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As y'all know, my mom died this month on the 15th.   I'm hardly crying though.    My father cries big time, my 2 brothers have cried a lot, but I've hardly cried.   Is it because there was no closure?  Like a memorial service?   I can type about her, her final moments, etc without crying or even getting choked up, but I loved her so much, I feel like I'm a bad son.   I do feel very depressed, but I've hardly cried.    I sometimes put on sad music & look at pictures of my mother to force cries out of me, but it doesn't work.   Am I insane?   I've lived across the country from my family since 1998, I only visited them one week every year, they live in the northwest, I live in the northeast...is it because I didn't see her a lot since 1998?     I'm just trying to figure out why I'm not crying about this big loss in my life.   I never cried that much when my sister died.  I cried at the wake, got choked up at the service, got bummed out a lot, but I didn't cry.   I cried every time I flew back west every time I visited my girlfriend/fiance, now wife.   We'd hug & cry goodbyes at the airports.   I got choked up when I was at home, cross the country from my girlfriend (it was a 2 year long distance relationship until I moved out here in '98, then married in 2000) at times.   But really, I'm not that much of a crier....is that bad?   I accepted my sister died, I accept my mother's gone & never will return, but I don't cry & I think I should be balling my eyes out.

 

 

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Some people cry, some do not, you may yet...I wouldn't worry about it unless you're holding it back and it doesn't sound like you are.  Crying doesn't mean you love the person any more than lack of tears means you didn't.  I think of it as a release, like the release valve on a pressure cooker, more for our own benefit than anything.  If you need to cry, you will eventually.  I used to cry but rarely do anymore.

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There were some things I learned about crying in grief that helped me understand it a little better. To cry or not to cry is totally normal I think. I found that I had different emotions depending on who died. I felt bad when my mom died and experienced sorrow when dad died. I cried like a baby when my one sister died but did not when two of my other siblings died. I lost it when my husband of forty years died and couldn’t understand why I fell apart when he died. Shouldn’t I have had a greater emotion at my parent’s death? Was I normal? I think I was. I do not think you have to cry to grieve. Many factors come into play. Your own personality is one of those factors. What was the nature and quality of the relationship you had with the loved one? Did you have time to prepare for the loss? Age is a factor and how the person died is another. The most important thing is to deal with the loss as you need to and not as someone things you should grieve. There is no right or wrong way to grieve. I think as long as you are dealing with your own feelings you need not worry about whether or not you are crying.

I believe what Kay says about being aware of what you need. Don't bottle things up and don't think there is something wrong just because you don't fall apart. 

Anne

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I'm an old soul, as people have told me.  I've accepted the things I can not change, like death of older relatives, parents, grandparents, etc.    I ponder life, I knew what lay ahead, I knew not all people live until 100, & this isn't Neverland.     I don't focus so much on the family member that isn't here, the missing, as I call it..."the empty chair" I don't dwell on that, I think of the memories when they were living, when they "occupied that chair" & the times we've shared together, look at pictures, videos, etc.    

 

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Thundar, your attitude seems perfectly healthy to me. As Anne said, as long as you're aware of what you're feeling and why, as long as you're facing your losses and not running away from them, then it's fine. You are you ~ and how you deal with the losses in your life will be unique to you. 

If you care to read more on this matter of crying, I invite you to see these articles:

In Grief: When Tears Won't Come

In Grief: Feeling Disconnected From Feeling Bad

Finding Crying Time in Grief

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Thundar, my dad passed away 32 years ago.  I was in the throes of my own cancer battle. There were only me and my sister and my mom.  I often wondered why my mom got angry and we never saw her cry and she never made us feel she was vulnerable at all.  She stayed angry at him all these years and now has Alzheimer's and will be 95 next month.  Not many sane moments but she saw I had cried, looked up at me and said "You've been crying, it is hard isn't it?"  But then she asked my sister if the Marvel comics character Tee shirt she had on was her kids, so the moment was gone.  But, I cannot remember crying when my dad passed away.  I don't know why.  He was my father, why didn't I cry?  I certainly cry a lot since my husband passed away.  I don't know why I did not cry when my dad passed.  I have wondered, but fighting cancer took all my time up and it seemed like I did not have time to cry.  I have no answers, but Marty always does and read her articles, they do help so very much.  

And, from reading your post, I think you were a very caring son.  I am sorry for your loss.  I think the forums here are wonderful.  They have helped me so much.  I found them three days after my husband passed away and I was really a danger to myself.  Grief is rough for all of us survivors.  

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I think it's totally variable even inside oneself. I have been devastated by my father's death, but not crying like as in sobbing, which I certainly have done in the past under different circumstances. It's been more like little bits here and there constantly. Mostly I have felt flattened and numb, sometimes terrified of the future.  It's spring and there has been a lot of pollen and wind, which often gives me tearing in the eyes from allergies. Sometimes I can't tell if I'm having allergies or still crying from before or if I've just started crying again, but I don't really care unless I'm at work or something and trying to pull myself together. It's never copious weeping, more like a little seeping here and there. Maybe I'm leaking, but most of the past four months I don't really care. It's almost like I have been too flattened to really cry-there is just this leaking that goes on.

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I think we take our grief in doses. I can remember after my Jim died that the tears would not stop for weeks. Then I began to question why I did not cry as hard at my father's death. I loved him and missed him and only later did I begin to feel bad that I cried over the death of my husband more than I did my own father. I am okay now but for a very long time, I felt guilty for that emotion. It took several sessions with my grief counselor to help me sort out my feelings. We really do grieve differently for each person we have lost. 

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I went to my aunt's memorial service in West Virginia, along with all of her kids-our favorite cousins and their kids and my sisters. So we sat through the service and that was all ok, and then there was a reception with a lot of food and I couldn't swallow because I was sitting there and couldn't stop crying. My sisters got me to get a plate of food but I couldn't swallow from crying. Afterwards, I was starving and my sisters explained to me that that is what all the food is about at a funeral-that it's supposed to make you feel better. I thought that was rather inconvenient timing for all that crying because I was hungry and had missed the food.

I learned to cry silently when I was a child and to hide it because my mother would punish me for crying. I thought everyone cried in total silence until a therapist told me that this was not the case. My mother was really awful-sadistic really,-as in Sybyl's mother,  and it was a rough place to grow up because she was-well just narcissistically cruel-and I got the worst of it. Psychological torture is about it, but now I try to not be so negative and now just say that she was a total narcissist. But she certainly didn't want to feel bad for torturing her children until they cried, and so crying was taboo. You had to be pretty sneaky about it if you were going to cry. When she died 11 years ago, I cried a few times a little, when I first heard, when I saw her casket come out of the hearse, and when I spoke at her gravesite. Mostly I was relieved that she was gone. Our ritual for her when I visit PA every few years is that my older sister go out to the cemetery and play music on her grave. Kind of like what they do in Mexico, communing with the dead on Dia de los Muertos, except it's just the two of us. Once my father was there and he watched us play music. 

But with my dad it's totally different but I think it's partly the history. When we were kids he sometimes had a bad temper, but mostly he was this silent little satellite around my mother and whatever she wanted. He never talked, unless it was something no one wanted to hear. And then after she was in the hospital and then gone, I saw him alone for himself as the person he really was-without her-and I was astonished. Like, who is this nice man and where has he been all my life? I worked really hard at coaxing him out to AZ, but looking back on it, it was actually rather easy. My sisters didn't believe that he could have changed that much and wanted no part of him. He certainly couldn't stay in a split-level house alone with Parkinson's. So out he came, and was here for ten years, during which he just got nicer and nicer. Since the first day he arrived in AZ, people always said the same thing about him, "Oh I just love your dad-he's such a sweet man!" In the beginning I was surprised, even though I had just coaxed him out there. "Who, him? Sweet?" But he really was. So, I had him to myself for ten years, during which he was a fabulous father and friend to me. What I got from him during those ten years is really the only decent time of parenting any of the three of us got in our entire lives. And now it's all gone.

Sometimes I feel like I will get to some point where I might start crying and never stop, but so far it's mostly been like leaking. I did a lot of therapy years ago so that I could get to a point where I could function and cried a LOT during that. I also gave my father hell for a few years, and then spent a few years trying to make friends with him after telling him how my childhood had been ruined. There was no telling my mother anything-it would have been a suicide mission to approach her about anything.

Maybe I'm mostly done crying. I have no idea what is to come. When I was a young adult I was a mess, a lot of dissociation, PTSD, depression, anxiety/worry, and a significant speech problem-a stammer born out of terror that I resolved myself by just forcing myself to continue talking. I would lose pieces of time if confronted in the least bit and have no clue what had been going on. But I forced myself to go back until I could remember what happened. Eventually it got better and I no longer lost time, and was able to maintain an thread of memory through anything. It was a huge accomplishment, but I didn't get any awards for it. The stronger and healthier I became, the more I was scapegoated by my mother. When she died, my sisters took over for her.

But I had my dad and he thought I was wonderful, and told me and everyone around that he thought so. And now he's gone and I'm supposed to...I don't know...do what? Start crying and never stop? Or just get up in the morning and drive to the reservation to do art therapy with some kids who have really been through it...

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On 4/29/2016 at 1:16 PM, Thundar73 said:

thank God for this site.

 

No kidding!

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Crying and more crying...it's like I've been on a little vacation from the grieving-is that bizarre or what! I was SO busy getting things wrapped up in several aspects of my life, It's hard to describe but it's like I felt more like myself aside from being super exhausted. I completed a semester of Ceramics class, I performed in the final orchestra concert for the season, I have almost completed my school psychology reports-and work-for the school year, I went down part of the Verde River in a canoe, Lena and I took the test to be re-certified as a pet therapy team-passed with flying colors...have plowed through a lot in the last few weeks. This is the time of year when I start to feel the load lifting, and it is, but instead of feeling happier about that, I came home from work on the reservation utterly deflated as I looked forward to being in an empty house. Looking forward to an entire summer of-being alone day after day. I feel like I'm back at the beginning. Lena felt it too, and came over, jumped into my lap, buried her face in me and purred and snuggled for awhile. It was very sweet... 

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When I first lost my dad, a close friend was tactfully but in effect minimizing my grief and the related paralysis and so on. She told me, It's not like you've lost your spouse or a child or something. It's your father and he was 88! Sigh... And then she told me, "Oh I think I'm beginning to see the picture here-you've not only lost your dad-you've lost your entire family since your sisters aren't speaking to you and you are totally alone!" Bingo!

Sometimes it's hard to tell if it's worse that I miss my dad, that my aunt is gone now as well, that I feel (an am) alone, that I miss having a family, that I'm grieving my early history (again), or if it's just that all of that is overwhelming... I thought I was feeling better, and now I feel like I'm falling down the stairs into hell again. 

Maybe I should listen more carefully to Lena, who always says that if I just fed the cat (and myself, I suppose), everyone would feel better...

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It is hard not having family there for you or having the family get-togethers.  I still have my sisters, even though we're strung out across the state, at least we can talk on the phone.  I hope you get "adopted" by a family someday. :)

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That would be nice...there is a possibility that my sisters may get over whatever is going on and be "back" in some way, but in their own way they are each as narcissistic as our mother was. The younger is just mean and the older is like an adolescent, but lately has gotten rather mean herself. I don't know if people come back from that. I am primarily responsible for her house NOT foreclosing, and that she was able to fix her car, heat her house, replace PhotoShop so that she could use it to make money and so on. I put a lot of effort into helping her, and also a lot of my own money, and my dad's money that I talked him into sending her way one way or another. Also, when he died the very first thing I did was to chase down the life insurance money, because I figured out that was the fastest way I could get my hands on any money and the sheriff sale date on her house was less than two months after his death. When she came out to AZ for my father's Celebration of Life-and the house had been saved-she said to me, "You know, when my phone rings and I see that it's you I just cringe and can't decide if I should even answer the phone." And what were most of these phone calls about? How to help her and get her some money. My other sister told me that I was just "not nice" to either of them. No details or explanations. They just make up stuff. When they were out here they were staying at my house and my friend and I at my dad's, where I've been since mid-December. So we got back from the event and my younger sister said to me, "Can you drive us home?" I said, "When do you want to go?" She turned to my other sister and said, "See? I asked her for a ride and she just changed the subject". It's hard to imagine things ever being any better. 

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I thought I had managed to escape the family dynamics by moving out west and spending my adult live away from them, being alone, doing therapy and developing a professional career, none of which either of my sisters ever did. But maybe the only thing I truly did was manage to be alone-except for the ten years I had with my dad, during most of which I was truly happy. I certainly never escaped the narcissistic family dynamics-they are alive and well. And here I am out here all alone to deal with it...right now I really feel like I might start crying and never stop. Except I have an OT apt for my hand injury. Maybe I'll go over there and cry...he's seen it before...but I shouldn't be late!

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My mother's most basic parenting strategy was "divide and conquer" with the three of us sisters. In other words she would keep us apart and pit us against each other. Sometimes my parents would isolate one of us down on the couch across from the two of them on the other couch to interrogate us about something what was unknowable or just petty.

But my mother was actually scarier alone . She picked at us constantly-particularly me. They also assigned us roles. My younger sister was "the athletic one”, my older sister was "the creative one” (as I was a creative zero), and I was "the smart one” and "the pretty one, although the truth is we all were creative, smart, and attractive.

She said some pretty awful things. She told me once that the only reason why she'd ever even had children is that when she was young she thought people with no kids were all pretty weird and she didn’t want to be a weirdo. Having had us, she made it pretty clear that we were a great disappointment to her in every way possible. She told me when she when I was up about 25 but none of the three of us had ever done anything- even a small thing- in our lives that she could be proud of or brag about to anyone. I also remember her talking about all those little crafty things that kids make in school and bring home and give to their mothers. She found it a horrible and unfair thing that she was subjected to, being expected to be enthusiastic about all of this crap when the only one that she ever liked was those little plaster handprints the kids do.

But when I was younger she did this other thing; I think it started when I was about 13. She would sit me down in the living room when no one else was at home and basically interrogate me. She would start out like a prosecuting attorney trying to build a case that I had done some horrible thing-- like I got a C in some subject or maybe I had an overdue library book or maybe she heard I’d said something that was critical of her. So she would start out with trying to get me to admit that I had actually done this heinous deed. That wasn't really her point though and it was pretty easy – I would admit to it as soon as I knew what she was talking about. But her real point was that only a horrible person would do such a thing and that clearly I had created myself to be a person despicable enough to do these things to her-to make her miserable and ruin her life. What she really wanted was for me to admit that and explain why I had created myself as this terrible person.

I was so confused and upset by all this, because at that age I didn't even really know who I was or why I was who I was and I certainly didn't understand that all of what she was talking about was ridiculously implausible. But it scared me and I was afraid that at some level if I admitted that I created myself as his horrible person-that somehow it would break me in half. And so I would never admit it and she would keep going after me. This would go on for an hour or two, ending only when something forced her to stop. If one of my sisters came home in the middle of it, she was just send them upstairs and continue. Sometimes she had to stop because my dad was going to come home soon. But I think what she was really going for was trying to get me to collapse into hysterical crying, and if that happened it was just proof that she was right and she would send me off to my room as being unworthy to even share the room with her.

 

I think that's a cruel thing to do to a child and would easily be called psychological torture. So how do you grieve the person who did that to you? Probably not with crying. Maybe there was not really any grieving to be done. Maybe I just put it on the shelf. Maybe I just picked up the parts that were worth some thing, like her paintings and some of her nice things, and some of her nice clothes-like winter coats…having them kept me from having to but new coats the year I moved from the heat of the desert to the cold country in a year I was totally broke… Does that work to wrap yourself in the parts you liked, and try to forget the other parts ever existed? Or is that just delaying grief? Or maybe I was doing grief work all those years I spent in therapy crying and crying and crying?

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Laura,

I don't have any answers, it took me a good share of my life to deal with the issues from my parents.  Lord what they can do to their kids!  It reminds me of a movie I saw last night.  I am proud of my siblings and I because we so far surpassed our upbringings, and did so by being there for each other.

I just hope you find your way and the answers you seek.  

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Kay, what movie  did you see last night?

That's really great that your siblings have gotten to a point where you can be there for each other. It is so painful to have my sisters be so hateful to me, especially my older sister, whom I worked so hard to help.

Anyway thanks for listening and for your kind words. -Laura

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Marty, that piece, Mother's Day - by Pat Schwiebert , was great-about having a much less than optimal mother. My mother was an extremely narcissistic woman, and it was hard on us as kids. But it is also true that there were some really great things about her, and we had some wonderful times growing up that were due to her. But now my dad's gone and my sisters seem to be "acting out her part" toward me, and I feel really crushed by that. I feel like I am dealing with things related to her death now, that I didn't really before. I think, like the rabbits have told me, that she really did love me, but having a narcissistic mother lover you is not going to be the same as having a healthier woman love you. Still, I have her coats, and enjoy wrapping up against the cold and the rain in them...I also have a lot of her beautiful things-that I only have because she is not here...

 

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You are not the first to come from an unhappy childhood, Laura. The concept of Reparenting teaches that It's never too late to have a happy childhood.

If your sisters seem to be acting out the part your mother played in your early life, then as a grown-up adult in charge of your own life now, you are wise to keep your distance.

Here are two more articles I invite you to read, as they contain some resources that you may find helpful. Note also the Related Articles and Resources listed at the base of each:

Complicated Grief: Mourning An Abusive Mother

Mourning An Abusive Relationship: Suggested Resources

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My mother will be visiting me this Mother's Day. We have always had a difficult relationship. Due to her life experiences she has the emotional maturity of a 13 year old. Oh the stories I could tell. Just to give you a taste, I grew up being told I wasn't smart enough, pretty enough, everything is going to be way too hard including college, and on and on. She also disciplined with kitchen utensils and you never knew  when you were going to be struck with something  like a spatula  or spoon. It wasn't until I was out on my own and exposed to life beyond her reality that I began to understand how limited her thinking was and how fearful she had lived her whole life. She's a challenge to me particularly because she reminds me constantly that all of my positive traits come from her. We are nothing alike. I was always closer to my dad. Due to the way I was raised I made it a point to raise my daughter differently. No spanking and no allowing grandparents to spank. My dad died on June 15th 2011. My mother remarried not quite four months later. She cannot be alone. The article Marty posted spoke to me. I've learned more from my mother about how I don't want to be, and I've also learned to be compassionate towards people who had challenges more difficult than I have had. She's also been someone that made it so important for me to have boundaries and stick to them no matter what. I know she loves me and my siblings. She's one who will not compliment you to your face but will brag about you to others. Anytime anyone gives me a compliment she says no don't tell her that her head's already too big. As I said a challenge, but she's the only mother I have. My dad had dementia and for years I called every Saturday morning to talk to my dad until he was unable to speak on the phone. So the conversations occurred with my mom unintentionally from then on. I still call her every Saturday and I know she enjoys that. I know she won't be with us forever and I will miss her when she's gone, but admittedly Mother's Day is always a challenge for me. She is not a great mother although she'd have everyone believe she is June Cleaver. She too is a narcissist, and it's challenging for me to be around her for more than a couple days. Purchasing the card is always a challenge. They are always much too mushy gushy for our relationship. Good grief it's going to be a long weekend.

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Laura,

I don't remember the name of the movie, it was on LMN and was about a girl that had been raised by her evil grandmother, and then when she finally got to live with her mom, it showed how what she had been raised with so affected her.

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ChinUp,

It's amazing to me how many of us had horrid upbringings and parents that were sorely lacking, to put it mildly.  

I always had a hard time with Mother's Day & my mom too, in fact, that's what started me on my cardmaking, over 30 years ago...I couldn't buy the Hallmark cards that gushed over what a great mom they were, and I didn't want to lie, I wanted to say something more generic, like "Happy Mother's Day", end of story.  So I started making my own and it turned into a hobby.  With what I know and can do now, I could easily turn it into a career, if I wanted to be a starving artist. :)

You are in my thoughts as you go through Mother's Day.  Try to think of it more in terms of you and your daughter than you and your mom.  I remember having a hard time with it when my kids were babies and I was putting fulltime effort into them, and my family would want to get together and honor my mom, and we'd sacrifice and take her to expensive restaurants we couldn't afford, buy her presents, cards, etc. I'd travel to do so, yet my being a mother was largely overlooked.  My mom was abusive, controlling, vicious, ruined all of our holidays, was cruel to me growing up, and tried to continue through my adulthood, had I let her.  I had to set boundaries and let her live with the consequences and not let her get to me.  It still hurt though.  She was a master manipulator.  Some books that helped me tremendously were "Emotional Blackmail" and "Toxic Parents".

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