SILs constant Facebook focus on bereavement.

[TinaBelcher]

Actually it's my BILs partner. I have unfollowed her on FB a few times and always follow again cos she posts photos of our nephew every day so I absurdly feel like a bad auntie keeping that invisible on purpose. He's a lovely little boy.

But her FB talks about her dead parents literally every single week of her life.

Her Dad died when she was 19, and her Mum who was her best friend died just before she got pregnant. I am not for one second suggesting those were not traumatic events. I lost both my parents unexpectedly last year just 4 months apart - I know what it's like.

BUT I find myself becoming really irritated by her FB activity.

She will do one of the following every week and sometimes twice a week: change her profile pic to one of her dead parents, post a meme about stars in the sky or some maudlin poem, write something about some anniversary and missing them, post on her own wall tagging a friend who's parent died that week years ago and go "AnneX, can you believe we lost your Mam 5 years ago this week! Dad is 17 years gone now, it never gets any easier Hun" prompting numerous comments consoling them BOTH.

Basically she appears to be relentlessly mining for sympathy. And she gets it cos her Friend list is vast.

I asked my BIL if she was ok cos of all the posts and he said yeah she was 100% fine and she wasn't depressed at all and basically said FB isn't reflective of her real life.

Why does it bother me SO MUCH??! It's her choice right? I should just unfollow her and ignore it right? I literally get so annoyed about her sympathy mining that I don't want to see her in real life!

AtHomeDadGlos don't get me started on that. Pictures of him covered in chickenpox looking really miserable moaning about her lack of sleep and how he became hysterical when they tried to stick the paracetamol suppositories up his bum. Beamed out to 250 of her closest friends. FFS.

Everyone is different in the way they grieve and seek support. I am very much like you - I would find the posts triggering.

I really, really think you NEED to mute this woman on Facebook, for the sake of your own mental health. I don't care what the practicalities are- find a way around.

I had a couple on my feed who were constantly annoying me -
they posted really long, self-indulgent posts including quite a lot of really negative and unloving stuff about one of their own children. The scapegoat/golden child thing was so obvious, and such a trigger for me. I muted the couple, and now my day is SO much better. Their negativity used to eat away at me and really annoy me disproportionately to what they were saying. Now I can let them have their space, but keep it out of my own. You will have so much more headspace when you just ignore this side of your SIL!

AtHomeDad makes a good point. Another reason I hate fb!

I just went over to FB and unfollowed.

Today's post "20 Things I Learnt After Losing a Parent at a Young Age".

Am never following her again. Life's too short.

Probably wise in the circumstances op!

Sorry to hear about the sudden loss of your parents too .

Sorry, but that's just wallowing big time. I would unfollow too.

I actually think FB is very bad for this kind of thing, I don't think it's helpful at all.

YANBU. This would annoy the hell out of me. I've unfollowed or even deleted people for less than this.

Tina - in about a week, you're going to realise how much amazing headspace you have. It's like when someone has a car or burglar alarm that is shrilling for hours and hours and it suddenly turns off. An echoing silence, then peace descends.

She sounds like she's not grieved properly for whatever reason. Please don't berate her OP. Just because you deal with your grief differently it doesn't mean that she is wrong. She's dealing with it in a way she thinks will help her and if this means her friends commenting on her posts to support her then so be it.

There is no competition with grief. We just have to learn to deal with it in a way that suits us individually

I'm glad you've unfollowed her though although I'm bewildered why it's taken so long.

Well like I said I unfollowed her a couple of times before over this. Im pretty sure the last time was when my first parent died. I only started following her again about 2 months ago. I felt guilty cos shes family and thought maybe she had cooled it. Nope!

I won't be weakening and following again though.

You can always have a quick look at her page without following again if you ever feel like it. I wouldn't bother myself though. Have I mentioned I hate fb ?

I wouldn't look at her page again OP. It will only wind you up. Just leave her to it.

Good for you!

post on her own wall tagging a friend who's parent died that week years ago and go "AnneX, can you believe we lost your Mam 5 years ago this week! Dad is 17 years gone now, it never gets any easier Hun" prompting numerous comments consoling them BOTH

THIS would really piss me off. How self centred can you be to make someone else's grief/bad situation all about you (her)? Maybe AnneX didn't want to be reminded of her mother's death whilst randomly scrolling through her facebook feed. Not to mention, AnneX's mum's death has nothing to do with SIL, so how dare she try and hone in on it.

I don't know. On the one hand, I understand that people grieve differently and on the other, I find the conspicuous grieving on Facebook distasteful. I feels like that it's not enough to grieve among family and friends but that loss must be translated for the masses, that it must have an engaged audience and it must adopt an entertaining format with memes and likes.

I see where you are coming from.. I have family who do this and it is really hard to stomach at times. I unfollow and sometimes even deactivate my fb when it gets too much.
That said, some people take great comfort in public grieving via fb. I don't know why, it would be interesting to understand. Years ago we grieved by looking at old pictures and talking about the person. Like everything else how we grieve is changing to reflect the role of digital technology in our lives.

Losing a parent as a teenager or child a very different thing from losing a parent in adulthood. I say this as someone, whose father died when I'd just turned 16 and I know that is far younger than 19.

It sounds as though she's completely stuck and consumed in grief and desperately needs counselling. Her posts are about her, not about you and the fact that you are so upset proves that you still have a lot of grieving to do yourself.

Within less than a week of my father dying, I was sitting my 'O' levels. I was in absolute bits. I don't know how I did. My mother never once thought to comfort me after his death so I didn't know how to grieve. She did know how to try to denigrate his memory to me though. As a result, I was very much stuck in my grief and ended up suffering from a very deep depression, which came to a head during my 4th and last year of university. I got counselling for that.

Am I over my father's death? More or less. I've had much more counselling and therapy since. He died 30 years ago btw and time only heals if you do something with that time.

My father's brother died earlier this year and including a weeks holiday, his dd took an entire month off work. I know this because her first day back at work along with a grief message was posted on Facebook. I was pretty gobsmacked tbh especially considering he'd been so ill for so very long that I considered it a blessed relief for him. It seems no one prepared themselves for his death and the grandkids were terribly upset. And that is their reality and they do have right to react in this way.

My mother isn't dead. But she makes my life a living hell. I will some day have a massive burden lifted off my shoulders when she does die. I know that's not what you want to hear. But some people's truths are different from yours.

It sounds as though your sil was never taught to grieve. Imagine how sad and hollow that must be. It is also a massive burden for her children to bear. They will be pretty messed up by it.

I hope you will find peace sometime soon.

It's been quite a year so far on FB from the IL's and their extended family. Most of them are blocked now. Why does an adult family all living in the same house practically, feel the need to add a new post hourly to discuss their recently dead family member. Why not just turn around and talk to each other! Then MIL sharing quotes about my DF's degenerative illness. I haven't shared my DF's condition with FB, but then she announced my DN's birth having been told not to on my DM's FB page. They live 6 hours away from each other, not friends. I may/should leave FB when I have a bereavement, I've read this thread and seen the future. OP YANBU.

That would drive me insane.

My dad died 20 years ago and my mum 18 years ago (very suddenly due to medical negligence). It was bloody tough. I had some counselling. I will always miss them. I'm so glad my ex and his mother aren't on facebook as this is the kind of shit they'd pull. In fact, the day my mum died so suddenly my ex berated me for being upset because, and I quote, 'I loved her too' and my exmil told me she'd be my mum now.

Grief is a very personal thing. Some people like to do it in private. Some people need to involve the rest of the world... forever.

Sorry for your losses OP, this situation sounds incredibly triggering and hard. Does she talk about it in real life lots too?

Don't feel guilty about unfollowing her on Facebook, the unfollow button is Facebook's best invention! She will never know and you can always go to her timeline manually and scroll straight to the photos of your nephew if you want to see them.

You've just made me think about signing up for grief counselling for my own unresolved grief

I have an acquaintance/friend like this, what she doesn't get is that she is very much an over sharer and her questions are overly intrusive and often inappropriate.

A good friend died recently, I miss her dreadfully but my grief does not compare to her children. I will share time hop stuff with a "miss you" but beyond that is private and for me to work through without dragging others into.

Namaste I would have to say something in that scenario - it feels incredibly disrespectful to big your fil (they miss him so much they haven't even noticed that they're posting on the wrong page) and your dh (just plain horrid to see RIP against his name when still alive and well).
I'd do it nicely and tactfully (to start with at least, if they continued I might give them shorter shrift!) but it's not a nice thing for them to do.