My Mum passed away
Hi,
First time on here so please bear with me. My mum just passed away on the 24th September and I’m so devastated. My mum was always a binge drinker but after her and my dad Split in 2016, she started drinking heavily. It was really hard, I never moved out for uni because I didn’t want to leave her and my younger brother but her drinking was so bad, she’d often have night terrors and keep me up all night before my exams. While drunk she also broke her ankle. She got sober for a while around 2019 – 2020, but she started drinking again and I left the house in May 2020. I was homeless for a little while relying on family before I moved into a flat. She also moved out from the family home into a one bedroom flat and I found the loss of the family home really hard. It was difficult to go see her and keep up a relationship because I’d see things like wine glasses in her cupboards and dishes and she’d be very coy about her plans which I assume would involve her drinking. She never wanted to speak about her drinking. I really distanced myself – I wasn’t a good daughter – I really tried to focus on my own life and I hoped she would get better and see how beautiful her time in sobriety was (she glowed and had so many friends). She kept drinking and her health was worse every time I saw her, her ankle she broke years ago started to pain her, she was using mobility aids, and then it got to the point of her having such an inflamed throat she couldn’t eat or drink water but still she kept drinking. She couldn’t look after herself at all or get to the bathroom. I didn’t help her or visit much, it was so difficult for me to see her deteriorate knowing it was because of alcohol and I didn’t want to help because I couldn’t believe the state she was allowing herself to get into, I tried for many years to help her get sober before she got to this and she had let me down every time. I feel so much guilt for this now. I’m 26 and I suffer a lot from my mums alcoholism and I had been trying to build myself back up by starting Al-Anon in August last year, I was trying to build myself up to be able to have some sort of relationship with her but I feel so robbed, I barely got a year and I wasn’t ready. I didn’t know what to do. Over the past 5 years she has been in and out of hospital so much and I’d always visit her, last year she was in hospital all summer and I visited every day (I’m self employed and really let my work slip to focus on her) I’d bring a packed lunch, I was so happy to get to spend time with my mum sober. She was so beautiful and loving when she was sober. But just a week after she got out of hospital she drank again and I didn’t see her – she’d ignore me, I got in touch with a social worker to help her and she wouldn’t open the door. The next time I saw her was over Christmas there when she was in ICU with sepsis, she recovered but then drank again when she got home. That was the last time I saw her, she died in her sleep, she was only 56. We just had her funeral and we got to celebrate the amazing mum / friend / sister / daughter / auntie she was but I feel so lost without her. I always hoped she’d get better, that she’d be at my wedding, that’d she’d be around for her future grandchildren. I’m going to miss her so much and I wish I did more. I don’t know if I can forgive myself that she died alone, having not seen me in 9 months. I loved my mum so much but her addiction was terrifying and so hard to watch. I was so scared. My approach was to say I can’t have her in my life until she at least wants to get sober or wants to try but I think I got it all wrong. I wish I was more encouraging I wish I was more involved. Maybe I could have done more. Her post-mortem was inconclusive and needed more tests so I still don’t know her exact cause of death but I am sure whatever it was, it was alcohol related but I’m also so scared that it is something I could have helped with. How do I live with this guilt? How do you survive losing your mum?
Hi,
Thank you so much for sharing this here. I’m truly sorry to hear about the recent loss of your mum, this sounds such a complex and heavy weight to be carrying, and I really hope that you can set it down for a little while here.
The first thing I want to say is that this isn’t your fault.
I can hear the love you hold for mum. You wrote that you feel like you were a bad daughter for having to use distance but it sounds like you had to work so hard to protect yourself. You are right that it can be utterly frightening to watch someone we love spiral further into addiction and to know we can’t help. I can imagine, the woman that mum was when she was sober, that she would’ve wanted you to look after yourself however you could.
With professional help people with alcoholism can begin to get better but the choice to engage in recovery must come from them and there is nothing, no matter how badly we might wish otherwise, we can do to get someone help if they’re not able or ready.
I really hear you when you say you feel robbed. I’m so sorry that you didn’t get more time with mum. Alcoholism can be so cruelly unfair. We often look at grief as a past perspective, but you are right that it takes from our futures too. I’m sorry that mum won’t be there for those milestones, and I do hope, in time, that you can find ways to include her memory for those things.
It sounds so hard too for this to be still ongoing with the open postmortem. Grief on its own is exhausting enough and this sounds additionally draining. Do you have a support network around you at the moment? Your feelings, your grief and your thoughts all deserve space to be heard.
In time you might wish to meet others who can understand. Let’s talk about loss is a great organisation that offers meet ups all across the country for those 18-35 to talk about their grief with other young grievers.
And, of course, Nacoa and it’s helpline is always open to you.
Listener
I am so sorry for the loss of your mum. Grief makes us feel many things and guilt is common, so it’s understandable to feel this way. But it isn’t your fault. There is so little we can do when someone we love is deep in addiction. And setting boundaries and focusing on the things we can control in our lives is a healthy response, do you did nothing wrong. I am sure your mum knew how much you loved her and she loved you too. Unfortunately addiction holds people so tightly, and the emotional and physical pain of withdrawal can be overwhelming for most people once they have become dependent on alcohol. It can be so hard to work through, but I hope in time you can forgive your mum for her illness, and you can forgive yourself for making space for yourself when you needed it. You were only distant because you’d been hurt so many times and needed some time to heal. Be kind and gentle with yourself right now. Journaling or writing letters to your mum might help. Finding a good support group or accessing bereavement counselling might be helpful too. Take good care of yourself.