Living as a Parentless Adult With No One To Call
December 2nd, 2025
A personal essay about growing up without parents, compounded grief, and living as an adult with no one to call. Written for parentless adults navigating loss, loneliness, and survival.
Disclaimer:
This post discusses childhood loss, suicide, terminal illness, substance abuse, and grief. Please read at your own pace and take care of yourself as needed. This essay reflects personal experience and is not medical or mental-health advice.
The Child Who Has No One to Call
I am the child who can’t call mom or dad.
Are you also the child who has no one to call? The one who texts or calls a number that can never answer?
If so, I can relate to you.
Feeling Like a Child Inside an Adult Body
I am 27 and still feel like a little kid half the time, trying to figure out how to do life without parents and pretending I know what I’m doing.
Most of my thoughts circle the same questions:
What is my path?
What is my purpose?
Do I even have one?
If I have no family, who do I turn to?
Can you relate?
Functioning on the Outside, Grieving on the Inside
I have not figured it out.
Some days I function. I laugh. I work. I survive. I show up.
Other days, it feels like there is a dark cloud of grief over me that no one else can see. I can be in a room full of people and still feel like the odd one out, because in the back of my mind there is always this thought:
I do not have a mom or dad to go home to.
I have no one to call.
No one waiting for me at the end of the day.
No home that feels safe.
Do you feel the loneliness at the end of the night?
Invisible Loss
People look at me like I am normal.
They cannot see the years of loss.
They cannot see how grief shapes the way I move through the world, how it lives quietly inside me while I try to look like everyone else.
Where My Loss Began
My loss started with my dad.
He was the most important person in my life, the one I attached my identity to, the one I learned to love from. He died when I was 12, and I found him myself.
That moment changed everything about who I am.
I still wonder if I can ever get my old self back.
When Loss Comes One After Another
After my dad, both of my grandmothers died, one of lung cancer when I was 13, and the other in a nursing home from dementia.
Then my brother hung himself in my sister’s garage when I was 14.
Before I had time to understand one loss, another arrived.
Losing My Mom Too
My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer right after my dad died. I was in seventh grade.
For context, my dad died the summer before seventh grade, and my mom’s diagnosis came only months later. It was slow. Long. Haunting. Terrifying.
She died when I was 16, on the first day of my junior year of high school.
My life completely changed.
Becoming Alone in Ways I Didn’t Expect
After my mom’s death, I moved in with my mother’s brother and his wife at age 16.
They kicked me out after my freshman year of college, when I was 19. They threw my clothes onto the front lawn, cut off my phone, and stopped helping me.
I had to figure everything out on my own.
They promised they would be there for me, but they lied.
Carrying Family Weight Alone
Now, the only living member of my family is my sister.
She is seven years older than me and has been on drugs since our dad died. She was 19 when he died, and I have watched her struggle ever since.
I cannot be the younger sister I needed to have. I have had to worry about her while trying to survive myself.
Even when I am around other people, I feel alone.
I feel like I am carrying the weight of everything myself.
Why I’m Sharing This
I am sharing this because I want someone out there to know they are not alone.
I want to show that if you feel this way, it is real. It is okay. And you can survive.
If you are the adult who still feels like a grieving child inside, I see you.
With support,
Brooke
A child who still needs her parents