How do I stop feeling so sad? Please tell me this is normal!

[smelters]

DS off to Uni on the 18th. So so proud of him, he worked so hard for his A levels and got his first choice. I know this is the right thing for him and I am positive and cheerful about it when we chat.

But inside I am just feeling so sad at the thought of him going. He's such a big presence in our house, loud, funny, kind, huggy, goofy, annoying 😆, it's going to be so strange. We have a younger DS too who is going to be a bit lost without him.

Just the thought of dropping him off is making me want to cry and I know I can't do that until we're on the way home! Needless to say he's our eldest so this is all very new.

Tell me to pull myself together wise MNetters. Why is this so hard!

I’ve done this twice. I’m very level headed and quite unemotional, but I was bereft for a few weeks when my first went. However, when my second went I felt bereaved for quite a while! I think it was because both my girls had left home and it seemed sooo quiet.
but I got over it, and we really love our own space now 😂

Other posters are right, the anticipation is worse than the actual event. With DD1 I didn't cry at all. With DD2, it was weird having just DH and me at home for the first time in 20 years, but quite nice. Again, I wasn't really upset. However, when she went on her exchange to Japan in April, I cried loads at Heathrow. She had a ball, and is off back to her UK uni next week.

I do miss DD1 as she has all but moved out. She is a PhD student in a house-share and has been with her bf for 3.5 years, so has made a life for herself. She has spent 5 nights at home in 2022 plus she & I stayed with my DF last weekend. I don't expect her back again until Christmas. However, we text, WhatsApp or chat regularly. An older friend said to me: if you love them, let them go. I try really hard.

Its been so good to read the replies, yeah same here excited for DD but having moments of really going to miss her!! She is going 5 hrs away from us its going to be hard, thankfully she is social and she has already chatted with her flat mates. Great to see this thread 🙂

DD took a gap year. Three weeks after every single one of her friends had disappeared from her daily life she was sad and lonely, and she said that she wished she hadn't opted for a gap year.

When she finally went to university a year later I was so happy for her. She has now graduated and has decided to stay in her university city.

Don't be sad. Be happy and supportive for your DC.

It isn't about us, it is about our DC. Remember, you are only as happy as your unhappiest child

Just a little update.

DS is doing really well. I did really really struggle the day he went (DH ended up taking him a few days later than planned) his empty room was awful and I shut the door on it for two days! I've shed a lot of tears but not in front of DS. We have had lots of messages and even a video call, I've tried very hard to let him initiate which he has and it's been so lovely. He likes his flatmates and has been out for drinks with them. He has been cooking some decent meals and sent me a few photos of them😆 He's getting on OK with his lectures so far and is trying out a few different clubs.

I'm super proud of him and feel so much better knowing that he is settling in well. We're going to visit soon and he will be back for reading week, then Christmas, which will be lovely. It really does help knowing he's doing OK and I am adjusting.

I hope everyone has similar positive stories and if things are not going so well, I am sending my sympathies and hope things improve soon.

Good to hear, it makes all the difference when they keep in touch.

My DS is starting uni this weekend. He’s the younger of my two DCs, and between that, a job change coming up (which feels like a huge gamble) and a new King and PM, I feel like I’ve been sucked into a wormhole and spat out into a parallel universe. 🤣

I still remember the state of my DM when my eldest DB left for university. What we weren’t to know was that, being in London, he would still show up most weeks for Sunday lunch at my London-dwelling DGPs. 😂So in the end it didn’t feel much like he’d really left home, until he got his first graduate job. DB2 and I were another matter though. Visited once a term if we were lucky, then outstayed our welcome on graduation thanks to a dire job market.

@ThomasinaGallico I can totally relate .. I dropped Dd a week ago and I can't tell you it gets easier .. I was very emotional in the run up to her going and coming home after dropping off was hard . I've not cried that much for years.. literally sobbing on public transport, I couldn't stop. A week on and I can't believe the change .. she's settled .. I'm settled .. we are in a lot of contact and I must admit to an occasional glance at Life360 if she's out in the dark walking home .. but I can't believe how quickly I've gone from bereft to excited for her. As many of the lovely posters have said on here, the thought of the goodbye and the goodbye are brutal but then it does get easier. I get pangs .. still putting out the wrong number of dinner plates and thinking what she might like me to buy for tea .. but then I focus on all that she is learning and how is growing. We've had some hilarious conversations about laundry advice (hilarious for me ) and I haven't felt that void I was dreading . In anticipation I had packed my diary so I wouldn't be pining too much .. but actually have decided that a quiet weekend might be better this weekend and I don't need to be out and about all the time . Hold them tight and then let them go .. they come back and need us still .. just in a different way

Sorry ! Was meant to say I can tell you it gets easier

I was a bit crazy the first two weeks. I have calmed down substantially now! I think it does get better.