Grief experience for someone you did not have a good relationship with. Has anyone experienced this before?

I have pre-grieved my loss of my mother and she is still here, age 92.

SO MANY bad memories and trauma with her--I cried enough as a child/teen/young adult that I don't think I have any tears left. I will have to speak at her funeral, if she ever passes, and I bet I don't shed a single tear.

If that sounds cold, well, maybe I am. Mostly I am so tired of the drama and infighting she's created and the favoritism she's shown the other sibs over me--and the neglect of working on a relationship with me.

I think I always thought I had forever to figure out how to treat her--but she's getting more dotty as the days pass and the little I see her--it's not pleasant and 'fun' it's sheer duty.

I went through cancer and she never once called me, nor sent a card, nor inquired of my sibs if I was OK. (I wasn't, nobody is during chemo!) and it would have been nice to get a card once in 16 months. That kind of cemented my belief that she didn't care much for me.

LOTS of therapy has passed by and I have come to understand that you cannot MAKE someone love you, or even care about you.

You've had a loss, to be sure. But most of the loss occurred before mom died. THAT I regret, as time passes. Mom is too 'out of it' to really talk to anymore and I have no desire to try to connect with her.

I don't have the desire or energy to try to figure her out. Too much pain has passed and I am tired.

Of course there are societal expectations of how we should feel/act. Don't let those get to you--grief is very personal. And everyone shows it in different ways.

I had always said that if I were to cry when my parents died, it would be for what never was, and never would be. Both have been dead for years now, and I honestly don't remember shedding a tear for either, nor did I grieve for them.
I am not a hateful person, but actually quite the opposite, but after enduring years of sexual abuse by my father, and my mother doing nothing to protect me, I, after forgiving them many years later, found myself with no feelings towards them what so ever. So when they died, it was almost like they were strangers to me, which made it easier for me.
I am sorry for your loss, and however you choose to deal with it, is up to you. Just don't be in denial.

Yes this happened to me. My mother had a personality disorder ( which I only came to understand over the last 5 years of her life) she died when she was 91. She was emotionally and psychologically abusive to me my whole life and although I was provided for materially she was a manipulative, bitter and poisonous woman. We had one last confrontation ( she was physically frail but mentally strong) and I bit back and drew some boundaries. She told me to get out of her house which I did. We had no further contact. Five months later a got a call to say she was dying in hospital. I never went to see her, I arranged her funeral but didn’t go. I had a bit of sadness but it was for the relationship I had never had with a loving mother not for her passing.
I don’t regret never seeing her again. I was relieved when she died and I don’t miss her. You can’t miss what you never had. You feel how you feel. We all have different relationships with our mothers.

I never had a good relationship with my mother. I was the "after thought" daughter. Both sisters were mom' s girls; i was always a daddy's girl.
Fate, being a fickle b*,tch, left it to me to care for my mom after she had a stroke. No help from either sister.
I took care of her, not out of love, but because of responsibility. I cried a couple of times after she died, but in all honesty, mostly from relief, thinking now I have my life back.
Strangely, I have occasional nightmares, where mom and my sisters are doing something and they won't let me join in. Or they abandon me in a scary place.

I think funkygrandma and Joanne have expressed my thoughts. All relationships are unique. Merely being a daughter didn't really define your relationship with your mom. In the Grief Recovery Handbook, James and Friedman write “There are no absolutes in grief. There are no reactions so universal that all … people will experience them.” A person's reaction to a death is largely a function of their relationship. There's a lot that goes into being a parent, and apparently, your mother didn't have the parental skills to help you grow and prosper. So the occasional tear you shed is most likely because of what could have been, or more exact, what should have been.

I think your grief is more the loss of something you never had. Its final, you now will never be able to get that love you had hoped might come about. Your Mom lost out in this relationship too. Think, she never knew how it was to have a relationship withba daughter. Its sad.

Sorry for your loss.

It's probably the loss of the dream of what you should have had. It's called disenfranchised grief because society in general doesn't recognize the loss of not having a caring mother. I'm just did a quick google search of loss of hopes and dreams. Some of the sites looked helpful. Maybe you'll find something that speaks to you. Wishing you peace.

“Thinking of you and wishing you moments of peace and comfort.”

Yes, I have experienced the exact same thing. I mourned the loss of my mama while she was still alive. Her mind had been "gone" for sooo long. I learned early-on during caregiving for her that I was "grieving the loss of the mother I never had." There is a lot more, but I'll stop here.

I wish you well.

I, too, did not have a good relationship with my mother who died this past December. I don't believe I have grieved her passing so much as her passing has allowed for a lot of reflecting and finally making peace. We all process the loss of a significant person differently. It's been only 4 days for you. It's OK to feel a range of feelings, have a range of thoughts, say what needs to be said (even if it's alone in the privacy of your own personal, safe space) and process these the way you need to in order to move forward in a positive way. It may take some time. My best to you.

You (Anyonymous1) are definitely not alone, judging by all of the comments.
I was the last child born to an older abusive father who seemed so nice to most all but his nuclear family. He was a very smart, narcissistic, probably PTSD, severely angry, physically, emotionally & verbally abusive, twisted to where he enjoyed any of us suffering & frustrated man who grew up unloved by his mother & neglected/hurt by his alcoholic father. He had to move 22 times during childhood so he ran away to other states before his parents agreed he could enter the military for WW2 @ 16.
Talk about someone who never should’ve had children or even have been married. We siblings all left home @ 17 to attend college funded with no help from him because he said no one helped him. He never attended college but he could’ve worked his way through like we all did. I found out before he died a few years ago that he partied for those important years after the War instead of going to college but he had always blamed his parents for paying for his baby brother’s college & not his. Bad choices made him bitter so he took it out on all of us, especially our sweet mother, who was fooled by his acting abilities before marriage.
Anyway, I was the child he resented the most & like several of you, ended up being his caregiver until the end. He had PTSD, vascular dementia, another undiagnosed dementia (the psychiatrist said undiagnosed due to his rapid mental decline by the time I was able to get emergency guardianship) psychosis & extreme rage.
Dad was very difficult to deal with & I felt like I aged 100 years in 1 year of 7 hospital visits/transfers where he yelled & threatened anyone & everyone attending him. I had to apologize everywhere he went & even wrote apology notes to some nurses & techs w/ gift cards.
No one @ any of the institutions were sorry to see him leave.
I tried to show Dad only kindness & to talk to him about how I was able to forgive him through Jesus.
I arranged everything for the funeral he had never planned & took care of all of his messy paperwork & estate with almost no help from my siblings. I felt no grief, only relief, @ his funeral. I was the only one with him when he took his last breath.
I did not feel guilty for being relived when he died because it was only normal after having a father like him.
I prayed to forgive him before he died even though he never changed or showed he’d repented of his abusive ways. God helped me so much. I truly felt so free that I wanted to sing & dance with joy after he was gone.
It took 5 long years of work to tie up his estate since he had no will & refused to give the power of attorney to anyone so probate…
It took that long to help my ailing mother realize it wasn’t her fault dad was abusive & that she couldn’t have been a better wife & mother. She is now living more free from him (after 64 years of abuse) than we siblings ever dreamed but her health is now declining rapidly along with her mind. :(
I (and my siblings) will cry when Mom dies because she was so loving and kind to all of us. I have been her sole caregiver in our home for this whole time. What a journey.
sorry this is so long & rambling but I feel much lighter after sharing. Maybe this will help someone else, if not you.