My mother has cancer and I can't feel anything

[ladybee28]

Am in a bit of a strange hole this evening.

I've been NC with my mother for nearly 2 years, after reaching a point where I just couldn't handle our relationship any more.

I had a tough childhood with her, abusive in many ways, and I've felt responsible for her my whole life (she's both incredibly powerful and incredibly fragile).

Her chaotic lifestyle over the years since I've been a teenager and adult ground me down to the point where I had to step away from the relationship, initially just for a break and my own mental health, but then she never got in touch either and it's just continued this way.

Today another family member got in touch to let me know she's been in hospital with ovarian cancer.

And I feel nothing. Not surprised, not sad... mostly just confused by how little I feel about it. And I still have no inclination to reach out and get in touch with her.

Normally I feel things very deeply, and I can't stand people hurting or in pain, so this is a very unfamiliar sensation...

Does anyone have any insight into what might be going on?

Is this numbness normal, or am I actually a terrible daughter?

What do I do?

You poor girl, even people close to parents often react with numbness when the parent is dying or dies. You're not abnormal. I hope you have a good support network around you.

Hi OP, couldn't ignore your message. I have no experience of being NC, but I have had the out-of-the-blue cancer call, for a very much-loved parent. I was very calm, very 'together' and dealt with a lot of practicalities. After a few days I fell apart inside, because I love them so much. I can't say things will go the same way for you as your relationship is obviously different; but please don't feel bad at the numbness you feel right now. It can be the same, whatever your relationship. Take some days to work out how you feel and get some perspective - your feelings may not change, but you may reconcile with yourself how you feel

I think it's s normal reaction OP. That's how I'd expect someone in your position to be, I think.

Look after yourself. Don't be guilt tripped by any third party, either. You don't have to contact her unless you decide to.

NC with my DM, she has had cancer I was told. Last week through the post I received a copy of her funeral plan, I stuffed it into a drawer without looking at it. I really do not care. What she put all her children through makes her an unfit mother grandmother and human being. My OH worries I will care when I get the news she is dead, perhaps who knows I am not going to worry about it.

Thanks all.

Still not really feeling anything... but I guess it might just be numbness.

I don't hate her, at all. She got a lot wrong with me, just as her mother did with her beforehand, and what she went through as a child left her too hurt and lost to care for me as I needed her to.

I can't hate her for that, or think badly of her –I do wish her well... I just can't have her in my life.

And I think that's why I feel confused and a bit guilty for not having any emotional response to the news... and very uncertain about what to do next.

Do I get in touch and risk re-opening a real emotional Pandora's Box in our relationship? Or do I not... and deal with the emotional consequences of THAT?

I think with these sorts of parent relationships, the adult-child does the bulk of the grieving in advance of the parent's death, as part of processing the loss of the parent you wanted and deserved, vs the parent you actually got.

Your reaction is totally normal.

My father died from cancer last year after 30 odd years of nc.

It's perfectly normal to feel upset. It's also perfectly normal not to feel upset. I was shocked to find myself crying a week or so after he died, and couldn't understand why, until I realised I was crying for what could have been. Then I was absolutely fine and rarely think about him. Don't put pressure on yourself to feel any particular way 💐

You don't have to get in touch, OP.

Whatever you are feeling is valid. It sounds like your mother let you down very badly and you had to detach for your own mental health. Be as kind to yourself now and just let yourself feel whatever you do, there’s no textbook even for ‘normal’ grieving, whatever that is.

Only get in touch if you feel it is the right thing for you.

Look after yourself . Xx

I was nc with my mother for three years before she eventually died of cancer. I didn’t go to her funeral and didn’t grieve her death. She was a selfish bitch who never loved either of her children.
I felt brief sadness afterwards, at the thought that now there was no possibility of her ever repenting or apologising for the way she treated us - but that was never going to happen in reality anyway.
Nobody can tell you how you “ought” to react, OP. You might feel anything from numbness, to relief she’ll soon be gone, to celebration, to sadness for what you never had and now never will, (i.e. a loving mum), to anger for how she behaved.
All those possibilities are fine. Don’t feel guilty, or feel pressured into resuming contact. Do whatever feels right for you. Just don’t expect a deathbed apology, so you won’t be disappointed when it doesn’t materialise.

I've been NC with my birth mum for 4 yrs right now.

The Stately Homes thread will help.

It's such a peaceful, angst-free life. I don't think anything in my life has made such a diffrerence to my MH

Holy shit.

Even as I was typing the above, I felt like I literally had a chandelier above me ready to fall.

I'm 4 years into this shit.

Wake up call: you might feel like you're in danger of imminent death.

You're not. It's ok.

I think with these sorts of parent relationships, the adult-child does the bulk of the grieving in advance of the parent's death, as part of processing the loss of the parent you wanted and deserved, vs the parent you actually got.
*
Your reaction is totally normal.*

PicsInRed is right, ladybee. If you haven't already done so, please think about heading over to the Stately Homes thread where you will find lots of support from others who are going through similar experiences.

Thanks again to all of you responding with such support and understanding.

It does feel better to just allow myself to feel what I'm feeling.

I've been over to Stately Homes a few times but actually often find it quite unhelpful – there are a few very active posters there who don't quite seem to be willing to engage with the grey areas of these kinds of relationships, and jump to respond to every post with a very black-and-white brush.

I don't blame her for being who she is, I just don't have contact with her because it's not healthy for me.

Same way as I don't blame arsenic for being poisonous, but I don't eat it either.

Maybe that's part numbness, part naivety, but it's where I'm at.

I guess I'm just wrestling with the question: what action can I take here that's consistent with the kind of person I want to be? What would let me feel like I've lived up to my own values and integrity?

And I cannot for the life of me figure that out right now. Part of me wants to reach out just to check in, and another part of me keeps questioning my motivations for doing so.

Turns out, boundaries are not my forte!

I think with any action we never truly know if it’s the right one, what would have happened if we had taken the other fork in the road etc.

All options in this case are hard, you are just struggling to see which is least bad for you and that is not clear.

Just be kind to yourself whatever you decide, you are a good person in a hard place. Look after yourself.

Hi ladybee

Was this person who told you aware of your own lack of relationship and contact with your mother?. If so why did they deem it necessary to contact you at all, it makes them the flying monkey.

You will ultimately need to grieve for the relationship you should have had rather than the one you actually got. It is not your fault your mother was abusive (she is merely now abusive and ill) and you did not make her that way

It may be of cold comfort to know that I felt similarly about my FIL.

If this person had not taken it upon themselves to tell you about your mother, you would be still unaware today. Do not feel guilted or at all pressured into resuming any sort of contact because that could well put you back to square one.

Expectations and reality when it comes to such disordered of thinking people are rarely one and the same. Deathbed confessionals of sorry are only found in movies.

Your mother made choices here and acted of her own free will throughout. She could have chosen not to abuse you, you did not ask to be born.

You have not carried on with her damaged legacy that has filtered down the generations; that has stopped with you.

Attila – my father is not a flying monkey, and he told me because he knows I'd want to know.

We've had this discussion before, and I asked him to let me know if he heard any news about her of this kind.

He's acting exactly in accordance with my considered and express wishes.

Please read my earlier posts properly and ask the questions you need to ask before tarring my situation with a blanket brush.

At no point have I said I want a deathbed confessional or apology (I don't), and I'm fully aware of her choices, her free will, AND the impact on 'free will' of the kind of mental health nightmares she's spent her life inside of.

These kinds of responses are precisely why I'm not in Stately Homes.

You don't have to give everything or anything. I suppose its whether you want to stick to principles or whether you want to do dutiful daughter. I am still trying to work out how not to have an attachment but I don't think you can. The grief is always there. Does she have practical needs taken care of?

Meant to say - perhaps neither choice fits the complexity of how you feel.

It looks like you've been able to detach effectively.

I feel the same about my exH. Were it not for the fact that we have a child together and have to keep occasional contact, he wouldn't be in my thoughts.
I left him through DV, but I don't feel angry nor do I need apologies or regret. I'm well past those.

So, I suspect it would be better for you to stay away from the drama.
I might only consider being in contact if she had nobody else and really needed support.

@SconesandTea, @Lweji, thanks.

This is the thing – she lives on a small island in Europe and from what I know of her, won't be asking for help from anyone, has no family connections apart from the odd phone call to my dad once or twice a year, and her friendships are intense and short-lived.

I don't think there is anyone who'd be there for her meaningfully if things got bad. She's in and out of hospital a lot with exhaustion, shingles... she had a heart attack a couple of years ago and nobody knew (except the farmer who found her on the road and drove her to hospital) until a week afterward when she had to call a friend to ask them to go to her house and feed the animals. There's been more drama in recent years with people apparently coming to her house with guns... but I don't know the detail of that and it'd be pretty outing to say any more.

So there's always drama, which I have no interest in or time for, hence the NC, AND I also want to know if / when things get really bad, because I wouldn't feel OK about her passing away in suffering, or completely alone.

Not because I want some dramatic apology or emotional reunion, just because I'm not OK with anyone dying that way.

But how do I know if things have got to that point if I'm completely out of touch –and in the full knowledge that she lies?!

Brain... aches... !!

Honestly, thank you so much to all of you for just being there and offering what you have to offer. I think @Mediumred and @Scones are right that there's no 'right answer'. I just wish I had a BIT more certainty about what to do.

Sometimes people have to live with the choices they make.

She hasn't contacted you herself, unless she asked that other person to do it.
OTOH, do you even know it's true, any of it?
I have a cousin who makes up all sorts of illnesses and she'd be 3x dead by now if she had had any.
It may well be part of her dramas.

Sorry if mentioned before, is she a natural of the island or did she move there?

Ladybee, I'm sorry Stately Homes has been of no help for you but I think I do understand your dilemma because it's something I struggle with. Over the years, I came to the quite shocking realisation that my mother doesn't love me, never has, simply sees me in terms of whether I am useful or not useful, and this determines her behaviour towards me. It's a moot point whether she has an undiagnosed MH issue (my DSis's view) or an undiagnosed personality disorder (my view) but either way, it's academic. M is cold, self-absorbed, irrational and prone to temper tantrums when she doesn't get her own way and she would never ever admit that there is a problem. From her point of view, she is the perfect mother even though our relationship has completely broken down.

The curious thing, though, is that I don't hate her. Yes, I get angry, especially when memories suddenly bubble to the surface, but that's all about the way I was treated (or more accurately, excluded, ignored, dismissed and neglected) from childhood onwards. But I don't hate her. What I actually feel for her now is...well, nothing really. And that is a little confusing and a little troubling. Surely I should feel something for my own mother? Surely I must have some good memories of her? So I dig about in the recesses of my mind trying to pin down something, anything, some recognisable feeling. But no, it eludes me. It's as if whatever was there has washed away or burnt out or just faded to grey. And that's what disturbs me, because I am a caring person (or believe I am) and this doesn't fit with how I believe myself to be.

If this is indeed similar to how you are feeling, Ladybee, then I am afraid I can't offer you ideas about the way forward but I hope, at the very least, that it helps you to know you are not the only one to struggle with this.

Theres nothing wrong in not feeling anything especially if you were mistreated by your mother. We all deal with grief in our ways and when a person who we were meant to trust implicitly abuses us, it's normal to feel a mixture of emotions on an uncoming death. I have a friend who went through a similar childhood, and she still feels conflicted 2 years after her mother's death. I really don't have much insight to offer, but I think that whatever you feel, is valid to you. Don't repress those emotions. Allow yourself to feel them.