I lost my dad 2 days ago and apart from a few tears, I’ve not CRIED.
I was cut off from my dad just under a year after my mam died and I had a major breakdown over it. But now he’s died, i just don’t seem to feel anything. I was so close to my dad and he taught me everything I know, so why can’t I grieve? I know its not normal to feel like this, so why do I?
Hi PureAngel. I am so very sorry for your loss. Is it possible you’re still in shock? My dad died almost 2 weeks ago and I was totally emotionless for the first day. As soon as I was told he’d died, I started taking up the stair carpet and looking at paint samples which is so weird but we do the strangest things in times of shock and grief. He died unexpectedly and it’s taken 12 days for it to start to sink in that he’s actually gone for good. A big part of me still can’t believe it.
Please don’t feel like your grieving isn’t normal - there is absolutely no such thing as normal grief. We all do things differently and in our own time.
Take care. Sending you lots of love and strength xx
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Thank you. I do feel like its not hit me yet especially as me and my dad were so close. Sadly I was cut off from him by my sister (long story that some think I’m making up, except the people who really know me) just after my mam died, so hadn’t seen him for around 5yrs. But i just assumed I’d have this massive wave of grief when i found out he died and i just haven’t.
I just have so many emotions going through my head…anger, fear, sadness, emptiness to name a few and I’m really struggling to process them all. Its giving me a headache as soon as I even think about it.
I’m not allowed to help with organising the funeral and know that it’ll be the funeral she wants and not my dads choice, I’ll be completely excluded and just feel like an outsider when i say my goodbyes with my children. I just know she’s going to make it as awkward as possible for me and the kids and its expected that we’ll be there so we have to go.
I really want to go but at the same time, i don’t want to
Sometimes if we aren’t loved at the right time and helped to grieve the
at part of us dies inside, the part of you as a child and as a warm loving person. It has to be loved back to feeling by ourselves. No-one else cab do it unless we are very very lucky. Put that lost side of yourself into your heart and tell it you are holding it and see it’s pain. Don’t hurry anything. But don’t forget it is there. You know that bit of you.
I’ll be thinking g of you.
Antoinette
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I’m sorry you have family problems on top of everything else. That must make things so much harder for you.
If you’re not allowed to help with the funeral, have you considered having a little remembrance service of your own with your children? My brother doesn’t want his children at my dads funeral as he doesn’t think it’s any place for kids, instead he’s going get them to write down something they’d say to their Grandad if they could, then put the messages in a flowerpot, cover them over with soil and plant a little tree on top and it’ll be their Grandad tree they can water and prune and look after whenever they miss him. It’s a nice way for them to say goodbye without having the horribleness of a funeral to have to go to.
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PureAngel I’m so sorry my seemingly ridiculous reply was not meant for you. Caroline understood and got it so right. You have had it too hard and it sounds likE the most painful and emotionally confusing situation i can imagine. But she is right you are perfectly OK with your response. It will evolve over time. i so wish you had had time with your father who you clearly loved so much. I’m thinking of you.
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Hi, thank you for your kids words 
Caroline81 I’m so sorry about your dad 
and yeah, it feels like I’m arranging everything for someone else. Yeah, i have the entire family against me because I’m not like them and all about image. We’re going to have an extra Christmas dinner on the 30th (my dads birthday) and have all the stuff he liked 
Antoinette, i absolutely agree. I honestly feel like I’ve already grieved for him when i got cut off. My parents were never the hugging type (which is why i DO with my kids, as i know what not having them feels like). I just feel completely detached from it all. I absolutely worshipped my dad, so when i got cut off by her, she knew how much it would hurt me and now not being included, i know my sister will just have a pomp and ceremony funeral as a massive display of her love and have everything how she wants and not how dad wanted
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Don’t I know what that is like. My brother had a girl friend who took over and the funeral was dreadful with those dressed up people walking in front in a horrible chapel, very bare and a shiny wooden coffin.My husband chose a straw one or whatever they are and was simple and personal and beautiful. My home where I’d been brought up taken over by her and her sister and friends so I had nowhere sit . No one rang me to see how i was out tell me how he had died, just told me he was dead at 8.30am and that was it! So I REALLY feel for you… It makes you feel so alone.
My Dad was killed when I was 5 and I was there when the telegram arrive saw it all. Then no one would tell me anything. thought I was too young. Mummy said I asked ever day later on, when is he coming home. They never did tell me, but everything at home fell apart. And I clearly worshiped him. We carry this kind of rejection and feeling that part of ourselves is not being heard the rest of our lives. But you are heard, really heard. What was your Dad like?
I hope you have a wonderful warm, loving time on 30th. Maybe you’ll have chance to talk about him.
By the way, when my husband died I did not cry at all for weeks months . First I was dried up and couldn’t go there to those feeling, they were too far away and frightening, painful and then later trying was no help just made me feel dreadful and thinking about him gave me panic attacks. I’ve never REALLY grieved for him and we had an amazing relationship, I should know better becauseI I was a counsellor, but when it comes to yourself, it is different. Let your heart and your body find its own way and time. There is so much now to process.
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Yeah, we’ve had a text (well i say ‘we’ my daughter had a text) to tell us the date and time and where and if we wanted a car we could ask the family car is full lol which amazes me considering my mothers nieces have been chosen over his own daughter and granddaughter for the family car. I’ve been told that he wanted no flowers, just one spray which she has already, so mine or my kids flowers are not required (well that’s just tough cos I’ve bought and paid for them, I’m not even debating it). And then last night i had the most patronising phone call asking me if i need to borrow clothes (bare in mind I’m 10st and she’s 18st) as she wants to ‘make sure i look tidy and not embarrass anyone’. It was all i could do not to swear and scream.
See, i love my dad with all my heart…both parents. But then as i got older i realized how detached they were from me, how distant and how they always judged and looked down on me, because i wasn’t ‘like them’. I didn’t worry about wearing jeans, boots and hoodies, but they were all about image and how people saw them. I made my mistakes and made amends for pretty much being a nightmare kid. I didn’t realize till i was much older that my childhood and how my sister behaved towards gave way for ALOT of MH problems, a cry for attention if you like. I’d watch my mum hug my sister and wanted her to do the same to me. So i attached to my dad and became the boy of the family that my dad always wanted (me and my sister were both adopted, mam won with 2 girls lol).
Its just now i realize that all along they wanted me to be like them and i never quite fitted in the family. Its a big kick in the guts
Pure Angel, that’s what you know you are or you couldn’t have called yourself that. I’m answering with this right away but can’t write properly till later. You break my heart PureAngel.
PureAngel,
I have big problems to deal with at the moment, having had a massive oil spill from my tank and on top of the fact my boiler has died! But now I can concentrate.
It is so so sad We are all so different. I am 83 but wear jeans or track suit trousers and casual tops nearly all the time. Now i fit I do have hoody on believe it or not! Other friends of mine are the same or even elegant. Because the way life was for us when we were young added to who we are, does make it hard for other people sometimes, and we are hurt and stunted by lack of proper love and understanding. But there are other people who are desperate too to show off that they are good members of society and maybe their lack self confidence which makes that an imperative and they HAVE tom fit in. what they wear is of great importance. I am sure for a special occasion you would be doing something different. But you have to do your thing. SO much pain and so much lack of love and yielding. I daresay you were very difficult as you say and maybe even now you can get mad, and you have good reason to feel that. I so feel for you with your great love for your Dad. He did not know any better or he would have had that special talk with you. You deserve so much more. You know inside your are perfect and full if love. You probably feel a lot of rage and very lonely. But you have your own child or children to whom you;'ve given a future by givimg them the love and touch you didn’t get. Hugs and cuddles were not around in our family either and I’ve not been touchy enough with my daughter, better with my son because I knew he had had none at the foster home. . I did give Elsbeth a definite 20 minutes hug ‘by the watch!’ every evening, on my lap, but that was because I knew she needed it. I didn’t. They are both adopted and because I lost 5 from full term down, dead in the womb, I wanted my own baby and part of me had a problem. But she has given so much touch and cuddles to hers and we can talk about it. We never get it all right.
Pure Angel you have so much love in there. Do go and hold that love for your Dad and just look at them if you can and think ‘That is your shit, not mine!’ I have still not been able to forgive my family for not understanding that I also needed support when my brother died, and they were ll together, so I know that one. BUT YOU are OK inside, you are great. Your Dad would show you his love if he had understood.
VERY best of luck. I will be thinking of you and sending you love.
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Oh no, i hope you get that sorted out quickly 
especially this time of year.
yeah both me and my sister were adopted. But my sister chose to find her birth parents, whereas i didn’t and i do think she resented me for it as i think she saw her adoption as some sort of rejection and i saw it as a blessing. Plus being the only one who has children, i went from ‘Natalie is a nightmare teenager’ (sorry hello lol I’m Natalie btw) to being the mother of their grandchildren, and i think that peeved her too tbh. Dad said he noticed the change in her when i turned up and felt the need to protect me when i was younger so took me under his wing. I was always in some after school club…swimming, karate etc with him and she knew we had a really close bond from me being very young, she was a mams girl and i was a dads girl. But then just before mam died, i noticed her trying to push me and the kids away. But then dad rung me on the day mam died and i was the one who had to do CPR (my job requires me to have emergency first aid) so that was another thing i was praised for after my mother died. Then i helped dad contact everyone to arrange the funeral and all his appointments for dad to have his hip replacement and i was there every day while she went to Mexico and Butlins 'to recover from my mothers death. Then i needed one day to take my 5yr old son to the beach with school and i was called selfish 
When i first posted this, i honestly thought i couldn’t grieve. But I’m wondering if it feels a bit if a relief after everything. Like after the hell I’ve had, its now over because i don’t have to see that side if the family. Does that sound terrible? I feel terrible saying it.
After everything that’s happened, losing both out parents, she still twists the knife with my kids with texts. I’ll honestly be glad to just move on. I’m pretty sure that I’ll sob my heart out saying goodbye, but i honestly don’t think I’ll be sad to say goodbye to the family that have no time for me
Pure Angel, I love the name. I think your sister is cooping with jealousy She can’t handle, and hertvown particular pain. Her only way is to blame you. She doesn’t understand why she is doing. You are also clearly so different. Even hd you been blood relatives you might be very different. My son and daughter are chalk nd cheese and the wy each other re makes it very hard for the other. BUT my mother who was small and dark and a conservative type of woman tyhough happily eccentric, used to look up t me all and fir and say,‘WHo are you?’ "I alwaus thought you would be pretty and small and dark with wavy hair. Father mother and brother were all born within 3 sys of each other end June and I was end October, a total foreigner to them! mad too! So it is not just because you are adopted… I LOVE it that you thought being their children was a blessing, a lovely attitude. So clearly you did have a wonderful relationship with your Dad. Never forget it. Maybe although she got on with your mother, she was also jealous of that relationship of yours. Maybe she wanted also to be number one with him. Who knows, maybe she wanted for him to be proud of her or … and maybe she felt she was overweight and you had lovely figure and he preferred you. SO many issues. Let it go if you can because you don’t know. You hold your relationship with him tight. The point is you cn hold your he’d up high and be happy to the those flowers you have for him whatever she says.
Again best of luck
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Yeah, i do always wonder her motives behind her behavior. I don’t know whether it was jealousy or a want to be an only child and i was ‘in the way’. My dad always said he saw the change in her and maybe because i was such a nightmare kid then turned it around, she saw it as nobody was saying anything bad about me anymore and didn’t like it. I honestly think, if i delved into her psyche I’d need my own shrink haha and delving into mine was enough for me lol.
I’m having to slow my thinking down atm as its going at 100mph (and at 8.30am that’s not a good sign for me as it means my anxiety is ramping up now with the funeral being next week (15th), so will try again with my doctor to see if i can get referred to mental health. Last time i was told ‘theres no point as the wait time is so long’ which is never good during this time but i do think i need to do something atm, last thing my kids need is me all could like a spring at Christmas