Navigating the Death of an Abusive, Neglectful, or Traumatizing Parent By OOTS member K.

Trigger Warning: Mention of Self-Harm, Suicidality, and Death

I was raised by a single mom with bipolar disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder. The Borderline Personality Disorder caused her to “split” me and my sister black and white. Not whole humans, not really children, more like labels. Good or bad. “Loved” or hated.

Her open self-harm and suicidal ideation frightened and stunted me. I was terrified my mom would commit suicide, and that I would be responsible for not stopping it, or for not being good or kind enough.

Being good meant shoving every single emotion down deep, so deep I honestly had no idea I had any, except shame and guilt, which smothered me like an invasive groundcover. I grew up, moved out, had my own family. But the fear and shame never moved on and I was diagnosed with complex PTSD with dissociation in my 40s.

Being good meant shoving every single emotion down deep, so deep I honestly had no idea I had any, except shame and guilt, which smothered me like an invasive groundcover.

In her 60s, my mom was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer. A few years later that turned into stage 4 cancer. She died in her home in a hospital bed staged under her living room window, my sister and I by her side a month shy of her 70th birthday.

This article is about the reckoning I went through as she passed through cancer and death, trading self-harm for flamboyant self-neglect, the patterns of my childhood still rippling through our relationship. As the cancer ravaged my mom’s body, complex PTSD hijacked mine, leaving me dissociated and chronically triggered.

I’m writing this because the emotions I had during her treatment and around the time of her death were deeply difficult ones that left me feeling ashamed and alone – questioning the very core of who I thought I was: a kind, loving person. These were ugly, painful feelings that are difficult to admit to myself, let alone admit to others.

I am sharing this because as ashamed and alone as I feel, I know I am not alone. I know there are others who will have to reckon with the same difficult emotions around the death of an abusive, neglectful, or traumatizing parent. It is easier to say this to someone else than to feel it for myself: You are not unkind. You were traumatized by someone who was supposed to take care of you and make you feel safe. I’m sharing this to help normalize emotions around the death of a traumatizing parent – for myself and for others who read this.

For the first couple years of cancer treatment things were OK. I took my mom to chemo, radiation, and surgery appointments. I cooked her food and she graciously said “thank you.” There were moments of difficulty, but for the most part, things were OK.

Her cancer went into remission. But she also quietly stopped taking her psychiatric medications and gleefully refused to take steps to prevent increasingly frequent falls, defiantly waving her disregard for safety like a toddler that grins mischievously at her mother before dashing into the street. Sometimes she would hide the falls and sometimes she would use them as currency to frighten and manipulate us.

It became quite a bit more than I could bear and I pulled way back in the relationship, but I also felt guilty, ashamed, and at fault. When her cancer returned, I went back into helper mode, ferrying her to appointments, doing shopping for her, cooking for her, and trying desperately to connect and make the relationship OK, but it never did recover.

Instead, there were compulsive lies and a devastating cycle where she would pull me in through fear just to push me away, leaving me feeling helpless and terrified, resentful and and angry. But I also felt confused and to blame - bad and wrong.

…no matter how much harm the situation was causing to my own mental health, I could not step away because my biggest childhood trigger -- the thought: she is going to die and it will be all my fault – would be 1000 times more debilitating if I did.

She continued to fall, over and over, but refused to use a cane, wear her glasses, or have handrails installed. Her doctors would call me, tell me she couldn’t live alone, that she needed aides, but all this she refused.

I felt responsible, but powerless. As long as she was declared “competent” I had no ability to protect her from herself. It got worse and worse. Her cancer, her behavior, and my PTSD. I would tremble as I approached her house, I would dissociate as I drove home. At times it was so bad I could not find my way to the freeway entrance I had used for 20 years.

And yet no matter how much harm the situation was causing to my own mental health, I could not step away because my biggest childhood trigger -- the thought: she is going to die and it will be all my fault – would be 1000 times more debilitating if I did. I was trapped for two years. It got to the point that even as I was terrified she was going to die from self-neglect I could not wait for her to die of cancer. I couldn’t step away, but I was increasingly unable to function being part of her life. There could be no relief until she died.

I do not like that I felt that way. I wish it were not true. But, there it is. The uncomfortable truth. It exists whether I admit it or pretend to not see it. I tended her lovingly, but I did not love her. I performed kind acts, but I did not feel kindly. I cried when she died but I was not sad. I grew up terrified she would die, but in the end her death could not come fast enough. When she died I felt relief.

I am free. I am now finally in the “post-” phase of post-traumatic stress disorder, and healing is finally within sight. On a bad day you will still find me curled over in shame, believing that at my core I am a horrible, bad person. But on a more balanced day I can tentatively say to myself: I am not a bad person, I am simply human. 

I am free. I am now finally in the “post-” phase of post-traumatic stress disorder, and healing is finally within sight.