What A Year...

Loneliness, Depression & Relationship Forum

Help Support Loneliness, Depression & Relationship Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Poppi27

New member
Joined
May 11, 2017
Messages
2
Reaction score
0
Location
Liverpool
I've never used a forum before, i don't really know what to expect from it so i may as well start from the beginning. Warning, it's a long one!!

Last year my mam left my dad after 35 years of marriage due to his drink issues, what made her make this decision was my younger sister was in intensive care at hospital dealing with severe pancreatitis, and after looking after her for 20 hours solid, she and my older sister came home to a ton of abuse from my dad, whom was in a drunken mess on the sofa and angry they woke him up. Getting drunk was his way of dealing with it apparently, that and he doesn't like hospitals. 

I was unaware of what was going on as myself and my partner had gone abroad for Christmas, they didn't want to worry me with things. 

On my return, i found my mother and older sister staying at my house, ps my older sister came home to help for a month, she actually lives in another city, and my dad just being a mess on his own at my parents house, alone. 
I went to stay with my partner, whom had a house approx 30 mins away. Months went by and my younger sister finally got well enough to come out of hospital but was still very sick, she had a tube in her back still and had to have a bag drained every so often, so she was still under care. 

Things with my mam and dad didn't improve, my mother was heartbroken and my dad just wouldn't leave her alone, he kept sending her and myself abusive text messages, but our concentration was on my sister, and I had also found out i was pregnant. I thought if i told my dad he was going to be a granddad for the first time, he'd sort himself out with drink and leave my mam alone for a while. All my mam wanted was for him to get better and that maybe she would go back...

I told my dad the news and he was over joyed but one particular day in April 2016 my dad went back over, he started again with drunken phone calls, these were relentless, he just wasn't going to stop. We called the police who weren't much help and so after my dad suggested she cancel his phone contract in a stupid text message he sent, she did! 
She did this on a Sunday afternoon, it was like a weight had lifted, the calls stopped, the texts stopped, it was nice. 

A while later we were debating to leave my partners house to get ice-cream, my mother and sister stayed with me that night because of the abuse my dad was giving, also my partner works away so he wasn't present either, we saw my dad's blue jaguar reserving down the street, I was shocked that he remembered where my partner lived because he'd been once and his house is like a maze to get to, anyway i was very scared too because i knew he was drunk and driving, we were all petrified. 

My mother and younger sister ran upstairs and I tried telling my dad to stop banging on the door, he came to the front room window and banged that, then he grabbed a brick and smashed the window, at this point i joined my mother and sister and called the police, we locked ourselves in the bathroom and waited for the police to come. My dad had gotten in to the house at this point and we could hear smashing and him shouting he was going to get us. I couldn't fully describe the fear we experienced as we genuinely thought he was going to kill us, you hear stories of people flipping and killing their loved ones in a rage, i assumed this was going to be one of those stories. 


Time went by and i was begging the police to hurry up and save us, i was so worried for my poorly sister because she was so weak, and my mother who blamed herself for bringing this on us and also i was worried because i was still in early stage of pregnancy. 
We heard him coming up the stairs, and trashing all the bedrooms and eventually he started banging on the door, he kept shouting he was going to get us and that there was no where on this earth we could hide. We all pushed against the door to try and slow him down from getting in, but eventually it broke and he squeezed his knee and hand in, i stared right at his blood shot eyes and listening to every threat he made, but never gave up pressing my whole weight against the door, we all didn't give up. 

He stopped pushing and we managed to hold the door back in place, although it came out of hinges, i heard the door bell ringing and grabbed the phone and the 999 caller was asking how to get in, i was shouting at her to just break the door, she stated the police aren't responsible for damages to breaking in and was i sure!! i was thinking we were going to die, i didn't care about a damaged door! the house was wrecked anyway!

Sorry I waffled a fair bit there, in the end the police got my dad who was smashing a hoover up in the back garden, they arrested him and shouted it was safe for us to come down, long story short, he was charged with assault, criminal damages and drink driving, although he threatened to kill us and this was on police record too because they have a bobby cam recording, the court threw it out as a criminal activity because he was drunk. 

feelings wise i was heartbroken, why had my dad done this? i was so angry. How could i ever forgive him? 
He had an injunction against him ever contacting us for 1 year, it expired 25th April 2017.

So i left the area and started a new job, this was already planned, same with my mam, we didn't feel safe being in the same area as him. 
We all moved, my younger sister got better properly by august, my mam started her job too and i was preparing to have a baby! I kept my pregnancy off FB because i didn't want any of his side of family keeping him up to date, i felt he lost that right. 

In august my cat got ran over and died, i'd had her from a kitten and she was 5 years old, i was so upset. We were due to move again, me and my partner, within the same town but a better house. 
In September, i was still feeling sad about my cat, my older sister turned 30, so flew to Amsterdam to celebrate, i was 8 1/2 months pregnant! I was still feeling all sorts of emotion about my dad, wondering how he was doing and how angry i was too, i had a conversation with my partner about how worried i was when i give birth that he'll try contacting me even though he's not allowed yet. Also it was sad he missed his eldest daughters 30th birthday celebrations, again it was a mixture of emotions i was going through. 

We moved 25th October to our new house, this date i'll never forget, i was 5 days over due! but feeling proactive to get the house sorted quickly to have a baby room for our daughter. 
I was downstairs unpacking and my partner came in to the room and sat me down, he'd just got off the phone to my mother, he told me that my dad had died, my goodness, typing this is bringing me to tears again. 
He had fallen through an overhead crane and fell 40 ft, i was hysterical. I know i painted this picture of a drunk dad and you all maybe thinking he was terrible, and sometimes he was! but i have great memories of him too, we rode motorbikes together and he supported me going back to college. I was close to my dad out of the 3 daughters he had, i was and still am, heartbroken. 4 days later i gave birth to my daughter, i cried so much, so angry he didn't meet her and never would now. Labor is hard anyway but doing it when your dad died 4 days before was awful, i feel like it's tarnished what should have been a happy experience. 

Investigations are taking place still about his death at work and it's looking like the company he worked for are liable. Which also makes me angry. 

So really i'm writing this because i don't know how to feel one emotion, i feel like a vicious circle of emotions, because obviously i hated what he did to us in April but how can i get over never seeing him again, and that that day in April was the last time i saw him alive and under such circumstances, he was at his worst. I hate feeling the way i do. 6 months later and i still just block it out because i have my beautiful baby to look after. 

Also on the 2nd May this year, my nana died, which was my dad's mam. Seriously what a year. I just feel so much hate. 
I do see a counselor but i don't think she knows how to deal with so much that has happened. I have really low days, not often but they're there and never do i let my feelings affect how i look after my baby, but i do see her as a reminder of his death because of how close he died and she was born. 

I don't really know how to end this, sorry it's a lot but this is in my head and in much more detail on a daily basis. 

Hope someone can help? 

xx
 
I don't know if I can help, but after reading your post I just wanted to try to say something, anything, to let you know you were heard.  

Please don't feel I am trying to minimize your experience, because I am not, it is quite a lot for you to have to heal from, even without the sudden death of your father.  You have lost so much, the chance of your father ever asking for forgiveness, the chance to let him know how angry you are, or that he is forgiven (if you got there), the chance for him to know of and meet your beautiful child, or to reconcile with your mother.   When someone dies suddenly, and all hope of talking it out, mending resentments, giving apologies and real any face-to-face event is lost forever- this is GRIEF.  And you are not alone in this experience, however uniquely or violently or suddenly it comes, we all do and will suffer this too.  Probably it's even harder when the one who passed was torn from their self by addiction while alive.  I'm sorry that it came to you like this.  There are a million things I know you wish you could go back and do differently, so much anger that you have nowhere to put.   I sense that you might also be carrying the pain of your mother and sister and grandmother on top of your own, your loss and their losses are overwhelming, and rightfully.  

If there is anything your counselor should be telling you, in my opinion, it's that your sorrow and rage is ok.  However long you need to take to really grieve, it's ok.  Your experience is unique to you, but the ripping away of another chance with someone you love is not, this will happen to us all.  You are not alone in this grief, however alone you feel.  If there is anything to be taken from such complete and utter tragedy, it's to do the best with the time we have (apologies for the platitude).  You did nothing wrong.  My advice to you from a random forum is try to forgive your father for being a flawed human, love him and honor him for how he loved you, and live every moment with your family and new baby like it's your last chance.  (And maybe find a better counselor:) )  

Thank you for sharing your story here, I hope your suffering abates with time and love.
 
Thanks for sharing your story. I also don't know what to tell you but wanted to let you know I read it. I admit that I don't really understand how someone can miss someone that threatened to kill you, but I guess since that person is your father that it is more understandable. You just have to move on the same way everybody else moves on, by taking one day at a time and not dwelling too much on what might have been. I know that that is hard, but you are strong enough to handle it. Hope that things go well with you, your partner, and your new baby.
 
littlefish1555 said:
I don't know if I can help, but after reading your post I just wanted to try to say something, anything, to let you know you were heard.  

Please don't feel I am trying to minimize your experience, because I am not, it is quite a lot for you to have to heal from, even without the sudden death of your father.  You have lost so much, the chance of your father ever asking for forgiveness, the chance to let him know how angry you are, or that he is forgiven (if you got there), the chance for him to know of and meet your beautiful child, or to reconcile with your mother.   When someone dies suddenly, and all hope of talking it out, mending resentments, giving apologies and real any face-to-face event is lost forever- this is GRIEF.  And you are not alone in this experience, however uniquely or violently or suddenly it comes, we all do and will suffer this too.  Probably it's even harder when the one who passed was torn from their self by addiction while alive.  I'm sorry that it came to you like this.  There are a million things I know you wish you could go back and do differently, so much anger that you have nowhere to put.   I sense that you might also be carrying the pain of your mother and sister and grandmother on top of your own, your loss and their losses are overwhelming, and rightfully.  

If there is anything your counselor should be telling you, in my opinion, it's that your sorrow and rage is ok.  However long you need to take to really grieve, it's ok.  Your experience is unique to you, but the ripping away of another chance with someone you love is not, this will happen to us all.  You are not alone in this grief, however alone you feel.  If there is anything to be taken from such complete and utter tragedy, it's to do the best with the time we have (apologies for the platitude).  You did nothing wrong.  My advice to you from a random forum is try to forgive your father for being a flawed human, love him and honor him for how he loved you, and live every moment with your family and new baby like it's your last chance.  (And maybe find a better counselor:) )  

Thank you for sharing your story here, I hope your suffering abates with time and love.


Thank you so much for taking the time to read and reply. This means a lot. 


As soon as i was fit enough to drive back to my home town after giving birth, 6 days i think it was, i did. My dad was at the funeral parlor and i decided i had to see him, he looked asleep, it was the most surreal feeling knowing he was no longer there yet he was right in front of me. I instantly forgave him, how could i not? I placed my hand on his chest and said my goodbyes, i'd rather the last image of him be that than the one of him being carted away by the police. 

It's hard to morn him around certain people because i feel they think what happened to him was justice and served him right. Believing this is wrong. I'm not naive to what happened and how he treated us but he was always there through my whole life, from April to October was the longest ever i have gone without contact and knowing this time was the worst time of his life is hard to deal with, again i know he brought it on himself. 

Once we got his phone back from the corner and read his emails to the solicitors it was heartbreaking to read how he wanted the solicitors to pass on how sorry he was and wanting to know how we were all doing, especially myself and younger sister, reading that was so hard to get through, knowing that as part of his injunction they were never allowed to pass these messages on, which he knew. 
He also took pictures of himself on his own outside when the weather was nice, knowing the type of person he was, i'd of been sat feeling sorry for himself missing his wife and children. I know i sound stupid, again i'm not forgetting what he did, hence why i don't know how to feel things long enough to digest, sometimes i feel sorry for him, then anger and sadness etc 

I really appreciate what you said, it's nice to know someone can kind of understand or even appreciate how i feel.


wallflower79 said:
Thanks for sharing your story. I also don't know what to tell you but wanted to let you know I read it. I admit that I don't really understand how someone can miss someone that threatened to kill you, but I guess since that person is your father that it is more understandable. You just have to move on the same way everybody else moves on, by taking one day at a time and not dwelling too much on what might have been. I know that that is hard, but you are strong enough to handle it. Hope that things go well with you, your partner, and your new baby.

Thank you, i appreciate your comments, i replied to the other reply and maybe that helps you understand why i miss him.

Although what he did was extremely traumatic, he did break in to the bathroom and after saying what he said, he also walked away and continued his rampage outside in the back garden with a hoover, if he really wanted to kill us, he could have done so easily, i think once he got in the bathroom and seen how petrified we were, he left. Trust me i'm not trying to justify his actions in anyway, i hated him for what he did to us, and my partners house but i had always intended to contact him again to hear what he had to say... 

thanks again for reading and replying. 

ps, i'm just learning how to reply properly, apologies if i don't do it correctly.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top