Is it ok for parents to respond to suicidal teenager like this? (Trigger warning: suicide attempt)

[trixies]

Hi all.

Hope that this post is OK. Long-time lurker on this forum.

I'm currently working through some childhood stuff with my therapist. One thing that I'm coming up against time and time again is my feelings about how they handled the fact that I made a serious attempt on my life at 17. At the time I was too frightened to tell either of them what I'd done (they were emotionally abusive and functioning alcoholics and I was scared that people at hospital would ask questions about my home life). I was really sick for about 2 days but my parents just ignored it.

My mum found out later by snooping and got really angry with me for doing it. We didn't speak about it again until we had family therapy nearly 20 years later. Her reasoning was that I was going to uni a few months later and so she assumed I'd be OK.

I only found out my dad actually knew about it at the family therapy session. He'd never spoken to me about it.

I'm now NC for a variety of reasons but I just can't get my head around this. Part of me is so angry that my parents thought it was ok to just leave a teenager in this mess, and part of me is just like, well, they probably did all they were able to do and what's the point in dragging it up now. I didn't tell them when I was sick, so there was nothing they could have done etc. etc.

This is tearing me apart, 20 years on, and it just makes me so sad and angry with myself that I can't get past it.

Has anyone been through anything similar, on either side? How did your parents handle it or how did you handle it with your child?

Thank you all. Sorry this post is so depressing.

I was very depressed and believed I could talk to my parents (ha!) So I would talk about how I wanted to kill myself.

I guess my dad got bored of hearing about it because he snapped "put up or shut up" at me.
I put up. That was the beginning of several years in and out of the mental health unit.

My dad is dead now and my mum claims to have not been there (she was) and if she had known, she would have hit the roof. (She did and she didn't)

I held a lot of anger and resentment for decades. For that and for all the other things they did and said (it's a long story of crappy, selfish and manipulative people who had no business having children)

Now I just don't care. I have nothing beyond a polite and superficial relationship with my mother and can't imagine shedding a single tear when she dies.

@VettiyaIruken

I was very depressed and believed I could talk to my parents (ha!) So I would talk about how I wanted to kill myself.

I guess my dad got bored of hearing about it because he snapped "put up or shut up" at me.
I put up. That was the beginning of several years in and out of the mental health unit.

My dad is dead now and my mum claims to have not been there (she was) and if she had known, she would have hit the roof. (She did and she didn't)

I held a lot of anger and resentment for decades. For that and for all the other things they did and said (it's a long story of crappy, selfish and manipulative people who had no business having children)

Now I just don't care. I have nothing beyond a polite and superficial relationship with my mother and can't imagine shedding a single tear when she dies.

I'm so sorry to read what you went through. You're right, they didn't deserve you. I hope you have a happy life now.

I do, thank you.