I am BU, but why?

[Falsenegative]

My mother died suddenly of a heart condition a year ago.

Two of my cousins are fundraising for the British Heart Foundation. They’ve just done a lengthy run for it. I don’t know why, and I know I’m being completely unreasonable, but it annoys me. I can’t stand it coming up on social media and I haven’t donated. My sister and father post supportive comments so it’s definitely problem. Why does it annoy me?

Solidarity to all in this shitty club ie bereavement in all it's forms. It's a whole new surreal world and forever changed.

When my DP died, I had to do alot of social media because he did and was fairly well known locally. The rage some of the responses induced was probably disproportionate but hey ho, I'm only human.

I tried to describe it to a therapist (a short lived and fruitless exercise to placate people worrying about me).

The only analogy I could come up with was the final scene from that film - I think it's called Parfum, about a murderer who creates an irresistible scent that makes people go a bit nuts when he douses himself in it at the end to evade capture and the townspeople literally devour him, leaving nothing behind.

Probably makes me sound a little nuts but that was the gist of it in my head - the overwhelming of other people's thoughts and feelings almost cancelling out my own.

There comes a point where one may want to scream "I know you mean well (probably) but for the love of all things unholy, please just stop and let me take a breath in peace,".

Whether irrational or not, you feel what you feel, and the processing can be a long haul...

Grief should never be quantified. There is no more or less. Please stop. Just support the OP or leave the thread.

I think that perhaps you value the space to grieve privately and the social media posts feel a bit public and ‘invasive’? Sorry for your loss.

Could you also may be feeling that the fundraisers are breaching her right to privacy a bit?

I completely understand. I lost my mum to cancer and I when I see adverts or people I know raising money for cancer research or Macmillan etc it makes me feel very annoyed\irritated. I know it's completely unreasonable and if anything I should feel the opposite after losing my mum to cancer but in all honesty, I feel very resentful as my mum didn't survive or got any help from Macmillan or the nhs, just let to die in agony.

Indeed.

They could just say they are doing the run for their aunt without specifically naming her /posting a picture. That would be fine.

You feel like they're appropriating grief, acting like it was their tragedy and not yours?

You feel like you should be doing what they're doing (or similar) and it makes you feel guilty?

As long as you don't let it show, you're fine. Maybe force out one supportive message, even if you feel a bit fake?

I get it. I recently did a thing to raise money for a charity who helped my mum. But I didn’t use ‘her story’ because I know that would have given her massive ick. She always hated the ‘my grandma just died’ VTs on X factor!

They've co-opted your very personal and painful grief in order to publicly virtue signal what great people they are.

It would be less distasteful if they hadn't used actual pictures of your mum. Did they speak to you about it beforehand or did you find out on social media, because that makes it even worse.

I get annoyed by charity events like running or skydiving that seemingly take a lot of effort but don't produce anything useful other than money which people may well have donated anyway.

I just think that instead of running 5k or whatever, why not have a sponsored litter pick, or a sponsored paint the school - do something of actual use!

Anyway yes I sympathise, and although your reaction may be irrational I don't think it's unreasonable to have irrational reactions 😬