Losing someone is a terrible experience, but it is also an inevitable part of life. How a person deals with it, just like with everything else in life, depends on each individual. Some can work through it more easily, while others struggle for years.
The parents of today's original poster (OP) fall into the latter category. Their daughter died 18 years ago, and ever since, they've dedicated their lives to honoring her. Things got so out of hand that the OP noted that it seemed that he didn't matter at all. So, when one day he decided to resist being a victim of his parents' grief, hurtful family drama ensued.
More info: Reddit
Grief is funny in a way that it isn’t — it can consume not only the grieving person’s life but also the lives of those around them
Image credits: Vladyslav Dukhin / Pexels (not the actual photo)
A boy was raised by parents who were consumed by their grief for their deceased daughter, which made him feel haunted by her and underappreciated
Image credits: freepik / Freepik (not the actual photo)
For instance, they hung photos of her in every room, even in the bathroom and near the son's bed, force-fed him loving words about her, and even talked like she was still around
Image credits: freepik / Freepik (not the actual photo)
Whenever the son refused to participate in any of their grieving rituals, the parents screamed so loudly that at one point the neighbors came to check on what was happening
Image credits: Cautious_Amount7421
When the boy got into college and was getting ready to leave, they demanded he pack his sister's photos to hang in his dorm, but he refused, making them furious
Before the OP was born, his parents had another child named Emily. She was born three years before her sibling and sadly passed away when he was only a few months old. Sadly, the parents never recovered from this loss.
The author’s whole childhood was spent in the shadow of this loss. What makes it even worse is that it seemed that sometimes the parents forgot that their son even existed – that’s how consumed by their grief they were. The only time he got their attention was when they force-fed him words about how much he loved his sister. These words were never natural, as the boy didn’t even properly know his sister.
Plus, most of the time when they talked about her, they spoke like she was still around, and only rarely did they acknowledge that she wasn’t.
If all that wasn’t enough, the parents also hung a big photo of Emily on the wall opposite OP’s bed, so anytime he tried to fall asleep, she was looking at him. Creepy, isn’t it? When he wanted to take it down, they exploded on him so loudly that even the neighbors came by to check on them. This wasn’t the only photo – they were hung in every room, even the bathroom. Plus, they didn’t even let the boy take down the photo in his room.
Emily’s room was another shrine to her – it had remained untouched since her death (mind you, it was 18 years ago!). The parents sometimes went in there to sit for hours and occasionally forced their son to do that, but he couldn't touch anything.
Bored Panda's interviewee certified EMDR therapist Khalida Himes told us that's there’s an illness called “prolonged grief disorder” (or complicated grief). It's identified by symptoms like identity disruption, avoidance of reminders of the death, intense emotional pain, and difficulty with reintegration into society, to name a few. Around 7-10% of adults experience these symptoms.
While we're not healthcare professionals and can’t diagnose anyone, but from the looks of it, this illness could apply to the OP's parents.
To get better from such a condition, a person can seek help. In fact, there’s a whole type of therapy dedicated to dealing with complicated grief. During it, the person works on their self-determination, emotion regulation processes, relationships, and so on.
There's also EMDR therapy and our interviewee is an expert of it. It's a method of processing traumatic memories by moving eyes in a specific way. As Khalida explained, with these movements, emotional systems in the brain are reorganized to respond to distressing memories differently: "It utilizes the natural healing ability of your body."
Image credits: standret / Freepik (not the actual photo)
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing has been successfully used to heal grief. Even in prolonged grief cases. K. Himes explained: "EMDR can address complicated or prolonged grief by helping an individual find meaning and resilience in the face of loss. It can help with negative memories and emotions by processing them in a more healthy and adaptive manner."
Unfortunately, as the OP clarified in the comments, the parents didn’t seek any help. That means we don’t know for sure whether they have complicated grief disorder or not. Their not getting help led to putting all their troubles on their son.
At least the extended family tried to be partially nicer to the boy, but they were also caught up in coddling the parents' grief. This led to them telling the OP to not be as harsh to his parents for their mishaps, but they also tried celebrating him when his parents didn’t. So, quite an interesting dynamic.
Luckily, even without his parents’ care, the boy did pretty well in school and got a scholarship to college. Before he left, the parents gave him photos of Emily to take along, but he left them behind. His late sister haunted his whole childhood, and he wanted to be rid of this ghost in his dorm.
This made the parents furious. The dad left his son a text cursing him, while the extended family said that he should’ve taken the photo, as he shouldn’t try to forget his sister. If not for his own sake, then for his parents.
So, to get perspective from the outside, he came to Reddit. Here, people said without a doubt he wasn’t a jerk in this situation. The parents have unresolved issues with their grief, which they’re putting on their son. They felt sorry for the teen, as growing up in such conditions must have been hard.
They also said that going to college means he can get some distance from his parents and create his own personality besides a grieving brother. After all, getting distance from a relationship that brings dysfunction into your life is healthy. Especially when a party that needs help doesn’t get it.
So, let’s hope he will. His parents are basically swallowed by their grief. Letting his life be swallowed as well doesn’t seem like a great idea. Hopefully, one day his folks will get help and they’ll be able to mend the relationship.
So, he asked online whether his leaving the photos behind was a jerk-ish move, and the internet folks assured him it was not – the parents were the ones with troubles, not him
