Bereavement drama queens

[nearlynermal]

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?

It is all so hard though. Getting it right.

I attended the funeral of FIL of a cousin, 4 months after burying my DF. I utterly lost it, much to my embarrassment. I was that person.

In 2016 my MIL died, followed by my best friend, then my 24 year old cat. It was as if the grief was cumulative, and i don't feel like I've fully recovered yet. How ridiculous I felt when I was back to crying at the death of the cat, but it felt as heavy a burden. Actually, it felt like a punishment for some reason.

My lovely BIL died suddenly laat week, and I read about it in FB. What the actual fuck? I had to ask niece to take it down, but that was bad. His sisters had not yet been told. Such a lack of sense.

So sorry for all of the grieving. It is the hardest thing, and takes such varying paths. 💐

@Dinosauratemydaffodils what an amazing woman you are to have given your dad such a send off and managed to do that for him at his funeral. Your experience of grief after looking at your baby daughter was incredibly moving. The love for your dad is clear in both scenarios and I’m sorry someone said to your mum about you being a cold hearted bitch- projection at its best there.
My mum did her own mums funeral service and it was lovely. I know that my sister and I will probably do hers should we be alive still too, God willing. That doesn’t mean we don’t love her. Not at all.

I'm am disgusted that anyone would say they will be hugging their DC tighter. That's so incredibly insensitive.

I've often wondered what on earth prompt someone to voice such a sentiment as this out loud, and I'm sorry to say I've seen it often. How can anyone think it would be a good idea? This translates not just to people known to me directly but even to news stories where some unimaginable thing has happened and it invariably gets trotted out in the comments underneath. Suppose the parents of that child happened to be reading? What possible comfort could they ever derive from reading such a breathtakingly callous comment?

It really would take a special kind of idiot to say this.

@DifficultPifcultLemonDifficult Jaysus just read your post and have to say you had a right bunch of fucking awful wankers around you. I'm so deeply sorry for your losses. And that they made things harder to bear for you. I hope you've dumped them out of your life now!

It really would take a special kind of idiot to say this
There's one for every occasion! As much as I was touched by the genuine support and friendship offered by people I didn't know well, I was also breathless at the sheer awfulness of some people. Because my daughter was a baby, her death made a lot of people very uncomfortable and my child's (pregnant) teacher became openly spiteful towards me and was outright nasty to my child. I had been on very good terms with her previously and thought that she would deal sensitively with the situation. She didn't, at all.

But the very worst thing was the grading of grief. I attended the funeral of a young man who had died suddenly and (later, at the funeral tea)his mother thanked me for coming because she knew that I understood. A woman I didn't know at all interrupted and told me that I had no right pretending to understand anything (I hadn't!) because I had only lost a baby and I didn't have any memories of her so it didn't count. I may have been fairly rude to her. I certainly hope so!

Jesus, @DontDribbleOnTheCarpet, that’s brutal. I’m so sorry that happened to you. 💐

@DontDribbleOnTheCarpet how absolutely appalling. I'm so sorry. Your story about the death of your baby daughter making people uncomfortable resonates with me owing to the similar experience of a friend. This has changed her irrevocably as a human being and people don't seem to understand when she tells them she can't go back to being the person she was before. She's lost a lot of people she thought were friends. She also set up a local support group for bereaved parents who have lost babies, as although SANDS helped her there seemed to be nothing by way of support for grieving parents in the same position as her.

It's absolutely heartbreaking. As if it's not bad enough that fate can be so cruel once, the aftermath and loneliness experienced by so many grieving parents is about as cruel as it gets.

When I first read your post OP I felt vitriolic and angry on your behalf, based on my own experience of grief. And then I checked myself. And that's my point.

My mum died very suddenly when I was 26. Two weeks later I had a miscarriage and broke up with my partner. Some people were ace, some were monumentally crap in numerous ways: ranging from my boss who said disapprovingly "I don't think I'd be this distraught if my mum died" to the friend who, despite not knowing my mum at all well and not having seen her for years, wanted to quote something I'd told her my mum had recently said to me at her own wedding a month later, which also happened to be on my birthday. Anyone who licks their lips at the thought of slice of drama pie can do one.

That said, I think I got this really wrong recently. A friend, who I've not known long but have real affection for, lost her baby. I was so conscious of trying to do the right thing I think I simultaneously said too little and did too much. I reservedly offered condolences, made some food for their freezer and invited her for a walk. And at the burial I cried my eyes out, even though it was no loss to me personally at all.

So I guess I'm saying that, when recently bereaved, you have every right to be mad and anyone, frankly. Including those who don't respond to your grief in an appropriate way. But also, you might one day struggle to respond to another's grief in the way you once wish people would respond to you. Which, in a weird way, is proof that grief is both everlasting and something we integrate into our existence and move on from.

I always imagined having had a significant bereavement myself would give me better skills to support others. I've learned recently that this isn't necessarily true.

Sorry, that wasn't very articulate. I hope the intention behind it somehow permeates through my garbled post.

I think people mean well. My friend just needs space at moment but I do check inon her. Found my mam quite needy after my dads death. Then her friend of years barely rang her after years friends both dads had worked together. I thought that was very lax

@OldQueen1969: yes, I really believe it’s not a linear process. I think some kinds of grief are kind of circular. You feel better, then worse, then better, then worse. And, with luck, over time the dips get shallower and the recoveries get longer.

This has been such a humbling and extraordinary thread. Thank you all.

Grief really does affect us all in different ways. When my FIL died in a car accident, it was obviously traumatic for my DH and for all his family. He did grieve for him, but I think he kept it in more than was healthy, as his DM really needed him. And I was helping my DSis through a divorce from her abusive exH, and finding out how violent he had been, so I wasn’t able to give them as much support as would have otherwise been the case.

His DGM (my FIL’s mum) died 3 months later aged 89. (I’ve always thought she died of a broken heart.) My DH didn’t cry at all, despite having been very close to her; whereas I cried, despite not having known her for all that long. Then his DGF died 2 years later and again he didn’t cry.

He was doing all he could to be strong for his mum, who really needed him to be. He’s said that he hasn’t actually cried at all since, despite going through infertility and failed IVF and adoption struggles.

Basically, no one knows how grief will affect them. But there still needs to be sensitivity towards close family and friends. And people who make it all about them are completely draining, no question about that. If they’re upset, they can’t help that, but they still don’t need to make it all about them.