To find people who insert themselves at the centre of other's dramas and tragedies really annoying

[daisywellies]

I've a colleague who does this all the time. When her SIL's mum died she carried on as if she was nearest and dearest next of kin; when another colleague's father was sadly killed in a car accident she just kept banging on and on about how shocked and shaken she was at the news, and even had family members ringing her to see if she was alright; and for the past week she has been going on about how it 'could have been me' re the 7/7 bombs because she once had a part time job for about two months that involved getting a tube at Edgeware Road - several years before the bombings I might add.

AIBU to think some people are self absorbed drama queens who see themselves in a starring role in every tragedy, even when it has little or nothing to do with them?

I have relatives that do this. 'Fly high little angel' 'such a tragedy, I'm in bits' 'I can't imagine what I would do if it were my sweet little angel' etc etc etc. Conspicuous and competitive grief. Yuk.

That is shocking Lolly. If I was your friend or her dh I would have gone ballistic with her. Who on earth did she think she was? Some people have unbelievable cheek.

Ugh I know someone like this she's like a professional mourner or something. She has 7 children of her own but still finds time to go to every funeral of people she vaguely knows. She has permanently stained cheeks from wailing I don't even need to ask her why now I know it's because she's been at a funeral and taken her pre school aged kids & dressed them in black Worst thing was when a little girl in the community very sadly died at 23 months this woman whipped her own same age daughter into such a frenzy of grief that the girl needed counselling. Her mum was constantly crying & repeating what a tragedy it was & how much she must miss her when she'd only seen her at playgroup twice I found that emotionally abusive but it's very obvious she does it for the attention

YaNbu!!! So many about - someone I know was 'nearly at the world trade centre during the attacks' - it was two and a half years prior! When they told me about a close family member having cancer - recovered now thank goodness - I said oh no it must have been awful, the person replied 'yes I had to battle on, but it was very hard . I had actually meant for the person who was ill.

Oh god there's an awful lot of these people about then

ellie - what would she do if you said "well then it is a good job it is not you, isn't it?" have you tried it?

They are grief hijackers. My sister is one. I work with one too.

It is increasingly common. I don't know why. It's weird and distasteful.

The worst one was a woman who called another mother while that mother was at the hospital with her dying 4 year old. She cried and was inconsolable and the mother ended up comforting her.

I was approached by the mother of a friend of DD to ask me about something I hadn't done. I ended up explaining that my sister had died the day before. She didn't comment or offer condolences but told me about how awful it was that a vague acquaintance was dying. She never mentioned it again - bumped into DH and I both fully in black heading to th funeral. Said nothing - didn't give a shit.
I later heard what a great friend she was to me as she had been so upset about my sister when talking to all of our mutual friends.

Arse.

YANBU.
these people are known as 'consequences'.
very poor form of her.

I know someone who went to Malta on holiday a month ago, and then after the Tunisia attack said to me...just think, 3 weeks ago I was only 200 miles from there.

Erm, so in no way close, then. Sake.

A friends mum is like this. Friend had a miscarriage and her mum was constantly on the phone to her crying. Friend spent months having to console her.

I work in a police department. It is amazing the amount of people that want to be somehow connected to a major or even minor police incident. I think mostly it fills a void in their lives. There are people who seem naturally attracted to trauma/ drama, going so far as to insert themselves into the scene that they wind up in trouble themselves.

So not being unreasonable. I know someone like this. Makes me want to chew glass.

pestolavista
My sister was killed in that rail accident, and one thing that really shocked me was the Police liason officers telling me that the amount of hoax calls by worried supposedly worried family members was in the hundreds.

Also when we were taken up to the crash site it was more the general public we had to fight our way through than the press.

But on a personal level i also had to deal with a old friend of my sisters (before facebook luckily) going on and on about how no one could understand how much she was suffering, how awful it was for her, how she couldn't imagine life without her and how she felt like she had lost someone she loved like a sister.

Being her actual sister my grief didn't come close to someone who had known her a couple of years.

Also later on i became involved in a grief support role. I then had to deal with a lady online who was devastated at the loss of her father and brother. She then told me that it was the same rail crash, even though she had the year wrong and i know the names of everyone killed through having to sit through a two year public investigation to see if a corporate manslaughter charges could be brought. - There are some very damaged people about who seem to feed off things like this

" Thay want all the 'poor me my friend is very ill' drama and seem to thrive on it.

Then no sign of them ever again to help said, very ill, friend. wankers."

gosh that is so true, my grief sucking acquaintance was never seen at the hospital bed of our friend who lost his leg, not once. Yet she seemed to revel in the drama of it....
fucking weirdos tbh.

Yes, my mother.
We hear all about how something that happened to someone else has affected her so much.

She can't talk about how my BIL emerged with secondary problems from an operation, without going on and on about the horrible night she had that day.

Oh god I had one of them (a colleague) fucking haunt me when I was going through recurrent miscarriage. If she wasn't trying to get me to talk about it she was banging on about everyone else's pregnancies/babies with one eye on me to see if she could make me cry. One miscarriage I started bleeding on the Wed, scan confirmed missed MC on the Thursday, phoned in to tell my boss what happened and asked him to share the news with the team, miscarried on the Sunday night and went back into work on the Monday to see her gormlessly nasty big shiny face in my face telling me so and so from the office upstairs had had her baby at the weekend and was anything new with me.

Why didn't I punch her? Anyone any ideas? I don't know why.

Yes my mum is like this.

If she has a vague acquaintance who is seriously ill she throws herself right in there, becomes their best friend overnight and hangs around while they are dying, then takes over the funeral and goes on endlessly about her grief. It's possible that maybe some of them have appreciated her support, but my heart breaks for anyone who had to endure feeding her emotional vampirism on top of facing their death.

A horrendous murder happened in her general area and she has tried to move heaven and earth to get close to the family and feed off their suffering – but I can tell by what she says that they have worked hard to keep her at bay. The last thing they need to be having to do :(

When a relative had a very, very preemie baby boy she had to contact them and tell them how upset she was that he "probably wouldn't live, as boys are so much weaker"

My ex boss was like this. She bloody loved a drama. It seemed as tho she enjoyed the tragedies, and loved to exaggerate eveything by 10.
emotional wanker is a good description!

Yep, my neighbour is like this!

If anyone is going through any sort of bereavement or crisis of any description she is on it like a car bonnet!

She was for a few months very involved with a woman whose DH had cancer. Then when the DH was better she ditched the woman and moved on to other friends.

She is now all friendly with another neighbour who has just split up from her husband.

She does it because she likes to be 'in the know' and to feel important, I think.

" but my heart breaks for anyone who had to endure feeding her emotional vampirism"

Trying to keep people at bay when you know they're gagging for a 'feed' on whatever it is you're going through is bloody hard work. It made me f*ing furious when my mum died. Not quite the same, but trying to keep a 'friend' out of my current pregnancy is exhausting. I have to remind myself that it's me having a baby and not her.

These people, emotionally wanking all over the place!

I wonder if a lot of it is caused by boredom.

I cannot believe some of these stories!

I think a lot of it is done for attention.

This type of person thrives on attention from others, whether it's sympathy because they claim to be upset at the death of someone, or attention from people thinking they're being super helpful to a person in a crisis.

That, and a constant need to know all the latest gossip.

Hmm. You know, there's a bit of a political dimension to this. It has been encouraged for years, predominantly by Rupert Murdoch. It fulfills a similar role to belief in gods: get people to respond with irrational emotion, rev them up and they are incredibly easy to distract and manipulate.
Grief wankers might, in previous years, have been do-gooders of the sort that wanted to make the poor say more prayers rather than give them food.