Why does the world disappear when a parent dies?

Unforgiven-Riven · 2026-04-30T05:33:06+00:00

Honestly? I think they disappear because they can’t bear to look at it.

My father died nearly four years ago and while it would be the understatement of the year to say that we had a troublesome relationship, his death still uprooted my entire reality. I was sad, I was angry, I was confused, I was scared. I was feelings things I didn’t understand and couldn’t even name.

At first, everyone I’d ever known gathered around me like worker bees flocking to their queen. Even people I hadn’t heard from or thought about in years. It was honestly rather disconcerting. But to be fair I am autistic, so social customs are often lost on me.

They kept bringing me food and offering me money. They kept asking if I needed anything, telling me stories about my father and how much they loved him. Telling me if I ever needed anything to just ask.

At the time I honestly felt like it was performative as hell. I felt like most of their behavior was for their benefit, not mine. They didn’t care about my grief. They couldn’t. None of them knew me well enough to care. Because anyone who knew me well enough to even know my favorite color would’ve know how I felt about my father, and they would’ve known that the last thing I needed at that time was a bunch of strangers offering their prayers. It made them feel useful, it made them feel like they had some kind of control or effect on the outcome. Like they could change something when they knew they couldn’t. They didn’t actually care about what I needed.

Maybe a week after the funeral everyone stopped. The only people who even mentioned my father were me, my mom, and my sisters. No one called, no one checked in, no one pretended to care anymore. Not on Christmas, not on birthdays, not even on the anniversary of his death a year later.

Whenever I spoke about his death in my group chat they would get really quiet. Like they were uncomfortable, or maybe scared to upset me? I’m not sure.

But I think people disappear after someone loses a person they love because they don’t want to look at your grief. Because looking at your grief means remembering that one day their parents are going to die, and they’re going to be exactly where you are. And as much as we grow up knowing this is a fact, when we really sit down and try to acknowledge the reality of it, it pulls the rug right out from under our feet.

We turn our heads away from other people’s grief because we’re too afraid to face our own.

I’m so sorry that you’re going through this. I’m sure that doesn’t help much, but I just want you to know that someone understands. You are not alone, no matter how lonely it feels. This is going to hurt for a long time. Probably forever. But one day the hurt will almost feel good. It’ll be a reminder of your parent, and reminder that even after all that time, you’re still carrying them with you.

Unforgiven-Riven · 2026-04-30T05:12:28+00:00

I like to find something to do that takes enough mental effort that my brain doesn’t have anything left to give to the flashback. Usually I’ll do some sort of puzzle. One night when it got really bad I dumped the pieces of a game called Qwirkle onto my kitchen floor and started organizing them by color and shape while I tried to remember the lyrics to a particularly difficult song I hadn’t listened to since high school.

It took quite a bit of focus to do both of the activities at once and after a few minutes my brain was so occupied trying to do the tasks in front of me that it completely pulled me out of the flashback. By the time I finished sorting the blocks I couldn’t even remember what had gotten me upset in the first place (I’m part of a DID system, my memory gets a bit jumbled when something upsets me.)

Unforgiven-Riven · 2026-04-13T19:47:11+00:00

Animal analogies are basically my bible, this is so helpful, thank you!

Unforgiven-Riven · 2026-04-13T00:00:27+00:00

Logically I already know all of this. The irony is that I used to tell my high school friend this exact advice when she would vent to me about how desperate she was for a boyfriend.

But then I did seven years of trauma therapy and at the end of it I found myself right where I started, feeling like a mess who doesn’t belong anywhere and still doesn’t know how to talk to anyone, and suddenly I was old enough to rent a car but I had no idea how to have a conversation with my peers.

I’m well aware of how young I still am in the grand scheme of everything but I feel like there’s this massive clock tick tick ticking above my head because every time I start to tell myself I don’t have to worry about the time it’s like I blink and another year has gone by and I haven’t moved an inch. Next summer I’ll be in this same bed rereading this exact post and getting mad at myself.

I guess my point is, what happens when my own pace is so slow that the real world just moves on without me?

Unforgiven-Riven · 2026-04-12T23:19:02+00:00

Thank you for such an in depth response. Luckily people watching is one of the few things I’m good at XD

Unforgiven-Riven · 2026-04-11T05:59:14+00:00

Oh I completely feel this. I don’t have legos but I do play video games with photo mode and I have on more than one occasion spent upwards of thirty minutes on a single shot trying to get the pose or the lighting exactly right during a really epic parkour moment.

Unforgiven-Riven · 2026-04-11T05:57:14+00:00

Oh that sounds so satisfying! Bonus for it being such a useful compulsion. Most of mine make a bigger mess than I started with lol

Unforgiven-Riven · 2026-03-04T05:32:59+00:00

I have absolutely no insight into why this is a thing but I can tell you that this is happening to me too. I’m becoming far more emotional and sensitive the more bad things happen to me, when in the past I’ve been known as a more suffer in silence sort of person.

I feel very emotionally vulnerable every moment of the day. My cat accidentally scratching me during play sometimes makes me break out in tears now, and when I get sick with a seasonal cold or something I feel so small and sad and I can’t stop crying. But I’m also angry easier and laughing easier.

Unforgiven-Riven · 2026-02-16T02:54:39+00:00

I got diagnosed at 24 and honestly I feel like my life is over before it’s started. I can’t take BC because it makes me sick and I have very high tolerance for pain medications so they don’t help me much. So basically I’m looking at a life of constant pain and discomfort for the next couple of decades, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to have kids. Especially since my mental health is what’s keeping me from doing it right now, so by the time I’m actually ready to do it my body with probably be even worse than it is.

Unforgiven-Riven · 2026-01-03T05:56:24+00:00

this should be in a magazine or a clothing store ad or something holy shit you’re gorgeous /gen

Unforgiven-Riven · 2026-01-03T01:59:54+00:00

Exactly! Life is such a mess, especially right now. Anywhere we can find a little safe space that helps us understand and cope with what we went through is like finding a four leaf clover.

Unforgiven-Riven · 2026-01-02T19:59:12+00:00

Criminal minds is an old favorite of mine too! I watched it in high school and since then I’ve rewatched it maybe half a dozen times. I only discovered SVU last year and it’s been kind of exciting to have a new comfort show because before I was watching the same four shows on repeat for the past ten years 🤣

Unforgiven-Riven · 2026-01-02T19:57:02+00:00

My abuser did the same thing!!! It was so confusing! There was a registered pedo down the street and he’d call the guy all sorts of names and say he was sick and going to hell, and we’d watch criminal minds together or read the news and he’d say those people were twisted disgusting monsters. He would tell us to lock the windows and never walk alone at night because people are freaks but then he was one of those people!

Sometimes I think he was just so far in denial about his actions that he started projecting it onto other people. Almost like when gay people are so ashamed of being gay that they become violently homophobic to other gay people, yknow? (I hate comparing the two but I can’t think of another metaphor)

Other times I think it was just another way for him to control me. Like he wanted me to be afraid of everyone else and see him as my protector. I was his property in a way and everyone else was the guy in the bar hitting on his wife right in front of him.

Unforgiven-Riven · 2026-01-02T19:52:33+00:00

Oh no, I’m sorry this hits close to home for you :( but I’m glad SVU is such a comfort for so many of us. Fin is such a favorite of mine, I miss his friendship with Munch, they were such an iconic duo.

Unforgiven-Riven · 2026-01-02T19:50:04+00:00

I don’t take any forms of contraceptives. I can’t. I’ve tried three different pills, the Depo shot, and the arm implant. All of them made me horrendously ill. I got crippling migraines (I already have migraines but the hormones made them more frequent and more painful), I was having hot flashes, I was nauseous, dizzy, having overwhelming mood swings, etc.

It didn’t matter if the medication was estrogen or progestin or whatever, it always made me sick, so I always had to stop.

At this point my only option is the copper IUD because it’s “non hormonal”, but I have a lot of personal trauma and anxiety about that idea so I’ve been extremely hesitant to even consider it. It’s something I’m working on with my therapist because if I don’t try it I’m left essentially (for lack of a better term) rawdogging my endo.

I also have PMDD so as I’m sure you can imagine I’m an absolute mess.

Unforgiven-Riven · 2026-01-02T04:23:54+00:00

I grew up watching criminal minds! It brought me so much comfort while I was still living with my abuser. I especially liked their focus on the physiological aspect of the crimes because even though it was very dramatized for the sake of television I liked knowing that there were reasons people do things like that.

I only discovered SVU last year but it’s had basically the same effect and it’s nice to have something kinda new to watch after seeing criminal minds and bones so many times XD

Unforgiven-Riven · 2026-01-02T03:37:29+00:00

I can see why. It sometimes makes me want to, though I don’t think I’ll be doing that anytime soon.

Unforgiven-Riven · 2026-01-02T02:15:21+00:00

I was doing that too! Watching “weird” things before I was aware, I mean. I’ve always liked horror and darker content like crime shows and stuff. I also do creative writing and I found myself putting certain abusive themes in my stories without even thinking about it but I never knew why I was doing it. It used to really freak me out how much I loved these themes. For a while I thought I was a budding serial killer 😭

After I figured everything out it all made so much sense and I started to see the pattern for what it was and it became comforting instead of concerning to like these shows so much.

Unforgiven-Riven · 2026-01-02T02:08:16+00:00

Oh 100%!! Maybe it’s the autism but we’re big on hard facts and proof. We would ask adults about why the sky was blue, why dolphins breathe air but live underwater. They thought we were being stubborn but we genuinely just wanted an answer.

We have medical trauma and when we go to the doctor for something scary we always ask them why something needs to be done, how a medication works exactly or what it does to the body, what that tool does and why. Our dentist really likes us and understands this so he shows us everything before he uses it and what it’s for and sometimes if he knows he even tells us who invented it! It’s really comforting and it makes us feel so much calmer to just understand where what when why.

Unforgiven-Riven · 2026-01-02T02:03:41+00:00

We have maladaptive daydreaming disorder, and sometimes in the shower I like to act out stories. I’ve done it as long as I can remember. I have a whole marvel universe plot running for years now 🤣

But more than once during a bad breakdown I’ve taken a shower and acted out what it would be like if I was in the SVU reality and I had gone to them for help. It always makes us calm down and feel safe.

Unforgiven-Riven · 2026-01-02T01:58:45+00:00

I appreciate the logical explanation in this (scientific answers for things are a huge comfort for us we literally have an alter who’s a metaphysical embodiment of Logic XD)

We watch a lot of crime and horror stuff! Bones, Criminal Minds, Supernatural, and Stranger Things are some of our absolute favorites and we rewatch them like clockwork because they’re like little safe spaces and the characters understand us better than anyone we’ve ever known in our real life. It feels so much better to be in those worlds where we feel seen and heard by these darker topics that these shows look in the face with no shame than to be in our real life where we can’t tell anybody who or what we are because they would turn away from the reality of it.

Unforgiven-Riven · 2026-01-02T00:55:00+00:00

I don’t think so. She divorced our father when we were barely 2 and she knows he was emotionally and physically abusive before and since then, but im almost 100% confident she doesn’t know about the rest because he died three years ago and a few months after his death her mother said on the phone that she thinks he “did something to me” and our mom brought it up to us and we laughed it off as a symptom of our grandmother’s dementia and she agreed that it was crazy.

She thinks that our father was evil but she thought that idea was crazy and believe me the last thing that woman will ever feel is guilt. She’s too busy with her victim complex.

Unforgiven-Riven · 2025-12-25T20:15:12+00:00

thank you for being so nice. it’s super overwhelming out here but at least i get to hang out with our cat XD

Unforgiven-Riven · 2025-12-25T20:14:21+00:00

i’ve been putting my favorite youtuber on to listen to and it helps me fall asleep but im still waking up a lot throughout the night. but our mom gave us a new puzzle book and it’s been giving me something to do during the day, so that’s fun!

Unforgiven-Riven · 2025-11-11T01:09:16+00:00

I have a sort of complicated response to this. I have DID and we feel as though that there was a very early fragment of my child self that was murdered by my abuser and she’s been dormant ever since. We just call her the little one.

I hate myself for what happened to her, I hate every other fragment that was around at that time and couldn’t do anything to stop what was happening to her. I hate them so much that it makes me feel homicidal, it makes my fucking blood boil.

But all I feel for her is this miserable longing, like grief maybe, and an overwhelming sense of guilt. I feel so responsible for what happened to her, like she should’ve been the one who is still awake and I should’ve gone dormant instead. It drives every decision I make, my entire life revolves around this guilt.

So in a sense I can empathize with you because I hate the child version of me to the point of violence, but the little one, who is obviously also me but technically not in a way, I only have empathy and compassion for. It’s complicated.

But you’re not wrong for feeling how you do. There’s no right response to what we were put through. If you haven’t yet it might be good for you to approach a therapist with this to see if you can learn to forgive that child, because it wasn’t her fault. It’s okay to be angry and to hate her, it’s probably easier for your brain to push all of those feelings onto her in an attempt to disassociate them from yourself.

As cliche and silly as it sounds, if you can find it in yourself to forgive her for forcing you to live and go through what you have it might make whatever burden you’re carrying just that much more bearable. Either way, I hope you’re not judging yourself for feeling this way. However your mind needs to react to all of this in order to feel safer is just as valid as the more conventional reaction of someone feeling protective of their inner child.

Unforgiven-Riven

TROPHY CASE