To not get over losing loved ones as easily as others?

[Beautifulweeds]

I've always been over sensitive, even accidentally stepping on a spider, I feel awful, just the way I am. I've realised I'm an empath, so totally take in anyone feeling sad or hurt. If a stranger is crying I will help them, no matter what others say.

So my AIBU is for everyone else not to understand how grief affects me so much. I know I dwell, beat myself up about what I should have done more. I do get on with life, work etc but I cry so much and feel so much pain and heartache.

It's like I function but then when I don't have to I break down. I've lost quite a few loved ones, including my Dad 3 years ago, who I'm still coming to terms with, and recently by BFF of over 40 years a few months ago. I think about her all the time, can't let go, no one else can I talk to like with her, my soulmate.

With every loss I feel the emptiness in my heart grow that bit more and know getting older comes with so much trauma.

Yet I'm still me, bubbly, my personality, but it's an effort to do this. I do turn to alcohol too much, plus I smoke, guess I'm kinda thinking this is my way to go amd convincing myself I enjoy it.

So sorry for the long post and thank you if you've taken the time to time to read about my miserable mind.

Being at the bedside of your nearest and dearest watching them die is excruciating and the fear is I can't do this for my other loved ones because it's too heartbreaking 💔 and going in a downward cycle means I can avoid this.

Again, sorry, just pouring my heart out. Xxx

I'm sorry for your losses. Grief is hard for everyone.

Sorry for your losses, op.

Other people are probably making an effort to appear “normal” just as you are so I wouldn’t make any judgements about how much grief they’re feeling.

What makes you think other people cope more easily?

There’s no such thing as an ‘empath.’ It was invented by Star Trek. Empathy is a defining feature of mankind - it’s a large part of what makes us human. It’s not unique to you and a few other ‘special’ people.

Your post, to me, suggests a person who lacks resilience more than someone who has special empathic powers. Quite frankly, the rest of us crack on because we have to.

I think most people feel things a similar amount. I just think some people are better at regulating their emotions and putting on a brave face than others.

I struggle with regulating my emotions (ADHD) and I've had to work hard to find ways to deal with my feelings without allowing them to take over. What helped me was realising that I wasn't special, everyone struggles. We just can't see what's happening in other people's minds.

Sorry for your losses OP. Your grief sounds normal. You might feel like other people shrug it off but they don’t, they just put on a brave face, put it in a box and get on with what they need to get on with. Your grief probably looks the same to others as theirs does to you. More worrying is the fact that you seem to be letting it define you in a way by making it part of the story you tell yourself about who you are.

I sympathise. I too consider myself thin skinned, over sensitive, etc.

A lot of therapy has helped me understand that I’m a hyper vigilant people pleaser, constantly attuned to other people’s emotions so I can keep myself and others safe. It’s exhausting.

The cure is boundaries. You must strengthen your boundaries, develop coping strategies and general practise regulating your emotions. It gets easier with effort.

And everyone will be happier and healthier for it.

Yes, this. Everyone is dealing with grief and putting on a face to meet the world with. The fact that you think other people feel less than you suggests you’re judgemental rather than unusually empathetic. You can’t possibly know how other people are feeling.

Good post. No one should be congratulating themselves on their people-pleasing.

This
Unless you’re a psychopath then losing loved ones is awful for everyone, but we are good at painting on smiles especially in this country. Literally no-one would know the extent of my grief as I do most of it when on my own, but others think I’m strong.
Sorry for your losses, especially your recent one of your friend 💐

Have you been drinking tonight OP?

As PP have said, I am also sorry for your losses. But you have no right to assume you grieve more or more deeply or better than other people. Western culture puts a lot of pressure on people to put on a brave face, battle on, man up, push through, whatever. You don’t know how others feel inside. What you describe yourself as feeling is, I’m afraid, the awful feelings that pretty much everyone goes through when bereavement happens or is about to happen. It’s just that when we grieve most deeply we find it hard to believe that anyone can ever have felt as awful as we do ourselves.

Did you by any chance have parents who didn’t validate your feelings of sadness when you were a child, and made you feel that there was something wrong or out of the ordinary about you when you got upset about things?

Exactly.
I look like I’m coping but I’m a total mess inside. I just hide it well.

Yes, as everyone has already said - no-one shrugs off the loss of a loved one easily. When I lost a parent I appeared functional to the outside world but I was falling apart and continued to do so for many months (years) afterwards. It's the height of self-centredness to presume your grief is deeper or more catastrophic than other people's.

No-one sees what most people are truly feeling when they lose a loved one, most of us get up each morning and plaster a smile on our faces while inside we are feeling completely different. I would imagine there are a good many days when most of us don't even know how we function enough to get through until bedtime. You are not alone in not 'getting over' a death.

I’d suggest counselling might really help you unpick why you’re like this and help you cope better.

I disagree. I think people don't feel/care as much as others.

Everyone finds it ‘excruciating’ being at the bedside of someone they love when they die. Why on earth wouldn’t they? It’s very hurtful of you to suggest that you’re the only person who feels this way.

There’s no such thing as an empath. usually it means ‘self-obsessed person ego thinks their pain is worse than everyone else’s pain’.

This.

When my husband died, his adult children and grandchild seemed to think that I was coping fine with organising the funeral and so on. The fact of the matter was that I was on my own, screaming at four walls most of the day and doing what had to be done in between.

I recall being in disbelief when they added to the things that I needed to do. (Not a lot, I suppose, but it was taking me all that I had to cope.)

When they watched the funeral on webcam, I wasn't throwing myself on the coffin so was - apparently - fine.

I'm not getting at you, OP - I'm just trying to express that you don't know what's going on in someone's head.

Im very sorry for your losses OP.

However, as kindly as possible OP, I have a friend who also describes herself as an empath, and it absolutely grinds my gears. She’s very highly strung, surprisingly blunt, and actually likes a bit of drama. She’d probably describe me as being cold hearted but I’m not, I just do my emotions in private, rather than going on in public about it all…

A lot of therapy has helped me understand that I’m a hyper vigilant people pleaser, constantly attuned to other people’s emotions so I can keep myself and others safe. It’s exhausting.

Decent therapy would have helped reduce the hyper vigilance and the desire to people please. It’s a good thing to know that about yourself but therapy at its core is about working through those issues to change them, not just give you strategies to manage.

Your grief sounds normal to me OP. If you met me you wouldn't guess at all that I'm grieving a child. You would have absolutely no idea.

You do have to make a choice though. It's very easy to slide into unhealthy coping mechanisms. Drinking and smoking too much will make you feel raw and vulnerable. Nobody is coming to save you from yourself.

Stop the drink. Focus on treating your body better, do things that bring you pleasure and give you a break from having to sit with your own brain constantly.

I've realised I'm an empath, so totally take in anyone feeling sad or hurt. If a stranger is crying I will help them, no matter what others say.

Over empathising with others really isn’t a healthy emotional response to other people’s upset. It would be worth you seeking therapy to understand what it is in you that’s leaving you vulnerable to others pain, and resolving that.

I'm sorry for your losses, OP. We've lost two very dear friends this year, and may lose another soon, it has been rough.

Don't compare the inside of your life to someone else's outside, though. There are dozens of people you encounter every day, every week, each with their own private sorrow. You might not see it, but it's there, just as they might not see it in you.

I'm one of life's cryers and sometimes just can't hold it in. I have a friend who rarely cries in front of anyone, in fact in 25 years I've never really seen her weep. But trust me, even though she might not show it, she grieves. She has had a lot to grieve.

If you think other people get other the deaths of their loved ones more easily than you do, I suspect you aren’t as empathetic as you think.

Loss is difficult and horrible. Everyone suffers. Just because some people force themselves to carry on, that doesn’t they don’t feel it as much as you.