“I’m Sorry for Your Loss”—But I Wasn’t
Trigger warning: This post discusses the death of a parent, grief, emotional abuse, and the complex emotions that can arise after the passing of an abusive mother. If these topics are sensitive or triggering for you, please take care while reading and step away if needed.
The condolences that never fit
It always happens the same way.
Someone learns that my mother passed away and their face softens with sympathy.
Their voice drops into a gentle, knowing tone: “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
They mean well when they say that.
It’s what society tells us to say.
When a mother dies, people assume the grief is “normal”—painful, but normal.
But there was nothing normal about my mother.
And there was nothing normal about her death.
I wasn’t sorry.
I was relieved!
I was relieved that I would never again have to fear her mouth—the way every word she spoke was a carefully crafted weapon.
I was relieved that I would never again have to fear her eyes—sharp and cruel, slicing into me with a single glance, cutting deeper than any physical wound ever could.
I was relieved that I would never again have to flinch at the movement of her arms, even as a 50-something woman, because a lifetime of bracing for impact doesn’t go away just because you’re grown.
And I was relieved that I would never again have to flinch when I heard her inhale—because I knew that inhale meant something was coming:
a harsh criticism
an unfair demand
a verbal dagger disguised as casual conversation.
The sound of her breathing in before she spoke was enough to make my body brace itself like a soldier under attack.
I was relieved that I would never again have to live under the threat of her rage—unpredictable, explosive, and capable of shattering whatever fragile peace I had managed to carve out for myself.
So when someone says, “I’m sorry for your loss,” I reply kindly but truthfully:
“Thank you for caring about me. My mother was very abusive to me and my dad. I feel a lot of relief now that she’s gone.”
And every time, the response is the same. Surprise. Confusion. “I had no idea,” they reply.
Of course they didn’t know!
Because my mother wasn’t just abusive—she was a covert narcissist.
The world saw one version of her.
I saw another.
And I was reminded of that fact yet again when my dad received condolence cards after her passing.
One card stood out from the rest.
It was from a former work associate—someone who had worked with my mother daily for almost a decade.
This person believed they knew her well.
And yet, when I read their words, I felt that familiar gut-punch of disbelief:
“I was so very saddened to learn of your wife’s passing. She was such a special person to so very many people. I have so many fond memories of her southern spirit that I will always cherish. Over the years, I’ve thought of our ‘Georgia Redhead’ often. She left a very positive mark on all of us in the [former workplace name] family—both our staff and member-community officials.
I’m so glad that you were both able to enjoy many years of beach time in retirement. She adored you and the kids so much. You were always top of mind for her and she was so proud of your family—for good reason.”
I read that card and felt nothing but bitter confirmation.
No one outside of me and my dad knew who she really was at her core.
To the world, she was sweet, warm, “our Georgia Redhead.”
To me, she was a woman whose words could slice like a blade, whose eyes could gut me with a single stare, whose unpredictable rage made me flinch at the sound of her inhaling before she spoke.
And for 53 years, I struggled to believe my own reality.
Because who wants to believe that their mother—the person who was supposed to love them most in the world—thrived on their anguish?
Who wants to believe that their mother fed off their fear?
But when she died, I didn’t just feel relief.
I felt validation.
And, believe it or not, she felt relief, too.
I watched my mother take her last breath at 11:11am while I was praying for her. This was a very surreal moment for me.
Her own words: “It was a lot of relief for me to go"
Almost two years after her death, I connected with her spirit through a psychic medium.
And in one of the most surreal moments of my life, I heard my mother’s spirit say this:
“My death happened fast. I didn’t have the realization of what was happening in my body because the chaos in my mind was full and unavoidable. There was so much energy engaged in the managing of the mind space that I wasn’t aware of what was happening inside my body. It happened so fast. I began to realize about two weeks before I passed that I was coming to the end. It was a lot of relief for me to go.”
She was relieved to die.
And in a way, that was the most unexpected validation of all.
Because it meant she wasn’t just a monster wreaking havoc without consequence.
It meant she was miserable.
It meant she was trapped inside the same hell she created.
And it wasn’t until her final 2-3 weeks on Earth that she had to truly face it.
What made her finally see the truth?
For most of her life, my mother never had to sit with herself.
She had control.
She had manipulation.
She had me.
She had my dad.
But six months before her death, I went no contact.
For decades, we communicated somewhat regularly—not all of it was abusive, though enough of it was to make my life unbearable.
But that final time I saw her—the day I fled her house six months after living under her roof as a caregiver—she was at her absolute worst (spoiler alert: most narcs get worse as they age)!
When I tell you I saw the full force of her cruelty when I was a live-in caregiver, I mean it!
I saw what she was without a mask.
I saw the depths of her willing ability to wound, destroy, and humiliate my defenseless dad, myself, and my two small dogs.
I walked out of that house, never expecting it would be the last time I would see her alive.
Four months later, after she was gone, I returned—to visit my dad.
I had no idea it would also be the last time I’d see him alive (he died two months later).
And somewhere in the space between my leaving and her dying, something shifted within her.
Because in one of the channeling sessions, my mother’s spirit revealed something shocking:
“During this two-to-three-week timeframe leading up to my death, I had a moment of epiphany that felt like a bolt of lightning moving throughout my body, causing me to deeply reflect on my life. I was shown every aspect of my life. By the end of these weeks, I was very ready to cross over to the other side. I experienced despair, sadness, regret during this timeframe—all of these things were part of my experience in those last weeks.”
I didn’t even have to tell her what she had done.
My absence due to being no-contact with her forced her to see it.
In those final weeks she saw what she had spent her entire life avoiding.
And she felt it.
Deeply.
For the first time in her 77 years, she had to sit in the reality she created.
And she feared it.
She feared the silence in her chaotic mind.
She feared the beast within—the one she had spent her life trying to control with a delicate balance of alcohol and prescription painkillers.
Because without the distractions from her darkness, she had to sit alone with the beast inside her (she described the beast inside her during a channeling session and it almost knocked me out of my chair!).
And it was so unbearable that when the end came—when her body finally let go—she felt nothing but relief.
Final thoughts: The validation i never expected
For 53 years, I told myself that my mother wasn’t really abusive.
For 53 years, I excused, justified, and explained away the cruelty.
But when she died, I realized something: I spent my life fearing her.
But in the end, she feared herself.
She feared the silence.
She feared the beast within that she couldn’t alway keep at bay by consuming the right balance of alcohol and prescription pain killers.
She feared what she would see if she didn’t have someone to twist, control, and dominate.
And she was right to be afraid.
Because in her final days, she finally saw the truth.
I used to think I would never get closure.
That she would go to her grave never recognizing what she had done.
But she did.
And I didn’t even have to be there to witness it.
The Conversations We Never Had
This was just one of many things my mother revealed after she passed.
In The Conversations We Never Had, I’ve documented the full transcripts of all my channeling sessions—the shocking truths, the moments of reckoning, and the things I never thought I would hear her say.
If you’ve ever wondered what a narcissistic mother has to say after death… you’re not alone.
[Waitlist coming soon for The Conversations We Never Had.]
Living lighter and aligned,
Carole
DISCLAIMER: While my mother’s spirit spoke of the beast within and the chaos in her mind during our channeling sessions, this does not mean that every narcissist has these unseen features. This post reflects my personal experience and the revelations shared with me after her passing. Every narcissistic individual is different and they might not have an internal struggle or self-awareness of their actions. If you’ve endured narcissistic abuse, your experience is valid whether or not your abuser ever confronted their own reality.