To ask if you lost your mum as a teenager

[parrotisland]

And how it has impacted you now?

I am approaching 40 and I can honestly say it's - not quite ruined my life, but made my life go in a different direction.

Not sure if it's just me or if it's the same for everybody.

I was mentally and emotionally suffocated by my mum. She was a loving mother, gave hugs and loved me but I can’t remember the good times as much. She died when I was 17, but not before setting up a life time of shitty relationships between us siblings by telling my sister I was apparently jealous of her, so she has always used this against me. Treating my brothers like royalty so they gained the confidence to achieve anything in life and always look down on me like I’m a pleb. Funny thing, their awfulness only started after she died. Like she had set the scene in life and had reined them in, but after death they were let loose.

I know if she was still alive, I probably wouldn’t have married, had kids and developed my own thoughts and feelings, and dress sense as she did all of this for me. at the same time I feel sad she’s not here. I’m also so angry at her, I wish I could tell her what she’s left behind. She always emotionally blackmailed me saying that she will die because she has a disrespectful daughter, or if us siblings argued, her favourite line was that she’ll die. Well she did die.

She has passed this fierce independence on to me. She has always told me to stand on my own two feet this resonates with me. I’ve taught my kids independence. I tell my dc they can achieve anything they want, to do anything they like, to make friends and meet them and enjoy their childhood. My eldest dd is 11 and when I see her use her own common sense to do things and make decisions, it makes me so proud. Losing my mum taught me independence and in retrospect, to not give a shit what others think: do what is best for you.
I ask treat my children equally, so there is absolutely no chance of favouritism and I wouldn’t dream of playing one off against the other. My dc won’t take a snack or treat without taking one to their sibling too and this makes me proud.

Sorry it’s long. I feel very conflicted about how her death impacted me. It’s taught me a lot though.

I wasn’t a teen, I was 22. But she was very unwell from 19 (alcoholism) and the subsequent 2.5 years between the problem getting bad and her dying were very painful to witness and support her through.

If definitely changed my life. It’s been nine years this year (!) and I’m now in the process of becoming a first time mum myself without her love and support.

It taught me so much, about love and pain and depression and addiction and empathy and self determination. It made me a better, less judgmental person. I totally changed my views on addiction, I’m ashamed to say that prior to losing her I thought it was a choice and selfish. I very soon after her death went to volunteer in a prison rehab and volunteered on a mental health line and gathered up enough experience to go to uni and do a social work masters specialising in addiction. I then worked in substance misuse for a while before becoming a therapist. I help people every day with kindness and empathy and no judgment. Maybe I’d have got to this place without losing her but it sure gave me a kickstart and I learned a lot very young. I’ve often been commended on the ‘wisdom’ I possess for someone relatively young.

But my god I miss her. It didn’t end me though even though I thought it would. I personally feel she did such a amazing job raising me for the first 19 years of my life it gave me enough strength to last a lifetime, and when she died the love and care she showed me enabled me to get through it. If had a profound impact. I still cry sometimes, a song in a supermarket can poleaxe me. Some weeks I barely think of her and others I ache for her and what she went through. I’ll love and think of her for the rest of my days and sometimes as it’s been so long I almost forget she existed and was actually real and a real person. I can’t believe I could ever touch her or hear her voice. I don’t have any recordings of her voice or videos of her so I’m left with pictures and her handwriting and the scent of her perfume and most of all her music. I have her birth year tattooed behind my ear and wear her wedding ring permanently on another finger. She’s part of me.

I’m at peace and I accept she’s gone and have no regrets but it’s not so much her being dead that hurts, it’s how badly she suffered. Watching the mum you adore swiftly drink herself to death, wasting away until she couldn’t walk due to no strength, soiling herself cos she couldn’t move off the sofa, hypothermia from not moving due to days on end of just being sat drinking vodka. I saw things I can’t scrub from my brain. But I was so fucking lucky to have had her and I’d take 22 years with her as my mum than any other mum for a lifetime.

Lost my mum when I was 14. I genuinely don't know what difference it would have made had she lived. As I a result of her dying I am more resilient than most I know, drama means little when you've experienced death at an early age. My regrets are I never got to know her as a friend we were still on the cusp of that relationship. But my dad was there for me and has always been there if I needed him. I've been very lucky and married into a very loving large family with an awesome MIL who loves me, if that hadn't happened then I suspect I may have felt differently about things. It was hard being the odd one out at that age and I suspect it allowed for rather more teenage flouncing than I might otherwise have got away with, but I also grew up fast and was more mature and sensible than my peers. (Although the sensible bit may just be my nature anyway).

I don't really have anyone left who really knew my mum, it's really hard. I can't remember what she sounds like, don't have any video or voice recording. If someone died now it wouldn't be that way. It's so hard, today feels particularly hard xx

It also gave me a really profound sense of being bulletproof. At the time when she died I don’t think I realised what a huge deal it is to lose your mum in your early twenties. Since then I’ve always felt ‘okay, I lost her, I survived. I can survive anything else life throws at me as I’m clearly fucking bulletproof’. It’s been good in that sense. I’m very independent and driven and don’t take shit because I’m not afraid of loss. I can’t lose anything greater than her (until I have my own kids). I won’t suffer shit treatment. Kinda like I’ve stared hell in the face and survived so what now? I actually can hardly believe I survived looking back as the pain was so severe I thought I was suffocating and dying, I didn’t know it was possible to withstand that level of excruciating, wanting to be dead pain and make it through. And now I do.

Same Loopydoop, re the no voice or recordings. Though thankfully I still know people who knew her. I cherish that and I’m so sorry you don’t have that. That’s so hard 💛

I lost my mother at 19. I'm now 60. She missed so much - me finishing university, starting my career, marrying, having children. She would have been a wonderful grandmother. I'm about to become a grandmother, and I really want to be there for my daughter in a way that my mother couldn't be for me. When I was younger, I unconsciously sought out older women friends for advice and support, and I'm now trying to provide that myself.

My MIL lost both parents before she was 8. Both her and her sister were lovely women, but struggled as parents. Its like they didn't know really what being a mother meant. One was very very hands off with her kids, even for that time, and other relatives ended up stepping in just to make sure her kids were fed and clean. My MIL went the other way and tried to be this perfect mother, amazing home cooked food, home sewn clothes, beautiful house and garden, kids beautifully dressed, but seemed to struggle to be emotionally close to her children. She was lovely, but a bit distant, but she seemed to try to get closer to them, but didn't seem to know how to do it.
Although one of the factors is that from 7 and 8 both the sisters were passed round various relatives, so they never really had a stable family home after this age.

Yes, I was 14. Am 70 now. Haven't forgotten.

I lost my mum when I was young , it has made me more resilient and slightly fatalistic because she was only 40 , x

I lots my mum when I was 13. we were only aware she was ill for a month before she died.

dad remarried within 18 months which I'd say honestly had a bigger impact on my and my brothers. as adults we have essentially lost my father too as he is totally focused inwards.

the whole thing affected my brother more than me, blames my dad for how his life panned out.

I have a hole in my heart and when things are hard or wonderful miss her dreadfully. have a wonderful aunty and cousins but not the same.

think it made me more resilient but I have low self confidence that I think is something my mum would have helped me with. also totally clueless with fashion and make up etc. was 21 years yesterday actually.

Oh @loopydoop so much of what you say resonates with me. I grew up in amongst a fairly big family on my mum’s side but for various reasons including other deaths this has all drifted apart. Despite having an amazing husband, children and wonderful MIL SIL and BIL I really miss having “my” family too. This has been really emphasised by the loss of my grandmother almost two years ago. We were close and sometimes the pain of losing her as well now is unbearable. She was the only person who I could ever really talk to about my mum and who would talk about her with me and now that’s gone it’s sometimes more painful than ever despite the many years that have passed.

I was in my early twenties, and DM had been ill for about 4 years. I honestly could not imagine how I was going to cope without her: we had a really good relationship and she was always encouraging and supportive. I could not have asked for a better mother.

My father was bloody useless, concerned only with sorting his life out and finding another woman to cook his dinner and wash his socks. I was working away from home, had no steady boyfriend, and my uni friends were scattered about the place. It was a really, really difficult year.

I came out the other end tougher, more independent, disinclined to sweat about the small stuff, and desperate to make my own family. And that was tough at times, because I would want her advice and she wouldn't be there, She missed out, my DC missed out and I missed out: shit all round, really. What people say about being irritated by people moaning about their mums - oh yes! I used think, You have no idea how lucky you are that she's having your kids next weekend so that you can go away!

Thirty years on, I wish DM could see me: good marriage, DC growing up and leaving home. Most of the time I don't miss her, but sometimes even now it hits me amidships.

to those who lost their DMs before they were adults. It was hard enough as a young adult - it must be so much tougher when you're not even grown up yet yourself.

I was 20. My biggest regret is that she never got to know the person I would become. I was still a shitty, self-involved brat when she died and although I don’t doubt that she loved me, she probably didn’t like me very much at that point in my life. It’s affected me in more ways than I could count.

There are no family on my mums side left. We were never very close to my dads family (and I think they disliked my mum so didn't know her well). After she died she just wasn't talked about much, we are a weird family. I still have my brother but we have nothing in common and very very rarely see each other. Plus my m+fil and bil live in another county and don't speak English, so really no family xx

When I was 19.

It’s left me an odd incomplete person: in many ways I’m fine and my life is probably better than it would’ve been had she not died, but that adds another dimension of shit to things.

Not ruined but massively affected. Still dealing with some of the fallout 20 years later but that’s a while other thread...

Absolutely @parrotisland my life would have been very different as would my Dad's and Brother's I imagine. I wouldn't be living where I am now, probably wouldn't have met my DH and had my lovely DS as I would have been elsewhere in the country and have done many other things.

Not quite what you asked but my Dad lost both his parents before he was 10. He has never spoken about it but it has profoundly affected him, probably more than he knows. He is highly possessive of my Mum, so much so that I've never really been able to establish a solid bond with her because growing up , he commanded all her attention and now I just let them get on with it. He is loving but at the same time he doesn't really try to understand other people's feelings. I think because growing up, he only ever had to consider himself. He lives in the moment, spends money as soon as he gets it and for a long time was convinced he would die young. He has no filter and just does what he wants without asking others. I can only assume this is down to having no parental guidance at all. He was always so different to everyone else 's Dad, which I love him for.

I lost my mum at 10, she was 40. It was very sudden (to us kids, adults had known it was coming for a short while before).
Growing up was very hard, my dad is a diamond but it was very hard answering questions from people, explaining it when I met new friends, having to navigate becoming a woman on my own.
It didn’t ruin my life no, I’m very happy and have been happy most of my adult life. But I have and do and probably always will feel alone. Not lonely, I have lovely friends, have never been short of a boyfriend or two and now have a wonderful family of my own.
But I have always felt somewhat alone, that I didn’t have that one person who is meant to have your back whatever. I have a gap where that relationship should be.

On the flip side I have never been one to sweat the small stuff. I am very quick to “get over” heartbreak and dramas and other annoyances in life. Nothing feels quite that bad when you’ve experienced loss early on.

Not quite the same but I was 19 when I lost my Dad to a brain tumour in just 3months. My DM moved on with a new man with the same name ( tough hearing my Dads name but him not being there) & told me in no uncertain terms I wasn't to hang around. So it was lonely. I was a shy anxious teen & I'd lost my friend & anchor. It's definitely impacted relationships, I was so vulnerable & an easy target for a few total bastards. I've had counselling now & it's almost made me miss him more as the year it happened I was numb & then stayed numb for a long time. If I see little girls skipping along with their Dad I often well up.

Not a teenager but 20 when my Dad just fell right in front of me and I was later told he was dead before be hit the floor with massive heart attack. I tried to do cpr but couldn't save him I still wish very much that I could've done something as it still haunts me everyday and I had to call my Mum and tell her.

My Mum died when I was 16. I didn't grieve properly at the time as I was in the middle of my A-Levels. But then I had really drawn out messy grief that went on for years. I cried a lot. I hate being a motherless mother. I used to feel jealous of my friends who still have their Mums. I hate that my Mum didn't see the person I have become, as I was a horrible teen when she died and we fell out a lot. I'm now 40 and I'm so different that its difficult to know what she would make of me. I worry about leaving my children early. Its really shaped my whole life. I will say I'm pretty resilient though.

I was 11 when my mum died suddenly - she was only 34. I don’t think it ruined my life but it did change it a lot. My dad was left with me, my sister who was 8 and my brother who as 18 months.
He remarried within a couple of years and had 3 more children with my stepmum. She became like a best friend to me and still is to this day although her and my dad are now divorced. Obviously things would have been very different if my mum had still been alive but I loved having my younger half siblings.
It does change the way I think about things. I sometimes worry that something will happen to me suddenly, like it did to my mum and it’s hard at birthdays, Christmas my wedding etc.
I turned 34 this year and my 2 girls turned 11 and 8 this year too making us the ages my mum, me and my sister were when she died. This year has been 1 of the hardest because it really made me realise how young my mum was and how hard it would be for my girls if the same were to happen.

I was 10 when my mum died and my dad died when I was 5. They were both shit parents. I think my life would have been worse if she had lived as she was emotionally manipulative and very needy. For many years though I was haunted by her death and I think early years trauma such as a parent dying affects children massively into adulthood.