Survivors guilt.

[Marvel545]

Good morning, afternoon or night, wherever you are!

My Mom died when I was 11, as a byproduct of severe Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA). Her Arthritis got a lot worse during pregnancy with me. In my lifetime she had at least 9 major operations.

I think I feel a lot of guilt for causing her pain, even though logically I know my parents wanted a child & knew the potential consequences. My family fell apart after my Moms death.

Factually, the process of having a child did cause the subsequent spike in my Moms RA, irrespective of what she wanted.

I feel as though it's wrong to be happy. If I do something for myself, I have a backlash in terms of symptoms. I feel as though I have to stay where I am & life isn't meant to be enjoyed. I feel as though I have to support my family emotionally & my feelings don't come into it. They wouldn't be in this position if it wasn't for me. I feel like an outsider looking in.

I deal with day to day stuff properly & then feel really guilty for it.

I feel like I hid myself after my Moms death & when the part of me comes out that's honest, I feel terrible afterwards. I was really positive yesterday, laughing & joking with my girlfriend. The next day I'm scraping the walls struggling to cope. I don't share this with anyone, it's only when I'm alone.

I have a social front that copes, but when I'm alone I just really struggle with it all.

Does anyone have any tips? Or does anyone have the same feelings, just feel pretty alone!

 

[ladee]

My moms health took a nosedive after my birth also. I was unplanned and unwanted. I do understand feeling responsible.

But at some point, right or wrong, I made the choice to give my moms life meaning, even if I couldn't give my own life meaning at that point in time.

She wouldn't have wanted me to NOT have a life. It wasn't trading one life for another. It was honoring her sacrifice. To have a life that she would have been proud of eventually.

It wasn't easy, and there were many times I feel back into the guilt. You lost your mom at a much earlier age than I did, but the feelings are very similar.

Even, at the time, I couldn't assign living a full life to honor her, I had to start somewhere. What I was doing by not having a life, really had no meaning or honor to it. Not for her, or for me.

Thank you for sharing this today. I haven't thought about this in a long time. I really feel she would be very proud of me today. That takes care of a lot of guilt.

She gave you life. Live it.

Supportive hugs and understanding. :hug:'s

 

[scout86]

I don't know anything about your mother or her relationship with you, so I don't want to make any assumptions. I'd like to think she was happy you were born and didn't blame you for any uptick in symptoms. I'd like to think that your birth and life were a source of joy for her. If that's true, you might hold on to that. I've lost a lot of people I cared about, in a lot ways, and feel a complicated mix of guilt, responsibility, regret, and loss. In the end, I don't think any of those special people would want me to beat myself up over lost opportunities anything else. So I do what @ladee suggested and try to honor their memories by living the best life i can.

If she DIDN'T feel like that about you, it seems to me she should have. In a case like that, I've gotten a lot of mileage out of living the best life i can out of spite. LOL

 

[Marvel545]

@scout86 @ladee thankyou for both your responses, I’ve took a lot out of them both!

You are both right. I should honour my Moms memory & she wouldn’t want me to feel like this. I was wanted & loved by my parents.

The aftermath of my Moms death was chaotic. It caused me & my Dad to be outsiders from our family even though it was us who witnessed the death. We’d actually done nothing wrong.

My Moms grave is like my Grandparents shrine to her. They do not own grief & they have acted abhorrently.

I’m actually angry now. I should live a good life in spite of how my grandparents are & have been!

 

[Tinyflame]

I don't think any of those special people would want me to beat myself up over lost opportunities anything else

Yes.

 

[Freida]

You mom had a choice to make -- have a child and risk her health or not have a child and still have health issues.
She chose to have a child - knowing what the risks were.
She chose to give you life -- no matter the risk to hers
I don't know of any of my mom friends who would have done any differently

I think if your mom knew you blamed yourself for her illness and death she would be horrified that you took on that burden. It wasn't her goal. Her goal was to give birth to a child, love him well for as long as she could and then let him go into the world when she had to leave. She couldn't have foreseen what was going to happen next. You say that you hid afterward like it's a bad thing. Of course you did - you had just lost your mom and the adults around you were losing their minds. You coped the best way an 11 year old could.

The others are entirely correct --- to honor her you need to live the best possible life you can. Let her choice mean something other than guilt and sadness. Accept that you -- yes you - were worth risking her life for. The only thing you need to "do" to even the score is to live the way she would have wanted you to - doing what makes you happy.

 

[Marvel545]

Thankyou @Freida actually made me well up that!

I'm going to explore this in T tomorrow. I think there is something there with other family members also. Its really tough to deal with. I feel as though moving on removes my memory of my Mom. I know that isn't true, but I think it's because I feel as though my Moms side of the family own grief! I think I need to set up my own space where my Moms spirit lives within me, that is completely safe.

It's not just me that feels this way either, funnily enough! Other family members do as well!

 

[Tinyflame]

I understand some of this @Marvel545 .

Hugs to you. :hug:

Hope the past doesn't keep influencing your present. Agree with @Freida .

 

[blackemerald1]

Hi @Marvel545 - glad you have reached out onto the forum for more ideas about this. Good luck with therapy tomorrow & well done for working on it all. :hug: