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 😢

That's actually a very good analogy.

I'm out of here. The personal attacks when asking for support are really quite something.

The death of a child is, I know, the worst loss anyone can ever experience. I have been lucky not to experience it personally but I have been very close to it, personally and professionally. I have said upthread that I understand that the word grief is difficult and I know it holds different meaning for people but nobody has the monopoly on sadness. Bereavement does not give anyone the right to police anyone else's feelings,

I wish you all the best.

God this site is ridiculous sometimes. Lots of ❤❤to you, @MovingonupScotland , and to the posters who have lost a child.

I work in mental health.

Grief is a reaction to a loss.

I have seen people grieve in response to:
Being kicked off a medical degree.
Infertility.
Marriages ending.
A child getting an ASD diagnosis.
Leaving family behind after emigrating.
etc.

Of course for some people, grief will happen after a kid leaves home. Not everyone. For me it felt like I had been dumped, though after a couple of weeks things improved. But for some it runs much deeper and can be a shock.

Bereavement is the worst and most final grief of all when it’s your child. It is the unthinkable.

But people need to stop being a dick to the OP. She posted about her intense sadness after her child went to uni and named it grief. On a board about higher education, not bereavement. Reading the thread isn’t compulsory. Of course I am sorry to those who have experienced the worst kind of loss in the world.

Very well said @BigWiggg
Beautifully put.

I read some excellent advice on WIKIWAU the other day about how a child leaving home can trigger latent feelings from another loss, such as a painful actual bereavement or separation earlier in life.

This was a good explanation to me as to why some people get over it and others find it really difficult. AFAIC you are alllowed to find it difficult @MovingonupScotland , but you certainly don't need mine or anyone else's permission to feel any way at all.

I knew as soon as the OP used the word grief that she would get grief on the thread. People can feel grief after all kinds of separations or changes in life, it means a feeling of intense sadness. Hardly anything can compare to the loss of a child and I'm so sorry for anyone who has experienced that.

But I don't think it's disrespectful to use the word grief for other situations. We are quite capable of discussing all manner of things from the most trivial to the most serious and painful on Mumsnet, and I don't think we should try and gatekeep what others are discussing or the use of language particularly when it is obviously not a trivial matter to the OP and in the correct subject folder. It's not like the OP has bludgeoned into the Bereavement section.

She is posting on a higher education board. Not a child loss board, which would be insensitive.

She is posting on a higher education board. Not a child loss board, which would be insensitive.

This came up in Active threads for me.
I wasn't exclusively looking at the Higher Ed Board.
However, as someone who has spent time looking at specific boards in the past, you can be interested in one thing (eg Higher Ed) but also still have other stuff going on in your life.

Apart from the use of the term 'third world' but yes, I agree.

She was only being a dick in response to others.

The bereaved mothers that were explaining it from their point of view? She was snipey at them.

She wasn't.

In your opinion.

She was being kind.

No she wasn't.

My opinion is just as valid as yours.

We disagree then

Yes as I say, we disagree then.

The OP started her own thread, in an appropriate space, to seek advice.

No-one compared that grief to that of bereavement, apart from people who are up in arms now claiming that the OP has no right to feel what she feels, who are not even, it seems the people who have themselves been bereaved.

This thread was someone asking for support with a specific situation. The OP's had the opposite of support.

I feel you OP. Dropped dd off for her 2nd year. It was worse for me this year I think because I remember how lonely I was last year and she isn't the best at keeping in touch. This year she doesn't think she will be back before Xmas and will only come back for Xmas week as she wants to get back asap and has a boyfriend there now so they want to be together as much as possible. I'm happy she's happy and so so proud of her . I guess I'm grieving the end of her childhood. We get so close when we are together and then nothing when she goes. It's hard. She involves me in everything when she's home! I'm giving myself til the weekend to feel the feelings and to mind myself and after that I'm making a plan to get out more and keep busy. It's true what they say that we are more involved in our kids lives these days. I'm not sure my parents missed me very much when I went away though I stayed at home for uni so they didn't have that. I was a good bit older before I headed away away. We can't help it though . I've always been very close with dd as a single parent . Can't help it really. I'd like to say it gets easier. But I think it just gets less raw really. I'll always miss her.

I think it's easier if you get messages or can ring them. Unfortunately my dd is very much "out of sight out of mind". Not sure I'll hear from her until she tells me what day she's coming back for Xmas 🙈

As a widow who has sent 3 children off to university I can promise you it is not remotely like grief.

Your "child" is off into the world to make their own way. Send them with your blessing.