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.

Iamalwayslikethis......did you even see bananas original post that I was referring to? And no, i don't think Women should always come across as "Mimsy little prigs", but surely you don't agree with people spouting the f word left right and centre when there is no need. So person a says something which is her point of view and everyone is discussing it nicely, then along comes person b saying "who the f do you think you are"......Just no need.

I have a SIL like this. The latest is how bad she is struggeling with all the tests and diagnosis of her DS. He will now need treatment and she is devastated and nobody can understand what she is going through. We (the family) don't support her enough in her grief. She had a good go at her mum because her mum shouldn't still be grieving her dad (dead less than a year) because she should focus on this terrible diagnosis.
Her DS has been diagnosed with ADHD.

My ils love a funeral, scouring the local rag every week to see if there's anyone in there they can spuriously justify pretending to know. They actually rang dh up once to enquire if he knew about so and sos death and was he going to the funeral. Dh was like eh? Who? You remember x they said, lived three doors up in x road. Dh said how old was I when we lived there? Mil says oh you would have been 4

This sadly seems to happen a lot .
When DD died suddenly at home last September a "friend" of hers turned up at our house sobbing,asked to go into her room for a piece of her jewellery & also for some of her ashes if we decided to have her cremated.
This was only 2 days after DD died ,we were still in shock,didn't know how she died & couldn't bring ourselves to enter the bedroom yet ourselves.

We found out later about the FB posts ,it broke my heart to see my DDs passing used like that & this persons behaviour continued over the following months causing us more upset .
Her behaviour at the funeral was so bad,a lot of people noticed & questioned it.

There was also an old friend of ours that we'd not seen for years who visited "to pay respects " . My DSis let her in ,she marched past her & me sobbing to throw herself at my DH .
When he walked away from her in disgust,she then sat for an hour telling anyone who would listen how well she was doing & how much her children had accomplished!
No mention of DD or even a how are you...I just sat gobsmacked .

The amount of people who came out of the woodwork shocked me, it was very clear who turned up as they wanted to know exactly what had happened to gossip about it .Their behaviour differed immensely to those who genuinely were devastated & wanted to offer condolences.

So those who say you can't police others grief ,you are right but I can assure you it is blatantly obvious when the support is genuine because they actually thought a lot of the person who died.
I appreciated every single person who genuinely came to comforted us ,the school friends who were respectful & didn't feel the need to post their visits & support all over social media for attention.

There are also family who used her death for their own agenda,that I have found the hardest to deal with & I can't bring myself to talk about it yet as it's ongoing.

A year on ,the grief grabbers have disappeared,(apart from token FB posts obviously ) but we still hear from those who genuinely loved DD.

My OH had an upset employee ask for compassionate leave because his hamster died!

To be fair it was a tragic ending......he fell asleep at the wheel.

I worked with a person (let’s name her A) who did this. Two local ladies were murdered nearby a few years ago (really high profile case, trying not to give too much info) and this colleague A was working as the only female in a satellite office in Ireland with a small team of generally older men. (She had form anyway for being the type of person who, if you were a woman, wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire - one day she went around my office and offered only the men some sweets from a large tub and ignored the ladies. But I digress)

So the terrible murder of these two ladies happens and it’s national news. Locally, everyone is just horrified of course. My colleague A immediately downs tools and needs to be taken to the local pub for a stiff drink. You see, one of the victims was A’s close cousin who she grew up with. Her best friend in fact. All the men also downed tools and took her to the nearest bar and stood her drinks all afternoon and comfort her and let her cry on their shoulders. She’s booked on the first flight back by the company, no expense spared, and allowed as much time off as she needs to grieve and support her family.

Only... turns out a few weeks later that another person we work with from another office is the actual cousin of this particular victim and really put out that grieving colleague A has made these claims of being family and close to the victim when it turned out the only link A had was that her parents lived across the road from the victims parents and the paths of the colleague and victim barely ever crossed!

A lot of people lost a lot of respect for her that day and she left the company soon after.

Another one is my cousin. She’s adorable generally but young and naive. A close family friend of the generation above ours (so close to my Mum and Aunts) committed suicide a few years back. They were found in the local area close to our small village. My cousin, who has barely ever spoke to this person went all out on Facebook. She was about 14 at the time so I’m assuming it was the naivety of youth but we got photos posted of the area he was found with chest beating status’s. Then multiple pictures of the grave every so often. She’s calmed down a bit now but we all had to tell her to wind her bloody neck in.

What really made me mad was when my mum was knocked down and killed by a car and a girl I knew said to me. “ oh if it was my mum I couldn’t have stood it “. As if her grief would have been greater then mine. It was many years ago but I still wish I had punched her !

WatcheroftheNight I'm so sorry.

Cousin of my exh was killed in a RTA whilst on holiday abroad. My jaw almost hit the ground when I heard exh's mother tell the cousin mother 'I loved him as much as you did.'

Made me so angry to hear her make this young man's death all about her and how much she was grieving. Like his mother wasn't devastated enough already without her own sister making stupid grief grabbing remarks.

It's not a bloody grief competition fgs.

but surely you don't agree with people spouting the f word left right and centre when there is no need

I think its absolutely fine, and who are you to decide when "Fuck" is justified anyway? The language police?! Wind your neck in love.

A very popular boy died at another school in town. All the children I taught that actually knew him were quietly crying. Those that did not know him very well, stomped around wailing and demanding attention. They were only teenagers but it was very unpleasant to watch. His actual friends ignored it at first but after a few days, they got quite angry. One girl who had been especially dramatic was calling him by the wrong name. Think Bob when he was known as Rob.

This drives me mad! My brother took his own life and the amount of people at the funeral who he hadn’t seen for years or hardly knew him and sobbing was so distasteful. My sister became quite angry with some of them and wanted to say something but we talked her out of it. Their behaviour added to our unbearable pain

DF passed suddenly last year. At the funeral someone I had never met (and still do not know who they are!) exclaimed to me "he was like a father to me"! WTF do you say to that?

I have lots of other examples of grief thiefs, it really does make my blood boil though and they do not deserve my time to put their actions into type!!

People used to be advised to send a letter rather than phone so as not to exhaust the bereaved. I suppose if you are narcissistic there isn't enough immediate feedback from that.

I think Grief Stealers display selfish and self absorbed behaviour in general. I had an ex like this - he seemed to revel in 'bad news'. There was always lots of 'Oh my god. You'll never guess what happened?!" And it would turn out to be something that would be nothing to do with him emotionally/personally but would clearly be very traumatic for someone else - he was just using it as a catalyst for him to have a drama.

One of the nails in our coffin was when my cat died. It wasn't expected and I'd moved out of my parents house where it lived but it was still my cat who I loved. I wasn't grief stricken but I was really sad and just wanted to have a little cry and sniff and think about her for a while. Ex proceeded to get quite drunk and spend the night sobbing (literally) about his dog that had died 14 years previously.

Twat.

My mum is a grief theif. She split up from my dad when I was 1 and he died, very suddenly and in unpleasant circumstances, when I was 26. I had to organise everything from the funeral to clearing out his home, he was single and my shit siblings were useless, and did nothing to help, i was also six months pregnant so had a very stressful couple of weeks before the funeral. on the day of the funeral, before I was about to set off on a 100 mile journey to the crematorium near where dad lived, my mum rang (she lives abroad so wasn't attending) to say "while you're down in Yorkshire today could you pop in and visit Christine [her friend who I barely know], her nan has just died she's so sad what a lovely woman she was, it would really cheer her up if you popped round and showed her your bump". It's the only time in my existence when I've told my mum to fuck off. Insensitive bitch.

My oldet sister is like this, drives the family a bit mad. It started when my dads mum died. The family in general had been NC with her after my parents acrimonious divorce except DSis who would visit every few months (a good houra drive away) and at the funeral which i attended as we were back in tentative contact with my dad after 10 years NC & i wanted to support him & pay my respects to a dead family member even though she had been awful to me. Well DSis wouldn't stop going on about how she loved nan more than any of us. Wr just kinda ignored it but then my son was born on the anniversary of her death and for the 7 years since she "cant celebrate DNephew birthday as its still hurtful".

Anyway, fast forward to 2015. Our grandad is extremely unwell with final stage cancer. Myself and my mum are always over helping him and nan & running errands and things. My DH is also helping with lifting him if he was too weak and my tiny nan couldn't move him. We live close by as the crow flies but its a trek to actually get there via the roads. At this stage as well my DH is a shift worker and i have 3 kids ages 6, 3 & 2.

DSis lives literally straight down the road but does bugger all to help. I had to battle to get her to stay with our grandad when i needed to take nan to hospital as she was unwell. Queue FB selfie of her with grandad asleep in the chair, in his final days saying about how much he means to her. She had done feck all.

Then a few days later he dies. I rush round and am there minutes later she comes by shortly after. But then won't leave. My nan is still unwell & also devestated and wanted some peace and Dsis wouldnt go. She proceeds to ring work saying she wont be in & proceeds to visit my nan daily but staying ALL DAY getting fed etc despite not ever visiting before. She annouces his death on fb within minutes, follows up with daily pictures of my upset nan and basically is super crass.

Once the funeral was over and life was returning to normal she disappears again. My nan is still unwell and slipping into dementia but wont leave her home so im still visiting 3+ times a week, shopping for her, taking her to appts despite the kids and DH shifts and my evening working. DSis had to be begged to watch my children whilst i went with nan in an ambulance. Made sense that i went since I'd been with her, i know her medical history, I'd dealt with the paramedics and DSis had only rushed over after someone told her there was an ambulance outside nans house. She makes every excuse to not help but you can be damned sure when my nan does pass away she'll be there, in all her grief and fb'ing for maximum attention despite doing fuck all.

I understand she'll be upset of course but i know what shes like and it'll be used as an excuse to skip work & to get sympathy because she doesnt care enough to even drop nan a pint of milk round when asked as shes "too tired".

I have loads of relatives who do this. It's bloody exhausting. I've blocked / hidden most of them on social media.
One aunt in particular posts a tragic 'woe me' post in response to almost every death she hears about. My sister and I screen shot it and send to each other, along with the 🙄 emoji.

I seen a girl tag herself in a picture with a young guy I knew who committed suicide. The picture was a selfie of her holding a rose and crying on the way to his funeral. Never seen anything so bizarre.

Just thinking about this thread and didn't the Nana in The Royle Family go to lots of funerals? I recall her saying mournfully that the family of x had decided to restrict the attendees at the funeral to 'people who actually knew him'.

Maybe this grief grabbing is really common?

I have heard stories and anecdotes about it for decades, to be fair (and not all horrifying/negative). It seems to have been a fairly common and expected thing, among older people, to treat a funeral as a day out and a social occasion - and there are certainly people who want their own funerals or those of close family members to be bloody good parties with plenty of food and drink. I think it's more the thing when the deceased was old and had gone reasonably peacefully than eg someone young who had a tragic accident or was murdered, but if it is a good end to a good life, why not?

Drives me nuts when someone dies suddenly/has a fatal accidents/is murdered and suddenly a whole bunch of attention seekers appear from nowhere clutching petrol station forecourt tatty bouquets and start turning on the taps when a news station film crew are spotted. And then they start taking selfies too.

Parasites, the lot!

That poor man who was murdered on the train in Surrey on Friday, why do people who didn’t even know him feel the need to walk up to the station in tears and tie flowers onto the railings? It is an extremely tragic story, but please don’t try and find your own part in it.

but please don’t try and find your own part in it.

That’s a perfect summary.

I have a particular dislike of the ‘community’ putting on these shows of grief and remembrance for people whose existence and tragedy they only know about from the news.

Whatever happened to dignified private sorrow?

I am truly sorry for those who have lost someone on this thread

As for Bananas who the f do I think I am?
I come from a close family, an Irish family. It was a Catholic funeral in Ireland, 3 days. Dead on Tuesday, waked on Wednesday and buried on Thursday. The FB grief grabber had zero contact with him. There was zero relationship. No visits, phone calls, cards nothing over the years. Did she fuck ring anyone to offer condolences. So yes I can judge her attention seeking FB tripe all I want. That's who the f I know I am.