To be so affected by the Southport news

[wonderingwandering99]

I can’t stop crying about this news story. I’ve recently had my first child and I don’t think it would have affected me quite so much before I became a mother. But I’ve felt sick ever since I found out yesterday.

I just can’t stop thinking about how many people’s lives will be forever ruined by this most hellish, heinous event. How will they ever be able to have normal lives? I’m so heartbroken.

It felt like a bad dream when I woke up this morning and remembered it was actually real and this has really happened. What a dark, dark day for our country.

You’re not alone OP. I can’t bear it. Those beautiful little girls enjoying their Taylor Swift holiday club only for it to end in such horror. I have a DD of a similar age to the victims, who has been attending holiday club this week so it does feel close to home. It’s also been made vastly worse by the hideous racist thugs who seem determined to shoehorn this into their chosen narrative despite there being no evidence that it fits.

You don't have to be a parent to find it tragic and shocking, of course anyone with a normal amount of empathy for others will find it heartbreaking.

However I am particularly affected by hearing that one of the poor little girls who passed was an only child. I'm thinking of the parents, looking at my only child and imagining how I'd even carry on. If I wasn't a mother to an only, that detail wouldn't have hit me so hard and made me feel sick. It just wouldn't have.

Of course it's fine to acknowledge that becoming a parent has changed your feelings about these things, partly because of hormones as others have said and partly - also as others have said - because you now can imagine it being your child so it's more personal in that sense. That's obvious.

What many people get upset about is the suggestion, propagated by the media too, that becoming a parent somehow makes you a better and more caring person. Sadly not the case. I don't have children and can't face reading or watching anything about this incident any more, especially now seeing their faces. It breaks my heart and has floored me, probably because of losses I've experienced (which also mean I don't have children).
As long as no one suggests mothers have a monopoly on empathy or love, I think that's all people are asking for. Not saying anyone has said that ... but people without children can feel very alive to the possibility as it happens a lot and it's deeply hurtful (and untrue). Some of us understand loss all the more for not having had children if we wanted them.
Even then, I can't even begin to comprehend what the poor parents of those gorgeous girls - and others who loved them - are going through.

A good way to deal with the feelings and emotions after an incident of this magnitude would be if all the people posting committed to doing something to improve their communities. Whether it’s voluntary work, actively tackling ASB or even befriending a lonely neighbour, channeling the anger and upset into a positive action would make a big and meaningful difference.

I have become far too consumed with finding out details of it and I think it's all anxiety driven because it's too close to home to my life. That beautiful little girl with the hairband is ages with my eldest and we were just at a holiday club drop in for 2 hours last week in a fairly similar setting. I have actively had to take a step back from reading about it because it wasn't helpful for me. I'm just heartbroken for their parents.

Yes his parents/ friends/ community must be in a horrific state. I can imagine that turns to guilt quickly and will eat them away for the rest of their days.

I am abroad and stupidly checked in today and am sorry I did. Those beautiful little angels. My thoughts are with the injured children and adults too and I'm praying they recover

Completely agree, it's always the best way to deal with a situation - to feel like you're doing something about it.

Yes this was so genuinely wicked and heartbreaking. I cried earlier too. Those poor children and so many others injured. Their families. I think about them all.

I understand, thanks for your comment

My heart still breaks for Jamie Bulger over 30 years ago. He was the same age as my son.

I think it affects you even deeper if you have a kid the same age. The horror of it all.

That saying, you don't need to be a parent or have kids those ages to be deeply affected by the deaths of those wee girls.

There is nothing anyone can say to make it better. It's the helplessness too.

Or give blood. That's a helpful thing lots of people could do.

I’m - perhaps badly - trying to say we shouldn’t make these events about us. It’s not for us to co-opt other people’s tragedies and pain. You posted in AIBU and I think you’re BU but of course, not for the human emotion of feeling bad for those affected. It is tragic for them.

Absolutely. This is an excellent post. There are GoFundMe pages, one of which is raising money for Alder Hey’s children hospital. I fully appreciate many people don’t have any spare money but we could share those pages. Not sure if it’s ok to do on here but people can google if you do have a pound or so spare.

I've found it much worse as I live fairly close and used to do baby classes in that building with my eldest. Colleagues live in the area and some of their dc go to school with one of the girls who died.

Really has made me think about all the clubs my eldest does in buildings that aren't secured. But at the same time I'm desperate to find out what the motive behind it was. The location of the building is somewhere you can't see from the road and must surely have been targeted.

@wonderingwandering99 I hope you're doing alright, it's so hard with the hormones. My eldest was born around the time of a major harrowing story and I believe that seeing that everywhere triggered some PND, so keep your eye on that. Hormones coupled with a time of unease and collective sadness really are a terrible mix for your emotional wellbeing. 💐

I keep thinking about those beautiful wee girls and their parents, the chaos currently happening within the community. It's a very layered tragedy and I think collectively that society as a whole will grieve this for a long time coming. It's a pointless, tragic loss of 3 beautiful little girls and we can do nothing but hope the other little ones and their dance teachers recover fully and are supported and loved throughout this.

I actually thought earlier about a lovely elderly lady I knew who's passed away now who adored children and how this would have crushed her. Whilst the victims and their families are unquestionably the people we grieve for and with, there is just so many gentle and kind and lonely people who will struggle very much with their sadness alone.

The murder of innocent children traumatises so many, you aren't alone in your devastation @wonderingwandering99 but do keep your eye on your hormones x

Probably objecting to the mawkish nature of the post.

It’s normal to be saddened when these things happen, and I would be concerned if I didn’t find them saddening. But my view is that it is better not to say so openly, either online or in real life.
It’s an unfortunate reality that too many people try to make these awful events which happen to strangers about themselves, & about their own emotions, as a form of attention seeking or empty virtue signalling. At worst, they can come across as grief vultures, cynically exploiting the tragedies suffered by others for sympathy and ‘likes’.

I understand what you mean and appreciate maybe some people (often the kind of fuckers getting the homeless people they've bought a sausage roll for to pose for a selfie with them for likes) can be quite vulgar with other peoples grief. But I think the murder of children is so far removed from the mind of normal and loving humans, that I'd rather give someone the benefit of the doubt that it's genuine sorrow and try and offer them supportive words as opposed to upset them more by suggesting its all for attention. (I'm not saying you said that about the OP btw!)
I've seen people struggling with lots of what if/for the grace of god there go I moments online over the years and with these forums being anonymous I do find it's genuine despair posters are feeling. And then it gets other posters iritated and a pile on can occur.
Because we don't know if posters are struggling I'd always rather be cautious and try to say something comforting or helpful if I can, than just assume they're a big attention seeker.
Like you say, it would be weird to not be sad. And we all process tragedy so differently.

I think the world is getting harsher and harsher and if someone is struggling with sadness of others losses and tragic world related misery, it may be nice for them to have a community of differently minded people who can suggest coping mechanisms they've found helpful.

I'm probably just being a big old fat hippy about it, but I do worry about people, it's a tough time.

It got to me as well OP. It’s horrendous - so senselessly cruel. Also, it feels close to home as my own six-year-old is attending a dance/drama holiday club this week.

DD told me that at one of her other holiday clubs, they practise a kind of “stranger danger” drill which involves the children quietly hiding at the back of the building. What a world we live in.

It's horrible, shocking news. Hellish for those poor poor families. I kept having little sobs today while I was trying to work. So pointless and evil. Those beautiful babies

I couldn't disagree with you more. Imagining the pain a parent would feel in the context of your own children is a very unique and gut wrenching experience. It's not any bigger or worse, just a different dimension to the shock

Exactly this. My dp was worried when I came upstairs in floods of tears.

just unimaginable. My heart is with those poor families 💔

This post isn't grief vulturing - it's people feeling a lot of big feelings about tragedy and needing to share and offload. We are social animals and it's only natural to want to somehow communicate sympathy and attempt to understand a fraction of what those close
To the victims are going through.

Our first child was 1 when we heard news of Dunblane. Know how you feel.

I'm affected, and I'm usually quite cold and heartless tbh.

I think it's because there's nothing the parents could have done to mitigate it - the kids were in a safe, small business in a safe, small town; off the streets, not causing mischief, and doing a benign and wholesome activity. They'd done everything right.

I think it's why we ask "where were the parents?" when a senseless tragedy occurs, because it makes us feel better knowing that we aren't those parents who would make that silly mistake. It's distancing and othering to know "it's really sad but that would never be me because..."

However, this is something that Good parents would do. Who wouldn't sign your kid up for a small yoga and dance class?

Those kids should have been safe but they weren't, and there's no way to distance or distract from the fact but there but for the grace of God and a slight geographical fluke go I.