year.

At this point you may never really know why she treated you the way she did except for knowing that she had a bad childhood. So that question may never be answered. That is something you are going to have to work out in your head. Maybe even with a therapist just to get past that question.

Sent from my SCH-S720C using Tapatalk 2

Thank you. I am hoping time (and therapy) will heal me eventually.