To feel a bit disconnected to people because I lost my parents

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My mum died when I was a teenager, and so I had to grow up fast. I felt very different to my school friends and when I went away to university I still felt a bit different. My dad then died a few years later.

I am getting to the age now where parents of my friends are edging into their late 70s/80s (depending on how old they were when they had them) and I know in the next ten years my friends will be going through the heartbreaking loss of their parents. And I can’t really relate because mine are so long gone.

I am not really expecting anything from this post other than to wonder if a) anyone can identify with this and b) if anyone understands what I mean.

@BooToYouHalloween I completely identify with what you've said. The aloneness is painful. Your 'buffer' has gone. I was 51 when I lost my Mum (didn't know my dad that well) and because I wasn't in a relationship (single parent) she was my rock. At 51 I felt like someone had cut the umbilical cord and I was floating around with nobody to turn to. A horrible feeling indeed.

I was lucky I had her for a long time (still not enough) so my heart goes out to all those who've lost a parent and feel very vulnerable.

Actually my friends I knew before 18 and others who grew up in places in Asia, Africa and Ireland knew what to say. It was people from the UK, other places in Europe and the North America who couldn't understand that you could lose a parent before you were in your 30s.

When I would say my parents were dead matter of fact they decided I was lying. As I already had people in my friendship group who had lost parents young I had been warned to expect this. It finally stopped around the time I was about 36.

We had lunch with friends years ago who invited us on a nice trip. They couldn't cope with the idea that my mother couldn't mind my toddler...because she is dead!
I know my mil is old and difficult and juggling her care is soon not going to be enough. Decisions will have to be made. I know I'm not having to deal with elderly parents.
But middle aged parents would have been nice!That is what I missed out ...the coffee in town, the buying first shoes, the watching royal weddings....

My situation is quite different so I won't hijack, but at 18 years old I did experience the partial collapse of my relationship with my parents when one of them was arrested for a very scummy criminal act, and the other parent admitted they had blamed and punished me all my childhood for looking like the criminal parent who had also committed crimes before I was born. Ultimately no justice was served for any of the criminal action and everyone pretended it had never happened. My parents are alive to this day and pillars of the community.

I have to be very careful how I discuss this event in my life with a dear friend who lost both her parents before she was 25. I fully understand she has feelings of jealousy towards me for having living parents I can complain about. I know she feels the distance between us sometimes. Even though I appreciate it, I can't understand it because my parents are still alive.

I feel the distance too because my relationship with my parents died on a single day, suddenly and it is so fucking shameful to explain why, that many people don't know anything about it and just think I'm a heartless ungrateful daughter. My own children don't know what happened even now they are approaching adulthood.

I suppose all I'm saying is there are a myriad different ways to feel cut off from other people's experiences. I'm really sorry this is the experience you have. I try to understand others in a similar situation but honestly can't know what it's like.

I think one of the things about this is that when people do start to lose their parents there will be so much sympathy and kindness that wasn’t present when I lost mine, and obviously isn’t present now but sometimes I do want to wail ‘my mum died too! And my dad!’

This is not stupid at all and I know exactly what you mean. People don’t know until they experience it what losing a parent is like. My dad died when I was young and from some quarters it was barely a mention. So I am kind of numb in some ways to other peoples grief.

@Reugny my neighbour's mil died after a long period of dementia. The priest at the funeral was from an African country and reflected on the difficulties of people who live long lives! Im not sure that was comforting.

I can understand that @deplorabelle

As you rightly say a myriad of ways. I know people who feel cut off because of having grown up in a different country (sometimes people have a tendency to always treat you as an outsider no matter how long you’ve lived in the UK) or awful cases like yours

I had a boyfriend at university and one of his friends from school had a girlfriend who was (apparently!) one of the younger daughters of Fred and Rose West! I can only imagine how difficult that must have been to negotiate your way through adult life.

Mine is minor in comparison. But I know in the next decade conversations will focus away from preschool children and onto elderly parents and it’s like a room I’ve seen but have never been in.

This must be very hard for you. It is easier to accept the loss of an elderly parent when you are an adult than it is to lose a parent as a child. The two are not comparable in their pain and intensity. I am so sorry for your loss and can totally understand your feelings. I personally would not be able to make myself too available or sympathetic in your shoes tothers who have had the luxury of their parents living to an old age. People can come for me but I totally appreciate your mindset.

I lost my sister to suicide when she was young and a tragic, shocking and untimely death that is so out of the realm of ordinary alters you fundamentally from the inside out, and you lost your mother at such a young age, this is utterly devastating. Please do look after yourself and prioritise your own feelings here. You deserve this and have every right to feel the way you do.

My parents died a year apart, before I was 23.
I often comfort myself (in private) that now in my middle age that I’m not dealing with dementia, care homes, general caring responsibilities that so many of my peers are consumed by, so I think the priest had a point!

My parents dying young has shaped my entire life, and its made me hard and unsympathetic to peoples whinging about insignificant troubles.
I also cringe when I hear of 50yr olds having babies - yes you might live till your 110, but you also might not make 60 and thats a big gamble with your child’s wellbeing.

I agree that the priest had a point. The challenges of elder care can be great. But I suppose at a Christian funeral you want to hear the cliches about heaven!
I was at a funeral of a young person recently...I find it easier to empathise with the death of someone 'gone too soon' . Elderly parents...I suppose I shrug inwardly but say how much they will miss their loved one.

I know what you mean, OP. I lost my mum in my teens, as did my DH. All my friends bar one still have both their parents now (mid 40s). My dad was in his 70s when his mum died! He is now 88 and I know realistically I don't have long left with him, and of course will mourn his loss, but it's a whole different kettle of fish when someone has had a complete life, and you have a support system around you to help with the loss. None of my friends could relate when my mum died and I've never felt so alone. I grew up very quickly. It does completely put you on a different path and I can't imagine what it was like for you to lose both so young. I still had my dad, but we have always had a strained relationship and I really did lose that unconditional support and love you get from a parent when mum went.

I really feel this. I've clung on to bad relationships in the past because I didn't want to lose that feeling of being part of a family. I've been single by choice (well, it feels more like necessity) for quite a few years now and don't have children so I get that feeling of not belonging anywhere.

And the having to deal with everything, it's exhausting. I remember saying to a friend how stressful I was finding having to sell my flat, pack up and move on my own, and she said 'oh it's fine I've done it loads of times'. She hadn't though. Whenever she's moved her parents would basically do the whole lot for her and would even stay with her while she settled in. I find many people just don't get what having to do stuff alone actually means and lack the empathy to try to understand how difficult it can be.

I've lost the post now but another poster mentioned not being believed when you say your parents are dead. I had that too in my early to mid 20s. 'Really?' they'd say and look at me quizzically.

I still have a lot of anger and unresolved feelings around this as is probably evident from my posts Even many years on I feel like I'm still finding my feet, and as another PP said, your grief takes on a different flavour at each milestone in your life.

You’d rather not exist?

The thread has turned into a rather mean one which I didn’t want.

i understand what you mean. i lost my mum at just turned 16 and then my dad a few years later.

i think i'm a little bit jealous of people who get to love and cherish their parents too old age and i think losing someone so close so young makes you a bit 'hardened' too it.

i'm able to make the right noises when someone loses a parent, but i can't really relate too it.

i lost the only living grandparent a week after my mum died.. i've had no one really for a long time

I was actually thinking of this recently. One of my uncles died last week at the age of 69, my cousins are all in their 30’s. They are all distraught which is understandable however I find myself thinking pragmatically about his death rather than feeling so sorry. He was born with sickle cell anemia and where I come from, many people don’t make it to be adults but when he died, all I thinking about was how he has beat lots of odds up till this point and that he has lived a good life and didn’t feel sad. It made me realise that I always do this when I learn of someone’s death when they are over 60 and their children are in their 30’s etc and dh was just saying it’s probably because I was 12 when my dad died and I think he’s right.
It always feel like everyone got more than I had and they won’t face the same struggle I faced when I was struggling with the loss of a parent at such a young age. We all had to grow up quickly, fend for ourselves when my mum was out trying to make ends meet, etc, things were so rough. For my friends now, I just see their loss differently in that I feel bad that they have to lose a loved one but I still always feel that they’ll be fine.

To be related to someone notorious must be absolutely horrendous. Mine is not like that thank goodness.

Thank you for starting such a thoughtful thread. I hope it's helped you even if it probably also stirred up some pain too.

I think it's an aspect of bereavement that's not often talked about, that to some extent you have to re-experience it a little at every new life stage. 💐

I get it. I feel this when people in their sixties and seventies get hysterical about losing a parent who they have had their entire lives. I know it's devastating for them but I can't help feel the way I do.

I am sorry OP that you lost your mum so young. I don’t like my selfish parents and I’m dreading the elderly care years. But I have offered so much support, love and guidance to my daughters, especially doing the teen years. And you missed out on that. I just wanted to recognise how difficult that must have been for you x

I do feel the thread has turned into ‘older people who lose parents have no right to feel sad or express sadness or grief’ and not only do I not feel that is true it also isn’t why I started the thread.

Love doesn’t have a sell by date after all.

I lost my parents too young as well and it was incredibly isolating. I didn't have any friends who understood grief or how to deal with it. Lots of my friends just ignored it entirely which was hurtful at the time. In hindsight you see how awkward death makes people. What I really wanted to say though is that as your friends parents start to age you may ironically feel less isolated because they feel able to relate to you and some of what you went through. Losing your parents at a grand old age isn't the same but I've found it opens up people's willingness to talk about death and grief and so I hope in that way you find it cathartic.

I thought you are alone, lonely and very young and suddenly cannot find your feet in life....sorry....I hope you just live your inner spiritual life as it is and do not need to relate to others in any regard ....this is individual surely

I understand. Lost both parents in childhood and all grandparents. I find it strange to be honest when I meet people in their 60s even who still have parents. I always found it odd when my friends parents helped them with things, like DIY and childcare. These are things I always just sorted myself and found it weird they let their parents do it for them!

And I’d never say this to anyone in real life, but I do this odd thing when someone loses a parent, I calculate how many extra years they had with them compared to me. I have no idea why I do it and would never mention it, I just think a part of me feels like they should appreciate that extra time they had, but of course they can’t because they can never really understand how they were luckier than those of us without parents from a young age. I guess the impact if the early loss still is with me and plays on my mind when I see others going through it as adults

OP, sorry for your loss at such an early age.

My father passed away recently and my mother (same age) is now in her late 80s.

If I had lost them at your age, I would have been devastated since I would still have been living at home and much closer to them. As it is, I have moved to another country, have my own immediate family. So the memories are more distant and when I go back to visit, they have aged. So the effluxion of time has dulled the closeness. I no longer rely on them for emotional support and wellbeing. My mother now has dementia and is a different person.

I do think I have an easier time to process the loss of aged parents when it happens. I can understand why you would feel disconnected with people who still have their parents at the age you lost them.

Thanks @Downplayit . It’s true, my friends just didn’t know what to say or how to act so it was mostly ignored.

A good friend lost her mum two years ago now, when our children were 15 months ish. And she still talks about her and talks about her to her DD. She’s still ‘present’ in a way. My mum just isn’t, she died in another world and life.

I don’t want anyone to feel they can’t be honest, if you can’t online where can you. But some of the ‘well they were old’ type posts did make me wince a bit. And I’m an older mum - not 50 but I was 43 when I had my DD. If I die at the age my mum was DD will only be 8.

Bur I wouldn’t choose to not exist because I lost my mum and dad, because I’m OK now and ironically my children are the main reason. Circle of life I guess

I have watched my kids go past the age I was and I think how young I was.
I found it very strange being older than my mother ever was.
My kids grew up with no concept that I ever had parents. Logically they know I did! But that makes me sad.