SimoneCasual Contributor
Parents never loved me, makes sense but just cant get over it.
It took 40 years but I finally signed up for psychology therapy. So many issues, some highly traumatising, and accepted, yet the biggest and simplest issue i can accept and deal with and get over is how my parents dont love me and Ive found myself isolated, devastated and in a hole too big for me to get out of on my own when it comes to accepting and letting go.
5 years ago I started waking up to the realisation my life was a complete lie. I have a severely mentally ill mother who suffers from Narcisistic personality disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, skitzophrenia, hoarding, spending addiction, theivery... shes never said I love you, is very manipulative and has all of her life roles really screwed up.Shes gone to great lengths to fabricate my home life with my father and brother and will go to greater lengths to preserve and protect it. Everyday of my life has been a complete trainwreck of constant trauma and with noone to protect me from it.
It was like waking from a hazy dream after decades of neglect, abuse, blame and scapegoating and looking back to see a complete 4 decade long space of my life which is empty and has absolutely no personalised identity of my own to relate to. Her mental illness has robbed 4 decades of my life and it quite literally felt like someone had stolen it from me. Consequently the trauma from this conscious rationalisation cost my own mental health and physical health greatly. Thankfully I met my first genuine caring doctor 3 years ago and has made sure i got the appropriate stable footing support i needed to survive the depression and distress that ensued.
My father refuses to protect me from her. He regards her a saint, mind you she hisses at him and spits in his face when she bullies him with threats of chaos if he dare do anything against what she demands of her or to be a father towards me - the skitophrenic side of her is truely frightingly scary. He has been a absent dad, to get away from her, and a critically ill one because of her, but its me who has been ensuring he recieves his proper medical attention when she abandons him in his time of need despite my heart breaking for the simple love of a parent.
well now my health has deteriorated. i have no partner because the last one, the father of my kids, mirrored her, and so not in my life. I have been slowly cutting her out of my life because her toxicity and mind games were weighing that heavily on my health, the doctor told me straight out, i am getting seriously ill from the stress, cut out the stress or minimise it, or i will not be able to treat you. Having an autoimmune disease means stress is easily a heavy hand on my vital organs with little effort.
I am currently struggling and battling with the grief and loss process that comes with realising that your parents never loved you, that it was true when they said that being forced to have kids through expectation meant that they never could live their fanciful dreams or was rushed to marry because someone may steal the other away. My father was actually a healthy and individual man for the first 5 years of my life, but now hes broken down into a minion of marionette proportions who feels that at my age of 41, he still needs to meet my needs with money or food out of shame because it was his responsibility to as a father; was it was obvious to them as everyone else they didnt love me but rather felt burdened to have me?
ok so this is where i am now. Feeling all sorts, some controlled, some uncontrolled, generally most of the time im logical and non emotional, but at other times im suddenly drowning in the sea of sadness, loneliness and abandonment, at my age surely i should be able to deal with it and let it go. I can see the logic in the truth that was blatently obvious, ive even made it clear by responding to their behaviour and beliefs of irrationality and delusion with healthy functional behaviour and actions in order to protect myself. I know that its their problem, i have been the dutiful plesant accomodating daughter, the straight a student, the successful business woman, successful caring and nurturing mother. There is no reason for them not to love me. I would have been better off being adopted out given the vast array of traumatic experiences i have had as a child as a result of their recklessness and lack of love. I often wonder why i wasnt.
My problem is, I accept things on a logical, rational, spiritual sense, but my emotional sense is deeply disturbed. I have created a space of safety and stability for myself, slowly accepting its ok to be angry at them, sad at them for being so cruel. I understand the whole reason for everything, all the logical markers to understand it. Im even leting it go now. But for some reason, my grief and loss is still overwhelming even though ive cut out most of the triggers that are making me ill (i.e. my mother and my misguided enabler father) and the frustratingly annoying fact that i am 40 years old, feeling like i am 5 when it comes to disconnecting from my parents.
I dont know what i can do to get over this hump, there must be others in a similar position....who could recommend reading material maybe or offer insight into how they handled emotions... im not quite sure even what Im trying to achieve, im that lst over this situation. anyone else and i would be angry and move on, but parents should love their children, they chose to have kids, especially when those children have done nothing but be good to them even when they are used as doormats.
My cocker spaniel puppy has recently turned 15. Shes been with me since I broke up with my kids father and been the glue for me and the kids to survive all these years through a lot. Shes deteriorating fast and i soon have to make that decision to put her to sleep. I have no friends except one best friend and her family, because my mother (and my family) scare away anyone who gets close to me and my best friend has been through a similar mother but had the support of a loving husband. i dont mind being single and on my own independance. but when my puppy goes, a child i have to put to sleep, i wont have anyone to turn to like what a parent and their support and love should provide. Unlike my parents, i do actually have emotional functioning and a sense of humanitarian sensitivity. So i need to understand my grief and loss hump with them so that my grief and loss of my best friend puppy doesnt become unbearable.
Why cant i get over awful nasty people who dont care if im alive or dead but use any opportunity possible to use me? Yeah they do hate me, they never share emotion, they dont give hugs, never said i love you, and when a pet dies the first thing that they say is'dont you dare get another pet'. Sadly animals are my family because i dont have a human one. Not that its a bad thing, or an unappreciated thing, but doesnt sound very healthy for me to be like that. My parents abandoned me during a coma after a life threatening birth of my first child, they left me to wander a city hospital lost and disorientated without contact, support or even basic living essentials after my emergency admittance, for days, so yeah i understand they dont love me.
I just cant get over it. What do others do to try and deal with such things?
