To think a chasm opens between friends when you're the only one who has lost parents?

[Pleasekeepmycoffeehot]

I am in my 30s and have no parents left. The latest bereavement is hitting hard. Apart from one friend who is losing her mum, all my other friends still have both parents.

It makes me feel like we are in different worlds now tbh. It makes me so sad, and it's hard to express that because of course I don't wish this on them! I just wish I still had mine too. It sounds almost resentful, and it's really not that.

It nearly feels like I'm in prison or something now. Just our lives are so, so different now and our futures will be too. I can't look forward to any happy times with my parents, they all do, casually mentioning a lunch with their mum or something like that, as they should do. But it just reminds me of how cut off I am. Everything to do with family stings all the time.

It's awful because I do love my friends but I'm slow to respond to anyone getting in touch with me. It's not because I don't care about them. I do care, I'm just so sad, and also feel like a black cloud of gloom around all their normal lives with their parents and new babies and normal life stuff, like challenging jobs and travel etc. I'm very grateful to people for caring about me and wanting to chat - I mean, there is one friend who has just gone completely radio silent on me and hasn't even acknowledged my loss and that hurts too. Maybe it's just me being a bit of a crap friend, dissatisfied with everything.

Dunno if I'm making sense. Can anyone relate to this?

Rev Richard Coles said it’s like joining some terrible secret club and I completely agree.
So sorry OP.

Hi OP, I am in exactly your position. No living parents & early 30's. Made more complicated by the fact my siblings still have their dad who I don't have anything to do with. I feel cheated. I feel like I'm scrambling around in the dark trying to make sense of why this has happened. I feel very hard done by & bitter. I wish I didn't and I was one of those people who 'live life to the fullest' after a loss. But I'm miserable, particularly without my mum & I now have no extended family all grandparents have died & I don't keep in contact with any aunts/uncles. Its a lonely place to be, and I also worry for my friends walking around in their oblivious lives. It's like a thunderbolt and you're never the same person again. This may be quite depressing reading but I do still live a meaningful life & try to do good where I can. It's an undescribable place to be until you experience it. Truly life shattering.

I am also happy to chat if you ever need to bounce off someone in your position! There's a page on Instagram I'm sure called 'Dead parents club' which while an insensitive title is all about losing one or both parents as a young adult and living through that.

Does it help to close the chasm to recognise other kinds of griefs that your friends have? I think a lot of women want to see their friends as peers having the same experiences at the same time and in the long run things cannot move at the same pace. But every life will be shadowed by different kinds of griefs at different times. I have a situation even my best friend cannot really comprehend but so does she - so our friendship works around those two facts. We are not mirrors of each other, but friends. Maybe it may also help you to reach out to support groups to have others who are going through parent loss. And then your previous friends can be people who are not your peers in grief but your friends based on other things you have shared in the past. Take the time and space you need to grieve but try not feel you have to grieve these friendships too, they are changing, not dying.

Significant loss that other people haven’t suffered is always isolating.

I’ve lost my dad, my mum is very I’ll and 2 years ago I lost dh. None of my friends have any idea of how profound this loss is. They’ve all got their parents and dhs.

sympathy for you. It’s hard

I totally agree. I lost my mum at 20 and my dad in my 30s. It’s a different world. Especially when I was in my 20s, if I ever met someone who had lost a parent I would gravitate towards them, amazed to talk to someone who finally understood. When I had my DC and people would complain about their interfering mums I would just think “you don’t know how lucky you are.”

But it’s not their fault. In the same way I have 2 healthy DC and can’t imagine the pain of someone who lost a child. And I had a good relationship with my parents so i can take comfort in that, as opposed to friends I know with living parents who are pretty crap.

Have you had any bereavement counselling? There are also some great books out there. I read one called ‘motherless daughters’ which really struck a chord.

Be kind to yourself. And reach out to your siblings, if you have any? Or other family members?

I understand the feeling that you are in a separate place from anyone who hasn't had that experience. I felt that way when my mother passed away. I was 51, so not as young as you, but it changed my world. I had my siblings to share with, which was helpful, but I did feel that this experience changed everything.

As time went on, friends of mine also lost parents, and we were able to give each other support and understanding.

I know grief can be overwhelming and it takes time. You're not wrong to feel this way, and you will get through it.

Hmm, I don’t feel this way at all and I had lost both my parents by my early 20s. In fact I was blown away by how utterly brilliant my friends were when my second parent (Dad) died.

That’s not to say that losing both my parents so young hasn’t messed me up in ways - it very much has, particularly Mum‘s death and the awful aftermath - but I just don’t recognise that sense of separation from my friends.

agree. I lost my dad at 12. A huge chasm opened, it changed the course of my life. I lost friends, what 12 year old knows how to support their friend through something like that. I cherish the friends who helped me but I lost lots.

what I notice now though, as friends become bereaved (as a few have lost their husbands) is that the children get forgotten. everyone focusses on their mum, saying things to the child like “be good for your mum, look after your mum” etc. I found that hard too, carrying a parents grief while there was no direct support for me and my brother.

Additionally it takes some friends a very long time to find you relatable again. My friend lost her dad last year and said - now I know how you have felt for 30 years. She’d been with me the whole time and never fully understood. But why would she? I have to understand that too.

Sorry that you're struggling OP. I think you're absolutely right about this. My friends who haven't lost a parent were still absolutely fantastic with me, but it's just different than with friends who have.

I also fully relate to a pp who mentioned feeling the loss more at happy times than sad ones. This is me and it has taken me utterly by surprise. Those are the occasions that really do feel like a swift punch to the gut.

What I have found helpful is acknowledging that you don't get over grief you just get used to it - and you don't go back to your 'old self', because you're different now. Wishing you some peace and relief from the black cloud.

I'm sad to read your post. I was in your position (lost one parent at 20, other at 34) but I didn't feel that disconnect with my friends. They were lifesavers when my first parent died and I was still at university. It probably helped that we were all away from home and mostly didn't return to our former homes when we finished uni ... although I do remember crying the first Mother's Day in a post-uni flatshare when the other two girls' mums were coming to see them. They were lovely about it though and invited me to join them (I just couldn't). I would try not to compare your situations and just enjoy their friendship. Your relationship is built on that, not your respective family set-ups.

This is very true. I’m early 40’s. I lost my ddad as a child and dm recently in quite sudden and traumatic circumstances. I’m not really young but I’m the only one of my friends to have lost both parents.

Op you’re entitled to your feelings - whatever they are. I’m not feeling particularly disconnected from friends but my closest ones have been wonderful. They still have parents but even if they don’t quite understand, I feel that they can empathise.

What I do feel is unbelievably sad at unexpected times. Mother’s Day isn’t really bothering me, although it is strange not to be buying cards and ordering presents for dm (I’m ensuring that dmil is spoiled instead). But when my kids say something hilarious or I’m out walking and think to myself that I must call mum or when I see a scarf or handbag that my mum would love, those are the times that I really miss her.

It is very difficult at times but I find it helps to try and focus on the time we had. Some people don’t have their parents until they reach their 40’s (I know this better than most). I’m lucky that she was there when my dc were young and they were able to know and love her. I’m lucky that she was a great mum and kind, generous and funny person and if she hadn’t been I might not be missing her this much. It’s also lucky that I was with her when she died (although I felt anything but at the time). It is difficult and painful and horrible but everyone will go through this at one time or another. Death is life’s one constant.

I understand feeling it more at happy times.

I don’t begrudge people their happiness, I’m not that bitter but I find it hard to be around sometimes.

the queens 75th jubilee everyone seemed to be in their gardens having bbqs and family parties. My lovely neighbours were and I couldn’t bear to hear it, just reminded me of my own loss.. I took myself off for a very long walk in the hills away from it all

I lost my parents when I was a teenager. I think some things you have to experience to understand.

I lost my parents when I was in my 30s. My DM was 55 and Ddad was 65. To be honest it is tough but you very quickly learn to be very independent. I think people find me a little emotionally cold and lacking in empathy but I am very much the opposite. I have learned not to become a shoulder to cry on because I find it emotionally crippling trying to support others through somewhat insignificant trauma.
I lost my parents not long after I met my DH. It’s almost like I’ve had two separate lives. The one before losing them and the one after.
I drifted away from my old friends who knew my parents. It wasn’t difficult since after Uni we had all moved away from each other. I just found it easier.
Newer friends have never known me with parents so the subject just doesn’t come up.
What is often noticeable is that I naturally gravitate towards friends who have also lost parents early. Maybe because we don’t have that family thing going on we are more available to friends. Also you just seem to know when someone is in the same position. They are often much more emotionally independent and far less needy.

When my Mum died I felt angry at the blackbird singing outside my window. You'll get through this OP.