to not get why people write to dead people on facebook

[CaipirinhasAllRound]

Sorry if that sounds harsh but I don't get it

A friend of mine died a couple of years ago and a group was set up so people could swap stories and pics, I get that, but why write 'miss you X' etc

Northernlurker.
Yes. Exactly so.

Well said NorthernLurker.

Northernlurker

Exactly what you said.

This thread so needed that post,NL.

Northernlurker well said and thank you. That has lifted a weigh of worry of imposition from my shoulders.

I don't agree that my attitude stinks at all, just stating that IME some people post messages on Facebook regarding deceased people to gain attention and manipulate people, if you don't know any then lucky you. As usual on MN people get all uppity, if you didn't like the question the OP was asking then don't read the thread.

It really did - thank you NL.

Your attitude stinks even more now,axure.

Axure. Have you missed the point of AIBU altogether?

axure it not being your way is fine. It isn't mine either. I don't "get it" insofar as I know it wouldn't help me. It does help others and I don't see anything wrong in it.

To call people grieving for their loved ones manipulative and attention seeking is outrageous. Truly very unpleasant.

Axure it sounds like the person you're referring to would be that way inclined in every day life, in which case it's not really relevant to a thread where people have shared the own personal stories of grief. There's a saying "quit while you're ahead", you know? And you've not exactly been ahead here...

Axure I feel sorry for you if you live in a world where you think people are constantly trying to manipulate you.

You have shown a worrying lack of empathy and respect for the posters on this thread who have lost loved ones.

I know you didn't ask, but YABU.

I think you'd do well to read over Everlong's last post.

That is how grief and loss affects someone.

It doesn't turn them in to 'attention seekers.'

Thank you, Northern, for your post.

I post, and people post, to my dead daughter. And believe it or not, it's not to manipulate. It's about HER and how we feel about her, and how we miss her, and no, we don't feel the need to keep that private, why should we?

Don't like it, then delete the people who do it, delete your account, switch it off.

You can do that. People who have lost a child cannot switch off their grief.

It is forever.

I don't understand why you would be friends with people on facebook who you thought were posting messages about their deceased family and friends to manipulate people? Surely you wouldn't want to be friends with this type of person?! I'm sorry that you had cause to encounter this type I suppose and I hope that I never come across them

As for gaining attention, even if they were doing it for this purpose which is debatable, what would be so wrong about that? Isn't everything we post on facebook in some way a plea for attention? Otherwise we would all be scribbling away in private journals and hiding them from everyone else! And that seems a pretty miserable kind of existence to me. Us humans are, in the main, social creatures and we love people and sadly sometimes those that we love, die. That love doesn't just evaporate and we never speak of them again!

I post about DD once a year, just because she died she (surprisingly enough!) didn't stop being my daughter and I didn't stop being her mother. I want to share her memory with friends and family just like I want to share what my living children are doing and other things that are happening in my life. It comforts me when people respond. I'm only 'asking' them for a few seconds of their time and it means the world to me.

Callaird your post broke my heart. I am so very sorry for the loss of your K and I'm sure that he knows, somehow, just how deeply loved and missed he is. I hope that reading this thread hasn't made you feel self conscious, you do whatever helps you through this. Please don't feel guilty about asking for people's time - I would feel truly awful if any of my friends had suffered such a deep loss and didn't feel that they were more than entitled to some of mine

Axure

I am broken as everlong says. I lost my beautiful, funny, talented first born son in july of last year. He killed himself. Every moment of every day, it hurts. I smile and laugh and get on with it because I have to. My friends know that it is a front but they love me enough to let me put my front on.

Sometimes, it all gets to be a bit too much and I break a little, I posted on James' wall yesterday because it was his brothers' 21st birthday and it hurts that he isn't here to celebrate with us.

I will never be ok again, I will never be whole again. Some days are better than others but I have a James sized hole in my heart and my life.

Your friend deserves better, they deserve friends who actually care and can empathise with them not assume they are manipulating the people around them.

You are coming across as a truly unpleasant person, I'm so glad that my friends aren't like you.

some people post messages on Facebook regarding deceased people to gain attention and manipulate people

OK, now you sound like a complete tosser.

Just wanted to say that my post upthread wasn't intended to suggest Axure's friend would be manipulative anyway, I was trying, in a clumsy way, to say that people who are grief-stricken and bereaved are in no way being manipulative by posting on FB. Badly worded. Sorry.

My niece died last year,her sisters FB page is full of tributes to her lost sister.

They break my heart,but it's her way of keeping her sister alive.Her way of including her sister in everything that's going on.

I 'get' it.

I'm not sure why anyone wouldn't.

Northern and everyone else who has posted since, well bloody said!

Axure, you really are showing how ignorant you are. Last night I cried for 3 hours straight, on my own, didn't even attempt to wake DP up or text a friend or anything, and at the end, yes I did post a little message online to my lost loved one because he was scattered on a private golf course so I have no where else to go to talk to him and get my emotions out. And besides, I would like to think that somehow he may be able to see them however deluded that may make me. The day he died, a part of me died with him and the pain and hurt I deal with on a daily basis, generally not even telling a soul I am feeling that way, is excruciating.

All these stories on here of losses and pain, and explanations as to why they do put messages online and then you come and harp on about people using grief in those ways as a form of manipulation? Shame on you.

Axure, you need some nicer friends, I wonder why you haven't?

Axure... I posted on a thread similar to this one not so long ago. It doesn't really matter whether anybody 'gets it'; some people use facebook as their media of choice. I personally wouldn't do it because I don't like facebook but anybody can grieve in any way they choose.

I know that I'd steer a million miles from threads like this one too if I were grieving but everybody does what they choose to do and it's probably better just to accept it rather than question it.

I find it so much easier to comfort people in person than through words on a screen but quite honestly I feel that if somebody can get any comfort at all from strangers, however slight, then it's a very good thing.

Argh on re-reading my post I didn't mean to imply that keeping things private or writing things down in a journal was a miserable existence . Just that it would be a strange world if we none of us shared anything of substance with anybody!

But being private or writing in a diary is just as valid as any other way of coping with grief. By any means necessary I say.