Am I a horrible son?

If this is not the right forum then please be so kind and move it. @mods

My mother had to under go a serious surgery but all went according to plan and she survived. I know what you're all thinking. Why is that a bad thing you may ask? Well she and I share a secret that nobody from my family knows about. She is the kindest,bravest and toughest person i know but some of it is just an act. A few years ago my father suddenly passed away and it completely destroyed my mother and family. People joke about love on the first sight but in case of my parents that was all true. Their story always sounded like straight from a fairy tale and for 40+ years their love never faded. Nobody from my family took the loss lightly except me of course. I always had a difficult relationship with my father and i still feel guilty that it wasn't me who died.

I'm the only one who knows how she really feels. I never judged her maybe that's why she trusts me so much. We had lots of conversations about how she misses my father and that her heart felt like that a vital part was gone forever. I have to admit that i no longer feel any kind of positive emotions and every time when she had a bad day i would just silently listen to her but i could never say the right words to comfort her. It got really bad the last 2 years because of the unbelievable crap that happened inside our family and i knew that she was slipping further away into the darkness. I'm 35 now and for 18 years give or take i'm surrounded by the darkness and i lerned to accept my fate but she couldn't handle it much longer. Since i'm only able to mimic emotions i had a difficult time to pull her out. I knew she was drowning in sorrow and it nearly killed me. We promised each other to not take drastic measures as long as one of us is still alive. I decided to carry her and my burdens alone because my siblings would never understand her or my reasons.

Now comes the horrible son part. I'm at war with myself because i kinda hoped that her suffering would finally end but against all odds the surgery was a success. Don't get me wrong i'm glad that she survivied but the darkest part inside of me wished for a different outcome. There is no way i could tell anyone of my family about this and now i'm stuck between all the lies. I love her but i don't feel it anymore and i loathe myself for it though i know how a person feels through a simple touch. I hugged her one day before the surgery and her emotions overwhelmed me. The pain was unbearable and i wished she could share it with me.

I'm going to visit her in a few days and i have no idea how to handle this situation. Everything she told the rest of my family and her friends before the surgery was a lie and i'm the only one who knows the truth. I will however honor the promise i gave her and never tell anyone but i'm growing tired of all the lies. The really sad part is that her life is now going to be 10x times worse than before the surgery. F#ck cancer. She doesn't deserve any of this crap. I would gladly trade places with her in a heartbeat.

a reply to: Perfectenemy

This is too deep for me to touch. Just try not to hurt yourself or anything like that if you can keep from it. If might not hurt to talk to a professional (they cant tell your secrets).

a reply to: Perfectenemy

From the little you have said, even though you wrote a lot, it doesn't seem you are a bad son. It is what you are not saying that poses the question of 'bad son'. Perhaps you could discretely expand on the unspoken information

originally posted by: Idreamofme
a reply to: Perfectenemy

This is too deep for me to touch. Just try not to hurt yourself or anything like that if you can keep from it. If might not hurt to talk to a professional (they cant tell your secrets).

Hopefully, he doesn't live in California. The "professionals" can turn you in to the state DOJ by their 'professional" opinion, and goodbye 2A rights for 5-10 years. There's no privacy anymore, and the expectation of there being any are for the people waking up from 5-10 year comas.

I've worked in mental health long enough to know burn-out when I see it.

You are burned out on the grief you are forced to share with her but do not feel yourself. Burned out on not being able to say how you really feel. Burned out on pretending because you don't want to hurt her feelings.

I see you wishing that she would pass as not something horrible, but a genuine desire to get on with your life and not deal with hers any more. This is not because you're a bad person, but because you're just tired of it all.

Those who are caregivers, and those who are forced to hold in confusing, strong emotions in a family full of drama, eventually fry their emotional circuits and just want it to stop.

First of all, it is none of your family's business about this 'secret'. It belongs to you alone, because like I said, it it appears to be burn-out, and not your real feelings. Do you even know what your real feelings are any more? Or have you shoved them down for so long you're completely lost?

I really recommend seeing a therapist, a person bound by law to keep what you tell them a secret. Unburden this tangled mess of emotions, and lighten the load onto a person who is paid to listen and to help you deal with it.

Guilt is insidious and can make you unable to enjoy even the simple pleasures of life. I know your mom is sick, but take a vacation and take care of yourself. It's time. Good luck.

I felt sorry when my mother had a stroke and got paralyzed, thinking it would be better to die than to live a crippled life and dependent on others to wheel you around. But we actually got closer after that, she adapted and she was ok and turned religious. It got her through things. Of course she was stubborn, she was not going to let the left side paralysis ruin her life, she lived for about sixteen years and I am glad she lived.

Your mother may do well with the cancer, sometimes people recover well. Others don't handle the chemo well and that makes their life into hell.

I'm not clear on what she has lied about.
Either way you're not a bad son. Sounds to me that you're a good son.
Don't beat yourself up on how you felt about your father. I didn't have good thoughts about my mother when she passed. I was a young child. Long story. I had guilt for years over it.

One day as an adult I wrote her a letter on how I felt. I know she can't read it, but it helped me get out feelings that came to the surface ( I wasn't even aware of) I explained why I felt that way and also apologized. Best thing I ever did. I did this with pen on paper. It's very therapeutic . You might want to give it a try, you can write to your father, write to your mother and you don't need to give it to her. Then you simply throw it away. Or you can write to yourself or about yourself. Helps to get things off your chest, so to speak.

I hope you can resolve your feelings.
Take care

I'm confused. What is the lie? Why is it so heavy? Why are you burdened with this lie?

I am very confused by your story-but then I'm not always the brightest bulb.

I am sincerely sorry for this tremendous pain you carry-Wish I could help.

Maybe others can help explain this awful dilemma you are experiencing to me.

Please know my heart goes out to you because of this horrid dilemma.

Listen to Fission up there ^^^

Youre not a bad son.. and if I thought you were being a jerkoff Id say so. Youre being a son who is crushed under the weight of secrets, stress, and guilt. If anything, youre one of the better sons a mother could ask for. One so loyal... any mother ( me too, Im a mother) would be proud to call you son. You have a depth of feeling thats different... wonderful. You might havr to fake the actions as you say, but youre heart is all in.

a reply to: Perfectenemy

Perfectenemy,

I very much doubt that you are a horrible son.

You are one of countless human beings on the planet who are finding a mounting, ever growing list of incredibly emotionally and psychologically toxic events and situations, incredibly hard to deal with. At the moment, you are just collecting sorrows, not processing them, which is an entirely natural reaction when totally overwhelmed. Do not think ill of yourself for that. Time and peace are required to allow you to get your head in order, and both of those things are all too often in short supply. What you are going through sounds harsh, and incredibly difficult, so give yourself a break.

I hope you find the time to process all these emotions, and the strength to get help with that should you need it. That, after all, can be one of the hardest things to do, but is also one of the most necessary.

a reply to: Perfectenemy

I don't want to comment on your particular situation as it is not my business.

I would like to say something that relates to the subject generally and I guess that is business enough.

Youre not a bad son.. and if I thought you were being a jerkoff Id say so. Youre being a son who is crushed under the weight of secrets, stress, and guilt. If anything, youre one of the better sons a mother could ask for. One so loyal... any mother ( me too, Im a mother) would be proud to call you son. You have a depth of feeling thats different... wonderful. You might havr to fake the actions as you say, but youre heart is all in.

This is a general reply, not just to the member who wrote that, but to all the posters here:

Is it right that a son should suffer for his mother and if he doesn't then he is a bad son?

What kind of thing is that to have a son's life sabotaged by a selfish parent?

In the Bible it says "Honour thy Father and Mother". However, to what point should we keep honouring when it begins to destroy us?

I would not be a door mat to anyone, nope, not even my mother. I would not worry what anybody else said about it either because they are poking their noses into business that belongs to others.

I have seen many lives sabotaged by parents and people put up with it because society tells them they must do as they are told by their parents even when fully fledged adults.

There are much better ways of dealing with that. I am more interested in healthy dynamics of mutual respect. I live my own life. For a few hours every couple of weeks I pretend to be the kind of person my mother wants me to be, but it is an act. It gave me a really bad breakdown ACTING for the sake of others. I don't mind a few hours every so often, but anything more than that makes me poorly.

This is not a tribal society any longer. It is a society of individuals with all manner of diverse attitudes to family relationships. Blanket obedience when it means sacrifice to the point of harming an individual has no place in modern relationships. Women have been only to keen to point out the shortfalls of men. So we must ALL address the deficits of relationships and find better ways to conduct our relationships in the future.

I will have none of it! I used to be a person that family and friends told all their horrid little secrets to because I was a very good listener, counselor and good at keeping confidence (still am when I CHOSE to be). I told people where to go in the end though, that I'd had enough of them offloading their baggage on me. I told them that I was not a priest or some counselor. If people wanted me to be that they should have given me both the wage and the status of that position.

originally posted by: liveandlearn
a reply to: Perfectenemy

From the little you have said, even though you wrote a lot, it doesn't seem you are a bad son. It is what you are not saying that poses the question of 'bad son'. Perhaps you could discretely expand on the unspoken information

Okay my mistake i thought i could describe the situation without revealing too much. The secret i'm keeping is that she doesn't wants to live anymore. The last 2 years were really exhausting and she struggled to hold on to her life. Now with the cancer crap it's going to get much worse. That's why i wished for a diferent outcome. A lot of people said to me that time heals all wounds but in her case it's bs. I know she loves us but she is not happy nor will she ever be again. She is just pretending like me. Maybe this experience will change her mind but i highly doubt that. She was gutted like a fish during the surgery and the little normal life she had left is now over too. This is just another cruel joke in a line of horrible events surrounding my family.

a reply to: FissionSurplus

Thank you for your kind words. There is no life for me left. I focus on others to distract myself and i'm just waiting until the inevitable happens. I made my peace with it but she is not like me. She has an incredible good heart and frankly she suffered enough. I rejected her many years ago so she and my dad could focus on themselves but she never gave up on me. No matter what i did to push her away. The world would be a much better place if everybody had a mother that cares about her children like she does.

Some of my threads are very controversial and i'm only able to tell my stories here because i don't want to end up in a mental institution because it is insane. The crap i experience is 100% real and i have to deal with it on my own. I'm an immensely flawed human being and i don't need a psychiatrist to tell me what I already know. I learned to keep a certain balance so i don't drift completely into the darkness. I did a lot of crap i'm not proud of and this is my way to try to attone for it. This has nothing to do with religion because I'm not here to beg for forgiveness or ask for absolution. I'm a lone wolf and i'm fine with it.

I do not think that makes you a horrible son. I dealt with the same feelings when my father past 3 years ago. I was sad because he was gone, but I was happy, because he was absolutely MISERABLE in this life. He lost his wife, parents, and a majority of his friends. He told me numerous times, he did not want to live anymore.
A majority of people look at death as a loss, which it is, but they cant see that for some, its a relief. An end to pain and suffering.
People who think that youre cruel or insensitive for feeling the way you do, are not looking at the big picture. You are looking at the big picture. Youre looking at what would be best for your mother, and NOT for yourself. It is very self-less, to have these feelings.

originally posted by: Perfectenemy

originally posted by: liveandlearn
a reply to: Perfectenemy

From the little you have said, even though you wrote a lot, it doesn't seem you are a bad son. It is what you are not saying that poses the question of 'bad son'. Perhaps you could discretely expand on the unspoken information

Okay my mistake i thought i could describe the situation without revealing too much. The secret i'm keeping is that she doesn't wants to live anymore. The last 2 years were really exhausting and she struggled to hold on to her life. Now with the cancer crap it's going to get much worse. That's why i wished for a diferent outcome. A lot of people said to me that time heals all wounds but in her case it's bs. I know she loves us but she is not happy nor will she ever be again. She is just pretending like me. Maybe this experience will change her mind but i highly doubt that. She was gutted like a fish during the surgery and the little normal life she had left is now over too. This is just another cruel joke in a line of horrible events surrounding my family.

It seems to me that if she didn't want to continue living she would not fight for her life taking chemo, so she either wants to live for herself or her family, or is afraid to die - perhaps there is a spark of light there for you to explore.

My mother is expecting medical results in a few days and told me that if it is cancer, she will not fight to live and that she is ready for death as she refuses to suffer through chemo.

I don't think you are a bad son, just as I don't think I am a bad daughter for not trying to convince her to fight for her life at all cost.

Even in our greatest moments of pain and anguish, tender mercies still come along here and there. In spite of, and sometimes because of. You are appreciated here, P.E. No, you are NOT a horrible son.

I understand now. Nobody who has end stage cancer and is gutted out just for a few extra months or years, wants to live that way. I wouldn't. It isn't a sin to wish for the torture to end. She sounds very sweet.

Medical science has come far enough to keep us alive a little longer, but still cannot cure things like cancer, hence the argument over human euthanasia. We treat animals who suffer with more compassion than we do people.

I too am a Lone Wolf. Many of us have done things we're not proud of, and if you let it torture you too much, then the punishment does not fit the crime, as a rule. It's okay if you share here, the anonymity of the internet offers a safe area to vent.

a reply to: Perfectenemy

As hard as it is to admit, I can relate. The biggest difference between you and I is that I was close to both of my parents. They were gems and I miss both of them everyday even though it has been over 12 years since my mother passed and going on 13 years since my dad passed. They passed within 5 1/2 months of each other.

My father passed on September 19th of 2004 and my mother passed on March 3rd of 2005. My father passed of pancreatic cancer and my mother passed of lung cancer.

My mother lingered longer than my father did and I can still remember wishing it to just be over with. It still makes me sad to know that I ever felt that way. Do I consider myself a bad son? No, because I was there for them. When they got sick I put my life aside. Dropped out of college. Quit my job. The whole nine yards. I dedicated everything I had to help take care of them and be there. Not gloating or anything, but that's something I don't see many people do for their parents. Instead, they toss them in nursing homes and typically forget about them. That's just being honest. So, I rest my head with a clear conscience knowing I did what was right.