The grief that comes from having emotionally absent parents.

[Three]

I'm been experiencing much grief lately and today, as a result of writing, I was able to really get in touch with these feelings of heartbreak and loss.

I wanted to share the writing here in the hopes that maybe it would be valuable to others. It's been a while since I've posted anything personal. 


 

"There are few things that leave such a ghastly impression on the mind as witnessing the slow mental deterioration of those around you. To see the repetitive routines of distraction and avoidance eventually harden around the lives of those you care about, like amber around a mosquito, until the personality once full of hope and promise is completely rendered into an inert state, is like experiencing the loss of death, over and over again.

 

The only difference is that, while there is some closure that comes with a physical death in knowing that the person that once was will never return, as a child there is no such relief when a person has deceased on the inside as their physical presence only serves to haunt, like the translucent ghost of someone dear that can never be fully embraced, with the tortuous hope that they will one day return and hug back.


My father became more and more withdrawn as family stressors increased. Like narcissus who stared into the water at his reflection until he drowned, my father stared into the television set to drown out the noise, only to the effect of easing himself. 

My mother became more anxious and as a result would chatter and talk out loud and laugh hysterically throughout the house like the Joker to the point that I started walking in the house with head phones. 

My sister eventually went to rehab to achieve sobriety from pills only to get out to start taking harmful pharmacutical drugs. 

Not to mention many friends who become harder and harder to connect with the more they smoked weed. 

[NotDarkYet]

Thank you for that.

 

I felt a strange wave a relief flow over me knowing somebody else experienced this kind of childhood.

[Three]

Thank you for taking the time to read and share your thoughts. I'm sorry to hear about our loss.