“I feel so alone and misunderstood.”

“My friends say they ‘get it’ because they lost their grandma. But I lost my mom. It’s just not
the same.”

“I will never feel loved again.”

“Everyone is telling me I need to ‘get over it’ and start living my life. But how am I supposed to
move forward knowing I’ll never get to hear Mom’s voice ever again?”

“Dad’s gone. Who is going to walk me down the aisle?”

“I’m so sick and tired of my friends complaining about their silly problems! They have no idea
what it’s like to be in this much pain!”

“I’m pregnant. I wish I could feel excited, but instead I’m thinking about that my baby is going
to grow up without grandparents.”

Do any of these statements sound like you?

Let’s face it – losing a parent absolutely sucks. There’s no respectful way to put it without
lessening the impact of it all.

Sometimes you seem to be doing fine. You’re going to school or work. You’re maintaining
relationships. You’re taking care of yourself, at least the basics. You’re doing everything you’re
supposed to be doing. You want to feel happy. You’re exhausted by feeling the complex
emotions of grief. But alone you just can’t shake off the feelings, and you’re finding it harder to
feel connected to others because it seems like you’re alone.

You’ve tried your very best to feel better. Maybe you’ve read some books on bereavement, or
you’ve been forcing yourself to socialize even when it would feel so much easier to stay home
to binge Netflix. Perhaps you’ve taken up a hobby. You may have even gone to see a therapist a
few times but you’re finding they don’t really “get it” either (sure, it’s one thing to learn about
bereavement in graduate school, but experiencing it is different).

Perhaps you feel like a burden on your friends and family. You want to talk about your mother
or father, but you’re afraid of coming across as negative. You don’t want to be the dark cloud in
an atmosphere of sunny people.
You are not alone.

There are people like you – people who lost their mother, father, both parents, or another
parental figure. They’re out there.

And we all have one common goal: To feel happiness again even after being faced by a
profound, life-changing loss.

Benefits of joining Millennials in Mourning:

• Join others who have experienced parental loss in a loving, friendly setting. A place where you will feel supported and heard, where compassion is freely offered from others through mutual respect and kindness.
• Learn the coping skills to heal in your bereavement, cultivate new memories, and embrace life after loss.
• Talk about the challenges and milestones of our age group that can feel more difficult to navigate without parents, such as buying houses, having children of our own, and getting married.

About the Millennials in Mourning Group Leader

Valerie Smith, LMSW, CFTG, is a therapist, social worker, and certified forest therapy guide at
Suffolk Family Therapy under the supervision of our clinical director, Alexandria Baxter, LCSW.
Valerie possesses a bachelor and master’s degree in social work from Adelphi University and
Fordham University, both from which she graduated summa cum laude. Valerie is also a
certified forest therapy guide through the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy (ANFT),
where she trained in the Rocky Mountains to master sensory-based, mindful activities through
a biophilic perspective. Valerie is passionate about the health benefits of a plant-based diet as
well as holistic wellness. Valerie is trained in EMDR and TF-CBT, with experience in DBT-
informed skills. She focuses her treatment on adolescent girls and young women with C-PTSD
and PTSD. Additionally, she helps people with life-threatening disease and their caregivers.
Finally, she works alongside those experiencing grief and bereavement, especially young adults
who lost one or both of their parents/guardians. For more about Valerie's personal experience with grief read this post.