FOO Is Dying HELP *TRIGGER WARNING*

[silver_lining]

Hello Everyone ,

Feeling a bit off today, reasonably so, but I am having so many mixed emotions. My "father" who sexually abused me and brutally raped me as a child just got diagnosed with stage 4 Cancer and is dying. I haven't had contact with him in years, but feel so sadden by this news.
Im confused, really really confused. I feel so upset like, I keep thinking... "I wish I got...." and don't even know how I really want to even finish that sentence. THIS IS SUCH A WEIRD EXPERIENCE.
For me, I am in the beginning stages of my Prolonged Exposure Therapy and am just beginning to talk about the rape that happened to me as a child. My therapist told me today, its normal for me to be feeling confused since I haven't had the proper opportunity to process how I even feel about the hole event to begin with. Understanding that logically is one thing, but the intense, confused feeling I feel around this situation, is hard to say the least. He beat me, and raped me....  & I feel empathy, and sad. 
Has anyone ever dealt with this?
My closest friends and the family I've made for myself have both given me mixed messages... one being, "good he deserves to die," and the other being, "that makes sense since thats the "family" you grew to know and love and care for."

I'm really struggling with how I should feel about this, I feel like I should be happy? But i'm not, i'm honestly saddened to know my "dads" dying, and we never got the chance to have a healthy real, father daughter relationship...
I suppose I'm just finally grieving the loss of my family.
I would love to hear other experiences with this too! Any thing helps!
Thanks for any perspective you can give me into insight into this kind of situation,
Theres always a silver lining somewhere, we just have to make meaning of it.



-A

[ah]

Hi silver_lining,

I'm so sorry, sounds so confusing.

I think you should feel whatever it is that you're feeling right now. Feelings don't need a right to exist or a good enough reason, they just are.

Seems to me also feeling like two competing parts of you are feeling very strong contradictory emotions makes perfect sense in the situation you're in.
On the one hand he really is your family, and on the other it's so painful to realize that our family can be so cruel, it's so far out of the reaches of what society teaches us about families and "fathers" that it's impossible to reconcile. I know it certainly is for me.

I keep reminding myself my brain is actually two brains, one is the older emotional brain we share with many animals, and the other the younger evolution-wise logical, verbal brain. They each have their own emotions. We have different emotions, simultaneously, to the same situation. I have many strong, contradictory emotions about my "family" and "father".

I don't know if my father is dying, he may be and I wouldn't be told. He's the cruelest person I ever knew but he's also my "father". I didn't have another. I have the feeling I belong to him, that he's my family, along with hating that feeling of belonging to such a person... but I don't belong. Just because something is familiar doesn't make it close. My "father" is very familiar, but a very dangerous stranger.

I know what you mean about never getting to have a healthy, normal relationship. I think that's one of the hardest things about it.
I guess it can only be had with people who are healthy and normal.
Strongly wanting it is another story...

You're not alone.

[Blueberry]

Hi and welcome here silver lining.
Sounds confusing. There are no 'shoulds' to feelings. They just are.

My therapist told me about abusers dying that we might feel relief that they die and can't hurt anybody any more, but happiness, elation, joy is less likely. It could happen I guess, but you don't have to feel that you should be feeling it. He also said when some one dies the whole mourning process involves many different feelings not just sadness. Anger, relief, disappointment ... I know your F hasn't died as you write but maybe mourning starts when we realise the person is going to die soon. I'm no expert.
And you're right: you're mourning not having had a normal father-daughter relationship where he loved and protected you as he should have done. I've been mourning this recently though my F is not dying. But I'll probably choose never to see him again. It's very confusing and saddening. Standing with you, even though my case is different.

Wishing you strength and support. Keep posting here if it helps. You'll find you're not alone.

[Dee]

This is really hard for me.  My dad went to prison and for years I wished he would die.  Then he did, suddenly, and I wondered if I wished him dead.  Less than a month before he died I chose to stay in the hospital to avoid contact with him.  So much was left unsaid.  I also loved my dad, loved him.  That didn't mean it excused what he did.

So he passed away in May with no warning.  Today, I miss the dad I wish I had.  I miss those good moments.  Still, now I sleep at night.  I get scared and I think he can't hurt me now.  I'm working though it.  I wrote him a letter and secretly gave it to the funeral director to have cremated with him.  That was a huge help.  It's a hard process, it brings up so much.  Memories came flooding back.  But I am surviving and I keep getting better.  I would of liked it to have ended differently, but that doesn't change it.  I am okay, you can be too!

[silver_lining]

Hello Everyone,
Thanks for all the support and kind words.
Todays the day I got the news he died...my dad died. I can't even put into words how I'm feeling. Well, I guess I can If i'm being completely honest, I am so so sad to hear about his passing. I wish I got a chance to say something, something, at least something. I hate you, I love you even though you didn't show me love, what you did to me has scared me for life... the list could go on.
I'm sadden I didn't get to tell him how the effects of him raping me as a child has effected me now, at 20.
I'm grieving a loss I lost many years ago.
All I can do, is sit here, and cry. Sit here feel my soul be filled with grief, guilt and sadness. I know logically, none of these situation were in my control. But, emotionally because I haven't fully recovered my true sense of self, I feel, guilty? Sad? Mad? All at once. I just wish I was able to soothe myself and give myself the comfort and support I need right now.

Thanks for reading, writing back, or even taking the time to give some support.
Always,
Silver

[Three Roses]

I'm so sorry for your loss. The loss of an abusive parent carries with it the additional loss of any hope of a functional relationship with that parent.

Be kind to yourself, this is difficult. 

[Kizzie]

So sorry for what you are going through Silver.  It's a big loss, of your only father and of hope that he might be the parent you needed. 

[Hope66]

Wishing you strength at this difficult time, Silver - condolences to you on your loss, and sending you a hug,   

[Blueberry]

Agree with everything Kizzie, Three Roses and Hope wrote.

Keep writing here as you need it, we are here for you. 

[silentrhino]

When my dad passed on I had a terrible depression hit me.  It was as if the hope of ever having a "real" relationship with "father" was now never a possibility. Actually it never was but I don't think I truly accepted it.  Now that many years have passed I still grieve the relationship of what could have been but other than that I don't grieve the reality of my life as a child. I am glad that I never have to see him again and thats the truth.  I grieve that I never had a father that loved me, protected me and in fact cruelly abused and humiliated me.  Letting go of hate and into indifference is my goal, I have to say I'm there mostly.  Being mixed feelings of two minds is what I think is normal for people like us.

[BlancaLap]

It is so confusing to have mixed feelings about your father or mother. It happens a lot and you're not alone.