What it feels like to mourn the death of your abuser

As Mariah Carey announces the passing of her estranged mother and sister - whom she said abused her - Ellie Muir digs into a particular kind of grief that is anything but simple

- Ellie Muir

As a child, Alexandra Walker endured years of what she describes as emotional abuse by her father. By the time she reached her thirties, her father’s worsening alcohol dependency only put further strain on their already fractured relationship.

Alexandra decided to cut ties with him during the Easter period in 2022. Just over a year later, Alexandra received a call from her father’s neighbour informing her that he had not been seen for several weeks; his lawn was overgrown and his post was piling up. He was then found in his home, having been dead for about a month.

From this point, Alexandra experienced every emotion imaginable. There was guilt. Shame. Sadness. “I had always been nervous about my father’s death because he had cut ties with almost everyone in his life,” Alexandra tells me. “It was shocking to deal with the reality of the fact that he died alone. I had a mixture of anger about the whole thing. And disbelief, and shock. And if I’m being really honest, there was also a sense of relief, because I couldn’t see any good end to his situation. I just knew that it was only going to get worse because he had isolated himself.”

Addressing the loss of a family member with whom you had a complex relationship is never easy, nor straightforward. This is something that Mariah Carey is likely grappling with this week, after she announced that her mother, Patricia, and her estranged sister, Alison, died on the same day. The causes of their deaths remain unknown.