How to cope with the death of your mother and recover from the loss

Many people at a certain stage of life are faced with a difficult question: “How to survive the death of your mother?” It’s hard at any age, and it always seems to us that we didn’t prove something, didn’t show it, didn’t have time. The death of a mother is always a shock, even if we do not immediately realize it. It seems to us that if this happens, it won’t be soon, but life often makes unexpected adjustments.

What feelings might you face after a loss?

The experience of loss depends on personal characteristics, social environment, attitude towards death and relationship with mother. In the first days and weeks after a loss, many people are unable to go to work or cope with household chores because this is the acute phase of grief.

Grief researcher William Warden writes that grief and other feelings are needed to adapt to loss. There are a number of feelings that people commonly name when describing their grief experience—all of which are normal. According to the charity Independent Age, after the death of a loved one, people may experience:

• shock and feeling of unreality, especially in the first days after death;
• anxiety, general or about something specific;
• worry about one's own mortality;
• anger and irritation - for example, they can be angry with loved ones;
• sadness;
• guilt;
• feeling of hopelessness;
• the need to support others and suppress one's own grief;
• some relief if a person has been sick for a long time.

Your experience may vary.
It's normal if you have difficulty identifying what specific feeling you are experiencing. Strong emotions can be scary, but they usually get weaker over time. Olga Shaveko , systemic family psychotherapist, specializes in working with trauma and loss.
There are five stages that a person goes through during the loss of a loved one: denial, aggression, bargaining, depression and acceptance. But it is important to remember that the grieving process does not follow clear stages. The stages are very arbitrary, and a lot depends on the situation, on the characteristics of the person, on what kind of support is nearby.

The stages usually go through many times, and the strength of the emotions gradually decreases. It is not always possible to reach acceptance. Then the grieving process can become chronic and last for a long time.

Reaction to the death of a person

Psychologists divide the experience of grief into several stages. The periods coincide with the dates of commemoration of the dead in Orthodoxy. How a loved one overcomes this path depends on his gender, age, character, health, fortitude and emotional connection with the deceased.

1. Shock and shock. The period of denial of what happened at the time of receiving sad news.
2. Rage and anger. Relatives of the deceased are looking for the culprits. They worry and are angry with themselves for not preventing the grief that happened.
3. Guilt. People understand that they spent little time on the deceased, did not ask for forgiveness, or rarely came to visit.
4. Depression. A person begins to get bored, grieve, and a feeling of hopelessness appears.
5. Adoption. Sadness gradually dissolves, forcing one to live on without the deceased.

A person who grieves cannot immediately understand and accept the fact of death. Be it the loss of a mother, father, brother, husband, wife, grandmother, beloved grandfather.

With the support of his best friend and family, the bereaved gradually let go of the situation, cherishing the wonderful moments spent together.

What to do if you feel guilty?

Guilt occurs when a person believes that their actions or inactions have somehow made a situation worse. Psychologist Edward Kubani has found that people who have experienced a traumatic event often distort their role in it. For example, they exaggerate the degree of their responsibility or think that they did something wrong. These are distortions of our thinking; they can be noticed in the process of introspection or analyzed together with a psychologist.

Clinical psychologists Matthew Valley and Hardeep Kaur, in an article for the Psychology Tools website, suggest this exercise to cope with feelings of guilt:

• Write down on paper your regrets and everything you blame yourself for.
• Try to look at your feelings with compassion. We all have regrets and we all make mistakes, but relationships aren't all mistakes and regrets.
• Perhaps you can take a broader view and give yourself some kindness, like you would a dear friend. Ask yourself:

1. If your mother could hear and see how sorry and guilty you are, how would she reassure and console you?
2. What would a dear and wise friend say to you?
3. If another person felt regret and guilt, what would you say to them?

• Talk to your friends and family about how you are feeling, they may be able to support you.

Olga Shaveko

Women often come to me with regrets about not having time to talk to their mother, with unspoken grievances. In this situation, it helps to write a letter and express in it everything that was not possible during life. You can do whatever you want with the letter: leave it, burn it, tear it up. If you feel that one letter is not enough, write more.

Sometimes people feel guilty because they think that they somehow did not care for the patient properly or were not there enough. There may be guilt, and it is normal to feel it, but it is important to understand that it should not overwhelm you. “If I had acted differently, everything would have been different” - no. While a person blames himself, he does not accept the fact of loss, he goes over in his head the moments of how everything could be corrected.

To avoid self-blame, it is important to remember that you did not know the consequences and could not have done anything differently. Even if you had a fight with your mother the day before, you can look at it this way: the decision you made then was the only possible one in those circumstances.

Yulia, 25 years old

My mother raised me quite authoritarianly. I was angry with her and could wish her death. Mom died when I was a teenager. I thought I caused her death with my thoughts. Guilt plagued me until I worked through it in therapy as an adult.

The destruction of the illusion of children's omnipotence helped me; I realized that I could not influence my mother's death with my thoughts. I have now been going to therapy for over a year. But I still have a feeling of guilt for wishing her harm, and I continue to work with it.

And if there is no grief, is that normal?

Australian scholar and director of the Grief Center Christopher Hall writes that everyone experiences loss differently. It is possible that you will not grieve the way it is shown in the movies or the way your relatives come to life. You may be coping with your mom's death without tears, but it can still be grief.

If the mother was ill for a long time, the child could grieve her loss even before death. Because the loss is not only death, but also the loss of hope, the loss of a close relationship with the mother.

Sometimes it happens that mother and child do not have a close relationship. Then, even though the mother is a related person by blood, perhaps her child may not experience grief from the death of the mother.

Olga Shaveko

After the death of your mother, you can feel relief if the relationship was bad. Then you can feel that conflicts and resentments have stopped. It is difficult to accept the feeling of relief and joy due to guilt. After all, my mother died, and in such a situation it is customary to grieve. But any emotions are normal, you can allow yourself to feel them.

There may also be relief if the mother was sick for a long time and it was difficult to care for her. When a person is tired and burned out during caregiving, they may feel relieved that the hard work is over. And this is also a normal feeling.

Allow yourself to be sad sometimes

So, let's imagine that a year and a half has passed since your mother died. You miss her a lot, especially when you go to visit your father. You're holding up pretty well. You can laugh and smile when you tell your children what your mother told you as a child. You can also play her favorite songs and sing as loud as she sang. You can even say that you are doing well.

But some days are harder than others. One day you may wake up and want to hear your mother's voice. You'll want to call her right away and hear her laugh. You want to laugh together. Your mother probably had the best sense of humor of anyone you've ever known, and you really need it.

Is it possible to somehow psychologically prepare yourself in advance?

If you are wondering how you will feel during a loss, you can try to explore your own relationship with death. For example, ask yourself what scares you most about her. This will help you gradually come to terms with the fact that sooner or later you may face the loss of a loved one.

At the same time, psychiatrist Abigail Brenner, in a publication for a service for finding psychotherapists, emphasizes that loss will be a painful and difficult experience, even if you prepare for it.

The death of a loved one is a great loss that can cause many changes in life. Grief does not end quickly, and often a person must adapt not only to the loss of a loved one, but also to the fact that the usual order of things will change.

Olga Shaveko

Even if mom is sick, death will still be unexpected. No matter how we realize that the disease is serious, we always live in the moment. For example, one day my mother is more cheerful, and this gives me hope that everything will work out.

At this moment, you can pay attention to your well-being so as not to burn out. A person with burnout often becomes cynical and irritable; he has no strength left for empathy and communication with his mother. And it is important to continue communicating, holding hands, in order to ask all questions and express feelings, while mom can answer them.

The scientific journal “Bulletin of TvGU” presents the results of a comparative study of the experiences of people faced with loss: for some, a loved one passed away suddenly, for others - slowly, as a result of illness. It turned out that sudden death is more difficult to come to terms with. Those faced with such a situation tend to blame themselves for past conflicts with loved ones and for not being able to say goodbye.

We live in the illusion of stability, that tomorrow will come, that we can call our loved ones. And they are not ready for the fact that this can change in one second. Sudden death can be deeply hurtful because it disrupts this sense of stability.

Olga Shaveko

But those who have lost loved ones from a long-term illness experience grief more acutely. This is due to the fact that they were depressed for a long time due to the serious condition of their loved one and the inability to help him recover. Therefore, if you are caring for your mother during illness, it is important to make time for yourself to rest.

Elena, 28 years old

Mom died a year ago. It was unexpected. She was not sick, did not complain about her health. Two days ago we communicated with her, everything was fine. And then death.

How did I feel? I was very hurt. Very sad. I didn't understand why? How? Why so early? I couldn't stop crying for a long time. I didn't believe what was happening. I still, a year later, don’t believe it. I feel sorry, hurt and offended that she left so early.

Since then I turned to a psychologist for help. And just recently it became a little easier. Gradually the feeling that she is somewhere nearby disappears. I stopped dreaming about her often.

Analysis of the mourner's behavior

Psychologists note that in the first two weeks after the tragedy, virtually any reaction of orphaned children to grief is considered normal, be it a state of disbelief and apparent peace or aggression unusual for the target. Any feature of behavior these days is a consequence of the process of restructuring attachments in that part of a person’s life that the mother has so far occupied.

A sudden feeling of emptiness in nature does not always mean death; it also serves as a signal to us about a sudden loss. This explains the unstable behavior of people who, after the death of their mother, either fall into a “waiting mode” or begin to blame others for injustice. The image of a loved one appears to them in the crowd, his voice is heard from the telephone receiver; sometimes it seems to them that the sad news was wrong, and everything remains the same, they just need to wait or get the truth from outsiders.

If the mother's relationship with her children was contradictory and ambivalent, or showed strong dependence on both sides, the experience of grief may be pathological and expressed in an exaggerated reaction or delayed emotions. It is also bad if, in addition to the process of natural loss, anguish of a social nature is added: what will relatives think, how will they perceive the mourning of an employee in the work team?

Experts insist that no difficulties in understanding the situation by others should affect a person’s psychological need to go through all stages of grief at a measured pace. If the mourner has an urgent need after the death of his mother to complete some things that were important to her and spend time solving her lifetime problems, then this must be done. If he wants to live a little more according to the rules she once established, he cannot be prevented from doing so.

Over time, understanding the importance of leading your own full life and competently placing emphasis in favor of pressing problems will transfer the attitude towards the image of the deceased mother to a deeper, spiritual level. As a rule, this occurs a year after a family tragedy and is the natural end of the mourning period

How to say goodbye to your mother?

All cultures have rituals of farewell to the deceased. They may differ, but they have a similar meaning - they help to acknowledge the fact of loss, say goodbye, and be together in difficult times. According to clinical psychologist Kristi Denkla, one of the steps to coming to terms with the fact of death is to see the body of the deceased. Therefore, many psychotherapists advise attending the funeral.

In Russia, it is customary to say goodbye at a funeral and then at a wake. Also, many remember the deceased on his birthday and the day of death.

If you didn't have the opportunity to attend the funeral, you can say goodbye in a different way. For example, write a farewell letter and burn it, play your favorite song with your mother at a family meeting, go on a trip to her favorite places. All these actions are symbolic, but they also help to overcome grief.

Olga Shaveko

Rituals help you say goodbye. There are situations when it hurts so much that you can’t talk about your mother or remember her. Then the topic becomes taboo. Funerals and wakes are needed to get everyone together and say goodbye. This is a kind of transition to reality, where the person is no longer with you.

Mother's birthdays and death days remind us that now is the time to remember and talk about her. Conversations are needed to share sadness with other people, to recognize that there was a person, everyone remembers him, but now he is gone. These are the traditions that are worth preserving because they help you adapt to loss.

Even if people do not perform special rituals, they still tend to remember the dead on their important dates. Often clients come to therapy on the anniversaries of the death of their loved ones.

The desire to gain immortality

On the one hand, it is clear that every person would like to live an eternal life and have time to do everything that he wanted, but for which there is always not enough time. However, there are also those individuals who literally become obsessed with immortality. They begin to read literature, study books on how exactly they can achieve what they want. And even if such people do not perform strange rituals or try to summon someone from the other world, they still waste a huge amount of time on such searches. As a result, in the pursuit of immortality, they miss precious minutes of life. Therefore, this position is considered fundamentally wrong.

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What to do if everything around reminds you of your mother?

It happens that it is difficult to come across constant reminders of your mother. And if you lived together, her things would be everywhere: a toothbrush in the bathroom, laundry in the laundry, a mug in the kitchen. But throwing things away or putting them away can be even more difficult than looking at them.

If mom's room remains untouched for many years after her death, it may maintain the illusion that nothing happened. This is bad because a person can remain in denial that his mother died.

Olga Shaveko

Co-founders of the grief portal What's your grief? They advise you to sort things out like this:

Call friends or family members for help. Ask them to collect and throw away things that are definitely not valuable (uneaten food, personal hygiene items, laundry). You can also ask them to help you collect and sort the rest of your things. For example, you can put things in different boxes:

• save for yourself;
• leave for others;
• sell;
• donate, give;
• throw away;
• things that you can't decide yet.

When sorting, it can be difficult to decide what to do with things. It is important to take breaks; there is no need to sort everything out at once.

You can ask yourself questions:

• Do I have room for this item?
• Do I need to save all items? For example, if your mother collected porcelain figurines, the collection may take up a lot of space. Then you can keep a few figures for yourself and give the rest to relatives and friends.
• Can I take a photo of this item? Sometimes it is difficult to part with an item, even if it is necessary. In this case, you can take high-quality photos of the item and keep them as a souvenir.
• Can I make something valuable out of these things? For example, you can make a bedspread from prints of old T-shirts.

Important things for you, photographs, letters can be put in a special “memory box”. Find a suitable storage space and schedule times when you remember Mom and look through the items in the box, such as on death anniversaries and birthdays.

After a loss, especially in the first weeks, it can be difficult to return to activities that involve mom. For example, going to your cafe, mom’s favorite dish, cycling along your route. It is important to gradually regain the opportunity to visit your favorite places and do your favorite things in a new reality where there is no mother.

Here's a way to gradually confront situations that trigger memories:

• Make a list of places and activities that remind you of your mother. Rank the situations from the simplest to the most complex, causing a lot of feelings.
• Make a plan for how and when you will begin to face the situations you have been avoiding. To make it easier, ask a friend or close family member to go with you.
• Be gentle with yourself, it's best to start with small steps because it may be difficult to face the reminders again.
• If you notice difficult emotions arising, try to slow down and describe these emotions, feel where exactly in the body they are felt most strongly. This will help you get in touch with your emotions.

Track your emotional state

If your mother died, how to live on? The following recommendations from specialists, which we will give below, will help you. Learn to monitor your emotional state to determine when feelings of sadness increase. Of course, this skill will not eliminate worries, but it will help make these moments less painful. For example, if you started crying in a hypermarket when you remembered that you went there with your mother, then next time go to the shopping floor with someone close so that he can support you.

Note that against the backdrop of emotional outbursts, a person may feel that his career is unpromising and his marriage is terrible. Be sure to write down all hasty conclusions in a notebook, and then check them over time for consistency, without neglecting the support of loved ones.

How to support yourself after loss?

Different actions may be required at different times after a loss. Clinical psychologists Matthew Valley and Hardeep Kaur recommend:

• Carry out any rituals. Rituals help you understand the reality of what happened and find your meaning in it.
• Express your grief, sorrow and other feelings. For example, keep a diary and record your experiences in it.
• Tell the story of your loss and grief, for example, write your story on social networks. This is also a way to reflect on experiences and get support.
• Write a letter to your mom about what you wanted to say and didn’t say. This will help express feelings.
• Be in touch with your emotions. Many of us are good at suppressing emotions, so feeling them can be difficult and unusual. You can imagine every emotion as a part of yourself. For example, the part that is angry and the part that is afraid. Distinguishing your emotions is important to understand what is happening to you and how you can help yourself.

Olga Shaveko

The better a person understands himself, the easier it is to support himself during periods of grief. Support is a word that everyone understands differently. You can understand what kind of support you need by remembering what kind of support you had in your family, or by asking yourself what kind of support I expect. Often we do not ask ourselves such questions, but expect from loved ones that they should know what and when to say.

Sadness and crying are normal and appropriate to the situation. Many people find it difficult to allow themselves emotions, because there is a feeling that if you let yourself go a little, you will never stop crying. The grieving process occurs in waves, sometimes it’s very difficult, sometimes it becomes easier.

And often society, people who support, try to distract, say that life goes on and we must hold on. You can try to get away from emotions for a while, but they will still cover you. Then trivial situations like spilled tea can cause sobs. At such moments, it helps to go to a psychologist to create a safe space for living emotions.

You can say: “It’s important for me to cry.” Explain that this helps to cope with the loss. It is difficult for people to simply be there and hold the hand of a crying person. I want to do something and help. But being close can be the most important thing.

If loved ones violate your personal space and devalue your feelings, it is important to find a time and place for yourself where you can experience emotions. For example, agree to see a supportive friend more often. It is better to reduce communication that makes you feel bad.

Yulia, 25 years old

My mother died when I was 12 years old. I stayed with my dad and grandmother. It was a stressful period, conflicts began in the family, and soon my grandmother left.

For a long time I repressed my feelings about my mother’s death. There was a moment at the funeral when I wanted to cry and join in the general feeling of grief. One of my mother’s friends said that I should not cry so as not to upset my grandmother. I never managed to cry, and for a long time after that I didn’t cry at all. And repressed grief.

When I was at university, it became more and more difficult for me to pass papers. I came to therapy with a request about difficulties in studying, and at the very first session I began to talk about the death of my mother and cry. In therapy, I felt better, and I began to work with unlived and blocked feelings.

Psychologists' opinion

In order for the pain to truly subside, it is important to go through all the stages of “grieving”:

1. State of shock (1-3 days). The message about the death of the mother initially leads to a stupor. The person denies reality. It seems that this is a mistake, a bad dream, etc. He has to confirm the fact of death again and again. Some people do not get out of this state for many years, or even their entire lives. For example, a daughter leaves all her things to her mother, hoping that someday they will be useful to her again.
2. Sobbing (1-9 days of death). During this period, a person is overcome by the most powerful emotions, he feels pain, despair, and cries a lot and heavily. At times, sobbing is replaced by complete physical and emotional exhaustion. This is especially common immediately after a funeral.
3. Depression (up to 40 days). Relatives and loved ones return to their former lives. There is less and less support. There is an acute feeling of emptiness, strong melancholy and anger.
4. Mourning (up to a year). Emotions subside. Acute pain appears only occasionally. A person realizes his loss, spends a lot of time with memories, carefully sorts them out, and tries to talk to someone. When sadness sets in, she cries.
5. Anniversary. An important moment when all relatives gather again. It is customary to celebrate this day with remembrance, wakes, prayer, and a trip to the cemetery. Such a ritual should help to finally say goodbye and let the mother go. Not necessarily on the same day. Mourning can last up to 1.5 years. Then, unless stuck, the daughter or son returns to everyday life. At times they feel the same emotions, but the general condition remains satisfactory.

Important. Nature has a natural mechanism for dealing with grief

Interfering with it or neglecting it is fraught with consequences. A person can get stuck at a certain stage, which means falling into a long-term depression. It’s not for nothing that our ancestors invited professional mourners to funerals. They helped me get in the right frame of mind. Therefore, at first you need to step back from all important matters, take a vacation, send your children to visit you so that you can cry enough. At the same time, it is strictly not recommended to suppress feelings with alcohol, sleeping pills or sedatives.

How to support loved ones who are also experiencing loss?

Many people find it difficult to find words that are appropriate. Here are the phrases cited by psychologist Sergei Shefov as an example of what you can say to a grieving person:

• "How do you feel?" is an open question that gives the grieving person the opportunity to speak out.
• “I'm sorry this happened” and “I don't know what to say, but I want you to know that I feel this way with you” are ways to express your feelings.

Olga Shaveko

You and your loved ones may not be in the same stages of grief. For example, one person is in the stage of aggression and protests against what happened. And the other one is sad. And it seems to the first that the second doesn’t care at all and doesn’t support him. It is important to understand that you experience grief differently. You can seek support from people who are not affected by grief.

You can be there and allow emotions to show, ask what support is needed. Do not isolate a person from life, for example, if he feels the strength to go to work, support his decision.

It certainly doesn’t help to ignore the topic of loss and expect that after the funeral a person will live as before. Because then it will be difficult for the grieving person to cry and be sad next to you. He may brace himself to hide his emotions, but this will only increase the tension between you.

Surviving the death of a mother: faith and love will help

It will be a little easier for a religious person to return to life, because he knows that the Lord gives strength for any test, and death is the beginning of a new stage for a loved one. You can’t grieve or be too sad, which is a manifestation of selfishness. An abandoned child, even if he has already grown up (for parents, children are an eternal, unchanging status), can communicate with a clergyman. If you have a confessor, it will be even easier: you just need to come to church to start a conversation. You can simply pray, light a candle for your mother, order a funeral service. Often, even people far from religion begin to believe in God after difficult trials and losses.

What if the family has small children? How can you avoid hurting them?

Candidate of Psychological Sciences Natalya Nozikova and educational psychologist Ekaterina Kolesnik argue that a child is more likely to experience grief without post-traumatic syndrome if he is allowed to show feelings. And also if there is a significant adult in his life who takes care of him.

Lena, 36 years old

When my mother died, my daughter was less than two months old. I wasn’t at the funeral, I couldn’t leave her with anyone. I think mom would understand. I don’t have an open gestalt about farewell.

I was constantly concerned about my daughter. I consoled myself with the thought that it was natural that we bury our parents. Mom lived a difficult life, buried two sons, but remained strong. I wanted to get support from her, I couldn’t believe that I couldn’t call her. Although I am 36 years old, it seems that before my mother died I was a child, and now I have become an adult.

Olga Shaveko

You can tell the child that his grandmother or mother has died, that now we will not see her, but we will remember her. You can take a child to a funeral, but don’t lead him if he doesn’t want to, don’t push him to take active action. It is important for a child, like an adult, to say goodbye to a loved one. The very presence at the funeral is not traumatic for him. A hysteria from an adult that he sees can frighten a child.

Younger children 3–5 years old see death as something reversible. From the age of 6, children understand that living things tend to die. You can build a conversation based on the child’s questions and his reaction.

If you feel that the child will have a hard time bearing the news of death, you can read fairy tales in which the characters lose someone close.

Often clients say: “How can I cry, because there are children nearby?” If a person does not bang his head against the wall, then children are able to withstand the tears of their parents. You can tell your child: “I’m sad that grandma is not around.” This is how we allow the child to feel. Children grieve too, but they may show it differently.

"Negation"

The countdown of the stages of experiencing grief begins from the moment a person learns about the misfortune that has befallen him, and the first wave of reaction occurs on his part. Otherwise, the stage of denial is called shock, which best characterizes the onset of the following symptoms:

• mistrust;
• irritation towards the one who brought the news;
• numbness;
• an attempt to refute the obvious fact of death;
• inappropriate behavior towards the deceased mother (attempts to call her, waiting for her for dinner, etc.)

As a rule, the first stage lasts until the funeral, when the person can no longer deny what happened. Relatives are advised to protect the mourners from preparing for the funeral ceremony and allow them to speak out and throw out all their emotions, which primarily express bewilderment and resentment. It is useless to console a person who is at the stage of denial - information of this kind will not be perceived by him.

How long will it take to return to life?

It's difficult to make predictions because people deal with grief differently. In a Cambridge University study, many people describe the first 4-6 months after a loss as the peak of grief. The experience of grief does not end there, but after this period a person may feel more stable.

Olga Shaveko

For many clients, grieving takes 1.5–2 years.

You can understand that the grieving process has ended if the emotions become weaker. The feeling of pain and loss will roll in, but it will be more of sadness and regret, rather than hopeless grief.

There is a stereotype that only good things are remembered about those who have passed on. However, if the mother is remembered as unrealistically good, this may mean that the work of grief has not yet been done. When the grieving process is completed, the memories will be voluminous - both good and bad.

When should you seek help?

In an article for the non-profit organization HelpGuide, they name signs when you need to seek help:

• You feel that life is not worth living.
• I would like to die with my mother.
• Blame yourself for your mother's death.
• For several weeks now you have not felt connected to others, as if you were separated from them.
• You don't trust anyone after your mother's death.
• You cannot carry out your daily activities.

You can also ask for help, even if you are coping: just to make yourself easier and more comfortable.

Olga Shaveko

The loss of a loved one in itself is a reason to seek help. A psychologist or psychotherapist creates a safe space for emotions to live.

I would definitely advise starting work in the following cases: 1. If mom left a long time ago, and the amplitude of emotions does not decrease. 2. If when talking about mom, tears appear, breathing becomes difficult, and it’s difficult to speak. 3. If the grieving process is not so long, but it takes you out of life completely, you cannot work or do household chores.

You can find a specialist on websites and social networks in communities of psychologists: the Gestalt approach, the cognitive approach, systemic family therapy are suitable.

If you don’t have the money for an expensive specialist, you can turn to master’s students. These are people at the last stage of education, they also go to personal therapy and supervision and can provide qualified assistance.

Take a break

Try to get back to school as quickly as possible, no matter how difficult it may be. As a last resort, if you don’t want to part with your remaining parents, allow yourself unscheduled vacations. At school and at home your wishes will be treated with understanding.

Try to finish your parenting work. For example, if mom grew flowers and did not have time to plant a garden. Or maybe dad never cleaned up the garage. Firstly, the activity will distract you, and secondly, the result will remind you of a loved one.

If you are offered to take part in an event, a new school or student project, agree. This will distract you from sad thoughts. Nobody wants you to forget about your parent. But he definitely didn’t want you to be alone.