Hello. I am a lurker and sometime poster (although not for many months).
I grew up in fear and chaos. I had an emotionally abusive, sometimes violent mother. She and my father waged a daily war with each other, and my siblings and I were the collateral damage.
I am 40. I went from fearing and hating them as a child/teenager, to trying to help them and provide for them, and feeling sorry for them in their perpetual misery and warfare. Moat of these efforts were belittled/ignored/treated with contempt. I think at some point in my 20s I decided I had a duty and that I needed to stop blaming them for everything, so I swallowed all the shit and just got on with it. But their behaviour did/does cripple me in many ways, big and small. Too much to go into.
It all fell apart when I had my first child 4 years ago and my childhood misery came back to me so strongly it knocked me sideways. A lot of repressed memory and feelings came back. A lot of anger and the old hatred too. I had a huge breakdown.
I have never, in my memory, loved my parents. But I thought I had forgiven them the miserable upbringing and continual drama/unhappiness they'd leash upon each other and their children and grandchildren. Not so. Having my own children plunged me into a deep depression and seeing my parents made me, literally, mad. I had to stop seeing them for my own preservation and to stop my little family falling apart. I cut off contact in 2009.
My mother died last month. I haven't really cried. I don't know how to feel, really. I am angry with her for ruining the life and relationships she could have had. I feel utterly sorry for her and her sad life. At odd moments I remember she's dead, and it takes my breath away. The circumstances of her death haunt me. She was alone, and I can't help thinking how frightened she must have been. And in pain. I feel guilty, but also angry, because I know that if I'd remained in contact with her, she'd barely have noticed and I would probably be.....without a marriage? Dead (I've barely had a day in my life without thinking about ending it)? My dear sister plugged away trying to look after her, and all my mother did was abuse her and treat her like shit. That would have been me too.
I don't have any closure. I don't have any happy memories. I really don't, there were no stately homes or anything else to hold onto, it was daily misery, fear and abuse.
But there's this massive fucking hole in my chest and I am guessing that is grief and mourning. But what the hell am I mourning for? And in the end, am I even allowed to mourn? I cut contact.
Sorry to spill all this out here. Nobody will listen to my in rl.