Not coping with ds going to university - why is this pain so rarely mentioned?

[lurchersforever]

I'm not at all. I dropped him off yesterday and feel sick. I have cried so much over the last week (not in front of him until the last minutes) and now I just feel numb. It doesn't matter what anyone says about coming home for the holidays etc, because, true as that may be, it won't be at all the same. His childhood is over and that (nearly) two decades has been the best time of my life. He has a younger sibling and once he leaves in a couple of years that will be it. I'm a single parent and have put everything into my children and now it's pretty much over there is nothing left. I just feel like there is nothing to look forward to now and it's just a steady decline.

I'm thrilled for my dc and what he has achieved and I do have a career but that's it. This is way too hard and I don't think it's spoken of enough.

I'm not denying I'll be sad and it will be a big change, but yes, I'm utterly confident I won't be devastated. I know myself.

Not at all intending to judge op on her feeling differently, just trying to show another perspective. Our lives shouldn't be all about our kids and it isn't fair on them to make it that way. Even though as mums it feels all-consuming, we have to try and keep a grip on our own sense of self.

I can’t imagine being “utterly confident” about how I’ll feel in much more than a decade’s time about anything!

We also dropped off yesterday. We stayed overnight at a hotel and said goodbye to my dd this morning. I went through the same thing with my other kid 3 years ago and he's now back at home doing a post grad. So many of them come back home for a while :-).

It's hard but I think you'll feel a lot better by the end of the third week if not sooner. Almost everyone I know who's been through this experience has said the same. I think it's something to do with the fact they've settle in and have hopefully made some friends.

I was inconsolable when I got home today. Just being in the house without her made me feel ill. Then she phoned to say she'd met a few people from where we live which is a big thing as we're on opposite sides of the country. I don't know why but it's cheered me up knowing she's made friends with people who have some commin ground with her.

I know you'll feel better over the next couple of weeks OP. Sending you a big hug!

I feel for you, my only DD has been at uni for four weeks now. It's been just the two of us since she was 18 months old.

I miss her so much, but she's doing what she loves. I can't pop to see her either as she's 4 hours away.

I'm so bored though, I just watch TV and eat at the moment, so need to get a hobby or do something!

I joined a book group and a fund raising charity after DD went to university, and have made new friends this way as well.

Yes. I dropped my girl last weekend. No one said how it would feel to drop your child & their belongings 3 hrs away where they know no one! It feels all kinds of wrong I can tell you. However excited & proud I feel. I’m not devastated and not even crying. But it just feels weird round here. I don’t seem to have anything to do. No cups to pick up 🤣 I’ve cleaned her bedroom this weekend, watched a lot of tv and read. Couldn’t go out as have a cold so plans got cancelled. Definitely the end of an era, and the start of a new one!
Good luck to us all!

They are at home as many weeks they are away at university. It gets much easier very very quickly and when he comes home you will have a lovely lovely time.

Until they get their year 2 and 3 house rental, then they prefer to stay in their university city with their friends (in my experience).

I don't know, I seem to see countless threads about the "pain" of children going to University on Mumsnet and everywhere else. I'm quite tired of seeing them all over the place tbh.

I always think it's good to spare a thought for people who have lost dc before University Age, or whose children will never be able to go to University because they are disabled or have a life limiting illness, or are too mentally unwell to even attempt it, or the people who never could have the children they wanted so much.

Feeling sick and sobbing - it's over the top and not a sign that you love your children any more than those of us who are quite happy to wave them off and feel happy that they're moving towards independence.

It isn't spoken of enough. When DD1 left for university it absolutely floored me. She had no idea. I had been nothing but smiles and excitement, right up until DH and I drove away from her student flat. I didn't cry, as I'm not a crier, but I was desolate and DH held my hand all the way home.

That night I slept in DD's bed, just to still feel somehow close to her. Next morning I closed her bedroom door and didn't go in there again for weeks. I couldn't. It nearly broke me.

And, I had done everything 'right'. DH and I had always made time for each other, with date nights and romantic weekends away. I had a good social life with my girlfriends. I kept working and enjoyed my job and socialised with colleagues. I did Pilates and played on a pub quiz team.

But none of that made the sense of loss any less profound. It felt almost primeval in its intensity.

The only thing that worked was granting myself the option of dropping everything and just going to her, if I genuinely couldn't bear it another day. And as soon as I allowed myself that grace I felt much better. I didn't go and see her, obviously, but just knowing that it was an option took away the weight of the sadness.

DH helped me reframe my grief into something positive, because he reassured me that grief is the price we pay for love. And that we were incredibly lucky to have a daughter that it was so difficult to say goodbye to. It helped. A bit.

Just be gentle with yourself and try and only grieve privately. Don't put any of it on your DD's shoulders please. I promise you it does get better. Start small and just focus on little things that might distract you, a new book, a new film? Maybe a new exercise class? Write down your feelings in a private journal if that helps? Come over to the many reading/book threads on here and chat with all of us about what you're reading. Take care.

I don't like the thought that some ones pain invalidates others pain. My son had a blue badge by 5. Most people gets that pain. But I can still sympathy for op.

My son would have any child taken away by socail care at birth. He will never be a dad. That doesn't invalidate a infertile couple or any miscarriage.

People was lined up and shot in wars. That doesn't invalidate the pain of a broken arm. It's not a race to the bottom. Someone is always worse off. Always. Always. Someone has more pain than someone teen who was stabbed. Someone feels more pain than someone has a terminal diagnosis.

So really by that bar any suffering is bullshit. I don't buy that. As a part of a disabled child I can still feel and I still have empathy and I can still imagine. My soul didn't die when my dreams died

I just think be grateful that you have a child that is happy, moving on with their life and doing all the things you hoped for them when they were a little baby. My daughter got 8 9’s in gcse and then something utterly awful happened to her and her life spiralled out of her control and ours. I would be so so happy for her and for us if things were normal and I was saying have a great time in uni and see you in the half term holidays
Be happy for them and their progression in life .

My third year uni child comes home a fair bit and climbs into bed between me and her father and asks us how long she is allowed to do that for and we say forever. You can still be very close even in this new chapter.

Dd has already declared she doubts she will be home in the summer. Apparently home town is a dump (she may have a point). I certainly don’t think it competes with a big, exciting city. I’ve told her she can do what she wants if she has a job and can support herself over the summer.

she has an overseas boyfriend so is likely to spend Xmas the other side of the world.

i seriously doubt she’ll be back here. But the world is an exciting place and it’s right that a young intelligent person wants to go out and explore. I can see her moving to her boyfriend’s country which is a 7 hr flight away. Obviously I’d prefer she didn’t but I’d never say.

I totally get it @lurchersforever

Dd left a couple of weeks ago. It's so much easier to keep in touch these days. I think it would be much harder if I were single though. We are trying to develop hobbies and things. That's the next step I guess. They still need support and they need us to be OK.

You'll probably feel much better once he has settled and you can see that he's happy there (that's how it was for me anyway!).

LOL I told DS1 off this morning because I'd told him to clean his room about a million times over the weekend and he hadn't put his new sheets on his bed. Just because I'm often annoyed with him about him not doing his chores doesn't mean I wont miss him horribly when hopefully he goes to University next year!

Put it into perspective: "I am absolutely devastated and can't cope because my child is gone"

Why? has he/she enrolled and been posted in a war zone for 8 to 12 months?

No.. they're a couple of hours drive away for a month or so, living their best life, while I prepare for them to come back for Christmas - or earlier 😂

Sad, yet. Nostalgic, yet, In pain and not coping? Frankly, no.

OP it will be fine. They often come back after uni for a while (very often these days, it seems). They still need you as young adults, just in a different way.

I feel for you OP. I'm sure you'll start to get used to it though.

DS1 is at Uni and DS2 started a couple of weeks ago so we have an empty nest. DH and I don't know what to do with ourselves! We had an oddly formal roast lunch earlier and have been reminiscing madly. DH, who is very unsentimental normally, has been sighing at baby pictures all week.

I know they'll be back but it's not the same. It's bitter sweet. I'm happy they're starting their adult life but sad to say goodbye to their childhood.

I hope you feel better soon.

FFS move along. Any parent who has had multiple miscarriages could also write a sanctimonious post about ‘oh be grateful your child survived pregnancy’ or one’s who have children with severe learning difficulties could equally comment about their grief that their child will never experience uni. And I say this as a person who lost 5 pregnancies and whose autie child nearly didn’t make it to adulthood due to suicide attempts, but managed to overcome her issues and start uni recently.

This thread is for and about parents coming to terms with their children leaving home - there is no need to come and shit over their emotions here.

oh please, it's a public forum, and the question was " am I unreasonable" to be in such a state.

The answer is yes, yes you are completely unreasonable.

That wasn’t the PPs reply was it? It was ‘spare a thought for all the families whose children have died’… that was a very unreasonable answer.

Mine are still at school (primary and secondary) and so I can’t predict how I’ll react if and when they leave home but some of the reactions on here do seem very dramatic.

Shedding tears and feeling emotional is very normal. Full on sobbing for days on end, thoughts of utter devastation, sleeping in the child’s bed and wearing their clothes sounds like the actions of a parent going through grief which seems extreme when your child has moved a few hours away. I’m afraid I agree this shows there are parents whose lives are far too enmeshed in those of their children’s and it seems to start and continue from early childhood. DS (Y5) went on a 3 day school residential trip recently. I happily waved him off but on the class chat there were parents writing that they were in tears as the children left and it is all so “nerve wracking and unsettling” that they don’t know what their DC are doing. One parent was awake all night wondering if her DC was getting enough sleep and if they were warm enough. Cue lots of “awww hun, it’s so hard isn’t it” These children are 10-11 years old?! I missed DS but didn’t feel tearful once!