Anyone else experiences isolation and postponed grief after death of narcissistic mother?

Unkraut, welcome back.

I'm going to post one of your previous questions regarding your deeply dysfunctional family.

https://www.agingcare.com/questions/i-walked-out-on-my-parents-how-do-i-stay-strong-and-escape-the-guilt-473395.htm?orderby=recent&page=1�

I wonder why seeking out a compassionate, unbiased therapist for support during this difficult time is not your first move?

Why would you argue your point of view? To what end?
Your Mom raised you to be what she wanted you to be, and she, like all of her ilk left you slaving away to hear the simple words "Thank you; I love you so much. I am so sorry".
Didn't happen.
Almost never does.

Now you are free, but you choose, and I emphasize CHOOSE to batter yourself like a moth at the flame, hoping someone will say "You know; you're right; she had such severe limitations; she was so lucky to have YOU".
Won't happen.
Almost never does.

You have insight. I leave you with that. You know all you need to know. It is time now for you to may changes for your own future or to pay this forward through the generations.

I myself would be moving 3,000 miles (minimum) from any connection to Mom and HER connections. I would make friends who value me. I would get someone skilled and professional to shake my world until the old habitual ways of acting and reacting fell away. Or I would die trying.

No one can make your choices for you. UnKraut, build a life you can be PROUD of working for and with people you value, or don't. This ball is squarely in your court.

I hope you choose well.
This, imho, is your one life.
No numbers of people saying "you are right" or "I am sorry" or "you deserve better" will ever help you until YOU prove to YOURSELF that it is true.
I wish you a GREAT life full of joy and contentment.

By the way, and giving her the credit due, my condolences on your loss. When you are able to experience compassion for her limitations you will know you are WELL ON YOUR WAY TO HEALING.

Welcome UnKraut68!

It’s a pleasure to chat with someone who lives in Germany.

I just read your profile and I love your attitude towards turning an insult into your “badge of honor.” That’s awesome!

My fourth great grandfather came to Louisiana from Germany. I enjoy researching our family tree. I located his gravesite and have gone to visit his grave.

Family dynamics can become quite complicated. It’s true that a family member can treat one person quite shabbily and others don’t acknowledge this happens. It’s painful because it can feel as if we are being kicked twice.

When people think of grief, they often think of grieving for their loved one, remembering good memories and so on. The truth is that some people do not have the best memories and they may be grieving for what they wish they could have had their loved one.

My point is that there is no right or wrong way to grieve. It’s extremely personal to each of us.

I am sorry for the loss of your mother. Sometimes, there are mixed emotions about the loss of a parent that we had a complicated relationship with. Their death is often a relief for us.

Wishing you peace as you adjust to a new situation in your life.

These women have managed to bamboozle mostly everyone in their life that they're such wonderful, pillars of society who are loving, kind and generous to a fault. When reality is the polar opposite. Only very few of us know the REAL women lurking behind those masks! And they hate US for It! We've seen their slip show and they can't change that fact, so now we are The Bad Guys who must be punished as a result. This is when the gaslighting starts.......they have to make US think we're crazy to question THEM about anything! So we're to take whatever they say at face value, even bald faced lies!

Don't question yourself. You know the type of person your mother was. Accept it. Grieve THAT fact instead of anything else. Grieve the fact your father and aunt are in denial about this woman and who she truly was, and the fact she was incapable of love. Once you accept all of this, then you can say goodbye and move on with your own life, freeing yourself from the chains of her power over you for GOOD.

My mother said so many horrible and hurtful words to me in the last year of her life, it was awful. I chose to feel sorry for HER in the end, and her lack of ability to connect with ME. I didn't internalize her deficits, in other words, what for? She'd already caused me enough pain. I was relieved when she passed and was finally out of pain and done causing pain for others.

Wishing you the best of luck with all of this.

Your father and her sister are living in a make believe world, that is their choice.

If she loved you she wouldn't have treated you the way she did.

My mother doesn't love me, never has I was just a tool to her, her scapegoat. I finally accepted the truth and went no contact 13 years ago. It was not the first time either, but this is a forever boundary. It has been the most peaceful and happy years of my adult life.

It will never be totally over until she dies, then I will be 100% free of her.

Therapy might help you, it did me, the therapist made me realize that it was her not me as no one else in the family speaks to her either, except my brother who is now stuck with her, not too bad tho as she is in AL, he checks on her every two weeks or so, as he cannot stand being with her.

Consider yourself lucky as she can no longer torture you with her meanness.

Reframe your thinking, start feeding your subconscious mind positive thoughts about what a fine, caring person you are, don't keep carrying her crap around with you.

Refrain from talking about her, that is important for you to heal. If she is brought up, just say that you do not want to talk about her.

The ball is in your court, you can overcome this negative self-talk!

Sending positive vibes your way.

I highly suggest professional therapy.

They can help you reframe some of the events that happened in your life so that they don't sting as bad and assist in helping you move forward.

It doesn't matter what anyone says about your Mom and how they interpret her actions. What matters is the fact that you have been deeply hurt by your Mom, she is no longer alive, and you need to get past this "issue" in your life so that you can live the life you were meant to live.

Take the first step, and find a professional therapist...and if that person is not quite the right fit, find a different one.

You deserve to start embracing life for what it can do for you.

So sorry you are going through this, hugs. It will take time -- lots of time -- and inner work to unpack and process what you have and are experiencing. Working with a talented therapist could be of great help to work through this; to have a trained professional be supportive, caring and to hear and, importantly, validate what you have been through and your feelings. And to work with you on ways to deal with what you have been through, to move forward.

My mom -- super high in narcissist personality traits, w/clinical depression, a most of various medical conditions and now dementia -- caused a roller coaster of damage for me as a child, as a teen, as a young adult and now as a senior myself. I am in the processing and grieving the mother I deserved but never had, although she is not yet deceased. My mom is 86 and at some point -- in theory, if she passes before me -- I will grieve her actual death.

I was an only child, it all fell on me, no siblings to take the abuse as a kid or now. My dad passed when I was a kid, so the one adult in my life that was "normal" was not around. I went in to foster care as a young teen and never returned to the "family home." Years, later after graduate school (me thinking I am grown, had a career, was successful, had a home, husband, family and was doing well) I though could reestablish a relationship with my mom. It kinda worked, as long as she got what she wanted and no one tried (me) to have any normal, adult conversation w/her. I moved her in with us, as she was in dire financial distress -- compulsive gambling (big mistake on my part, but hindsight is 20-20).

Fast forward, years later when her physical and mental health declined (she smoked, ate junk food, lied in bed all day and only went out to casinos -- spending is Social Security check), I tried to care for her and ended up as her 24/7 "nursemaid" the year before COVID as she could no longer walk. A bad fall ended her in the hospital for 2 weeks curing the worst of COVID and thereafter it was a move to Rehab and then a permanent placement in a skilled nursing facility after spending down to qualify for Medicaid. She's be at her SNF for nearly 3 years and I went no contact 2 years ago.

The verbal abuse, lashing out at me and blaming me for her situation was more than I could take after the years of living in my house expense free, after me being her 24/7 care giver for years and exhausted with that (I retired early to care for her). The trigger point for no contact was her telling me on Mother's Day in 2021 that "Mother's Day -- having me -- was the worst day of her life." The flood gates opened and the abuse as a kid/young teen (before my foster care placement) was too much, like all that came rushing back into my memory after being long buried.

Working for 2+ years now with a talented therapist, I am in a much better spot. I was not a bad kid, I did not deserve a mother who could not mother. No person deserves this. I was good enough and I did enough. Now I know and can accept my mom is and always will be a broken person. I have no idea why she is broke/what broke her; creating a vile person consumed with vengeance, rage, competition, judgment, blame shifting, gaslighting, anger, chaotic moods who should have never had a child. That said, I am grateful to her for giving me life. Now I can focus on me, me getting better and working through the hurt, griveing for the mother I deserved and did not have, and likely will grieve again when she passes. My broken mom is no longer my responsibility. My responsibility now is to move forward focusing on me! And that is your responsibility now, focus on you! Tell others who invalidate your reality, to say no more, tell them to stop or go no contact with them for a while.

Thx for letting me share, part of my healing is to write this out in places like this blog.

Best of luck for your healing journey! This is a trip none of us wanted to take but this is the journey we are sadly on.

Everything that you've said resonates with me. You're experiencing a great fear of mine. What will be left of my mental health when this season of caregiving is finally over?

Caring for my mother while she was still in her own home didn't affect my mental and emotional and physical health. I still had a job I loved, friends and was happy and well-adjusted. I was mentally healthy enough to deal with life's frustrations and adversities with a good attitude. My spiritual health was very good as well.

Then came the day when I had to move her into my home. (Most of you know by now that I'm keeping a promise to my mother.) And it's been downhill ever since.

UnKraut68, your feelings are valid. I agree with the others here that finding a therapist who is experienced in grief, gaslighting and difficult mother-daughter relationships will be a great help to you so that you can free yourself from the shackles of pain that are chaining you from truly living.

You deserve to live free and joyful.

Peace.

You need to talk to a professional therapist. Someone that is going to let you talk, to vent, to express your anger, your fear.
Think of yourself as a person with PTSD. I know it is probably an over used term but I think in many respects it is under diagnosed when it comes to caregivers. PTSD is not just for military experiences. It can be diagnosed from ANY trauma.
You need to believe in yourself
You need to know your own worth

Not to make excuses but is it possible that your mom was doing to you what her mom (or dad) did to her and that is how she knew to act. Sometimes you have to dig a bit deeper to get a wound clean so it can heal.

Having struggled with my relationship with my mother I understand the conflicts that occur when I became her caregiver for 12 years before she died.
I was lucky to find a therapist who was able to help me recognize how mom’s behavior was shaped by her life experiences. Rather than continuing to demonize her I was helped to have compassion. This awareness helped me to let go of resentments that were causing the isolation you’re experiencing.
While many are recommending that you accept that you’re a victim of a basically bad person I found the opposite was true for me.

Listen the Main Caregiver gets all
the frustration and abuse . I was the only one caring for my Mom the last 9 months and she constantly gave me hateful looks in front of people . I knew she wasn’t all there so I did not take it personally but created a strong boundary to not let her emotions effect me . Often I saw a therapist after going to the nursing home 🏠 Go see a grief counselor to process

A lifetime of struggling to make sense of the degradation, being thrown under the bus, lied about, triangulation with family members, manipulated ~  goes hand in hand with guilt that somehow you failed to make this person see life from a more positive perspective, or compelled her to have what it takes to be a functional mother- 

This is why the best option is always to go no contact with a narcissist. With that said, I still haven’t because, like you, Im unable to walk away from my mother. Just think how much guilt that would bring on if you failed because you quit?

One comment suggested to seek a ‘compassionate’ perspective ~ … I respectfully disagree, once again enabling the narcissist.  We all know her behavior is a result of her upbringing and her choices - but having ‘compassion’ absolutely does not take away the massive hole of a lifetime of being abused by the narcissist. Your mother ingrained in you feelings of blame for her illness and the ensuing guilt that follows is immense. Not to be overcome by a simple ‘understanding’ of her issues. For instance…. We dont feel better that a loved one was murdered by ‘understanding’ the murderer had childhood issues. 

You were robbed of a lifetime of functional parenting- you are not JUST a product of our mother, you did the best you could to endure a lifetime of abuse and yet stick around to help to the end- 

Listen to every podcast of ‘The little shaman’ the absolute best resource on narcissistic abuse. 
https://www.littleshaman.org/

I proud of you!  The life sentence you were born into was/is horrible and amazingly you came out of it with ‘guilt’ instead of becoming a sociopath who has ‘zero empathy’ ~~ 

People don’t understand the all encompassing pain narcissistic abuse causes-  think about this, if you had a parent who sexually abused you over and over- it is socially understood and encouraged for you to stay away.  However a narcissistic  parent is the most damaging of all emotional abuses and yet society encourages and expects a child to continue to care for the parent.  

You stood strong, albeit times of anger, hate, love, compassion, crying, screaming, ~~ You stood by a person who if they weren’t your relative you would have run away from a million times over. Please tell yourself over and over how amazing you are for not becoming your mother!!!! 

You have been released from prison…Now its time to embrace life and live it, love it and remember how short it is.

Unkraut, I understand what you are going through as my mom (94) treats me horribly. I am her kicking can who she yells at if she doesn’t get her way and complains about every..little..thing. Thank goodness she is in a care home where she belongs. Her behavior to my sister and I in the last 4 years since dad passed (thankfully we are a team who work well together and are on the same page about moms behavior) is narcissistic, demeaning and downright nasty at times.
I too have dealt with guilt feelings, did we do the right thing, moving her 3 times (nothing was good enough or too expensive in her mind), drop everything at her beckon calling, etc. I have put off seeking help but I know in my mind I must do that to deal with this mother who I no longer know. My visits will be less, I don’t answer every phone call, rather listen to her messages first. She is narcissistic, always in control, and my sister and I agree she has “angry dementia”. She is borderline getting kicked out of her AL home for her rudeness to staff there.
So, I wish you the best and don’t hesitate to seek out the help you need. I feel life is too short and we do not need negative people in our lives to ruin it.

The gaslighting is real, Joan Crawford was Borderline with narcissistic traits. Many people only saw one side of her only to reinforce the confusion

These types show themselves differently to different people so you’ll never get a legitimate consensus.

Validate your experience with her and release it, say prayers to lift yourself up and away from their misery, bc it was their misery not yours. It can cause a kind of soul murder having people like that in your life, call back your spirit is what the American Indians say to do.

I am sorry for your pain-- but SO glad you posted this because now I know I am not alone--and thus you are not alone, either. And as you can seee by the replies--so many of us have dealt with the situation where as the main caregiver, we get all the complaints, anger, and recrimination...while everyone else swoops in temporarily and gets the sweetness and kindness. Just today I woke up in despair because yesterday I was the recipient of a conspiracy theory about the people at her facility...I didn't want to feed into it, and I just felt enraged because I cannot control her mental decline and because everyone else says how sweet she is, it makes it harder. Brother and wife were here for 4 days and all they talked about is how "on the ball" she is. Uh--NO. And how much fun they had with her.
When they leave I get the breakdowns about her constipation and her conspiracies about the food and how they are purposely making it bad for her. All this is to say--you are not alone.
What helped me was and is therapy short-term (no need for a long stint if not able to--it took one online visit with a therapist who told me "you are not crazy and you are doing an amazing job" to give me some relief). And I go to Alanon online.
I work on accepting that my mother is mentally ill, more so now than ever, and her parenting that caused me to feel responsible for her every feeling and even her life resonates even in adulthood. Caregiving triggers it and brings on the childhood grief of not having a loving parent who was really present. Professional help and Al-Anon (zoom meetings everywhere--go to Alanon website) have been a huge help for me.
I wish you peace and know you will find it. It is just our families do not and never will be able to understand and thus cannot provide support--when I go to them for support because they don't understand I feel further isolated. As they say : "Don't go to the hardware store for oranges". You are NOT ALONE. We understand thoroughly. Family has a lot invested in propagating the myth of your mother and not listening to your pain.
Best of luck and I hope you can seek help if you are able with a counselor, Al-Anon, or any other avenue that seems right for you where you will not be judged for your experience.
Finally--as someone else said--we have a right to live and enjoy life and not take on our mothers' pain. This is a hard thing for me to do also. I spent my childhood taking care of my mother emotionally. Now I am doing it again, I hate it but won't walk away because I could not live with the guilt. So I need to find a way to detach. But we must not let them ruin our lives because they were unhappy. It is such a waste. You did an incredible, thankless job that you did not shirk. Many blessings to you and I know you will find the joy you deserve.

Unkraut68, your words, "It was the most challenging task of my life, being idealized and denigrated in a constant roller-coaster," and "she showed her emotional ups and downs to hardly anyone but me I on top of the hurt feel deeply isolated, listening to other people who keep telling me what a wonderful person she was" resonate with me.

My mom, too, goes back and forth between, "You are the best daughter in the world--I don't know what I would do without you" to "You are evil and abusive and a liar," etc. There is seldom anything in between. She has always been this way, but now that all her filters are coming off, it is more blatant and more frequent. Sometimes the vacillations happen several times in the same interaction.

Literally EVERYONE else in my life (except one friend who has seen my mom in action) thinks my mother is the sweetest lady they have ever met, and every time they ask about her, they wind up going on and on and on about what a lovely person she is. I have given up any hope of any of them being able to understand what I am going through.

I have so much anger humming through me that I FINALLY sought out a counselor last month. She is working with me on all of this, and I now feel hope that I will not be stuck forever.

If seeking out a counselor in person feels too hard, check out Betterhelp. com. You can answer a few questions about yourself and your situation, and they match you with a therapist that you see online. If you don't mesh with the first therapist, you can click to be assigned to another one. You do the meetings online from the comfort of wherever you are. (I have no affiliation with the company, other than being a patient who is using the service.)

I really like my therapist and am so grateful to have her walking through this mess with me.

Dear UnKraut68,
For me it was my narcissist father. I had been looking forward to his passing to be honest, he was always hard to be around, and once he got a terminal cancer diagnosis he imploded. Narcissists don't deal well with death, they can't control it and can't avoid it.
For most of the last two years of his life we didn't have much to do with each other, until the last two months. My mother, always browbeaten just couldn't handle his care anymore, and having her own health issues went to hospital. So I started doing his day to day care.

I had been in therapy for two years beforehand and I was as ready as I could be. I understood that I was watching a man who could not deal with his pain and grief. He blamed me for the cancer, he said awful things.
When I took him to the emergency room I was relieved, it was finally going to be over.
He died and I didn't have much of a reaction.

We are a dysfunctional family and my father had a lot of money. So my absent brother came back and had me ostracised within two days, my Mum so happy her son was back in her life she did whatever he wanted. It was awful.
I went through a terrible period of depression, it lasted for close to a year. I felt betrayed by my mother and very angry towards my brother. I really believed my life would be better once my Dad was gone, and that wasn't true.
A friend of mine told me that I still had to grieve my father, regardless of what type of man he was, and to grieve my family of origin. The fact that it was dysfunctional, the fact that love was never shared and that I was the scapegoat.

Once I started grieving for my father, the sadness lifted. I grieved that he was my father, that he was never happy, that we had a terrible relationship, that he was no more and for all the fights we had. I had guilt, and the grief helped it go.
I also found that the feelings that I had held onto in such a family had nowhere to go, we'd always blamed Dad for how terrible everyone got on, but the truth was we'd all accepted our roles and played them out.

I am at peace now, because the past is over and there is nothing I can do to change it.
I went to therapy whilst I was in the depths of my depression and I highly recommend you do too, otherwise being depressed is not an episode but a way of life.

Forgive her, if she could have, she would have done better. Forgive yourself for caring so much and not detaching from an unhappy family situation, forgive your other family members if that needs to be done. I'm not saying to make what has happened over a lifetime OK, I'm saying to put it firmly in the past and move on.
If you think, I don't know how to do that, then therapy is needed. An alternative, Reiki also works very well.

Good luck to you.

In my opinion, a narcissist IS a narcissist whether hardcore or borderline. Whether hardcore or borderline, it comes down to their lack of empathy, compassion, and their selfish nature.

When you live with a narcissist, it is very difficult to forgive him/her if you are living under the same roof as he/she because they constantly hurt you psychologically and emotionally. Since your mother has passed on and you don’t have to deal with her narcissistic behavior, you should now find it in your heart to forgive her for the emotional and psychological pain she has caused you to experience. Forgiving her will free you from the anger you had toward her and will allow you to move on and live your life to the fullest.

Unkraut68: I am sorry that your mother was a narcissist. You deserved to be treated much better than that. Be good to YOU. Hold yourself in high regard.

You are emotionally and mentally wounded. Rest assured what you know you know. Don't let the your dad and aunt add to your pain. They are probably also wounded and trapped in their own ideas. Maybe one day they may reveal what they really think but can't for now.

Anyway, that's their problem and not important. If you know your mom was a crumb to you, she was. You don't need confirmation from your dad or your aunt.

Replaced those brainwashing memories with new experiences of achievement, fun, and even service to appreciative individuals, or whatever you'd like and in time you will create a more realistic healthy truth of who you actually are. You did what you had to do and endured the best you could but now it's all about freedom and healing.
You now know what whacky looks like, from now on steer clear.

Your mom, and who she was died. You will only be your mom's replacement if you continue to play re-runs.

Enjoy yourself.

Since you alone experienced her abuse, the others are clueless about what you experienced. Don't hate them or keep them distant. Just realize that they never saw this side of your mother.

Since her treatment of you has left emotional scars, please consider spending some dealing with your pain. I would recommend either group therapy and/or individual therapy. I would also suggest surrounding yourself with people who are kind to you and uplifting. You need to experience love and feeling valued to undo all the years of not receiving enough.

I’m sorry you went through that, your mother sounds a lot like mine. Mine never says anything good about me but I really don’t care because I know the toxic person she is. I dont need her approval to live my life the way I want in a fulfilling happy way. I doubt I will have any grief when this is finally over.

Be proud of what you did which is far above what most people here could have done for that type of mother. Hold your head high and go live a happy fulfilling life and try not to dwell on her toxic bilge. Living that good fulfilling life among people who love you is the ultimate revenge.

Yes, I am feeling quite confused by the feelings I'm having after my very similar-sounding mother died in March. My brother didn't have the same relationship with her - I suppose he would be the golden child - so he misses her in a more straightforward way, while being glad she is no longer suffering. I felt massive relief, then guilt at feeling that way, and now huge regret that Mum and I didn't have a good relationship, and some anger that she was the cause of that rather than my being a bad, unlovable person, as I believed for 55 years.

At Mum's funeral her neighbours of 35 years were singing her praises and saying how they missed her (even though they made no effort to visit her when she moved near us!) and I found that hard, as she never showed that side of herself to me.

I have been feeling physically low since she died as well, maybe partly because we had three months with her declining in hospital and us fighting the medics to let her out, as she was clearly giving up on life, plus visiting nine care homes to find somewhere that might meet her needs. We did in the end, but by then Mum had starved/dehydrated herself to death. She told her hairdresser over a year ago that she wanted to go, apparently, as in her view she had nothing to live for. That makes me very sad, and angry as well, because my husband and I had spent the last six years trying to help her but she blocked everything and really was her own worst enemy. My husband expects me to be fine now she's gone, but of course he doesn't understand the relationship between a narcissistic parent and their child. It would be nice if he would at least try...!

As with you, some of her last words to me in hospital were to tell me off when, after she had been crying like an animal in pain in the bedside chair, my instinct was to stroke her arm in a vain attempt to soothe her. As in all my life, I just couldn't please her.

So no, you are not crazy. I feel it may be easier in some ways to grieve someone you really loved and were close to, as at least the memories are worth the pain.

“I am still stuck, 9 months later, between relief, anger and terrible sadness. Her pattern became mine: I love her - I hate her, and I worry that I never find peace or closure.”

1.Is this by chance? No, OP. This is exactly what she wanted to do to you. Torture you until her last breath: and ideally also after she’s dead. She would be delighted. If you never heal, and keep hearing her abusive words now, even better! She would love it! It would mean she really destroyed you, even after she died.

2. What she was doing to you was, using contact with you while she was alive, to get pot-shots in before she died. 

3. How can you heal and get her out of your head, OP? By first understanding what she did to you. She messed with your head. Those (like other family/friends) who don’t acknowledge (deny) you were abused while you helped your mom, are just perpetuating the abuse. Take a look at this thread. It might help you. Lots of ideas that’ll help you understand what she did to you. We are many (usually daughters), who’ve helped our abusive elderly mom.

https://www.agingcare.com/questions/how-did-you-heal-from-the-narcissistic-abuse-of-your-elderly-lo-478073.htm?orderby=recent&page=1�

I am so sorry for your experience. You are not crazy. You are not wrong. You are valuable and your experiences are real. It is common among children of narcissistic parents to isolate themselves when they are going through tough emotions. It is common for us to isolate period because we feel safer alone because of all of the abuse we endured during our lives from our abusers. I understand the I love her- I hate her cycle extremely well. It's a hard cycle to overcome but you can and will overcome it. Don't give up. <3

Always remember your experience is yours. Narcissists portray themselves differently to different people. Just because someone else had a pleasant experience with your abuser does not make your abuse any less real. It is real. It did happen. Don't let the opinions of others tell you how to feel or what to think. Don't let your mothers words stick with you. Write your own narrative. When you hear your mothers cruel words replace them with your own words, kind words. Speak kindly and graciously to yourself. You are a wonderful, caring, compassionate human. You are here amongst many who have suffered much like yourself. You are here with other caring, kind and wonderful people who have similar experiences. Although you may feel alone you truly aren't and I really hope this helps you. I hope connecting with this community helps you. I hope you feel less alone by reaching out and sharing your experiences and talking to people that can relate to you. <3

I'm not sure if this is the right forum for this (please point me to a better one if not), but I expected to feel regret for what might have been and now never could be, relief and some sadness when my mum died in March, as her narcissism, negative, antisocial nature and total reliance on us had been getting us down for six years, as regular readers will know. Instead, I have been suffering from severe plantar fasciitis since June, to the extent that walking is quite difficult, and the anti-inflammatory medication I was advised to take has exacerbated my acid reflux symptoms. I certainly have not yet had that sense of freedom and relief I hoped for for so long. I know grief takes many forms and maybe I feel Mum's loss more than I expected to, but I didn't expect it to affect me physically.

Of course the Mum-related stress is not over, as we are trying to sell her apartment in a buyer's market and my brother, whose painful divorce process seems endless, is very short of money and wants more than the market will provide. Now Mum has gone, I am on the end of his bitter, self-pitying rants about how little money he has and how the rest of his life is screwed (sorry for the coarseness, and I genuinely *do* feel for him, but there is a limit!). This after we lent him thousands for his new house, having to receive which charity he resents, naturally (and I do see why, but what else could we do?). It's almost as if he is stepping into Mum's shoes as bane of my life, as he is very like her in temperament and outlook!

It would be a relief to know I wasn't the only one feeling like this six months after the death - not that I would wish it on others, of course.

Many heartfelt thanks to all you kind folks who replied to my post. I had not replied at all since shortly after posting here I had to deal with another family crisis and then simply forgot about it.

Today by accident I stumbled upon this forgotten post of mine and read all your beautiful, understanding and validating answers that made me feel like walking through a warm, soft rain in spring! :-) I want to thank you all, especially those of you who shared their own similar experiences.

My father died a week ago after a few days in hospital at the age of 92, and grieving him is a lot more direct and less complicated than my (not-)grieving the death of my mother. I am still raw and miss him a lot, but I am so glad that he was clear-minded and stayed in his own home, living almost independently with some payed help and me visiting him every other day, doing little things for him that he enjoyed and appreciated.

As far as my mother is concerned: I've been tending her grave (no duty or sacrifice - I deeply enjoy gardening!) which has been giving me the chance to meditate on our relationship while doing something I love, sometimes talking to her, sometimes accusing her, sometimes crying - but it really helped me to slowly overcome the feeling of being stuck. Making peace with my story, and sticking to my own truth.

Love and peace to all of you wonderful people here who make this world a better place. I am proud of you (and me).

Unkraut

UnKraut,
What a LOVELY wonderful ritual you are doing with, for, about your Mom. WONDERFUL.
You are honoring what her limitations were, doing something YOUR WAY now FOR HER in a sense, and for you both. You are rewriting it all, adding and amending as you would a soil to grow fruit for the future. I LOVE WHAT YOU WROTE about your Mom. I think it's just exquisite. A gift in a sense you are now free to give to her and to yourself.

I am sorry for the loss of your Dad, but your healthy response to his loss also does HIM great honor, and celebrates a good life. You do not have to watch him suffer again. You don't have to be afraid for him again. You don't have to stand witness/stand guard.

This is just the best update from you. It's really wonderful.
I wish you continued success.
I hope you will stick around on Forum. You could do much good speaking to others because you are so WELL-spoken. You have my admiration and my best wishes.

I didn't read the other post, so it may have already been said, but the point of gaslighting is to make someone crazy, don't give your mom what she wanted.

Be good to yourself! Your feelings are normal, get some counseling, and I think there will be a day that the bad memories will fad, and you will remember the good.

It's been that way with my dad. I'm really starting to think of the good memories, the good times, and forgetting the bad. And actually now that I'm taking care of mom, dad may have had a reason to be frustrated and angry at times, because I know she makes me that way