PD mom has died - overwhelmed with guilt

[bunnie]

I have always felt responsible for my mother's feelings, especially her sadness and anger. If she was happy, I tried to behave so that she remained happy. I know I have to work on this guilt.

Well, she unexpectedly died 3 weeks ago. She lived out of state and we had to travel to pack up her things and bring her home. I donated a lot of her clothing to her church (she was a very active member). At the time, I felt that it was the right thing to do as she always gifted people her clothing if they admired it. She also was a seamstress and made clothing as gifts. Anyway, now that things have settled, I'm feeling very guilty that I donated 2/3 of her clothing. I feel that maybe I should have brought all of it home and "sat" with the clothing longer, then donated it. (I know, lol)

I also feel extremely guilty bc my uPD sister was acting out and accusing me of molesting my nieces and nephew. Sister is sick w cancer and I feel and felt that my parents should have defended me instead of once again, allowing sister to suck all the air out of the room and slander my name. So in my pain, I told my mother that she should just focus on sister and I will be sure not to add to any of the family's stress. Well, in the midst of all of this, my mother died. She was traveling home and alternating sister's chemo appointments with my dad.

A couple of my cousins told me that my mother was extremely stressed out traveling to take care of my married sister. I told them there wasn't anything I could do bc mom was going to do whatever she wanted. I'd tried to get her to move home for a long time.

I just feel guilty about so much. I know it's irrational. But if I could have done just one thing to tip the scales in favor of her being here, I should have done it.

If any of you have been overcome with guilt (for any reason) after the death of a parent, I'd appreciate your perspective on how to overcome it.

[SunnyMeadow]

I haven't gone through this yet but I wanted to say I'm sorry you're struggling right now. There are so many complex feelings in dealing with PD, either when they're alive or when they pass.

For years, I've been trying to get over feeling responsible for my mother's feelings. It was always put upon me to cheer her up or change the subject to happier things. It's exhausting. I hope that your feelings of guilt will lessen as time goes on.

♥

[GentleSoul]

I am so sorry you are going through this. It sounds deeply painful.   

I haven't gone through similar so I cannot offer any words of advice but I can send you a big hug and my kindest thoughts.

Please take care of yourself.

[bunnie]

Thank you both for responding. I truly appreciate being heard. 

[moglow]

Mine isn't gone but I've experienced so much of that woulda/coulda/should guilt myself, I can't imagine it being worse when she passes.

We have to keep remembering, they made choices just as we have, could have chosen differently just as we did, could have reached back pretty much any time but didn't. Whether from full on maliciousness, insecurity, helplessness or whatever, those aren't ours to fix. Were never ours, no matter what others may say.

It's real easy for people outside to tell us what we should or didn't do, but where were they in all that mess?? When did they step up to try and help or at least deflect?

Not trying to pass the buck here but to remind you that this didn't happen in a vacuum, where you always shoved her away. Even if you did, I suspect there were plenty of times you tried to do the right thing for both of you before that lesson was learned.

Be easy with yourself. Finally.

[nanotech]

Condolences. Feel free to grieve your mum. Whatever the relationship we seem to need to have that closure
After my BPD mum's death, I felt VERY  guilty, believing I had made the last few months of her life difficult. I hadn't.  Therapy showed me that I was being used by all the family as the scapegoat for her illness and death. At the time I was quite accepting of the role, having been dealt it before by the rest of them.
Following her death, my toxic FOO attempted then to shame and guilt me for some immediate happy events that occurred in my FOC. Grandchildren born some months after, were subsequently ignored.
ONCE I'd stopped feeling guilty I was able to grieve for her, and also for what I could have had, but didn't,
Don't take on ANY guilt about anything, whether clothes or your mum travelling or whatever.Your mum was a grown person who made her own decisions. It wasn't your responsibility. It doesn't belong to you.

[bunnie]

nanotech and moglow,
Thank you for the reminders. I had actually started feeling more peaceful about my family dynamics, particularly accepting of my parents and the fact that things were never going to change. I had finally accepted so many things. Then she died, and I have been tumbling head first into my usual guilt and shame over not fixing things before this happened.  I have always been blamed for "trying to break up the family" whenever I spoke the truth or didn't make things better.  But the guilt I feel now, this is the ultimate.

[FromTheSwamp]

I expect when each of my parents die, that my brain will flail around trying to make sense of my world.  I expect I will feel miserable, guilty, relieved, guilty that I feel relieved, and probably most of all I will feel like things should have been different. 
I have been blamed for things that went wrong in a general sense and for many many specific things over the course of my life by my parents and by people influenced by my parents.  I've been digging myself out of that "everything is my fault" mindset with therapy, but it's hard going and it's very ingrained.  I won't be the least bit surprised if I get swamped by it when they die.  They programmed me that way, the two people who were supposed to love and protect me when I was small and helpless. 

Your mother was a pivotal figure in your life, for good or ill.  You will have to adjust to her being gone.  You have family members piling on, trying to offload their bad feelings onto you. 

I hope you can forgive yourself for not being able to unilaterally forge a loving relationship with an unloving person.  I hope you can work through these complicated feelings and come out feeling better.  And I am sorry for your loss. 

[mary_poppins]

Hi. You'll probably be horrified to read this but...if my own mother died, I'd feel relief and joy. I'd not care at all about her clothes and what to do with them (she has piles and piles of old clothes, the clothes I used to wear in high school and faculty years, her clothes from her 20's, my father's young boy clothes, my siblings' clothes..her living room is full with old clothes.)-she probably doesn't want to donate them. She hates giving stuff to people so she hoards everything that she owns (I already see how different your mom is from mine).
My mother spent her entire life destroying my self-esteem, the trust I have in myself and my ability to be financially independent and earn an income to support myself (I'm still not well in this regard) so I wouldn't care if something happened to her because, I know it well that she wouldn't care at all if I got sick or if something happened to me. She proved to me how unimportant I am to her over and over again.

YET, I still feel guilty to leave her behind and go full NC. How do I deal with the guilt?

I go to codependency meetings because they teach us there to let go of unhealthy levels of guilt and caretaking (caretaking for someone who is abusive is unhealthy for us). I also have a huge list of the bad things my mom has done and I try to read it at least once a week to sediment the belief that my mom is (very) abusive and I don't have to be in a relationship with her if I don't want to.

I also talk to many people who have either went low contact with their abuser or are currently no contact and the way they see things is refreshing to me. They seem to not live their life through the lens of guilt or/and shame. This is great because it gives me hope that I can become like them, too. Getting rid of that guilt is not something you can do overnight. It takes a lot of time and effort.

Realize that it's OK to feel guilty because you're a child of abuse and all abused children are programmed
to feel like that. However, you didn't do anything to justify the guilt you feel. You just lived your life and tried to have a sense of self. That's the thing you've done but, to a PD person being self-differentiated is a sin and you should feel troubled by it.

[bloomie]

bunnie - I am so sorry for the loss of your mom. No matter the surrounding circumstances this is a difficult and complicated loss in your life.

Having been raised up to 'be' responsible for my mom - even to the point of keeping her alive when I was ill equipped to deal with years of self harm threats, I understandably developed a destructive and false belief that I could actually fulfill that role. I could keep my mother alive, help my parents make better choices around their relationships and lives, sacrifice my own self and needs so that they could thrive or at least live. Both died very close together quite young after completely different serious illnesses.

Here's the most important thing I know.... I was not that powerful. I was not powerful enough to keep them alive, help them understand how their choices were detrimental to their health and wellbeing, how important it is to develop healthy relationships with their family because life is indeed short, and so much more.

I was not that powerful and neither are you. We absolutely cannot sacrifice, give, lay down our own lives enough for another independent, adult person to keep them alive, make them live a more peaceful life, take care of themselves, etc. We are not powerful enough to single handedly destroy an entire family system. We are not powerful enough to heal and restore an entire family system or a relationship with a sibling who is untrustworthy.

Your mother was a grown adult who chose what she wanted for her life and so was mine. All of the consequences of all of her lifetime of choices were carried in her body and mind. If I had been completely removed - never born, as she often told me she wished, she still would've lived the same way and died young. There is no doubt in my mind. I could not save her or fix her no matter how much I tried.

bunnie... you honor your mother with your good and loving life. With you sensitive soul and good character. By making a difference in this world and living with respect and kindness toward others. Keeping your mother's clothing is not honoring her. It is just stuff. You did good to follow her lead and donate to those she would've wanted to have it. Now, that is honoring her. Let that go! 

The feelings you are experiencing... I am wondering if you might be misidentifying them? Try leaning into what you are feeling and see what you learn. After my own mother's truly awful illness and death what I felt was relief for her that she was no longer suffering and deep sadness. It is sad and hard and complicated right now. And we are here with you as your move through it all.

(This is just a resource that was so helpful to me in understanding my emotions around things: https://karlamclaren.com/embracing-guilt-and-shame/ )

[bunnie]

Please know that I am so appreciative for all of the validation, kindness and advice given to my OP.
It is helping me to balance my thinking.

[Pepin]

I've been going through some of this myself with regards to DPD CN MIL's recent death.  I wonder however is there something I could have done differently with how I handled things with her or how could I have done things differently with DH and his relationship to her?  The answer is no.  Once I saw the dysfunction I couldn't unsee it.  I couldn't be a doormat anymore and that is what helped me survive the craziness of it all.  Like your mother, my MIL was being exactly who' she was.  She couldn't be changed no matter what was done for her.  All the choices made were hers and hers alone.  Didn't matter how anything was explained or how many times.  People are who they are.  And I know, it hurts like mad because we nons have so much awareness and PDs just don't encompass that.  They do know a lot but they make choices for themselves only and it hurts others as they intend it to.  We are all here for you. 

[treesgrowslowly]

Hello Bunnie,

I agree with what Bloomie already wrote here, so I won't go into repeating it, because it is what I thought about too when I read your post.

I think that Bloomie is onto something really important at the end of the post regarding identifying which emotions you are feeling.

Keep in mind that we are in a society that does not really understand grief very well, so right now, my guess is that you are getting a lot of messages from people that don't really fit with how you actually feel inside. That is just my guess, from being on the boards here for years and seeing how others have walked through this type of grief.

The messages from other people can really confuse us when we are dealing with loss.

This can block us from knowing what it is we are feeling inside, because we feel social pressure to feel 'the right emotions' or to display some grief behaviours that we don't actually feel. I don't know if that fits for you, but in enmeshed families, there is certainly an expectation that people perform the 'correct' behaviors, whether those behaviors fit with how you actually feel, or not.

It is possible that you are taking on some of the emotions of the people around you. They feel emotion x, and they don't / can't process it, so they try to get you to feel it for them. This is a real phenomenon. I have dealt with it. People want us to display an emotion they refuse to deal with themselves. I do wonder if that is part of what is going on for you, since you have relatives who are trying to make you responsible for things that were not your responsibility.

I know the heartbreak of thinking we belong to a family that will be there for us at moments like this, only to realize, oh wait, these people are being self-absorbed! They are not sitting and holding space for me, and if they do, it is only when they feel like it, not when I need it.

Honestly my advice is to work with a counsellor, someone who is not related to you, and can see you and hear how you are feeling. That might go a long way right now to helping you hear yourself better, and recognize which of these emotions are yours and which are not yours. I do wish you all the best as you go through this time.

Trees

[Gointothelight]

I'm so sorry you feel this way bunnie and I wish you strength. Losing a mother is always sad, even if she wasn't able to be there for you. Hug!

[bunnie]

I do have pressure from family. Many of the closest ones stepped up immediately to support and comfort us. That support comes with an extra layer of expectation that I will return to their very narrow ideas of how to worship God. Although I thought I had a handle on dealing with my family from a religious standpoint, I can see how the guilt surrounding my relationship with my mother is also compounded by the extended family's expectations and the comments they are making.

I am going to have to unravel all of this deliberately. I wish there was an easier and faster way.

[Leonor]

Hi Bunnie,

I'm so sorry for your loss. The guilt you are experiencing may be just the feelings bubbling up to the surface, to be embraced and soothed. You don't have to clear up all the guilt, or take on all the guilt, or try to argue away the guilt. You can be grieving and all kinds of feelings can come up as part of that experience. They don't have to be real or true or make sense.

You know, my dh said that he was feeling guilty because in the last few weeks of his father's life, he was arguing and frustrated with him rather than sitting with him and having a more connected time with him. And I wondered, "Do you think that he would have allowed that to come to pass?" And dh said, "Oh. No, probably not.'

In other words, it would have been uncomfortable for FIL to have quality time with dh, because he wouldn't know what to do with it. He would not have experienced it as loving, because loving for him meant rescuing and caretaking and drama. Even if dh made an effort (which he did), FIL would have thrown a monkey wrench in (which he did), not to mess with dh or push him away, but because that's what brought him a sense of closeness. It's $#@& up, because it's disordered ... But it's how he was.

So the guilt may not really come from what would have made your mom feel good or better or stable or loved. She may not have been able to receive it. The guilt can be grief over what you wish you could have had if only you had been able to change your mom. Maybe your mom was experiencing live the way she knew how. In that case, it's not a fault or an omission.

But it still hurts and deserves healing.

[Hazy111]

Hi Bunnie,

I am sorry for your loss. Those raised in such families with such mothers know.

Just to add i read this so long ago, so i hope it helps.   

"The emotional health of children is the parents responsibility. With narcissistic parents the emotional health of parents is the children's responsibility"

No matter what you did or didnt do, there is always that guilt that we should have done more.

[sunshine702]

As far as the clothes.  There is no right thing.  Let go of that guilt.  Let go of the Fear Of Missing Out "sitting with them"  The donation to the church was kind and you did it in the moment.  It is done.  You made that choice. And that is the right choice. 

You know this is a shocking thing to say but I think I will feel relief (dare I say It) if they pass.  Maybe guilt  too but maybe not.  I am deeply sorry for you loss.  Hugs.

Be soft with yourself.  Grief can be all over the map.

[MIB]

Hi Bunnie,

First of all, I'm sorry for your loss.

I lost my Dad very unexpectedly about a year ago. We were vvvvvvvLC, and I believe he was both a narc and an enabler of my uPD M.

He often told me that I would feel guilty when he died. Yet of all the feelings I felt, guilt was never one of them.

Here's why - I can honestly say that I did the best I could, while protecting myself and my family. I even had a therapist (who I saw off and on for years, both with and without my parents) tell me, "I honestly can't believe how much you've tried."

That helped me a lot - a clear conscience.  I wanted to offer you this perspective in case it helps you - if you know in your heart you did your best (whether or not it was good enough for her), that's all anyone can ask of you.

Big hugs

[bunnie]

Sorry, I didn't respond to the last comments until now.

Thank  you so much everyone. I am so grateful and appreciative of the feedback and perspective.
It has really helped me start grounding my thinking and ease up on myself a bit.

Blessings to you all