Bereavement drama queens

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Recently bereaved. In my experience, when you lose a loved one, there are a) the people who kind of don't say anything because they're not confident of saying the right thing, and that's fine b) the ones who ask 'What can I do?' in a quite insistent way that kind of puts pressure on you, c) the ones that are perfectly lovely and send a nice card or flowers or something d) the one or two who manage to say the exactly right thing... and then there's e) the one who really really wants you to fall apart so they can hold you while you sob and wail. And when you say 'thanks, actually I'm feeling fairly steady, touch wood,' they don't quite want to accept it? AIBU to want to tell them to stand the fuck down?

@Wherrsmaclickypen

Perhaps there needs, sadly, to be another category - the recently bereaved who are terribly judgemental?

I hear ya.

People grieve differently...?
When my friend died completely unexpectedly, I found that crying was so hard to stop.. Yet when our Dad died, I was just numbed.

Friend's sister said ''I can't handle your grief''...Which of course was fully understandable. She was numbed..but grief is so odd...
People can appear to 'hold it together' then go all to pieces at a ''lesser'' or more remote loss...eg, when a pet dies.

This was explained in ''You'll get over it'' {She explains the title in the book} by Virginia Ironside..A book that helped me understand what I was going through.

Grief thieves are the scum of social media, although to be fair it’s pretty standard behaviour for Social media devas.
Some years ago my business partners teenage DD was killed in a road accident, we were a small close knit team and it was devastating news. The first client waltzed in the day after and announced that she was traumatised and totally devastated because a close friend had lost her daughter the day before. I was suitably kind and sympathetic, but after a while I realised she was talking about my colleagues DD. It turned out that clients DD was at the same school and she knew of the family but didn’t really know them as the girls were not in the same year and not friends.
I kept my mouth shut but my assistant couldn’t help herself and very politely filled her in. Since business partner worked under different surname ( uses maiden name) she had not made the connection. This was well before social media thank goodness.

Some of these stories are shocking and so hurtful for the close bereaved. My aunt (my mums sister so not even dads blood relation) made such a spectacle at my dads funeral that my mum, siblings and I were distracted during the funeral service by her sobbing behind us.

Some people are just emotionally incontinent and can’t understand that it’s not about them. There is definitely a hierarchy of grief and you need to take your lead from people at the top of that pyramid.

Social media probably makes it worse.
Best to keep grief off public platforms if at all possible.

eg..Facebook posts about the person where others pile on.

@Wherrsmaclickypen. Yep. Happy to join a thread to judge people who hijack someone else’s trauma and loss and make it all me me me. If you can’t take your lead from their nearest and dearest then you’re best off stepping away and doing your dramatic self indulgent mourning privately.

@Holyrivolli

Some of these stories are shocking and so hurtful for the close bereaved. My aunt (my mums sister so not even dads blood relation) made such a spectacle at my dads funeral that my mum, siblings and I were distracted during the funeral service by her sobbing behind us.

Some people are just emotionally incontinent and can’t understand that it’s not about them. There is definitely a hierarchy of grief and you need to take your lead from people at the top of that pyramid.

I do wonder if this isn't on purpose? I cried far more {silently} at FIL's funeral than at Dads..because with Dad's we were so numbed. At an Auntie's Funeral, her lifelong friend was distraught.. We were numbed, again.

You would know if it was done ''for attention'' though.
Sitting at the back with a good supply of tissues is the 'safest' if one feels tears may flow too fast.

Thankfully I haven't {yet!} witnessed what others have experienced.

when i lost a relative i wanted to be approached, not avoided but people were afraid.

YWNBU to distance from those people or tell them more firmly to back off.

You definitely do get those people who want in on the action – it’s so odd. Most often this seems to take the form of demonstrative distress while the people who are really close to the deceased are trying to be strong for each other. I’ve seen it and I do think sometimes the upset is real and they just don’t consider that their grief is low down on the scale.

@Anordinarymum

Speaking as someone who has been bereaved I find it offensive when people who did not now my son pretend to have known him for the sake of what ? And that has happened. One guy did an awful number on us and even tried to step forward at the funeral to carry my son's coffin and had to be stopped. My son knew who he was but did not like him or know him as a friend, and my son's friends did not do or say anything in case they offended me so he duped me/my other children into thinking he was close.

@Anordinarymum That is completely unacceptable. Very unsettling and bizarre.

NOT what a family needs.

The loss of a Child {any age Child} is surely the most painful grief there is..And for a random person to create a scene like this is very disrespectful to the Family.

I don’t think any of the behaviours you outline is intentional tbh. And I think your post is probably why some people back off entirely from someone who has been bereaved because you’re being analysed as to how you react. Different people grieve in different ways, so it’s a bit of a minefield because what you say to one person won’t necessarily be the right reaction for the next. I think as long as someone doesn’t completely avoid you, and makes some offer of condolence, I would take whatever emotional support people offered.

I know a couple who put up posts on fb every year at the anniversary of someone they met for an hour....saying how much they missed them etc. They even went to the funeral. The person didnt even like them.

@Tomatoesneedtoripen

when i lost a relative i wanted to be approached, not avoided but people were afraid.

A bereaved friend {who lost her son in a tragic accident on holiday} said neighbours 'crossed the road' to avoid her.

They just didn't know what to say in the face of such a severe loss.

When my daughter died, I found it comforting that people I didn't know very well were upset by her death. Each death is a loss to a whole community- she would have been a friend, a pupil, a lover, an employee, so many things to so many people and that was all lost. It seemed to spread the weight of her loss a little, so not so much of it had to be carried by me alone. I was grateful that my friends and neighbours rallied round and sorted out the practical things like food for after the funeral because I couldn't have managed t myself.

However, I stopped going out for a while because people would stop me and ask me quite detailed questions about her death, and tell me how they heard about it. It had taken every ounce of strength I had just to leave the house to do some basic shopping and more than once I had to leave and go home because it was just too much to cope with.

I agree with all the categories.

when df died dm dissected everything anyone said, and found everyone wanting. The vast majority of people have good intentions, and do not intend to be unkind. It was exhausting when she picked apart every message or expression of condolence.

I know dh was a bit pissed off at his dm's funeral when there was theatrical sobbing from some of the (adult) grandchildren - when they hadn't visited mil for at least a year. As for their social media...

That's horrible, DontDribbleonthecarpet - what's wrong with people?

I don't relate to most of this, I really don't. I feel people have been kind, brought suitable things round (food, the odd treat) and no-one has been a grief vampire at all. Everyone has been lovely. There is a point people stop asking and that's natural, they have their own lives and so I think it can be hard six months down the line when it's not their priority to ask and you are really just starting to want to talk about it!

Also, I agree about a neighbour posting on FB first is very rude but I also have had to accept that the person that died who was closest to me was also a great friend and a great loss to lots of others- so they will want to post photos and share happy memories and I don't have complete control of that, which is absolutely fine.

I'm sorry that some people are bad with grief, but I honestly think that when people are bereaved they are incredibly sensitive as well and not everyone is the same. So, a letter addressed to the dead person can really upset someone, but these days with mailing lists and huge facebook friend lists, you may well find you get stuff addressed to them or friends who didn't find out straight away popping up months later.

Our culture doesn't deal very openly with death or grief and that's why people get it wrong- they either over-press the person or they shy away, I think it's better if you can see that most of the time they are coming from a good place, or, they find death hard to manage/accept.

I used to work with one of those. My first day back at work after my Ddad passed away he told me that he knew exactly how I was feeling as his cat had died 3 months earlier.

I actually laughed as my DDad had a great sense of humour and would have laughed too, so I suppose in that way it worked! I still think about his lack of empathy even now many years after losing DDad.

My aunt (my mums sister so not even dads blood relation) made such a spectacle at my dads funeral that my mum, siblings and I were distracted during the funeral service by her sobbing behind us

That does sound distracting, but it may be the aunt was quite triggered by the funeral. I had friends who attended my husband's funeral who had recently lost people themselves, and one excused them. I have sobbed at funerals not for the person themselves so much, but my feelings of grief that stretch backwards. I agree attention seeking gasping and loud crying isn't needed, but sobbing at a funeral is surely a fairly normal thing. I also think the close family are in shock often at that point and don't sob, and that it's the outer circle people who are in an emotional position to actually say goodbybe.

Perhaps she's a drama queen, and perhaps no-one likes her anyway, but perhaps there's a kinder motive and perhaps sobbing at a funeral is not that bad?

ugh, hit ctrl-enter on habit again.

YWNBU, but as others said, there are many ways people grieve and ways people try (not to) help with that, and some of those clash against each other unintentionally and others - yeah, they're being assholes. Often times, space and distance with help with the former, as others said them just being there can feel nice even though 'tell me if you need anything' can feel like a pressure when you've no idea what to think, but the latter tend to linger.

For me, from those not involved, the ones who would disappear and then show up months later being snarky lingered in my thoughts. I had one who said nothing for 6 months and then went on at me about how an artist I like is horrible with overdone jokes. It felt so out of left field and the way they did it made it sound like my losses should make be better than to like someone like that. It was fucked up.

From others who were also grieving, it was the ones who got wasted and were horrible to other grieving people, making nasty inappropriate jokes, including to those who were both suffering that loss and organizing everything, but saying anything back was a clear no because 'we all grieve in our own way' and those who said directly or indirectly that it was better for my MIL to be dead, but never said that about other people we had lost in the previous years which definitely felt at the time that they viewed her death differently because of her disabilities. My spouse who had done quite a bit of the caring for her and disabled himself was really hurt by those remarks.

@TatianaBis

Personally I was just grateful that people bothered. I didn’t start splitting hairs over whether they offered condolences or support in the right way. They just did what they could.

This. Recently bereaved.

I have to say I think this is harsh. Death takes people funny ways.And as a bereaved relative, you don't (or I didn't) actually always know what you need until it's given).

For example, I was all set to clear my mum's house by myself, no fuss etc. My best friend knew how much I hate driving (mum lived a long way from me) and said "nope, I'm going to drive you there, I'll help as much or as little as you want, if you need me to I'll just drop you off and go away until you need me to come back, or I'll come in and help, whatever you need but you're not driving there all by yourself".

I'm sure you'd have found her insistence really presumptuous, maybe intrusive. And I did protest because it was such a massive undertaking for her and I didn't want such a fuss made of me. But it turned out to be just what I needed. She helped me to make difficult choices about things of my mum's to keep and get rid of, did the boring jobs like going through the post while I sat around in the attic crying over old ornaments, made me laugh when it was all getting a bit dire. She was amazing.

And yes she's a bit of a storyteller, and I imagine this is one of her stories she tells about herself. But that doesn't do me any harm.

People trying to act 'the most bereaved' when they barely knew the deceased is a bit crass. And the story about the idiot trying to muscle in on the pall-bearing is just sick. But people offer support the best way they know how; it might not always land right, but I think reading malign intent into it doesn't help anybody.

This reminds me of the thread this weekend about someone sending chocolates instead of flowers to their bereaved friend; so many people saying they'd take it really badly, chocolates are for celebrations etc. Who, when bereaved, has the headspace to be imagining offense when none was clearly intended?