To think people are crap at supporting bereaved

[growingweeble]

When someone’s partner, parent, sibling dies generally people get they need some tlc. But, that tlc doesn’t last long. AIBU to think people should intuitively understand that support is needed beyond the funeral?

Absolutely

My friends mum died. I said to her 'I'm so sorry to hear about your mum'. I was really worried. Like REALLY worried. I didn't know if I should. But then I thought. If my mum had died. I'd want people to acknowledge it if nothing else

She said I was the ONLY one out of everybody. To say something. She said she appreciated it so much. I'm glad I said it. But it worried me senseless

Do you know how i react to grief and what support i need? You dont and neither do i, so how should i be supported.

Its impossible to know. Some people want lots of friends and family around, some want to be left alone. People dont want to do the wrong thing and make it worse

I think people do realise it, but they also have a lot of stuff going on themselves. That said, if they’ve not been through it themselves, they may not realise just how long and in what strange ways grieving takes place.
Sounds like you have experienced such loss, and sorry for that.💐

Absolutely. I lost my 54 year old dad when I was 27. Granted, none of my friends had lost a parent. They still haven’t and we’re 41 now. So i understood that they didn’t really get it. But weeks later, when I was struggling with sleep still, one of them was confused about why I was sleeping badly and asked why. As if she couldn’t see that I was still struggling. That hurt.

It's difficult though because grief is unique to every person. What one might appreciate might upset another. Not saying we all shouldn't try our best to support someone who is grieving but that does make it a bit nerve wracking because you want to help but don't know the right way.

It's impossible to know how a grieving person wants to be supported. People react to grief in so many different ways.

I think people are so scared of doing the wrong thing they don't reach out.

I really feel that it was a mistake as a society to dump the customs we used to have around mourning. There were rules about when you were supposed to contact/visit someone who had been bereaved and everyone knew what to do. Grieving people could wear black to let you know they were grieving. I think it was much clearer.

YANBU OP and it is sad when it happens but it's not always black and white sadly. Some people simply find it hard to engage with death and feel unable, not everyone was lucky enough to grow up in an emotionally healthy household or learn to be open over difficult matters, they are pathological unable and if nothing has changed it thus far in life then the death of an acquaintance is unlikely to change it.
Lots of people want to help and are thinking of others but are not able to translate that into 'support' in a way the other person wants it.

Moat adults have been in the same boat you describe and will have had the same lack of support during their own grief so that will be normalised for them. We probably all think we offer support and think 'I am here if so and so needs me and they know that' or 'they must need a break after all of that and I'm sure they have plenty of support so I don't want to be in the way' and so feel their care does extend past the funeral, just not in the ways we might want.

I try to remember that and contact people myself when I've been suffering with grief, ive always found people very receptive to a chat, request to meet up, join in with something in memoriam etc. TLC still counts if you initiated it and we can't expect other people to do it all, a death is horribly sad but sitting at home counting who hasnt text or said what you wanted them to say or offer what you imagine they would offer if they really cared is counter productive and often incorrect. I am sure people are thinking of us but not knowing what to say or do and that can be a comforting thing if you let it and self cate is not less valuable than others care, it can be very empowering. When we are in so much pain we imagine that most be obvious but it isn't always and others are not mind readers. Indulging thoughts about why friends dont seem to care when they probably do is only going to make an awful time worse.

If you're experiencing grief then so sorry OP

Well, you're not being unreasonable per se but, as a chartered accountant, what skills do you suppose I have in this area?

I suspect that we all do our best by our friends. If professional support is needed then that should be dealt with by ….. a professional.

The OP is saying that support should be offered for longer, not being proscriptive about what that support should look like. I agree OP. My best friend died a year ago and her DH said the other day how people just assume he's 'better' now, when actually hes really struggling. There are things I can do to - hopefully - continue to support him, but always led by what he needs at that point.

What kind of support? Genuine question op.

People just dont know what to do imo

Agree OP. I think it’s something very peculiar to the UK and Anglo Saxon culture tbh. In my experience Catholic and Southern European cultures tend to be better at this because of the greater importance of the church, which provides a structure for supporting grief.

I am not a fan of organised religion as a rule but I think one of the benefits of religious societies is that there is an infrastructure that supports all these life milestones (I would include birth and marriage in this). Without that framework people seem somewhat at sea.

It’s very difficult to support someone who is grieving even if they are a close friend or family member; it’s impossible to gauge how the grief is affecting the bereaved and we have all been socialised to think it’s somehow rude to ask.

As part of the broader focus on mental health support - which I think is a good thing - we should all be thinking more about how you support grief in a post religious society. I don’t know what the answer is but it needs to be talked about more.

Most people don’t need professional support to grieve, they need to know that they’re cared about, that they have someone to take them for a coffee or drink, to call and/or text them every few days, most of all to listen to them with patience.

I think to really care for someone after a bereavement, you have to have experienced it. Nobody can imagine the pain of losing someone close. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a chartered accountant or a bin man, you can provide that support if you’ve been there.

Unless you're really close to the person, I think most people genuinely have no idea as to what they should do. In my case, I just wanted my SO there. Everyone else I found incredibly annoying, suffocating, and I in fact felt obligated to smile and entertain them whenever they came around with their concern. I know they meant well, but it wasn't what I wanted or needed. If anything, I think it actually worsened my mental state at the time.

When I was a child, a house in mourning would have their curtains drawn, and you knew what was going on. There were kind of prescribed rituals to follow, including wearing black to a funeral, wearing a black armband to show you were in mourning.

These days there seems to be a move away from these rituals. Wear bright colours, celebrate the deceased's life rather than mourn their death. Absolutely it should be what brings the bereaved comfort, but I can't help but wonder whether by doing so, it leads to an expectation that the family can just get on with it?

I had a couple of days off work following a family bereavement and when I returned most people did not acknowledge the death... I couldn’t work out if they didn’t know about it or did know but weren’t mentioning it for fear of upsetting me. One person came up and said “ I’m really sorry to hear about your dad - that’s really shit” and I was so appreciative of that. Just acknowledging without platitudes meant a lot. Now I appreciate that that’s different from “ support” that you’re mentioning OP but it’s a start - an open dialogue. You need to be able to tell your friends / family what you need from them “ I’d really appreciate it if we could meet because I’m feeling crappy” because people often don’t know what to do for the best and default to nothing.

I don't think anyone's good at it. To a certain extent, because everyone grieves differently. I prefer to have privacy if I am grieving. I don't mean that I want people to avoid or ignore me, but that I do not want them to get in my face about it, or push rituals and lengthy condolences on me, or tell me how to grieve. This may doubtless mean that I sometimes seem uncaring to others, because I treat them as I would wish to be treated myself.

@Finallyatooth good point. I think the etiquette around grief historically was really helpful drawing boundaries and setting expectations not only in supporting the bereaved but for the people grieving. It’s hard to even say ‘I’m sorry for your loss’ when some people take exception to the phrase and disregard it’s meaning of ‘I’m sad that your sad and there’s nothing I can do about it’.

I have had a couple of very close bereavements the first of which really affected my mental health way past any normal spectrum of grieving for a couple of years. I still find it hard not to be defined by that particular loss. But with the benefit of a lot of time I can see quite clearly that the support I was expecting of my friends/family was unfair and far too much to ask. I wouldn’t know what to do with that version of me now.

It’s hard when your world changes beyond recognition through a bereavement but the rest of the world still had to carry on and everybody has their own problems still needing attention.

My DF died aged 54. I can still remember, twenty years on exactly the words a not a particularly close work colleague wrote in a sympathy card. I was so touched she made the effort to reach out.
My DM was then killed in a car accident aged 69 a few years later. Some people positively shied away from me with the horror of it all. You could see the look of fear when I was around them that they might have to acknowledge something so dreadful.
Some people really don't know what to do or say. It was eye opening.

you can provide that support if you’ve been there

I can’t. I can empathise of course and offer some practical help but in truth my own grief is too raw (despite the years that have passed) to be a crutch for someone else’s. I don’t apologise for finally learning my own limitations and knowing what to name it.

There are some situations I can overcome my own grief but it’s not something I could provide at will. I understand how it looks from the outside but it’s self preservation. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a few people who can’t deal with the feelings the resurface faced with someone else’s grief.

I lost my husband a few years ago. Despite that experience and the awareness it gave me of the sort of support I could and couldn't expect from others, I'm still rubbish with other people's bereavements.

These things are difficult for a lot of people. I try not to judge.

It's not about professional support, just human care and compassion. It's not that difficult to take your lead from an individual. Death is part of life, not some unexpected event that only happens occasionally to some people.

I didn't need professional support, I needed people to give a damn, to not expect me to act like everything was fine from the day after the funeral onwards, and just generally not be dicks about the fact my entire life had imploded. I had people telling me I should be "over" my traumatic bereavement and should "forget about" my loved one within weeks of watching them die! You shouldn't need professional expertise to know saying stuff like that makes you a dick.

I think as a society we're so afraid of death we can't cope with being confronted by the reality of bereavement and grieving, and the fact things are never the same again. Instead of dealing with our own discomfort about mortality we push it onto grieving people and place unfair and unrealistic expectations/demands on them to "get over it" and keep their loss to themselves.

Completely agree @user14366425683113, I couldn’t have put it better.

I could have done without the people who crossed the road to avoid me after my second son was stillborn. I can still remember how much that stung 43 years later.

It's so difficult for people to support though isn't it? I was very recently bereaved and sometimes I feel sad, other times I feel angry, sometimes I want to be left alone, others I'd welcome company. People can't know what I need so it's easier if they just let me get on with it in my own way.
YANBU but we're all different in how we grieve and people are in between a rock and a hard place when they try to help.
My way is to distance myself from everybody, hence my FB 'friends' has dropped from 100+ to 20 and is now family only.