Two and a half years after Dad's Death and It Still Haunts Me..

[JMEagle]

I've posted before, about a year and a half ago but I feel the need to reach out again. It's been Two years, three months and one week since my dad passed, it's been a rough time and I've been through a lot since then. Losing my dad I lost a huge part of me, he was my best friend, my guiding light, he was everything a daughter could hope for in a father and without him I still feel as if part of me is lost. Since he's past I've been through and come to terms with a lot, I guess I just needed some place I could open up without being judged for these feelings and actually maybe find people who understand so I'm sorry this is probably going to be long but I just need to be open, and if anyone else has been through similar things I want them to know they can reach out if they need to talk as well. 

In December of 2015, I was raped. It was by someone I trusted and knew well, I guess because of that I had trouble coming to terms with it. Because of that I never told my dad, I feared he would do something bad or feel like he could have stopped it or something, I know and have come to terms with the fact that that isn't a good reason for not telling him, that's the one and only time my dad and i didn't really talk, is for about two months, we were distant. Eventually he blamed my ex-boyfriend who i was with shortly after for that distance but he was only part of the reason. I couldn't shake the feeling of my dad being upset about things. My dad died May 20th, of 2016. I was away in TN when I got the call that he was being rushed to the hospital and I needed to get home, I was six hours away with my then boyfriend. We rushed back as soon as i got the call but halfway through the trip i got on Facebook hoping to keep my mind off things and checking to see if my family had updated anything or told our other family members, what i saw still haunts me. One of my neighbors who was kind of a friend to my family had got on there without my family and posted her condolences, up until that moment I didn't know my dad had passed. My family was trying to keep me from knowing about it until after i was safely home because I suffer from anxiety and depression and as i mentioned my dad was my best friend. I feel bad that even this long later i can't face that person without feeling hate towards them and sometimes i feel anger towards my family that others knew before me, I understand they wanted to keep me safe because I'm the youngest and was only 21 at the time but it still hurts. After dad died, i was completely lost, but in that lost time i lost everything that at the time meant anything to me. Within a month of my dad dying I lost my boyfriend of six months because he couldn't stand to see me so depressed. Shortly after that I ran into the man who Raped me and was reminded of that and the distance i caused between my dad and i and forced to come to terms with the fact i never got to have my dad help me find a way to cope with that(I've now come to terms with everything about the rape). I still have lingering issues with being left by my ex for being depressed after the loss of my dad, it makes me worry when I'm in one of those moods everyone's going to leave me. 

Over the time of the first year i was seeking help for my depression and learning to cope without having my dad for guidance. My mom became a problem to me however. She was the second closest person to me, first was my dad and than it was her. After he died she became uncaring towards her children, myself included and she was always extra attentive to me because i was her Miracle Baby(her words all through my childhood because she'd lost two to being stillborn in the 4years before my birth. My dad and her were married for 36years before he passed so at first I put my grieving on hold to help her because I thought she needed it, however within a month of him being gone it became all about her. If she wasn't getting attention or if my siblings and i were trying to heal she'd act suicidal and throw fits until we focused on her. Finally i got to the point where i told her she needed to seek professional help because i didn't think we were helping her, once i did that however she stopped acting that way or as bad as she had been. Then at the month mark she decided to start dating, so even though it was awkward i helped her make an online dating profile. When she'd go on dates or go out with friends I always did her makeup and helped her pick or buy clothes or even let her wear mine, i was extremely supportive. At the time however I was trying to put myself out there to try and move forward in my life as well but I had to often cover her responsibilities and make sure the house was taken care of on top of working because she went wild. It eventually got to a breaking point 6months after he passed because i found someone I wanted to explore dating with but i was constantly getting last minute calls that i needed to do this because my mom wasn't available to do it because she was going out. I often had to cancel or just postpone and my mom didn't seem to care that I was running myself ragged to make her happy. She just wanted me to do everything for her and when it came to me dating she wanted me to go back to my cheating ex because he was from a wealthy family, not because he could make me happy. After that we had a huge fight because her actions caused my sister to move back to our hometown and be a state away taking her sons with her and mom causing her to blame all of us and caused problems where we stopped talking all because my mom wanted to see her then boyfriend instead of doing something she'd been supposed to do to help my sister. So right before my 22 birthday, the first birthday without my dad I'd just got my sister and nephews taken away from me the week before. I'd asked my mom not to have her new boyfriend there because i wanted it just a family day and we'd none met him and i couldn't hand having another male with my mother in the house when for the past 6 years she'd shared this house with my dad and her children and grandchildren, she ignored me and for the whole week my birthday week, she had her boyfriend in the house, in my dad's office and in the bedroom she shared with my dad just 6months before. I hated that birthday, i cried basically all day and couldn't even stand to be in the house. After that things just got worse and worse with her, she went more wild as the time wore on, it became less about family for her and more about whatever guy she was with at the moment. A few months after my birthday I finally started dating again, i found someone and fell in love, the first time she met my ex she was rude and just generally distant from me and mad because he was a little older than me. she started dating her now boyfriend and right after the first date(literally the same day) moved in with him, we were all shocked and hurt because it was out of nowhere just before what would have been hers and my dad's 37th year anniversary and thanksgiving, we had no clue how to handle it. Then to make the situation even worse after moving out for a month the Week of Thanksgiving she moved back into the family house my brother(his wife and two young sons) and i shared without any warning or time to prepared. Which caused us all to have really hard times and then she got angry because we couldn't just cope right at the start, we tried being nice, inviting them to join us for dinner, to do family things, just to try and include him but every time we did she would say they're busy, and we tried at least two or three times a week. Then merely two weeks into him living here he tried to tell me how he was going to control things in the house, when my brother and i had been paying all the bills fully since my dad died because my mom didn't work and even tho her boyfriend did we still paid and they lived here free just because my dad didn't have a will so by forfeit even though she knew our dad had bought this house for their children and grandchildren she owned the house. Within three months she'd destroyed most things that meant anything to my dad or her boyfriend did, she even went as far to sell my car that I'd put $3000 into and inherited from my grandparents(her name was on the title with mine because i was too young when they passed) because her boyfriend wasn't making enough money for them at work(because he wasn't actually working because he's a handyman and said at the holidays work is slow for a few months after). I never got any of the money from that or was even asked if i wanted to sell. Over the year that followed there were often times when she showed how little she cared about us and often put us in hard situations to benefit her boyfriend. And living with him was hard because he constantly was cornering me in parts of the house when no one was around and making me feel scared and bringing up previous traumas and when i told my mother she called me a liar and whore and all other kinds of names and told him and he did too. Then after that they locked me out of my Woodshop(it had been my dad's but it was set in stone i got that because i was trained from 15 on to work in) in retaliation it caused a huge argument during which she shoved me and her boyfriend got in my face insulting me and saying all kinds of hurtful things in which she did nothing but join in and do the same until I stood up for myself along with my brother and his wife and stayed firm and didn't back away from him which of course she called the cops and tried to say i started it and hit her and her boyfriend when i was the only one shoved or anything. Then for a couple weeks I endured countless times of her talking about how bad of a person of my dad was or how he was just horrible in general(he wasn't, she was the bad part of their marriage, repeatedly cheated but my dad loved her and didn't want to take her kids away from her but if they'd divorced he would have because she was unfit and for over half my life she hasn't worked) and she hated me because i was just like him, I wanted to leave the house i was raised but couldn't because i was stuck here for my family(My brothers young sons i was/am their nanny since their parents work a lot) i dealt with a lot from them just to hold my family together as much as i could while dealing with my mother isolating us from all of our other family and friends by spreading lies about all of her children saying how we were at fault for everything. Eventually she tried to evict my brother, his family and i on my birthday last year and almost succeeded except for the fact that we had been paying bills in full for a year and a half and had proof we'd started buying the house from her and her stories were all lies. This year she's started countless fights, charged us extra money and when my sister got in a tough spot and needed me to take her children for a few weeks to six months due to financial and medical issues my mother refused and went as far to say if my brother or i helped the children by taking them in we'd be making my brother's sons homeless because she'd try to evict us again. But then lied to my sister saying it was all lies and telling her that she disowned me. only to send flowers(something she's never done because i don't like flowers and have allergies to some) on my birthday this year and try to act like she cares only to curse me out and get angry because even though i said thank you i wasn't thankful enough because when she does things for her boyfriend's kids who are all older than me and she talked bad about a year ago they are all extremely grateful and loving, she gives them hundreds of dollars and takes them out for dinner yet sends her own kids something that caused me to have sinus issues that led to a sinus infection because she got ones that even though I'm not allergic to cause enough issues it can cause issues for me. 

 

I honestly don't know why i said all this, maybe so others can understand better, maybe so i can open up about it to others who may understand at least somewhat what it's like to have a parent who just once one dies treats the kids poorly? I don't know, i just know that not a day goes by that i don't miss my dad and wish he was here, outside of my mother problems I'm the happiest I've been since he's passed except it makes me miss him more and it usually lowers my happiness and makes that ache so much worse and i don't know how to deal with it. I've tried doing things to make the bad days positive, such as deciding when i do eventually get married it will hopefully be on the anniversary of his death to bring light to that day and sort of honor him and make such a sad day a happier one and include him in on my wedding, and i often do things on fathers day or his birthday to honor him or to bring light to those days but i still can't get over the ache of losing him. it still sits in me and often causes me to cry or tear up at random times, from missing him because I'm happy or just hating that he's gone. Does anyone have advice that they think may be helpful to coping with that or anything mentioned here? Thank you for reading this, i know it was a lot but i needed to talk about it.

[reader]

Dear JMEagle,

Thank you for taking the time to share your story with us. I'm so sorry for everything you have been through.

Thinking of you. Sending all my thoughts and prayers.