Fucking bitches????

[SunsetSenora]

Called in to a group call tonight, group of 6 women I have known for a long time and have had weekly zooms with since March. I lost my mother a few weeks ago after a year of hell and am waiting to be able to bury her. I have not been calling into this group since mum died, because I dont want to be a downer to everyone on what is usually a quite light and fun chat. But I thought tonight I would be nice to say hello for a few minutes. They were in the middle of a chat about music they used to listen to when they were younger when I joined the call. And just kept talking about that. Like, not just one more comment, but about 5 or 6 with no end in sight. I get that I am not the centre of the universe, but would you wait to get round to checking in with a bereaved friend because you were still talking about good records to dance to? I ended up saying I had to go but think they are a bunch of fucking bitches for the way they behaved. YABU - yes, I would expect to fit it into the conversation later. YANBU - I would say it immediately.

@Grandfather

Your coming across as needy

She is needy her fucking mother just died. What’s wrong with you?

Jesus Christ

It’s so overwhelming @SunsetSenora that it’s hard when there’s no apparent acknowledgement. I think Zoom etiquette isn’t clear and that doesn’t help. I personally think that one should say something and that it’s better to risk causing an emotional response by saying something than to not acknowledge someone’s grief. When I was 15 my uncle was killed in a car crash and I always remember my aunt saying that the most painful thing was seeing people cross the road to avoid her because they didn’t know what to say. I resolved never to do that.

I think this has been one of the really stark things about this last year; if you are mourning or struggling with the imminent loss of a loved one you are very much on your own, at least that has been my experience. My BiL died of Covid last March and at the same time my DF’s cancer came back with a vengeance and he’s now very close to the end, days I think. Throughout that time only one friend has got in touch to ask me how he is or how I am. No emails, no zooms, no texts, no calls from any other friends, even the ones who live in my village and who I saw weekly before lockdown. TBH I’ve got my support here on MN. I think it’s a case of out of sight out of mind but it’s made it very lonely. I do understand that people are destracted and I’m not the centre of their world of course but I find it strange when they knew about my BiL know about my DF’s cancer (he lives in the village so many of them have met him).

Perhaps you and I are both BU?

@BidensWingWoman

There's no way I would bring up a bereavement in a group setting. Not because I don't care, but because I do. A group situation is not the time or place. I had that done to me after my father died and I didn't feel supported. I felt exposed. It was awful.

What in would do is ask how you are. But again, in a zoom meeting that someone had joined when it's already in full flow, it's tricky to do that without disrupting the whole conversation. Zoom is awkward for that, you can't just have a quiet conversation with one person while the rest of the group chat.

I'm so sorry for your loss.

All of this. Zoom is the absolutely wrong place to bring up a bereavement. If you got upset, no-one could touch you or comfort you...you're just there on a screen. And there to all six people at once.

In a pub or social setting, one or two people could talk with you quietly and judge your responses tactfully. You wouldn't be expected to address all six at once.

On zoom, someone asking you about it is tantamount to standing in front of your friends with a megaphone.

You arrived in the middle of a conversation, and it would have been impossible for anyone to know if you were in a state to talk about your loss. They had little time to think and nothing at all to go on. So they stuck with what they had.

@Grandfather I understand lockdown is getting to everyone and you might be slightly bored.... but if the only way you can entertain yourself is to go on an internet forum for Mums to call a clearly distressed woman 'needy' then you need to have a very serious think about why you've got no friends to talk to instead. Or even better, give your own Mum a call to ask her how she managed to raise such a scruffy rodent. Bore off you absolute creature

To be completely honest, I don’t think they did anything wrong as they acknowledged your presence - they didn’t ignore you which your OP insinuates.

Fair enough, your late mum didn’t immediately become the topic of conversation - but would that even be a natural progression of the conversation? I don’t think so. It was a lighthearted video call and you joined mid way, after not being in touch for a while. I wouldn’t have assumed that you would immediately want to discuss your bereavement, especially in front of so many other people, if we hadn’t spoken recently. I would have thought you might want to take your mind off things and not discuss it, or only confide one-to-one with some of the participants rather than everyone etc.

Realistically I think the ball was in your court so if you wanted to chat about things, you should have brought it up first. They probably didn’t know how to navigate the situation and wanted you to mention it first as to not pry or upset you by bringing it up if you’re not comfortable.

One of my best friends recently lost a parent and it’s tricky to find the balance between being supportive and overstepping. Obviously I sent her messages offering condolences and regularly check she’s okay, but I don’t randomly bring it up.

I just let her take the lead and confide in me when she’s comfortable

So sorry for your loss Sunset. It does sound a bit insensitive of them, but it was probably them feeling awkward or not knowing what to say rather than not caring

@YouokHun your reply is everything I would want to hear from a friend if I were ever in the OPs situation, I'm a bit of a joker and don't take things very seriously in life but your words moved me to tears 💗 I feel sorry for myself everyday because of lockdown and I can't get my nails done or take the kids swimming but you've just given me a reality check about how lucky I am, I can't imagine going through a bereavement during this awful time. Sending hugs and love xxx

Sorry for your loss.

Sometimes when you join a Zoom it can take a while to be acknowledged. It really isn't personal, just people spotting you've turned up etc. There might even have been some lag or whatever.

I would give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe chat to them individually, as conversations tend to go deeper then. If you find these particular friends unsupportive, it might be better to focus on other ones.

How are you feeling in yourself?

Thank you @Gyeonggiflufficoochi, that’s really kind of you and you sound like you’ve been a thoughtful friend to your friend and I’m sure she really appreciates you.

@SunsetSenora I meant to say (instead of talking all most entirely about myself), I’m very sorry for your loss and I wish you strength over this time. Let’s hope we can all see our friends and family face to face soon, it will make a huge difference.

Had a slightly similar situation here while out on a walk.

Met up with a group of friends, and one mentioned that her father had recently died. We then offered our condolences and discussed it for 20 mins, BUT they was a very awkward moment of 'OK, we're supposed to hug you, but can't because of covid!'.

They were really useless not to mention anything, OP, inexcusable.

YANBU. Sorry to hear this. I've lost two close relatives in the past two months and frankly, nobody cares. In fact the whole distance/video call thing seems to be a convenient way to avoid talking about it. Everyone is wrapped up in their own menial dramas, like how they can't go to the pub etc, to care about their friends going through a tough time. A few good friends have been great, I'm going to ditch the rest. Hope you're coping ok OP.

Sorry about your mum , must have been a tough year. YANBU. Your friends are out of order. Even is it was awkward they could have paused and said ‘ lovely to have you back on chat we missed you’ or similar. I would forget them and get some decent friends x

I'm so sorry for you loss, I recently lost my mum - It comes as such a huge shock. I've had a mix of reactions, I've had friends it feel avoid me. My boss decided not to tell anyone at work. I would imagine, if one of those friends had been through what you're currently going through, they would have said something straightaway. I'm learning at the moment, that some people just don't know what to say or do. I'm so sorry for what you're going through, it just completely floors you. It does help when people approach you about it though, so you don't have to - I'm learning a lot of people don't understand that unless they've had something similar. The most supportive people I've had around me lately are the ones who have lost a parent. I can completely understand how that zoom call would have made you feel. I have a total mental block to the people who've not reached out to me since my mum passed.. because I fear going first about talking about it. It really helps when someone does that for you.

My advice would be to roll with the ones who are reaching out and giving you support and the ones who are avoiding you... they're not meaning to, it's just they're either scared about the subject or just don't know what to say or how to act - it's very common I'm finding. When you're feeling stonger later down the line, you will either gravitate back to them or you may not, but should something happen to one of them, you may feel compelled to be there for that person. Just roll with the ones who are there for you at the moment, and ditch the ones for now who can't cope with it - I doubt they're meaning to cause you addtional pain, they just simply didn't know what to do and totally Fckd up there!

I do feel they should have welcomed you on that zoom though, I would imagine some of them if not all, were quite upset with themselves after that call.

I am so sorry for your loss and for the last year of hell.

Honestly, it’s rude for them to keep carrying on without saying hello even if you had not recently lost your Mother. Really pretty egregious given you have not spoken to them since.

I’d be really shocked by the ones who had not contacted you at all since. The one that have sent condolences I can understand better.

I hope they just have covid brain and realize their lapse and apologize.

I am very sorry for your loss SunsetSenora . It is a lonely time to be bereaved.

I think YANBU because only two of the six had already bothered to send you condolences and check how you were. Of course it's harder on Zoom than in real life but what they could have done would be to use the chat function to send you a private message. I would have done this if I wasn't sure whether you were looking for a chance to talk about your loss or wanted to just talk about music or whatever.

The only thing I would say is that it does depend if any of them have been bereaved. I was much younger than all my friends where I lost my parents. None of them really acknowledged it much at the time because they had not been in this position. Now, many years later, they are going/have gone through this.

As other posters have suggested, focus on the two who have been supportive.

I don’t think I’d have brought it up either. Many people find death and grief incredibly awkward and don’t want to say the wrong thing. I tend to let bereaved people come to me if they’re struggling and want to talk. I reckon they didn’t want to bring it up incase it upset you, they may have thought you wanted to avoid talking about it for a bit.

Sorry for your loss

OP I would have acknowledged your presence and publicly offered condolences- while at uni an old friend tragically lost her mother to brain cancer quite rapidly, we were in the first year of our degree so I did not know her terribly well but I saw her whilst out shopping. I took her aside, sat with her for over an hour, had coffee, talking about it. Why? Because culturally where I am from that’s what we do. I live in the UK btw.

What I am saying is that there is no way I would not have acknowledged a friend’s bereavement of a close relative, especially their mother.

YANBU. I would feel the same as you.

I think see what happens now with this group of friends. If only two have been in touch so far it doesn't seem like the other four really care much! I ditched a lot of people after my mum died due to their lack of support (people I'd supported through some big stuff who didn't even acknowledge it) I don't regret doing it. People can act odd but to just carry on a conversation about music is very strange.

Sorry for your loss OP and I hope you're getting lots of support from others.

I think YANBU - you'd think (hope?) most people would have done more than waved, they would have said "nice to see you again, sorry for your loss, how are you feeling?" - not just carried on, especially when the convo was about something as trivial as music.
Different story if one of them had been in the middle of a deep heart to heart about their own tragedy - of course it would have been harder to switch attention to you - but music? Nah.

Having said that, of course your feelings are more raw now because it's YOU that's still flailing under the grief of having lost your mother. For them, it doesn't personally affect them.

When my nan died (and she was my favourite relative), I went back to work after a couple of weeks (I'd been away for other reasons) and was still sad - but one of the other staff was (I felt) SO rude and callous to me, asking why I looked so miserable. To her, losing a grandmother was momentary sadness, not deep grief. To me, it was deep grief - but she couldn't understand it at all. OF course with a mother it's more obvious that you'd still be upset - but your friends have moved past their sadness-for-you, I'd guess.

This is why people usually fall away after a funeral - very supportive prior to it, but for them, the funeral = "all done, get on with life now", which of course isn't AT ALL how it feels to the bereaved person.

I hope that you can reconnect with your friends, maybe on a one-to-one basis initially, and deal with this. I don't think they're bitches, necessarily.

Who even sees or knows when people join and leave a zoom meeting? Unless there is only 2 or 3 of you, it isn’t clear, or often doesn’t even show at all, depending on devises, settings, etc

I don’t think, in that context, I would bring up a recent death. It’s more a private chat thing for me. But then I don’t have lots of close friends or a big ‘chat’ culture in my life so perhaps I don’t know the etiquette.