Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Support Group
Find support with others who have gone through a traumatic experience. Whether you have chronic or acute PTSD, we are here for you.
In 2010, my therapist finally suggested that I estrange myself from my family because they've been my primary abusers since I was a little boy. The abuse started with wife beatings by my father on my mother, then spread to his beating me bloody, and eventually apparently spread to my dad's workplace, too. I was estranged from him at the time because of another of his violent physical attacks at Christmas 1991, but apparently in the late 1990s my dad got in trouble with his church he pastored as a missionary in Peru.
The church board kicked him out, the US missions board kicked him out, and then the government of Peru deported him. Despite getting the same guilty verdict from all 3 entities, though, he blamed his downfall on me, even though I hadn't had anything to do with him for 8 years then, and didn't know about his Peruvian scandal until years after it happened.
I got back in touch with him because his scandal brought about a nervous breakdown after which he could only mow lawns for a living. But in 2010, he got belligerent at Christmas again, and my therapist suggested it was time to get the point. It wasn't a quick decision. In therapy with him for 6 months I wrote a tender, sad goodbye letter to him, and said I wouldn't be there at his funeral, but that didn't mean I didn't love him. It's just that I couldn't love him in person. He convinced all of our extended family that I was a liar, and so I couldn't stand next to his grave to mourn him like a son should have a right to do for his father. I believe that's why after my health took me out of my hospital work to a teaching job I took up teaching death and dying classes to nursing students. In part, it was to prepare for grieving my parents in absentia.
At my new college job I met an ex-FBI agent who taught criminal justice classes. It turned out that he had been a member once of a church my father had briefly pastored. Against my wishes, he began to allow my father to use him to relay unwanted messages to me at my workplace. I went to Human Resources to get it to stop, and it did. Then the ex-FBI agent retired.
Today he called me, though, out of the blue. I hadn't heard from him in years. Now that he's retired, there's no way my Human Resources office at work can stop him from workplace harassment on behalf of my father. I screened his number and didn't answer, but he left me a voicemail telling me to answer him. He didn't say, but it's probably because my father has died.
I know there may be those here who may not understand that this boundary must be kept, but just trust me, it must. No good has ever come from my going back to my family time after time. I need to stay away and love them from a safe distance. My mother became abusive, too, over the years, and beat me, too, as a child, breaking household items over my head herself. My only sibling is a sister and she is abusive, too. I've saved myself from becoming like them by moving away and staying away.
I knew this day would come and that I'd have to ask for support to be strong and be silent in the face of all of the conventional requirements to be a good son and go to my dad's funeral no matter what. Or my mom's, if it's hers that's in question. It's the movie of the week ending. But my therapist taught me that life's not a movie of the week. Sometimes we have to do things differently.
By coincidence, I'm recovering from surgery, so I couldn't go even if I wanted to. It's so ironic that the demands of their deaths should come at a time when I literally don't have the life resources of my own to satisfy them as I'd normally want to do This is a crisis I've prepared for since 2010, or for 8 years now. Support welcome.
-
Hey All...I hope that you have a lovely, peaceful beginning of your weekI have a bunch of chores that need doing but may put them off til tomorrow and just hang out with my landlord/roomie todayWhat about you?...Anything special going on?Have a great day and take good care of you!!..Xo
-
Once again I've had a fever today. I'm not going to the hospital because that's a huge waste of time but I did schedule a dr appointment for Wednesday afternoon.
As for what a "good son" would do. I'm a bit less certain than you are.
I tend to see funerals as for the living. So if it wouldn't bring you comfort...than as a good son, I wouldn't want you doing it for me.
(My kids are well aware of my wishes. I'd rather they go to the beach with the money, but knowing my kids they...really wouldn't want to do that either. So I'll be fine with my duaghter going skiing and my son to a gaming tournament. Hey, to each his own.)
Life...is onward. To me, that's the greatest hope that there is. I don't want to live forever. I hope that the issues of the past...get left in the past.
(((That said, it wouldn't surprise me if the guy wasn't calling to twist the guilty screws in a bit, and try to get you to call your parents for the holidays.)))
We're here for you, whichever way the tides of change carry you, Muji.
He's moved on to another place now.....and hopefully he will find peace
I think you absolutely needed to keep these boundaries... Physical abuse and assault should never be tolerated
If you need to perhaps get in touch with a minister that you work with to help you through this difficult time
I am so sorry for all of the pain that you've had to suffer …….xo
Triple hugs of support and you are showing much strength courage and conviction with your ability to exhale and self care, knowing that is the true road that will allow your love for those too toxic to you here to reach their passing souls~
When my dad (abuser) died I did not go to the funeral. It had been years since I had seen him,but the last time I did I decided that this was it,no more visists or orders to vivit them anymore. (my family of origin)
I had a bundle of mixed emotions competeting for my attention and action.
He died and never attemtped to say I am sorry. as my family rallied around him in both sorrow and joy that he was gone. I know that sounds odd and awful,but that was the way life was within that family. And it only seem to deepen the block between myself the truth and the lies within my families belief system. So I lit candles and said what I wanted to say. Then moving bit by bit forward with my own life.
Soon I hope you will be retired and living a simpler but good life of retirement. I am glad you were able to permanately leave that family of trauma behind. Bit by bit.
Saying goodbye is hard there is also good to look forward to for you as well.
You have worked hard and you have earned your Peace and Freedom .
I'm feeling that peace you mention, though, at keeping to my goodbyes from a distance as I've said them all these many years. The truth as I've learned to understand it with great difficulty is more important to me than performing a funeral role for extended family relatives whom I hardly know. They will say things now about me behind my back just as they have for all these years now, too. They are free to do so, just as I have the right to my Freedom I've earned, too, as you said.
I'm surprised to find I'm doing ok. I've already grieved a lot of this, it would seem. Not only grief for the death of my parent, but grief also for the loving parent I never had.
I was able to go through that double grief because of the wisdom of supportive people here who pointed out the issue to me. Thank you. I'm finding at this important moment in my life that the wisdom here at DS PTSD is very real.
Sometimes when a crappy parent dies we grieve twice, once for their loss and once for the Dad you never had. I think the distance has helped you grieve before he died. Sending lots of support for fast healing post op hugs
"Those" people were worse than strangers to me.
Hugs
I hurt about losing my parents 8 years ago when I was hit by my father at Christmas for the last time. I really lost him then, or actually lost the hope of him ever then, and it hit me emotionally a lot harder than his physical blow ever could. It's when I realized I'd never had him and that I never would, no matter how many different ways I'd spent my life turning myself inside out to try to win his love. He just didn't have it to give.
So his death now is like what I saw families of my Alzheimer's patients go through when I served as chaplain on a severe hospital Alzheimer's unit. The body that died had once housed their father was no longer their father.
The man that died in North Carolina this week, if indeed it was him and not my mom, never was my father. He didn't ever want to be, he was too wrapped up in his own drama from before I was born to move on to accept me as his son, to accept himself and his own life as it unfolded.
It's a shame, he really missed out on himself and with me, I wanted to be his son more than anything in the world. It was there for him for 52 years until 8 years ago when I could no longer hold the offer out for him any more. I will imagine what could have been, and how in a heaven like the one described in that book The Shack it may still manage to be somehow. How he may see me there for who I was and accept my love there in that perfect place where his fear is set aside, and return that love in kind. That's all I ever wanted to do, was to love him and to be loved by him.
I'm so angry that fear keeps us from realizing that love in this lifetime. It's why I have the hope of heaven, hoping there's a place beyond fear for us all, finally, where love can rule.
Thanks for caring to listen to what I'm saying here. It may not be understood by everybody offline, but I think you all here at DS PTSD get what I'm saying, and how even if it admits to my anger, it's based in love.
Muji
Muji, you stay strong, ok? Your parents are the ones that messed up, not you. If he passed away, you can always one day visit the grave when you are good and ready. No need to be at the funeral for everyone to start drama with you and open old wounds. Or even worse, open new ones.
Muji, I was in your exact shoes 2 yrs ago when my estranged father of 20 yrs out of the blue found my email and FB and expected me to pay for his hospital bill. There was no "Hello, how are you? long time no see. How have you been?" Nope, just "This is your father. I'm sick, need money now." And when I didn't answer him he escalated. Found me on FB and continued the harassment. When I didn't answer that, my uncles (his younger brothers) sent me dozens of messages pretty much condemning me for not helping my father. He died shortly after that. I did not go to his funeral. But... a whole year later when I was ready, I flew overseas and went to his grave. One of my cousins took me out there. No huge crowd of people. No drama.
You do what you need to for the sake of your own healing. That's what really matters.
The 1st few months after my father passed away, I had some feelings of guilt. Guilt for not replying to him... then guilt for not going to his funeral. But after hearing my older brother talk about what happened when he went to visit him, and after hearing other people's stories, I was really glad I had spared myself the hurt and disappointment. My father obviously had not changed at all over the years, he was the same ol' narcissistic arrogant abusive a-hole he was when we were kids.
The lesson I learned was, people don't really change. And they don't feel sorry for anything they do/did. So you keep moving forward and don't spend too much time looking back. Don't waste your time with whatever destructive forces come from them. Protect yourself and focus on healing. You're doing such a good job and I really enjoy reading your updates. Hang in there!
It stood out to me, blue, when you said about your father's contact out of nowhere that "He died shortly after that. I did not go to his funeral. But... a whole year later when I was ready, I flew overseas and went to his grave. One of my cousins took me out there. No huge crowd of people. No drama."
That's what I plan to do, to have my private time grieving at his grave when the funeral fanfare is over and the crowds have gone home. The contradictions in my dysfunctional family's behavior toward me, toward one another, and toward themselves provide drama enough in and of themselves. They don't need to be egged on by making public theater out of what is a very private, very complex, and difficult grief process.
Thanks for your support regarding my choice not to respond to the creepy contact of this ex-FBI agent who is seeking to air my personal laundry again. I have never, ever stuck my nose into this former co-worker's family business. His disregard for my boundaries shows again how my dysfunctional family attracted dysfunctional friends and even agents on their behalf. The healthy thing to do is, by contrast then, is to maintain my boundaries all the more. With your support that's what I'll do.
It so happened that this weekend was when my guitar hero Bruce Springsteen's "Springsteen on Broadway" show dropped on Netflix. I'm watching that, because a fair portion of it concerns his talking about his difficult relationship with his late father and how that influenced his songs. Those of of who didn't have "normal" parents, then, seem to be in good company, right?