I still feel anger

[Phoenix-Kat]

My dad has passed away almost 5 months ago. The day I was informed he passed away was the day of his funeral!!! 
I posted about this already. Most of the days I am ok. But there is still this anger in me which comes to the surface once in a while I could scream and punch!!! There is no family feud or any kind of problems why I wasn’t informed. 
This was just according to my mom out of love and worry. I live in a different country, I haven’t seen my dad for 6 years, I knew he had a pacemaker but I wasn’t told throughout the years that he was often in the hospital. I thought he was fine.

My mom instructed all my siblings not to tell me. Because she didn’t want me to worry and neglect my life in a country far away. Especially during covid she was afraid I would take the next plane and come. Well, this is exactly what I would have done!!! It’s my dad!!!! 
Grieving the loss of a parent is a lot to take, but not having the chance to say good bye is in addition the worse which could happen on top. Especially because it was not necessary. I am sitting here and cry and feel so helpless full of anger because I couldn’t say good bye to him!!! Even via WhatsApp or FaceTime would help at least. 
I don’t know how to proceed with my emotions and feelings. It is not doing me any good to be angry (at my family) It doesn’t bring my dad back. But I feel so "betrayed“ and this is so utterly wrong what they did to me!!! I am sitting here now alone, the first shock is gone and I have to deal with all of this. Nobody of my family ever thought about me and my feelings and that  I could possibly go mad in the aftermath? There is not even emotional support. 
It‘s a s****feeling how all was handled. I have the emotional damage now.

sorry for my long rant. I am just overwhelmed by my feelings. And sorry for my bad English and grammar mistakes. I am not a native speaker. 
Thanks for reading 

 

[reader]

Dear Phoenix-Kat,

(((hugs))) I would feel this way too. It is deeply painful and hurtful what happened. It is only normal to want to have a chance to see your dad and say goodbye. It was wrong of your family to not tell you. It's been almost 6 years since my dad passed and I still have feelings of anger towards my family.

My counsellor suggested to me that I write a letter to my dad about all the things I wanted to say to him. She also suggested I talk to his picture or pretend he was sitting across from me. I know others have written letters and placed them in balloons to be released into the sky. My counsellor also said on average it takes about 18 months for the pain to lessen.  

Please know we are here to listen and support you. x 

[Summersun]

Hey phoenix-kat.

I want to tell you i'm so sorry for your loss and I want to extend my condolences to you.

I think if such a betrayal happens within the family it's very hard to deal with it yourself. please if you have the means try to do what reader did and find yourself a grief counsellor!

I think otherwise you will just all take it inside and develop some stress disorder or a serious illness.

it is very hard to come to terms with this because we tend to blame ourselves if we are treated poorly by other people and that is something that is just not true!

you did absolutely nothing to deserve this and it was very ignorant of your folks to treat you that way.

only the problem is: they will never admit that and the fault is with them.

but our heart cannot realise that other people can be so mean and then the conclusion is that something is wrong with us, because why would people treat us this way otherwise?

repeat: not your fault they are ignorant, they are selfish and it is absolutely horrible what they have done to you. You probably need someone who tells you that weekly face-to-face so that you can heal over time. Our family is not someone we can just divorce and that's why it's a very difficult situation you're stuck in. 

 I have never really told all the details of my story here, so I will try to write it down. Maybe it makes you feel less alone to know that other people are in a similar situation.

I send you all my best wishes.

I have the same problem, only I was in the same town. Had had a fight with my mum a few weeks prior because she would not let me hire a private nurse and we had discussed for years and she had been reanimated  a couple of times and i kept telling her I didn't not want to live with that fear anymore.

My mom took opioids for a pain condition and forgot everything I said over years and I was going crazy as I have a chronic disease myself. Everyday the world would start anew for her. Sie had forgotten everything positiv and negative from the day before, only the rest of the world had not.

What was worse, was she didn't see that I was the only one trying to help her even though I was an hour away and had trouble walking.

I talked to all her doctors and read her reports from the hospital and doctors visits. She would only listen to her friends, most of them very mean and not in favor of me and they talked her out of believing me that things were urgent and her life was in danger.

To make matters worse she was still in touch with her divorced husband - my father - who unfortunately has dementia but she never recognised that as he can hide it very well.

Could not convince him to tell her she needs a private nurse I would have paid for one myself, but she kicked everyone out of her house. Would always pick up the phone with him -  and not listen to me and hang up when we talked about anything she didn't like and that she should change.

Otherwise she was fine and my best friend and she would listen to me on the phone as well, as long as I did not make demands on her daily life and what she should do about it.

So we were close but I had no influence on her decisions. If she did admit that something needed to change she had forgotten it the next day and that's the problem I was talking for hours in vain.

Also she was playing favourites listening to the only guy who could not help her for the life of his, my dad,  because of his dementia, he could not realise and that her heart was so weak she was already on a oxygen machine that she walked around with.

Yet she took his advice and his phone calls over mine it was very hurtful over the years, and he returned the favour and protected her from my interventions no matter what I said was necessary!

They stuck together like glue and you could not get in between it has been this way all my life. Only now they were both helpless elderly people alone in their respective apartments and only listening to each other on the phone - the deaf leading the blind.

Hence I was getting more and more desperate each year as both of them had actually needed someone to either live with or check in on them for years.

She was in the hospital for 3 weeks, I talked to them everyday in January. They released her to be at home, only with someone to check medications twice a day for only 5 minutes. Very often she would not even let those people in the house.

So frustrated after all these years of futile talks I finally had a breakdown at the end of January and just tried to rest some for 2 weeks or so and then I wanted to move in with her for a month.

And talk it all over with her at home when I had caught up on some sleep. Was so fragile at the time I couldn't even walk or contain food in my stomach I was sick all the time. I meant to go earlier but my health was not restored until three weeks had passed. 

The day I wanted to call her I get a phone call from hospital that she had been there for 5 days without me knowing and being in the same city in the I live in.

Five friends of her's, neighbours, the nurses, my father, the hospital, doctors of two different departments within the hospital, so roughly about 10 or 15 people knew.

No one said a word or send an email that she even had been hospitalised. My father used to call me daily so so I expected a phone call from him, if something happened.

Even if we had been on bad terms after January because I told him that he was betraying my mother's health by sticking to her when she needs help but cannot realise it herself.

And they call me 3 hours after she died.

I actually had a piece of paper that said I could make medical decisions for her I had fought all January for it. Only this was a different hospital now, and they had no idea about it,  my mother could not remember she signed it.

But: This hospital she had been in November before and I had told the doctor to never operate on her without calling me!

I just kind of hoped for the best because there was so many people around her.

Could have noticed that doctors would never remember something like that for over 3 months, but I was too exhausted to think about other people and that they see new patients every day. I was needing help myself.

My father knew about her being there but forgot to tell me because he has dementia and didn't think it was important. She went in because of relatively minor complications - only stones in her gallbladder. They convinced her to do a surgery that I would never have allowed and 2 days later she died of blood poisoning.

My father saw her the day before and didn't think to call me still.

Asked him did you not notice anything? He said "yes she was very cold."

I could scream! she was already dying and she didn't get a chance to say goodbye to me and I didn't get a chance to say goodbye to her, because my demented father didn't think anything of it, that her limbs were already cold because she was dying.

And I am 45 minutes away by car watching TV when she is fighting for her life.

I have to live with the one surviving parent that I basically want to murder because my mother would have never ever died this way had she been in a different hospital with a more competent doctor!

And I would have definitely taking her elsewhere if only one person has called me. I have 0 idea his dementia was this bad I had told him single day basically that illness is always an emergency, and call me.

Now he is 83 and needs my help and I just don't know how to forgive him!

my mother could have lived another 20 years. Mother was the  only person I talked to daily.

And before this fight we talked to each other everyday on the phone.

I just had a break down because his dementia and her pain condition have been going on for twelve to twenty years. 

I so regret not calling her five days prior when I was just gaining my strength back and learning to walk again. I wanted to be a bit stronger than absolutely necessary because I would always yell at my parents when I would lose my cool after they asked me the same questions as 2000 times before.

And these 5-days cost her her life and me my best friend. I never forgive myself I should have noticed my dad is only a body now and not a mind. Only until 2 years ago he was a school teacher and functioning fine. I hardly saw him during the pandemic to protect him and had not noticed how bad it was.

I hate myself that she was alone all week and she must have felt horrible!

horrible and afraid and she knew she was dying and no one was coming to see her and hold her hand. And on top of it - it was unnecessary because you can treat blood poisoning if you notice it right away so they basically killed her, by not watching her closely.

You can't get more intensive care than in the intensive care unit so what should relatives do even if someone had been there and you're not a doctor?

I really feel you, Phoenix-kat!

because I'm also going insane here and I want to incarcerate all the people who did that to her and make them feel the pain that I'm going through!

You cannot even take doctor's to court here because they always win and it doesn't bring my mum back.

And I'm so confused about my mother because I told her for years, that she's trusting the wrong people and that most of her friends are mean and not well-meaning because they had prejudice towards me and tried to separate my mother from me, by telling negative stories about me!

That's why she didn't give me the piece of paper earlier and I couldn't hire a nurse who would have noticed the stones in her gallbladder much earlier before they turned into an emergency.

My heart is broken and I lie awake at night and think of her in those 5 terrible long nights that she was alone in the hospital, nobody telling what to do ot soothing her.

my mama was afraid and she was very fearful of doctors and I think thay only talked her into the surgery to make money of her.

she had very good insurance and they wanted to take it.

It happened for years I had to cancel about 2 surgeries a year for the past 10-years because every Doctor wanted to operate on her.

So that only proves that I was right! she needed someone by her side and it couldn't be me, because I was too ill for that and the minute I turn around for a few minutes she's gone!

the exact biggest nightmare I had was exactly the one thing that happened. 

What is worse is that my mother could for the life of her not remember the fight she had with people.

Meaning she must have felt that I didn't want her in the last 3-weeks of her life.

That I had abandoned her even though I was just making plans for the whole 3 weeks to move in with her because I thought it was necessary to be there when she would not let professionals in in the house.

I didn't hear her last phone call because my Nokia phone was too old and suddenly stopped ringing and I only noticed it by the end of that week. So all terrible things came together in one day and it took my mother's life.

So phoenix-kat i understand that you will never forgive your family members and I have the same problem and I have no idea why i or you or anyone deserve all of this?

Like you said it's hard enough to lose a parent but not saying goodbye is the worst thing ever cause we will also not know what they thought of us in the moment they were leaving this earth.

there is no reason because no person alive has ever done something to deserve something like this. Maybe except for the doctors who kill other people's favourite persons in the world, for monetary reasons.

I want them to rot in hell but of course they are fine and it is us who are suffering here.

And I understand Phoenix-kat that you have the same problem that most family members who are left in your world are the people who deceived you. 

If such a deception happens in the family it is really really terrible because what are you supposed to do with such traitors you cannot divorce them or leave them like a boyfriend.

My problem is that my father is so ill and has a heart condition and an aneurysm already in his stomach that could explode any minute when his blood pressure rises. The doctor tells me no excitement for him.

Only i just want to yell at him everyday

"you killed my mother!"

He doesn't understand that and always says no no it was different, he hasn't apologised one time in over 4 months.  With my luck I will now yell at him one day and he drops dead and history repeats itself.

It will be my fault again and I will totally be alone then.

I hope phoenix-kat that you are not ill yourself, that your mother is not ill and that you did not financially depend on your parents, because then you're in an even worse situation!

like I am now.

And once my father is gone I cannot pay my rent much longer, things are really looking tough right now.

Sorry I hope any of this makes sense, I am currently running a temperature because of a cold and I I'm not sure if I oversaw any typos or so. I'm very sorry if things are not logical. Will correct later.

If anyone else here has any advice for me as well I would love to hear it.

Stay strong everybody!

 

[Phoenix-Kat]

Dear Reader, thank you very much for your reply and the warm words and tips. I am very sorry for the loss of your dad and the anger you are still having towards your family after 6 years. I hope you will find peace some day!! I’ve noticed that you reply a lot to posts here. Thank you for doing this! It gives such a warmth to receive a nice reply!! And I am sure other people feel the same ❤️
 

Writing a letter and sending it in a balloon 🎈 sounds like a great idea. I wanted to write a letter to my dad and tell him what ai couldn’t do while he was still alive. But until now I can’t overcome the feeling to do it. And I don’t know why. Maybe I fear I would have a mental breakdown. I don’t know. 
But whenever I am ready and feel strong enough, I will write him a letter and probably send it in a balloon. 
 

Thank you again, dear Reader. 
 

Phoenix 

[Phoenix-Kat]

Dear Summersun,

thank you for your kind words! I appreciate you sharing your story with me. This is a pretty tough one. I am very very sorry about your loss!! And I can feel your anger about the unlucky chain of incidents and all people involved. Starting by a different hospital, the neglect of the doctors to treat her blood poisoning, them not asking you for the green light for your mom‘s surgery, your mom‘s mean friends, your dad with dementia…this is a lot to take in and digest! I have no words for what happened to you!
It literally makes my jaw drops. I only can imagine how angry, frustrated and hurt you must be feeling!! 😞

I truly hope and wish you may find peace and recover from your mom‘s loss one day. It is heartbreaking what happened and how it happened. And your dad‘s dementia, heart problem, aneurysm…your story is indeed so sad!! 
I am sending you a big warm hug, also to you dear Reader if you happen to read this post. I forgot to mention it in your post. 

I see a counselor and so far it helps a bit. He encourages me to acknowledge my feelings and there is no right of wrong what I feel. 
So don’t be too hard on yourself! I know it’s easier said then done, but you need to rest your body well. 
i do have a autoimmune disease. Unfortunately I am not the healthiest person. And any stress and anger is causing a bad flare up and my health is going down the drain for days, sometimes weeks. 

So please dear Summersun, be kind to yourself and your health!! 
if you need to talk any time, you can chat with me. Btw. I think we are both from the same European country. I thought I saw some typos in my first language before your edit.  

big hugs 

Phoenix 

 

[Summersun]

Thank you. I am still ill, so cannot write much. And its the goddamn phone that keeps switching to mothertongue. Yeah, i always post and edit later after once losing a whole page. Chatting would be nice. Hope to better soon. Thanks a lot. Its nice to get some feedback and you write really well. Have a great day.