To really struggle with how my sister dealt with my mothers death (TW)

[Erandie]

So first of all, trigger warning as I will be mentioning suspected suicide.

Some context, there is 15 years between my sister and I, we have different dads, were mostly raised in different countries and have very little in common. I also know we had very different relationships with our mother. I’m going to try and be a little vague but I know this might still be identifiable to those who know us.

My sister is now 25, 3 years ago in July our mother passed away, it was officially classed as an accident but we both have our suspicions that this was not the case. Prior to that I hadn’t lived with my mum since I turned 18, so almost 20 years. I know in that time she changed dramatically.
My mother had always struggled with her mental health, this wasn’t foreign to either of us but ultimately she was a good mum, at least to me anyway. Around my 27th birthday my mum moved back to her home country (somewhere I have never lived) and took my sister who would have been 12 at the time with her. My sister recounts the teen years in a very specific way, highs where she would be spoiled endlessly, followed by lows, alcoholism, pill addiction etc. My mother also had a tendency to have new boyfriends all the time. I tried to visit frequently (about every 8-12 weeks), we tried to reach out for help but ultimately you cannot help someone who doesn’t want to be helped.
My sister would have been 22 when my mother died, for the years before that my sister had modelled for a while and had good prospects but ended up giving it up to be with my mother more consistently then she enrolled in university and would call her daily and check on her often.
My sister went through a break up and dropped the visits and calls the 2 weeks before my mother passed. I continued calling but she was notorious for being less honest with me than my sister so it was hard to tell.
After her not answering my calls 2 days in a row I managed to get a hold of my sister who went to visit and unfortunately she found my mother already having passed. I took the first flight and was there by that evening, I took on the majority of the admin side as obviously my sister had a very complicated relationship with our mother and I never held that against her.
I remember very vividly my sister did not cry once, she barely wanted anything of our mother’s possessions, took a very low level interest. I wrote this off as being a mix of shock, guilt (I don’t blame her at all but I know she has been to therapy and to some extent blamed herself for not visiting more) and a consequence of their complicated relationship.
However recently I have discovered that my sister was actively going on dates (including her first date with her now boyfriend) in the 8 days between our mother’s death and the funeral. I don’t know why this has impacted me so much, as I fully understand we all grieve differently and we had very different mother daughter relationships. I try to remind myself of that but in all honestly I just feel a little bit heartbroken to think she kept moving like nothing happened.
I think it’s also one of those things where my sister was clearly my mother’s favourite child (the pretty one, the smart one, the one who modelled) but I was left to do all the really emotionally taxing stuff while she just went on dates.
She has also jokingly told me that she slept with someone the night of the day we found out. I can’t help but think I was in bed crying that night and I find the difference in our responses quite staggering.
I try to maintain a close relationship with my sister now as I know she has very limited family left but I find this response colours my view of her, even though I rationally know it’s just grief looking different on different people.

AIBU to feel like this? Is there anything I can do to get over it before it ruins our relationship?

Why so harsh, Nesta? It is obvious that the OP doesn't judge her sister; it is obvious how caring and loving she is. That is why she is troubled by some private emotional reactions that she has, and wants to try and process them.
We all have troubling irrational feelings of one sort or another, especially around a bereavement. If we are honest, we reflect on them. One of the consequences of being dishonest with ourselves is that we remain with a facile, judgemental perception of other people's emotional depths.

(Edited a garbled sentence)

As she witnessed your mothers affairs and pills and drink as a coping mechanism, it is inevitable she would distract herself with these things.

She has been abused and is now likely to be abusing herself or neglecting herself in the wake of your Mum’s death. Please treat her with whatever grace or empathy you can muster.

YABU

Your sister lived a completely different life to you and you weren’t there.

She has the right to feel whatever way she wants to about her mum, their relationship and her upbringing.

"she kept moving like nothing happened."

You don't know that. You have no idea what was going on in her head. It's entirely likely that she is struggling even more than you are as she was closer to the situation.

Hi OP

I don’t have anything to add to the really good responses I can see you’ve engaged with, other than to say I initially voted YABU but actually I think both you and your sister are not being unreasonable. If this was Reddit, I’d say NAH. I hope you both come to terms with your grief and complicated (very different) relationships with your mother, and find a way to make your relationship with each other stronger.

If nothing else, let the trauma your mother inflicted on you both bring you closer together.

Sorry for your loss.

People grieve in different ways especially when you factor in the very different relationships that you both had with your mother.

I lost my mum when I was 21 and to be honest went a bit mad socially, out clubbing and partying none stop for around 18 months. 20 plus years later I look back and see I was just struggling to cope. There is no right or wrong, just accept you are both different and at different stages in life.

You say your mum had a lot of partners - she was your sisters role model - it would make sense your sister is turning to partners for emotional help like maybe your mother did? You said yourself your sister has limited family

I am very sorry for your loss and the grief you must be dealing with.

However I think these feelings about your sister need to be put away- or at least recognised as misplaced.

Your sister clearly had a very traumatic childhood. This will have had lasting effects on her emotional responses & attitude to sexual relationships.

People process grief and shock very differently anyway- in your sister’s case this will be exacerbated by a background that sounds extremely distressing & by dysfunctional parenting- it sounds as though your mother let her down badly. (Although clearly your mother sadly had her own demons, a child cannot be expected to take on the burden of making allowances for this- the point is that your sister was badly let down.)

Also the fact that she was distancing herself before your mother’s death will be an additional burden for her. It may be very difficult for her to deal with.

Plus I think from your original post that your sister found your mother? If so that experience will have been horrific- deeply distressing. I am more than 30 years older than this poor young woman and found a similar experience very very difficult to deal with - ongoing night terrors and panic attacks for some time afterwards. The response to this trauma may well play out in unexpected and sometimes unattractive ways.

I think your sister will need a lot of support. It may well be that you can’t give this and this is entirely understandable given you will have your own grief and loss to deal with. You have a lot on your plate too! But perhaps you can try to help her find sources of support- therapy, other family members.

Plus I hope you won’t react in a negative way when she tells you personal things- they may be very difficult to hear, but this is a very vulnerable young person (however sophisticated she may appear!) and it’s good that she is open with you. It sounds as though she has been very badly let down by the adults in her life to date.

I hope also that you have people in your life you can turn to for support- it is important not to neglect yourself. I imagine - forgive me if wrong- you have a lot of complex and difficult emotions & thoughts about your mother which may be ‘leaking out’ in your attitude to your sister.

Stepping back from the details of the age gap, the different countries and phases of your mother's parenting, you have both been badly affected by her neglect and emotional abuse. That is your shared experience - not having an emotionally present mother who made you feel loved unconditionally. I hope you can continue to build your relationship now independently of your mum, and have compassion for each other.

I would keep working on letting go of this issue with how your sister behaved when your mum died. If someone finds their mum's dead body, I think they can do whether they want that night - get drunk, shag a stranger - and if they don't want to sit with family talking it over, that's up to them. Not crying doesn't mean anything; can you not see she must have been in shock and that sex/going out is a classic means of blocking things out until she could deal with them?

My DF died 4 months ago, he wasn't a good father to either myself or DB. I chose to be with DF while he was dying DB didnt want to be there. When DF passed I took myself off and wanted to be very much left alone, I dont visit his grave and I am possibly avoiding actually confronting how I feel. DB cried endlessly and has need a lot of support. Neither of us looks at the other and criticises the way we are grieving (or not) because we recognise we are different people, with different ways of accepting what has happened.

OP my heart goes out to you and your sister, I am so sorry for your loss.
When we are in the midst of grief and everything is very raw we don't think, act or behave rationally. It is also really hard to navigate our own emotions let alone think how others are dealing with their grief.
You and your sister are both in a world of pain right now. You will both grieve and deal with the situation differently, neither of you are right or wrong as there is no such thing, in my opinion, when it comes to grief.
Your sister is using different distraction techniques to you and whilst her choices might be questionable, please try not to judge her.
All you can do is try and negotiate this grief landscape as best you can, no judgement and, hopefully, you can be there for each other.
This is the worst of times OP for you and your sister. Please be kind to yourself and each other xx

My child is 22. It breaks my heart the idea she could go through all this at such a young age. Please don’t judge your sister. Her feelings were impossibly complex and she coped how she needed to cope

Your sister had a neglectful childhood and found your mum. Both traumatic things. I think her reaction will be very very complex and her behaviour is probably typical of someone who has had to go though what she went through

As someone who lost my own mother when I was young and also had a complicated and difficult relationship - when my mum died I was upset on the day of her passing and the day of her funeral but others would not have seen me cry. I carried on as normal, I didn’t know how to grieve, the loss was too big and I was also angry. It took me many years to truly grieve that loss and almost 30 years on I’m still not sure I have truly grieved her.

The point being and as you have said yourself OP, grief does not look the same on everyone, it is not always crying in bed and moping around, sometimes it looks like simply carrying on as usual, or making new and hasty decisions or creating new distractions such as starting a new relationship.

What I am sure of, is that your sister was indeed grieving even if it didn’t look like it.

Sorry for your loss 💐

This is not uncommon. My mum has 3 kids. I know my elder sister had a rough childhood - she is 10 years older than me. Mine had periods of calm Vs total chaos. Then my younger brother (9 years younger) had a lovely childhood. My mum had remarried by then and was much more 'well' by the time he was born. If she died tomorrow, my sis would be indifferent, I would be sad but not excessively so, my brother would be devastated. Like many facets of life, parents reap what they sow.

You have more life experience and are in a steady, settled space with a supportive husband and the routine of parenthood. Your sister is in a more rudderless phase. Don't judge, just support.

That's your answer, surely? Why would she grieve in your way? She isn't you and didn't have the mother you did. You really should let this go.

You had the idea in your head that your sister was taking space to process the shock of finding your mother dead, that you had made the sacrifice of leaving your baby and two little ones at home and to handle all the funeral and logistics on your own, which was hard as you were not completely au fait with the language and laws of the land. 3 years later you find out, oh I was not the saviour sibling, I was the miserable mug as she was off dating and shagging whilst I handled our mother's death. And she's joking about it now. And hang on, she didn't even cry, and, and...

It's not unreasonable for you to have a temporary, wtf feeling about that if this is a new discovery. It's taken you back to an awful moment and stirred up some unresolved and painful feelings. Your sister had a very hard time of things, culminating in finding her mother dead whilst still in her early 20s. She dealt with the situation in an entirely apporpriate way - the only way she knew how. She will still have years of working through to do, and so will you. If these recent revelations have coloured your view of her, let it be to the extent that it brings into awareness just how difficult and different life has been for her, what she has endured, what resilience she is showing in building a life of her own now. Don't just keep in touch with her because she hasn't got much family and you feel duty-bound and as if that's what your role should be. If you want to maintain a relationship, take the time to really get to know each other. It takes patience and a lot of empathy. I hope it works out well for you both.

I’m sorry about your Mums death.

It’s totally normal not to cry. I never cried when my Dad died and my Mum and I cleared out some of his closets the actual day he died. (We wanted to be busy). I loved my Dad and I miss him but I never cried. We chat about him easily enough - it’s not some issue with repressed emotions. I cry over other stuff sometimes.

You were really unfair and unkind to have judged your sister. I’m glad you have had a rethink.

Addicts are very effective liars. You can’t blame OP for not knowing something that was actively hidden from her.

OP I voted YANBU because how you feel is how you feel. How you respond to it is a different matter. You’ve had some very wise responses here (alongside some pointlessly rude and unhelpful ones). Grief changes people and it changes over time. You won’t feel this way forever.

I can imagine you do feel shocked by how your sister behaved in the immediate aftermath, but I agree with pp who have said this is learnt behaviour - she saw your mum lean on men, she was praised for her attractiveness, and she needed to feel that. Understandable. Equally understandable that you felt the enormous burden of being alone and dealing with either State in a foreign country with limited language. Your pain is just different, but not more or less.

People grieve differently and it sounds like she would have had a tough childhood. My husband died I grieved privately to the outside world I just got up and got on. My mum died last year I did not cry once or even feel sad as she had had Alzheimer’s for years and her life wasn’t great before that. I feel her dying was better as she woukd be reunited with her mother who she adored and vice versa.

it is the worst being judged for how you grieve. I got up and got on when my husband passed as I had children and was determined they would have normal lives. I know the other in law didn’t see it like that. But in all honestly I didn’t care, the kids and I were the priority so it doesn’t really matter what you think you focus on your own grief.

I lost my dad when I was a teenager. He was an alcoholic. I was at home, I was “it” all the time for emergency doctor appointments, admissions, and general carrying the bucket. I was jealous that my older siblings had fun, Independent lives away from it all and a blissful lack of awareness about the gravity of the situation - until he died, of course and they were shell shocked by an event that was absolutely no surprise to me at all. They wept, I was relieved. I started my grieving well into adulthood - probably when my own kids were teens. It does hurt still that he stayed sober for them and not for me. Your experiences are different and you will grieve differently. You need to allow her to have her own emotions about it - even when the emotion is relief.

Neither of you are to blame here. You are both victims.

But your sister has enough on her shoulders without carrying any burden you try to "impose" on her (albeit maybe unconsciously) to grieve in a way which you feel is appropriate and which helps you to come to terms with your own grief and complicated feelings around your mother.

Have you seen how young children grieve even the loss of very close, caring and responsible parents and family members? One moment they'll be playing happily, the next they might have a wobble or it will come out in clingy and defiant behaviour or pushing others away?

Your sister was still quite young, at a point when many young adults would still be receiving significant practical and emotional support from their parents, when your mum died. Not only was she not receiving that support but she's gone through her teens in an unstable and disruptive home without really being effectively parented and essentially having to cohabit with an addict. Children crave predictability and stability and she hasn't had any of that.

I suspect there are various aspects to her response to her mother's death. She may be feeling numb and there may be some trauma in there (the whole experience sounds absolutely dreadful for her). But a large part of it no doubt is that her mother failed her and she's probably relieved in many ways not to have to cope with the burden that was unfairly put upon her any more. And it's not fair of you to judge her for that.

My and my Mum had a wonderful relationship, I loved her very much.

The day after she died I fucked off to Alton Towers and spent the day bombing round roller coasters for weeks. The night before me and DP had had sex. I didn't cry about her death for months, and when I did it was at 2am, completely alone in a dark room, and it lasted hours.

Grief takes many forms, for me, I just needed to feel something physical for those first couple of days. I wanted the physical sensations to take my mind off of things, while my subconscious processed what had happened. The alternative would probably have been to hurt myself.

And that was with a wonderful relationship with my mother. I think sometimes when you've had an incredibly difficult relationship with someone, the grief can be even worse, because it's not just about what you've lost, but what you never had had and now never ever will.