Experiencing the Death of a Formerly Abusive Parent

[BeHea1thy]

Friends, this is a Masters Dissertation/Thesis by Heather Spence at the Antioch University in Seattle dated 2016. There are 230 pages, so grab a cup of tea or coffee. AURA stands for Antioch University Repository and Archive. Don't expect to read at one sitting, but go slowly, digest then come back where you left off.

I'm at page 119 and reading has unexpectedly  brought about feelings of calm and peace. I'm not alone, our experience is similar to others, and the key factor is assimilating info with an eye to individual emotional tolerance.

https://aura.antioch.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1286&context=etds

[Kizzie]

Saddened but not surprised to read this - "It is notable that not a single parent took responsibility for the abuse of their children." 

It does help to know that I am not alone in feeling relief when my F passed away - "Three of the participants spoke about feeling relieved after the death of their previously abusive parents."  I don't feel guilty about feeling this way per se, it's more an affirmation that he was not there for me and I had long since stopped wanting him to be.  His death meant one less person with NPD I had to deal with, it was as simple and as complicated as that.

Thanks for posting this BH, it's an important topic and not one I have read anything about before.

[Kizzie]

Note - Spence's dissertation has been added to our "Research" section.

[woodsgnome]

Thanks, BeHea1thy, for this. Albeit, I do have a lingering stress-inducing resistance to this aspect of my parental-child messes; especially when it tilted so strongly towards the abusive patterns I'm not sure I will ever recover from.

And yet, as Kizzie points out, it's also validating to learn that much of the residual pain is shared, even if complicated or hidden by so many factors; especially social expectations about what the proper response towards a parental death 'should' be. Even if one knows too well the other side of that soul-destroying  sentiment. Alas, it resembles so much of how cptsd functions, all mixed up in false community expectations (e.g. 'it couldn't have been that bad').

Personally, this topic always seems to induce a raw inner tightening, followed by an overwhelming numbness which swoops down like a protective blanket for the otherwise unbearable anger-dominated 'sadness' and resentment that characterized my response to each parent's death. I can't get that word 'numb' out of anything to do with what's involved in trying to get beyond the utter senselessness of it all.