Even women who have conceived, bore, and raised kids of their own experience depression when they are no longer in an active mothering role. I have to be honest, I can’t really relate to that right now from where I’m sitting, at the beginning of flu season trying not to think about what kinds of bugs, viruses, and bacteria are going to come home in those school bags this winter (last week’s folder contained a note saying Mono was going around, just, you know, FYI), and one day away from the evening that the princess-fairy and Darth Vader get to eat lots of creatively packaged crap just as long as they don’t smear it on the pieces of furniture that aren’t already adorned with permanent marker.
But, yes, there is very definitely an empty-nest depression, as expressed by Yolanda on the message board of my "What Do You Want From Me?" post:
I have lost the comfort of being a mom because my daughter is 17 and no longer needs me. I based my WHOLE entire being on being her mother and giving her all I had. I guess I thought we would be together forever. That is not the case. I have been downsized and laid off from almost every job I have had and now I have been let go of the most important job ever and that hurts the most.
And reader Betty wrote this comment, ironically, on the message board of my post, "Guardian Angel Reunion":
My daughter is going off to college and my son just turned 13 in May and my daughter 18 also in May. I am now, I guess, getting some of the empty-nest syndrome, but is it really? Some days I get so low and cry until I make myself sick to my stomach.
Would any readers out there who have grown kids like to comment on how they were able to fill the void?
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Oh how I can relate! I have been divorced since 1999. I have been depressed for a few years not wanting my only child to leave and go off to college, I know its selfish . NOW that she has gone to live at the college dorms I cant shake my empty nest issues. My problem was, I gave up all my life to raise her the best way I knew how. I even changed from a good paying job with medical and retirement and went and got a commission only sales job to work from home (didnt pay the bills) I couldn't bear to put her in child care and my good paying jobs hours were so up and down I never knew where I what city I was going to be working or if it was at 5 AM or working till 11PM at night. COULDN'T find proper child care with those hours and family was too far away, and her dad, was a Disneyland dad, good for fun and some weekends, plus he moved an hour a way after the divorce, which was not fair to my child since she expected to see her dad each day if he lived across town. THIS made it hard for her so I had to do something.. SO .I did it all so I could be a stay at home mom for her. Now I'm in debt since my sales job didnt pay the bills each month, but it did allow me to be her mom take her to school and pick her up take her to activities and you all know the routine! I even gave up a love life when it got in the way of me being the best mom I could be. I have not dated since 2003. My sales job is bust my company is going under and I am not healthy enough at this point to go back to my heavy lifting good job from before. I am alone and scared and broke. I did sign up for daily exercise activities and went 6 days a week for the first few months, it didnt shake my depression, I wish there was a club for empty nesters like there is for red hatters.. I should start one! GOOD LUCK TO ALL YOU LADIES! WE ARE STILL MOMS... just in active duty heh heh
Oh how I can relate! I have been divorced since 1999. I have been depressed for a few years not wanting my only child to leave and go off to college, I know its selfish . NOW that she has gone to live at the college dorms I cant shake my empty nest issues. My problem was, I gave up all my life to raise her the best way I knew how. I even changed from a good paying job with medical and retirement and went and got a commission only sales job to work from home (didnt pay the bills) I couldn't bear to put her in child care and my good paying jobs hours were so up and down I never knew where I what city I was going to be working or if it was at 5 AM or working till 11PM at night. COULDN'T find proper child care with those hours and family was too far away, and her dad, was a Disneyland dad, good for fun and some weekends, plus he moved an hour a way after the divorce, which was not fair to my child since she expected to see her dad each day if he lived across town. THIS made it hard for her so I had to do something.. SO .I did it all so I could be a stay at home mom for her. Now I'm in debt since my sales job didnt pay the bills each month, but it did allow me to be her mom take her to school and pick her up take her to activities and you all know the routine! I even gave up a love life when it got in the way of me being the best mom I could be. I have not dated since 2003. My sales job is bust my company is going under and I am not healthy enough at this point to go back to my heavy lifting good job from before. I am alone and scared and broke. I did sign up for daily exercise activities and went 6 days a week for the first few months, it didnt shake my depression, I wish there was a club for empty nesters like there is for red hatters.. I should start one! GOOD LUCK TO ALL YOU LADIES! WE ARE STILL MOMS... just in active duty heh heh
I feel obsolete and useless and worry all the time. I have considered suicide but figure that my son does not need the inconvenience of having to dispose of my extra large body and get the mobile home cleaned up and sold. I live with bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder. I cannot afford counseling, and I have no insurance. I suppose that I will go on but I do not see any real future for myself.
I want to understand or at try to understand. My mother is an extremely co-pendant person, she literally never left home with the exception of a four year marriage to my father, she is now 62 years old. My elderly grandfather left her, my brother, and myself his home to live in. When my brother reached the age of fifteen he went unwilling to live with my father. He was completely out of control and has since turned his life around. My mother though she was the one who sent him reacted with jealously and anger? I still don't understand why she felt she was the one abandoned by him for moving on with his life though she sent him. Since I was married and began raising a child of my own it, she has gotten worst. She’s bitter and hostile, constantly looking for a confrontation or fight. She has also become extremely selfish and childish though she was always slightly that way living alone has seemed to compound this problem. I really don’t understand how to deal with this, and I'm at my wits end with the bickering and snide comments. I hate to say it but I'm beginning to feel there is no longer a reason, outside of my daughter, to continue a relationship with this thing that was once my mother.I honestly don't know how to deal with her, and would appreciate any insight that might help.
Whoever wrote the introduction to this (was it the smiling Theresa Borchard?)is the most insensitive person imaginable. How can anyone ask readers to offer advice for depressed empty nesters and then say that she "can't relate" and carry on her own children. She even drives the knife even further by describing "fairy princess" and "darth vadar" conjuring strong emotional images for women who will now feel even worse as they recall the good old days of family fun on Halloween. What an idiot! Do you not understand that comments like these are exactly what can drive a woman with empty nest depression over the edge!?! Whoever wrote that needs to get some sensitivity training. I hope you have a really bad day tomorrow.
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