Help - How where and when to say goodbye.

cotsvale

Nicki
It really isn't going to be such a big problem as you make out. My daughter does not feel guilty or burdened by my tears. She invited me to go with her on the open day and I declined and said it would be better if she went with a friend which she did I thought she would not want her parent tagging along - that it would be a good thing for her to do alone. Once she had her offer there was special open day for Medics and she wanted to go and again invited me along, this time I went and we had a great time. I saw where she is hoping to live, we shopped and got to know the area a bit. So I know where she is going ,she knows where she is going and I have no worries about the accommodation or the area. As a family and at her request we are all going there for part of our holiday this summer (4 days) she is so excited and loves the city so much that she wants to share her joy and excitement with us.
On her 18th birthday she insisted on taking the family out for a meal at her expense to say thank you for bringing her up in a loving and stable home. I don't know many other 18 year olds who would even have thought of something like that. She is a mature and capable person well able to seperate herself from us and leave home successfully.

Due to you post I rang some of my friends and asked them what they had done and how they had been. All of them without exception told me that they had cried in the weeks leading up to their child's departure and all but one cried at the Uni in front of their child. Also afterwards as they made the adjustment at home for some weeks some, not all of them cried. My friends are doctors, teachers, shop assistants , vicars and housewives, intelligent women not emotional wrecks - and neither am I.
I don't need to be shaken to see it from her side, I see it well and am determined to make her next step a joyus time.. but I will cry when the time comes to say goodbye and so will she, but we'll laugh at ourselves as well.

Not that I wanted to post this here but my mother (now dead) was in and out of mental hospitals all of my teenage years and I even had to get her sectioned once, her response to my going to Thailand... a nervous breakdown. So I do know the guilty child side of things perhaps more than most as I was unable to come home (no money) and I had been brought up in a single parent family so the guilt was huge. I do not intend my daughter to have to go through that or anything like it. A few of my tears are not going to negate the previous 18-19 years of good strong parenting.

Nicki

I'm pleased Cotsvale.

It sounds that, although you found it painful, that the very process of posting on this thread, and hearing everyone's different perspectives, have helped you change how you feel about things. If you compare your first post to the one you have just posted, they could be written by two different people.

Just one thing from your post though - intelligent women can be emotional wrecks too, and its not a badge of shame to be one temporarily! The important thing is recognising when you are in distress and dealing with it and moving on (and I speak as one who has also had experience of serious mental ill health in my family, and also had PND myself in the past)

You do sound that you are there though. You have recognised that you can get through the goodbye process, and also have put your daughter at the forefront of your thinking.

If you feel uncomfortable about the disclosure in the last para of your post, why not edit it out? You may feel it is important now to give perspective on this thread, but think if you want it to be always available to anyone who does a search for your posts (as sometimes seems to happen here when someone posts something controversial)

Finally, can I apologise for the abrasive nature of my first post, which I know you found hard to take. Its hard to get the tone right in a written post to a stranger. If we knew each other and were talking in person, I would probably have said the same things for the same reasons, but I'd have made you a cup of tea first, and given you a hug if it had gone down really badly!

olive84

cotsvale, your daughter sounds lovely, you have every reason to be proud of her. I've left uni now, but remember the day my parents dropped me off. My dad told my mum not to cry while they were settling me in at halls, but apparantly she blubbed all the way home! My relationship with my mum is the same as yours with your daughter, and I count her as one of my best friends. Now when I go home its a real treat, and me and mum have a good natter. I always knew that she was sad to see me go, but wanted me to have my own independant happy life, and it sounds as if that's exactly how your daughter feels.

Please try not to cry in front of her, because its very distressing to see your mum upset, I know this from experience. Its nothing to do with embarrassment in front of other people, it will just make her feel sad on a day which is really scary anyway. I was really proud of my mum for resisting!

Now, a few years down the line mum loves having me and my sister back for the weekend, but when we leave she always mentions how much mess there is and how much more food she had to get in! So you will get used to it. Don't worry about the 'big day' too much, in a few months you will both have settled into your new lives.

cotsvale

Nicky Nothing has changed about the way I feel ..all I have done is try to explain myself to you and make you understand that your assumptions were wrong. I didn't want to write a book about it so kept my op short. Now you are saying things which seem to say that you have helped me - in fact all you did was frustrate me. However I do thank you for your time and the fact that your post got me to ring my friends who assured me that I wasn't being weird or abnormal or in need of therapy. So thanks for that.

We have had a chat together and I think we will go to the hairdressers together as my treat to her, go up the night before as a family and have a nice meal out, probably stay at a Travelodge, take her to her flat in the morning, help her unpack if she wants and perhaps do a supermarket shop not forgetting the wine and chocolates and Pizza. She will be self catering. Sandwhich for lunch and then leave her to it. All sorted.

Thank you all for all the suggestions and comments even the negative ones.

Sagaris

I was dreding leaving my daughter at Uni - DD1 had studied locally but DD2 could only study her course at one Uni in the whole country - which was 140 miles away. DD2 was the only one at home then (before I had met my OH) and was dreading leaving her - being the youngest and all that. But I rehearsed it in my head for months and months, and treid to think how she would feel if I left her, sobbing my heart out (which I have been known to do on more than one occasion - I am an emotional sort!) or calmly walking away with moist eyes - and of course I knew what would be easier for her. She even offered to defer her place so she could stay with me - but that wouldn't have been fair on her. I managed to leave her without crying - until I got to my car! But she did tell her b/f how proud she was of me, and how she didn't feel so bad about leaving - and she graduates this summer, the time goes so fast once they get to Uni - and the only time you cry when they are away is at the requests for money and as others have said, at the washing mountains they bring back with them!
You will be fine - just think how clever she is to get where she is and to be doing the course that she is.
Well done you!

Nicki

cotsvale wrote: »

Nicky Nothing has changed about the way I feel ..all I have done is try to explain myself to you and make you understand that your assumptions were wrong. I didn't want to write a book about it so kept my op short. Now you are saying things which seem to say that you have helped me - in fact all you did was frustrate me. However I do thank you for your time and the fact that your post got me to ring my friends who assured me that I wasn't being weird or abnormal or in need of therapy. So thanks for that.

We have had a chat together and I think we will go to the hairdressers together as my treat to her, go up the night before as a family and have a nice meal out, probably stay at a Travelodge, take her to her flat in the morning, help her unpack if she wants and perhaps do a supermarket shop not forgetting the wine and chocolates and Pizza. She will be self catering. Sandwhich for lunch and then leave her to it. All sorted.

Thank you all for all the suggestions and comments even the negative ones.

Its interesting that you feel that nothing has changed, yet you posted last night to complete strangers in desparation because the situation was hurting you so much that you cried so that it hurt to draw breath and you couldn't perceive of how to leave her at university without breaking down and making a fool of yourself.

After working out issues with a range of people (not just me lol) you have now shared your fears with real life friends rather than on line strangers who will now be in a position to support you through the tough times.

You are also posting in positive terms about how you will handle the parting process. You have identified for yourself strategies which you feel may work sufficiently to enable you to cope. You also feel that although you may shed a little tear at the time, you are no longer talking about breaking down and causing a major hysterical scene.

You have also posted a lot about your feelings for your daughter and a little about how you felt when your mother didn't deal well with you leaving home. You have expressed some empathy for your daughter, which was missing from your first post.

You are angry with me, and that's fine. However, don't take away from yourself that you have made a long journey in how you feel over the last 24 hours and that you are now better equipped to cope. You are right that you have just put down in writing things which were already true, but when you posted last night you weren't seeing these things, nor were you when you were sobbing so desparatey. Its exactly the process I was talking about when I said you needed to use a cognitive process to reframe your emotional state.

I didn't do any of this for you, and have never intended to suggest I did. However by disagreeing so vehemently with me, and by reading the posts of others, you have achieved it by yourself.

I hope that things will continue to get better for you, and that by September you will be able to handle the whole parting with panache!

abijanzo

I think it's great that you have such a loving and open relationship with your daughter that you can openly express how sad you are to see her go.
I am incredibly close to my mum too (I'm now 34 and still have an amazing relationship with my mum - in fact she is staying with me at the mo as I am expecting my 2nd child any day), and it just shows your daughter how much you love her.
However you choose to say goodbye, dont be ashamed to show how you feel - your daughter will know anyway. In some ways it will be easier for her as she'll have so much new stuff to occupy her, but knowing how much her family and especially her mum love her will always be a comfort to her.

I can remember many a long and tearful phone call to my mum when I was away at college when only mums advice would do!

Good luck to both of you on your new phases of life, it really wont be as hard as you think I'm sure.... and youre never really 'away' from those you love anyway

Errata

Nicki, your posts say far more about yourself than they do about the Op and the situation being discussed. Your psychobabble may be intended to help but it comes across as arrogant and patronising.

cotsvale

Oh Nicky It's like bashing my head against a brick wall with you isn't it.
If you want to think that you are right about me and everything you perceive to be true go ahead. I hope it makes you happy. You have based your opinions on my first post and refuse to be swayed by my following ones. I give up.

"Its interesting that you feel that nothing has changed, yet you posted last night to complete strangers in desparation because the situation was hurting you so much that you cried so that it hurt to draw breath and you couldn't perceive of how to leave her at university without breaking down and making a fool of yourself."

I didn't post in desperation at all, just interested in other peoples experiences and solutions. You have read far more into it than was there. Oh well.

I'm not angry with you at all Nicky just frustrated that you were so quick to form an opinion and so loathe to change it. There is really no point in my replying to you further as you will be totally convinced by yourself at all times. Why are you so sure that you are right, are you a psychiatrist ? or just keen on psycobabble. I'm sorry and I don't want to be rude but please drop your crusade about me, I am not interested in anything further you wish to say so please don't bother..unless you can't bear not to have the last word? You have spolit this thread for me I was looking forward to hearing how other people had managed but you just took it over.

As far as I am concerned this thread is now closed.

rosieben

Errata wrote: »

Nicki, your posts say far more about yourself than they do about the Op and the situation being discussed. Your psychobabble may be intended to help but it comes across as arrogant and patronising.

I agree absolutely!