Delayed Bereavement

LegacyUser

Years ago my Dad died. I was about nine at the time. It hit the family hard as you would expect and my mother never really recovered. When I got a bit older (about 13/14) my mother started "confiding" in me. This consisted of her getting drunk, crying on my shoulder and saying that my Dad had committed suicide. She said it was because he had gotton into debt, spiralled into depression and thought that his family would be better off with the insurance money. She would also say how she thought life wasn't worth living and all she wanted to do was kill herself and we would all be better off without her. The next day, I don't know if it was guilt, denial or a mix of both but she would act like nothing had happened and anytime I would try to bring it up in conversation when she was sober, she would say that it wasn't true or get really aggressive so I changed the topic.

I spent my teenage years and early twenties being her "confidant". Because she was a widow and behaved differently with people outside the family, I was constantly hearing how brave and strong she was to carry on taking care of her family after suffering such a tragic loss. This lead to a lot of conflicted feelings in me. Part of me loved her for being brave and strong but another part of me, which I was ashamed to admit, hated her for telling me what she told me, only to deny it later. I felt like she wasn't strong or brave and I wanted to scream in the faces of people who said she was. This lead to an endless cycle of me loving/hating my mother.

For a long time I hated my Dad for taking his life and leaving me to deal with the mess and I hated my mother for telling me and making me hate my dead Dad. I would then hate myself and think I was selfish and a horrible person. At the same time I loved them both and it was all very confusing. My Dad wasn't there to say what he did or didn't do and my mother wasn't consistent. Years later I'm still very confused about the whole thing. I now know that my mother does think my Dad committed suicide but she is the only person to think this. No one else has even hinted that he was in that frame of mind.

As an adult, I know that whatever my mother thought, she should not have been saying it to her child. I have been struggling emotionally as an adult and have depression and I am about to start CBT. As part of that, I know that I will have to be honest with my counsellor and dig into things in my past that I think I have/should have dealt with but probably I haven't. It has been a long time since my Dad passed away but I don't think I have dealt with it properly. I miss my Dad and whenever I am at home I visit his grave. I talk to him and tell him that however he died, it doesn't matter. It might sound strange but it feels like the last few years I am grieving for him all over again. Instead of being angry/confused I am able to accept that for whatever reason, he is not here and that sucks for both of us.

I don't really know why I am posting this. Maybe it's because I know I will have to deal with these feelings and I am trying to articulate them now. Getting them out once will be practice for when I have to talk to my counsellor. I don't know what kind of advice anyone can give me or if anyone has had any similar experiences but I do know that it's very hard to talk about it in real life. I can't even talk about it with my brothers and sisters. They all have different experiences with my mother and some have never seen that side of her.

Taltos

OP - sorry you have to go through this.
Part of me is actually really furious at your mother, what she did to you in my eyes is inexcusable. A child of that age is just not emotionally or mentally developed enough to have to cope with those types of issues.

In terms of getting help now - you are 100% right. Please do stick with it though and don't give up on it as hard as that might be. You have years of emotions to come to terms with, it might be fast or it might take time - but take that time and work your way through all of this.

Sorry I don't have more or better advice, just had to post as just thinking of what the younger you would have had to try to deal with here alone is really getting my blood boiling.

LegacyUser

Thanks. There's not a lot really anyone can say. All I can do is go to counselling and try and work out how I feel. Sometimes I am so angry with my mother I want to cut her out of my life but that's not really an option as it would cause more aggro with other people than it's worth. I'll have to settle for keeping my distance emotionally.

December2012

You might get some help from an organisation called Console.

I'm very sorry for your loss. I wonder - was there anybody there at the time to support and help your mother through this?

LegacyUser

December2012 wrote: »

You might get some help from an organisation called Console.

I'm very sorry for your loss. I wonder - was there anybody there at the time to support and help your mother through this?

Yes there was. She had her own family and my Dad's family. She would never say it to them though. I have moments where my heart aches for the suffering she went through and moments when I resent her for not confiding in her family and getting counselling. It's a tough situation. I know that deep down she knows she did the wrong thing as she will admit it when drunk but sober she wants to live in denial. It's like she can't forgive herself. It's sad because I have distanced myself from her emotionally. Until she is able to properly deal with it and forgive herself, we will never really be close. We talk and have a functioning relationship but I would never confide in her or ask her for advice.