AIBU to feel some people 'hi-jack' others genuine grief for personal attention gain - FB related!

[OhDear321]

I am really going to try to put this as clearly as I can I don't want to offend anyone but this is really bothering me and wondering whether it is just my lack of experience. Before this year I had only attended one funeral and this was years ago when I was a teenager. This year I have lost 3 friends, all different reasons and all relatively young - 34, 52 and 48.

In each of these cases I have witnessed people who seemingly didn't know these people very well but launch into grief stricken posts on facebook etc. In my mind there is a vast difference between those who post on a page or a thread, something like 'so sad, sorry for your loss, thinking of family' etc and show empathy/sympathy - we can all do that with genuine feeling even if we do not know the person in question we are saddened by the loss and feel for the people who lose someone - I am not criticising these people at all. It is those who almost seem to then pretend to be really close to the person who died and want to mop up others sympathies. I feel I've seen a lot of this but strongest example is in the case of my 34 yr old friend who very sadly died of cancer. Another mutual friend who had not visited or even asked about her in the past six months when she has been in hospital, had not had contact with her for over 10 years, when I told her about the death kind of just said 'oh that's a shame' - then on FB page launched into an emotional rant about her loss and how much this person will be missed. She will indeed be missed but not by this person. I am the only mutual friend between these two (as far as I know) and watched in amazement as she got comments back like I am so sorry for your loss, and are you going to be ok, can Ido anything to help (all nice genuine comments) - and her replies that she just had to be strong and she'd get through it as that what X (friend who passed away) would want! I was really cross but gave benefit of the doubt as thought maybe they had a closer relationship than I knew, until I asked her if she was going to the funeral, and she replied - no I didn't really know her beyond being FB friends!

Thing is I don't feel she is the only one. In all three of the recent deaths I feel I've witnessed people almost jumping on the bandwagon of grief. Am IBU to think this is relatively, and very sadly, quite common - or is it just empathy/ sympathy in a different way. I've found it really upsetting, especially in the loss of my friend to cancer.

YABU to judge others reaction to others deaths. That particular person may still have suppressed grief over someone who died a long time ago, and this is how it is manifesting itself. If their vicarious behaviour bothers you then hide them from your news feed, simple as that.

I'm afraid some people are total self-absorbed arseholes. A death is just another platform for them.

My cousin did this at my dad's funeral. I tore a strip off her in a relatively polite way. We've not spoken to that part of the family since....

YANBU. Happens with big global tragedies too. An earthquake happens and people are personally devastated because they visited for two weeks on their gap year 5 years ago; making it massively about them.

I understand OP, but what you're countenancing is some kind of 'league table' of grief, isn't it? She's not taking anything from you, from your friendship and love of your friend... she's just overstretching her own. Perhaps she feels guilty about it because it's now too late?

FB is a horrible place for grief IMO. Too many people who just feel the need to grab comments and headlines wherever they can. I barely go there because it irritates me.

You have my sympathy and I agree with you. Ignore this woman, she has a need to do this for some odd reason. I'm sorry that you've lost your lovely friend and I hope you can find some comfort in your genuine friendship.

I do see your point, OP, but from my own experience, I've realised that grief can be a very complex (and downright peculiar) thing.

A friend of a friend died in sad circumstances (someone I valued but didn't know particularly well), and I found out about it when I was going through a difficult time in my life. In my head, the two were conflated, and the combination of the two was overwhelmingly difficult. The result was that I was devastated by his death, to the point of blaming myself for being alive when he was dead. To many people it probably seemed very odd and inappropriate, but the psychiatrist I ended up seeing said that under the circumstances it was not an abnormal reaction.

p.s. I'm very sorry for your recent losses, OhDear. I'll hold you in my thoughts and prayers, if that's okay.

Thank you for the responses, it does give some perspective at looking at it differently. I am (extremely fortunately) very inexperienced in losing people close to me and this year has felt like a train crash of emotion with the loss of three people who meant a lot to be and played important parts in my life, so very well prepared to accept I am too tied up in it to be thinking it through clearly. My DH did point out my anger at friend may well be the escape route for my grief.
Ad Lyingwitch I do agree with you - I've not even ventured onto FB with comments about these things, I find it really odd reading such emotive things and hen the person immediately is commenting about a random youtube clip or something.

I'm sorry for your losses OP. YANBU, in my family we call these people 'drama vultures' or 'funeral vultures', never around unless to feed off these type of situations.

YANBU - Whilst I would love to give people the benefit of the doubt (surely they can't be using someones death for attention?? ) am afraid I've encountered those who do so I'm quite cynical about it.

But these are the same people who make everything about them in life so why should death be different? Yes grief is complex etc but some people are just self-centred, manipulative, attention-seeking twats.

funnily enough itsnotmeitsyou1 we call them 'grief spongers'

I know what you mean, op. I've seen it happen on fb and with a couple of people I work with, who seem to go to funerals on a weekly basis for people who they've barely ever met. I'd obviously never comment in rl but it does strike me as a bit odd.

i HATE the expression 'sorry for your loss'

shite

Combine I've heard that one as well, either way, they are never seen or heard from unless they feel they can get some attention from a terrible situation. It's just attention seeking, as difficult as it is to ignore or not get cross about.

We call them Grief Vampires. it's another form of attention seeking for them - like toddlers, any attention is good attention.

Sorry you're having such a crap time op, life is bloody cruel at times.

Hi op. So so sorry you are having a hard time and my sympathy.

It's hard to post about this without outing myself but as a family we on the Eve of today remembering a terrible tradgedy involving our dd.
You get those people unfortunately and it's best to just ignore and not engage.

The press are worse as they are educated in their cold blooded ness.

Best just ignore and rise above. Imagine that they are actually lucky as clearky they have no idea of real true terrible loss.

Our Dd is ok now to add. Sorry to hijack.

YANBU. I've noticed a lot of the same thing. Also people who again, barely know the people involved and post a 'deep and meaningful' verse or quote.

I find it a bit embarrassing.

OP, I have found, as I have grown older, that this is quite a common phenomenon and it comes in various manifestations.

You get people who turn up at the funerals of work colleague's parents, despite not having a friendship or even working in relative proximity to the colleague.

You also get people posting long epitaphs on facebook for people that you know they don't know and have never met.

You also get situations where the parents or siblings of someone that has suffered a tragedy receive far more cards, flowers, calls and offers of condolence than the actual subject of the tragedy.

I even know someone who visits a grave on a regular basis to "tidy it up" and leave flowers -- once, even planting a shrub on it. The link between this visitor and the deceased was tenuous at best. And the deceased in question was married, and left a widow and young children. The visitor has never informed the widow or the now grown children about these "tidying up" visits, and doesn't seem to think it remotely important to mention it.

It always makes me wonder what his widow thinks when she visits her late husband's grave to see that someone has quite obviously spent time there and left fresh flowers. No doubt she will have asked friends and family members who it is, and they will have come back and said it isn't them.

And, you know, if that was me and someone had been leaving fresh flowers on my husband's grave for years and I didn't know who it was, it would make me suspect that my DH might have been having an affair before he died.

Yup. As some posters are aware my DH died suddenly last June. I was 36 weeks pregnant at the time. One of my NCT 'friends' who'd probably met him about five times in five years wanted to post a fucking POEM she'd written about him on Facebook! So inappropriate. This person was also FIRST after immediate family to throw soil onto his coffin.

Clearly desperate to get in on the drama. I don't hold grudges but I doubt I'll ever forgive her. I just avoid her now.

Sorry for your losses OP. This life can be a real arse!

When my grandad died my sister's ex (she was in the process of trying to get shot of him once and for all!) did this - all my family kept it off Facebook completely (I put Facebook strictly into the 'frivoulous shit' aspect of my life) but he wrote this massively long post about what a 'great man' my grandad was and how missed he will be and how much he loves him etc.

The funniest thing was my grandad thought this guy was an absolute bellend and was really pleased when it looked like it was over between him and my sister!

Yup. As some posters are aware my DH died suddenly last June. I was 36 weeks pregnant at the time. One of my NCT 'friends' who'd probably met him about five times in five years wanted to post a fucking POEM she'd written about him on Facebook! So inappropriate. This person was also FIRST after immediate family to throw soil onto his coffin.

Jesus Christ, some people are so self absorbed that they just have a complete inability to see that they are making themselves look like total arsehole, don't they?

So sorry about your DH

I've also witnessed this recently too, in scarily similar circumstances, friend 34 died of cancer too, she was well known locally and her story also made the national news. Cue people who met her once proclaiming their sorrows on Facebook, including one woman who met her one time only writing 'so sorry I can't be at the funeral' no shit?! You weren't even invited! And her friends posting 'so sorry for your loss Hun' it's shameful and distasteful at the very least. Not to mention how difficult if is for her family to read whilst they deal with their actual genuine grief.

I have Facebook friends like this, who just have to jump on every drama available, even if they are not remotely connected in anyway and it is sad and horrendous! Just don't get it at all, even if grief is different and you are allowed to grief for anyone it doesn't have to be on FACEBOOK! So sorry for you loss OP

What's wrong with sorry for your loss, I thought that was a standard non-offensive turn of phrase to use when addressing a bereaved person. What would be a better alternative?

It is weird, isn't it?

I had to physically hold DH back when his mum died. Lots of 'pub friends' opining on why she had taken her own life, how wonderful and generous she was, how full of life. Her death had devastated them, they were unable to fathom it, their world had fallen apart!

She did it as she was terminally ill, living with an abusive alcoholic, living in total penury yet still somehow funding their lavish (alcohol fuelled) lifestyle and she just couldn't stand it any more.

The best 'pissed pillock' comment to DH was "I just don't know where you get the strength to go on living after a shock like that". I stepped in before it all turned nasty.

Now, many years later, those same people have painted a wonderfully rosy picture of their life with MIL. They were bosom buddies, to hear them talk. The only important people in her life. DH still has the urge to slap.

I am sorry you have met similar idiots, OP. Just ignore them. They won't go away, but you won't have to consider them!