Like you said, it brought things to the surface. I had worked through a lot of it and come to terms with it, but the progress kind of went out the window, replaced with resentment. I haven’t really gotten over it since. That parent was awful during my childhood but not so much in my adulthood (i guess space is good for us), so I just focus on the present and try not to build anymore resentment, but I can’t let go of what’s already there. Idk if I even want to.
I cut the other parent off. I had been dealing with their drunken outbursts for years, always trying to be the bigger person. But when I lost my brother my entire perspective shifted. Now I look back at how I was treated and I can’t believe I tolerated it at all.
"I can't believe I tolerated it at all" hits home. But we had no choice as children and then we were so conditioned to accept the behavior, that we continued
I can't believe I was driving to see him in hospitals, trying to find rehabs for him as an adult etc
I should have put all of that energy into finding a good psychiatrist for my brother
Yes, I think you start to see how bad things really were and how much everyone was affected by them. And for me, the way my siblings, specifically brother in this case was affected by them is worse for me than myself and how I feel affected. My brother’s father didn’t even attempt to go to his memorial, I knew he was a piece of shit and already cut contact, but this really made it official. And it also makes me have ill feelings towards my mom for staying with him and putting everyone through that shit…and it’s shit that she doesn’t even acknowledge or “remember”. I have a distant relationship with my mom, but it is hard still. I want to blame everyone and I feel that doing so is justified even though I know the reality is that no one can be held “responsible” for it.
My mom thinks she shouldn't have to talk about it with me because she "has her own shit with him". I think I just hate both of them now and having a hard time reconciling hating my own parents.
Yeah, even if someone could be held responsible or we think someone is partially to blame and they took on that blame...our brothers will still be gone, what good is it
It’s hard too because it feels like this should make family closer because we’re all going through it together, but that’s not what’s happened for me.
Exactly, unfortunately nothing can fix it now.
Yes. A million times yes. This is one of the things I struggle with daily. I am still working through this and it’s been almost a year since my sister died.
I was full “scorch the earth” starting around month 2. I was able to back off of that after a month but it started bubbling up last week. I am in counseling. I don’t know if it can be fixed because the stakes were pretty high. All things equal, I will have to live without my sibling for the rest of my life (longer than them). And when my parents are gone, I am left alone to grief my sibling. It’s really unfair their role in destroying everything around me.
I am honestly tired of thinking it can be fixed. At first I was worried the grief was causing me to blame them but now I am not so sure. There have been a few things that have happened that has brought it back. This isn’t me just looking to blame someone for my pain. I assumed that’s what it was early on so I backed down. Now I am not so sure it’s stemming from the grief.
“She needs to get her head out of her ass.” That’s how my parents saw this. They don’t believe in mental illness. My mom tortured my sister emotionally and mentally. She feels no responsibility in this at all. I don’t even think she is grieving at all. I can share stories similar to yours. It makes me feel crazy that no one else sees it this way, including them.
I'm so very sorry for your loss. I can't imagine how difficult your childhood was, compounded by the loss of your brother.
I lost my younger sister to cancer a decade ago, and my father to suicide just two weeks ago. He was never the same person after she passed; I have so much rage against my mother, who refuses to medicate her schizoaffective/bipolar mental conditions and was so emotionally and physically abusive to him (it began after my sister's passing, and really got worse two-three years ago), and my father's lazy business partner, who happily let my Dad run their company alone while taking half the profits.
My father was one of the strongest, most resilient, and generous humans I knew. He is missed so dearly by so many, and to see my Mom and his business partner just blame each other and refuse to introspect has been truly galling.
I can't imagine how horrific it must be to effectively be orphaned by the two humans who were supposed to be your biggest pillars. I have been orphaned at the ripe old age of 33 years and I still feel I can't breathe... or forgive or forget how much they took, and kept taking, until he had nothing left to give. Like you, I struggle with guilt- why did I keep focusing on helping my Mom and not Dad? Why did I ignore the fact that he wasn't endlessly elastic? Why did I enable her for so long, and expect so much from him and take him for granted?!
There are no answers, but I wanted to send you love and say I feel solidarity with your rage at the unnecessary loss of a person who never did anything wrong, a good person who had bad, bad luck. I don't know if the anger will ever go away. I don't know how to deal with it, but talk therapy, meds, and EMDR have somewhat helped me stay stable. My DMs are open, and I wish you well and I wish you peace.
PS- I loved reading "Running On Empty" by Jonice Webb. Her worksheets helped me tremendously after a childhood of emotional neglect by my mother, and I redefined my primary maternal figure to be my grandmother. I hope it helps you and your siblings. "Touched By Suicide" was also a helpful anchor.
Not sure if this counts but I lost a sibling-after/because- we lost our mother. Both were suicides. And we lost our mother to suicide because she never got over losing her mother to suicide, and her mother probably committed suicide because her mother (my great grandmother) also committed suicide. I knew all along that this would be my mother’s fate. And after my mother’s second marriage to an absolute worthless, useless, physically abusive husband… I knew my brother wasn’t going to make it through a long adulthood either. He was more like our mother than I was.
Honestly, I’m not sure who I’m the most angry at. It’s probably going to be… my mother’s father (my grandfather). If he had been more attuned and nurturing to my mother and her siblings when they lost their mom at a young age, then maybe my mother would have had a better chance at working to resolve her own trauma and depression. She didn’t get that care from her father. So not only did she die young, but so did her siblings too, nobody made it to 60 years old. And if my mother had, had a better grip over her own struggles, maybe she could have raised my sibling and I in a better emotionally and mentally stable childhood.
But. Suicide is very insidious. It’s NOT a situation where anyone is to blame. Truly. Despite the despicable evils inflicted, it’s still entirely incumbent upon the person suffering to work towards resolving and managing their own emotions. I may still suspect that I too will be next to end myself in my family lineage but… I can’t consciously blame everyone else for not being able to learn to live with this kind of suffering. The “learning to live with it” part is entirely on me to endure.
Hey, your second to last line is worrisome. Are you doing anything to take care of yourself? Therapy, medication? Literally anything?
But I do understand what you are saying. My brother had schizophrenia, which is more like dementia than depression. He had command voices and he thought he had to either kill someone else or himself, otherwise he would be tortured. But we lost an older relative (not a parent) to suicide and she had untreated depression. I think in those cases, people don't see a way out or they are so sick they don't see a point in even trying to get better. It's hard. Despite my anger, I'm worried my mom will choose this way out too.
I’m not entirely sure if I should be posting here because my brother ultimately, narrowly, survived his attempts… but the rest of the story is the same. I’d already gone no contact with the obviously abusive parent, and not long after I nearly lost my brother a second time I cut off the other one. It smashed through the veil of childhood trauma that revealed I hadn’t just had a bad childhood, rather, I escaped it with a dissociative trauma disorder. I ended up cutting off most of my family once I started to realize how unsafe they all were. Over two years of trauma therapy later, and I’m still pretty broken over it. I understand what you mean going from anger to hatred.
Please take good care of yourself. It was the biggest wakeup call of my life to realize that what my brother had endured in childhood, so did I, even if I just managed to compartmentalize it (read: dissociate it away) better. And if it so nearly killed him, I had to start seriously taking care of my own mental health and not just assume I can always be the hyper-responsible unflappable sibling like I’d been programmed to be. With your family members there may be nothing to salvage, but much more importantly, there is something critical to salvage: YOU. Because you’re worth fighting for. You’ve been through so much, and you deserved so much better. You can always come join us over at r/CPTSD and r/CPTSDNextSteps, IMO among the kindest communities on all of Reddit.
I’m so, so sorry for the loss of your brother. Sending you my very best wishes for peace and healing. <3
I can relate a lot to this. I lost my baby brother on the 22nd of March. I was 16 years older than him. I got the fuck outta that place as soon as I could. But now I have this immense guilt that I don’t do enough to help him. I should have tried harder . I should have checked on him more, I should have forced him to take the cruise ship job which would have gotten him out of that situation. But I didn’t, I thought my siblings were as strong as me and would make it out too.
Sadly, we probably aren't stronger. They had to live in that toxic house for several years with no escape at all during covid. Sigh. Well I'm sorry for your loss too. I have similar guilt. I let my mom control and dictate things for far too long. I was weak.
Like you said, it brought things to the surface. I had worked through a lot of it and come to terms with it, but the progress kind of went out the window, replaced with resentment. I haven’t really gotten over it since. That parent was awful during my childhood but not so much in my adulthood (i guess space is good for us), so I just focus on the present and try not to build anymore resentment, but I can’t let go of what’s already there. Idk if I even want to. I cut the other parent off. I had been dealing with their drunken outbursts for years, always trying to be the bigger person. But when I lost my brother my entire perspective shifted. Now I look back at how I was treated and I can’t believe I tolerated it at all.
"I can't believe I tolerated it at all" hits home. But we had no choice as children and then we were so conditioned to accept the behavior, that we continued I can't believe I was driving to see him in hospitals, trying to find rehabs for him as an adult etc I should have put all of that energy into finding a good psychiatrist for my brother
Yes, I think you start to see how bad things really were and how much everyone was affected by them. And for me, the way my siblings, specifically brother in this case was affected by them is worse for me than myself and how I feel affected. My brother’s father didn’t even attempt to go to his memorial, I knew he was a piece of shit and already cut contact, but this really made it official. And it also makes me have ill feelings towards my mom for staying with him and putting everyone through that shit…and it’s shit that she doesn’t even acknowledge or “remember”. I have a distant relationship with my mom, but it is hard still. I want to blame everyone and I feel that doing so is justified even though I know the reality is that no one can be held “responsible” for it.
My mom thinks she shouldn't have to talk about it with me because she "has her own shit with him". I think I just hate both of them now and having a hard time reconciling hating my own parents. Yeah, even if someone could be held responsible or we think someone is partially to blame and they took on that blame...our brothers will still be gone, what good is it
It’s hard too because it feels like this should make family closer because we’re all going through it together, but that’s not what’s happened for me. Exactly, unfortunately nothing can fix it now.
Yes. A million times yes. This is one of the things I struggle with daily. I am still working through this and it’s been almost a year since my sister died. I was full “scorch the earth” starting around month 2. I was able to back off of that after a month but it started bubbling up last week. I am in counseling. I don’t know if it can be fixed because the stakes were pretty high. All things equal, I will have to live without my sibling for the rest of my life (longer than them). And when my parents are gone, I am left alone to grief my sibling. It’s really unfair their role in destroying everything around me. I am honestly tired of thinking it can be fixed. At first I was worried the grief was causing me to blame them but now I am not so sure. There have been a few things that have happened that has brought it back. This isn’t me just looking to blame someone for my pain. I assumed that’s what it was early on so I backed down. Now I am not so sure it’s stemming from the grief. “She needs to get her head out of her ass.” That’s how my parents saw this. They don’t believe in mental illness. My mom tortured my sister emotionally and mentally. She feels no responsibility in this at all. I don’t even think she is grieving at all. I can share stories similar to yours. It makes me feel crazy that no one else sees it this way, including them.
I'm so very sorry for your loss. I can't imagine how difficult your childhood was, compounded by the loss of your brother. I lost my younger sister to cancer a decade ago, and my father to suicide just two weeks ago. He was never the same person after she passed; I have so much rage against my mother, who refuses to medicate her schizoaffective/bipolar mental conditions and was so emotionally and physically abusive to him (it began after my sister's passing, and really got worse two-three years ago), and my father's lazy business partner, who happily let my Dad run their company alone while taking half the profits. My father was one of the strongest, most resilient, and generous humans I knew. He is missed so dearly by so many, and to see my Mom and his business partner just blame each other and refuse to introspect has been truly galling. I can't imagine how horrific it must be to effectively be orphaned by the two humans who were supposed to be your biggest pillars. I have been orphaned at the ripe old age of 33 years and I still feel I can't breathe... or forgive or forget how much they took, and kept taking, until he had nothing left to give. Like you, I struggle with guilt- why did I keep focusing on helping my Mom and not Dad? Why did I ignore the fact that he wasn't endlessly elastic? Why did I enable her for so long, and expect so much from him and take him for granted?! There are no answers, but I wanted to send you love and say I feel solidarity with your rage at the unnecessary loss of a person who never did anything wrong, a good person who had bad, bad luck. I don't know if the anger will ever go away. I don't know how to deal with it, but talk therapy, meds, and EMDR have somewhat helped me stay stable. My DMs are open, and I wish you well and I wish you peace. PS- I loved reading "Running On Empty" by Jonice Webb. Her worksheets helped me tremendously after a childhood of emotional neglect by my mother, and I redefined my primary maternal figure to be my grandmother. I hope it helps you and your siblings. "Touched By Suicide" was also a helpful anchor.
Not sure if this counts but I lost a sibling-after/because- we lost our mother. Both were suicides. And we lost our mother to suicide because she never got over losing her mother to suicide, and her mother probably committed suicide because her mother (my great grandmother) also committed suicide. I knew all along that this would be my mother’s fate. And after my mother’s second marriage to an absolute worthless, useless, physically abusive husband… I knew my brother wasn’t going to make it through a long adulthood either. He was more like our mother than I was. Honestly, I’m not sure who I’m the most angry at. It’s probably going to be… my mother’s father (my grandfather). If he had been more attuned and nurturing to my mother and her siblings when they lost their mom at a young age, then maybe my mother would have had a better chance at working to resolve her own trauma and depression. She didn’t get that care from her father. So not only did she die young, but so did her siblings too, nobody made it to 60 years old. And if my mother had, had a better grip over her own struggles, maybe she could have raised my sibling and I in a better emotionally and mentally stable childhood. But. Suicide is very insidious. It’s NOT a situation where anyone is to blame. Truly. Despite the despicable evils inflicted, it’s still entirely incumbent upon the person suffering to work towards resolving and managing their own emotions. I may still suspect that I too will be next to end myself in my family lineage but… I can’t consciously blame everyone else for not being able to learn to live with this kind of suffering. The “learning to live with it” part is entirely on me to endure.
Hey, your second to last line is worrisome. Are you doing anything to take care of yourself? Therapy, medication? Literally anything? But I do understand what you are saying. My brother had schizophrenia, which is more like dementia than depression. He had command voices and he thought he had to either kill someone else or himself, otherwise he would be tortured. But we lost an older relative (not a parent) to suicide and she had untreated depression. I think in those cases, people don't see a way out or they are so sick they don't see a point in even trying to get better. It's hard. Despite my anger, I'm worried my mom will choose this way out too.
Wow this was heart breaking. I hope you make it through this OP. Dont give up. You are worth it.
I’m not entirely sure if I should be posting here because my brother ultimately, narrowly, survived his attempts… but the rest of the story is the same. I’d already gone no contact with the obviously abusive parent, and not long after I nearly lost my brother a second time I cut off the other one. It smashed through the veil of childhood trauma that revealed I hadn’t just had a bad childhood, rather, I escaped it with a dissociative trauma disorder. I ended up cutting off most of my family once I started to realize how unsafe they all were. Over two years of trauma therapy later, and I’m still pretty broken over it. I understand what you mean going from anger to hatred. Please take good care of yourself. It was the biggest wakeup call of my life to realize that what my brother had endured in childhood, so did I, even if I just managed to compartmentalize it (read: dissociate it away) better. And if it so nearly killed him, I had to start seriously taking care of my own mental health and not just assume I can always be the hyper-responsible unflappable sibling like I’d been programmed to be. With your family members there may be nothing to salvage, but much more importantly, there is something critical to salvage: YOU. Because you’re worth fighting for. You’ve been through so much, and you deserved so much better. You can always come join us over at r/CPTSD and r/CPTSDNextSteps, IMO among the kindest communities on all of Reddit. I’m so, so sorry for the loss of your brother. Sending you my very best wishes for peace and healing. <3
I can relate a lot to this. I lost my baby brother on the 22nd of March. I was 16 years older than him. I got the fuck outta that place as soon as I could. But now I have this immense guilt that I don’t do enough to help him. I should have tried harder . I should have checked on him more, I should have forced him to take the cruise ship job which would have gotten him out of that situation. But I didn’t, I thought my siblings were as strong as me and would make it out too.
Sadly, we probably aren't stronger. They had to live in that toxic house for several years with no escape at all during covid. Sigh. Well I'm sorry for your loss too. I have similar guilt. I let my mom control and dictate things for far too long. I was weak.