Am I cruel or right to feel this way???

[NoConfidenceMan]

Hi, I'm a newbie and I really need to get this off my chest. I developed my anxiety and depression when I was very young and in primary school.
My father was a drunken, abusive you-know-what throughout my childhood, and it gradually wore me down. There was no joy in my home, no love, only dread and misery.

He would taunt me, belittle me and constantly criticise me. When I stopped going to school, for months and months he would call me "gay" or "poof" or "fag" every day, all the time. No offense to any homosexual, by the way, but it was meant to hurt and imasculate me before I'd even become a man. Other things he said I shan't even repeat here.

He never really beat me, but the threat of violence seemed ever-present as he drunkenly stumbled through the door. One time he did throw a kettle of water on me, I ducked and it hit my back so I was okay.

My mother was weak and also a victim, so I've semi-forgiven her for letting it all happen and for her voice being half of the cacophonous shouting/screaming matches that were the soundtrack to my childhood. But it did happen, and as a result I became increasingly withdrawn, anxious and drepressed...

...now my father, whose name I renounce (I have already taken my mother's maiden name), is dying of liver cancer - a self-inflicted wound indeed...and I feel WONDERFUL, it is such a relief to know he's going to go. I haven't seen him for ages, and I don't think I should, because I think I would just laugh in his face. So am I wrong or right to feel this way? some people don't deserve compassion is my opinion, then again, I'm biased. Thanks.

[chalky]

Hi NoConfidenceMan,

Welcome to the Forum.

:hugs: :hugs: :hugs: :hugs:

You will get loads of support and advice here.
I am sorry to hear of your father's illness.My mother died of cancer two years ago.Before she died,a rift developed in my family which has never healed.My mother sided with my siblings and although the subject was never mentioned,it was always there in the background.Until she died,I tried my best to do the right thing-visiting,caring,telling her I loved her.I look back now and am glad that I did what I did.
You will decide what is best for you-you will feel it in your heart.
Nothing can condone what your father did to you but do not become your father.You have an opportunity to be a better man than he was.
Best wishes,
Chalky

[freakedout]

Hi,


Whatever your decision, good luck with it, you may just be feeling and reacting to the shock of the diagnosis, and your emotions may be all over the place as you come to terms with it. Nothing can really prepare you for a death, even an expected death is a shock when it happens. PM me if you like.

Take care

Freaky

[Catwoman]

I know what you mean about feeling ashamed of feeling a certain way. My husband had a very cruel mother, she did terrible things I wont go into. He left home at 16, and except for a couple of instances he never saw her from that day till the day we had been told she had been found dead in her flat 15 years later.
She has lay dead for a week undiscovered, such a terrible person was she, she had no friends to check or care about her. She had been so appalling to my husband when he was a child that when I heard she was dead I thought "Thank God for that".
On Saturday just gone my husband's beloved nan died, this mother's mother. I remember remarking that nan was now in Heaven with her husband. But thinking to myself that she would not meet her daughter, my husband's mother, as she would be in Hell.

[Lilith1980]

Hi NoConfidenceMan

I dont think there is a right or wrong way to how you feel, its how you feel, you cannot change that.

I can understand your feelings towards your father's condition after what he put you through. I also agree with what Chalky said, you will decide what is right, but at the same time don't become your father.

Maybe in time you might want to talk to him about the things that happened? Tell him how he has made you feel - to finally get closure on these things?

Maybe you could take this opportunity to get all these things off you chest - when he passes on, you will not be able to do this and you may regret it?

Just a thought :hugs:

Jo xxxxx