Reaching out
Hey so I’m new here and this is the first time I think I have ever shared my experience, partly because I’m the youngest of 3 siblings and maybe because I feel they may not fully understand my feelings towards our dad. So for the last 25 or so years, I guess I have been living in denial, putting on a front, “it is what it is” approach towards our dad and the life he led. He recently passed away, and I am really struggling with the people round us sending their condolences and saying “we had so many happy memories”.
Dad was an alcoholic and for as long as I have known him, he drank, tried his best and mum tried her best to shield us from it. Children may or may not understand alcoholism, but they do see and they remember. My earliest memory mum had gone on a residential trip with the school she worked for and it was the first time for me, and as I saw it at the time, that she had left me. I would find dad’s cans hidden in all sorts of places in the house, for the week he would be in bed with a can in his hand asleep when I got up to get ready for school and would be in the same place when I got home, with the addition of more cans. My sister in her early teens, left to take care of me and my brother. Now mum and dad had such a loving relationship, she is the strongest woman I know, but when I was 12ish mum and dad got divorced and the solicitor at the time gave dad 2 options, he stopped the drink and sought help (after mum had done all she could) or it’s the drink. He openly said I can’t do it, I choose the drink. I lived my life never being able to forgive him for saying those words and leaving. For years I tried to maintain a relationship with him and there has been so many trials and tribulations during his drinking, many times being admitted to the hospital, being detoxed, walking out and going straight to buy his drink.
I won’t go into too much detail re what we have been through with him but in recent years, he did cut down his drinking, he never reached sobriety, but I tried to rekindle a relationship with him but he didn’t show any interest in doing the same. I would visit but he wouldn’t talk to me, he would not retain anything I shared with him, he would be nasty with words leaving voicemails which in turn would make me not want to return the call. But he was not like this with my brother or sister. It worsened following the pandemic and in the last 2 years or so, I stopped seeing him. Another reason is because the last 2 years he became really poorly that on 6 occasions he had been admitted to hospital and myself, brother and sister had been called to go to the hospital, as the doctors and nurses felt he would not make it through the night, eventually, selfishly, I could not put myself through seeing him so unwell, and being told he is not going to pull through, for him to then be sent home. This is in no way shape or form any disrespect to doctors and nurses at all.
I guess I am being a little selfish here now looking for someone to tell me that I should not feel guilty for not being able to share and reminisce in those happy memories of him, as I have non. I’m finding it really really difficult to be with and support the people I love process their grief for him, when I struggle to see him and remember him in a positive light. I have felt for what feels like my entire life I am no good or never enough and now all I can feel is guilt for how angry I feel still that we was not enough for him, that maybe I should have done more to be there for dad, especially in these last few years when he was so poorly.
The first thing I want to say is that this isn’t your fault. It never has been.
Grief is overwhelmingly messy and rarely takes the shape we might assume it will. You mentioned dad had passed recently too, it sounds like this grief is still so fresh. You have nothing to feel guilty of if you’re struggling to share or reminisce on happy memories of dad.
There can often feel like a pressure to grieve in a certain way. When you are able, please do allow yourself the grace of letting go of that outside pressure. The more that we try to force our grief into a shape, the more stubbornly it fights back against us. You’re going through enough without having to battle the very grief you’re trying to navigate. It’s okay to feel what you feel, even if that is anger and hurt and nothing positive right now.
Sometimes, when those around us are sharing the positive, it can make it feel even harder to be honest about the feelings we’re having but it is so important to still share those feelings, they deserve space too. Do you have safe spaces you can speak honestly in? If family or friends don’t feel like they can provide that right now, counselling, grief groups and even COA specific groups can be a good sources of support too. Nacoa’s helpline can always signpost you towards some local ones, if you felt that could be helpful.
You’re not alone with the feeling of never being enough, nor with the anger and guilt and that come with that, it is a common feeling for COA’s. Something you might see a lot here are The Six C’s:
I didn’t cause it
I can’t control it
I can’t cure it
I can take care of myself
I can communicate my feelings
I can make healthy choices
When we love someone, we want to make things better for them, or to fix the problem. And when a situation feels unbearable, like with the unpredictable up and downs that can come with recovery and relapse, we want to make it stop. But dad’s drinking was never your burden to carry, to fix or to cure. I’m sorry that for so long your worth has felt tied to it. We can’t cure someone’s alcoholism any more than we could cure a parent from another disease.
You are good enough. You always have been.
I hope you can keep posting here, I’m so glad that you did. And I hope too that you can allow yourself to feel whatever you need to feel, even if it’s the unpleasant bits. You’re doing something huge for yourself, really.
Certainly, you can always call or email the Nacoa helpline too. They truly do understand, will listen and never judge.
Best wishes
Listener
Honestly… I totally get you, and it is ok to not follow any ‘glorifying’ of past memories. Your memories are yours and they are fully valid! You are allowed to have feelings and memories.
I really connected with the hidden cans things. Mine is a mother story rather than dad… but it’s so chuffing annoying when people want to force you to play nice when they get ill or look weak because they were once strong and scary!
Here if you ever need to bounce off
Hi. I just want to say that reading your piece, thinking that you were being 'selfish' as you put it, was absolutely the last thing on my mind. Selfish means you care too much about your own needs. I think the opposite sounds more true - your needs have often been neglected in your life. So no wonder your grief is not so much for your dad, perhaps more for the childhood you didn't have, or both - it is always complicated when addiciton is involved. Your elder siblings may have had happier memories of your dad because he was different when they were younger. Whatever is the case, I think that you need to look after yourself and talk to people outside of the family who can accept your feelings for what they are. It's a really sad situation that hasn't been resolved. I think your questions about whether you should have spent more time with your dad at the end are really understandable, but you were just looking after yourself, and I think if you had a friend who had been going through the same you would have supported their decision to distance themselves. I hope you can be very very kind to yourself, you lost your dad long before he died, and that in itself needs grieving.