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.