Empty nest syndrome - it's real.

[monkeyonthetable]

Is anyone else feeling an intense, overwhelming empty-nest dread?

I know it's stupid but am shocked by how powerful it is. I feel sick and anxious, like there's a fist clenching my chest. Both my DC are leaving home at the same time. Of course I want them to start their adult lives but some part of me just wants to hug them and never stop.

I'm fretting that ASD DS2 will be overwhelmed and lonely and that real uni life won't live up to his very precise, planned, high expectations. I'm worried that DS1 will burn the candle at both ends and collapse (he's done this before - actually fainted from hard work and lack of sleep when leading an expedition in L6.)

And concerned that DH and I will slide into evening TV and silence. We had plans to do some long haul travel as soon as they left, to push ourselves out of the empty nest too but that's been shelved due to Covid.

Has anyone had it and got over it? Is anyone else surprised by how powerful and unexpected it is? Would love to chat to people who feel the same or had it and are through it.

Sandbagger honestly it will get better but you need time to grieve. Throw yourself a pity party drink a bottle of Pinot spend the evening looking through baby photos go to sleep with her dressing gown/soft toy and then tomorrow take a breath and find things to distract yourself. Don't expect anyone in your life to understand except maybe your dm though mine was quite gleeful tbh. It's a difficult time. We spend 18/20 years preparing, working towards this and then when it happens you've done the very best for them and it's awful for you. Nothing can prepare you for it and no one else really understands. However it WILL get better. Eventually I turned my sons room into a reading room, my daughters into a dressing room and took up daily yoga practice. My bills dropped by 2/3rds my house was permanently tidy and I only cooked if I wanted to. Now ten years on my dd is still my best friend but in her own house with her own dh and baby on the way.
Twenty somethings are really quite selfish and I think that's probably nature's way of loosening the bond. By late twenties, early thirties they kinda of come full circle and really appreciate you again.

Please if anyone online give me some help I'm desperate. Sat here yet again in tears. Son won't speak to me about it all. Announced he is heading back to his 'summer' job this week.

I think you just need to let him make his own decisions. Whilst you may not agree with him what's best in the long term, for now he's decided what he wants to do.
He's not throwing his whole life away. He can continue with education when he feels ready.
Surely you'd be happy knowing he's happy.
Just be there if and when he realises his choice wasn't the best to help him with his options then.
You have to let him grow up and make his own decisions at some point and this is making you ill. So try to come to terms with the fact he wants to do different things in his life than you want him to.
It is his life after all.

I said to dh this morning that we should have another baby. A 21 year age gap isn't too much is it?

I have also considered fostering.

Its horrible. An awful feeling .

@Shoegal0305 I mean this kindly but you need to take a step back and let your almost adult son live his life and make his choices. Ask him what he has planned for when the seasonal job stops and then let him know you’re there for him but once he is an adult making his own way in life you will expect certain things off of him if he returns ie rent and responsibility. It won’t be a case of running back to mum if it doesn’t go to plan. But let him go and stop making it all about you and “becoming ill” as it’s just not worth all that and you WILL push him away.

I just know I'll end up with another dog 😖

Thank you all. All I CAN do is all you've suggested but my god it's hard.

Can I join in please? Double whammy of divorce and kids off to uni in the past 12 months.
Can't think what I'm going to do with myself since a long way from family. Dropped youngest a uni yesterday. House feels quiet - and empty!

That's an early start, @Heffapotamus!
DS2 doesn't start until late September and DS1 in early October.

@monkeyonthetable

That's an early start, *@Heffapotamus*! DS2 doesn't start until late September and DS1 in early October.

Scotland 🙄

I'd recommend a good binge watch, Married At First Sight Australia is fantastic. There's six series I'd start with series 6 and work back. That will both distract and amuse you.

Reading all these comments have made me realise I’m not alone in feeling this awful loss. Thank God for face time, my daughter called me this morning, it was so good to chat, even though she only went Friday. Sunday is usually our family time as it’s the only day off my husband has. Not having my daughter with us today was really hard. She seems to have settled in really well, which makes it a bit easier, if she’s happy then that helps. Just counting the days until it’s half term ☺️

Infinite Shelton, I am going to give married at first sight Australia a go, can’t beat a good binge watch 😉

Just counting the days until it’s half term ☺️

I don't think they get half term do they? Some of them get a reading week

I'm going to visit both of mine half way through the term. they say week four or five is when the excitement wears off and they start feeling a bit homesick, so I'll turn up with some home cooking and cash, check their rooms are fleapits and take them out for dinner somewhere. (Got it all planned, already!)

I've just dropped of my Ds today. He has worked towards this moment for years, he's 26, and we are all sad. We all went out last night, with friends, his mates, some of which he's known since they were 3 years old, and it was so lovely. But he needs to go. It will open up his life and give him opportunities. I'm so proud of him but still can't help the tears. It's good to know I'm not alone.

I'm absolutely in bits inside. My DS is starting an apprenticeship which is going to take him 5 hours away from us for the first year as he trains up North. It will be brilliant for him - I know it will be the making of him, but I am dying inside. He's been at home since March, we've had the most wonderful summer of just being together and all the way through I've viewed it as our last hurrah as I've known it's going to end. My DD starts back at school tomorrow and is starting her GCSE year and keeps talking of her plans, she is certain she wants to teach English as a foreign language in China. I am proud of them both, I want them both to do what they love and make the most of their lives but I can feel our time coming to an end. It's not helped that I am furloughed at the moment and work in an industry that may not recover, I've been doing the same job for 24 years and that may come to an end as well. I can't even talk about it to my husband but in 8 days time I'll be sitting alone in my house waiting for my working life to restart and missing my kids and crying.

Hello, all the new people who've come on to tell their stories. It is so tough, but good to know we're not alone. I'm WFH and trying to focus, but it's not easy.

I feel so alone and AM so alone, it's horrible. Trying so hard to try and put myself first, take up a hobby, whatever else the advice is? Thing is I don't know who I am anymore. It's sad to see it written down if I'm honest. I'm desperately lonely. I work shifts so hard to start a class or a hobby group.

@Shoegal0305 - actually, I think it's fine to acknowledge how you feel. You feel really down about it. You feel and are alone. It is unhealthy to pretend or be dismissive of such powerful feelings.
What I think can and will help is to take very good care of yourself. Not to try and make you feel better, but while you feel bad. Good, healthy food, nice music in the mornings when you get up, silly comedies and films on TV at night, lovely bubble baths.
And gradually start building some ideas of what you fancy doing. Make a bucket list. Include some easy to do stuff as well as some bolder or long term plans and try a few things out. I am making myself do stuff. I don't really feel like it, but I also know that I will feel far better at the end of a month if I can say: I still miss them just as badly but at least I decluttered the house/repainted the bathroom/ booked a weekend away to visit friends and family etc.
My brother said: when they first go, you just feel hollow inside (he's alone - widowed) and then bit by bit you start to be glad of the freedom and really enjoy it.
It takes time. It's OK to give it time. You don't have to pull yourself together today or tomorrow or sometime this week or month. You're being honest and I think, long term, that is probably the best way forward.

@monkeyonthetable your message really helped. Thank you. I know in need to do all these things. I've allowed myself to become so low with it all I've been signed off work. I do suffer with depression and anxiety so certain things can trigger it, this being a big trigger. I'm drinking too much, don't judge me it's numbs everything...... I'm eating crap. I do however know this isn't a life plan and I know I will get to the point where clarity kicks in. Right now even getting a shower is a Herculean task 😞

And you're right about not knowing who you are any more. That's exactly how I feel. I was (am) a mum. I have a job but the most important thing in my life, my main focus was trying at all times to be good mum, because I wasn't that impressed by my own upbringing, so I had to pay close attention at all times, to make sure I didn't turn mean or shouty or bitchy or emotionally bullying. Now they are moving out, maybe we need to think hard about how to be a good parent at this stage. How to be resilient and caring from a distance. How to appreciate and value them as independent adults.

From a stranger's perspective, I read what you say about your son and think what an incredible young man. How hard working, how enterprising. How self-reliant. You did that. You helped him become that person. I'd be proud of that.

And it could be a very fun period of exploration, finding out who we are or want to be next. If you are very down, I strongly recommend the self-help book Feel the Fear. There are some brilliant exercises and ideas in it. One of them is: draw a big square and divide it into nine smaller squares (3x3) In each one write a key part of life. E.g. work, family, health, friends etc. One square has to be 'contribution' (ie to society via volunteering or activism or campaigning) and I think one has to be spirituality (religion or nature - anything that helps you focus on the big picture of the world turning and renewing etc.) The rest are whatever you want them to be. Then you do some small thing each day or week in each of the nine boxes to strengthen their impact in your life. So Health could be joining a yoga class or starting C25K. Spirituality could be going back to church if you are a believer, or joining a meditation class or just going for a walk in nature and really noticing all the changing seasons.

The idea is that when one aspect of your life implodes, the other eight support it. If our DC are everything to us, then when they leave, our lives are one big gaping hole. But if we work hard on making friendship and fitness and work etc as important as they can be, then that hole shrinks because other stuff fills it. Feel the Fear is full of really good advice like this.

@monkeyonthetable

Hello, all the new people who've come on to tell their stories. It is so tough, but good to know we're not alone. I'm WFH and trying to focus, but it's not easy.

I'm finding WFH so difficult now. No one to chat with through the day. Worst day for me so far sadly ☹️

@Heffapotamus sorry to hear that