To think grief is sometimes self-centred, more about identity than loss?

[MourningMirrorOtter]

Some people seem to fall in love with their sadness. AIBU to think grief sometimes becomes performance when healing threatens attention?

Well it's been 9 years since my child died and it often feels like just yesterday. In some ways the passing of time makes it harder as they are more distant.

Your children may feel the loss of a missing sibling they never got to know more as they get older.

Public wailing - not my style but, if it helps someone else, let them. In some cultures it's part of the whole thing and there are even hired wailers at funerals. To be honest, letting it all out is probably healthier than bottling it all up.

I kind of agree. My mum died very suddenly and way before her time and obviously my nan lost her daughter, which was unbelievably awful for her. But it got to the point where that's all she talked about, to people who knew her and to strangers, and I didn't always want to be reminded of it and it made people feel uncomfortable. I think in some ways she liked the attention but I can't really blame her I guess. For me, very few people know anything about what happened. I would never just tell people unless they ask or unless we happen to be talking about that kind of thing

It's the little things that set it off, and often they are so unexpected and suddenly in your face. I understand. 💜

Genuine grief is all consuming so I’m guessing OP has never experienced this.
Having lost my mam, brother, all grandparents, BIL, SIL and ex partner, I know grief. It hits you when you’re least expecting it even years on.
A Covid funeral creates trauma that lasts for far longer too. You weren’t allowed the normal rituals to help you move on.
Grief has a lasting impact. There’s far fewer presents to buy at Christmas. No one left to travel to.
I read the threads about family disagreements and none of it applies to me. But I have to stay strong for my DC’s. And support them through the grief of losing their much loved uncle and auntie. If I lost them it would utterly break me.
I’m guessing what you mean might be the performative grief on socials. And yes that’s distasteful. If they knew real grief they wouldn’t be posting.

If that's all she talked about she obviously needed more help to process things around it. I'm guessing this was before the days there were easy avenues for her to do that, like counselling or support groups?

Oh that’s so true. A Walnut Whip had me in tears the other day for my lovely mum.

But who are you to determine how "small" or "big" someone's grief is? How arrogant!

I do too.

I think that it depends on the type of grief.
Death that comes outside of the normal circle of life, say the death of a child, death of a sibling while a child or young person, or the death of a parent while children are still young means that statistically, at least in developed countries, in the minority.
So your personality and perspective on life is formed by the death in a way that most people, who lose grandparents then parents/ aunts/ uncles etc won’t ever experience or understand.

Even if many people in this unfortunate position choose not to voice it, losing someone in a non standard way will alter you indefinitely. In the same way that if someone is murdered it is difficult to them dying of an illness and different to them having an accident.

It’s not for me to judge if someone want to ensure that people remember that they are a person who is living life with grief in their shoulders.
I know a mother who lost her boy at 14. She never mentions it, but had she felt the need to, and wanted to let others k ow of her grief, then she could do so as much as she wanted as far as I am concerned. It would never be too much.

Yes I think you're right. But talking about it and showing her grief to anyone who happened to be around must have been of some help to her

Not if they were dismissive, thought she should be over it by now, or weren't able to really 'hear' her.

You again, OP? Yawn.

When someone loses their whole family (within War, a traffic accident or horrific murder as we sometimes see in the news), I believe that God has still given that individual the gift of life ..they need to process the grief, even if they don’t reach an acceptance, and find a way to survive

What a very strange post, totally without empathy. I lost the love of my life, very suddenly 3 years ago. Yes, I grieve, but don’t let the loss identify me. Life goes on, as does bereavement. Grief is love with nowhere to go 💔

They key word there is 'survive'. Do you think God is any comfort for many when they experience such a profound loss? I was a Christian until I saw how much my child suffered in the years before their death. Any loving god who allowed that, had the power to heal it and didn't, and allowed such injustice, has no room in my life. (And there's another way it changes your identity. Loss of faith.)

I had an relative who was very dismissive of any public display of grief. Even of a private cry within the family home. When people were bereft she would say things like "Buck up, we don't wear our hearts on our sleeves in this family." or "Get on with things, keep busy, don't wallow".

Her briskness and dismissiveness hurt people, made them feel bad and stayed with them.

Then her own mother died. Oh my goodness she fell apart to the extent that DH and I had to hold her up at the graveside. For months she was inconsolable. We were all as loving and supportive of her as we could possibly be and felt that her past coldness had been because she'd never felt grief herself.

I thought she would change as a result but she hasn't.

Is it not part of your identity though?

When my child died, someone told me that in time I'd come to see the gifts the situation gave me. I wanted to slap the person that said that at the time, but they were right in that, in finding ways to survive, I have never lived more fully in many ways.

Losing my child isn't all of who I am but it is a profound part of my core.

This is a conversation OP started with Chat GPT. That's why it doesn't make any sense.

I wonder if you’re referring to the “cult miserables” people who seem to thrive on misery, negativity, and learned helplessness, rather than those who’ve experienced genuine grief. I haven’t lost anyone close to me yet, but I can’t imagine grief ever having an end date when I do. Nor can I imagine being able to put on a smile and pretend everything’s fine.

I do think the “cult miserables” exist. But I also believe they struggle to move beyond that state of unhappiness because what they consume traps them there. They gravitate toward sadness because it feels familiar, yet it only keeps them stuck. In turn, they attract others in the same pattern of learned helplessness, reinforcing the cycle that holds them down.

You should read about resilience. People react differently to the same trauma or grief, because they have different resilience. Resilience is something that is build in childhood. Sometimes when some people can't seem to get over a loss, it could be that it echoes deeper traumas or previous losses. Sometimes also it can be that they had a conflictual relationship with the deceased and the loss ends the possibility of every healing that relationship. Unless you know the full story I wouldn't judge

I totally identify with this. I never cried by I lost a child and my mum within 6 months and I’m not the same person now. I can’t and won’t delete her number. I also do genealogy and even though she died 8 years ago, I’m unable to mark her as deceased in my tree. I Co-research with distant cousins who have all kept her ‘alive’ in their trees along with me .

I think you only have to look at the public outpouring of responses to a celebrity death to see that sometimes displays (being the operative word) of "grief" can be performative.

That is not a comment on the reactions of people who have lost, for example, a child, which are the result of an altogether more complex and profound set of emotions.

Interesting post …two close friends are struggling with the poor health of their elderly parents, to the point that they are not coping with the stress very well at all. I can’t help but think how lucky they are that they still have them in their lives..my dad was killed at 43 and my mum died in her 60’s. Their parents are in their 90’s FOR GOD SAKE!

Are they caring for them? That's a whole different stress again.

I do understand the sentiment you express. Losing someone in their 90s is not the same as losing someone in their teens, thirties, etc. That's the natural order and how it should be. I'm careful not to minimise the grief of someone who loses someone at that age though. It's still a loss of the person and painful for them.

If someone tells me they understand the grief I feel for my child loss because they lost their GF in their 90s, I will think they're a bit of a dick though.