Empty nest syndrome is a feeling of grief and loneliness parents may feel when their children leave home for the first time, such as to live on their own or to attend a college or university.

Wow….. what I can describe what happened last night can only be described as hard, suffocation, a trap, hesitant to let it go, loneliness, and worst of all, suicidal.

My dad is a very cautious person who wants to make sure everyone in his family is ok and safe wherever they are, he can’t have someone not reply to him, call him, pretty much let my dad know how they are on a daily basis. My eldest eldest sister who recently moved out isn’t answering my dads calls, nor is she texting him, and that really stings my dad really hard since he wants to know how she’s doing, if she is having any issues, etc… and what happened last night led my dad to have a panic attack. He won’t admit it that he had one, but me, my sister and her boyfriend knew he had one since he was panicking since my eldest sister won’t respond to his calls, nor text him. My sister tried to calm him down, tell him that everything is all right with her, just relax and take it easy, but my dad was reluctant to do any of that which led my sister to cry in the room alone and think about suicide.

I get it, it’s hard to see someone leaving the house after they’ve lived there for 18 years, it’s hard to accept the fact that one less child is not your responsibility anymore, which has been ever since their birth, it’s hard to see someone not needing your assistance after many years of needing it, but they have to realize that they are grown up, they’ve been through the hard stuff, they don’t need you to boss them around anymore, they are mature enough to make their own decisions, they’ve basically hatched from their parents and left on their own. Don’t get me wrong, it is still necessary for the elder one to keep up to date with their parent, it isn’t cool if the parent calls repeatedly and you don’t answer if you actually know they’re calling you. At the same time though, sometimes they can’t always talk, they can’t always reach out to the parents, they can’t always have a scheduled phone call from you, it’s all unpredictable.

I was forced to listen on, having many thoughts in my mind at the time, defending my sister, defending my dad, making sure I wasn’t one sided, making sure I wasn’t the bad guy in all this. I would defend my sister by saying to my dad that his older daughter can’t always reply or answer you, you can’t just call at a random time and expect an answer, you can’t always know where she is, you can’t always know what’s going on in her life. I would defend my dad by saying to my sister that this is his first time any of his children left, and that never experienced a time when he had to say goodbye to any of his children for the foreseeable future, it isn’t his fault since he is a really protective father and wants to make sure everyone is doing good and is feeling safe. I’m going to stay neutral on this since I don’t want to receive any hate, and because this is a tough argument in which I have a limited idea thought process in which I can’t argue about everything. All I want from my dad is to leave my sister alone for a couple of days, realize the changes that are going to apply to the family from now on, and just chill for some time, because everything is going to be alright.

You’ll never walk alone