‘Grieving’ the death of strangers

[MrsRLH75]

Maybe ‘grieving’ is the wrong word but why do I, from time to time, feel the loss of strangers acutely. There was an accident near where we live two nights ago and a mum and her three children were killed. It’s floored me and I did not know these people. How can something as tragic as that happen and yet the world keeps on turning? Am I mad/strange... I just don’t know but I can’t think of anything else.

It would be a bit weird not to be sad about a mum & her kids dying op 🤷🏻‍♀️

I live nearby, too, OP and was upset when I heard it on the news. I think about the man who, I assume, is yet to wake up in the JR and realise that most of his family are gone.

I do feel that since I've become a mum I'm a lot more sensitive to news of children's illnesses and deaths, which I suppose is understandable.

I agree that grieving is the wrong word. There was a story once about a schoolgirl that committed suicide in about 2008 that really effected me. She was young, maybe 11 or 12, from a poor family, bullied at school, I don’t want to name her on here. I read about people dying every day, but this is one that has always stayed with me and made me feel especially sad.

I think as someone said it was because we had something in common, in this case the background and bullying at that age. I always thought that if she could have hung on for a few more years then maybe things would start to get better as they did for me.

I think there’s a middle ground of feeling momentarily sad and having empathy for the people involved. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.

Unfortunately in my line of work I’ve seen things like this over and over and so am desensitised, but it doesn’t mean it still doesn’t make me feel sad. Especially since having DS and things involving children.

The ones where the people were just going about the same things they do all of the time, like driving to work, are the worst as those are the sort of things that could happen to any one of us. Road accidents are a source of terrible tragedy but sadly not enough is done about it.

Some do really get me.
There was a little boy who was killed in a car while sat on the floor between his mums legs. Her boyfriend was sat in front and had pushed his seat right back and crushed the poor boy to death. I followed the case for ages. It was heartbreaking I couldn't stop thinking about him. Neither of them got appropriate sentences.

I think it's a modern phenomenon which rarely existed prior to Diana's death which opened the floodgates.

I disagree, I think that just made it more socially acceptable to publicly display those feelings, couple that with 24 hour news so we can know what's happening almost instantly...

But people were affected by tragic stories before Diana died. I was quite young at the time but I vividly remember being upset about the murder of Marie Wilks.

I agree, it has nothing to do with Diana. I remember my Mum crying when we drove past Aberfan and she could see all the little headstones in rows, and when the moors murderers were mentioned on the radio, years after the events.

@MrsRLH75

Maybe ‘grieving’ is the wrong word but why do I, from time to time, feel the loss of strangers acutely. There was an accident near where we live two nights ago and a mum and her three children were killed. It’s floored me and I did not know these people. How can something as tragic as that happen and yet the world keeps on turning? Am I mad/strange... I just don’t know but I can’t think of anything else.

It's called empathy it's ok to be sad when someone dies and grieve at the loss of life. That's really normal behaviour the lady that died was a well known Christian woman who made gifts for a website cheerfully given she'd only just had her house burned down.

It's okay to be sad what's not ok to be so desensitised to human suffering that you're meh about it or feel compelled to tell people how to react.

It's also worth noting that we are in a time of national grieving with the pandemic everyone has lost someone or something it's makes everything more acute.

Be kind to yourself you're human