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Suppressed Grief / Survivor's Guilt
Loss & Grief | Last Active: Jul 28 12:31pm | Replies (5)Comment receiving replies
I don't know you, but you obviously have a conscience with whom you keep in constant touch. This is unlike, apparently, your closest kin who SHOULD HAVE loved you. I would be hurt knowing this and can fully understand why it still smarts to this day. You have a heart! You have cared for people. You want and need to be loved and accepted, and were very much in the place as a young person needing help to grow. So, you are experiencing the sensations of 'loss' and, yes, of grief. Perfectly natural and understandable.
Celia says your family was dysfunctional. The glue was your beloved dad. When he passed, so did the glue that kept the 'clock' running. It fell apart, and the collateral damage was your experience. But, your older brother must surely have suffered as well as evinced by his alcoholism....something that also bothers you greatly. You know he endured a private hell, one that you shared.
I don't know if you feel cheated by being cut out of any inheritance, but I would. Not so much the goods or property, but the respect and inclusivity that was never there.
This is a grind for you that doesn't want to let go. Maybe therapy, a peer group that meets regularly, some kind of venue for you to unburden yourself would be useful. You'll just stew in your own juices working over and over again all that you know and have come to understand....or don't.
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@gloaming Thank you for your very insightful reply.
You are correct on many counts. The rift with my family began early on. I was sick of their behavior -- the lies, the manipulations, the harm -- and I distanced myself, physically and emotionally. The further I got, the happier I became.
Things accelerated once I married. My wife has a very large and very strong family, but one main difference between her upbringing and mine was honesty. After the initial shock, I realized that her way was better. Much better.
And once I married, I learned what love really is. In my family, "love" was scorekeeping: "I did X for you, now you owe me 2X." But my wife taught me that love isn't like that. Especially since becoming disabled, I have really seen what unconditional love is. I'm not sure what I did to deserve such incredible devotion, but I try to stay worthy of it.
You are spot-on about the disinheritance. Money would have been nice, but the hardest part was seeing the phrasing in the will that I was being "deliberately excluded"; it was hurtful, but also a complete dishonoring of my father's wishes and intentions.
Anyway, your comment and those of others have been very helpful. I have set up an exercise in which I imagine that I'm talking one-on-one with my mother and brothers, telling them now what I couldn't say when they were alive. We'll see how that works out.
Thanks again.