The father I have always hated finally died.

[HarryB]

My father died almost two weeks ago from a combination of lung cancer and liver failure.

He was an alcoholic. I hated him. I always have.

I haven't grieved him because I don't think I have it in me to miss him or be the slightest bit sad about his death. I cried at the previous two funerals I went to but not at his. I didn't feel sad in the slightest - I didn't feel anything. The funeral felt as mundane and emotionless as going grocery shopping. The only time I wasn't completed bored by it all was when it came to family members reading out their fond memories and talking about what a good and caring person he was.
I know that no one would ever say he was a cruel and vicious ******* at his funeral but anger rose up in me to the point that I was shaking.
When it came to the laying of wreathes my mother burst out into a fit of sobbing and I had an almighty urge to slap my own MOTHER and remind her of all the things he did. I was disgusted with myself but I was very close to actually doing it.

Now, I have to deal with grieving relatives whilst all the time it sickens me. They cry and look to me to console them and it makes my skin crawl. All I want to do it shake them and yell at them for daring to shed a tear over the man that made decades of our lives a miserable Hell.
I broached it with my sister and she looked at me like I'd just confessed to being a paedophile. She thinks I'm inhuman and kept saying "He's still our father". That means nothing to me. We may have been biologically related but that's where it ends. He was never a father, not to any of us.

I don't know what I'm supposed to be feeling right now. When my grandmother and a close friend died I was sad and I missed them. I even cried when my cat had to be put down. I grieved all of them for a very long time.
I can't feel anything except anger and revulsion towards the current situation. I can't wait for it to end and the pathetic curteous 'grief' everyone is showing to blow over. I want the ******* forgotten and his memory burried.

Has anyone else been in a similar situation? I don't know anyone who has and I don't think anyone else can understand the sheer burning hatred I have.

[Honu]

Well, HarryB, I lost my mother (whom I DEARLY loved) about 18 years ago, and I was left with my father, and was angry about that. I loved him, but, he was never there for me, never around, had affairs, but, all in all, he did love me. He would have taken a bullet for me. He just didn't know HOW to show it. Not his fault. (His era was the Depression, WWII veteran). Anyway, I can identify with you a bit. I didn't hate him, I just didn't like him THAT much. I loved him with all my heart, though. If that makes sense.

When he died 11 years ago, it was really weird. I never got an opportunity to try to "learn" who he was. He got along with his brothers/sisters, and could talk to them. He didn't know how to talk to me, so I don't think I ever got to know him. I was very sorry that he died, because I wanted to get to know him. He was all I had left.

I'm sorry that you had to go through all that you did. I can understand the anger.

Have you thought about talking to a grief counselor? For the "Grief" of the loss of not really having a father to begin with? I know you aren't really grieving HIM, but, the fact that you never had him at all, is, in itself, a loss.

Keep posting here, and welcome!

Honu

[Japic05]

((HarryB))

I hate so much that you are going thru such a painful time. It's difficult when you don't have anyone around you that understands your feelings.

Please know that YOUR Feelings are just that - YOURS and you are entitled to feel your feelings - there are NO right or wrong emotions to feel at this time.

The thing I have learned is that there are healthier ways to handle these feelings so that I can heal emotionally in a safe and sane manner.

Of course, professional help is always helpful, talking with others here, like suggested by Honu allowing yourself to grieve for the father you never had, and also letting your relatives know that you understand they are having a difficult time right now, but you too are experiencing tough things and need time to process your own emotions too.

Prayers of peace and comfort for you and your family,
Rita

[HarryB]

Thanks for the replies, I was a bit high when I wrote all that and I'm sorry if any of it was insensitive to anyone else who might have lost someone.

I'm not going to see a consellor, it's not my sort of thing. I've seen a few therapists in the past and they were all utterly useless. I don't fancy bringing up all this stuff on a regular basis and it just serves to make me depressed or angry.
It's also a bit embarrassing. I was brought up not to discuss things like this - a man is only allowed to express two emotions: anger and moderated happiness. Maybe it's an english thing.

My father grew up without a father as his was killed during WW2. He never spoke about him as he never knew him and said he 'couldn't miss what he never had'. I think the same holds true for me.

[warrens]

Wow, Harry

You have a lot going on. You have huge hate and anger. Then you stuff it down and say it doesn't matter. It is almost as if you are emulating the man you despise. Then you refuse to address any of it.

I am a son. I am a father of 3. I am an alcoholic. That is enough to occupy me for the remainder of my life. Acceptance, forgiveness, serenity, you name it. I was raised to think like you. Men simply stuff things down...

It took until I was in my 50's to catch up with me. My teflon armor began to erode and stuff began to stick. I became an encrusted mess. I have had to unlearn a lifetime of denial of feelings. It does catch up to us.

Until you can forgive your father, he will always have power over you. Seriously. Forgiveness is a process that takes a long time. But until you let go, you are under his influence. Even in rejection or rebellion, we are slaves to that we reject or rebel against. It took me a long time to learn that.

warren

[HarryB]

I can't forgive him and I don't see the point in forgiving a dead man.

I know why he turned out how he did. He never knew his father, his mother was controlling, and he got a little too much attention from the headmaster who gave him private tuition (if you know what I mean). He may have drank for those reasons but nothing FORCED him to beat, punch, and suffocate his kids without ever showing the slightest bit of remorse!
He was 67 when he died - a 31 year lead over me in time to sort himself out but he never changed. He was the same bitter and cruel man even with tubes coming in and out of him.
One of the last things he said to me was to blame ME for the way things turned out. He said I was a child abuser because I copied his behaviour when I was a child and hit my younger siblings. I was six years old! But apparently that makes me just as bad as him if not worse for showing signs of being a 'pstchopath' so young.


He was the one, it's true, who taught me not to have feelings. It was always the imfamous line 'Stop crying or I'll really give you something to cry about!'.
As much as people constantly harp on that it's different nowadays no one wants to see or hear a man talking about his feelings. I tried to do it with my girlfriend who is always going on about how much empathy she has like she deserves sainthood. She ended up calling me a 'drama queen' with no uncertain implications about my sexuality imbedded in that comment.
If I talk about anything then I talk too much as I already have done here. It's an all or nothing situation and 'nothing' seems to work out as the better of the options.

[warrens]

Well, Harry

then good luck. I mean that in all kindness and sympathy. I hope that strategy works for you.

I just know that in my case, If I hadn't learned to be open and honest with selected others, including my children and M'lady, as well as my ex, mother, sister, and a couple of close friends, I would be either dead or drunk more than sober.

PTSD and the like isn't confined to soldiers. Your feelings for your father leave little room for you to forgive yourself.

Staying sober requires me to love myself. To accept myself. To be unashamed of myself. That doesn't mean that I'm going to go on TV and cry before millions. It does mean that I am unafraid to be honest with myself and with the ones I care about. I am glad that I raised my sons (as well as my daughter) who are huge, tough men, to be unafraid to cry, unafraid to feel.

Good luck to you, Harry

[jacki123]

i think in time you will be sad at your own thoughts, your father had an illness, your father gave you life, without him you would not be here, at least find it in your heart to be thankful to him for that at least. i think youve got a long way to go before you heal, but you will and then, maybe then you will grieve for him.