Grief Grabbers-why do they do it?

[PerryPerryThePlatypus]

There was a death in dh family just before Christmas, a much loved uncle passed away suddenly. Funeral was held a couple of days before Christmas.
At the afters of the funeral there was a screenshot of a post by someone who met this uncle maybe twice at the most (she married dh cousin and they moved away didn't keep in touch etc) being shown to family members. It basically said how am I going to get through Christmas knowing Uncle X is not here anymore. RIP I'm heartbroken.

She never even sent a card or came to the funeral. Just a rant.

Totally agree! When my son died my MIL and her husband had the nerve to eat meals the neighbor had made for myself and my husband. They turned up for a night. Did nothing, ate our food, proclaimed they were distraught and exhausted then left. Didn’t lift a finger for me or my husband. I was very ill in hospital, my surviving twin was also ill in neonates and my husband was dealing with that and our 2 year old. I’ll never forgive them.

This happened to my family when my son died. One particular individual, who barely knew him, started posting more and more stuff on facebook, it was becoming really intrusive. She was posting all kinds of things to make it look as if she was really close to him. It was really distressing as it was all fantasy.
We had to go no contact in the end.

I was once roasted on here for posting about my dd's best friend being murdered. It was all over the media when it happened as it was a suspected terror attack (later proved not to be). Apparently it wasnt my story to tell and I was a grief thief.

Girls who were at school with her and DD were all over social media saying "OMG I cant believe my best friend is dead" when DD (and her friends parents) knew they were vile and bullied the poor dead girl. DD read my thread on here and was incensed that I was lumped in with the drama llamas.

Still hurts to this day that I was treated that way. We loved her, we still do, we miss her. She was killed in a very brutal way and my daughter still struggles with it and keeps in touch with her family.

I think it can be tied to some sort of disorder in some.

I have a relative who goes to funerals of people she has never even met, friends of friends, and inserts herself in it all.

She also latches on to anyone experiencing a dramatic/traumatic event such as death or someone critically ill in hospital and inserts herself. She once rocked up to someone she worked with 20 years prior and had no contact with since immediately after the persons DH died. Seriously, knocked on the door and said she was there ‘to offer support’. Generally people are so befuddled with grief initially they just go with it but then comes a point where they start and get themselves back together and go ‘wtf’.

Severe attention seeking, tied to some sort of disorder (not sure what). It’s just too weird to be normal.

I experienced the same when my mum died, my eldest two hadn't bothered to visit or contact her in over 10 years even though they only lived few miles away, and regularly drove past on way to a local shopping centre
after she died leaving me her property etc one made a big display of grief on fb and my eldest a man in his fifties has not spoken to me for a year because he wasn't left anything!!
Tough!! And he never will get anything I'm Ashamed of him the grabbing idiot!!

I completely agree, @HoppingPavlova!!!!

I too, think it's related to some kind of personality disorder. NPD, maybe?
My mother is a narcissist and loves attention and virtue signaling so I recognize the signs.

The idiot woman that cried -crocodile- tears at my Dad's funeral was being absolutely ridiculous! You would have thought that she was his long lost mother or something! A complete LOON!
I was so pissed. Not to mention, I had not worked for that company for a year, so I had not seen her since then. We despised each other. Then she has the audacity to cry like that, as if she loved him like we did.
I, on the other hand, had to keep it together because I was designated to read the eulogy that I wrote. I felt like she cheapened everything with her phony waterworks. However, in my heart his real friends and family knew the truth.There is something seriously wrong with those people.
Sorry for the novel! Got carried away!

I’m actually laughing at the CF that is my ds’s X. They’d been NC for almost two decades and he was absent for most of his dc lives. Yet, the cf was incandescent with rage when he learned he wouldn’t be in one of the funeral cars. He hadn’t even contacted my grieving dp’s. Then on the day of the funeral, wearing the most inappropriate eye-watering bright jacket, he actually muscled past the chief mourners, including my elderly dp’s and his own kids, to claim front row bench! As his dc cried inconsolably next to him, he sat oblivious. My own dd leaped forward to console her cousin.
He left the wake not long after arriving, apparently because no one was showing him any respect. We’ve not seen him since, naturally!

@icanttakemuchmore i'm so sorry, what an unbearable thing to do to you at such an awful time. I know many of these desperate for attention types but that behaviour is on another level altogether

Reading most of these stories are so shocking BUT I am surprised by others and only read one comment referring to paying respect. I’m not originally British, so would ask if this is not the norm here as in a relative of a friend dies, you don’t know person who died, but you feel very sad for friend and go to funeral (clearly not crying/wailing, just attend) tell family you’re sorry for their loss, leave after funeral. Is that wrong?

Old boyfriends or ex husband, if they died, you’re not supposed to go to funeral to pay respect? May not have spoken in years, but were once very close, is it wrong to go to their funeral (again, no wailing/crying) just go to pay respect? Is this not a done thing in UK? Curious.

There is a huge difference between paying respects and making someone elses' loss all about you.
Of course it is completely normal and appropriate to bring food/ flowers, send a card, attend a funeral.
But completely wrong to behave in an attention seeking manner, post lots of me, me, me on social media trying to get sympathy when you barely knew the person who has died.

My husband passed away recently after a very late cancer diagnosis - a few days from diagnosis to when he passed. I was shocked and upset by a neighbour who insisted on telling me how she had had a similar scenario with a much loved relative several years ago, but that the circumstances were ‘much worse’ and she was still not over it. At my husbands’ funeral she recounted the same story to a mutual friend, who promptly told her that as her own husband was alive and kicking, it was most certainly not the same thing and that perhaps a funeral was not the time or place for this kind of oneupmanship. I learned afterwards that she is well known for this kind of thing - apparently she’s always had or knows someone who’s had it much better/worse and invariably tells the story to prove some sort of point. I’m at a loss as to why people like this feel the need to piggy back on someone’s grief or distress like this, but anyway, my thoughts are with all of you out there who are grieving.

It all started with princess Diana. Imagine if thete was social media back then. The internet would have imploded!

There was (some) internet when Diana died - I used to use dial-up Fidonet, for example, and I remember a lot of threads on there. Most of my online pals, mercifully, were as appalled as I was over the collective loopiness going on. TBH, looking back on it now, I think far fewer people were actually that bothered than the media liked to claim.

Also, that thing about people who are funeral frequent-flyers - there is something of a tradition behind this, especially for the elderly: you go along, say something pleasant and get stuck into the buffet even if you only knew the deceased in passing. It goes back to the days when everyone knew all their neighbours and a funeral was a big social event: the bereaved tended to expect and want a 'good turnout' ie a lot of guests.

I have a few friends who will vaguebook eg “So sad - RIP to a brave lady” and have loads of people comment “sorry for your loss” and it then turns out they used to work in Tesco with them twenty years ago or something. I’ve told my husband that should anything happen to me and someone other than him or my children starts making it all about them on Facebook he has my full permission to fully let rip at them. And I’ll haunt them as well.

I think saying sorry for your loss even if you worked with someone 20 years ago is fine. I remember people from way back and i would be sorry if i heard they passed. Saying sorry to relatives on facebook is the midern synpathy card.
Turning ul to a funeral sobbing your heartbout if you didn't know simeone is attention seeking.

Typos...aggggrrr!

Banana....not strange at all how I remembered your post...it was rude and it stood out from all the others as going against the general feeling of the thread. Yes you said "what the f," or something similar, which I thought was rude and swearing. I thought about reporting you, but didn't bother, but I see someone else did. I'm glad you re wrote it as it was much nicer the second time and you have a right to an opinion just like everyone else. I love the fact that people can discuss issues on here, but hate it when people come across all shouty and cross.

Malificent.....I dont agree fb is the modern sympathy card because not everyone is on fb and don't get that message. As happened in our case only one relative was making posts about the deceased on fb so she got all the sympathy and the rest of close family got nothing.

My exh did this when my mum died very suddenly. Told me, when I was bawling my eyes out, that he was upset too with fake tears in his eyes. He hardly even knew her. Then he buggered off to the pub, leaving me with 4 year old twins, so he could spread the word to people who had never even met my mum and get bought many sympathy pints . He came home pissed many hours later. His mum is also an insensitive twat and on hearing the news (an hour later, if that) she hugged me and told me she'd be my mum now. Total fuckers the lot of them. It was 20 years ago and it still makes me angry to think of it.

hugged me and told me that she’d be my mum now

Fucking hell- my mum died suddenly in October- if anyone had said that to me, I think I would’ve smacked them one.

“hate it when people come across all shouty and cross.”

Yes heaven forbid women should ever come across as anything other than mimsy little prigs.

Why would you want to turn up to someone’s funeral you barely knew to eat the free buffet? Genuinely, why? When my Nan passed there was loads of food left and I genuinely couldn’t take any of it home. It just felt wrong. I can’t even explain it. It was nice food and I ate whilst we were there because it was lunchtime, but the idea of traipsing out in my black dress with a plate of sandwiches just makes me cringe.

My mum was a bit like this. I think she just enjoyed the drama of someone meeting a tragic end. It seemed like every time I spoke to her she'd be telling me how someone was ill or dead and how sad it was. She died suddenly and too young herself. It's a shame she didn't get to enjoy the drama it caused, it was right up her street.

A woman I knew was absolutely desperate for a man's attention on fb. Her mum became ill and she started her attention seeking posts by her dying DMs hospital bedside. The most sickening post for me was her pouting selfies at the funeral.

Blanche Hunt on Coronation Street (Deirdre’s mother) used to turn up at funerals of people she didn’t know to enjoy the buffet and pass ascerbic comments.....just saying...(I know it’s fiction.....)