Dealing with my anger and my mom's death
November 24, 2014 3:02 PM Subscribe
I am having real problems coping with my mother's death and my anger at her that goes back a long way and it is interfering with my life.
I am a 46-year old single male. In June and July my then 69-year old mom started to suffer from dementia and breathing problems. I spent significant time away from my home and flew to my hometown three times to help care for her and make decisions. She never made it out of the hospital and died on September 5.
It was very traumatic. I lived in the hospital a lot, including the final 9 days, where my brother, and my two aunts lived in her room (hospice in hospital) and she had agonal breathing that haunted every minute I was there. It was the hardest thing I ever have lived through.
Our relationship was quite difficult. She had severe bipolar and had elements of borderline personality disorder. She was angry every other day, ruled the house with her anger, got physical with us, and I was exposed to a lot of bad things.
The worst was her suicide threats. I was often asked by my father to help calm her down and by the time I was 11 I was often sitting with her in the guest room while she told me over and over again how she was going to kill herself and how depressed she was. Along with the emotional abuse this made me have a lot of anger towards her, despite loving her tons and wanting her to get better.
I eventually got into therapy. 9 years. It really didn't help. I'm not looking to go back, as I spent thousands of dollars and did not get much out of it.
She also had an emotional affair on my dad that caused their divorce. It was totally stupid, she tried to take it physical (old man couldn't get it up) and destroyed her marriage, to her everlasting and admitted regret. I have a lot of anger and trust issues stemming from that very shitty time in my life.
Since my mom's death, I have had problems focusing at work and have been obsessed with reading stories of cheating, marriages in crisis, and such stories on various internet sites. Its interfering with my life and especially my work.
It has not been all bad since her death. I have started making changes to my life and getting out of a shell I put myself in the last decade, mainly because I find intimate relationships with women quite difficult due to a lack of trust (and not leaving people who were not good for me quick enough because of my past). But I am currently engaging in obsession. I think it is because I am having trouble accessing my grief and my anger at her at the same time.
I believe one of the reasons I am doing this is that after going through being in that hospital room and watching her die, I decided I was going to make the efforts to get into an intimate relationship, something I had avoided for a long time after a bad break up some years back. I think that as I decided to move in this direction, powerful defense mechanisms from when I was a kid and just kept my head down and never tried to have my needs met, are kicking in.
I am not sure what to do. I want to stop the obsessing. I am currently doing CBT, but I am done with talk therapy.
I am a 46-year old single male. In June and July my then 69-year old mom started to suffer from dementia and breathing problems. I spent significant time away from my home and flew to my hometown three times to help care for her and make decisions. She never made it out of the hospital and died on September 5.
It was very traumatic. I lived in the hospital a lot, including the final 9 days, where my brother, and my two aunts lived in her room (hospice in hospital) and she had agonal breathing that haunted every minute I was there. It was the hardest thing I ever have lived through.
Our relationship was quite difficult. She had severe bipolar and had elements of borderline personality disorder. She was angry every other day, ruled the house with her anger, got physical with us, and I was exposed to a lot of bad things.
The worst was her suicide threats. I was often asked by my father to help calm her down and by the time I was 11 I was often sitting with her in the guest room while she told me over and over again how she was going to kill herself and how depressed she was. Along with the emotional abuse this made me have a lot of anger towards her, despite loving her tons and wanting her to get better.
I eventually got into therapy. 9 years. It really didn't help. I'm not looking to go back, as I spent thousands of dollars and did not get much out of it.
She also had an emotional affair on my dad that caused their divorce. It was totally stupid, she tried to take it physical (old man couldn't get it up) and destroyed her marriage, to her everlasting and admitted regret. I have a lot of anger and trust issues stemming from that very shitty time in my life.
Since my mom's death, I have had problems focusing at work and have been obsessed with reading stories of cheating, marriages in crisis, and such stories on various internet sites. Its interfering with my life and especially my work.
It has not been all bad since her death. I have started making changes to my life and getting out of a shell I put myself in the last decade, mainly because I find intimate relationships with women quite difficult due to a lack of trust (and not leaving people who were not good for me quick enough because of my past). But I am currently engaging in obsession. I think it is because I am having trouble accessing my grief and my anger at her at the same time.
I believe one of the reasons I am doing this is that after going through being in that hospital room and watching her die, I decided I was going to make the efforts to get into an intimate relationship, something I had avoided for a long time after a bad break up some years back. I think that as I decided to move in this direction, powerful defense mechanisms from when I was a kid and just kept my head down and never tried to have my needs met, are kicking in.
I am not sure what to do. I want to stop the obsessing. I am currently doing CBT, but I am done with talk therapy.
This post was deleted for the following reason: posters request -- LobsterMitten
« Older Oldish dog seeks new interview questions. | The Heaviest Heavy Metal? Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.