Lost a family member to suicide and upset at callous comment

[hannabanana11]

Just last week I lost a cousin to suicide, he was 46, an amazing guy and it has come as such a big shock to everyone. I've found it very hard to get it all out of my mind. Anyway just today I was talking to a supposed friend about it all and his only response was "Oh we are at an age where we will start to lose people", I was so upset I couldn't even give any kind of response back. I know the whole thing may seem petty but the loss is so raw right now that maybe I stupidly expected a bit more empathy.

When we were dealing with a family suicide we came to the conclusion that in the moment, everyone gets a pass go.

It's hard to be the person thinking of something to say to someone who's grieving. Everything sounds trite and wrong and bumpy.

People get it wrong. It's highly unlikely to be intentional.

I agree with @ObliviousCoalmine. Everything be incredibly raw for you right now. I would try and assume people just don't know what to say as it's such a horrible thing to deal with but they feel they must say something. So they will get it wrong. Unintentionally.

Sounds like a foot in mouth response. I'm sure it wasn't meant unkindly. My DH said 'some you win, some you lose'. once to someone who had just lost his wife. He didn't mean it, the words just came out.

So sorry for your loss

I'm so sorry for your loss.

I think it can be really hard to know what to say when someone dies, especially if they're young or it was sudden/unexpected. I don't think he meant anything by it.

I’ve made thoughtless and stupid remarks when I haven’t known what to say when someone has died. He’s probably kicking himself right now.

Am so sorry, suicide is such a tragic loss, you must be reeling. And sorry for the callous comment, very clumsy and insensitive, please try not to dwell on it as you are probably going through a myriad of emotions right now.

Im sorry for your loss.
I think the trouble is there isn’t a ‘right’ thing to say when somebody has died. People tend to wrack their brains and end up saying a generic response unless they themselves knew the deceased person too. The response your friend chose was clumsy, but not designed to hurt.
I wouldn’t be too hard on your friend.

@hannabanana11 I meant to say sorry for your loss too. I’ve lost a cousin to suicide and it is an imaginable shock.

Clumsy but not callous I think.

Sorry for your loss

Oh op, you're going to feel raw for a while and even the smallest (perhaps intended to be innocuous but failing) comments will grate on you. When my sister took her life, her friends announced it on FB and suddenly some bright spark asked how she had died, her best friend replied "She killed herself". My sisters children were fully able to see those comments, the eldest was 15. I know how it feels, honestly some people either make mistakes with critical thinking or else are a bit thick. Don't overthink it, take it easy 🌻

People do say absolutely stupid shit to people who are grieving. I'm sorry, I know it hurts when they do. I think it's partly because we as a society are so shit at having conversations around death and grief.

I’ll be the voice of dissent. How hard is it to say ‘I’m so sorry you lost your cousin’ or ‘What an awful thing to happen. Is there anything I can do?’

I do understand it’s tricky to know what to say to the bereaved, but honestly

Firstly, I'm very sorry for your loss. What an awful and very sad thing to happen. I don't think that it was malicious but it certainly comes across as entirely thoughtless. However, I suppose the point he was making is that, at this time in our lives, unfortunately many of us are carrying the weight of bereavement. He probably thought that he was conveying that he understood grief to some extent. For example, this year I have lost a very close friend in her late 30s to cancer very suddenly, leaving behind a young son, I've lost a friend to eye cancer, who has left behind three children, my father is terminally ill and my sister is too, due to alcoholism and end stage liver failure. So, I would hopefully have said something a lot less clumsy, but I probably would have tried to convey that there are a lot of us who are surrounded by grief, even if the circumstances differ or were less shocking, in order to try to relate to you. If I'm honest, some men are particularly bad at knowing what to say in my opinion. And people will never really understand if they've not been through a similar experience.

@RicherThanYew

I am so sorry for your loss. What a horrific experience for you and for your entire family. Xx

I'm so sorry. I lost my sister the same way and it's true that people just don't know what to say.
Although, that was very crass.
Thinking of you xx

I'd say he just wasn't thinking of how your cousin died. I'm around your age I'm guessing and friends and I have said similar to each other a lot recently. All of a sudden many of us are losing parents, and I know more than one woman my age having treatment for breast cancer. Just all of a sudden it seems we're old. Perhaps your friend has been having the same thoughts recently.

Seconded.

Thanks for all of the supportive replies. I know I'm probably a bit raw at the moment and this comment probably wasn't meant as it sounded. Sadly this guy kinda has form for being insensitive, he's 15 years older than me (I'm late 30s) so I wasn't really sure where he was coming from with the age thing.
I'm so sorry that others have have also lost a loved one to suicide. Its so difficult 💔

That should say unimaginable, of course.

Jeez that is a BAD one. Lucky he didn't get punched for that. Awful!

💐

My cousin also died by suicide last year and it knocked me for six; it's had a huge effect on my well-being.

Suicide is different because until you have experienced it happening to someone you love, you can't imagine how unbelievably awful it is. I also found you can't discuss it in public -" I lost my relative to cancer" is extremely sad but many have experienced it and will empathise. "I lost my relative to suicide isn't something you can't easily say in public. People can't cope with it.

That's so very true of my experience too.

Most of the time when I told people, they got upset and I ended up comforting them - who never met the person who killed themself 🙃

That comment wasn’t a ‘foot in mouth’ comment. Does your DH often make awful responses like this? Good grief that persons wife had died, your DH should be ashamed and learn to react differently to someone whose loved one has died. I agree with @FasterthanaButteredOtter he’s lucky he wasn’t smacked on the face for saying that. This has to be a joke post as if this really happened surely you’d have had firm words with him @Graceandfury ? What a dick!

For me, suicide was completely different to other deaths, some cancers you expect a death, unexpected deaths such as accidents are tragic but suicide is someone taking their own life and leaving this earth earlier because of the way they felt. Someone very close to me committed suicide and I knew they were struggling. For them, it was it was an end to the pain they felt is the way I think about it now.

I’m sorry for your loss @hannabanana11 some people have no sensitivity of what those left behind go through.