my mom is dead, should i feel bad about it?

[monoxide_child]

i haven't lived with my mom in over a year, i haven't seen or spoken to her in over 3 months and last night i found out that she's been dead for 3 weeks
last night, as i was coming home from the huge free thanksgiving food thing in fair park (dallas texas) i see my mom's best friend's daughter (who is my age) and this woman tells me that my mother is dead, and that she's been dead for an entire 3 weeks, she tells me that her and my brother have been talking on the phone every day since (i haven't talked to my brother since his now 2 year old kid was still in the womb) and she calls him for me on her cell, (my cell was stolen last thursday morning) and he tells me that all the funeral stuff is already over and done with and that his 2 year old boy is perfectly healthy and that our sister had told him that i was in prison for 25-to-life. i feel happy that mom's dead because she's been a pain in my ass for a very long time, should i feel sad about this even though i don't? am i a monster or can anyone sympathize with me?

 

[Maxim1110]

I'm having serious doubts whether to take this seriously...

 

[monoxide_child]

okay maybe i wasn't detailed or articulate enough
my mom was frustrating me and stressing me to the extent that i was relieved to hear that she had died
i'd already stopped communicating with her
most people would "respect" their parents just because they are parents
but i'm a rational thinking adult and just because someone is physically capable of breeding doesn't automatically mean they're better than sterile/infertile people
my mom was a pill-popper; she was pretty much asleep from the time i was 3 (when my younger brother was born) untill the time i was about 16 or 17
the neighborhood kids raised me more than my mom did
and i really can't feel any sadness at her death

 

[Kara-Shehr]

No emotion should be compulsory.

 

[monoxide_child]

No emotion should be compulsory.

thank you

 

[monoxide_child]

i want serious discussion about death here
i really want everyone's opinions about this
am i really such a cruel monster for not feeling sad that my mom died???
or do you feel that i am justified in my feeling of relief and happiness because of her death?

 

[TesticleMilkshake]

As a spiritual person and a student of religious studies, I think you are justified in feeling however you feel. There is no right or wrong emotion connected to lost or death, because individuals observe this matter in such vastly different ways based on their life experience, faith, socioeconomic class, culture, etc. Even neurochemistry, psychology and other, more definitive areas of science can become mixed it into how one reacts and copes with lost. Perhaps because you had a rough relationship with your mother, maybe she was already dead in your mind. Not speaking to or seeing her extended periods of the time could have compounded the fact. Or maybe, on a deeper psychological level, your mind may not be willing or ready to deal with the lost of your mother, maybe you're suppressing an emotional reaction until you have confirmation that she's gone? Or perhaps you fall out of what would be considered neurotypical range of human deductions, preventing you in responding to the situation in a more "normal" fashion. Maybe you have a personality disorder, maybe your a sociopath!

Honestly, death is what you make of it. On a spiritual level, some people see it as a cessation of earthly existence, an end of consciousness and one simply becomes worm food. Others see it as a time for the soul to depart from its physical vessel, to travel to another realm or reenter our world as another being. It is what it is though.

 

[monoxide_child]

As a spiritual person and a student of religious studies, I think you are justified in feeling however you feel. There is no right or wrong emotion connected to lost or death, because individuals observe this matter in such vastly different ways based on their life experience, faith, socioeconomic class, culture, etc. thank you, a lot of people think that "outside the norm = bad" but really "normal" is clearly subjective, and unique to the individual, Even neurochemistry, psychology and other, more definitive areas of science can become mixed it into how one reacts and copes with lost. what might be "normal" for one person might be impossible for another Perhaps because you had a rough relationship with your mother, maybe she was already dead in your mind. not merely the rough relationship but also because she had long since been diagnosed as "terminal" with none of the doctors even pretending to try to keep her alive anymore, by the time she passed, it had gotten to the point where it wasn't really surprizing Not speaking to or seeing her extended periods of the time could have compounded the fact. yeah, it did, my life had already moved on, i'd aquired a life outside of her seeing me, i was very busy doing things she wouldn't have understood and other things she wouldn't have approved of, and she just wasn't part of my new life anymore Or maybe, on a deeper psychological level, your mind may not be willing or ready to deal with the lost of your mother, maybe you're suppressing an emotional reaction until you have confirmation that she's gone? i seriously don't think that's happening, i was actually relieved and happy and laughing when i found out she died Or perhaps you fall out of what would be considered neurotypical range of human deductions, preventing you in responding to the situation in a more "normal" fashion. yes, i am definately not normal, i have http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspergers_syndrome Maybe you have a personality disorder, maybe your a sociopath! i'm self-destructively altruistic

Honestly, death is what you make of it. On a spiritual level, some people see it as a cessation of earthly existence, an end of consciousness and one simply becomes worm food. that's the easiest way to deal with it Others see it as a time for the soul to depart from its physical vessel, to travel to another realm the judeo-christian "heaven and hell" are clearly A-C concepts designed to enable people to cope with death or reenter our world as another being. i believe in re-incarnation, although i will say that the majority of the people claiming to have had "past lives" are suffereing from some sort of delusional psychosisIt is what it is though.

...

 

[SouthernAbyss]

Now, i'm not sure how you do things in AmericaI, but I believe you should turn this... hatred, so to speak, towards your family. That's honestly one of the most stuffed up things i've ever heard, finding out that the woman who bought you into this world died, and three weeks later you find out, wtf. As for your mom, i agree that you should make the decision whether you feel sad or happy, it's not up to any one else.

 

[TesticleMilkshake]

Now, i'm not sure how you do things in AmericaI, but I believe you should turn this... hatred, so to speak, towards your family. That's honestly one of the most stuffed up things i've ever heard, finding out that the woman who bought you into this world died, and three weeks later you find out, wtf. As for your mom, i agree that you should make the decision whether you feel sad or happy, it's not up to any one else.

I'm going to play Devil's Advocate, here. I agree, hatred towards family is the worst. It's extremely consuming of the mind and self. However, what if you had a parent who was destructive and/or dangerous? Mental illness that they refuse to treat, abuse (physical, emotional, sexual), addiction, or just flat out, never being present? Is hatred justified then, even if it is only a reactionary emotion or in extreme circumstances?

I have relative who was diagnosed bipolar and refused treatment. He beat on his wife in front of his children (and probably on his children too), stole legal documents and finances, drank excessively and disappeared for days on end. While we mourn the loss of what we thought was a generous and fun-loving, some of my family refuses to speak with him. For a while, his own son hated him.

I also babysat for a young girl who was sexually abused by her biological father when she was a toddler. Now, as she's approaching puberty, she's dealing with serious psychological trauma. At 10 years old, she's attempted suicide several times, having problems with trust and socialization, experiencing paranoia and fear in her own home (to the point of checking locks on doors and windows to make sure child molesters will not break in at night) and has been on a cocktail of medications with harsh side-effects to try to manage her anxiety and depression. On top of this, she is terrified of men. Twice in the past year she has had be hospitalized for period extending a month. Her innocence and childhood was stolen from her, all because of some sick fuck. While making amends with PAST EVENTS (not people) and moving on emotionally is one thing, I give her every right (as of right now) to hate her father.

On a side note, my bipolar relative may have also been sexually abused as a child.

 

[monoxide_child]

That's honestly one of the most stuffed up things i've ever heard, finding out that the woman who bought you into this world died, and three weeks later you find out, wtf.

all the people that knew she was dead, they all had my phone number, so i was really pissed off at the whole having to wait 3 whole weeks thing, my mom didn't like her other 2 kids anywhere near as much as she liked me and she'd been letting me hold a bunch of my stuff in her apartment, even though we weren't talking, so when i found out she'd been dead a whole 3 weeks (as opposed to 3 hours or maybe 3 days) i was pissed and was upset about loosing all my stuff that had been in her apartment

 

[monoxide_child]

I'm going to play Devil's Advocate, here. I agree, hatred towards family is the worst. It's extremely consuming of the mind and self. However, what if you had a parent who was destructive and/or dangerous? Mental illness that they refuse to treat, abuse (physical, emotional, sexual), addiction, or just flat out, never being present? Is hatred justified then, even if it is only a reactionary emotion or in extreme circumstances?

hatred toward family is more all consuming than the hatred you feel toward non-family my mom wasn't destructive or dangerous just absent, but i know parents that injure their kids, and psycho-sexually abuse their kids, i've seen mentally il people raising their kids, i've seen crack-heads and heroin users interact (badly) with their kids, and i've personnaly seen those specific situations where i think that the hatred of one's parents seems justified, the feeling i had wasn't even hate so much as just frustration with how she treated me differently than she treated other people, and she treated me different that other people treated me, and it had just reached a point where i couldn't be around her anymore, but she wasn't really physically or sexually abusing me, but i did feel psychologically abused, i needed individuation from her and, unfortunately that wasn't able to happen untill right before she died, i think if she had lived another couple of years, we might have maybe returned to being on sort of good terms, maybe

I have relative who was diagnosed bipolar and refused treatment. He beat on his wife in front of his children (and probably on his children too), stole legal documents and finances, drank excessively and disappeared for days on end. While we mourn the loss of what we thought was a generous and fun-loving, some of my family refuses to speak with him. For a while, his own son hated him.

i understand, i've met people like that, when i was in highschool there was a girl living in my mom's apartment and everyday she would beat me with a baseball bat, and more recently i was dating a bi-polar girl who was obsessed with me, her 2 poles were a) in love with me and b) wanting to kill me with her bare hands

I also babysat for a young girl who was sexually abused by her biological father when she was a toddler. Now, as she's approaching puberty, she's dealing with serious psychological trauma. At 10 years old, she's attempted suicide several times, having problems with trust and socialization, experiencing paranoia and fear in her own home (to the point of checking locks on doors and windows to make sure child molesters will not break in at night) and has been on a cocktail of medications with harsh side-effects to try to manage her anxiety and depression. On top of this, she is terrified of men. Twice in the past year she has had be hospitalized for period extending a month. Her innocence and childhood was stolen from her, all because of some sick fuck. While making amends with PAST EVENTS (not people) and moving on emotionally is one thing, I give her every right (as of right now) to hate her father.

i've met nympho pussy-eating lesbians who are lesbians because they are afraid of penises, and they're afraid of penises because of being molested as todlers

On a side note, my bipolar relative may have also been sexually abused as a child.

are you implying that sexual abuse causes and/or intensifies bi-polar-ism???

 

[TesticleMilkshake]

are you implying that sexual abuse causes and/or intensifies bi-polar-ism???

Lolwut??? No, although I know a few people that have had bipolar episodes triggered by sexual abuse.

 

[monoxide_child]

Lolwut??? No, although I know a few people that have had bipolar episodes triggered by sexual abuse.

did you read all the other orange text in post #12???

 

[TesticleMilkshake]

did you read all the other orange text in post #12???

Yeah, I can kind of related to your situation with your mother. Psychological abuse is the worst, because it's difficult to prove and usually is the result of the abusing party either: a)having an treated personality disorder or mental illness, or b)having been abused themselves and knowing no other way to interact with people. Or a combination of both.

 

[monoxide_child]

Yeah, I can kind of related to your situation with your mother. Psychological abuse is the worst, because it's difficult to prove and usually is the result of the abusing party either: a)having an treated personality disorder or mental illness, or b)having been abused themselves and knowing no other way to interact with people. Or a combination of both.

my mom had an untreated disorder she thought she had aspergers syndrome but she never got officially diagnosed with any mental condition
she was a pill-popper, the pills she popped were downers, and she was pretty much asleep from the time i was 3 till i was about 15
also she was a christian which became awkward when i realized that christianity was bullshit

 

[Dehumanizer12]

Have you ever read Albert Camus' The Stranger?

Sorry, I'm not kidding at all... this book really tells something about that subject and it has been very close to me, actually...

We are all sometimes impelled to feel guilty for not acting along some kind of social norms...
And some people can be very harsh when they cannot understand a life experience that is not common to them.

 

[monoxide_child]

Have you ever read Albert Camus' The Stranger?

Sorry, I'm not kidding at all... this book really tells something about that subject and it has been very close to me, actually...

We are all sometimes impelled to feel guilty for not acting along some kind of social norms...
And some people can be very harsh when they cannot understand a life experience that is not common to them.

i don't want to be acting along social norms, i laughed when i found out my mom died, and it has been awkward to try to explain why when talking to people face-2-face

partially (if not mostly) just because i live in "the buckle of the bible belt" where here, everyone just expects everyone else to be Christian

i once actually listened to a multi-person convo where someone uddered the phrase "what religion are you?" and from the context, i understood that the speaker had just completely totally without thinking, assumed that everyone in earshot was christian and what he was actually asking was "what denomination of christianity are you?"

also
people have a very difficult time understanding several other life experiences that i've had

people (here at least) have this weird desire to have faith in the criminal justice system, i've met so many people that have completed prison sentences for crimes that they didn't commit, and yet, the general public refuses to believe that it's happening, they think that if you've been to prison it must mean that you commited the crime you were accused of

i have to interact with a lot of homophobic people even though a lot of my close personal friends are gay/lesbian/transgendered

every day i see black people that somehow think that "slavery" happening somehow makes the black people alive today somehow better than the white people alive today

everyone looks at me weird when i date a black girl
and people call me a monster because i laughed really loud infront of a lot of people when i found out my mom was dead

but i don't want to conform to social norms
i don't wanna do what every one else is doing just cuz everyone else is doing it

 

[monoxide_child]

Have you ever read Albert Camus' The Stranger?

I've read this and many other books very similar

where the narrator feels completely different than what the reader would instinctively feel when presented with the same situation as what the narrator goes through

it's very intriguing to read this type of book, and as for "The Stranger" specifically, it was helpful, not merely with my mom's death, but also just showing how different people will respond differently to the same situation

it's psychological fiction books like these that make me love 1st person narrative

 

[Spiderchrist]

There's no right or wrong to feel. If this comes naturally, then you're right where you should be. It doesn't matter if the majority of people would think it's wrong, so never question your emotions or any actions based off of other peoples reactions (in moderation).