Reply to Did you have a strained relationship with a parent, and now they are dead, but you still harbor resentment and anger?

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Reply to "Did you have a strained relationship with a parent, and now they are dead, but you still harbor resentment and anger?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
It's ok to be on your own timeline.  It's also helpful to know that forgiveness is not a gift to them.  It's a gift to yourself.  It's a weight off your shoulders.  The anger and resentment is baggage you carry and it weighs on your soul, and it also robs you of the ability to take control over how your living parent's actions affect you.  At the same time, I understand the attachment to that baggage.  It's tied to some semblance of hope and wish that things were different.  So it requires letting go of that hope. [/quote]

OP here. This is why I'm trying to let it go, to give the gift to myself of unburdening myself from the anger and resentment.

In many ways, and for 30-ish years, the anger I have has felt protective. I've been angry enough to know that I never wanted to go back to a relationship with her and that protected me from any more of her abuse and BS. I think this perspective is making it hard for me to let go of it now. I don't need it anymore, because she's dead, but it's still hard to just stop.

Another PP said that their parent had a tough life themselves. I know that my mother did too, and she passed that right along to her own kids. I am not that mother because I have spent YEARS in therapy and have put a lot of intentional effort into being a better parent than the one I had. She could have done the same, but she put no thought or work into it, as far as I could tell. As long as she had vodka, she was good, I guess. Pretty crappy.

For many years I would have said things that others have shared here. I felt good about choosing to put some distance between us, to sever the relationship, to go live my best life and not look back, and I pushed a lot of feelings down deep. I thought I had it all under control but over the last two years (which is about 5 years after she died) it's really been on my mind and stressing me out for reasons I can't quite understand.  Maybe because my son has entered the teen years and that's when my mother was at her all-time worst so I'm remembering how bad it was for me while I'm here trying to make the teen years great for my kid (overcompensation, for sure).

I appreciate the comments from everyone.[/quote]

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