Feeling confused about dads death (long sorry)

[biscuitdipper]

I'm new on here but just want to know if how I feel is normal really because I am very up and down. My mum and dad divorced when i was 6 after marrying very young and with lots of domestic violence from my dad, he was also in and out of prison for most of my early years and so can't really remember much about my early life with him tbh. I have flashbacks which i dont know whether they are real or not and feel bad about even thinking them sometimes about him making me touch him but like i say not sure it ever happened but i have vivid thoughts about it. i have told my dp about this and he has been very understanding but still I sometimes wonder if i have just dreamt it and imagined it.

Anyway he died a few weeks ago after me not seeing him for several years after we fell out quite badly after i got drunk and told him exactly what i thought about him and how he was with my mum and now I have this enormous guilt, yes he was horrible to my mum, he did absolutely nothing for me all my life but i feel incredibly sad and hurt that he seemed to have sorted himself out towards the end of his life, he had a new family who all adored him and are devastated he's gone and now I'm even more convinced that the 'abuse' I thought had happened might not have.

I feel bad crying about him because i always told everyone I didn't care if i never saw him again. At the funeral I felt a fraud and it was hard hearing about how wonderful, what a devoted dad and what a nice bloke he was when he was none of that to me.

Sorry this is long just wanted to know am I going mad am I wrong to feel like this?

No, you're not mad or wrong. You can only feel based on how he was with you, and him being - or seeming - much better to others can't be much consolation.

Have you considered seeing a counsellor, maybe one who deals in repressed memory?

Sorry you are going through this :(

I think it's very hard losing someone you have such mixed feelings about. I had a big falling out with my dad over something really awful that he then denied (but I knew he'd done). I got back in contact with him about 3 months before he died but had even had a row with him the last conversation.

It took me a long time to even start to grieve. For a long time I was in complete denial. Even now, i feel sad that he's not around to meet his GC even though, if he was, I'm not sure I'd allow any contact anyway!

I have some sense that something wasn't quite right about some of his interactions with me but nothing as concrete as you've said. But I've recently had an experience with regards to memories around my mum when I was under one and my brother's take was 'well, I remember her behaving like that' and lots of stuff came flooding back, so I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand.

Also, remember, funerals are times for people to think the best of people. My FILs mother was a complete bitch (and I use that term advisedly) and since her death he will hear nothing bad said about her, in contrast to when she was alive.

Try to acknowledge all your feelings. I saw a brilliant counsellor about 9 months after my dad died who really helped me to get some perspective on everything.

Thanks for replying, yes I have thought about seeing a councellor but most of the time i am ok, it's not something that I think about a lot, it's since my dad died that it's brought it all back to me, also I'm a bit worried about going in case either I find out it did happen and maybe other things might come back or something, or I find that I did in fact imagine it all and then i wont know how to feel, I am so confused hope I'm making sense. i have been doing really well pretending that he wasn't even part of my life and now it's like i am forced to think about it an question myself.

Secretskillrelationships: I know what you mean about the GC I have dcs and he never met them, i feel bad about that although I know if he was here I wouldn't have let him meet them, but now I am thinking I may have been wrong and I will never get the chance back now, what if I have been wrong all this time? it so horrible to be feeling like this. I find myself just bursting into tears, thinking about how unfair everything seems in some ways I feel jealous that he seemed to love his new family so much and he seemed to have turned his life around for them. and then i feel like well I hated him and i didn't need him because he really was a rubbish dad to me. I wouldn't mind but i'm not a kid but the last few weeks have sent me back to being this insecure teenager. sorry I'm going on a bit here.

When my dad died (it was sudden) I elected to visit the corpse. I gazed at it for several minutes, only one thought running through my mind: "He's gone, it's all over." Then I felt guilty - more accurately, perhaps, uncomfortable; shouldn't I be feeling sad, or at least sorry for his early demise? There's a very strong conflict between what you "should" feel and your real feelings. This runs true for people who really loved the dead person - grief includes a lot of anger and frustration, as well as the more acceptable sadness. When the relationship was conflictual, it's even more complicated.

I saw a bereavement counsellor through work. She was fairly crap, as it happens, but I found it very helpful to get the picture of what grief is about. You can get this from books, too, or online. I hadn't expected the huge emotional shock - I don't know if this is the same for you? Even if the relationship was poor, your 'personal landscape' has changed forever and it takes some coming to terms with. I had "white noise in my head" for about six weeks. After a while, you kind of get used to the fact that the grief has now become part of your emotional makeup - this is what 'getting over it' means. Nobody tells you this until it happens.

I did have some intense conversations with my father over the 5 years before he died: I'm sorry that this wasn't available to you, as I clung to that during the weeks following his death. I have to say, though, that those conversations didn't actually resolve anything. I think any comforting ideas you can come up with will serve just as well! For what it's worth - ten years on - I'm glad the bastard's dead and I no longer care how he felt about his family.

Take care of yourself and the people who are worth loving :) Grief is a bit like a large piece of furniture that's suddenly appeared in your life! It seems to dominate everything at first, but after a while you stop noticing it.

it has been a huge shock, because like i said before I expected to feel nothing abosolutely nothing and all i feel is guilt, guilt at subconciously accusing him of something i'm not even sure is real,although it feels real. but also he was never part of my life really, basically he made me made life shit for a few years and then he went away, i saw him for a bit it dwindled off into yrs of seeing each other on and off, then we had the big row but basically my life was fine and now it's like it's all I can think about and the worst thing is is that i dont feel like i have the right to cry, the right to feel like it's my dad whos died and I don't know how I'm supposed to feel. I put on a front to my mum, to my dp to friends thatI couldn't care less but if I get the chance i have a cry about it. I feel quite pathetic actually

Thankyou for everyones experiences though it does make me realise it's not only me who feels like this and gives me a bit of hope that maybe soon things will get back to normal again.xxx

There is nothing wrong or unusual in how you are feeling. You are grieving for the dad you wished you'd had, just as much as for the one you didn't have. And you are also sad because that is the end of the story and you don't have a chance to make things right.

I still have very mixed feelings about my own dad, who died nearly two years' ago. I miss him and really grieve for him, but I don't miss the hurtful, thoughtless things he said and did. On the contrary, I am relieved that I don't have to suffer them anymore. It is confusing, but I think grieving for someone that you have had a complicated relationship with is very confusing.

I saw a counsellor through my GP and it really helped. You can just go to your GP, explain how you are suffering and request it. It's free. I was given six sessions, but you can be seen for longer if necessary. The counsellor should help you to deal with your flashbacks too.

You have every right to cry and grieve. He was your dad. It doesn't matter what relationship you had with him - he was the only dad you had. A friend of mine never saw her dad and was shocked at how she reacted to his death. She said it was like a 'primal emotion' - absolute grief. I was the same when my dad died. It knocked me out. I have, sadly, lost many of my family, but this was different. So please don't feel you have no right to grieve, because you absolutely do.

However you feel, it's all right. There are no rules.

I hope you get the support you need.

biscuitdipper, I generally don't respond to people with possible/suspected/glimpsed memories of childhood sexual abuse because I don't know how to. I understand your complex feelings about it though! I have nothing to go on: some 'odd' feelings, something my sister once said, and a single flashback. I'm now convinced that he did abuse me sexually ... and that I'll probably never know the details. Perhaps my memory will release something after my mum dies, but would I want it? Dunno. It was a source of anger after Dad died - but, really, if he'd lived to a hundred he would never have told me.

Books & films lead us to expect something called 'closure' but real life doesn't work like a set piece. We come to understand ourselves and others better and, if we're lucky, to have more trust in the miracle of our own mind & spirit. Closure, most often, is better expressed as "learning to live with ..." doubt, fear, hope, disappointment, courage and joy. Even in books & films, death is one of the experiences that bring us closer to wisdom - and this is what's happening to you now.

Oh dear, I didn't mean to sound like one of those tacky little birthday books

Thankyou all so much for your replies. TFCyou are right it is that i am grieving the dad i wished i had. and IGA You don't sound like a birthday book, what you are saying makes a lot of sense to me I am hoping that when a couple of weeks have passed these thoughts will go because I know i can be strong and fortunately for most of my life i have been able to just let these things go hopefully that will happen soon. I hope everyone else who has replied to me who has had similar experiences are ok and can do the same. xxx

What helped me along the grief process was to forgive my dad and try and understand why he was the way he was, ie young age, different times etc without justifying his behaviour.

He was a crap parent, but thats the dad I got.
I felt relief on a selfish level, grief and guilt.

Then you need to fogive yourself for whatever you feel bad about (the confrontation)?

Of course you are justified to grieve, he was still your dad after all x

Would it help to write him a letter? I realise that it is too late to do it and put it in his coffin, but it might help. It's something I did after my father died and several years later, a counsellor that I was seeing told me it was a very good thing to have done.

You could burn it after and put the ashes on the garden of remembrance or on his grave, depending on whether he was buried or cremated.

Regarding flashbacks, I had always known that I had been abused by friends of my mother but had never been shocked by it, only angry when it first happened and later resigned when it happened again. When dd was 5 she clapped her had over my mouth to stop me talking and this triggered a new one - and this was about 44 years after the events. So, basically what I'm saying is, if they surface, they surface and I don't think there is anything you can do to force it out into the open. EMDR can help to turn it into a memory just like any other and sometimes in doing so a bit more detail emerges. You might find this helpful as it might supply the missing pieces of the picture such as where and when.