AIBU to not grasp some kinds of grief?

[lizzieoak]

I'm curious about what upsets people when famous people die? As an example, I was a massive fan of Amy Winehouse & I was sad when she died. Primarily thought "oh, how sad for her poor family" & a little bit thought (& still think) "how sad for people who loved her writing & voice that it's all ended so soon."

But, horrible monster that I am, I didn't cry, as I didn't know her personally and, sadly, it was hardly a huge surprise. Ditto the death of our treasured Mr Cohen. He was 82.

On the non-famous end, while I was sad when my dad died when I was in my 20's, I thought "well, today I'm sad, but in a year I bet days will pass when I don't even think of dad". A friend of mine had a parent die around the same age and he spends the whole month, every year, 30 years later, being Quite Upset. Slight difference in the manner of our parent's deaths as my dad had been sick on & off since I was a kid whereas my friend's mum died of cancer within a year of getting ill.

I totally grasp that a loss of a child could destroy a person. It's out of the natural order of things. And the loss of a spouse - I can see how that could be pretty devastating.

But I worry a bit that I feel sad but not grief-stricken about the loss of people I love (older adult family members thus far) & people whose work I've admired.

Is it just that I'm a cold fish in this regard? Can anyone upended by the death of an elderly person, or Princess Diana, explain to me ... well, just what it is they're upset about?

Hard to convey tone online sometimes, but I'm not being sarkie, I really don't grasp this (though am otherwise emotionally normal).

Anecdotally, my male friends seem more thrown by the death of elderly rellies, whereas women seem more emotional than men are by the death of famous people. Not necessarily true across society, but in my circle I've noticed this.

I have not suffered the loss of a child but I utterly despise anyone who says to someone who has lost a child that they felt the same about their cat/dog/gerbil. It must surely be intended to deliberately hurt the bereaved parent, what other explanation could there be? And also people who say to a bereaved parent 'oh, I just couldn't go on if I lost a child, it would kill me'. That is just the most despicable thing to say to someone - you haven't died of grief therefore you don't love your child as much as I do.

treacle absolutely to the couldn't go on comments. Just last week I had someone say 'I'd throw myself under a bus if it was me'. Just what do I do with that comment?! I just said be grateful it's not. I suppose it's a hard thing to be confronted with so maybe out of nerves they blurt something out. In just 2 months I feel like I've heard it all but it's only now that it's registering.

I think others who are bereaved are better at conveying sympathies. A friend who lost his wife recently has been brilliant at knowing what to say. As a society, we don't deal with loss particularly well and child loss still seems very hard to talk about.

maybe you should Navy I have never not been shocked amd saddened to hear how bereaved parents are treated or ignored

I have worked as a bereavement counsellor in my experience the clients bereavement is different how they are not my words to write. I do feel if the clients I worked with had felt a little less isolated it wouldn't have taken away their pain but it may have made life a little more bearable in their darkest days

The thing is that I don't think there is much that anyone can say to someone who is grieving other than 'I'm so sorry', or maybe 'I lost my mother/brother/son in similar circumstances'. You don't ever need to utter the words 'I know how you feel' because, well, even if you have lost someone in similar circumstances you still don't really know how they feel. So surely it's just better all round to let them know that you care about how they feel rather than that you feel how they feel?

I've found that people ask how you are, listen for the first vaguely positive thing and then start saying how brave you are and how well you're coping and how they would be flattened but you are so brave. And that's the conversation over.

It's very rare for anyone to say 'But how are you actually?'

I had people who knew my dad all his life cross the road to avoid me
It's been over 3 years now and they still avoid me

It doesn't bother me
I think that when someone dies so unexpectedly people struggle - it reminds them of their own mortality and frailty.
My husbands aunt didn't speak to me for months afterwards
When she did finally phone me she spent the whole phone call crying about how awful she felt for me
People don't actually want to know how you are ime - they want you to move on and act normally
I'm Pretty good at putting on a show now - there are few people who know how badly I'm struggling

And controversially, losing and burying my daughter was 1000 times worse than my early mc
Leapling, I don't think that's controversial at all. I miscarried at 10 weeks and even at the time I thought, I'd far rather deal with this than with the loss of a newborn or an infant. I lost an idea. When your baby died, you lost a person.

As a society, we just don't handle the deaths of children well at all. A century ago, most (or at any rate many) parents lost a child, whereas now it must be hideously isolating.

Agree
I had two mc
Not nice and at the time I was very sad.
But to compare it to losing a child?
Nope

I miscarried at 10 weeks and even at the time I thought, I'd far rather deal with this than with the loss of a newborn or an infant. I lost an idea. When your baby died, you lost a person.

I don't think it's necessary to compare or to diminish one. I would never say that someone who had a miscarriage know how someone who has lost a child postnatally feels, but there are circumstances in which it is utterly crushing to lose an unborn child and the fact that you didn't know them simply makes it worse. You simply can't judge.

This is a very emotive topic and after I did some counselling qualifications I realized there is no universal gradient or line of grief where you can allocate the pain of losing your dog, grandmother, mmc, child, gerbil, long lost relative etc. Everyone has their own line which is relative to them, and should not be dismissed.

I do appreciate that it must be very hard to hear someone likening their grief to yours when it seems wholly incomparable to you.

I lost df and a few months later went to group bereavement counselling where about half had lost parents and half had lost husbands. At the first session, one woman who had lost her husband said it made her angry to hear about the feelings of those who had just lost parents. She didn't come back and neither did someone else who had lost his mother.
Is there really a hierarchy of loss? It is so clear from this thread that everyone experiences loss differently. I found bereavement so intensely personal and isolating it was very hard to find common ground with other bereaved people.
op, you may not mean to be insensitive but your posts are coming across as "gosh really" instead of taking in what people are expressing.

There is no hierarchy to grief as it is relative to the person feeling it. I think what I was saying was that for me personally, having lost my DD, if someone compared it to a pet I'd be furious. I've never heard of someone feeling like they couldn't live another second because their gerbil died and I'm sure most people would be a bit if that was the case. So maybe there is a hierarchy?! I think a PP mentioned the difference between sadness and grief which made sense to me.

I don't have the consolation of 'she had a good life' or 'she'd want you to be happy' and it can feel so isolating. The charities offering support put me in the category with any kind of child loss which includes mc. I know how painful that felt for me at the time but I know how much more painful this feels now and so it doesn't feel right for me. I am sorry to anyone who has experienced a loss and wish it was talked about more so that people had a greater understanding of what to say and what not to and didn't judge if people grieved differently to them.

I think there is a kind of hierarchy whether that is right or wrong. My mother died and I felt real grief but I absolutely know that losing my husband or a sibling would be a lot worse and that losing one of my children would be unimaginably horrific.

Can imagine the hug from the big Dad would be so comforting at a hellishly bleak time. As for the things people say, it baffles me but I do think a lot of it is thoughtless stuff and panic reactions. Even typing on here I am worrying that I might type something carelessly that would hurt or upset someone.

A pet doesn't even come close and I've had horses and dogs die that I've really loved. To compare one with the other is unbelievably crass.

NavyandWhite for you too xx

Losing Ds has shattered me.

So sorry Navy, I didn't know you'd lost a child.

I always raise an eyebrow at 'there is no hierarchy of grief'.

It's normal to lose your parents and bluntly my love for them is dwarfed by the love that I feel for my own children. I'll recover from losing my parents (when that happens).

Sorry navy I hope my 'so sorry' didn't seem trite, that hardly seems fitting in re-reading it.

for those who have lost children.

I feel that we can grieve very differently for different people in our life and part of our grief is making sense of the person you love death

How can you make sense of a child's death. I am sure if we sat down and seriously thought about it we know deep down a child's death the grief experienced by family is beyond pain that most of us will never have to endure. But that is too painful to deeply think about.

Hierarchy often plays out when people are talking about their grief but often it is about their pain wanted to be acknowledged. In group therapy this can be very hard to work with

I think it's largely to do with how much of a personal loss it is. In addition how expected it was - a very old person who's had a long happy life dyng seems somehow easier than someone dying young or suddenly.

I didn't cry at the loss of grandfathers, I suspect loss of grandmothers will be harder as we were closer/have more memories. Loss of Aunt was slightly harder as she seemed too young to die and it was all fairly quickly downhill from diagnosis, but we had pretty much no relationship.

However, despite not really crying or feeling a sense of personal loss at these deaths, I cried a fair bit at the funerals and quietly at other times because I could feel everyone else's pain. That's what made me feel death was cruel and nonsensical and want to cry out in anger and grief about it all. Just seeing people so sad and feeling their pain go right through me like a knife.

As for comments about pets dying and aren't people lucky to not have anything worse in their life... I've been to hell and back. I struggle with traumatic memories and my life has been severely affected by things that should never have happened, that by and large I can't talk to people about. In some ways I find it harder to empathise with other's grief or difficulties if they are "normal" things (eg. 96yr old dying peacefully) as on some level my brain longs to have "normal" problems that are vaguely within others' frame of reference, rather than complex problems that cause inexplicable deep shame and make me feel different from the rest of humanity. I know that's weird and don't let it show, and as mentioned when actually faced with a grieving person I can feel the grief myself. But I wonder if losing a child is a bit like that? - totally outside others' experience, they don't want to think about it, social pariah status when you need acceptance - and utterly different from simple, clean cut, mainstream grief over grandma dying at a happy ripe old age (although obviously that's still grief).

When my little furry died I cried buckets and was all weird inside for a few days. I may never have children, I've been through a lot - loving little pets saw me through so there was a huge personal relationship there I guess. Also shed a brief tear at Terry Pratchett passing, but again I felt there was a relationship there - not with him but with the characters and world he'd created in his books.