Childhood parent loss with cPTSD

[notathenabutcassandra]

Sorry for long post, not sure what I'm looking for really, just wondered if anyone else had any experience and knew the best type of therapy to try and work through grief from a long time ago.

I (46f) lost my DF when I was 8 and he was 47. Very quick illness and death. He and DM had a terrible relationship, most memories of my childhood are fighting and violence. When DF died my DSis and I were not allowed to grieve - DM scoured the house of any trace of him and we weren't allowed to talk about him. When his name was mentioned it was in rage-filled diatribes from DM and after a while we started to take on her anger because it was safer. I told everyone who offered sympathy that I wasn't sad, "he was a bastard", etc. None of which was true.

DM never wanted children and after his death she was very bitter that she'd been left to bring us up alone. No affection, lots of anger, lots of violence. It led to lots of mental heath problems for myself and DSis, which we're both still working through.

I was diagnosed with cPTSD in 2013 and after having EMDR I was finally able to start to heal. I'm still in therapy and finally overcoming my trauma and able to live without fear.

I'm suddenly faced with the reality of grieving for my DF, which feels brand new. I know I need to process it but I'm really not sure how to find a bereavement therapist who might know how to help me, given that it happened 38 years ago. I've tried searching online but I just don't know what to look for.

If anyone has any experience I'd be very grateful for any pointers. Thank you if you've made it this far!

Hi there. I haven't had EDMR but it sounds like that process has worked as it should to bring to the surface feelings that you had suppressed and now you need to process those and integrate them.

To help you to do that, it might be good for you to look for trauma- focussed talking therapy rather than bereavement counselling, because trauma is complex and needs a specialist approach.

I've had a lot of success with person-centred therapy that contained elements of trauma focused CBT.

Thank you 😊 Sorry I should have been more clear, I've had years of trauma-informed therapy, which is what has got me to the place where my grief is starting to come up. It didn't feel safe to grieve until now, but I've worked through a lot of the trauma from my childhood and teen years, and I think it's that I don't feel scared of my DM's reaction now that I feel safe to grieve.

But it's such a long time ago, I just don't know where to begin.