Aibu to be feeling this upset about the passing of time?

[Pinklilly123]

Bit random. Not sure if other people go through this. I’m sure to some extent they do. I feel really unsettled about how fast time is passing. I think this is turning into a depression to be honest as I’m crying most days about how fast my children are growing up. Mainly my youngest who starts school in September. I keep thinking of things we do and how lovely he is right now and that this is all going to change and all I’ll be left with are memories. It’s like extreme nostalgia. Hun starting school is ages away but I’m dreading it already. I’m trying my best not to let my kids see me like this. I feel like everything is pretty hopeless to be honest. Like my whole meaning in life is now about to completely change. I posted about this in September and I’m still really upset about it although it got better and now it’s back again. I’ve even gone as far as referring myself for therapy because I’m sure this isn’t normal to be so distressed about this. So not so much am I being unreasonable but more like is this normal to feel like and if others went through it at the end of their kids being preschoolers did it go away? I’ve just become so aware that time is literally running away. It seems to get faster by the year! I’ve had babies and preschoolers at home for the last decade of my life and feel like my world is about to be turned upside down. Please tell me I’ll be pleasantly surprised when he starts school! And that this horrible feeling will pass

I go through similar (though not tears everyday) at every big life stage of my DCs.

I've got 4, my eldest is 27 and my youngest is 7 so we've done a lot of stages!

For me the 2 worst are always starting school and finishing primary.

We're going through strange times OP. Maybe some extra emotions are tipping you over the edge.

Oh and yes, it does become ok a few weeks in. They love school and you get the beginnings of a proper rounded little personality and all the pride of their work :)

Each stage has its joys (and challenges!) - you are just moving onto a new one. My DDs are adults - and they are a joy. I have a new and different relationship with them and it is just as much fin as all that went before.

In one way it is good that you feel like this, because it will make you treasure each stage as you know it will pass.

"This horrible feeling" will pass. There is lots of joy to come.

If you just look forward instead of backward, there are lots of lovely things to look forward to. The babies are less dependent, less demanding and can do more for themselves. And that's what we are here for. Job well done. They will still need you for the rest of their lives OP. My ds1 is 43 hears old and still regularly calls in for food, advice, a loan etc.

While i understand the feeling and felt like this too, it sounds like you're feelings are extreme to me.

Thankyou for your replies. It certainly helps to know this will pass. I’ve been worried I’m becoming depressed as I’ve been feeling so devastated and finding day to day things hard and a struggle even though I’m pushing myself to just keep going and push through the feelings. I know I need to look ahead and not backwards as that is usually how depression starts by mulling over the past.

It's true that a good way to look at it is that having a child is like raising a wild creature and, when it's ready, you let it fly.

We shouldn't have kids as a comfort blanket. Enjoy their big steps into the world and weep snotty tears into the pillow on the quiet when you wave them off be proud of the good job you have done as you watch them accomplish each stage :)

Possibly these feeling are a sign of slipping into depression.

It's good though that you're recognising the possibility and seeking out a solution.

Have you got family/friends to confide in?

@Laiste

Possibly these feeling are a sign of slipping into depression.

It's good though that you're recognising the possibility and seeking out a solution.

Have you got family/friends to confide in?

Yes I’ve spoken with hubby and friends and family. All supportive but literally have no idea what to say or do to make it better because nothing is really helping. It’s absolutely true that children are not a comfort blanket. I think perhaps I’ve just been a mum to little ones my whole life and that is soon to change to a mum of primary school kids and so on. I am thinking way ahead in the future that they will move away and I will just feel hopeless and miserable because I just adore them so much and don’t ever want to lose them. Isn’t it the saddest thing that we have babies and then they leave us and take our hearts with them! It’s natural of course but I don’t think I ever really acknowledged they won’t be with me forever in my arms. They will as you say ‘fly away’ one day as they should. I want them to be happy I just also want to feel happy too! This definitely doesn’t feel healthy to me!

I think these thoughts are common. It was possibly referred to as part of a “midlife crisis” in the past. I’ve experienced this on and off as I creep up towards middle age.

@GiveYourHeadAWobble

I think these thoughts are common. It was possibly referred to as part of a “midlife crisis” in the past. I’ve experienced this on and off as I creep up towards middle age.

Did these episodes last long?

We do not lose them - we just establish a different relationship with them at each stage. When people are not able to come to terms with that they just go on and on having babies - viz. the Radfords.

If you think that your sense of sadness about this is over the top, then it might be worth thinking about all the different symptoms of depression and seeing whether you match up with them - in which case it would be worth discussing it with G P.

I had a little "afterthought" and do understand how it feels when the last one goes to school - but I did not find I was idle - far from it! Lots of things dropped into place to fill the gap - the house looked a bit less chaotic - and the chaos of school pick-up time increased as they were at 3 different schools.

I hope you will fell less despondent soon.

@Mischance

We do not lose them - we just establish a different relationship with them at each stage. When people are not able to come to terms with that they just go on and on having babies - viz. the Radfords.

If you think that your sense of sadness about this is over the top, then it might be worth thinking about all the different symptoms of depression and seeing whether you match up with them - in which case it would be worth discussing it with G P.

I had a little "afterthought" and do understand how it feels when the last one goes to school - but I did not find I was idle - far from it! Lots of things dropped into place to fill the gap - the house looked a bit less chaotic - and the chaos of school pick-up time increased as they were at 3 different schools.

I hope you will fell less despondent soon.

Thankyou. I think you’re right about those that go on having babies. It makes sense that having a huge amount of children is often routed in something else. I had a wonderful relationship with my mother growing up but it was awful during my teens. I was awful! But by 21ish I was back ti seeing and spending lots of time with her again. She is my best friend now. I’m a girl though. I’m not sure sons are the same as I don’t have brothers

I had a really rough time with this recently, triggered by my DD starting school. It started a couple of months before she left nursery an intensified over the weeks. I felt so low and embarrassed (I was a sensible woman before becoming a mother) by how sad and distracted I felt! I scoured the internet looking for reassurance that I wasn't the only person feeling like that!

I wasn't, and I certainly wont be the last either. For me a lot of it was anxiety, which is not something I generally suffer from. Once she started school, it went fairly quickly, thankfully. In my rational moments, I realised that I had been living with so much change and uncertainty (haven't we all?!) I simply didn't have the capacity to deal with more. I was craving the safety of our comfortable routine, where we were happy and more of unknowns and uncertainty just freaked me out.

One term in and we have a new routine and we are happy - we didn't ever stop, except for me and my obsessing.

I remember so clearly bringing DS home as a tiny baby & bursting into floods of tears one day. DH asked me what was wrong & I said that I had just had the very clear realisation that he would leave home one day.

It's not like I didn't know this rationally. But I suddenly just felt it very deeply in my heart.

I was very hormonal then. And I'm very hormonal now age 45 and peri menopausal. What age are you op? Could your hormones need a tweak?

I remember so clearly bringing DS home as a tiny baby & bursting into floods of tears one day. DH asked me what was wrong & I said that I had just had the very clear realisation that he would leave home one day.

It's not like I didn't know this rationally. But I suddenly just felt it very deeply in my heart.

I was very hormonal then. And I'm very hormonal now age 45 and peri menopausal. What age are you op? Could your hormones need a tweak?

Oh I can empathise as I am so sentimental it is unbelievable . My youngest is now 7, and 3 years into primary school, yet I still get regular pangs of sadness that these baby/toddler/pre-school days are in the past, and time is getting faster and faster... (Not helped by the fact I am waiting for covid to pass before returning to full time work, and I currently work from home part time so the house being quiet isn't great lol). I miss the toddler classes, the walks in the park with the pram/buggy, nursery runs (I hate the school run lol), etc, but I think everyone feels like this in some form of another, just some more intensely than others.

I don't feel this sentimentality every day, but regularly, and I have felt it has got better as I am focussing on the nice parts of them getting older (e.g: watching them grow up and mature, and their personalities develop, etc). Someone I confided in gave me some really good advice, which was "take off the rose tinted specs". As much as there were the lovely parts of the younger years I'll miss, it is all too easy to romanticise how it was and forget how stressful it all was. It was more relentless, the kids were more dependant on me, the anxiety of being responsible for such vulnerable little ones was high, the house was a tip, I barely had time to be 'me' and look after myself (e.g. brush or wash my hair), DH and I spent much less time together without the kids, less freedom generally, and on the whole, life was more stressful (although I wouldn't have changed it).

These days I yearn for weren't all sweetness and light, and it is important to remember this when feeling melancholy. Also, it is the natural progression and how it was meant to be from the moment your children were born.

Starting primary school is definitely one of the largest emotional hurdles in bringing up children as it is the first huge milestone and comes immediately after the baby and child stage so you are bound to be feeling melancholy. However, if you feel it is taking over your life, maybe you could be a little depressed and it might be worth confiding in your gp. I know I have felt better as time has gone on so I am sure it will for you too

Sorry for the long post , it is a subject close to my heart lol

*In the last paragraph, I meant 'after the baby and toddler stage' not the 'baby and child stage'

It's awful. It's awful. I have a terrible memory too so sometimes it feels like we just found out we were expecting and now I have 3 and the youngest is coming on for 2. I still breastfeed him at night and I was wondering just tonight if I'm doing for him or me. Is he staying like a baby so this shooting by of life feels just a little longer. Once I stop, I will never do it ever again after a decade of being pregnant and having a baby. I won't have a baby or be expectimg one for the first time in 8 years. Sad. I wish I could take 3d snapshots of time so I could relive some of the defining moments, how they look, how they smell and feel.

Why don't you join the PTA, volunteer to listen to readers at your child's school and ask to help out on school trips. Throw yourself into the next stage of his life.

Why don't you join the PTA, volunteer to listen to readers at your child's school and ask to help out on school trips. Throw yourself into the next stage of his life.

It is normal. Things will change, but its nothing to fear, one stage just needs to end for the next one to start; and ime, each one has been more fun and rewarding than the last. Its fine to look back with nostalgia, but don't let it get in the way of looking forward to all the great stuff still to come.

I could have written this post OP! I get soooooo sad about the passing of time and feel genuinely down and frightened at how quick life goes by!

It seems a lot of you are or have going/gone through something similar. I’m glad I’m not alone as I’ve felt really hormonal and silly but it’s felt so heartbreaking it truly has. I’m still early 30s so doubt it’s peri menopause just yet although I have been extremely hormonal and tearful. A trip to the GP might be in order. I’m a natural worrier and I feel like I’m worrying about the future years which are way off although time flies. I really need to be in the present moment so I can enjoy these precious moments and not spend the time feeling awful because I’m going to miss it. These feelings are ruining the now

I had a wobble yesterday. My DD is only five, and we had her late in life, and I got quite teary thinking about the time when DH and I won't be around. By the time she's my age, I probably won't be around, and if I am I will be nearly 90.

Since she was born it's almost as though a fast forward button was pressed, and those baby days seem like a second ago, but equally like a lifetime ago.