Death Ok, 5 Stages Of Grief. What About The Death Of A Life Long Abuser?

[user27357]

My father died. He really died effectively way back when my mother died because he got caught in the bargaining stage and offered up his life of devotion to a religion that was supposed to save my mother but didn't. He was always true to his word and unfortunately I was also part of the package deal, my devotion to the religion was also traded up towards saving mom. I never bought into the religion and he never let up on trying to get me to.

So now, after 30 years of being told I was a bad person because I wasn't drinking the religious Kool aid he died. Last week or so.

I don't seem to be feeling a damn thing but I know I am supposed too. Maybe I did it already while I was just grieving his missing out on the life I lead in spite of his disapproval of it.

Nothing here, but I think its OK, really. Is it OK? Should I go to a random funeral somewhere and try to feel sad?

 

[shandemonium]

It's normal to think you 'should' feel sad about an abuser passing on, but the reality is you are pretty normal for feeling some relief.

Whatever you feel is ok. Allow yourself to feel (or not feel) whatever comes up. I have lost many people over the years, and I didn't shed a tear over one or two. That speaks more of them than of you I think...

 

[Deleted member 1860]

I think that with grief and death, sometimes it takes awhile for emotions to set in. Maybe you will feel something later, and maybe you won't. Maybe you'll go through all 5 stages of grief, or maybe you'll only experience one or two of them. I think its different for everyone.

My grandfather died in March and I experienced grief in a way I never had before. He was an abusive narcissistic person, but I wouldn't say he was my abuser. My emotions flipped so fast and I had no clue why. I'd go from ok to falling apart and sobbing to pissed and ready to take everyone down in a matter of minutes. The roller coaster was hell. But, it seemed so odd to be experiencing grief in this manner as I'd never gone through it when anyone else in my life had died. I guess my point in saying all of this is that there really is no rhyme or reason as to when (or what) we experience as we deal with grief. You are expecting to feel something but feel nothing where I was expecting to feel nothing and the emotional upheaval was horrible.

 

[arfie]

Whatever way it comes at you has to be okay, enough. The heart goes where it goes. What I believe is normal here is feeling so lost that you want a well labeled road map through it. The "Should Map?" What Should I be feeling?

Give yourself lots of time, enough. It is allot to sort through. Gentle support while you sort.

 

[Friday]

That can be Denial... Or it could simply be that you're not grieving.

I threw a damn party when someone I know died. No grief there, whatsoever. Others, I feel the same way about their deaths as I do the thousands of other people I don't know, am not invested in, and don't care about, who die every day.

2 extremes... Joy & ambivalence. Most deaths of people I know are more complicated. Most involve grief if not mourning. But just because most deaths of people I know are more complicated, doesn't mean they all are. Sometimes things are simple. Sometimes they're not.

 

[user27357]

So many times in my life I hear my inner voice saying the things my father programmed ime to think. Now I hear them and I think about him being gone, and some how it could be the additional indicator I needed to really recognize the BS he put in there for what it is. It's like I tried so hard for so long to not think about him and now I feel like I should and guess what? I am thinking about what a lousy person he was every time I find myself thinking a thought he programmed me with.

And the good times I spent with him? Almost all of them were times when there was so much noise from machines running when we worked on projects together that we couldn't talk. Or motorcycling with helmets on. Or times when there were other people around that he didn't want to embarass himself in front of so he behaved "normally".

Every other time we were together he was condescending and critical and incapable of love or empathy or even mutual respect for anyone that didn't follow his cult level religion.

He never told me he loved me. The closest I ever got was a break in the condescending critical demeanor at times when he didn't want someone he was trying to impress to know how ashamed he was of his non religious son. He never tried to impress anyone but the elders of his church and I avoided the church like a plague so all I can remember are a few times at funerals and weddings that he behaved as if I was something other than his worst embarassment.

I raised 3 good kids with sucessful lives and not even a misdemeanor among them, all graduates, I have 30 years in the same marriage and 27 years on the same job, 28 years in my home and I do volunteer work for several different organisations, but I never got anything but condescension from him. I guess he wanted me to go to heaven or something. Poor bastard, he lost out on our relationship and his life.

I can't say I will miss him, I hope that as his memory fades I lose my memory of the things he said to me.

 

[blackemerald1]

Enough, no do not go to some random funeral, sorry but its not going to help. Forget the "should" and "should not" terms in the grief process. Just let it be wear it falls. You will remember stuff and forget stuff. There is no time length for grieving. Sometimes its a moment, sometimes its a lifetime. Just depends on you. Don't try to feel sad. Just go on living the life that you want and it will work out.

 

[GabrielleGrace]

I'm a little late to the party here, but my mother had told me at one point that if she ever killed me, her psychiatrist said he would testify that she was insane. Then, later, she died by suicide. I only felt relief at first and actually had nightmares that she was still alive and coming to get me.

Later, I learned that I could grieve the mother she should have been without missing who she was and wishing I could have her back. I though of her depression and mental state as a mask covering over who she was. I mourned the person underneath.

 

[user27357]

Original poster here.... and I still just don't know how to feel about the loss of my dad.

I just spent two weeks thinking I had cancer tearing my kidneys apart and that it had metastasized into my vertebrae. Turned out to be kidneystones that were missed on a cat scan and the bone abnormalities on my spine were biopsied and deemed non cancerous. My doctor had me getting my things in order and preparing a will, seeing if my life insurance had an early pay off for imminent demise and such. All because they missed a 6mm stone passing through a ureter and caught a dime sized abnormal bone growth, then two more like it.

getting the worst news of your life and then the best news of your life makes you want to share with a loved one and someone that cares and I have found myself actually wishing I could talk to my father about it.

Even though I know he would just use it as an opportunity to preach his religion and scorn me for being the cause of my own suffering. What a useless father he was, and still I miss having a parent at a time when it is normal to want one for support. I guess I have lived my whole life missing having a parent.

I may be discovering new angles for this forever.

 

[GabrielleGrace]

Original poster here.... and I still just don't know how to feel about the loss of my dad.

I just spent...

I read in the book "Motherless Daughters" that loss doesn't end at the funeral. You experience new loss each time you see how that person's role was missing in your life. I experienced loss at my graduation, wedding, birth of my children, divorce and every major event in my life. I lost the role that a normal, functioning mother would have filled. I can mourne that loss without wishing my mom had stayed alive and possibly killed me. I actually was diagnosed with cancer and had to mourne the loss of care and concern a mother would have filled in that situation. My kids were useless as caregivers.

I read on a forum recently that the death of a loved one leaves you "forever altered." That's a good way to look at it. You are affected in different ways throughout the rest of your life. There is no "magical acceptance" moment where you are at "peace." The Kuber-Ross theory of five stages were actually about receiving news that a person was dying, not that had died. Google "The Five Stages Of Grief Debunked." There are no five stages. The 2007 Yale Bereavement Study of the "Five Stages" showed that people actually accept the death of a loved one immediately.

 

[Whyteferret]

My father died. He really died effectively way back when my mother died because he got caught in the barg...

There is no "right" or "wrong" about grief, so long as you're not harming yourself or others.
It doesn't mean anything is wrong with you. Not all families are close or love each other.

Be gentle with yoursel