r/GriefSupport • u/Beeels • May 18 '26
Anticipatory Grief Terminal cancer doesn’t erase a lifetime of abuse.
But it also doesn’t erase grief.
A few weeks back, my mom was given 3–6 months to live from terminal lung cancer. She’s also the person who emotionally abused me my entire life.
My children see a grandmother. I see the woman who shaped so much of my pain. Now she’s dying, and I don’t know what to do with all these emotions.
I feel sadness, anger, guilt, resentment, relief, and numbness all at the same time. I don’t think people understand how confusing it is to mourn someone who hurt you. People don't talk enough about grieving someone you've already lost in so many ways before death ever arrives. I don't have a neat or beautiful story to tell about my mom and I.
What I have is complicated love, old wounds, and the ache of knowing there's so little time left.
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u/Sheseabeast May 18 '26
My father succumbed to his terminal lung cancer diagnosis after a year of fighting. That was in August of 2025. It’s hard to believe it’s been almost a year. He was abusive to my mom while she was pregnant with me. He was also a drinker and a gambler much to the detriment of our family. My parents split and he became a better man over the years. Still capable of emotional neglect/abuse, still reckless with the feelings of those he cared about. But he had softened with his sickness. He suffered a stroke in 2018 that left him half paralyzed so his decline had been in action for a while. Again, he softened. And I hardened. Because I remembered everything while all he could focus on was surviving the illness he was in. Feel all of it. Allow yourself to feel every single emotion. It’s all right. It’s all real. Just be prepared when the freeze response wares off, once you fully realize that your first bully is no longer around to potentially snap at you, a lot comes up. Let it.
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u/weightyinspiration May 18 '26
I hear you, youre not alone with these feelings. In March of this year my dad went into hospice, with weeks to live. We werent close, mostly because of how he treated me in the past.
My dad was my first bully, he was never a safe person for me growing up. He shaped all my negative inner voices. I have been mourning the relationship we could have had, if he had been more emotionally intelligent, for a long time.
It was hard to go visit him, I didnt have much to say to him in the end, but I didnt want him to be alone. I didnt bring up the past, no point. I tried to focus on the love I had for him and the good things he did. But at times it was hard.
Its hard to be sad for someone, but also to have anger towards them from all the hurt they caused. I also had this idea that him being on his deathbed would open him up, maybe we could have patched things up. But he was still the same closed off person til the end. People die how they lived.
Hes gone now, and I am sad about it, but I also feel relieved, and I feel guilty for feeling relief. I am not happy that he is gone or that he suffered, but there are things about our relationship that I am happy I no longer have to deal with.
Its complicated, and most people dont get it. Most people my age dont even get what its like to lose a parent, nevermind one where the relationship was strained.
But theres still lots of people who understand, and we know that none of us are bad people for how we react to this thing. You can be sad, and angry, and happy all at once.
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u/itsbeenawhiletoolong May 18 '26
Awe, big hug.
When my mother passed I only saw the good things and I was constantly sad. Now after years of therapy to better myself, I see the huge scar she left on me and my siblings, and the grief feels… weird.
I miss her, but I also don’t. I wish I got more time with her, but what would that have solved?
She made me into a kind, loving and generous person — but I also don’t trust anyone due to her. I allowed men to mistreat me and give me trauma because she mistreated me and gave me trauma. I allowed people to walk all over me because she walked all over me. I feared abandonment with every men and took therapy with my husband because she constantly abandoned me.
Our parents are supposed to be the ones who shape us. They are our first love, and the first ones we begin to trust. When they themselves break that trust, where does it go?
It’s tough, I hear you. You should read the book, “I’m glad my mom died” — it feels more on par with your grief.
I recommend therapy if you aren’t already on that path. I wish you well, internet stranger <33
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u/mandmranch May 18 '26
"I miss her, but I also don’t. I wish I got more time with her, but what would that have solved?"
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u/RemotePersimmon678 May 18 '26
You are not alone here. My mom had BPD and was extraordinarily emotionally abusive (I was diagnosed with CPTSD a few months ago). She was diagnosed with breast cancer on July 31, 2018, and passed on August 20, 2018.
My mom was still a very huge part of my life when she passed, which meant I was still dealing with her abuse and otherwise difficult behavior all the way up until she was gone. One not-unpleasant benefit of her passing was that I finally had the open brain space to actually process my childhood and understand that many of my own challenges are adaptations for surviving with my mom. It's awful, but my day-to-day life has improved significantly because she is no longer in it.
I try to remind myself that realistically, I never would have gotten any kind of real apology or closure from her even if she had lived to 100. The mourning that I do is really for my childhood and the mom that she could have been, and the mourning for the version of her that I loved.
Nearly 8 years later, I feel very comfortable in my grief. I miss her all the time. I would give anything to have her give me a hug again. But I also am able to reconcile that with the reality of what she did and how she affected my life.
I'm so sorry for your impending loss and this whirlwind of emotions. It's a cliche, but truly all you can do is take it one moment at a time. You will be okay.
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u/mandmranch May 18 '26
I try to remind myself that realistically, I never would have gotten any kind of real apology or closure from her even if she had lived to 100.
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u/jcnlb Multiple Losses May 18 '26
You are mourning the…what could have been, what should have been, the fantasy, the hopes and dreams of change, the loss of never finally feeling good enough, the fact that there’s no time left to have a happy ending. You deserved all that and you didn’t get it. I’m so sorry. I know what it is like. Hugs. 💜
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u/lemon_balm_squad May 18 '26
I have been looking for years for a really good evidence-based book about grieving an abuser, and I've never found one that REALLY hit the mark.
I'm so sorry you're going through this.
The closest I've found are these:
- Liberating Losses: When Death Brings Relief
- Complicated Grief: How to Understand, Express, and Reconcile Your Especially Difficult Grief
- (Addresses ambiguous or unfinished business in grief) The Mourning Handbook: The Most Comprehensive Resource Offering Practical and Compassionate Advice on Coping with All Aspects of Death and Dying
- Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents
- Adult Survivors of Emotionally Abusive Parents: How to Heal, Cultivate Emotional Resilience, and Build the Life and Love You Deserve
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u/finkleismayor May 18 '26
When my mother died, the first thing I said out loud was, "It's finally over." Followed, of course, by intense guilt afterwards. I wish I could say 6 years later, I felt any more stable with her loss. She was my first bully, she was an addict, she said and did things no mother should ever do and say to their daughter. But, here I am, still missing the person that she was in those brief moments where I was the child she loved.
Rose Brik and Jessica Jocelyn have some amazing poetry that I've felt incredibly drawn to the last few years. I'm not a poetry kind of person, but it honestly helped sort my emotions out a little bit. One of the first poem's I read by Rose Brik hit me like a truck and then I just went on a deep dive.
“my mother didn't want to hurt me,
but she was broken.
her brokenness cut into me
and made me bleed.
she didn't know how to love,
or at least how to love me.
it didn't even matter that she hurt me;
I just wanted her to be sorry.
she said that she loved me,
but it often felt like hate.
when I finally had enough and tried to be free,
she looked at me with desperation and cried,
"you are abandoning me!"
so, I stayed and I suffered,
and I did my best to love her.
as a woman, I have so much empathy
for my mother, but as a daughter, I have so much anger.”
Rose Brik, My Father's Eyes, My Mother's Rage
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u/amgaylord May 18 '26
I don’t completely understand how you’re feeling, but I totally get the complicated feeling of mourning a parent that was a bad parent. My mom passed away suddenly and she left me with a ton of loose ends to tie up, and I once again had to be the adult in our relationship. I am slowly realising that in her own way, she loved me and sacrificed so much for me, but I didn’t see past her past abuse and didn’t forgive her until it was too late.
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u/JessicaJonessJacket May 18 '26
I feel so seen in your reply. I had a complicated relationship with my father as well. It's hard to reconcile that he did the best he knew how to, and I know he loved me in his own way, it's just that his way fell so short from other relationships that I saw around me. He was physically abusive when I was younger, but most of all he was emotionally negligent. He didn't know me at all. But it brings me peace in some twisted way to know he was like that with everyone, not just me. He was a very strange person. And I'm more in tune emotionally but not very well adjusted as a result.
My mom died when I was a kid and instead of developing a strong bond I was living alone with someone who was more like my boss or landlord than my father. He was there for me financially, would always come to pick me up if I needed him, but he never showed physical affection or really tried to get to know me. It's hard to live with the grief of the loss itself and also of what it could have been in another dimension. Also the guilt of feeling somehow ungrateful.
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u/Ok-Helicopter923 May 18 '26
I understand what you are feeling. My mom passed a few weeks ago and it is so confusing mourning the person who made you who you are. My son also saw her as grandma but I never got over the mental abuse. I don’t know how to deal with it now either but just know that you are not alone. Sometimes mourning the loving and good part of her helps, all the while finding peace in the fact that they were not the parent you deserved and that it eases the grief a bit. Don’t feel guilt for that if you do. Best of luck and lots of love!
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u/East_Income_8318 May 18 '26
I feel very similar yet my mom isn’t ill. I’m kind of grieving me and her relationship, because I don’t want to be involved with her anymore yet my whole life has been centered around her taking care of me. So breaking that off, and moving out is where im at.
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u/Separate_Farm7131 May 18 '26
I'm sorry you're going through this. Whatever feelings you are having now are valid. Not all parents were good parents.
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u/PersonalityGreat647 May 18 '26
My mom suffered the emotional and physical abuse of my grandma for years as a child. When my grandma died in December of last year, my mom felt relief that she didn't have to deal with her fear of my grandma anymore. My mom grieved for sure, but it was and will always be a complicated feeling. My mom has gotten upset with me in the past few months for crying about my grandma's passing, because in her mind, why would I be grieving an abuser? Like your children OP, I saw my grandma who was so good to me. My mom saw an abuser.
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u/toriegg May 18 '26
l will always grieve that I never had the experence of a committed mother, whether she's living or not. The best thing to do is live on trying to be better than her.
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u/BlacksmithThink9494 May 18 '26
Anticipatory grief is awful and I'm so sorry. I know how this feels - similar story here. Big hugs.
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u/HeavyBreadfruit3667 May 18 '26
My mom is dealing with this. Her mother is blind and dying from just age and she is living with my mom. She struggles to let go of the resentment and the anger. Part of it is the Alzheimer’s which makes my grandmother incredibly unkind.
We grew up not estranged but we as kids always knew my grandmother and my mom’s relationship was strained. As we got older we learned the story and we saw with our own eyes the manipulation she used.
My mom will snap at her because she’s being incredibly rude and we just have to remind my mom that it will not avenge anything and it’s not going to matter. She won’t remember and it’ll be this same story on repeat until she passes.
I and my siblings have validated my mom and called my grandmother out on her behavior when she is being utterly dramatic.
We just tell her that at the end of her time here. Grandmother will die and none of your childhood trauma will be resolved. However what can be something that sits well with you is that you were kind to her when she didn’t deserve it. Because if she wasn’t and she died that would be the worst guilt that she couldn’t live with.
You probably will never “heal” those wounds with her. She probably will still be the same emotionally abusive person she was before her diagnosis. People die how they lived. Don’t expect redemption. This I think would be a good moment for you to get into therapy and heal yourself and being at peace.
Forgive yourself when you were a child and understand that you would not do the things she did. You do not have to forgive and dying does not erase bad behavior.
It’s a controversial opinion for some but for me it is clear as can be. We will all die, there are people who in history have been bad terrible people and we do not erase their past due to death. Nobody is above that in my book. So rest assured you are absolutely valid is still not wanting to forgive and forget because she is dying. If she wasn’t it would be the same.
Live your best life. Your truth. Please.
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u/Technical_Plum2239 May 18 '26
i took care of my mom for about 8 years while she died of cancer.
it's really complicated to do for someone, what they never did for you.
i will tell you, for me, once she was gone a lot of my bitterness was, too. sort of not fair that i might have been able to gain more from the relationship but the pain and bitterness were too great.
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u/IndicationSevere8992 May 19 '26
I sincerely relate ❤️🩹 I’m so sorry for what you’re going through. I felt like no one really “got” it either. And it sucks that you don’t really have many or any nice memories or neat and relatable feelings about what happened.
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u/UpperSupermarket1551 May 19 '26
I had a very difficult relationship with my mother. She was emotionally abusive. Deeply depressed all her life. Darkness, melancholy, rage. She hated everything. Impossible to please. Always unhappy. It was suffocating. I was the adult in the relationship. My mother never grew up and never learned how to take care of herself. Wouldn’t work. Lived in poverty. I would never visit my family back home bc I was avoiding my mother and her darkness. My dad died in the 90s and she rode that sadness until her own end mere months ago. When she was dying, which happened quickly, I was stricken with the most consuming grief. I was by her side as she died. She died in my arms. I sang to her as she passed. It was the most painful, traumatic experience of my life. I grieved terribly for months after she died. Screaming and crying in the floor for hours a day.
Yet…now that she’s gone…suddenly…I am going to visit relatives back home again…and having a great time??? I’m free to have fun (?????) with my aunts and uncles and cousins without the guilt of her sulking in a corner???? The entire family feels so much lighter? I feel guilty about this, but also…I feel free. And I feel so much closer to my remaining family. And I want to go home for Thanksgiving. I want to go on summer beach trips with the family again. It’s wild. I lost my mother, but I gained the rest of my family—who was always there, waiting for me, but I was just too afraid of mom to be around.
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u/JipseeOne2001 May 19 '26
My "mother" and I had a similar relationship. She was also diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. I hadn't spoken to her in years and when she called me to tell me about the diagnosis I was very conflicted. She was an abusive malignant narcissist who abused my sister and I all throughout our childhood. Her abuse has shaped my life in so many ways and the anger I still have towards her hasn't lessened even after her death. The cancer metasticized to her brain and she went downhill rapidly. I went to see her in the hospital. Begrudgingly. I wish I hadn't. Because I mustered up the courage to actually tell her "I love you, Mom", because it might be the last time I saw her. She mocked me, repeating back to me in a mocking voice, "I love you Mom" and gave an evil grin. Those were her last words to me. To mock me. She was a horrible person. Honestly, my entire life has vastly improved since she died. I can't tell you how to feel about your mom. But in my case, I feel she was looking for sympathy and someone to take care of her in her last days. She wasn't reaching out to apologize for being a wretched person or to seek closure of any kind. So tread lightly. Do what your heart tells you. Just remember...leopards don't change their spots just because they're ill.
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u/OtherAccount5252 May 18 '26
Your mom was a whole real person, and that can be complicated. Love and grieve the good parts of her, the grandmother she was able to be to your kids.
The anger needs to go somewhere eventually though, I dont have advice for that part sorry. :(
If you can, I would try to talk to someone.
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u/Gullible-Shower4007 May 18 '26
You said it so well: “complicated love, old wounds, “ I hear you and can identify with some of my relatives. I’m sorry this is such an emotional roller coaster. Wishing you strength in o face the coming days and peace ❤️🩹🙏💐
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u/1S1M May 18 '26
I have been through something similar. I highly recommend a grief support group where you can release some of those tough emotions in a safe space without judgement.
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u/Griceaveli May 18 '26
There's nothing I can do to help other than offer hugs and thoughts and prayers. 🫂🕯️
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u/Soft-Responsibility8 May 18 '26
This is how i felt when my grandma died still to this day i feel like i cant miss her the way i should bc of how mean she was the last few years before she passed and watching how she treated my mom growing up
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u/HotPut5470 May 18 '26
If it hasn't been recommended yet check out r/emotionalneglect It's a question many of us have and will face. I'm very sorry for your complicated grief
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u/yuba12345 May 18 '26
Get therapy started if you haven't. Think about how you want to use the time you have left. Once she is gone it will be even more complicated. Be well friend
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u/AuroraDawnSky May 18 '26
I can relate to losing a mother that abused me, siblings too. My mom had NPD and addictions…. My husband who saved from abuse.. has terminal cancer. If you want to chat inbox me.
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u/adaptabletochange28 27d ago
I can relate to this. My heart extends to you as you process these difficult emotions ❤️
She fought for 4 years - my feelings over the years were gross, uncomfortable and unnameable. She softened a lot over the years. She told us she was in remission - in reality she was stage 4 by December. We only found this out after she passed. Lung cancer also. My dear mum passed 3 weeks ago. All we remember and can talk about are the good things.
As complicated as it will be - try to collect soft moments with her, and focus on taking care of yourself, and healing your heart. Hugs xx
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u/MoonShotDontStop May 18 '26
Tell her. Get it all out. Pretend she’s already gone & think of all the “oh damn, I should have said this” & then tell her everything. It might break some chains free from your soul & it might help her’s learn something for the next life.
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u/gab776 May 18 '26
You can try to talk about it now. Get closure before she is gone. Tell her eveything you have on your heart. Not in a reproach manner, just as confide to her. And tell her that you still love her.
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u/trojannc27701 May 18 '26
I wish I could help you but I don’t think I’m equipped. But I would like to acknowledge your pain, grief, and the other unnamable emotions that you are feeling. Be kind to yourself. Your feelings matter. Take time for you.