Love and Anger

[Lynne's Daughter]

My mom died unexpectedly at 71.  I love her so much, yet during her lifetime she did some pretty awful things.  Nothing criminal, just mean.  I feel deep remorse for not being a more compassionate daughter, yet I still feel anger for the way she treated me.  This leads to overwhelming guilt.  It's such a dichotomy.  Everyone says what a wonderful woman she was, and she was, but they don't know what I do.  I feel I am being tortured.  I grieve her death and I am so sad for our relationship while we she was alive.  Anyone else dealing with this?

[reader]

Dear Lynne,

My deepest condolences and sympathies on the passing of your mom. I'm so sorry for your loss.

I hear you. Me too. I think we all have complicated relationship with our parents. Its never black and white. I think its only natural that one part of us is trying to grieve. But the other part is also analyzing the whole relationship. I know it doesn't take away the pain or hurt, but I would like to think our parents did the best they could with the knowledge they had. And if possible we should try and forgive them for those imperfect moments. I know I am an imperfect daughter. I wish my own relationship with my father was different. And now that he has passed, I don't get the chance to tell him anything that I really wanted to say. Someone suggested I might journal or write him a letter. And hopefully that will help me work through all my emotions.

I hope you will try and be kind and gentle with yourself during this difficult time. Thinking of you.

[MissionBlue]

Dear Lynne's Daughter:

I agree with Reader, that most relationships with parents are complicated.  My mother had mental illness (bipolar illness) so she gave me up without a fight when I was three years old.  She didn't even want visitation.  Maybe that was the best thing she did for me, because my father loved me and treated me well.  People with mental illness are sometimes good at hiding it, and they can be very charming, smart, talented, beautiful, etc. and only the people closest to them get to see them at their worst.  When  my mother died just two months before my father in 2014, I grieved not only her death, but the fact that I never had a normal mother daughter relationship with her.   My mother also did and said some pretty awful things, not to me so much, because I wasn't around her that much, but she did say some very inappropriate things even to me.  During my parents' brief marriage, she was very mean to my father and to other relatives who had always been kind to her.  For a long time I resented my mother for the way she had treated my father, until she got older.  One day in the middle of the night she showed up on my doorstep, all disheveled, asking me to help her.  She could hardly speak, and then I knew it was an illness that made her that way, not something voluntary.  From then on, I felt mostly pity for her and gave up on the idea of ever having a normal relationship with her.  I visited her in the nursing home  when I could, but I wish I could have felt like she missed me and wanted to see me, but I never got that from her.  She would say she loved me, but she didn't do much to prove it. 

Your mother probably wasn't that serious a case, but I do sympathize when you said that your mother did some awful things.  You are suffering more than me, because you lived with your mother and so you were closer to her than I was to my mother.   I am suffering terribly the loss of my dad who was my best friend.   I loved my mother from afar but it was an unrequited love.  I think I loved her more than anybody else ever did.   I think she was a narcissist.  Her own mother didn't love her and she was estranged from her father who was a Marine serving in the diplomatic corps in China for many years.  Her parents divorced when she was little.  I wouldn't change my mother for all the tea in China, because without her, I wouldn't be me.  I think I'm a good person.  When I lose my temper,or say something I regret, I blame it on my mother's genes, but I know she gave me some good qualities, too.  In spite of her illness, I am still proud of her, because she was smart and talented.  She could be charming and witty when she was in a good mood, but when she was bad she was horrid.

Guilt is a tortuous thing.  It comes with love.  I feel more guilt over my dad who I loved way more and who I sacrificed much more for, than I do over my mother.   You had a right to resent your mother, just as I did mine.  After my mother died, my dad and I were listening to her sing and play the piano on an old recording of her at home, feeling sorry that things never turned out the way they were intended. I told my dad, it wasn't your fault that you married my mother --- you didn't know anything about mental illness in those days.  I could see the sense of relief that overcame him.  He said, yes, you're right, I had no idea about such things.  I told him my mother lived life on her own terms.  She did what she wanted and she said what she wanted.  How many people get to do that?  It was nice that shortly before she died, she asked my dad's forgiveness for divorcing him -- it took her a lifetime but she did it! 

I hope you will forgive yourself for reacting to your mother like a normal person, and forgive your mother for hurting your feelings.  I'm sure she loved you, in spite of her bad behavior at times.  People are complicated.  We don't always know why they act the way they do,  Sometimes it has nothing to do with us at all, but how are we supposed to know that when we're the ones getting hurt?  At the very least, your mother was probably a narcissist. 

I hope you find the following link helpful:

https://graceformyheart.wordpress.com/2013/06/07/after-the-narcissistic-parent/