Hi almondface, I've never posted on this part of neurotalk before and wanted to post my feelings on complicated grief when I saw your post

I had a similar upbringing. Although I experienced significant violence, emotional, psychological and even an instance of sexual abuse by my father (I stopped referring to him as my 'dad' years ago - he never did anything to deserve that honour lol).

To this day I distinctly remember the exact words he uttered when I was aged 7-8 "you would have been better off if I'd have died instead of your mother". Unfortunately, he was right.

That itself basically explains the 'relationship' - he hated himself, he knew he wasn't good enough to be a loving parent and he hated me because I was so unlike him, especially as my personality reminded him of his wife. He stated she had abandoned him by giving up on life by dying from MS.

Cue many years of honest therapy which enabled me some comparitive life successes, then a complete breakdown in 2009, a recovery to an even better version of myself and then breaking off contact all with my immediate family in 2013, this enabled me to get back into my career etc.

In late 2015, I heard about his descent into severe alcoholism, followed by dementia. I could see his death looming on the horizon and hardened my heart, deciding I would not attend any funeral, as he had died to me over many years by systematically killing off the father-son bond since my childhood. I finally got very unwanted, unwelcome news of his imminent demise in January 2017 - by text and literally on the same day I had just moved house!!. I literally wanted run to the other side of the planet at that moment.

I somehow found the strength to decide to face my fears, drive the 100 miles to the hospital the next day and found myself confronted with a pale ghost of a person, lying there, unable to speak, virtually paralysed and on the brink of death. I eventually realised I had no desire to make a return journey - he had put me through too much to endure any idealised Hollywood-esque, protacted bedside grieving and that would have been disingenuous to my entire experience of him. I then unexpectedly found myself taking his hand and uttered words that seemed to come from nowhere "I forgive you for everything that's happened". I then burst into tears. He did look at me through his one open eye, I'll never knew if he heard or understood. Either way, that was mainly for me, taking back control, being the adult in the relationship - although in some small part, it was for him too before he finally died a week or so later.

My father's death has altered the entire narrative of my past - I was faced with the finality of everything and realisation of a childhood, father and thwarted life ambitions I dearly wanted but never had. I'm still trying to forgive him in my own life and currently approaching things from a trauma perspective. I believe that's where the key is to finally freeing myself from the past and his lingering shadow. I've spent the last few months in therapy identifying all the toxic weeds which now need digging up from beneath their root systems and discarding into the recycling bin. I'm hopefully soon starting EMDR with my current therapist to achieve this.