My mother was always obese and unwell. So it had its downfalls as in limiting what she could do, me being overly protective of her. Crying myself to sleep with the fear of losing her... But, God she was a good mother. Loved the bones of my sister and I. We wanted for nothing. Only a tidy home. But that's another story.
I cared for my mother alot. Running errands from a young age as she was gifted at knitting and baking etc. Every commitee.. So I'd do the running around while mum made people these things as presents. Never accepting money.
She was so so generous. And loving. And understanding. I always had my father at home so I was able to move out and live a normal life. But always staying close by. Always running home as soon as she was unwell. Which was alot.
Then my father had a massive stroke 2013. Ended up in a nursing home. I visited him every single day the first year and 2-3 days for 9 years after. Also running home to check on my mother who's health wasn't improving. I took on the role as dad's right hand. Whatever he needed. I was there. I could sense a little jealousy from my mother? My father. Was grateful in his own way. Never expected anything.
I then got pregnant 2014. Had my gorgeous boy. Now I'd 3 people to think about. My mother was over the moon and fell in love with my boy but also knew my partner was a great father and would expect me day and night to still show up? She didn't demand. Just I felt guilty by the things she would say. She would then need to go to hospital which was in my town so she would expect me to visit night and day. Stay all night if need be. I would remind her I've a son. Who I want to bring up? This was the start of myself and my mothers CLOSE relationship break down.
8years ago. She refused to go into respite for 2 weeks. I brought everything to her to make her comfortable and get strong. She refused to stay after the first night. Made me drive her home and get more help in. Which she did. But we was strained. Fast forward me just being a good daughter (she always used the phrase "people think because I've 2 daughters I'm being well looked after, little do they know") And I moved home into a mobile home out the back. I couldn't tell my mother I was there to care for her as she would take it literally and treat me like a slave. So I said to help me save.
God did she hold this against me. Sure you're not here for me? I was. I so was!!!!
I started to set boundaries because she was so bitter towards me. Saying I was taking over. As I put her bed into the room she was always in. Skin deteriorating in the chair as she refused to go into bed. And she accused me of trapping her. Taking over her life? Even the home help praised the move. She finally started sleeping in bed.
My dad then passes away 2022. again i was still his carer til then. The one they rang etc. It was awful. He had a slow death. I think I grieved him while he was dying as it was a relief when he passed that he wasn't suffering... Anyways my mother would not allow me grieve. I took over with him? She never should of let me? Let me? I'd no choice? She's his wife etc. She sent me most of the time? She couldn't go. And my sister is a useful as a chocolate tea cup.... I built up more resentment. I helped my mother more then you could ever know. Always fighting. Fighting for everything because she was always so uncomfortable. In pain. Unwell. Reacting to tablets etc. Nothing suited her size. She was extremly big. And she would then tell me I've anger issues 😭
My mother became impossible to help. Writing me contacts that the house was her house? I'd no want for it. Absolutely none. I've was in a mobile?? In the garden? I went into her every single day. Toilet. In and out of bed. Feeding her. Standing there for hours while she talked and talked and talked.
And then after all the heart stopping moments I feared of losing my mother for the years before.. she passed away :( And I've felt completely fine and it scares me? Alot
You have been grieving all your life.
This would naturally make things quite difficult when you lost what had become somewhat your very reason for "being".
The current DSM-5 has a new diagnosis for coding and treatment. It is prolonged grieving disorder. And you are more easily able now to get psychological counseling and help with a grieving that falls outside the bounds of what is considered normal.
Lastly, you ask us in your title "What am I supposed to feel". Whatever you feel is what you are supposed to feel. You are free now to claim your own feelings without having a parental judge. There is no "normal" in grief. But there are ways in which our habitual obsessional circular thinking can harm ourselves. Trained people can help you with that.
You tell us that "she passed away and I've felt completely fine and it scares me. A lot"
Let me tell you that what you feel is normal. If you cannot grasp that you may require help of a good support group for grieving or even of a psychologist familiar with grieving disorders. When we have done all we can, and have resolved issues with our loves ones WE OFTEN ARE RELIEVED when they pass. Why? Because their suffering is over. And our having to stand WITNESS to that suffering is over. We have ALREADY GRIEVED. And they are free, and we are free.
Do get professional help. While we may sympathize with your loss, we aren't professionals. You need more guidance that we can likely provide to you. You have my best wishes.
My story has a lot of similarities. My dad suffered horribly for a long time. The months before his death were the worst thing imaginable. I felt pure relief when his suffering finally ended.
My mother is a different story. She was not perfect, but a pretty good mother during my childhood. She was the class mom, Sunday school teacher, Girl Scout leader. Everyone loved her. But like you, things weren’t so rosy at home (least of all the condition of the house).
Now mom is in hospice and is angry that I am not there every day. I was there 24/7 at the beginning. But then it became clear that she wasn’t dying. That was almost 6 months ago. I have a husband, 2 young adult children at home, a house and a job. I have hired aids, and have some family help. But she wants ME. So there is a lot of drama and made up crises, that she wants me to come running for, but I won’t.
I’m sure I will have a lot of mixed emotions when she finally passes. Feelings aren’t right or wrong. A lot has happened with you over the years. It’s going to take a while to process all of it. ((((Hugs))))
Life should be more than constant work and serving others while being taken advantage of on a daily basis and making choices to give up homes and jobs to self-sacrifice for people not worthy of our care.
I'm speaking from experience. My parents parentified me at a young age and expected me to pick of the pieces of them failing to deal with their life's choices. They did the basics and provided the necessities. It's a long story.
Get your life's trajectory in order by seeking counseling for yourself and the grief will eventually follow. However, you can even place boundaries on your grief to keep it from overshadowing your life. Don't let unresolved grief take you into areas that are not beneficial to you. Just trust the process to unfold slowly. Don't allow unresolved negative feelings to make life's choices for you.
You want to make life's choices from a sound mind and not from one of dysfunction.
I know from 1st hand experience that we don't always grieve the way we see others doing. It is okay. The "science" behind the steps of grieving is not exact and it doesn't apply to everyone equally.
What you are feeling is quite normal when you are sorting out so much baggage created by and packed tight all your life by this person called mom. I didn't know how I felt for months after my mom died.
Give yourself the grace to just feel what you feel. You loved her and went above and beyond to be there for her, those aren't bad memories to keep. Not shedding a tear or being grief stricken has no shame when you were present during her life.
May The Lord touch you and give you guidance in this new season of life.
https://outofthefog.website/
F.O.G. stands for Fear, Obligation and Guilt. Sounds like you were subjected to a lot of that.
I learned to be more grateful
I've leaned to care more about what others are doing and saying
I've learned how unbelievably hard caregiving is
I've learned that I don't want to be a burden to anyone, especially those I love
Ive learned to be stronger and put up boundaries
And I wouldn't change anything be
cause of what it has all taught me.
I'm still going through all this so not sure how I'll feel in the end . I think what I'm saying is try turning all this into something positive
I think you are in shock, I think you will grieve your mom when your ready.
My friends always said "you do realise your mother emotionally blackmails you right?" While I'm delaying them all because I've to go shopping for my mother, or pick something up, or drop something off. (Age 11 )
My reply always... "no she doesn't? And even if she did. She can, she's my mother?"
I realise now I'm a mother. No. No it's not OK. Mum always made everything YOUR decision. So it was like a guilt.. "god I need something from the chemist. I'll see is your sister around?"
Eh I'm here mum I'll go...? And I'd go. Then be told. I didn't ask you to go? Arghhhhh... or everything was our fault. And we would feel so bad.. "sure you can't keep a clean home with these 2"..
Bring on the feeling lazy. But it was a massive task to clean our house? Not just quick tidy. Anyways I again realised. My son. He would have us live in a hell hole lol. I won't allow it? I stay on his ass. Not blame him while living in it too?
So yeah I realised later. Although she was the absolute best. She did emotionally blackmail me. And the later years she got worse because I started to set boundaries which I never did before. I'm trying so hard to remember the times that she was just my loving brilliant mother and I just can't? I look at pictures? Blank? I stand at her grave. Blank? I find it so unnerving??
You are right though. Caregiving is so hard. I just wanted it to stop. Not lose her? 😭
Prob sounds cruel, but I use to get so frustrated. I think I need councilling also. So hard get here though without paying through the roof. My mother also talked alot. Repeating stories I had heard 110times. Throughout my life. I'd say I've heard this mum... and she would say "and you will hear it again " 🫣
I don't miss that. Where I always always believed I'd regret not having patience. And I'm scared it will hit me like a tonne of bricks 1 day...... sorry for rambling
I lost my mother last April. She was 92 and quite ill. I can still feel sadness at times for events that made her last few years very difficult but there is nothing more I can or could have done other than have found a crystal ball and moved her earlier to a different facility which I did do towards the end.
I am sure you will get many responses with much more clarification than I am giving but I believe the message will more or less be the same.
Perhaps try to get some therapy or at least find a grief group to help with your sadness. Above all know that you and your life are valid and you did an amazing job of hands on care for a long time when you could. I wish you peace.
I realise the back story to mum brought her to how she was with us. She lost her mother. Had a step mother who didn't really want her. So she didn't have love. Over powered us with love. Didn't hit us as she was. But in turn it made us rely on my mother soooo so much. She would scoop us up before we fell. I couldn't even accept a job offer without running it all by mum. So fast forward and I become a mother and start seeing it as a weakness in me. I wanted to stand on my own 2 feet. It spiralled mum. She couldn't handle me not needing her? She wasn't horrible. But was bitter.. she got horrible to me towards the end. Only wanted me though before she died. God love her.
Your mother reached a good age. You I'm sure are deserving of this time and to feel no guilt. I honestly appreciate your reply to me. I want to tell you, you did your best as even moving her at any point. Shows you did what you could. X
I encourage you to seek out grief counseling with a therapist. You can also join a grief support group if you want to, GriefShare, (griefshare.org).
Look at their website. There are many groups that usually meet in churches.
Wishing you peace.
I’m sorry that you were made responsible for caring for your mother at such a young age .
I think you felt such anticipatory grief over mothers passing for SO long that once it happened, you feel almost an anticlimactic sense of relief. It finally happened, it's finally over, she's finally finished suffering and at perfect peace. Don't feel scared that you accept your mothers passing, it was a long time coming.
I felt exactly as you do when my mother passed in Feb of 2022. She was 95 with advanced dementia and other diseases and I actually prayed daily for God to take her. Not because I didn't love her, but because it was time for her suffering to end. I'd been in charge of her life for over 10 years by that time, and I was tired and burned out too. I felt a sense of relief when she passed, that the guilt and the burden was lifted from MY life as well. She was an expert at making me feel that no matter how much I did for her, it was never enough. I was 64 when she died. You are 40. You're allowed to enjoy your life now. You're not "supposed" to feel any way except the way that you DO feel. Give yourself some Grace and some credit for all the hard work and effort you put forth on behalf of both of your parents for so long.
It's your turn to look after yourself now, so please do. Wishing you the best of luck with your future life.
I feel unbelievably strong. Yet so scared?
Oh when you said " nothing was ever good enough" oh how I relate to that! I understand my mother's size hindered so much. But it wasn't the lack of trying... I would do anything I could to lessen her discomfort. Nothing helped. Always something else that would... only losing the weight is what really was needed. But off I ran around trying my best. Clothes. Chairs. Beds. Commode. All so she could fit and be comfortable. I feel out with docs and nurses because they be blunt. Lose the weight. Half the problems. I enabled it. I realise it. But it was never maliciously. Just pure love. Sorry rambled there.
I appreciate the reply. Really do x