Those of you who lost a parent when you were a child...

[TheEmojiFormerlyKnownAsPrince]

Has it affected you and how?

My df died when l was young. I seem to carry a burden of inner loneliness everywhere. Even in crowds and when I’m happy.

Depression and anxiety are my constant bedfellows.

Is anyone else like this?

I lost my dad and a sibling at the age of 3. The grief is immeasurable, I say is, because almost 40 years later it’s still there and it always will be.
I don’t think I’ll ever deal with it, how can I grieve two people who were such massive people in my life when I don’t even remember them.

Yes I'm in this club. Lost my mum when I was 9 or 10 and my family didn't really speak about her again. So no support. Just weird. Im a bit fucked up yes. Had depression. Still do??? Had anger issues. And eating disorders when I was young. Sigh.

Definitely don't feel strong like the other poster above but I'm glad you do pp :)

Generally feel lonely and alone. Abandoned. Very self critical.

Shrug. Noone understands.

I wonder if part of the long term impact is related to how well or not the loss of the parent is talked about and how easily we can talk to my DNs about my dear sibling who died.

I think it affects the degree of trauma experienced and whether it becomes complex grief and PTSD.

Seeking and taking advice from specialists in supporting children who've lost a parent is important. It is a different type of experience with different consequences and needs different responses.

I'm really sorry for your loss but I am glad you are someone who can be there for the children. You can't erase their pain but you can mitigate it a little.

I lost my mum at 12 suddenly and the ensuing consequences impacted me a lot - almost more than the bereavement itself. My mums death was the stone that you throw into a pool and I have been dealing with the ripples ever since. Lots of upheaval in term of family life and dynamics.

It took a lot of counselling for me to understand the ripples and that they were out of my control. It wasn’t me or my fault! Only now in my 40’s do I feel that I have dealt with it to a degree where it doesn’t bother me. However, it has definitely shaped me and my personality. I take a long time to trust people and I am very independent as someone mentioned above.

As I have got older and had children, although I would have dearly loved to have had my mum in my life, I have been able to accept death as part and parcel of everyone’s journey. Her time came too soon but I was so lucky to have had her and her love in my life. I wouldn’t exchange that love, though the experience was short, for anything. I don’t think that the love dies and I find that a comfort.

Yes, I lost my dad suddenly in 1989 when I was 14. You were just expected to get on with it with no support or counselling. I'm very independent and never want to rely on others (to the point of being a bit controlling about things) but it left me with a deep anxiety about losing other people. I've had a bit of counselling for it and it's more under control than it was a few years ago but it's always there.

But l don’t feel it now 40 years later. I just feel like there’s a big gap in my life, that l can’t describe I can relate to this. I think about all the things he missed and wonder all the time if he'd be proud of me. I'm also sad for my children as they've not had a grandfather as DH's dad died when they were little.

Talk about the dead person, forever, 30 or 40 years down the line.

Then they can keep building a picture. They have to keep adding to this picture all their lives,

I don’t really know much about my df. I remember when l was pregnant with ds now 26, asking my dm about him. She got upset,

That weary feeling User l recognise clearly. Life is just hard work. My coping strategies seem to reduce as l get older. It’s like being a pack of cards. One goes and everything else collapses.

My mum died when I was 14, 20 years ago. I found it too painful to think about her after she died, and somehow seemed to manage to block out memories of her. I never really grieved properly. I can’t really remember her at all now.

Nevertheless I definitely have emotional/mental health issues that I know stem back in one way or another from her death. I understand what others have said about a missing puzzle piece. There’s just a gap somewhere that I am always conscious of but can’t explain. When I am feeling low I know I just need my mum, but she’s been gone out of my life far longer now than she was ever in it.

I haven’t really been able to articulate all of this before, and I have found it really cathartic to do so. Thank you OP.

Docus, I completely understand😘

When l was in my late 20’s, l worked with 2 women who were similar ages to me. We had all lost our fathers young,

There was an underlying sadness(?) in all of us. We all recognised we were similar in some way,

I lost mother to suicide. It was lonely then and lonely now: I learnt to smile and make myself likeable - I am autistic so just kind of mirrored people. Didn't always work but did a lot of the time. Terrified of abandonment

I ate my feelings and have a big battle with weight now. And am obsessed with abandonment still. Think a lot about death. It's weird knowing someone who commits suicide made me
Realise it was an option. Don't know how else
To put it.

Thank you for sharing your stories and for creating this thread @TheEmojiFormerlyKnownAsPrince

(I also love your username OP ❤️)

Kind of feel I’ve met my people here😥so many poignant stories all with a huge loss.

I’m really glad l started this thread. I paid to see a psychiatrist a few weeks ago. NHS waiting list was 18 months. He identified everything straight away. And actually he was a massive help in slotting feelings into place, it sort of gelled a bit.

He identified it as trauma and suggested EMDR. My gp has just referred me,

I’m going to bed, but please please keep this thread going. It’s amazingly helpful,

My dad died when I was two. I have memory of him and he was never spoken of - unless I plucked up the courage to ask, and then it was all quite negative from my mum. I had no idea it had affected me until I stopped drinking. I drank from the age of 16 to 49 and not 'normally'. Only since I have become sober, which is nearly 7 years now, have I realised that this event, and the fall out really did, for want of a better phrase, fuck me up. Still processing it to be honest and trying to work out why.
It's very hard to explain, but every time one of my children says 'Dad' or 'daddy', I have a huge well of loneliness engulfing me. I could never say that word to an adult male and it really hurts

It is isolating and lonely, I agree. And exhausting, endlessly.

To the very very sweet poster who said 'everything I do is to make her proud' - you have wonderful energy but you don't have to make anyone proud. Let alone someone who can never tell you that you have done enough. I have kids; I am proud of them now and always will be. If I die young, they don't need to worry about making me proud, its already done.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger but also fucking exhausted and wondering what the point of being so strong is!

• I have NO memory of him!

My Mum died of cancer when I was 16. My Dad met my Stepmum soon after and forbade is to talk about her. We don’t even talk about her when he’s not around now because it hurts too much. I’m in my 40s. My Mum died in my “difficult” teenage years when we weren’t getting on. The guilt screwed me up for years. It’s shaped my whole life really. But I was, pre husband, actually good at getting by on my own and my independent streak has been one positive. A down side is that I’m always expecting the worst to happen and consider it almost inevitable that I too will die of cancer on my forties.

My mum died when I was 8 after 3 years in and out of hospital. I’m quite blunt and independent, I plan and take control of most situations and don’t relinquish control easily. I do suffer with anxiety but tbh I think that’s more to do with the fact that my dad became an alcoholic afterwards.
I’m probably more upset thinking about my mum since having a child than ever before. I now understand the bond of a mother and her children and can’t imagine how hard my mum had it. I’m also more furious at my wider family who really didn’t step up, no one gave a shit to look after my sister or I’s mental health, never encouraged to talk and keep my mums memory alive. Maybe that’s just the 90s for you

I didn't have parents. I've sent my life feeling not good enough.

I lost my mother at 9 and my father at 25. My family spoke about her a lot but I couldn't. I blocked it from my mind, I now have little or no memories of her.
I would not be the most stable person inside but I don't let anyone know this.
The times when I found it affected me was when my DC were born, I began to think about her again a lot so now it feels like I am back to square one grieving.

Lepetitpiggy - I have same with 'mum/mummy'. Really hard when such a common word is so significant. I feel weirdly lucky (?!) that it was my mum who died so I have had a mother-daughter relationship between me and DD (with me guessing the way it should be) - I feel bad for you never being able to be in a father-daughter relationship. Its really hard.

I was 13 when my dad died suddenly. 6 months later a very dear great aunt died (she was like another grandmother). 6 months after that my mother's mam died suddenly and 3 weeks after that her dad had a massive stroke which left him a vegetable in hospital for almost a year. What my poor mother went through mentally I can't begin to imagine. My other grandmother died when I was 18. We're a small family on both sides anyway, so over the course of 5 years I lost most of them. Those five years robbed me of all emotion. It didn't help that my friends abandoned me (that's how it felt - it may have been natural teenage drifting apart). I now find it difficult to get close and trust people. I'm fiercely independent and have to learn how to do everything just in case I end up on my own like my mother. I went to uni but didn't finish the course - I now think I may have had a breakdown at the time.

I think it left me emotionally stunted for the best part of 20 years until I had my own children.

My father died when I was ten. It plunged us into worse poverty than we already faced. In hindsight my mother struggled with depression but we were told it was a bad back.
My sisters, fared worse possibly because they were older so more prone to a traumatic response.
I did become very self reliant and still dislike dependency but that’s stood me in good stead. I was driven to escape poverty and the grimness of East Kent. I knew education and hard work were the way out. It worked, luckily.
I vowed my children would never go without. I made sure they had every opportunity to break the cycle.

I was 8 when my Mum died. She died 7 days after she turned 28. It was a tragic accident at home related to a long-term health condition. She was alone. My Dad found her.

I don't remember her, no one really talked about her. My Dad in his grief got rid of everything.

I don't have depression or anxiety but I am terrified of dying.

However I have made it past my Mum's age (by some distance) and both my children are older than I was when she died. This helps.

My DH knows about my fear and he once said to me that I should try and live the best life I can. This has helped me immensely and I do try.

I lost my mum at 15, suddenly and unexpectedly, from a blood clot that left her brain stem dead within a week.
I never got on well with my dad and my sisters and I were just left with him, so I think the lack of emotional support thereafter ended up with me having a 'breakdown' (to put it mildly) when I had my own child 7 months ago.
Perhaps if I'd been allowed to grieve and been supported, I wouldn't have ended up in such distress later on.
Losing a parent as a child is so awful, I am sorry for anyone who has experienced the same.

I dont think I have ever read a thread that resonates so much with me.
I lost my father as a child.....30 years later and I still feel part of me is missing. Yes it has made me who I am now and I am happy with my life, but the pain is gut wrenching. I still deep down think I should have done something to prevent his death, and logically I know it was impossible.

I lost my mother as an adult, very upsetting and I miss her desperately but nothing like the pain of losing a parent as a child.

Thank you for starting this conversation. Its reassuring to know others feel the same as me.

My mum died and when I was 7, I miss her or the idea of her I think (as I don't think I knew her very well). It's made me very independent and determined and also I think it made me more empathetic. I think it also made me put off having kids of my own for a long time as I found the thought of another milestone without her difficult. What I wasn't expecting, when I had my own daughter, was how healing it turned out to be and how I felt connected to her in new ways. It was sad without her but I also understood her more and realised all the quiet moments you have with a baby she must have had with me too. Im at a stage where I can take the good from it and try to move forwards in a way that honours her, I have sad moments still and I found Hope Edalman's "motherless daughters" very comforting if anyone hasn't read it xx