Empty Nests Support Group
Empty nest syndrome is a general feeling of depression and loneliness that parents/other guardian relatives feel when one or more of their children leave home. Empty nest syndrome has become more prevalent in modern times, as the extended family is becoming less common than in past generations, and the elderly are left living by themselves.
I am a single parent of a son who just left for college. I also worked from home for my child’s whole life. My son is my whole world. He played sports, did theatre and I was 100% that mom who had no life of her own because I was so happy doing it all for my son. Now that he is at school 4 hours away I find myself spiraling. I knew it was gonna be hard but I never knew it would be this hard. I’m having severe mental health issues now. Anxiety and depression which I’ve never had before. I can’t sleep through the night I wake up to my heart racing. I’m sick to my stomach most of the day. Due to the pandemic my financial status changed and I recently had to start new work outside the home which caused even more anxiety. I never had a ton of friends outside of my sons circle and now that he is going to college those soccer/theater parents have disappeared so I have only a few family members as support. Some friends have turned their back on me also because they don’t want to hear how sad I am anymore. Which doesn’t help. I don’t have any local support groups like this so I thought I would be able to reach out to an online group. Any suggestions you have for coping and getting through the day I would greatly appreciate. Thank you so much!
I also found that the other parents disappeared once the kids went to college. People I thought were friends now moved on and no longer seemed to want or need my friendship. I realized these were actually shallow acquaintances and not true friendships like I thought. I have been without a best friend for about 5 years now but I keep trying to form friendships with some success. I am finding book clubs to be a godsend, mostly on zoom. Consider this avenue of just being around other people, most are still on zoom and nobody will know you are sad or have an upset tummy but it is often a lively discussion that makes one think outside of one's own head. Churches often have classes and support groups.
This sounds like a very stressful time for you. I call this our mothering transition phase. Now is our time to create a good new life for ourselves as "independent" adults no longer in the role of active mothering or fathering. For some of us, this feels so liberating and we have joy but for others, it feel like a huge mountain to climb. Many of us did make our kids their whole life and had no life of our own. And we come to this point where it no longer works for us and we feel out of sorts and maybe afraid of the change. Lot of stressors in your life like job change and son going to college and friends not being willing to listen. I write this because if we are not doing some kind of "social" thing, we feel all alone. And feeling all alone is very scary as the human brain is not set up to be all alone. We are set up to be in communities and have connections with peers as well as relatives.
Not being able to sleep and having a sick stomach all the time might be part of the anxiety and could be helped with medications and professional psychiatric help. It sounds bigger than doing it alone or gutting it out but I do think there are some things you can try. At least to get it assessed by a professional and see what they think. There is no shame in having a brain health disorder, we'd take diabetes medicine or heart medicine if we needed to. No need to suffer longer than you need to with the depression and anxiety.
One way we can cope is to recognize when we are telling ourselves bad things or making things into a catastrophe. Recognize that our patterns of thinking may be very negative and unhelpful to ourselves. I was making something a catastrophe this weekend and my partner pointed this out which made me realize "oh, yeah, the world is not ending and I can cope with this problem."
You deserve to start your new adult independent life by taking care of yourself first for once. Big hugs to you.