To think that grief vultures are just as bad as those who disappear?

Jesus, I'm sorry you had to deal with people like that, you sometimes wonder if people are deliberately twats or just monumentally stupid don't you.

My DH’s DD is exactly like this. She loves other people’s troubles. “oh it’s been a niiightmare! A niiightmare! I was at the hospital with her for hours/ I had to go to her house at 11pm/I had to go round every day/I had to take her to Liverpool … ooh it’s all been happening this week… ooo it always happens to meee!…”
But she seems to lack any real sympathy. She’s a pain in the arse. Definitely a grief vulture.

Firstly sorry for your loss.
How stupid has someone to be to ask that?
I've had friends who chose to end their lives and I think the ins and outs should remain private to them and not for public consumption outwith the family affected.

This is my MIL...my husband calls her the grief jacker!

That's not being a grief vulture, that's being kind and massively helpful to your friends parents whilst grieving yourself.

I guess only you know what's best about contact. They may welcome the opportunity to talk about their child. Looking after someone with dementia must be incredibly lonely.

I must reiterate - either way, you are not a grief vulture.

I have a grief thief...my best friend died extremely unexpectedly and I got an almost gleeful phone call from a mutual "friend" informing me.

It was horrible.

Fucking hell, sometimes I read things on here that make me despair over all the idiots who walk this Earth. I am so sorry you had to encounter insensitive arseholes like that. How awful.

I'm a bit crap with grief to be fair my friend died and her family couldn't clear the house out so I did it for them I'm good at the practical stuff and I think they appreciated it we still keep in touch a little but one of them is sick (dementia) I'm afraid reaching out will remind them of the death and upset them again

Sometimes you just have to laugh 🤣

I've had nosey fuckers asking me exactly how my adult ds took his own life.

A friend of mine has lost both parents in the space of nine months. She's an average-closeness friend. We had a family day at Christmas at her house (in the time between the two bereavements), and we are connected in a few different ways. I really like her a lot. When the second death happened, I took ages trying to work out how best to support her without overstepping the strength of our friendship. I did not go to the funerals but my partner did (I pushed him to go) as he knew the deceased personally, and I wanted to be represented. I offered childcare. Very soon afterwards my poor friend needed an operation. I sent flowers and chocolates. I don't think I would have done, had the double bereavement not felt so, so sad. I guess what I am saying is that I compensated for my lack of action on the deaths, by taking action on my friend's illness. I would HATE anyone to think I was feeding off their bereavement. It would be horrendous.

Jesus,I'm so sorry
That's just sick
I hope she's not your friend anymore
(Sending hugs)

Yup, terrible behaviour:( The person I'm thinking of said she knew how my miscarriage felt because she had a bad period once and in hindsight it could have been a pregnancy loss.

This is a friend of mine (I'm fading her out as I've had enough)

Another lady I know has just lost her baby at 33 weeks

The 'friend' lost her baby to stillbirth 35 years ago

I'm sick to the back teeth of 'she lost HER baby but I lost mine and my pain is harder because its a longer length of time!and i only had her for 3 months!'

I wouldn't wish losing a baby on anyone but for fuck sake,33 weeks mum lost her baby a fortnight ago-her grief isn't any less

She had the cheek to contact 33 week mum hours after losing baby to tell her all about her loss and didn't once ask how she was doing or how she could help-she wasn't happy until the mum burst into tears and she was straight on the phone to me,crowing about how she'd helped 'get the tears out'

Same when I lost my darling fil-i posted on fb to let people know and the first comment was 'I lost MY stepfather 6 years ago'

And?

I was in shock-wed lost fil less than an hour before but she just had to swoop in and turn it around on herself-her grief wasn't any worse than ours

She was straight round to my house,but thankfully we'd gone to my mils house (she lives 150 miles away) or I would have decked her

There's grief vultures and then there's something EVEN worse - the people who somehow make your grief their own every single time! (Grief cuckoo's??)

Once I went through something traumatic and one particular person who I actually barely knew swept in and did all sorts for me. She was incredibly helpful.

When the dust settled, we barely spoke again. We weren’t well-suited as friends, in honesty. Just different people.

It was only years later that I learnt she’d previously been through an eerily similar event. I assume the fact she knew exactly what I was going through moved her to try to help. Maybe there was also an element of closure/healing for herself too. Either way, I truly believe her main motive was a desire to do good and help me.

I only ever found out what she’d been through by coincidence, I doubt she’d have ever told me of her own free will. I don’t even know if she knows that I know.

I think it’s a mistake to presume there are negative intentions where good intentions may well lie. You never really know or understand every aspect of someone else’s mind. I’m glad I didn’t just decide to label the woman who helped me as a “grief vulture”.

When my son dies my SIL really over stepped the mark bying things to decorate the coffin disney stickers without asking what we wanted.
But what was worse was how immediately after the funeral all that support we had walked out the door and never came back.

When my husband died, I experienced this. People weeping and howling, but the, afterwards, not being there - because there was no one around to applaud them. 🙄

I found out who my true supports were - and blew out the rest. 🤷‍♀️

Having read all of the replies, I can see the difference now. It’s not the next door neighbour sending a card and offering help, it’s the person who isn’t as close to the deceased but making it about them.

It was the anniversary of my mother’s death and my auntie puts it on FB. Whether my siblings and I want to see it or not it pops up and I sometimes get irked by it. She also posts on the anniversaries or birthday of her ex husband, whom she left after having an affair but the latter part isn’t common knowledge. It comes accross as attention seeking and I’ve often thought you’re a 70 year old woman, grow up.

Yes! My aunt was there whenever something happened in the family. I got on quite well with her to begin with, & found her to be quite supportive. But she’d get far too involved in things, & behaved like it was happening to her. Then she’d disappear for years & say she’d had enough & not to call her she’d call us. I think she was probably lonely & we were her entertainment. I’m quite saddened by it all really as I thought she was genuine.

This made me giggle - the last bit 😳🤣

There’s a huge difference between offering support and making it all about you.

When my dad died, a friend from school he’d very vaguely kept in touch with (think reunion once every 10 years) rang my mum and asked her if she’d like him to do the eulogy! He was most offended when she said, erm no thanks.

This guy knew absolutely nothing of my dad beyond age 16 when they all left school save for what dad told him on the periodic catch ups they had had. He had never met me or my brother and I didn’t even recall dad mentioning him.

That’s what those of us who have experienced this mean about grief vultures. This was someone who was by no stretch of the imagination a close friend of my dad or the wider family, coming in and making it all about them - in this case wanting to take centre stage at the funeral. He tried unsuccessfully to persuade mum by saying he had done this many times before for old school friends! How many funerals would most of us expect to speak at in our lives - one, maybe two? It was obviously all about the performance for him.

Yes!! DH cousin is a grief vulture and a total glory hunter. She's also a grabber! When my wee MIL died, the things she did was off the scale, I'd never have believed someone was so nasty and evil and under the guise of also helping. Mum died just after 5am on the Friday morning, Friday afternoon myself and MIL 2 elderly sisters were in Mums bedroom, this witch barged in and said right! I don't know if anything changed but we've (her and her Sister) to get Aunty H rings..... we just sat there, the rings had just been taken off Mums fingers not even 12 hours before.
Anything she said or did after that she said I'm trying to help and made herself to be the victim when everyone pushed back. Needless to say she's not in our lives now. She also got no rings!

Edited to add, she didn't bother coming to the funeral but continues to post shit on Facebook with woe is me I've lost this amazing woman blah blah. She couldn't even pay her respects to Mum in death but wants likes and comments from a social media platform.

I know what you mean @BluntLilacGuide

An old friend of mine would be the first leading the tributes online to Mrs so and so who served us dinner once at a local primary 40 years ago... So upset. Love to her friends and family etc.
Every time someone with an ounce of fame... So tragic, life cut terribly short...

We hadn't spoken for years.. My Dad died - ping! I absolutely knew who it was!

Munchausans by someone else's grief!

Is a grief vulture.

I have one living next door to me.

I don't see her for months on end but after my Mum died she obviously heard on the grapevine and turned up at my door on the pretext of 'checking how I was doing '. Although it was the last thing I felt like doing I asked her in for a cuppa. I was holding it together pretty well and she eventually asked did I not feel like crying? I felt she was only there to watch me cry. Weird.