Grief support for the hopeful & the hopeless
When An Abusive Family Member Dies, How Am I Supposed to Grieve?
A quick invitation into the nuance of complex loss.
A friend* told me they’re struggling to grieve the death of their grandparents because now that they’re gone, she realized their relationships with her weren’t always loving.
This is common, right? I don’t mean she got into arguments with her grandparents; I mean they were harmful, violent, and angry people who consistently caused damage to my friend and their family members.
And yet, when they died, the grief in her family was immediate for some and confusingly intermingled with relief for others.
When you recognize abusive patterns in a relationship, and then the person dies, how do you start the grief process? Can you even have a healthy grief process if the relationship is complicated?
Short answer: yes.
Long answer: Yes, and you honor all parts of yourself while grieving all parts that you’ve lost.
My friend’s question went further to ask: Do I even have the right to grieve my own pain from their lives when they’re now dead? At what point do I need to let the past stay in the past and move on?
