Grief Vampire

[Beebopbopbopbopbop]

Ok I don’t think I am actually being unreasonable but happy to be told otherwise.

I have an old friend who seems to absolutely make a song and dance about every death of someone she even vaguely knows, but emotional Facebook posts etc.

As an example when we are secondary school a boy a few years above is died. She didn’t know him well - but think her brother was friend with him. She posts a memorial every single year on Facebook (we are now in our very late thirties - the photo she uses predates digital). It’s always with a big heartfelt “gone but not forgotten etc”.

Second example - bloke from a local shop died. She asked me if I’d be going to the funeral as she was.

Aibu to find it absolutely weird and bizarre. What do people get out of this behaviour?

I had so many of these people irl after the deaths of my children. People sobbing and wailing so much I ended up comforting them. Even my own (now nc mother) said "it's OK for you, you're getting attention, what about me".

I also see it on here, there was a very poorly child of a well known couple and people were cancelling nights out, sobbing and shaking, not sleeping etc. It's like they get some satisfaction pretending to be important and grieving, when if they were really in the situation they absolutely wouldn't want to be. They like the attention, but in a safe way where they aren't really impacted emotionally. Like watching a sad film to have a good cry, but its peoples real life trauma they are piggybacking onto.

🥺🥺🥺

I had a bad experience from a distant family member When my sister died
Who tried to make it all about her. It still grates , I hate her for it as she was nasty and upset me and my parents at the time by being horrible.
Grief vampire is a good description.
Blunt but accurate

@Isthisprivate

My cousin is the same. Everyone that dies within a 3 mile radius of somewhere she has ever been get a Facebook post and her going on about how they were her best friend and she is just in shock. The daughter of one person commented once saying she didn’t realise they were so close and how they must have missed each other at the hospital/hospice (clearly making a dig about my cousin exaggerating). My cousin isn’t very bright and said oh yes we were so close we told each other everything. She also tried to fight my step sister at my stepdads funeral because she had told her to calm down. My stepdad had always hated her and wanted nothing to do with her so would avoid her and only ever see her at funerals (very justified). At his funeral she was telling people he was like another father to her they were so close, she sat on the floor and loudly sobbed -with no tears, when she was told to move from the front row so his actual kids, partner and grandson could sit there - that’s when she was told to calm down.

Wow!

I genuinely hate people who do this, it makes my blood boil. They don't limit it to deaths either - I was attacked on my way home from work and my colleague made our other colleague drive her home for the next few weeks because she was "so afraid of being raped" (meanwhile I was left to walk home alone, as usual). She also kept going on about how awful it was that this had happened in our town and that she knew the person it had happened to, in my earshot

@gabsdot45

I have a colleague whose husband died young. Every year people she doesn't know and who did not attend his funeral put Facebook posts up about him. It really upsets her.

I get a feeling this is probably exactly how this guys family feel. It’s the total lack of self awareness isn’t it?

My dad died when I was 12. I’ve never posted about him on FB ever. it’s too close. It’s too personal. I don’t want to share it or put it up for public ownership. I might post on his birthday, maybe I’ve done that 2/3 times in the 30 years he’s been gone. My sister feels the same. My mum does post but understandably so and I won’t begrudge her her own grief and how she expresses it.

Anyway my aunt who only knew him briefly once posted and I straight out asked her to take it down. She did and it’s all fine.

@Beebopbopbopbopbop

I’ve just recalled another woman like this but who was more into going to funerals. As a student I worked in a pub and honestly she must have gone to about one a week. It wasn’t so much the “faux grief” with her (I got a feeling it may have been more the free buffet). We called her “Funeral Sue”

But furneral-going depends entirely on the person's culture/nationality. In Ireland, for example, funerals are not restricted to close family, but are large occasions where people who may never have met the dead person attend to show support to bereaved family members who are their friends or colleagues, or because the person was involved in a cause/organisation/team/business/local politics etc. Just before Covid put restrictions on funerals, DH and I queued in the rain for almost two hours outside a funeral parlour -- DH had only met the dead man once or twice, but had been hired as his replacement when he quit when he became very ill.

I could easily imagine that working in a pub with an older clientele could have you going to a lot of funerals.

‘Look how sensitive and caring I am!’

That’s about the size of it, IMO.,

I have a colleague like this. She posted several times about and including the same picture of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes the week his murderers were sentenced. She feeds off it. She directs every conversation about herself or if she's has heard someone has died in our a&e (we work in a different department but same hospital) or in the local area. Then in the next breath can be saying about how excited she is of her holiday this summer! She also is a complete psychopath at work accusing everyone of bullying left right and centre. Very scary woman actually.

@Tullig I nearly included “she wasn’t Irish” in that post.
She didn’t work in the pub - I did. She was a regular. It was weird (as in actual family members would think it weird).

She really did irishfarmer. She's the most spectacular wanker I know

From reading other posts, it seems passive aggression is a common tactic favoured by the GVs. Poor fuckers are basically emotionally defunct

It's the like people who after a tradegy post things like "I'm so lucky, it could have been me, I was in France 7 years ago on that street". 🙄

Also (as I’m anonymously whinging) - those who post about deaths on LinkedIn. Yes letting people know that someone has died is usual.

But the “my friend died last week” stuff I find really unpalatable for some reason.

[quote Beebopbopbopbopbop]@Tullig I nearly included “she wasn’t Irish” in that post.
She didn’t work in the pub - I did. She was a regular. It was weird (as in actual family members would think it weird).[/quote]
I suppose all I'm saying is that the normalness of funeralgoing is dependent on lots of things -- I know I ended up having to round up a load of university friends (of various nationalities) when a friend from a second-generation British Gujerati background's father died. The friend assumed we were all coming to London for the funeral, and would have been desperately hurt if we hadn't, but the vast majority of our mutual friends had no idea that this was expected.

This is a situation entirely created by social media. Pre-facebook and instagram she (and everyone like her) would not have been marking death anniversaries unless she was very close to the person. She does it now because she gets likes and comments and that makes her feel good.

Grief vampires are everywhere. They congregate on MN.

Every time anyone even slightly famous dies or something horrible happens in the news there's an undignified scramble to be the first to post the thread, resulting in 6 threads on exactly the same topic.

And yes, as one poster said upthread, the co-opting of the awful child abuse cases is very distateful.

@perimenofertility hmm I’m not sure actually. The death I’m referring it in the OP occurred before social media.

While it exacerbates the reach it. I still think if it didn’t exist instead you’d have “oh I’m feeling very down today as it’s the anniversary of death.

Someone posted something like “well I’ve followed this from the start so as very involved” WTF?

I still can't get over that comment it was weirder than just that because they mentioned how only they could post really as they had been through everyday of the court case and been traumatised by what they had read and that other posters were lucky to not know. They morbidly stalked the court case, they weren't involved. It was weird.

I have a cousin like it. Ill relatives hide and don't open the door when she pops round "to check they're ok".

My own DM is like this. Phones and asks if I remembered so and so from school. No I don't!

@GalaxyOnOrionsBelt you’ve summed it up perfectly. It’s like they wanted to “take ownership”. It was odd and a bit disturbing.

There's a very funny Fascinating Aida song about someone enjoying going to funerals.

.

The posting about people they barely knew who have died is both attention seeking and virtue signalling isn't it?

@Lockheart I mean I think a thread about a celeb who has died isn’t an awful thing. People share stories or favourite hits etc.

It’s when it’s all “I’ve been crying for a week as Meatloaf died” that it gets weird.

I know that sometimes someone else’s grief can bring up stuff in your own life - but ffs keep it quiet around those who are directly affected.