My religious dad turned my mom into a living corpse
I’m 21M, and stupid blind “faith” stole my precious mom from me.
Back on December 6, 2025 we were at our house. Ironically enough, we were actually singing worship songs together when my mom suddenly slumped over unconscious right in front of my eyes. It was a severe brain stroke from a ruptured aneurysm.
We rushed her to the hospital, and the doctors made it crystal clear: she needed open brain surgery immediately or she wouldn't make it. Every single hour mattered.
But my dad didn't listen to the science. He called his pastor.
This pastor, who clearly lived in his own fantasy world and had absolutely zero concept of medical severity, encouraged my dad to "stay strong in faith." To wait for a miracle. So my dad waited. For TWO DAYS. All that time, my mom was laying in the ICU with a painful bleeding brain. I remember when we got to see mom in the ICU during those two days, all she did was cry about a massive headache. And that she loved me. And my dad still refused to go ahead with the surgery because he was expecting God to just magically fix her. The hospital doctors were so incredibly frustrated that they actually made my dad sign a legal waiver stating that when she died, the hospital wasn't liable, because my dad was actively refusing life saving intervention.
After two days of agonizing waiting for a miracle that obviously never came, my dad ASKED MOM during one of our ICU visits if she wanted to go through with the brain surgery. She just cried and begged him to go ahead with it, saying the pain was too much to bear. That was what it took to convince him. He solemnly transferred a huge chunk of his savings and the surgery began. We stayed up all night praying and hoping. A statistical 50% chance of her making it. At 4AM, we got the news: she survived.
I was so relieved at first, but a cold realization hit soon after. She survived, but surviving isn't living.
The first time I saw her after the surgery, it made me sick. She was just a tangle of wires and tubes, and her eyes were blank. She didn't respond to my voice or my crying. She was a corpse who could only blink her eyes. Mom lost everything. Her voice? Gone. Her ability to walk, lift her hand or even turn her neck? Gone. Half her brain was damaged. The science behind it was she had a vasospasm that caused secondary ischemic affection of the frontal lobes and left temporoparietal lobes.
I literally can't stop thinking about those two days. I sometimes think if mom would be normal today if she just got the surgery immediately instead of suffering with a brain bleed while my dad and some delusional pastor prayed to the invisible man (who, by the way, ALLOWED this to happen ??).
Dad feels guilty, I know he does. Over the next few months, he drained every last penny of his savings trying to fix his mistake. He spent it all on her ICU costs and rehab. Every day he would sit outside the hospital waiting room from early morning to late at night until security had to physically evacuate him. But mom is a strong fighter. In rehab, she managed to regain some control of her right hand and leg, and she went from tube feeding to eating a little from her mouth.
But prayers don't pay the bills, and it sure doesn't magically boost recovery. Around February 20, the savings ran out, and so did rehab. We had to bring her home.
I put a total stop to my education to focus entirely on mom. Now, the majority of my day goes in caretaking for mom. Well, I'm not sure I can call her mom anymore. She's become more like a vessel who resembles mom. Me, my dad, and my sister are doing everything we can, but it isn't the same. We aren't physical therapists. We're just trying to keep her physically alive, while her speech and cognitive recovery falls completely behind. It’s tough. It’s really tough. But I won’t give up if she doesn’t give up. I’ll keep trying and showing up, regardless of how much my heart aches to see my mom in this state.
It just makes me so angry. Religion and circlejerking made my dad completely skeptical of proven medicine, and my mom paid the ultimate price for it. And now we're drowning. Our lives are ruined. Because dad decided to trust the magic man.
I don't know what to do with all this resentment. I just want to hear my mom’s voice again, hold her hand, and spend one peaceful, ordinary moment with her. And it kills me that one stupid religious decision probably stole that from us forever.
Well, that was a vent I'm glad I got out.
Edit: I refreshed the page and couldn't find my clarification/informative comment, so I'll just copy paste it here:
I didn't expect this post to receive so much attention. Please be patient, I will try to reply to everyone. It’s tough, with the whole caretaking thing. From what I read so far, here's a little FAQ:
- Is this the US?
No. We’re currently residing in Armenia. We’re not Armenian by nationality though. The majority of communication from the hospital to dad was through a friend of ours, who acted as an intermediary translator.
- Why did your father have a say in it, and not your conscious mother? Are you karmafarming?
I wish I was karma farming. That way, I would not have to live in this reality where I have to hold back tears everyday, attempting to bring mom back.
Here is proof.
https://streamable.com/8wmtmn
^ Video of mom collapsing and going unconscious in that song session. I was recording for my sister’s social media, when it happened. Bear in mind that none of us knew what was happening. No one instantly thinks, “oh looks like her brain aneurysm ruptured, let me..”. Till around midnight that day, I thought it was something heat related, thinking mom was too hot in that sweater.
https://imgur.com/a/Og5ygTk
^ Me, talking to my uncle (dad’s brother), who is a neurosurgeon (who, mind you, was one of the people who insisted on the surgery but to no avail) on december 9th, 2.x days after the rupture on december 6. The hospital could not figure out how to send him the DICOM files, so I had to acquire them, and download a software “Radiant dicom viewer” to read those files, and learn how to cut into my own mom’s head in the software to show my uncle all the angles he needed.
Dad instructed us, and the doctors, not to tell mom that she just had a ruptured aneurysm. Heck, mom did not even know that she was in an ICU. Instead, he told her that she was suffering with a “simple headache, nothing big”, and that she’ll be okay soon. That’s how he’s responded to all problems in the past; he downplays them as being small and insignificant. I can only imagine how mom must’ve felt, being invalidated like that.
I saw mom 2 times in the ICU before she went under the blade. A relevant moment was in one of those, when mom said to me, “I wish they would just send me home. I have some nice painkillers and it’ll instantly go away”. This showed me that mom really, really didn’t know the extent of what she was going through.
Final edit:
I am completely overwhelmed by the support. A few people in my DMs have asked if we have a GoFundMe or a way to help with mom's rehab costs. To be completely honest, I didn't link anything on my profile initially because my account is new and I was terrified people would think I was a scammer making up a story for money. But since some of you are asking, I have now put a link and a pinned post on my Reddit profile with the details of mom's neuro-rehab campaign. Please do not feel obligated, just reading her story is enough. Thank you for making me feel less alone today.