Feelings of abandonment after the death of a parent

October 25, 2017 7:12 AM

I'm struggling with feelings of complete abandonment after my father died earlier this year, leaving me responsible for a number of his "problems." The more I think about all the shit he left me to deal with, the angrier I get. I feel like I shouldn't be struggling because I'm in my late 20s and I'm supposed to be mature and together, etc. but I'm not. What do I do with these feelings?

I feel like my father just didn't care that all his problems would become MY problems after he died. He didn't even make a will until 2 months before he died (he died in March). He didn't put any thing in place for my mom (who's a 72 year old mentally ill alcoholic) or get her any meaningful help when he was well or when he was sick. He neglected my parents house and it's going to need a multitude of repairs if we are ever to sell it.

Over the year from his diagnosis to death, I begged and pleaded with him to make a will, get everything in order, fix what we could in the house together... but he did nothing. He didn't make a will until he was *literally* on his death bed. I feel like all these problems: my mom and the house were just DUMPED on me so he didn't have to deal with them in life or death. I begged him so much to help with these things and get them sorted before he died and he didn't care.

I feel so abandoned and I almost feel... tricked... by my father. I don't understand why or how he thought I would be capable of taking care of my mom and the house. I'M NOT. I feel like he just didn't want to think about any of these problems and dumped them on me! I KNOW this is terrible and insensitive to say, but at some level I just feel like he didn't give a shit and dumped everything on me.

I feel like he never loved me if this is what he did to me in the end. All the years before his death were filled with lies and deceit, I feel like if he really loved me he never, ever would have dumped all this shit on me and now I just feel completely abandoned and... well... stupid for ever believing my parents loved me in the first place. I begged him to get everything sorted, but he just didn't give a shit.

posted by modesty.blaise to Human Relations (24 answers total)

This sucks and I am sorry.

When my alcoholic father died I went through a lot of the same feelings. The useful term for me was "complicated grief" where you are dealing with the absence of a person from your life but also just incredibly angry at them. And alcoholism sucks because on the one hand it's a disease that people really do get stuck into. But on the other hand it's a weird sticky disease that gets everyone else sick too. I don't know how much you've worked on your own issues about your parents' drinking but that's often a good start, particularly because you're still having to deal with your mom. What helped for me (and everyone's different, but there are some patterns for kids of alcoholics) was hardccore boundaries between my life and the lives of the people who were not managing their own lives.

This gets complicated because often alcoholics or people with mental illnesses (my mother died recently, this has been on my mind lately) often are surrounded by people who buy into their thing and as the person trying to assert boundaries YOU become the person they lash out at, not the fucked up person who did all the fucked up stuff. Again, it sucks.

So I'd back up here and look at this with a triage mentality. You are not your dad and you only have minor responsibilities to do the things he would not do for himself. As some examples....

- the house can be sold without repairs of needed (you get a lower price, whatever)
- your mom can get assistance from other family members or even the state if needed (I am not saying abandon her, but keep her needs in perspective with your own)
- table the idea of whether your parents loved you for now, it's not productive and ultimately doesn't matter. The usual thing I think for myself is that they loved me in their own way but they were deeply broken people who made bad choices and I have the option to make better ones. When I'm feeling higher functioning I work on compassion. When I am not, I just try to not think about it.

And then there's just getting you-centered support, for you. Maybe that's a grief support group, maybe it's ACOA, maybe it's a book from the library. Alcoholics are notoriously self-centered they leave a vacuum of needs and mess behind when they die, often. You deserve someone to listen to you and care about how this affects YOU. Give yourself some space to focus on that as you muddle forward with this. Again, I am so sorry.
posted by jessamyn at 7:24 AM on October 25, 2017 [61 favorites]

You can't live other people's lives for them. You are not responsible for the actions of others. The dead can no longer hurt you.

You need a support system. Someone to help you identify what you can actually change and what is beyond your control.

Sounds like you got the short end, but you need to take care of yourself first. Give yourself permission to be selfish. I won't speak to whether you were actually loved and cared for, as I don't think it changes the reality of where you are now.

You need help, your mother needs help. You can't help her if you can't help yourself.
posted by cjorgensen at 7:26 AM on October 25, 2017 [1 favorite]

Yeah, you know, some of us just get assholes for dads. Statistically speaking, it's not surprising. I mean, sometimes I look back and think, well at least he didn't sexually assault me. At least there's that.

My dad walked away from the family when I had just graduated from college. I'm 57 now, and I look back on that time -- checking my mom into rehab, arranging for fulltime care of my 90-year-old grandmother, navigating them through divorce -- and I still wonder how I found the emotional resources to do it.

I'm the youngest sibling but I got no help from my sister or brother, no help or even encouragement from my mother's sister, just my 22-year-old self, fresh out of college, a month or two into my first permanent job.

It sucks.

And it particularly sucks when it's shit visited upon you by a parent. I mean ffs weren't they supposed to be helpful? Isn't that a parent's job?

I've found that the best thing you can do with that anger and righteous indignation is to channel it into energy and determination of the "I'll show him" variety or the "he may be a coward but I'm not" type. That can energize you to get done what needs to be done.

Then (and I say this with compassion because I've been there), take an honest agenda of what actually needs to be done vs what he should have done but whatever he didn't do it so fuck it. I myself kept trying to slot stuff into the first group that really belonged In the second, because I was so angry with him that I wanted the list of What He Left For Me To Clean Up to be as long as possible. Let go whatever you can. You have a lifetime to be proud of yourself for doing what you're able to do and you don't need to clean up all, or even most, of the pile of steaming dog doo he left behind.
posted by janey47 at 7:34 AM on October 25, 2017 [19 favorites]

Here's the thing...

Even if your Dad did literally everything right and got everything lined up and paved the way for smooth sailing, I would be willing to bet money that you'd have some of these feelings still. Death IS an abandonment. It's not on purpose (generally) and it's not something any of us can avoid, but it's someone leaving you and there are always going to be the issues left behind, and those issues are almost always in tying up all the frustrating, bureaucratic loose ends that come with estates and money and...stuff.

So yes, he could have planned better, but you'd still have to do all the long, tedious, difficult work required to wrap up his estate either way. And it always, ALWAYS sucks, which is why many people choose an executor/executrix who isn't necessarily very close to things to do it (for pay), because dealing with your feelings about the person and your feelings about the process are two different things that necessarily have to happen simultaneously.

Just take everything as it comes, one step at a time, and try not to get too overwhelmed with all of it all at once. And if you can, get some professionals to help you with the process of it. People who know about fixing up houses, people who know about sorting out finances, professionals to help with your Mom.

It's not easy, and it won't get easy, and everything you are feeling is 100% valid.
posted by xingcat at 7:58 AM on October 25, 2017 [11 favorites]

Seconding that you don't have to make repairs on the house. My elderly relatives left houses in absolutely terrible condition - the city was threatening to tear one of them down because it was a hazard. They have all been sold as is, including the decades worth of hoarded crap inside. You won't get as much for it, but you have so much on your plate, you really need to do triage and figure out what is absolutely essential. The house has presumably gone without repairs for years. Unless there is something that is literally dangerous, e.g., exposed wires that are sparking, it can stay the way it is for a while longer.

Also, I know this is super hard and terrible, but you probably won't feel this way forever. You will be processing this grief for years - and it will get better eventually. However, it is completely OK to feel this way now. And when I say it will get better, don't feel like it has to get better on any schedule.
posted by FencingGal at 7:59 AM on October 25, 2017 [6 favorites]

Do you have resources that would let you find a therapist or counsellor? Finding the energy to even start with some triage and figure out what needs to be done might be easier if you have someone to give these feelings to, someone who can help reflect them back to you and sort through them. Support groups are definitely an answer, too, but if you have the money or the insurance, an individual therapist could provide some helpful support through all this.

I don't say this to minimise your feelings or try to take your dad's side or anything, but: dealing with an illness, especially a terminal one, is pretty difficult. That he left you with all of this doesn't mean he didn't love you; it might be the case that he simply lacked the wherewithal to handle it all himself, even with your help. That doesn't mean you don't have a right to feel angry, and feeling angry about it still is totally normal! But as time passes, you might feel less angry, and the blame and abandonment might subside. (Again: that doesn't mean they're not valid feelings in the moment. But feelings are subject to change.)
posted by halation at 8:06 AM on October 25, 2017

I've been following your questions and I am always glad to jump in but I do think you would also benefit from more concrete support in your actual life. Can you join ACOA or a support group for caregivers?

It's absolutely fine to be angry at your father, and your mother, because they have not been good parents to you at the very least in all this, and possibly going back a very long time. It does sound like some of the anger you would normally experience at your mother (it's her house too, she does not deal with her illness and if I remember correctly doesn't eat and just hangs out at a bar) is going towards your dad, which is normal and understandable. He should have fixed your mother (but couldn't/didn't) and now you can't fix your mother. Or the house.

Life is sometimes like that. There are problems you cannot fix. Your dad left you a mess, but maybe it is just a mess, not a mess-you-must-clean-up.

Take care.
posted by warriorqueen at 8:38 AM on October 25, 2017 [4 favorites]

I would like to get jessamyn's answer engraved on a plaque. It is nearly always a disease in which narcissism and deception play a major, major role, and the weird thing is that it's partly communicable. Not the alcoholism itself, necessarily, but the insanity of it. I've seen spouses and children of alcoholics dragged into their own style of unhealthy thought and action without ever taking a drink or using drugs. I have a dear friend who's right now going well beyond the call of duty to try to save her marriage to a man who's suffering PTSD because of his alcoholic father. It can damage generations. I'm sorry you've been on the business end of it all.

Therapy or Al-Anon or ACOA, please please please. It is shocking what just talking to someone can do to help your mental health. It is shocking what it can mean to be in a room full of people who know what you've been through before you open your mouth to tell your story. And yes, triage. Try to be at peace with the fact that, no matter what some people will say, this is not your mess to clean up, anymore than his was your disease to fight. Try to allow yourself to feel your feelings and pursue your needs first.

Whether or not he loved you is not an answerable question, and not worth the obsession. The only question that matters is whether you are worthy of love, and the answer to that is a resounding YES. If you don't believe that, find a group of people with experiences similar to yours, and I'd bet good money that they'll love you until you do.
posted by middleclasstool at 8:44 AM on October 25, 2017 [3 favorites]

What I've learned (since my narcissist mother died late last year, leaving enormous piles of steaming shit behind) is the importance of redefining what it means to do things "right." "Right" no longer means how your parent/professional contractors/Emily Post/fantasy ideal child would have done things: it just mean what works for you in the moment or how you imagine future you will feel. My brother and I spent literally months doing things "right" out of some idea that we had to uphold other people's standards. But it was exhausting and expensive and, in the end, none of it mattered. We would have been better off, in every way, just doing whatever was quickest and most expedient. Do not sacrifice your emotional, physical and financial health on the alter of what's "right."
posted by carmicha at 8:59 AM on October 25, 2017 [12 favorites]

something I've observed in my own (extremely loving!) parents is that... they love me extremely, and they do their best, and that is sometimes not all that good. It's not important to list out their failings here, but just to say: yes, great love can coexist with weakness, with self-delusion, with lack of clarity, with procrastination, with insurmountable demons.

It's a lesson we all have to learn, that parents aren't omnipotent, and sometimes their flaws win over even the best of intentions that they might have.

I'm sorry you're dealing with this. It's really hard. If it helps, in my study of estate law I learned that it is extremely common for people to be psychologically unable to really get their shit in order, so much so that it's called out as a major problem in the practice. It's very hard to get clients to show up to meetings and gather their paperwork - and that's the ones who have actually made the appointments and started the process of their own volition!
posted by fingersandtoes at 9:14 AM on October 25, 2017 [4 favorites]

I feel like I shouldn't be struggling because I'm in my late 20s and I'm supposed to be mature and together, etc. but I'm not.

Just picking up this thread . . . there is isn't really "too old or too young" in grieving or dealing with hurt or overwhelm. We often do damage when we start "shoulding" ourselves about how to feel, how to react or how well we should be handling things. You are feeling what you're feeling. Please don't overload your plate with feeling bad about having totally normal reactions to your father's life and death.
posted by annaramma at 10:27 AM on October 25, 2017

That's a difficult situation that you are understandably reacting to by putting demands on yourself. The part that stuck out to me was you wondering if your father even loved you. I can't answer that question for you but I'm not sure I can answer that question for myself, either. My guess is that somewhere inside that head there was love for you, maybe even a lot of love. But the impact of the terrible disease (whether it be alcoholism or narcissism) over the years diminished his capacity to show it. It sounds like he was trying and failing to keep his own life together (who would choose to live like that?). Maybe he just couldn't get it together enough to express that love. I tell my son I love him at least once in the morning and once at night, to make sure there's not a single day that his father doesn't tell him he loves him. Should your father have done that for you? Yes, he should have. Should he have taken the most fundamental steps to address the situation created by his pending death. Yes, he should done that too. But our parents can be deeply flawed people, who aren't meeting their own most basic standards.
posted by wnissen at 11:23 AM on October 25, 2017

Two thoughts.

The things you have been dealing with and continue to deal with are hard. That is before suffering the loss of a parent which is also hard. There is no objective age limit for how long they should feel hard or not. Your father was well out of his 20s and he didn't tackle these problems because it was easier for him not to. These things can be difficult because of emotional aspects, difficult physically or logistically or a combination of all of these things. So don't be harsh on yourself because it all feels very difficult - these things are objectively difficult.

jessamyn is very wise. The one aspect about how 'difficult' these things are that you can control is how you approach them.

The easiest one to achieve this with is the question of repairs. You don't have to repair the house. Assuming your mother still lives in the house and not in residential care the only essential repairs are any work necessary to stop the house from collapsing or going up in flames while she is asleep or anything necessary to stop her from freezing to death in her home - major structural problems, boiler problems and electricity problems. Anything else is not essential. Sell as is when it is time to sell. Use the funds from the estate or your mothers funds to pay somebody to do any essential repairs when they arise - these are not jobs for amateurs.
posted by koahiatamadl at 11:46 AM on October 25, 2017

I'm sorry you find yourself in such a sad and difficult situation.

In time, you may come to accept that your father could not, in his last six months, solve problems that he had been unable to solve in the previous five years. I know from experience with my father, that his circle of interest contracted as his conditioned worsened. That really had nothing to do with his love for me or any other member of the family.

At present, you need to lighten the load. That may mean being decisive rather than careful, and doing the expedient thing rather than the optimal thing.
posted by SemiSalt at 12:23 PM on October 25, 2017 [1 favorite]

If I were in your shoes, I'd let go of hating yourself for being terrible and insensitive when you acknowledge he didn't give a shit because he didn't. You have my exclusive permission to never feel guilty whenever you acknowledge what a narcissistic shit he was, because that will serve you far better in the long-run than continuing to defend any idealized image of his fatherhood to yourself on any level.

I almost feel... tricked... by my father.

I know I was.

FWIW, I was in my late 20s when my creepy alcoholic dad passed away. I just wanted everything to go easier, so I went along and accepted it when he named me executor, while in the hospital on his death bed (f***ing old man drama). He was a gross old white man whose lifetime of white male power manifested another Harvey Weinstein in him. I was his visible-minority daughter who, in some ways similar to you, had recently finished post-secondary. My own life had been struggling to finally take off, and then I got saddled with all that -- with cleaning up his trailer trash property (yes it was, complete with a dozen wrecked vehicles, trashed from drinking and driving), with helping my mom (his hostage) transition out of there, with being scapegoated by his in-group for the sexually predatory behaviors he got away with while alive (when you're a brown woman whose old white dad was a sexual predator, you can't win... I am not exaggerating whatsoever when I say, thank god for transition houses), and then some.

I realize this is probably not quite your experience(!), however, whatever you are dealing with in the aftermath of your shitty dad's passing, you're not alone in the archetype of this experience at all. It's true that you can sell the house as is, and it's okay if it sells at less than the maximum possible value. In my dad's case, his house was so shitty and piecework that the buyer promptly tore it down after making the purchase. He was worried I'd be offended. Instead I told him I was relieved to see someone more blessed in commonsense take over and wished him well with a sweet, sweet smile on my face.

I probably don't have great advice about the anger, but I will try to say it like this. It was always very clear that my dad was repressing generation's worth of repressed, toxic dysfunctional shit. Nothing (especially severe abuses, including sexual abuses, of men in the family) ever got dealt with, and the karmic debt of that unresolved toxic history is what came around, needing to be paid in full, when he finally died. Using my anger to fuel what it took to clean up a fair portion of that debt was a very effective way to deal with that whole situation.

If any grief counseling is available to you, take advantage of it. This burden with your dad was years, even generations in the making. It's realistic to expect that you will be ruminating on this for some time (i.e. a couple years, at least). Spend your time reading books by John Bradshaw, Alice Miller, or anything self-help that sheds light on your story. I really think unresolved anger for a parent is the most toxic cancer-feeding kind of anger out there, so I highly recommend not denying yourself any truths your anger is legitimately signaling to you. Your anger wants to serve its purpose for you, so don't resist it; work with it to release it and release yourself from your father's share of the human condition which he so cowardly chose to bequeath to you. Good luck and take care, however you decide to proceed.
posted by human ecologist at 12:45 PM on October 25, 2017 [10 favorites]

Have you considered that you don't have to do this? You don't have to take care of your mom. You don't have to take care of the house. You can just walk away.
posted by medusa at 12:55 PM on October 25, 2017 [2 favorites]

Mortality is really hard for people to face. It's a rare person who can say "I am going to die, and all of my stuff is going to become A Problem for my next of kin. Let me preemptively throw away my excess stuff and prepare for what my nonexistence will be like for my loved ones." I have seen a few people do that, but not many. I don't think it means he didn't love you; I think it reflects his own limitations. It is still a big pain for you to deal with. I'm sorry for your loss.
posted by slidell at 2:45 PM on October 25, 2017 [2 favorites]

I feel like he just didn't want to think about any of these problems and dumped them on me! I KNOW this is terrible and insensitive to say, but at some level I just feel like he didn't give a shit and dumped everything on me.

That's probably true, and it's okay to feel that way about it. HE was insensitive and too self-absorbed to get his affairs in order. I'm sorry. It's perfectly NORMAL to be angry in this situation. You're not terrible for thinking this.
posted by crunchy potato at 6:26 PM on October 25, 2017

It’s absolutely OK to be angry at someone just for dying. My dad didn’t do anything nearly as egregious as yours did but twenty-something years later I’m still angry that he wasn’t around for various milestones in my life. I’m angry that he didn’t do enough to prove that he loved me in the year between his diagnosis and his death. I’m angry that I haven’t been able to have an adult relationship with him. And so on.

You’re not alone and you’re not guilty of anything. If your anger means stepping back from the things you feel obligated to do then please do so. Obligation leads to resentment and anger and you deserve to protect yourself from that. Whatever consequences there may be, your responsibility ends at the point that it’s going to hurt you.

Please take care of yourself. ❤️ All the best.
posted by bendy at 10:09 PM on October 25, 2017

"I feel like he never loved me if this is what he did to me in the end. All the years before his death were filled with lies and deceit, I feel like if he really loved me he never, ever would have dumped all this shit on me and now I just feel completely abandoned and... well... stupid for ever believing my parents loved me in the first place. I begged him to get everything sorted, but he just didn't give a shit."

I don't know if this will help or not, but I wrote wills for a while, did estate planning, and there are a LOT of people -- some of them wonderful, loving parents -- who leave their children with this sort of mess. They can't face their own mortality. Or by the time they try to do it, they're too sick for the massive investment of energy it requires. Or they're a little confused. Or they try, but the choices they have to make are too overwhelming, too emotional, so they keep quitting as soon as they begin. Some people also just literally do not care what happens after they're dead, which always took me aback a little bit when they were diligent and careful parents/grandparents/community members, but their attitude was that it wasn't worth dealing with any pre-death planning for death, because once they were dead they were dead and they didn't really care what happened then.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:31 PM on October 25, 2017 [7 favorites]

All the years before his death were filled with lies and deceit, I feel like if he really loved me he never, ever would have dumped all this shit on me

It's unclear whether your father was also an alcoholic? It seems from your question that that is your mother's issue, but not necessarily his (apart from the extent to which he enabled her and failed to get proper treatment for her). If he was in fact an alcoholic, I'm not sure my input applies.

But if NOT,

A lot of what you're feeling is just extremely normal grief. The anger phase of grief isn't always like a quick two-week thing where you proceed in an orderly fashion from sadness to anger and then bargaining etc.. It can be a mess that changes week to week and pops up randomly.

I will say that my late father, who died when I was 26, loved all of us tremendously, but he did not in any way prepare for his death. Partly this was because he was very young -- he just hadn't hit the age where your lawyer or whoever goes, so have you thought about a will? and so on.

But it was also because he was in a lot of denial; he knew he was leaving behind very beloved kids who still needed his help, and feeling that he just couldn't leave them with a mess. Up til the very last, when he left his apartment to go into hospice, he firmly believed that he would get better, or anyway better-enough, and have time to tie up loose ends. He did not.

But let me be clear, at the time, I didn't have any of these thoughts. At the time, I was pissed. Holy shit, was I pissed. And I doubted everything, and I felt lied to and abandoned, and all of that. I don't have great advice except to say, it eventually passed. In the meantime I saw therapists and acted out in relationships and yelled a lot and cried a lot and blew through some jobs and stuff, but ultimately all that really helped was time. It took about 4 years before I could look at things in a clear-eyed, to see both that my dad loved me and our family, and that he was also imperfect. I could see that he hadn't left but rather had been taken, and through no fault of anyone's.

So let the big questions rage and try not to feel like you have to answer them. You don't have to conclude "my father never ever loved me." You can just wonder about it. Rage about the practical aspects and get as much help with them as you can afford. Get a counselor or an al-anon group to talk about your mom. And one foot in front of the other, pissed off as you'd like. Give it about four years.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 11:34 AM on October 26, 2017 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks for the replies everyone, it's just taking a while for everything to sink in.

Are there alternatives that aren't faith based for Alanon? I think some aspects are helpful, but I have zero patience for that "higher power" stuff. I'm not religious and I find that aspect of Alanon to be really off putting.

My dad wasn't an alcoholic, however. He just enabled my mom and didn't really care that she was, I don't know, it's just a mess.
posted by modesty.blaise at 4:50 PM on October 26, 2017

Yeah, I think ACoA is a traditional 12-step program. FWIW, the thing about the "higher power" thing is that it can be anything you want it to be, a principle or something with significant personal or symbolic value. The main thing is that you have a guiding light that is not you, something to strive toward and draw strength from. There are plenty of atheists and agnostics who go through programs like these who have higher powers that are records or radiators or simply the concept of a life at something resembling peace.

That said, you will hear a lot of God talk in a 12-step program when people share their experiences. If you're in a red state, you'll hear a LOT of it, and I totally get that it can be really off putting and alienating. But you'll also likely encounter quite a few people with problems with organized religion, even in said red states. And unless your local group is pretty fucked up, no one in that room will give a damn what you believe in, personally. They'll let you speak your truth, and they'll listen. So if you can't find a more secular alternative, I'd encourage you to at least give it a look and see if it's too much for you.
posted by middleclasstool at 8:17 AM on October 27, 2017

Call any local women's resource center, transition house, or cultural center and ask if they're running any support groups for anything -- women who have suffered abuse, grief and loss, women's mental health, etc. Just test the waters and go ahead and ask for something non-religious. Set small realistic goals (e.g. phone 3 places in the phonebook that sound like they might possibly offer a relevant service) and see where that gets you. Work within what your energy levels are allowing you.

In the fresh couple years of my dad's death, I found one unemployment support group for women, one mental health support group providing instructions in mindfulness and how to use CBT to manage stress, and two women's circles (for all topics, for anyone struggling) with a legitimate indigenous cultural approach. I'm not a fan of religion in Al-anon either. I didn't do these all at once, but accessed them over those couple years as they were available. There were definitely some free services that I did not pursue past the first experience. Be mindful that you are vulnerable at this time, so be cautious for what will serve you best for the time spent (e.g. I had a grief counselor completely shut me down the moment I finally relaxed enough to cry; maybe she thought I was fake-crying or maybe she was too fragile to handle the weight of the story, but I was specifically there not to bottle in the feelings I wasn't safe to express around other family members, and she was just another disappointment in a long line of them that year who shut. me. down. Since it sounds like you're already coming from a family that has consistently taught you that your mental and emotional health needs don't matter at all, be cautious.).
posted by human ecologist at 1:08 PM on October 27, 2017