Losing a parent as a teenager and how people are coping

[EcoCustard]

Anyone lost a parent as a teen? How are you doing?

My dad died when I was 15. Had a rocky couple of years after that, but I'm 22 now and all good.

It doesn't effect me day to day, just a few moments of minor sadness on special occasions, like birthdays, or when I think about him not meeting my kids.

Time really is the best healer.

My OH lost his Dmum as a teenager (I never met her) and I think it affects him to this day, moreso than when he lost his Ddad 35yrs later.

My dad died when I was 13 in the early 2000s.

I felt very disadvantaged in many ways - financially, emotionally, practically. It also changed my identity - I was then in a single parent family.

It changed me forever as I've had a very different life experience compared to others who did not lose a parent.

However I'm definitely more resilient and independent as an adult. But i had a rocky time in late teens as a direct result.

DDad didn’t die until I was 23, but became ill enough to move to a nursing home when I was 17. That was nearly 40 years ago. My teens were disrupted, my A level results very poor, and what/where I ended up studying was nothing like what I’d hoped for. DM too, has a very different life to what she’d envisaged. This is all water under the bridge now of course. I have minor pangs of sadness that my DC never met him, especially since DS is so similar to him.

Edited to add: I agree with the above, it’s made me and my siblings more resilient. I have friends in their 50s who rely on their dads for so much! One (full time job, home owner) even has her dad pay her car insurance.

My dd died when I was 14, leaving me with my unwell mother who did live for several more years but mostly unwell. I am doing well, but did have a couple of unsuitable relationships, certainly resilient and when my own dc's father died when they were 10 years, I definetly felt well placed to support.
I do miss my dad and think about him more than my mother, but I don't know if that is due to him dying when I was young.

My personal philosophy having lost my mum at 14 is well life threw the worst thing at me that it could. I survived that, I can survive anything. Bring it on. Doesn’t mean I go looking for trouble but I know I can cope with emotional distress and I will come out the other side. Gave me a perspective not many others have at that age. I was of the wrong age to ever get any counselling it really wasn’t a thing back then, I know it’s probably coloured a few things, made me a bit overly possessive of friends, something I’ve realised and worked on over time. But now, it’s a part of my history, generally I worked on not letting it define me. But I’m 30 years down the road from it now so yeah. Occasionally it’s a thing emotionally but day to day I don’t even think about it.