Father death and adult trauma from the past
July 25, 2024 4:22 PM Subscribe
How does the death of an abusive father affect the trauma issues of his adult children?
A 61 year old woman was physically abused and verbally degraded by her father when she was a young teenager. This led to life-long issues around self-esteem, shame, and fearing the judgements of others. In later years, these problems led to debilitating insomnia.
Despite those difficult years, the woman's adult relationship with her father was mostly good. He is now 93 and very impaired both physically and mentally. He will probably die within the next few years.
What effect might his death have on the deep-seated issues in his daughter? More specifically: if trauma is caused by an inner part that isn't aware that the woman is now 61 and no longer has to fear her father, will this part, and these traumas, be aware of and affected by his death?
A 61 year old woman was physically abused and verbally degraded by her father when she was a young teenager. This led to life-long issues around self-esteem, shame, and fearing the judgements of others. In later years, these problems led to debilitating insomnia.
Despite those difficult years, the woman's adult relationship with her father was mostly good. He is now 93 and very impaired both physically and mentally. He will probably die within the next few years.
What effect might his death have on the deep-seated issues in his daughter? More specifically: if trauma is caused by an inner part that isn't aware that the woman is now 61 and no longer has to fear her father, will this part, and these traumas, be aware of and affected by his death?
I imagine the death may symbolize being abandoned (even though… death being inevitable and not deliberately chosen by the father) and so the 61 year olds inner parts related to attachment issues may bubble up.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 10:37 PM on July 25
posted by St. Peepsburg at 10:37 PM on July 25
I identify a lot with this person, only 20 years sooner and my abusive parent died relatively suddenly, after a decade or so of being “normal” with me (I think they got tired). It’s relatively new for me (less than six months or so) since my parent died so I’m currently moving a lot between anger on behalf of my younger self and relief that this person can never let me down again.
I have been working through Grieving an Abuser Relatively simple prompts that don’t feel like they assume you feel a certain way about the person you are grieving.
I’m also happy to speak to this person if you want to put us in touch with each other
posted by Francies at 11:38 PM on July 25 [5 favorites]
I have been working through Grieving an Abuser Relatively simple prompts that don’t feel like they assume you feel a certain way about the person you are grieving.
I’m also happy to speak to this person if you want to put us in touch with each other
posted by Francies at 11:38 PM on July 25 [5 favorites]
warriorqueen: If you’re asking about dissociative stuff
I think they're talking about IFS.
posted by capricorn at 5:20 AM on July 26
I think they're talking about IFS.
posted by capricorn at 5:20 AM on July 26
If we're talking about IFS parts, be aware that any/all of the parts could be holding trauma (which they didn't cause, obviously) and could react in their own ways.
Taking a step back from parts, keep in mind that trauma is an injury to the nervous system (among other things), and just like cancer or a broken leg, that's systemic. The nervous system doesn't have an age, it does not know it is safer than it might have been at some other time. Which is why I think "relationship with her father was mostly good" is incorrect to the point of problematic, because that well stays poisoned. Abusers do not get a pass because they appear to have reformed or whatever. His abuse stands, forever, it cannot be undone, and she can put it on his tombstone if she wants. Her relationship with her father may not have appeared difficult from the outside and it may have not contained outward drama, that's the best you can say. You're assuming the fear stops or is stoppable; it does not and cannot and what he did never goes away.
Anyway, grief (or any sort of major shift in life circumstances and/or identity) is also a nervous system injury. We don't really have enough data on it to identify patterns, but in my experience there's a couple of specific things that happen when an abuser dies. First is what I call "death of opportunity" - when someone is alive there is at least a 0.00001% chance they will "fix it", disregarding that fixing is not really possible, but our nervous system wants it to be and is waiting. That waiting has to stop when someone dies.
Secondly, the consequences of traumatic stress to inform our identity and personality, and if you want to IFS that you can call it protectors and exiles or you can say it manifests in the ways a person manages intense emotions/vulnerability, but in any case when you've built your Self around the presence of a dangerous entity in your life and that entity dies, a piece of your infrastructure has gone away and it's hard to say what kind of chaos might ensue.
People bounce really unpredictably in grief, it's like a Superball with an extra glob of glue on one side, you never really know where it's going to go until it goes there. Part of this is that we do not teach people how to deal with loss, we've lost most of our social traditions meant to support grief, and we have so much bullshit mythology filling the void of knowledge. You could take 10 people in basically the same circumstances and none of them might react in the same way to the death of their abuser. Some people break when the pressure is finally lifted, some people find a whole new way of thriving, some are flung headfirst into trauma processing work whether they've already done a bunch of that or not, some end up stuck in complicated grief (which, just to speak to our cultural problem with grief, I know these criteria need some kind of time frame but "weeks to months" is capitalist bullshit as even the most elegantly well-processed grief can disrupt sleep and otherwise interfere to some extent with Activities of Daily Living for six months to a year).
I have an extensive list of grief and trauma resources linked from my profile, including some from a neuropsych perspective if you want to read more about the little bit we know about what the brain does with grief.
posted by Lyn Never at 7:39 AM on July 26 [3 favorites]
Taking a step back from parts, keep in mind that trauma is an injury to the nervous system (among other things), and just like cancer or a broken leg, that's systemic. The nervous system doesn't have an age, it does not know it is safer than it might have been at some other time. Which is why I think "relationship with her father was mostly good" is incorrect to the point of problematic, because that well stays poisoned. Abusers do not get a pass because they appear to have reformed or whatever. His abuse stands, forever, it cannot be undone, and she can put it on his tombstone if she wants. Her relationship with her father may not have appeared difficult from the outside and it may have not contained outward drama, that's the best you can say. You're assuming the fear stops or is stoppable; it does not and cannot and what he did never goes away.
Anyway, grief (or any sort of major shift in life circumstances and/or identity) is also a nervous system injury. We don't really have enough data on it to identify patterns, but in my experience there's a couple of specific things that happen when an abuser dies. First is what I call "death of opportunity" - when someone is alive there is at least a 0.00001% chance they will "fix it", disregarding that fixing is not really possible, but our nervous system wants it to be and is waiting. That waiting has to stop when someone dies.
Secondly, the consequences of traumatic stress to inform our identity and personality, and if you want to IFS that you can call it protectors and exiles or you can say it manifests in the ways a person manages intense emotions/vulnerability, but in any case when you've built your Self around the presence of a dangerous entity in your life and that entity dies, a piece of your infrastructure has gone away and it's hard to say what kind of chaos might ensue.
People bounce really unpredictably in grief, it's like a Superball with an extra glob of glue on one side, you never really know where it's going to go until it goes there. Part of this is that we do not teach people how to deal with loss, we've lost most of our social traditions meant to support grief, and we have so much bullshit mythology filling the void of knowledge. You could take 10 people in basically the same circumstances and none of them might react in the same way to the death of their abuser. Some people break when the pressure is finally lifted, some people find a whole new way of thriving, some are flung headfirst into trauma processing work whether they've already done a bunch of that or not, some end up stuck in complicated grief (which, just to speak to our cultural problem with grief, I know these criteria need some kind of time frame but "weeks to months" is capitalist bullshit as even the most elegantly well-processed grief can disrupt sleep and otherwise interfere to some extent with Activities of Daily Living for six months to a year).
I have an extensive list of grief and trauma resources linked from my profile, including some from a neuropsych perspective if you want to read more about the little bit we know about what the brain does with grief.
posted by Lyn Never at 7:39 AM on July 26 [3 favorites]
After my abusive father died, I was really angry that he never acknowledged his abuse of me. Then I was glad he was gone. I've never been sad about it. I'm still a little angry about the way he chose to exist in this world but I've been able to come to terms with the fact that me being me had nothing whatsoever to do with who he was/how he was.
posted by cooker girl at 9:29 AM on July 26 [2 favorites]
posted by cooker girl at 9:29 AM on July 26 [2 favorites]
Likely no effect. If the inner part isn't aware the woman is 61, it probably won't hear the future death news. But you can work to help them hear, like others have said - IFS therapy.
posted by london explorer girl at 3:18 AM on July 30
posted by london explorer girl at 3:18 AM on July 30
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Death is destabilizing for people for sure, and if there are parts who are - how to put this - still aligned to the father being The Person (to fear, to love, who defined the world) then yes, it will be hard for them. It is likely to have an impact on everyone, but some will experience it like “oh this guy died” and some like “oh this person I care for died” and some will experience that their father died and some will experience that their abuser died, and other messy feelings.
It might be good to invite everyone to take some time now to have a chance to be present a bit - not necessarily with him. It also might be good to get a book on death, or look for a death doula, and start having talks inside about what death is mechanically, what happens physically, and also about beliefs around death. There are good books for kids around it.a librarian can help.
If what you’re asking is, will a long-standing balance - some parts hide from Past Dad while others deal with Present Dad - fall apart…well yeah. You might want some therapeutic support. But what do you get out of it? Hopefully a joyful future for everyone which is not organized around staying scared or shut down in the past.
posted by warriorqueen at 5:39 PM on July 25 [1 favorite]