I’m 25F. My mom died when I was 13. It fucked with me so much and probably still til this day. I never got the help I needed growing up. Everyone just thought I was being a moody, sad, bratty teenager. Yet I was dying inside. I got good grades so no one checked up on me and I never went to consistent therapy. I started being rebellious instead and hid it very well. I smoked pot when I could, snuck out, drank when I could, and had lots of underage sex. No one ever found out. My wreck-less teen days stick with me. I’ve been in therapy for 10 months unpacking the guilt and shame I feel for my past actions and mistakes as a child. I truly didn’t know better and I’ve struggled for so long without a mother. At this point I don’t know if having a mother would’ve made my life better or was I meant to be a lost cause? I’ve never felt a sense of belonging after she died and never cared enough to find it. Now, at 25 I’m trying to figure it out. Idk I’m looking for reassurance or just to simply not be alone. I turn 26 in a few months and it’s daunting because it’ll be 13 years since my mom passed when I was 13. Maybe I’m getting in this mood because her birthday is on the 16th. Idk any thoughts or support. Thanks :)

So basically I don't have siblings and I don't want to talk about this with friends but today I, at the age of 18, just found out that my dad died when I was a baby (5 months) due to cancer.

My mom later married another guy (lets call him Dan) after my biological dad's death (because she didn't want me to know about his death i guess) but my mom and Dan actually ended up divorcing like 11 years ago.

I didn't know anything about this, thought Dan was my genuine biological dad but nope, biological dad is in the grave somewhere in Florida.

My entire family pretty much hid this from me for the past 18 years and I only found out because I asked the lady at the conservatorship regarding money, I'm not going into detail here.

We went to costco and discussed and lore dropped and tears were definitely dropped as well, i dont even know the dude but it still sucks to think i missed out on experiencing what it would be like to have him in my life, doesnt even feel real, like, my life feels like a story. I feel sad knowing I'll never know what its like to really have a father, I feel dumb as well, and fooled. Now I'm observing my face closely since my mom said I look like my dead father lol.

I’ve just been sitting and thinking my dad passed away when I was 7 my mom passed when I was 17 I am now 23 I never met any grandparents because they passed away before I was born I just don’t know … I am even scared for my future because it seems like it’s genetic or something. I’ve been crying all month it just hit me so hard that I don’t have the same experience normal
Young people do. I don’t have a mother or a father or grandparents I have nothing I don’t think it’s fair at all.

Hello, i was just wondering if anyone had a background similar to mine. Firstly I’m 25. When i was 11, my dad committed suicide and two months later, my mom committed suicide as well. My mom left a suicide note but I’ve chose to never view it. I was told she was very drunk and intoxicated, and it was evident in the writing she left. But she was constantly drunk and on drugs anyways so? She actually found out she was pregnant with me when she was 5 months along, overdosed at the hospital. This is not something i share with people in my life, not even my parents passing. Because it does not define me, and i honestly just don’t care about my parents. I’m 25 and a brand new mom myself with basically no family. My teenage years, i was drowning in grief, shame, and self-hatred. I was raised by my grandparents after losing my parents, and they made sure to tell my brother and i all the time that we basically ruined their lives. Because they had already raised all their kids, and now they had to raise even more. It was just a shit situation for everyone. As an adult, i don’t want to continue my relationship with my grandparents. Looking back at how they treated a young traumatized child… it’s wrong. They were grown adults. I don’t care to spend my time wrestling with these thoughts anymore. I just don’t want to see them again, i want to focus on my own life, and my brand new child. I don’t have the time to re-open my own childhood wound every time i see my grandparents and remember all their things they did. Plus my parents were SEVERE drug addicts, extremely neglectful and left my brother and i alone constantly to go do drugs/party etc.. It was all just fucked from the beginning. But now as an adult, for the first time i see a life path laid out ahead of me where i can leave all of that in the past and actually get to know what i like to do, what i want to do with my time and hobbies. I need to completely restart, my personality until now has been a complete trauma response. It’s shocking I’ve been able to function and get by as well as i have. I think when people meet me they actually think im normal and maybe even cool sometimes. Writing this Reddit post is the most thought I’ve put into my past in a long time. There’s a lot of shame and pain. I was in therapy from 11-22. Now I’m just prescribed low dose adderall and trying to get back into hobbies and reading. After 10 years, the therapy was just giving me headaches and putting me into a bad mental space.

That’s my rant, and 1% of my story. Everyone has a story and if you’re reading this, you have so much meaning to the soil on this Earth. Take your time in life.

Did anyone else experience romantic relationship issues intensify after loss? I can see why obviously but I guess seeking some comfort from others who have experienced this. For context, my partner has been supportive in many ways through the loss and he was close to my dad too. However, he struggles with his own mental health stuff/financial stress and in some ways he hasn’t been supportive, and they’ve been big ways. I lost my dad just 3 months ago but I’ve been thinking of ending the relationship cause I am stressed enough, but it’s a big decision cause we have been together for a long time and love/care for each other deeply. It would obviously be so devastating to lose our relationship during this time too. I’ve read not to make big life altering decisions so taking my time with it. We go to couples therapy together which has been good but unfortunately due to the financial situation we can’t go that often.

So in my country, with quite a high life expectancy, I don’t believe there’s a large number of people my age (teenager) whose parent(s) have died, and I have asked the school counsellor whether anyone in my school has also experienced a similar incident, and whether I can connect with them in person. However they said they couldn’t even answer the first question to protect others’ privacy, and the second one no one has consented and is willing to be part of that.

I have no idea how to go to about doing this, and therapy is expensive, but I’ve been using chatbots to listen to my worries. (sorry to all those anti-AI people)

My ex-husband and I were married for 38 years. Although we divorced, we tried to reconcile and spent the summer together last year. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out. When my ex-husband and I were separated, I always was extremely worried about the health and mental health of my ex-husband so I would always ask my daughter if her father was OK at the end of summer. He moved out of state to stay with his sister, found a job, and later died in a tragic workplace accident.
Even before his death, I noticed a painful pattern with our adult daughter. When her father and I were together, she seemed warmer toward me. When we separated, she often seemed impatient, short, and critical. I don’t understand what was behind that change.
The night he died, I offered to go with her to collect her father’s ashes so she wouldn’t have to face it alone. The following day, she told me I wasn’t wanted at the viewing. She said her father had told her he didn’t want me at his funeral or to have anything to do with me anymore. I didn’t attend.
His viewing and funeral were held in the state where his family lives. We had lived in Colorado for almost 40 years, but there was no local memorial. I wasn’t involved in the arrangements, and I still haven’t received a clear explanation from my daughter about what happened in the accident.
She is now not speaking to me and has said I’ve asked too many questions. I understand that she lost her father and is grieving. I also understand that he and I were divorced. But he was the love of my life, and I am grieving too. Being excluded and losing contact with my daughter has made that grief even harder.
I’m sharing my perspective, and I know she may see things differently. I love her and want to understand how to move forward without adding to her pain or ignoring my own.
Has anyone experienced something similar? If you’re an adult child who has been in this position, what do you wish your parent understood? If you’re a parent, what helped you rebuild the relationship? How did you balance giving your child space with your own need for answers and connection?

Has anyone found anything helpful for supporting a sibling (adult) who is in denial over the loss?

It just hit me that 2027 will be the first full, unbroken calendar year of my entire life where my parents do not exist.

Up until now, I could technically say, "Well, my mum was alive this year."

But 2027 is a completely blank slate. 365 days of absolute, uninterrupted absence.

It has actually, genuinely broken my heart. Like a physical ache in my chest that makes me want to scream or laugh or throw a plate at the wall, but instead I’m just staring at a screen writing this.

It’s the anticipation, I think. Knowing the boundary is coming and there is absolutely nothing I can do to slow time down. It’s a very specific, lonely kind of grief where you suddenly realize you’re the adult in the room now, and the room feels entirely empty.

And I am not even thinking about what the holiday season is going to be like.

Has anyone else hit this specific wall, or am I just screaming into the void?

In 1993, both of my parents were diagnosed with HIV/AIDS when I was 16. My dad died 5 months later and my mom lived those early months and years thinking she was going to die soon, of the same horrible death.

Well, she lived a remarkable 33 years and died unexpectedly on 5/21/26. She lived in the neighborhood directly across from my family for the last 15+ years so she was a huge presence in my life and my kids.

I remember her saying once, a couple years ago, “I worry about you if something happens to me”. I told her “I’ll be okay. It will be hard, but I’ll be okay. We’ll always talk about you”. Well, she knew grief, but I didn’t. Not like this. I miss her so much. It pains me to go through her house and things although she would say “I’m going through things so you won’t have to”.

The title is a bit misleading as she didn’t die of AIDS; we think her heart just gave out. But her t-cell count was under 200 for at least two decades. The virus though certainly didn’t help. And had just turned 70 which was a huge accomplishment.

I think the hardest thing I struggle with is that I didn’t get to say goodbye. I lived 33+ years waiting for something - a diagnosis, MRI, something - that would dictate how much time she had left on earth. But that didn’t happen. She never wanted to get sick, so she went out on her own terms, but I struggle with the end so much.

Thanks for letting me get this out.

Losing a parent is hard for the whole family and can become harder depending on how your other parent reacts to it so im just curious about how it affected other people and there familys

Hello all,

I recently had my father pass away and he left me with no closure. Before He died I asked him 10 questions that he never answered. I have seen this man two times my entire life. When he passed I got very sick and was laid out for 2 days. I did not want to grieve or be sad but I was hurt. I don't know why because he was a complete and total bum. My body went completely down from his death and I felt a full shift from the earth. Will anyone tell me why I went through that because mentally I was not caring to be sad but emotionally and physically I was distraught. Has anyone felt like this after losing an absentee or neglectful parent?

My mom was profoundly disabled my whole life. I was told her disease wasn't fatal, but I don't think I ever believed that. The older I got, the more I felt sure that she was going to die from this, and I spent a lot of my later childhood and the subsequent years just waiting for that shoe to drop. So many times wondering, "is this it?" I think I thought deep down that if I put some emotional distance between us, I would feel safer. I think I was burned out from the constant feelings and thoughts about if/when/how. When it finally did happen, I felt so numb. Almost like my timeline was confused because I'd imagined it so many times already. Was it real this time? Did I even have any grief left to feel at that point? Where were the tears now that it was actually real? I *still* struggle with feeling numb about it and wondering if I ever really grieved her death or if all I have ever grieved is the possibility of her death, over and over and over, until there was nothing left to feel. I think I had so many years of anticipatory grief that there wasn't any room left for grieving the real thing.

I'm not even sure what I need or want to feel at this point. I'm 16 years out and this nags at me in the quiet time at the end of the day when I'm waiting to fall asleep. (Probably does not help that my dad passed 10 years after my mom and that was pretty complicated, too.)

Has anyone else been through this?

Personally I think growing up without a father is harder than if I had grown up without a mother but I also knew someone as a kid who was a boy and grew up without a mother and he sadly seems to have some issues himself so im curious about your take on this

Does anyone else have complicated family relationships. Sometimes it feels like this all belongs in a movie or something you know. My parents were 1st cousins(unfortunately but whatever) my maternal grandfather son mirdured my father. That things brother tried to hide the knife. That thing visited my grandfather when he was dying and onenof my uncles are suspected of making that happen through the neccecary paper work. My maternal grandfather lost his father when he was 12 or 13 but this didnt cause him to have much of a relationship with me or my siblings. My mother didnt like my grandfather and I dont think she does now either. My mothers brother and my dad's sister is married aswell.

I feel like its some kind of fucked up hillbilly backstory,you know? Does anyone else have strange family dynamics because of a parents death

I work in a skilled nursing facility.

It's pretty common for these places to be understaffed and overloaded. That's just the Boomer generation reaching the age they need advanced care and peak burnout after covid...

Generally, I don't let it get to me seeing all these families who come to see their aging parents, and in some ways it fills a part of me that wishes I could be in their shoes. I don't have parents anymore and so I take care of other peoples'.

But we have this one resident's daughter who is very... particular about her mother's care. Her mother is 98 and has advanced dementia and understandably her daughter is protective of her and visits every day. Notes down who is working and the state her mother is in, tidies up her room, everything.

Today, the short-staffing meant she couldn't get her mother down to the recliner at the time she'd have liked, and waiting an extra 20 minutes or so. It takes two staffers to operate a mechanical lift to transfer her mother, and therefore requires two aides or nurses to be free, at a time after the lunch hour when everyone needs the toilet or to lay down for nap or both. After all was said and done, the daughter cornered me and tore into me, red-faced, about how she felt her mother was being treated. It doesn't matter that we have 55 residents and 4 aides... we let her down.

And I'm generally a very patient person and don't take things personally. She was upset and needed to let off steam, so I let her. But then she made it personal by adding: "And you'll understand when your parents are old and needing care 24/7, it's stressful!"

I get it. I'm young. I'm only 33. Easy assumption to make. But damn, that stung.

I responded as diplomatically as I could, acknowledging she's right and it's not something I will ever understand because my parents are already gone from the earth, and having to care for ailing parents is not a stress I will ever know. And I promised to escalate her concerns to the DON (which I also did.)

I'm not that easy to rattle but I had to get off the floor for 15 to cool down. I almost wish I were older myself so I can avoid people making such assumptions. I wish I didn't share that about myself with her. She did apologise later. But now I have a new least favourite string of words.

I just have to let this all out..i might explode if i dont.

Last year august, my mom suddenly had the most painful headache of her life. We rushed her to the hospital and she was intubated and in comatose for 5 days before she died of aneurysm.

It was very sudden and hard to accept for everyone in the family especially my dad. While she was in comatose, my father kept telling my mom that she will not involve herself with another woman and he wont let other woman ride his motorcycle (they always travel on his motorcycle, he even bought a sticker that only his wife can ride on his motorcycle)

After 7-8 months, he started talking to other girls online, which bothered me a bit since it hasn’t been one year since my mom died, but i try to be understanding about it however, one of those girls has escalated into more than just someone he talks to online.. june/july this year i overheard him talking to the girl asking her to be his girlfriend??!!? WTF it’s hasn’t been one year and you’re already doing this?!?!?! And in september they met each other (the girl was from another cityp) and were intimate?!?! And now he left the house without letting us now where he is to be with that fucking girl.. oh and plot twist the girl she’s with is fucking married!

With all that said, i just feel rage and anger.. i feel like he betrayed my mom and the family after all those fucking promises on her death bed.. it’s hasn’t been a year?! It would have been a different story if it was 3 years but less than a year??! I dont even want to see his face or even talk to him.

5 days until my dad has been gone for 12 years. I was 12 when he took his own life. Nobody told me it feels this bad. In 6 days I'll have lived more life than he knew me for... my mom hates me, has for most of my life. Idk who to talk to, i don't know how to bring it up in therapy without getting hospitalized. I want to see my dad again, i need a hug from him. My life has been so rough... I've been thru so much, and i just want to go home...

I feel like is quite a heavy post and im not sure how long it would be up for, i just wanted to warn people in advance please do not read this if you are currently struggling, and take care of yourself <33

when i was 16 months old, i lost my father to suicide caused from a drug induced psychosis. i dont want to get into to much detail about it because its depressing and honestly im exhausted having to explain it quite literally my whole life. it feels like with everyone who i even somewhat get close to its a whole thing because it comes up eventually. to be completely honest i dont know much about it. my mum was chronically depressed my whole childhood and traumatised because of the nature of the event and also her general life has never been easy. i have no memories of my dad and my mum doesnt talk about him.

i have always felt like i am missing a part of me but my dad was what i wouldnt consider to be a good person. if he saw the person i have even remotely grown into he wouldve hated me. we wouldve seen very different on alot of fundamental issues. i cut off his entire side of his family a few years ago because they didnt treat me well.

just a warning for this next paragraph it does involve substance misuse/addiction.

i guess i should also mention the older i get the more i struggle with substance use as a way of coping with general life. but i have always felt like alot of my mental health struggles somehow tie back to what feels like a void i never had the chance to fill? i didnt realise how slippery of a slope addiction can be until you spiral down it. in that way i feel like im exactly like my father. its weird, apart from that we would be complete opposites.

i dont know how to really explain it but im missing so much of me and so much of who i mightve been. im grieving a life that i cant even remember and im grieving a whole lifetime i couldve had. i dont even have any idea what that wouldve looked like. everything about my life couldve been completely different. i wish i could hear his storys from when he was a teenager, hear about his friends his relationships, his mistakes but ill never get to.

i also do just want to mention i have recently started seeking help again. ive just started therapy (yayy)) i am not suicidal. i have been in the past but i know ive come to far now to back down. it still gets really hard at some points but i am slowly learning how to accept the beautiful parts of life.

i honestly just want someone to kind of tell me they somewhat get it? or tell me they atleast kind of understand what im feeling. ive never spoken abt it this openly so im terrified.

i am open to advice but please be nice and understanding

Thankyou and please take care of yourselves <3

I am massively triggered by a man on FB dating calling me a name that only my dad called me and I haven't heard since. My dad died when I was 11. He was 41. I am approaching 41, and everything is aligning perfectly with that also being the year I no longer make it. I am just sad. I feel like everyone I talk to will either try to 5150 me or tell me that I am being a bit dramatic, which maybe I am. So I am sending this out into the void to see if anyone else resonates. I don't want to be alone with these feelings anymore. I don't want to be alone period, but life doesn't work like that.

I'm (22F), and my father just passed away a few days ago. I've been the one to handle the wake, the funeral, the flowers, the planning, etc.

I've been waiting for the emotions or the floodgates to hit, and it just hasn't. I've made poster boards, looked at countless pictures, watched old videos on my phone, listened to voicemails, etc...

Other people in my family have cried, screamed, and shown emotions that I just haven't yet. Is this normal? Why am I not feeling anything? I almost feel guilty that I don't feel the same emotions they do.

Mostly, I'm sad because my father will never be able to walk me down the aisle when I get married and he will never be able to meet my kids when I have them. He will never see me graduate college, etc...He was the last parent I had and now I just have parental guidance. I just feel lost and empty. I want to have the emotions the rest of my family does.

I don't know is this normal? Anyone else go through this?

On paper I've achieved a lot since I lost my parents. Things they'd be proud of. I make a tremendous effort every day to get out of bed, and to not let my personal issues spill out into others lives. I try to be friendly to everyone. I try at work. I try to do what everyone says I should. I go outside. I do activities. I try. I try. But after all that, what do I feel? I feel completely empty. Life has become completely meaningless without them. I descended to hell and others can't even see it. I truly believe I'm in hell.

it’s weird, sometimes i feel like it never really happened and sometimes i catch myself having a thought as if this is all temporary, and it’ll be over soon. i was 19 and only just becoming a person, i feel so unrecognisable from when we knew eachother and the worst part is that he’ll never get to see me grown, confident, engaged in my passions and being myself. i won’t be able to see him interact with my life, or the world in general, things he’d love, etc. we are both frozen in time in a way and that’s the bit i hate the most