As My Father is Dying

[PhoenixRising]

As My Father is Dying

He is in the hospital. Trouble breathing. Up and down days. And there will be no resolution, no cathartic moment, and after 50 years of him holding territory in my soul, I think I may be happy when he dies. I just don't know.

My father almost died when I was 3. A stroke. He was gone a long time. It has now become clearer to me that he was my first perpetrator (My 2nd was my oldest brother).The tears that come out when I say it tell me what I have tried to ignore and avoid for so many years. He crossed a boundary, and yet as the youngest boy I felt I was his favorite. I was only a favorite because I was the weakest, my mother protected the brother who was 2 years older, so I was an easy target.
When my father returned from the hospital, he was frightening. Couldnt talk. Braces. And yet we had to work his body. I am thinking some ways I was relieved when he was gone, and I know when he returned, I was overwhelmed (Many years later, I turned a boss in for embezzlement, he was reinstated, threatened me, and I was reminded of running away from my father into the woods, where they found me a long time later)
When I confronted my family about my brothers sexual abuse they slowly shunned or shut me out. I never could get to the core of the issue, that indeed it was not just my brother who shared a room for 12 years, but my father.
And so as an adult, I tried to shut that child down. I gave him sweets. I acted out, trying to bring back a father who never actually cared about me. It was a childs romantic vision and it worked until the illusion was shattered by my aging.
Now, today, my father is wrestling for his life and I realize, while I dont know what life will be like without him (in many ways, I wished hed died when I was a kid. My mom was resilient and might have married a decent man..but maybe not). I realize there will never be resolution, that indeed I was just something to be used.
I am angry in a way and depth I have never felt before. The abuse, the loss of trust, the warped sense of reality I gained, all have contaminated my life. I told a friend that what I am experiencing now is like being asked to walk through a cinderblock wall and come out on the other side intact.
My problems show in my teeth. In many ways, I destroyed them, and what shows when I hit these dark times, is dental pain. Anger deeply lodged.
I tell myself it all isnt fair. My dad got out by numbing his brain with a stroke, and now as he dies, I realize, there never was going to be some kind of cathartic moment. Just shit. Shit. And more shit.

 

[traveler]

PhoenixRising -

i think i understand what you are feeling. when the step-dad who was the first abuser for me died, i surprisingly cried. not because he was gone or i would miss him, but because now it was impossible that there would ever be - a you say - a "cathartic moment" or any hope of "resolution." it didn't take me long to realize that those were total fantasies anyway - and never would have been fulfilled, regardless of how long he lived.

what i did experience was a sense of freedom and release from a burden - knowing that he was gone. i would never have to see him again, hear his voice, or endure his presence.

i hope that you can soon find some peace and relief in that knowledge, if nothing else.

tell yourself the things that you have been wanting him to say to you. he would not have been a reliable or trustworthy source anyway. you know what you need to hear. you did not deserve it.
remind yourself - your younger self and your present self - and know that all of us believe that, too.

Lee

 

[Nothing Man]

It was a strange experiencing watching my mother, who was one of my perps, die. Near the end I wept like a baby even though I remembered all the terrible things she said and did to me. Now that she is gone I find my grief is too; in fact, it left me the moment I found out she had died.

In so many ways we had unresolved issues as I never called her out for what she had done to me. A big reason why is that arguing with her was pointless; she was always right, no matter what the facts were, and to disagree with her was to be wrong and that position would be stubbornly and tenaciously defended to the point where further argument was futile. As a result, I lessened my contact with her -- and, unfortunately, with my father who, while often absent from my life as a child, has always supported me.

I once threatened her with never getting to see any of my future kids if she continued to treat me poorly. If it struck a nerve she never let it show, but I can take some satisfaction that my threat actually came true. She died four months before my first daughter, her first grandchild, was born. And I am grateful for that because she would have caused nothing but more conflict. She would have tried to control how my wife and I parent our own children. Now I just don't have to deal with her and her crap anymore.

I am sorry your father is dying and I am sorry you never had the chance to talk to him -- and get a response. But maybe that will be a blessing because you can have that conversation with him in your mind and maybe he will utter the words you hope, even if it is only in your imagination. After all, that is also where much of our misery resides: in our minds.

 

[PhoenixRising]

So many things coming up at once for me. A dental problem and then the deep, deep terrifying feelings that that child had. It is almost overwhelming me....he was so incredibly frightened and indeed alone..and then the man who had done it, who had made me his "favorite" and yet hurt me, disappeared into a world of stroke damage, never to completely return. Sometimes I accuse myself of creating this story, but my soul aches, and so I know its true for the child.
I feel as if I am being asked to walk through a cinder block wall and come out on the other side, intact.

 

[KMCINVA]

I can only imagine how you must feel. It has to be difficult because his actions so impacted your life in negative ways. To violate a child is dastardly but a father or mother has to compound the emotions. I have been on a death watch for my abuser, someone I have not seen for almost 45 years. I had been told he was on his deathbed and the parishes were praying for him (they should be praying for his victims). He seems to have pulled through beyond the expectations. I know how I feel but it is someone whose only emotional attachment was the abuse, and it left me with many unresolved emotions until I began to heal.

You are being asked to be there and watch him. The cathartic moment never to come. I think few of us ever have that moment because most abusers are beyond feeling repentant and probably see little harm in what they have done.

You have the right to be angry, vent and let it out. You need to realize you have come a long way and he can no longer hurt you. You need to take care of yourself. I am sorry you are living through such an experience, no victim should be expected to be there for the abuser.

I am glad you will walk through the cinder block wall and be intact.

Kevin

 

[don64]

Hi PhoenixRising,

I severed all contact with both parents (both abusers) 12 years ago when I started remembering the abuse. I only began remembering the details of the sick abuse from my mother about 3 years ago.

Though I will never see them again, or have any contact with them or anyone in my family again, I have come to realize that what happened was that as a child I incorporated all my parents experiences as a part of me. Even though they are gone from my life, or if they are dead or when they die, their experiences live on inside me. So, for me, what challenges me is learning how to heal myself from the inside, where my early experiences of them reside. Much of this experience is lodged at the level of instinct, with me, and has proved very resistant to change, but I am making progress. What is especially difficult for me is how sick and weak I feel as I walk through these early, previously blocked, feelings. It often feels endless, and takes a lot of energy to be able to understand that it is normal to feel so sick as I release what is very, very deep sickness. No one has told me this, but I have to believe it or what would be the point. I keep having emotional growth, but my body stays weak and sick as I continue to walk through deep sickness. My thinking continues to heal, but there is more to do and there has been so much done.

I'm sorry you are going through what you are going through. I also want to acknowledge it always makes me feel so much less alone when I read other's stories that strike familiar chords with me. In that odd, perverse way, it gives me strength to carry on knowing I am not alone.

Sending you love and support for what is, for me, very, very heavy lifting.

Don