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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Grief Grabbers-why do they do it?

300 replies

PerryPerryThePlatypus · 31/12/2018 09:40

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.

OP posts:

KrispyKremes · 31/12/2018 10:15

It's the weirdest and most offensive for of attention seeking IMO.

I have one very attention seeks friend who is always losing "very dear" friends.

Funny that I've known her for 6+ years and will never have heard these people mentioned. But then when they die she'll cry for days and keep posting about how sad she is etc.

My mums friend really took the biscuit though. We lost my nan last year (mum's mum) and her friend took a day off work for the funeral - to which she hadn't really been invited as she'd not seen my Nan for 20 years......anyway.

As I get out the Hearse with my mum, dad, uncle, aunt and cousin. This friend comes running across the crematorium forecourt, basically pushing actual family members aside. To hug my mum and wail.......

Fucking idiot.

scarbados · 31/12/2018 10:16

For 3 days after my DF died, MIL was on the phone every hour, crying to DH about how devastated she was. She had never met him and didn't even know his name.

I wanted to cry, talk about him with DH and get on with grieving but couldn't because she was ever-present and having to be consoled. DH told her to stop calling and leave us alone but she just kept on being 'so upset and can't stop crying'. Eventually I lost it with him and screamed at him to visit her so she'd give me a break. I'm not sure what he said to her when he was there but the calls stopped. We didn't give her any details of the funeral in case it triggered more faux grief and attention-seeking from her.

I've never forgiven her and never will. (We have other background so it's not just because of dad but that was the final straw.)

Original poster

PerryPerryThePlatypus · 31/12/2018 10:18

Shockers in Ireland they have www.RIP.ie where you can post funeral details.

OP posts:

flumpybear · 31/12/2018 10:19

Ug! Didn't realise it had a name! A girl at my work goes well over board when anyone thst anybody else knows dies, her sister had a miscarriage and she was off due to depression and her poor sister had to deal with her own grief and the sister was literally bleeding the whole of work and her family dry emotionally with her grief for her sisters miscarriage ... it's happened since with other people at work who have family or friends who die and she'll just fall to bits - I'm getting quite fed up with it after 10 years

InsomniacAnonymous · 31/12/2018 10:20

KirstyAllsoppsFatterTwin "I hope they said no."

Hezz said "She got some too."

PooleySpooley · 31/12/2018 10:20

I blame Princess Diana.

Original poster

PerryPerryThePlatypus · 31/12/2018 10:23

WTF has Princess Diana got to do with it?

OP posts:

willdoitinaminute · 31/12/2018 10:23

I once had a person attend an appointment where she told me all about a recent bereavement and how it had affected her, as I expressed my condolences it suddenly dawned on me she was talking about the sudden death of one of my employees children.
We are only a small team and it had devestated us. Due to the possibility of press interest we had to keep quiet about it. I was amazed that the patient didn’t know that the child’s parent worked with me since she made out that it was a close family friend. Turns out her children were at the same school.

Shockers · 31/12/2018 10:24

My MIL wanted to come to my mum’s funeral. I think the only time they ever met was at our wedding, 20 years previously.

DH just said no. We would’ve had to pick her up, look after her and take her home (over an hour each way). I was too upset to want to do that.

Apparently she attends a lot of funerals. I wonder whether it’s to grieve for significant people she’s lost, as much as for the person who is being celebrated there .

Kahlua4me · 31/12/2018 10:24

My mum died in an accident a few years ago and a cousin announced on Facebook how upset she was to lose an aunt and how it makes her dread getting old. Cue all her friends sending love to her etc. and all attention towards her.

Only she hadn’t seen or spoken with my mum for over 6 years and mum died doing something very active that wasn’t in any way related to being old. Plus, my cousins didn’t contact me at all to see how we were or come to mums funeral.

KirstyAllsoppsFatterTwin · 31/12/2018 10:24

sorry Insomniac I missed that

Iamtheworst · 31/12/2018 10:26

My mums a bit like this, though not as bad as some pps. Grandad dies she was sadder than me because it’s terrible to lose a father, my father dies and she’s sadder because it’s terible to lose a husband, ds dangerously ill in hospital and she’s sadder than me because as a grandmother she’s seen so many children die so worries more. Fucks sake, how about we both be sad and not measure how sad.

BigBumandMumTum · 31/12/2018 10:29

When my grandma died my sister(different mums) messaged me how sorry she was for my loss, I told her that she was her grandma aswell but she had never met her (she doesn't have contact with dads family)

Suddenly she is grieving the tragic loss of her grandma and is devastated. She came to the funeral and was attention seeking the whole time. It was embarrassing and took away from my loss of a grandma I saw and contacted regularly

Gwenhwyfar · 31/12/2018 10:29

I suppose what Pooley means is that when Princess Diana died everyone in the UK was meant to be grieving, most of whom would never have met her. There was a lot of public crying by strangers, etc. Some kind of mass hysteria really.

On the other hand, the TV showed all that, but most people I knew just carried on with their lives. I was personally unhappy about the loss of wages on the day of her funeral. I don't mean any disrespect with that, but I don't think it was fair that we 'subjects' had to make a financial loss for someone we didn't know.

Sunnysidegold · 31/12/2018 10:30

At a relative's funeral (they died a teenager) his ex girlfriend from two years ago turned up, glammed up to the nines with her new boyfriend and wailed over the coffin about much she missed him.

She has been absolutely awful the two months they'd dated and had cheated on him, done awful thibgs. They'd had no contact since. New boyfriend was a bit we were all .

My family are quite quiet and i found it very hard to cope with this display of "grief". It bothered me for quite a while until I eventually.put it down to her being 19 and a bit of a dick (she was a dick, not just because she was 19!).

I'd like to think she has since gained some perspective and wouldn't behave in a similar way now.

EmeraldShamrock · 31/12/2018 10:32

Yes it is OTT. It is not so much if they have recently passed. I had a few friends on FB from an area, lots are related, on any of their family's death anniversaries you get long post after post, each one sadder on more desperate.

I do think it is more normal for the younger generation to grieve through FB. They have learnt it from the adults. An old friend of mine took her life in November, her teenager daughters often lost express their pain, almost as if speaking directly to their Mam, It is genuinely heart breaking to read.

AlpacaLypse · 31/12/2018 10:34

Misery vampires have always been with us but social media gives them even more of a stage to posture on.

I think Pooley was referring to the sheer hysteria of the mourning for Diana. Actually that wasn't unique, by all accounts the extravagance of national mourning when Princess Charlotte, the only child of George IV died in childbirth in (I think) 1818, was in the same league, despite not having round the clock news coverage to stoke it up.

GaryBaldbiscuit · 31/12/2018 10:35

that is appalling op

Original poster

PerryPerryThePlatypus · 31/12/2018 10:37

But it's hardly Princess Diana's fault, the poor woman was dead.

OP posts:

EmeraldShamrock · 31/12/2018 10:38

Shockers in Ireland they have www.RIP.ie where you can post funeral details.
I seen a documentary of why they decided to launch RIP.ie it is a really good idea, especially if you hear someone has died, you obviously do not want to phone to ask.
I have unfortunately had to use it a few times.

Tony2 · 31/12/2018 10:39

On the day of Diana's funeral my mum worked in a bakers and stayed open. Came home upset from the abuse they'd had for being disrespectful staying open. I remember being slack jawed watching blokes buying all the flowers in Tesco. Patently, something deeply disturbing was happening.

donajimena · 31/12/2018 10:41

A father and son were tragically killed in an RTA 3 years ago. One of my friends son had been friends with the little boy concerned and oh my goodness did we not hear the end of it. How her son was devastated by the loss. She regularly tagged the grieving mother/widow in her posts. For months. If I'd known her better I'd have told her to rein it in.
My friend recently passed away and my partner and I carefully considered what we would post. We had been asked by the family to post to make sure all his friends not known to them could make the funeral. But thats it. Cue lots of posts from people who hadn't made the effort to visit him (they knew he was ill) publicly stating their loss.

bonfireheart · 31/12/2018 10:42

Doing it via social media is the worst. I have a cousin who lives in a different city and never visits. Whenever there is a death in thr family he announces his death in the family AND tags in the facebook profile of the person who passed away. Because of this I've defriended him and stop conversing with him. A few weeks ago ee had a family death and within seconds he had it on facebook, and because he tagged her it meant all her friends found out in that way - i think that's unacceptable, her family and children should have some control over how they share this news with her friends. I'd hate to find out a loved one had died from their Facebook page.

BrigitsBigKnickers · 31/12/2018 10:42

I can't bear this.

Tragically an acquaintance of mine's daughter killed herself. Another person I knew through my daughter's dance school took it upon herself to beat her chest about it on Facebook before it was public knowledge. The girl's mum was also on Facebook.
Disgraceful narcissistic behaviour.

Frozenteatowel · 31/12/2018 10:49

It’s like a grief version of Munchausens. Grasping on to any death in order to get sympathy and attention. It’s absolutely vile. So sorry about your uncle Perry. It’s a particularly hard time of year to lose someone.

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