I’m just wondering if anyone has any thoughts on the impact of both your parents dying. I I’ve lost both my parents in the last year and a half. My mother had had had dementia for years - so in many ways I lost her in terms of her personality and ability to talk to me about 5 years ago (she had dementia for 10 years). My dad was lucid til the end. However my dad was emotionally and verbally abusive to me throughout my life - constantly critical, insulting me on a regular basic, never complimenting me or thanking me for anything I did for him, judgemental, and never ever said sorry to me for anything during my entire life. Not ever affectionate towards me. He was occasionally helpful in practical ways though - for example her taught me to drive, lent me money to buy my car - things like that. But overall my dad had a crushing impact on my self esteem - and when I got my autism diagnosis I couldn’t even tell him because I knew he would mock it and not believe I was autistic - in the end I asked my brother to tell him - and when he did my dad didn’t say anything at all to me about it til months later - when discussing something else and I was saying it was hard for me because I have anxiety he said mockingly and sneeringly “I though you were autistic?” . Anyway - he caused me so much hurt and pain throughout my life. I remember that if I ever cried his standard response was to laugh and say I was “being silly”.
Anyway - he died earlier this year. I was upset as anyone would be when their parent dies, it’s sort of instinctive and automatic- but mixed in with that we’re feeling of relief to know that he couldn’t say mean things to me anymore, and I wouldn’t have that feeling of dread and anxiety in my stomach when I had to go round to see him. At the funeral I didn’t cry at all and felt a kind of emptiness or nothingness, numbness, it just felt unreal. And then I got launched straight into the house clearing and I have found that completely overwhelming - my dad hadn’t thrown anything out after my mum died because he soon became ill himself after my mum died and wasn’t well enough to address throwing anything out - and hadn’t for years. So the task has been huge and often emotionally draining as well. I’m an executor of the estate and have struggled with aspects of that too.
What’s happened over the last few weeks is that I’ve started to feel more and more stressed and overwhelmed and I’m really not coping well at all. My husband is a lovely man and hes helping in practical ways but in terms of organising things and making decisions (and we have so many decisions to make right now regarding this including issues around us moving house and area and him maybe leaving his job now too if we choose to move) - all the decisions are left to me and I’m struggling so much to know what’s best and what to do. I don’t have any close friends who I can turn to for help or advice. My brother is totally selfish and never offers any help - and if I ask for help he doesn’t say no - he’s just evasive and changes the subject.
I feel so overwhelmed and so vulnerable, so lonely in having to make all these decisions and sort everything out. The responsibility of dealing with the estate is too much for my capabilities- I’ve never been any good at handling money or legal things - it worries me so much and I’m so stressed it’s starting to make me feel genuinely ill. I’m experiencing physical pain I think because the stress is prompting tension and inflammation in my body.
in desperation I phoned the Samaritans the other day and cried during the entire call. But I understand that they can’t even offer a word of advice - and really what I need is help and advice.
Gosh this post is so long! I wanted to ask people on here about complex grief and if they have any experience of this. My dad was SO horrible to me for most of my life - but his death has left me feeling so vulnerable and insecure. It’s struck me that even though he made me feel awful virtually all these decisions time he was still ‘a dad’ - psychologically having parents is on some level a sense of security and safety - even when in practice they make you feel insecure and terrible and rubbish about yourself. And when my son asked me “did you love your dad?” I became so upset because I realised that I did - and I felt so terrible to feel love for someone who was so abusive to you - I feel like such an idiot and a fool for that. How can you love someone who’s consistently horrible to you? Surely that makes me a fool? A victim who loves her abuser is a completely dysfunctional person surely? An idiot?
I just feel totally overwhelmed, stressed, confused, and lonely in many ways because I feel I’m shouldering all this responsibility whilst dealing with such a mess of complex mental and emotional issues (even though my youngest lives with us and is the best person on the planet I don’t want to burden him with all of this as he has his own problems). The slightest problem is tipping me over the edge now - I realise I’m approaching some kind of breaking point. Yesterday the only way I could cope was to sort of shut down - I’ve been experiencing disassociation and just want to run away from it all. But I can’t I e got too much to do and I have to be here for my son - and where would I go anyway?
Does anyone have any thoughts or advice on this? Sorry for the crazily long post!
