Did You Feel Relieved When Your Abuser Died?

[angel2write]

Sorrow is in there, too...but it's the desert after going through the first few servings of the stew....working through them....then there is place for sorrow as a palate cleansing, comforting food that seems to make it all tolerable again. Eventually.

(((((angel2write)))))

So it is helpful to read here that relief is one of those feelings that comes with grief, especially in families where there is abuse.

I know what Bloom is saying here is right. It's never just easy for us, is it? Even trying to grieve for somebody gets so complicated by all these issues past & present. Complicated by the weird reactions of the people around us, too. Hurting people quite busy hurting other people to make themselves feel better/less guilty.

I had expected a lot of the pain and junk. But the relief, the lightening of the load and the loosening of restrictions, caught me by surprise.

Your situation was a little different, Lizio, since it was your sister not your mom or dad. Sorry it was so very difficult for you.

 

[anni]

I don't know, if it were some random stranger who had done these things to us our relief would be considered 'normal. I'm sure the guilt felt because there's flat relief and not mourning would be the social/societal construct which seems to expect these dutiful feelings no matter what. If you think about it, that would be an abnormal perspective, expecting a victim of horrific crime to feel genuine grief, not relief over the death of someone who abused them. It would have to mean something is terribly terribly wrong with society itself, not us.

I have stopped kicking myself, plus feel fortunate to be able to at least have a period put to that aspect of my life. It did take awhile to come out of the shame closet and say that. There's quite simply nothing to be ashamed about, my T says. He said the simplest explanation is generally the correct one when it comes to what we're feeling, and ok. In this case someone who hurt me and still wanted to hurt me can no longer do so. It's a relief -every day I'm relieved. It's a nicer way to live.

I'm glad you do have this lifting of a burden or fear in your life. It's not at all the same thing as being glad someone has passed away.

Take care and much Peace,

Anni

 

[Srain]

By the time my primary abuser died it was like all the damage had been done so it was a footnote. I didn't go through any real feelings of grief, I was angry that I hadn't been told until days after and not by my brothers. It felt like business as usual and his being buried in a place I had never lived before made perfect sense. It was surreal and I felt nothing but that I was left with more crap to sift through and resolve.

 

[simplekindofgirl]

This is one of those cloudy grey areas for me. I had an abuser- one of three- that passed on. When I received the news, there was a sense of relief. But there was also this deep seeded sadness, this unexplainable thing that made me pity him. I don't really know how to describe it, but it was this feeling, this ... I wanted him to know peace even though he had done things to me that he should not have done. The things that were done, were done- and I was not left a better person for it. But him dying did not take that away, it did not somehow make me feel better. Relief that he would never harm anyone again, yes. But I suppose I felt compassion. Death is so final, and I hoped that he made peace with himself before he passed, even though I hated him for what he had done. I know, it doesn't make much sense. But all I had ever wanted for him was that he find some way to fix himself, to live a happy life, to recognize that he truly needed help and to obtain it so that he would never have to feared or hated again.

But had he not died, I would not have met his wife who told me that after he was released from state custody he did get help, and then they met (he and his wife), married, had a child- and she told me that not once did he ever lift a hand to her. Not once, she repeated. It doesn't make my pain go away, but if he never harmed another woman again, then that is an apology in its own right- at least for me it was.

 

[angel2write]

But had he not died, I would not have met his wife who told me that after he was released from state custody he did get help, and then they met (he and his wife), married, had a child- and she told me that not once did he ever lift a hand to her. Not once, she repeated. It doesn't make my pain go away, but if he never harmed another woman again, then that is an apology in its own right- at least for me it was.

That's a really beautiful story. Thanks for sharing it.

 

[kimberley dawn]

My step-dad died several years ago and I didn't feel a thing. Not then, not later. The two guys that raped me when I was 12 died a few years apart, and I felt a bit sad for one of them. I had this feeling he wanted to say he was sorry, for some odd reason.. The other one was sorta like a crack-head through and through, so no. Just gone.

My mum died this fall and I felt relieved, a bit sad that it was an old woman with Altzheimers whom died and not Mother-dearest, if you get my point. She's almost never on my mind anymore, so I guess I've cleared out "her room" in my head.

Had a boy friend that blew his head off many years back, and that actually gave me more pain than any of these F**ers dying... But then again, I'm all screwed up, aren't I.

 

[Lucille]

There was a point when we weren't sure if my father (my abuser) had committed suicide over the grief of what he had done to me while he was drunk/high. We made him move out to get clean and earn our trust. This was very soon after the sexual assault, and I wasn't capable of feeling anything. I was in total shock, living with a full time flashback channel. I remember thinking to myself, "Should I feel relieved if he turns up dead? No, that's demented. I should be sad and scared that he may be dead, right?"

But because I was the one in the family that wasn't freaking out, I called one of my dad's friends to get him to break into the house where my dad was staying to see if he was ok. Turns out he was just ignoring calls and watching tv. I still struggle with the fact that he chose not to hurt himself even though I grew up with him telling me he would murder anyone who hurt me in exactly the same way he did. :confused:

 

[angel2write]

I still struggle with the fact that he chose not to hurt himself even though I grew up with him telling me he would murder anyone who hurt me in exactly the same way he did. :confused:

Yeah- that would be a real mind warp, wouldn't it? (((Lucille)))

I told my parents once about the guys who molested me when I was six. Dad shook his head and said, "Makes me want to kill them," then picked up the remote and changed the channel on the TV. So I'm thinking he didn't suffer much remorse for sending his daughter for a sleepover with a couple drunk pedophiles.

 

[Lucille]

I'm so sorry, Angel, for what you went through. Hugs for you: o< >o
It's extremely sad, but I find some solace in the fact that you understand what I mean... Thanks for that.

 

[maddog]

My father always swore and smoked that he would kill anyone who ever laid a finger on any of we kids...

I think about that now and it fills me with a repulsed nausea that makes me want to... I don't know, it just makes me cold and sick and frozen with some weird combination of rage and incomprehension.

What goes on inside someone's head to create such hypocrisy and insane double standards? How does a person find such delusional denial? Why do I still find myself trying to understand something that has no understanding?

I fantasise about killing him every day. I think about what if he died tomorrow, almost as often. I feel every imaginable emotion in even thinking about those things, let alone experiencing them. So much of me hates him, both of them, with a hate so intense it has no exprression. But part of me can't let go either, of the ideal of what they were, the parents they should have been. The vulnerable child in me wants to hold on, even as her angry counterpart and my adult self so viciously pull her away.

I do wish he was dead, if only for the easing of my chronic dreadful fear that simply must come with his being gone from this world. But I am afraid of that day too, and of what it will really feel like when it comes, regardless of how that death occurs.

Maddog

 

[Sandra]

Hugs for you Maddog.

I can so relate to what you are saying. But with my so called mother not my father.

And I'm glad to see you getting it out.

 

[Kris1984]

It is not the best thing for me to feel, but my vindication will come when the turds that hurt me stand in front of the big man and get sent to the fiery pits of hell. That is my hope for the future anyway....