Is there a name for this? (strange grief behaviour)

[DrHouseMD]

My ILs to be, MIL and SIL in particular, grieve people they have never met.

When they read on Facebook or in the papers that someone, particularly a child, is unwell or has had an accident, the outpouring of grief is such they will change their Facebook photograph to a picture of the person with a heart and flower frame, solicit prayers and such, but they don’t know these people. If the person is to die, particularly if it was suicide, they are almost hysterical in their posts.

It goes on for a long time, a year later they will doing the same in memory of this person. Sometimes they will post that they have had a bad day thinking about a person who died, couldn’t do anything, couldn’t go to work, but they've worked through it and need to tell everyone that you live your life as if it’s your last day...

I’ve noticed that quite a few of their Facebook friends do this also (I clicked on a few who were writing long comments on their page). Is it a regional thing? (Liverpool area.)

MIL is a very morose person, I have never seen her happy about anything. I’ve seen SIL nearly cry because she didn’t win the lottery. They both complain a lot, nothing is ever quite right for them. SIL’s children are a bit like this also. They talk a lot about people who have died who they don’t know. They know their names and everything.

Is it depression?

it's attention seeking

I've seen posters on here adamantly declaring that all funerals will be announced somewhere and should be open to all and then often they describe popping into a stranger's funeral and talk about what a lovely experience it was.

We didn't announce dad's funeral anywhere, if you didn't know the details, there was no need for you to know.

some people just have no life and no empathy. It is attention seeking I think.

@BenWillbondsPants oh god! what did you do?! I would have had to be passive aggressive and publicly shame them and write on "this is so sweet considering you never met/spoke to him, thanks".

@DrHouseMD my MIL is like this. lovely woman otherwise but will tell you "suchabody from the butchers is sick" and go on and on about it. a few years ago my dad died and she milked it for all it was worth. in the end i had to stop telling her details of his illness because she would tell everyone and make out she was involved in it all. very odd.

A very strange form of munchausen by proxy? Sounds bizarre OP

Grief tourism, I've also heard it called.

I think it's a bit like getting a shot of feelz from watching an emotional movie, but some people can't stop there and want the real life version. Plus, in real life it's interactive – they might get actual reactions from real people.

Thanks for this thread, OP. I'm struggling a bit at the moment because I'm being used by some people to supply their disability porn / rescuer feelz.

It does help to see there are plenty more way too many unbelievably self-centred fuckwits out there. And it's just a normal thing arseholes humans do.

Might manage to hold off digging that hole for the patio a little longer...

Soa oh yes I’m sure it’s true, just couldn’t find a link. If I didn’t know better I’d say those women were MIL and SIL. MIL was obsessed with the McCann case.

It's just what I call these kind of people @DrHouseMD, you can see there are plenty of variations that people use.

I don't think it's a new thing, it's just that social media gives these wierdos a platform.

My gran was never happier than when she had something to be miserable about, even if it wasn't her misery.

@Progress2019

People like that are the reason I only buy embarrassing things from out of town supermarkets

Sometimes I stock up on Tena when I'm on holiday so that nobody back home will see. Also stock up on condoms, cheap pregnancy tests, lube, etc. And that bleach cream you dye your tache with, as well as picking up some piles cream, laxatives and thrush cream

There must be some gossips getting very excited over my shopping until they realise they don't know me

PerkingFaintly That must be bloody horrible. Patronising fools.

I do struggle to understand who really weep at funerals of people they don't really know. Or even worse celebrities. I cry in private for those I really cared about and knew well and feel disingenuous writing things on Facebook

People on here are always posting their grief at the death of Alan Rickman and other celebrities. Is that different?

derxa I think there's a big difference between one post saying how much you enjoyed someone's work and that you are sad to hear the news - then actually posting to say you can't work because you are so busy crying at the death of someone you didn't know.

Grief vampires. Or arseholes?

We call them grief tourists.

I know I might be flamed for this, and I say this as someone with a large Irish family, but Liverpool is a very Irish area and Ireland have a very different attitude to death than we do (see RIP.ie) and I wonder if it has evolved from that.

derxa I think you can feel sad at the loss of notable figures. I was very sad at the deaths of Terry Pratchett & Judith Kerr, I’ve been reading their books my whole life & reading is what gets me through hard times. It wasn’t grief in the sense of what I felt when my friends & relatives have died though.

On grief vultures, I don’t know why they do it but I think it’s awful. I had a family member do it after the death of my Dad (they rarely saw him & had never been particularly close to him) they also took (& still do take) every opportunity to minimise my grief. I ignore it now but it greatly upset me for a very long time.

Good grief, what employers are prepared to go along with them taking random days off because they're grieving someone they never knew?

derxa I think there's a big difference between one post saying how much you enjoyed someone's work and that you are sad to hear the news Really? People say they're 'devastated' and other such descriptions. They can do what they like. You can't police others' feelings. MN posters have a very strange attitude to death. It doesn't exist.

I know I might be flamed for this, and I say this as someone with a large Irish family, but Liverpool is a very Irish area and Ireland have a very different attitude to death than we do (see RIP.ie) and I wonder if it has evolved from that.

But what the OP describes isn't what Irish people do. We do certainly have a different attitude to death and dying, and communities very much come together to give someone they knew a send off or pay their respects but someone who barely knew the deceased loudly weeping and wailing and making a holy show of themselves would not be seen as being respectful.

I should say, I can cope with people who mean well and are genuinely helpful – and I'm often extremely grateful.

It's the ones who strop because I've spoiled their fun by having the temerity to say No to something they've Decided They Will Do For Me...

Anyway, now it's me attention-seeking by and derailing your thread. So, as you were.

I come from a very small communitym where you would be expected to pay your respects, and attend the funeral, and shps/businesses would close for a half day to enable you to do so.

That tends not to happen now with the younger generations, we've lost our ability to follow time honoured traditions eg laying out at home certainly would happen where I live in London, nor would visiting the funeral parlour BUT it does still happen up country . I think the whole concept of community coming together is lost.

I presume your ILs have some morbid social media extension of this?

@NewFoneWhoDis I know it's not how Irish people behave. I said I wonder if the behaviour has evolved from that. My experience is that Irish people tend to be a lot more open and comfortable about talking about death than the British and OPs in-laws appear to be a very extreme (attention seeking) extension of this openness.

derxa again, there's a big difference between posting on here, an anonymous forum, saying "I am devastated by xx death" and then actually going on social media that will be seen by the grieving close ones, under your name, and saying "I'm so upset by Rosa's dad's death that I can't go to work today" when you in fact never met Rosa's dad and only know his name because of a friend of a neighbour's cat or something.

Isatis I guess these people just tell work they aren't feeling too well.

People on here are always posting their grief at the death of Alan Rickman and other celebrities. Is that different?

I think there is a difference.

I remember hearing that David Bowie had died over the radio while I was driving to the shops. I burst into tears and sat crying for an hour in the car park before doing my shopping. I listened to his records non stop as a teenager and he was the first concert I attended. He had been a huge part of my formative years.

I definitely would have joined in a post on a forum indicating I was shocked, gutted and that his death was a huge loss. That’s where it would have ended though, one brief post on a vale forum acknowledging his influence on me and giving an rip. Very different to rocking up to my neighbours second cousins funeral (person I never met), wailing and sitting in the front pew at the service then posting ad nauseam on social media about the effect this persons death has had on me and the gut wrenching details of the funeral (generally embellished).

Good grief, what employers are prepared to go along with them taking random days off because they're grieving someone they never knew?

In my relatives case they don’t work. Too sick to work apparently. Well enough to get themselves out and about in this regard though.

I think it's grief displacement. You aren't able to grieve properly for your actual loved ones. It's not allowed and people find it boring after a while so you find an outlet in the deaths of people not close to you.
And it's best to stay off FaceShite

I thought you were going to say they were from Ireland, as the whole grief thing is a big thing culturally, there. But Liverpool has a lot of Irish / Irish descendants in it, so I wonder if that is the connection?