What can I do with this sense of loss? **Title edited by MNHQ**

[MovingonupScotland]

Any ideas for coping with the sense of loss? Dropped my dc off for their first term at Uni last week. Since getting home I've spent most of the time in tears. I feel so unbearably lost. Thanks 😢

You are still their most important person! That really doesn’t change at uni. You won’t cope with marriage and lots of life events if this hits so hard. They have moved out but you still have a home for them. They will still need you periodically and it’s up to you to fknd a new way of being supportive. It’s not daily, it’s less than that, but it’s still important.

I decorated two rooms in our house when DD left for university. I was so busy I didn't really have a chance to think about her not being here.

I'll be honest and say that I didn't feel sad about her going, but apprehensive. She had just broken up with a long term boyfriend and I was worried that she was still getting over a broken heart. I also worried that she would have toxic flatmates and not make any friends.

Fortunately, she settled well, made some great friends and graduated with a first.

I will say that it does get easier, and knowing that your young person has settled and is happy goes a long way to make you feel happy.

Just one piece of advice - please don't guilt trip your young person about keeping in touch.

I do wonder whether this is a symptom of modern parents being too intensely involved with their kids these days. 40 years ago, the kids were just desperate to get away - and we stayed away. Our parents may have mildly missed us, but they were pleased to see us doing well and it was no big drama. Their lives continued pretty much as before, because children were just a part of life, not their be all and end all.
Also, we didn't see them again until 10 weeks later, at the end of term. There was one phone call or letter a week, and they didn't really know what we were doing. We just got on with stuff, by ourselves and with our new friends.
Which is the healthier approach? I think I know..... I'm sure a sociologist could have a field day with this!

It is grief and it can be very intense

It eases up, I promise!

Try to keep as busy as you can and ride it out

Do you have things at home to keep you busy? A job, friends etc? You haven’t lost her/him. Actually
they may come to need you even
more in years to come.

Honestly OP, the end of term will be here before you know it.

In the meantime can you pop and see him for a day or overnight after about 3 - 4 weeks?

We went to see DS on the 3rd weekend so that we could bring or buy anything that he had found out that he needed. We stayed overnight because it's a 3 hour journey each way but let him decide when to see us and when he was busy we got to know his university town. It was a gulp moment when we left but it was good for all of us to get together briefly.

My child was utterly miserable at uni when they first went. It was a horrible time- so I'd be releived they are happy and settled tbh.
They are also udually home alot because if holidays anyway.

I am going to miss DS, he’s had a gap year this year and has worked away from home some of the time so we have acclimatised. Maybe my experience of university gives me a different perspective, I will miss him but he is moving on to the next stage of life which many youngster, nowadays are not experiencing until their late 20s. Living independently and looking after themselves is good for them. When I left uni at 22 there was no way I was going to go back to living at home.
I will have done a good job if he doesn’t look back.
Parenting is fundamentally about preparing them for independence.

I do have, sadly, a major distraction over the next few months. My DSis has just been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and is unlikely to survive beyond Christmas. I’m am glad that DS isn’t going to be around as I get ready to lose my DSis. I am going to be doing a fair bit of travelling and DS will be a short detour so I may be able to take him out to lunch a couple of times.

He is getting frustrated with me currently trying to sort everything out so I know he is ready to fly.

Will they get a reading week @MovingonupScotland? If so, they may be home before you realise.

My DS doesn't get a Reading week but came home during his first semester and I went to visit him got a day in another weekend.

What have you planned for yourself?

I think the OP’s title “ it’s like grief”, is a little misguided as the loss you might feel when you’re dc leaves for university can never be placed in the same category of grief as losing a loved one permanently. That said, I don’t think OP meant to offend.

It might not be for you but you have no right to tell another person how they feel. I am very sorry for your loss but equally understand the feeling of loss and how nothing will ever quite be the same

Lots of people on here need to look up the meaning of the word grief.

No one is saying different sorts of grief compare.

OP is just expressing how she feels and has already clearly said she in no way meant to hurt anyone.

Why the pile on to make her feel worse?

Same, and agree totally. Grief is when you know you'll never hear from or see them again. Not just a change.

If you have never lost a child you've raised for many years, you have no idea how it feels and just how different it is. Until it happens to you, you have no idea how deep and far reaching it is. If you're lucky, you'll never find out.

I pray I never do but the op said its like grief so the pile on is completely unnecessary .
I know that my child going away to university deeply affected me and being told that it isn't important comparatively isn't helpful.

You trauma is yours. Mine is mine.
Competitive grief is really unfair

I hear you Op. It's very odd.

I dropped mine off at a Uni 3 hours away and I cried all the way up. He was being like " oh mum". Next day I was back up because he said it was just a bit overwhelming. I had played the cool mum leaving him to unpack and he wanted the fussy mum making sure he was ok.

Two years later and he couldn't care less 😁

I guarantee you it won't have affected you anywhere near as deeply as if that child died. No need for competitive grief as there is no competition where death and just a change of situation are concerned.

I understand the sadness when a child leaves home. Things are not the same, but it's also a positive. Your child is doing well, they are going on to their own lives, like they are meant to. We feel the empty space at home and it hurts, sometimes a lot. I wouldn't say it's not a grief but it's a different type of grief. If it's trauma then some therapy might be in order.

This is my situation too.

And no seeing two off to university to live their best lives is absolutely not the same as losing my middle child.

Sorry for your loss. I do wish people would think before making such crass remarks.

We’ve just dropped off DC1, he’s having a lovely time.
It’s not a sad thing, you’ve raised them and they’re on their next steps.
Unless they’ve gone to uni abroad, they’ll be back soon.

Everyone but everyone knows their child dying is the worse grief they could go through. It's surely nightmare that's haunts every parent from conception onwards.

However that's not to say that the feeling your baby no longer needs ( or wants) you is any less real. It's a loss every parent that has spent 18 years loving and keeping them safe feels.

I've waved all 3 SmallDragons off now and, whilst I missed them, there is an overwhelming sense of a job well done.

They are where they are meant to be, doing what they're meant to be doing.