Hi, Just a bit of context. My parents had always argued and when I was very young they separated. I lived alone with my mother and ‘wasn’t allowed’ any contact with my father. I remember him trying to get in touch with me and his attempts were always blocked by my mother. Later on, when I was about 11, we’d found out that my father had passed away and so the next time that I saw my father was in the coffin at the funeral. I also remember being told ‘not to cry’ on the day of the funeral by my mother as she didn’t want me to feel upset over someone she hated. The rest of the funeral is a little fuzzy in my memory.
After the funeral I probably did the worst thing and bottled it all up, I didn’t know you were supposed to deal with what you were feeling at such a young age and throughout my early life I was quite shut down. My relationship with my mother non-surprisingly became very toxic and still is to this day a decade later. When I moved away from home at 18, it hit me like a shovel and I’ve spent the last few years trying to process what’s happened. I tend to avoid situations where I’m around other families and it makes me feel awful just seeing someone with their dad/parent.
I cannot believe what an impact it has had on me and I feel so down a lot of the time. I feel as though there is an enormous void in my life; I’m a little scared, confused and despair-ridden at the whole situation and I have no idea how to move forwards. I suppose my question is, how do you ‘get over’ or deal with a loss that has occurred in the past and have not dealt with in the slightest? I think that at first I was too young to deal with it and it became a habit to suppress anything that I was feeling throughout my childhood because it was just easier. I now just find it very painful thinking about what I have lost and I will never have the dad that I’ve always truly wanted 
Any help or advice would be appreciated. Thanks