Grieving a parent you had a stormy relationship with - anyone?

[RedChesterDraws]

How do you do this? I'm really, really sad and miss my mum so fucking much. But I'm also, at times, incredibly fucking angry with her. Then the anger evaporates and I get so guilty for being angry. It's complicated, but she didn't raise me. Visited every weekend and were very close in that we could talk about anything and everything, and she was my best mate.

She raised a second family, though, and I'm so retrospectively heartbroken I didn't get what they got. It's like an avalanche of pain over that in addition to the pain of her dying and missing her desperately.

How do you deal with this sort of mixed pain/ complicated grief? At the moment it seems like a prison sentence. I can't imagine ever being okay with any of it.

Has anyone got experience of managing this?

First of all, I'm sorry for your loss OP. Can I ask how long it's been since your DM died? As I think whatever your relationship was, you're going to miss her for a long time to come, and will continue to go through all sorts of emotions as time passes. Thankfully I haven't been in your position, but I do recommend bereavement counselling, which although I only went a couple of times did seem to help me.

It's been six months. I tried counselling, it didn't help. Made me feel stuck in the past.

Hi Op, I feel like this too ☹️ my mum and I got on really well in her last years but she was not a great mum as a kid and we didn't speak for many years.. I "forgave" her and she was quite present especially when my kids were born but still a bit distant in some ways and I didn't really understand her or actually forgive her. She died very unexpectedly a couple of years ago and I struggle like you .

A friend recommended writing letters to her then burning them or something in a kind of forgiveness/acceptance ceremony? Or not the latter just writing! I liked the sound of it as think it would be therapeutic but haven't got around to it yet 🙄 maybe worth a thought?

Sending hugs.

Just seen your update. One thing I would say is it's ok to feel sad and grieve and cry and even shout if you feel it! 6 months is so soon. Just go with your emotions, I found it was a process I needed to let happen. Some days I still listen to songs that remind me of her and sob my heart out, some days I would look at old photos and read old messages just thinking, why, mum?!? It all just helped me process it. Still haven't written those letters though 🤦‍♀️

It's so hard, isn't it? @Anotherdayanothermoodswing It can make you feel quite lost, I hope you have some better days ahead.

It does get easier after a few years. My father was violent and shouty (I suppose in a normal for the 70s way, but it was traumatic as a child), and later constantly begged me for money to get him out of his chronic overspending. I resented that much more, and cut off contact for a few years. Although I saw him again before he died, it's hard to not feel regret. He could write so beautifully.

While we weren't estranged exactly, my father and I weren't that close and I've said in the past that my maternal grandfather was more of a father figure. I think what I really grieved was the relationship we could have had but didn't. What didn't help was that the funeral fell quite early on in the first lockdown and therefore there were restrictions on attendance, and part of me felt like I was taking the place of someone from his second wife's family who had a closer relationship.

Actually I think having had a bad relationship makes it harder in some ways. At least, all of us are different... my older brother cut our father off, my younger sister can't let our father go, and I think (though I'm no psychiatrist) that part of the problem is she's still hoping she can fix him, that she can get the relationship she's always longed for. My brother has given up long since. Whereas me, with my mother, whom I spent more time with, I grieve her deeply, but I also feel very much that I got everything I wanted from her and have not lost her as long as I have her stories, her recipes, her advice, the memories of her...

I’m so sorry, OP. The more complicated the relationship, the more complicated the grief, in many ways. You aren’t just mourning a person, you’re mourning all you didn’t have and now can’t ever resolve. It doesn’t help that some of the feelings being brought up come from your childhood and are both very powerful and not very amenable to rationalisation - not being “chosen” as a child, no matter what the reasons or logic, stays with you. This might sound a bit out there, but if therapy wasn’t for you, you might want to try the empty chair method. Basically you sit down opposite an empty chair and say everything you wish you could have said to your mum. It’s surprising how cathartic it can be. It’s a way to get out the grief, the anger, the resentment, and having the chair there you also kind of end up seeing their perspective too - I use it sometimes to work through issues I have with a parent who is still alive, but with whom I can’t talk about or resolve any of the stuff I would like to. Otherwise I think just knowing that what you’re going through is totally normal can help. I used to do bereavement work and next to suicide, complex relationships like the one you describe with your mum are the toughest to mourn. You describe that mix of love, anger, guilt and hurt so clearly. I don’t want to trivialise what you are going through but I hope it’s some help to say that although you may feel like you’ve got no hope of digging yourself out from the avalanche of pain, people do. It’s not an easy or tidy process, just try to be kind to yourself, find opportunities to do things you know tend to lift your mood (whether that’s seeing friends, walking or exercise, watching Tv, reading, hobbies, beauty treatments etc) and remember that no relationship is ever perfect. We are all flawed, we all just do the best we can, we get broken and we scrabble around for the pieces of ourselves and in doing so often we come out with a deeper level of understanding and insight. Genuinely wishing you the best.

My dad was pretty unpleasant, and volatile emotionally. Over the years I have worked on separating his treatment of me from my image of myself. Ultimately I think he would have treated any child the same, and a son possibly worse (I was an only), and anyway, his actions really were all about him.
I remind myself that there are completely innocent children growing up all over the place with parents who are unfit to parent. Human beings vary so much, and if all it takes to be a parent is fertility, which doesn’t seem to discriminate much, plus one well-timed sexual encounter, then it stands to reason that parents are going to vary just as widely as everyone else. They mustn’t be put on a pedestal just because they’re the generation above you.
A useful exercise is to imagine taking one of those children aside and telling them that their parents’ words are true and that they are worthy of the abuse. Imagine telling a room full of children that their worthiness is ranked solely by how loving their parents are. It’s unthinkable, of course. And yet for years I let myself believe that my dad’s opinion of me held weight. It doesn’t.
Sorry your mum wasn’t a balanced, happy woman OP. You should have had better, as should many children. But as you take responsibility for your own actions, gently shake off responsibility for hers and leave it with her.

It hurts a lot, I don’t think you can deal with it, the best thing is too manage it and recognise the hurt it has and does cause. I know I can’t deal/manage with it. I have a dad who has raised a second family and is an excellent father to them. He has zero interest and me and expects me to chase and do all the leg work with our relationship. He treated his teenaged kids bf/gf better than he did me. He didn’t answer my calls for months so I stopped. That was 1.5yrs ago. I swing from sadness to anger. As time goes on it’s more sadness and disappointment.

I am so sorry to everyone who has had bereavement complicated by a complex relationship. It just fucking hurts, doesn't it.

I'm so depressed about this today. I just really want my mum.

I don't know how to make this sharp, painful feeling go away, is it just going to be like this now forever? Or for years and years? It's exhausting me, it's so bleak.