To feel really upset over the death of someone I didn't know?

[sadthrowaway]

I found out this afternoon that someone I follow on Youtube passed away unexpectedly last week. She was in her early 20s. I feel really upset by it and I feel I guess guilty or ashamed of how upset I feel because I know that her family and friends are going through extreme grief and pain whilst I did not even know her.

I related to her a lot as I am also in my early 20s and our lifestyles were similar. When I found out she had passed away I felt really upset and I cannot stop thinking about it.

I am shocked at my reaction as I did not know her. Obviously hearing about the death of a young person is upsetting but I feel guilty for how upset I feel as I did not know her. I am constantly ruminating over memories of videos I had watched where she talked about her plans for after graduation and her plans for the year. I feel so angry and upset that that future has been taken from her and that a family have had her taken from them. I think part of it as this has really showed me how fragile and unpredictable life is.

My prayers and thoughts are obviously with her family and friends. I know this is incredibly selfish and self-centred to make a thread about as I was not affected by this directly but I just wanted advice and to off-load a bit as I cannot sleep.

It can be really unsettling when this happens, I found it hard to deal with Amy Winehouse’s death as we were a similar age and I could relate to the person she was (in as much as I knew about her).

I did a really interesting unit about death at uni, and it’s really common now for people to feel affected by the deaths of celebrities, in this day and age with social media/the MSM we can often feel closer to those people than we do our own neighbours. The good news is that as you didn’t actually know her this grief that you’re experiencing is likely to be short lived. At the moment it feels like a shock but it will pass fairly quickly as you don’t have any shared memories/history together.

It will be subconsciously from something in your past too but if you have followed her on YouTube you have obviously seen her as a person, videos help us to get familiar with someone and they become part of your life if you watch them regularly and identify with them.
Worth exploring further with time/ therapy if you can, if it feels incongruous in terms of your relationship to her then it could be related to other loss that you haven’t processed .
I was also very affected by Amy winehouse. We were different ages but I lived very precariously on the edge for a long time and I knew she was going to die if she carried on that lifestyle and those associations. I also had severe pnd when she died and at the time was slightly fixated on death...

Thank you both for your replies. I cannot stop thinking about her. I feel so heartbroken at the loss of the future she never got to have.