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AIBU?

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Original poster

To think grief outlasts sympathy

80 replies

SudoCremBrulee · 26/08/2016 23:47

I'm 3+ years past my bereavement (full term stillbirth) and this seems to be the cut off point in people's heads for me - don't know why.

I am not depressed. I am coping. I work hard. I raise my living children. I laugh. I smile. But there is a part of me that is so, so desperately sad still - and always will be.

I've had a rough patch recently where the grief resurfaced and I tried to reach out to my family and talk about my daughter. All I got was a lot of 'isn't it time you moved on?', 'life is for living', 'can't you just try to look at the positives in your life'...'it's been 3 years!'. Almost as if I'm being indulgent or something. My mum even said 'right - enough is enough now Sudo' in what I guess she thought was some tough love.

I just miss her.

And it's bloody isolating sometimes.

OP posts:
Confused59 · 28/08/2016 13:16

There is a wonderful forum called Grieving mothers that provides a lot of support to those of us who have gone through the ordeal of losing a child

Pipistrelle40 · 28/08/2016 13:32

It's the people who say to come round if you want company or a cup of tea. You meet them in the street a couple of days later and they vaguely ask how you are getting on, don't wait for an answer and swan off. If you want to be helpful, knock and see how they are. Sometimes just a friendly face and couple of comforting words can make all the difference.

So sorry for you OP, have never lost a child and cannot imagine the pain. Xx

2dogsonthesofa · 28/08/2016 13:42

I think I am probably older than many of you and have lost both my parents. I do still miss them and always will. People ask if you are back to normal, but the thing is, you have to live in a new normality that doesn't include them, so of course it goes on hurting.I cannot imagine the pain of losing a child but my heartfelt sympathy to those of you who have.

T0ddlerSlave · 28/08/2016 13:43

I totally agree that sympathy is always lacking compared to grief. But, and I don't want to be disrespectful, I think it's often more about them feeling sorry for you and wanting to verbalise that they are sad to see you in a dark place and want you to come into the light happy place.

They don't realise that you can't just snap out of it, and that it hurts more to make such comments.

gonetoseeamanaboutadog · 28/08/2016 14:11

Yes, I agree OP. People don't understand that grief moves with us in some form, however far we go in life.

There was a great piece in the Huffington Post about stifled grief and our Western society. Google it.

gonetoseeamanaboutadog · 28/08/2016 14:13

And I'm so, so sorry about your daughter.

I had a little sister who was 'born asleep'. The day before my wedding, I took a bouquet of flowers in the bridesmaids' colours and laid them on her grave. How I wish she could have carried them.

giraffesCantReachTheirToes · 28/08/2016 14:14

xx

manicinsomniac · 28/08/2016 14:17

Of course it does. It also outlasts memory (as in people eventually forget you had a bereavement at all). I don't blame anybody for this. Sympathy is not a personal emotion. It can't last in the way grief does. I doubt anybody thinks you're weak though. They just don't remember in the same way you do.

JaniceBattersby · 28/08/2016 14:17

OP I've never lost a child or a spouse but I don't think you should 'move on' or 'get over it' because people tell you to. The very thought of losing one of my children takes my breath away so I have no clue how I would cope with it if it happened.

people might not mention your loss because they don't want to upset you. It's not that they don't remember. They do. Flowers

Northernlurker · 28/08/2016 14:19

If you remember though, you HAVE to say so. Because otherwise nobody will know you remember.

datingbarb · 28/08/2016 14:28

I don't think grief ever ends

I'm so sorry for your lost, full term still birth is just something I can't get my head around just seems so unfair and pointless

You are incredibly strong OP just to go through what you did to meet your daughter

I think people say the wrong thing because they feel like they don't want to mention it and cause upset or remind you.... Which in itself is studio as if you will ever forget

Keep talking about your beautiful angel Flowers

KittyandTeal · 28/08/2016 14:31

Yanbu.

For some reason many people feel after a certain set time then all is ok. Especially when you've lost a child, maybe once you've had another people think that's 'fixed it'.

I found I had lots of sympathy when we lost dd2. Less so when we lost ds. I'm not sure if it was because he was an earlier gestation or if it was the second time round so people thought I knew how to grieve (I still don't know how to grieve for 2 lost babies) or that people just didn't know what the hell to say. Some also seem to be miffed when I insist that we won't be trying anymore, I guess it means the empathy, vacuous 'you can always have another' is also unusable.

I'm so sorry for your loss. It is the hardest thing ever. I've found our sands group is helpful as there are member who lost their babies a long time ago, well past the 'you should be over it' limit who still cry and grieve at groups. It helps me feel it's ok to still be grieving and feeling that dark hole in my heart.

FlowerOfTheValley · 28/08/2016 14:40

Sudo in my experience grief will always be with you, sympathy lasts hardly any time at all.

I can't imagine how hard it is to lose a child but I've had two losses whereas most of my friends have not had one. My parents died 4 & 8 years ago and I am now having bereavement counselling because my friends really do not get how much my loss affects me despite me saying.

When I first sought counselling the lady told me they regarded 3 years as a recent bereavement.

Sadly I believe none of my friends will understand until they experience it. Grief has changed me in so many ways. Nothing is ever the same again. I laugh, I smile, I have enjoyable days and a good life but there is always an emptiness, people missing who should be there.

To you and everyone else who has experienced loss Flowers

WhenSheWasBadSheWasHorrid · 28/08/2016 14:50

Flowers to everyone who has lost someone.

My grandma lost a baby through stillbirth. She morned him for the whole of her life.
It was a very happy and full life but she never forgot him and would still talk about him in her 70s. As a family (well the older members I am a bit young) we never tried to encourage her to get over it.

I wish you all the same happiness my grandma had. She never forgot and she had a great life.

expatinscotland · 28/08/2016 14:51

YANBU

mollie123 · 28/08/2016 14:56

We all of us through life feel grief when one by one our family is lost to us.
Op yours is the worst kind of loss in a way because it was a child who should still be here and no parent expects to outlive their children.
Those who tell you to 'move on' are being insensitive but probably think they are saying the right thing (indeed what is the right thing to say in these circumstances?)
belated Flowers for you - keep on as you are doing and realise they do not mean to hurt you but they do not understand.

MrsHam13 · 28/08/2016 15:04

Those comments are absolutely shocking. My friends baby was stillborn last year at full term..I can't imagine she will ever get over it and we will never forget him..I will never stop feeling sympathetic for the huge loss she has suffered. I'm really sorry you aren't getting the support you need and deserve.

Cellardoor23 · 28/08/2016 15:08

OP I know what you mean. Flowers My mum passed away a year and half ago. It was sudden and came as a huge shock. It's normal to still grieve. I will for the rest of my life. It will never go away. Obviously I won't mope around all day talking about it, my mum would never have wanted that. But I think you're family should respect your feelings. It's incredibly insensitive to suggest that you should just 'get over it' or it's been x amount of years. That's irrelevant.

You will have bad days it's completely normal. I'm just sad the support isn't there for you Flowers

OhAndIPaintMyselfBlue · 28/08/2016 15:36

I'm so sorry for everyone on here for the loss of their precious loved ones.

I lost my DM 4 years ago. I feel like I'm not allowed to mention her anymore as people including my normally lovely DH look uncomfortable. My former best friend just stopped talking to me. She apologised a couple of years later that she didn't know how to deal with me. That's fine, but I will never forgive her for that.

It was mum's anniversary last month. My DH didn't even pass comment. 4 years of repressed grief just came out in a rage. I still don't think he gets it.

iPost · 28/08/2016 16:01

Late MIL lost a son soon after birth, a few years before my husband (late 40s) was born.

I was spending nights holding her hand while she cried for much missed baby right up until her death. In the 2 decades that I knew her she was well acquainted with grief. Rendered worse by a lack of willingness to let her express it, feel it, have it, have it acknowledged.

I was a pretty crap DIL and she would have won not one medal in any MIL of the year competitions. But it came naturally to me to be ears and a shoulder when she needed to talk, and cry, for the child she didn't get to raise. And I'm glad. We made each other cross and upset in so many ways, but for that single thing, the way we were as people... it worked, and it gave her something she sorely needed.

I miss her. My estranged father is dead. Random internet people say so. She would be the one person who would understand that decades of distance and hurt have were no vaccination against the grief-load. If she were still here, there'd be no chance I'd be trapped and scared in a carefully constructed cocoon of denial. She wouldn't let me do that, and she would let me be be bereaved as often as I needed to be, in a safe place where I didn't have to worry about furrowed brows that don't understand why it's even remotely upsetting.

As awful a match as we were as MIL/DIL, loss was the place where we were on the same page. She knew that it didn't come with carefully defined limits and couldn't be doled out according to some sliding scale of how much, for how long and to what extent.

crayfish · 28/08/2016 16:18

I'm so sorry for those who have experienced loss in this thread, my heart hurts for you all Flowers

FWIW I have a friend who had a full- term stillborn son about six years ago, it was absolutely devastating as you unfortunately know OP and as long as I live I will never ever forget it or not be sympathetic to her. Frankly I'm amazed she carries on with life the way she has and am not sure I could do the same. That said, I rarely bring it up with her (although we talk openly about him if she brings him up). I just wouldn't know how to start and after this length of time it feels strange to ask how/if she is coping. That's my issue of course, but it's not because I am not sympathetic, not by a long stretch.

justalittlelemondrizzle · 28/08/2016 17:37

I think they will always be sympathetic to what happened to you. They probably just didn't know what to say and maybe in some strange way they thought dismissing it and telling you to move on was the kindest thing they could do. No one ever really knows what to say. It's so hard.
I know its not the same and I am by no means comparing our grief but I lost my dad suddenly a few years ago. He was very young and it was a total shock. I still haven't got over it and I don't think it ever will. Life is just so unfair. I don't bother speaking to people about how I feel, I haven't for a long time, as I fear I'd get the same response you have.
I had a miscarriage 10 years ago (again totally different) the sympathy lasted about a week and it was never mentioned again. I was just expected to forget and move on.

Topseyt · 28/08/2016 17:48

Flowers to all on here with your sad losses and the clumsy comments from others around you.

I don't think grief ever really ends, it is other people's sympathy and patience with it that all too often comes to an end.

I don't believe anyone ever "gets over" such losses as those of parents or children. I believe that they learn to live with what happened on a day to day basis and it is always with them.

I made a conscious decision many years ago now to keep that in mind, as I think too many people do seem to forget it. My grandma was in her seventies when she told my teenage self how she still missed her husband, the grandfather who died three years before I was born. We had been talking about what he had been like and looking at a photo of him she always had on display.

She often talked about him. He had been dead for some twenty years by then and I think that was when I realised that grief has no end. A valuable lesson in how to try and continue empathising with others. I was never sure she set out to teach me that at that moment, nor even realised that she did, but she did. She died in 1994 and I still hold onto it.

sarahC40 · 28/08/2016 21:39

We lost my darling bil recently and some days I just gasp at the grief. Oh got a text from an (admittedly shit) ex colleague the other day, asking if he was 'over his brother's loss yet' I shit you not. However, some people just completely get it and they understand. I don't know how to send flowers - novice poster - but a massive bunch for you op and anyone else who's feeling raw.

breakfastbap · 28/08/2016 21:49

I miss my mum so much, there was so much extra hurt at the time she died - I found out my father was seeing another woman during the last weeks of her life and we fell out over it to the extent that now I don't speak to him. It stopped me being able to process the loss of my mum and now, two years later I'm still nowhere near over it but my father 'moved on' straight away and moved his new woman in. Extended family were appalled at first with him but now have come around and think it's ok as he would have moved on by now anyway.
I'll never forget, how to properly grieve for my mother though I'll never know, it just won't come out, Im focusing on hating my father too much instead

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