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 😢

@MovingonupScotland Sorry your thread got derailed. I'm another one whose son died and I don't find it REMOTELY offensive to read of a mother experiencing grief at her separation from a child that has moved on to university.

As others have said, grief isn't intrinsically linked with bereavement. It is deep sadness in the face of a loss.

There is also something very beautiful about grief. It is awareness of loss, and consequently an awareness of the beauty and depth of your lovely relationship with your child.

Unfortunately in a traumatic bereavement grief is not always accessible because of the fracturing and confusing effects of the trauma. So I read almost greedily about grief, trying to clutch at the beauty of a relationship that has been ripped away. I love to hear about your grief, OP, not because I am cruel(!!) but because it is a testimony of love. It is like when people cry at weddings: grief and joy can be close companions, and the rawness of your grief speaks to your openness to that joy - which I hope you will have many occasions to experience in your evolving relationship with your dc xxx

MN was set up to be a place of support so here is mine. I completely get what you are going through.

My sister had her eldest child live at home for uni and then when her youngest and my eldest were both off to uni to live away from home hers went 2 weeks before mine. I asked her how it went she said she was feeling an incredible loss, her room was empty, she missed her larger than life presence and hearing her wherever she was in the house because she made constant noise. My sister lived at home for uni, I went away.

When my eldest went I found it incredibly hard that he wasn't just around to chat to, that he didn't come to find me to tell me something he had just been sent by a mate. Our family felt a little less I suppose. We are close, eat dinner together daily as well as lunches if everyone is here, watch tv shows or films together, play board game or card games. This still allows them plenty of time to do their own thing. I love the relationship I have with my children rather than the one I had with my own parents which consisted of my Mum saying get out from under my feet, play outside, my Dad off to the pub and no tv shows for us in the evenings, no tv on demand, no way to record anything for several years.

So I do understand your reaction to your child leaving home. It is easy to say celebrate the success but we have to acknowledge that it is also sad too.

Yes this is what I was trying to say.

Beautifully put @ReadWithScepticism and I am sorry that you have had to endure the loss of a child.

I think loving and missing your kids has been a feature of some families since time immemorial.

When I went to uni there was a whole spectrum of contact levels between parents and offspring.

The distant relationships caused issues of their own.

I'm sorry you are struggling OP. I grieved for the loss of my health when I had a head injury a decade ago, so although that wasn't quite the same, it is still very painful.

Hoping you feel better soon ❤️

I cried the whole way home when we dropped our eldest off and randomly burst into tears for about another week. After that it did get much easier as it just became the new normal. You will find you slip into the new routine pretty quickly.

♥️♥️♥️

I absolutely hated leaving DD at university, especially as the one she went to was five hours away. I really struggled to hold it together saying goodbye and had to stop the car round the corner for a good cry. However, I started looking forward to seeing her mid term and at Christmas, and the time went by blessedly quickly. It wasn't nearly so bad with DS, because his university was quite close and he came home with his washing quite regularly. DD lives with her partner now, but again we see her often, and that's the ideal balance, I think.

@MovingonupScotland it was me who said at the top of the thread that my own post on this ended up with me being called pathetic- I'm sorry your thread has been equally dismissive of your feelings.

I was also told I just needed to be proud etc. well, I felt sad AND proud!

I'm a few years on now, it gets better, time helps.

It's ok to feel sad about things that are difficult for you, sending you kind thoughts 💐

That's a good point, I suppose I think of it more as a loss of that stage of your life, rather than a loss of the person. A bit like parents who cry when their children start school. But I totally see what you mean.

OP there's a clip from modern family about when youre children leave home, I bet you'd resonate.

Not everyone responds in the same way though.

I felt real sword to the heart upset when my first dd left for university, I couldn’t believe that suddenly all the daily parenting relating to her general care and all the thought and sense of responsibility for routine things that went in to it was over! I was upset that I maybe I hadn’t done enough, been enough, throughout her childhood. I was also concerned for her safety and wellbeing. And I just reallly missed her presence! And seeing her smile (cheesy though that sounds).

But I soon got used to the new routines, returned enthusiastically to the hobbies and interests I had before I had dc. I definitely have more time for myself and I’m very much enjoying my new found freedom! And when my second dd left for university I was more prepared and sanguine about the whole thing!

Their absence makes the times that we are all together very special; same when I get one on one time with them!

But they are busy, active young women, and although they like to come home and enjoy its comforts, they are out there exploring the world, their focus is on their studies and their friends and boyfriends and that’s how it should be! I’m happy for them! 😊

So if it’s any consolation to you op, you will always feel a continual wrench of the heart, but they will still very much need you for advice and comfort and the terms are short at university. They’ll be back for Christmas before you know it and you’ll be cursing the amount of food they get through and the fact that you never have a clean towel! 😀

It doesn’t seem like it now, but you wil adapt I promise! 💐

Well op. I'm sure I'll be as sad as you when mine get to that stage, but having just dealt with 5yo screaming, throwing things, fighting with sibling etc - I dream of the day when I'm free to do what I want.

Make a list of things you want to do. Then do them. I'm sure it's heartbreaking when DC leave home but it's also an opportunity to do wonderful things.

Thank you 🙏🏼

Yes, I agree, this is a sensible description of how it's a loss. It's one thing to mourn the end of part of your life, but it's transient. Unlike the death of a child, which is forever and time does not heal.

@PuppiesLove - I am so sorry for your loss.

I have NEVER said that the sense of loss equates to bereavement or the death of a child. Please don't misconstrue what I have posted.

It IS grief. It IS loss. It IS painful.

What it isn't is bereavement and I have not, at ANY point, said that it is.

It's all about perspective really. One of my children was thinking of taking an amazing job on the other side of the world before my child died. I felt like that would be such a heart-breaking thing, until my other child died. Then it seemed like nothing at all to have them move so far away, since they'd still be there and we'd have contact and they were living their dream.

Unfortunately there will be some people who will understand the difference in future, all totally oblivious to that right now. Then they'll get it. I don't wish it for them, it's just reality. Like when at our support group we know there'll be new parents joining during the year, parents who have no clue what is ahead. Horrible thing really.

As you may note in an earlier post, I gave you a pass. Your feelings are valid but maybe you can understand why a bit hard to sympathise with from my POV, even though I've had to see children off to university myself.

Am not quite sure why you said in your opening post that it was like grief,if what you meant was it was grief
Anyway I do sympathise about how you feel,and hope you will feel better soon

🤦🏽‍♀️

It's not a competition.

@PuppiesLove A pass? You gave me a pass? Meaning what? I don't need a pass from you to validate what I am feeling.

Grief is loss and loss is grief. Both are experienced during bereavement but not exclusively.

my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/24787-grief

OP I think what many of us are saying is that DC going off to uni isn't necessarily a "loss", it's a change. Changes have positives and negatives, and can take a while to adjust to. But spending a week mostly in tears is a very negative reaction to what is really on the whole a very positive change. So perhaps time to think about why that is and what to do about it, whether that's something like a new hobby or targeting a promotion now you have more time, or whether it's a trip to the GP.

Very well put.

To me, it is a bit like when we have moved house.
that final walk round....all the memories of the house we were in when the dc were born....all the good times and the bad all connected with that being your home BUT the next step is an exciting one. It is positive that we were moving to a new place, for all the reasons you decide to sell up and move. You can be emotional and feel a tear welling up, but you put it in context of all the positives about moving on to the next step and the excitement that brings.
DC going to University is a bit like that - you know you will miss them, and you can feel a lump in your throat as you walk / drive away, but you have to think about why they are moving away and all the positives, plus the fact you will see them in 3 months time, and they will have grown and developed - as surely is what we all want for our adult children? Then you go home and busy yourself with the rest of your life. Surely no-one is "just" a mother? Don't you have jobs, hobbies, volunteering, interests, partners, other family members ?

I thought I’d be better this year, but they were home for 4 months and now they’ve gone.. again.

Read your message stopped my in my tracks. I am so sorry for the loss of your dc.
My two dc are in a different European country from us and whilst I am excited and grateful that they have this opportunity, it’s true that seeing them whirl off into their own independent universe, when we have always been part of the same world is sad. It’s normal, but it’s sad - the end of an era. And the next chapter of our lives is not so exciting - retirement yes, but other stuff not so enticing. It’s hard not to feel that the golden days are sort of over ( I have a full life, I ride and am renovating a house so don’t come at me with the get a life thing).
I just loved our life together and it’s ok to acknowledge the sadness of it ending.