How awful is it when you secretly think it would be a relief if they died!

[BeachBlondey]

You can’t say this out loud, can you? My dad is an alcoholic and has been for 40 years. He ruined much of my childhood. He’s also morbidly obese as he's addicted to food. He has been in and out of hospital now for a while. It’s exhausting. Every day is centred around what is happening with him and what he needs. I love him but would be secretly relieved if he died. How bad is that?!

I understand and feel the same. I love my mum but she is also an alcoholic and is currently on her ninth hospital admission this year for alcohol related problems. It’s such a nightmare. Sending hugs and solidarity.

It's taboo, but entirely normal. I'm sorry it's so hard.

You know you are entitled to your feelings and you have voiced them anonymously. He sounds extremely difficult i also grew up with a heavy drinker almost certain an alcoholic step father so I get it. Take care

Thank you xx

It's completely natural. He's brought nothing positive to your life so it will be a relief when you are no longer beholden to him.

But you don't have to want until he's dead.

Bloody hell. It’s rough isn’t it?!

Totally normal. The relief when my dad died was palpable. But even though many family members thought it, no one voiced it. He was an incredibly difficult man, but also had incredible charm. He was a marmite character, loved or hated. My only sadness was that he didn't die sooner, and would have freed my mother. I would have happily gone no contact with my dad, but I couldn't because of mum.

I don't think it's bad at all, I think it's entirely normal

I also think that a man who ruined your childhood also should not be entitled to your love and care now you are an adult

If that sounds cold then I apologise

But you only get one life, don't let him spoil it all with his inability to look after himself.

It’s normal, even when the parent hasn’t ruined your life. You can be devastated and relieved at the same time. Devastated that you’ve lost someone you love, and lost any opportunity to make things better. Relieved that they and you have been released from the absolute hell that decline, in old age, or at any point, can become for all concerned.

I hear you OP. It was a relief when my Mum died. You can say this. Alcoholism destroys the parent/child relationship. Your father's primary relationship was with alcohol and not you as it should have been in your childhood.

My dad is 93 and has developed very rapidly deteriorating Dementia just this last year. He has had an amazing life and loved and been loved. He would hate what has happened to him and he would hate that my mum has had to become his full time carer. He often said when mentally aware, 'dont let me get into that sort of state, put a pillow over my face'-it was his only fear really and now it's happened.
I've already grieved/am grieving for the lovely dad I had-he isn't there anymore. He had no quality of life and I hope it doesn't go on much longer.

DH frequently says this kind of thing about his DM, who has rapidly progressing dementia along with a variety of comorbidities, and very little quality of life. Sadly she retains enough awareness to know that everything about it is shit, albeit without the working memory to recall that she said as much less than two minutes ago. Even when she was well it was a complex relationship. I worry that he only anticipates the relief, and has no clue about the effect her loss will have on him.

My father is not an alcoholic and has never been abusive or harmful. Yet I feel the same - he's nearly 90, totally bedridden, constantly hallucinating and he and my mother have two live-in carers. She's very keen on moving into a home and seems to pretty much ignore him. It's obviously costing vast amounts of money too but their situation still takes lots of input from my sibling and me (running their house, fixing problems, making decisions, managing the carers who need a lot of affirmation).

The situation is unsustainable but there are no solutions until he dies. Instead of being the father I love (though not without some reservations - he was a very unengaged one, solipsistic), he's become a problem without solution and I hate myself for sometimes wanting the only resolution there is. We lurch from one crisis to another and I'm constantly on edge. It's like I feel impatient to grieve and then to have a chance to celebrate what he was instead of he has become. But like PP I'm underestimating how devastating it will be. But then again, it's going to be devastating whenever it comes.

It's entirely normal and justified to think this. You're not allowed to say it out loud but don't worry tons of us are thinking it.

My elderly mum (abusive, personality disorder, bully, controlling etc) has been 'dying' for about 5 years. She must be costing the NHS absolutely thousands a week to keep her alive (she is on about 30 tablets a day mainly heart related). She has carers 4 times a day to wash/dress her and give her tablets and microwave a dinner. Everything else falls to me plus a friend. We do housework, admin, house maintenance, washing, take her to appointments and deal with the constant phone calls about her.

She's been in hospital 4 or 5 times this year so far.

Everytime some phones me from the hospital or social or doctors or emergency alarm pendant people I think to myself 'please god let her be dead' but nope she's fallen agin, or had bad chest pain, or got lost but still here.
It's getting harder and harder to pretend to the everyone that I give a shit because I honestly don't.
I wish she would just fuck off and die.

Even if I didn't feel like this about her what on earth is the point is keeping a person alive when they are confused, housebound, can't microwave a dinner themselves, incontinent, can't work their tv, can answer the phone.
We are currently organising a carehome for her and honestly I hope the shock of the move kills her. They say the stress of moving for frail elderly often does finish them off.

Nobody understands until they are in this position.

You are not alone.

I feel the same about my father, who is 81 and has advanced dementia - it is almost cruel to keep him alive when he has no quality of life and no hope of getting better. And yet his heart keeps going and they keep plying him with medication, although he is not eating very much and is losing weight. Eventually I think an infection or something will take him.

But I have wished several times for him to go to sleep and just not wake up. It's not that I wish him (the person I knew and loved) dead, it's that the current shell of a person who is scared and angry and confused and can't do anything for himself and can't communicate is definitely not how he would have wanted to be.

My parents are not alcoholics but it will be a huge relief when they pass. I can’t say this to anyone in real life.

My dad was a terrifying, violent man with (undiagnosed) mental health issues who absolutely ruined my childhood. My mum had zero interest in me (I realise she was obviously living in difficult circumstances) and refused to leave my dad because “being a single mum is shameful”. She told me on several occasions that she shouldn’t have had me.

She now has dementia and visiting her is honestly a chore. She barely knows who I am and we sit in silence. My dad hovers in the background barking angrily at me for not visiting more often. He hasn’t changed at all and I won’t expose my DC to his behaviour so I don’t see him much but he is constantly badgering me to bring them round.

I pray this won’t go on for much longer but I have a horrible feeling my dad at least will be around for years to come. The devil takes care of his own after all. He’s in good health, rarely ill. Last year he made dozens of our relatives dial into a Zoom call where he dramatically announced he had Cancer. I didn’t believe a word of it. When I questioned him about his alleged chemo treatment he eventually admitted he made the whole thing up🙄

Entirely normal. We know that my FIL will probably try to cause as much damage in death as he did in life but I am praying and hoping that his children don’t fall out. He has damaged them and his wife so unbelievably much.

I think anybody who has been in your situation can empathise. You can go no contact. You can prioritise your own well-being. There’s a film called A Monster Calls where the terminally sick mother tells her son it’s ok for him to want the struggle of living with her dying to be over. It’s very powerful and perhaps cathartic for you?

Because my friends and I are of an age most of us have come out of the other side of their parent's dying now. Our parents were all old and many greatly diminished by illness so that quality of life was poor. Some had been good parents, some less good, some down right abusive, some alcoholics or addicts of other kinds. The level of dependency on the adult children varied from a little responsibility to that which almost consumed the person, their life, health, career and relationships. Something we all had in common was that at some stage, sometimes fleeting but often ongoing we wished that our parent would die for their own sake and the sake of those around them, including us. It's normal.

Definitely not unreasonable.

My mother also had dementia, I was relieved when she passed away, for myself but more so for her sake. She had already stated, whilst she still had capacity, that she didn't want to be kept alive, just to be made comfortable and be allowed to slip away, which she did.
In the 60s when my 80 odd year old Great granny took to her bed, the family doctor came and said keep her comfortable, shes on the way out. She passed away after a few days, in her own bed with her DD and her DGD (My mum) at her side.
Nobody seems to be allowed to slip off peacefully anymore, it's ambulances, hours in A&E , rehydatrated, drugged up and sent back home for another few weeks of misery, until it happens again and again........and again

I agree about the way in which we're prolonging death too often. I gather that Harold Shipman has made doctors very jumpy about helping people to painlessly slip away. I think that good local doctors used to do this judiciously.

I spoke to a palliative care charity this week and they gave me useful advice about antibiotics - when I tried to talk to the GP about the wisdom of giving my father antibiotics on a near weekly basis, she basically implied that I wanted her to let him die. Which I don't. But I don't want her to keep him alive at any costs. The charity suggested that it might be sensible to take oral antibiotics when prescribed, but to make a decision about hospital admittance for i/v. I spoke to him and he's adamant he doesn't want to go into hospital. I just wish we'd got a proper advance care directive earlier.

It's not awful at all - it's completely normal and natural. My biggest fear is living too long, simply because medical science has the capacity to keep me alive.

I felt the same in the last months of my dad’s existence with dementia. I say existence because that’s what it was, it wasn’t a life. It is a taboo ego say it out loud but many of us feel the same way.

OP, I had the best dad anyone could wish for. He died last month amd all I felt was relief!

He was 88, had dementia, had been in hospital for months, while in hospital He fell and broke his hip and never really recovered. The last 6 weeks of his life was awful but the last 10 days or so was horrendous and inhumane.

When I got the call to say he had passed away, the relief was overwhelming, the tears and sadness came later, but yes totally normal and understandable to feel relief.