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.

When my ex husband died his father put on a free bar on at a local hotel, all the local piss heads turned up and got leathered then proceeded to come over to me and our young teenage children (none of them knew us from Adam) to tell them what a great bloke their Dad was in the pub, such fun, great laugh etc.....their Dad died of alcohol abuse....there are no words!

Rockingthelook.....a free bar was put on when he died of alcohol abuse? You sort of cant blame people coming over saying how great he was in the pub?! Surely you can expect people to drink when there is a free bar?

Pigriver...I dont think its too bad for a Nephew not to go to go to an Uncles funeral? I wouldn't expect my nieces and nephews to come to mine. Lovely that your whole family went abroad for a funeral, but I don't think that would usually be expected?

Tabby...Irish family. It is very much expected.

Pigriver.....This is where everyone's expectations differ. The Nephew clearly didn't expect it and didn't feel the need to return the act of attending, and I'm guessing he is Irish too?

I'm also pondering that an invite to a funeral is just like an invite to a wedding, in that it's an invite and not a summons. People do grieve in different ways and there are also people commenting on here how people shouldn't go to the funeral if they either didn't get on with the deceased or hadn't seen them for x number of years. I don't think there is a straightforward rule book on funerals.

It’s for attention.

One of ex DPs best friends died in school suddenly. The amount of people on Facebook writing how shocked and hurt they felt, was understandable as it came as a huge shock

But some people who didn’t even know this boy or who had had a brief Facebook conversation with him posted how much they would miss him and how it affected them, yet they didn’t go to his funeral and haven’t mentioned him ever since. It’s awful. His poor family and friends had to read all these posts knowing full well the posters did not know him and it was purely for likes

Should’ve added to that these same people was the ones gossiping about what had happened and spreading rumours that was not true

I think that this sort of thing really kicked off when Diane died.

All those crowds 'mourning' a woman they had never met and actually knew nothing about apart from what they'd gleaned from the media worship of her.

All the wailing and gnashing of teeth was not about her, it was all about 'look at me and how heart broken I am.'

Grief grabbers indeed.

A relative of mine died last year. His estranged wife who left him 20 plus years ago has now called herself a widow and been saying how much she loves him on fbk and playing their wedding song! Makes me sick x

I take your funeral wailers and raise you...

Fucking bouncy castle party in front of hospital with many seriously and/or terminally ill children.... But the party was just because of 1 of them. He was in a vegetative state...

It is probably the most disgraceful thing I have ever seen in my life. People piling on, wailing, ignoring the fact that other families are trying to say their goodbyes... Disgusting doesn't cover it.

Often

Yes. All of that pile on ‘X’s army’ stuff is disgraceful.

I am fed up with the dozens of Facebook posts I've seen stealing grief .... even had this about my own relative, someone posting details of funeral and selfie pics. Deacribing how "heart broken" they were, yet they hardly knew him!!

Yes that was an awful example Often , and a lot of the "Army" had absolutely no idea of the poor child's condition and not did a lot of them educate themselves they just jumped on the bandwagon .

oftenhangry youre right it was sick-the parents didnt help at first but they must have been in a daze

to set up a bouncy castle to support a dying child? its just bonkers they also harrassed the staff-disgusting

Test

Greif is deeply personal, I despise the idea that someone essentially pretends to feel something they don't just for the attention. But how do we know how someone really feels...

Is this almost entirely a female phenomena? Talking from personal experience it was always female cousins and aunties that exhibited this behaviour.

I had a friend who did this all the time. If anyone was ill or grieving she would immerse herself completely in their lives, to the point she became an unbearable presence.
I'm no longer in tough with her as she seemed to get some strange satisfaction from it.

Urgh my Mam is one of these - rang a widow up the day after her husband died and cried and cried down the phone to the widow and made it all about her grief. She hardly knew him

Drama llamaery or narcissistic - who knows but it's fucked up.

Sorry for your loss PerryPerryThePlatypus

Op that's nothing. My youngest Dd (late teens) died this year unexpectedly and her exbfs mother who my Dd hated, posted all sorts on face book and turned it around like it was her own Dd that had died and not ours, actually 'dissing' us, and people were actually sending her condolence messages to her etc etc . She likes drama, and trolling, and likes to be the centre of attention.
Also a teenage girl died tragically in a car accident recently that her Dd hapoened to go to the same school as the girl who got killed, she did similar there too and got loads of condolence messages for that posting too!

Horrible x just as bad are the people whi say ‘oh my neighbour/cousin etc had that happen to them’ When l lost my daughter I want people to ask about her and her life x Not tell me about themselves or their neighbour tragic stories or put it on fb how devasted they were x

This is the exact reason I haven't told my mum I miscarried 2 weeks ago - despite hosting the whole family for Christmas. She will do what this "niece" has done.

"I'm also pondering that an invite to a funeral is just like an invite to a wedding, in that it's an invite and not a summons. "

I don't even understand what you mean by an invite to a funeral. You're told when it is or you see it in the paper . Sometimes family only, but the default is public and I've never hear of it invites being sent.

When my MiL died a neighbour cornered me near their house and was very put out that she had had to learn of the death from another neighbour, and that my FiL hadn't told her. (He had come straight to us after the sudden death, and was distraught.) I had to finally spell it out to her, after trying to be tactful in the face of her going on and on and getting more annoyed at what she perceived to be some kind of social blunder, that losing his wife very suddenly was a terrible thing, and his feelings mattered a lot more than those of a neighbour who barely spoke to either of them. She did not care for that.