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?

I too am a bereaved Mum, and agree with everything you’ve said. I’m very sorry for your loss.

I think most responses so far are unfair to you, OP. You didn't diminish real grief or its impact, but every response I've read so far has accused you of that. I don't know why but people enjoy having someone to be angry at.

For what it is worth, I know what you mean.

I think op is talking about prolonged grief disorder, which is definitely a thing, when twenty years down the line people’s entire identity is a grief response that began thirty years ago when a husband or parent dies. Grief is awful but it’s also healthy to process it over time.

Am so sorry for your loss 💐

My son’s friend died earlier this year- he was an only child and the pain of the parents is so all consuming. It’s hard to know how to support them.

I actually don’t think you’re entirely wrong OP. Mainly about people grieving those they didn’t know, like when the queen died. Omg. My social media was awash with the most attention seeking grief vampires. “Sobbing” “broken” “she was my queen!” Etc. my entire household were taking the piss

As for those who grieve for people they actually know, I can only think of one example. At a family funeral of my ex’s side an aunt and some cousins of his, “collapsing, screaming (not crying, actual screaming) tearing at their clothes and refusing to get up at the end of the service. They held up other funerals for about 30 minutes and only stopped when someone suggested calling an ambulance out of pure desperation to make them fuck off. They got up and were fine after they’d done their piece. Eyes were dry, went and partied at the wake. Was never mentioned again. They’d done it at least a couple of times before at other funerals.

Yabu, death hurts so much. I lost a friend overnight to a brain tumour three years ago. The same age as me. It knocked me for sixth and I still miss her. The fact she was the same age and the person we both turned to to discuss the good and bad on life was probably why it took me over a year to accept her death. Maybe selfish as I missed her opinion on life so much. It's another Christmas coming up and her kind family gifted me her wood advert calendar which has helped as I think of her when I put the pieces out each year. I think what you saying is rubbish op and upsetting to anyone who sadly has lost someone.

Along with grief there is also trauma. I lost my mum. I have changed forever. It’s left a hole in my life and I’m not fortunate to have any support or family around nor an emotionally available partner. I did everything myself with her affairs and I watched her in pain and suffering and when she died it was sudden in the end . Her actual death was traumatic, the months leading to it and clearing her house etc everything was traumatic. Until you experienced or see your loved one gone like that, you’ll never understand grief.

I lost my mum nearly 6 years ago when I was only 27 and 34 weeks pregnant with my first child. She was everything to me my absolute best friend and favourite company. It rocked my world losing her and I’ll never be the same again. I can’t imagine ever not crying about her daily or thinking of her multiple times.
I’ve never met someone who I think has ‘performative grief’

I’m NC with both parents (aggressive alcoholic and mum let her new partner turn my life into domestic abuse hell for years until finally it went through the criminal court system. They’re back together now), but I guess I always assumed that having a parent die at 80+ is of course very sad but an element of you would accept it much better than had they been younger. I was very close with my grandparents and very sad when they died but I also felt relief that they wouldn’t be suffering any more, plus gratitude they’d lived a long a mostly happy life.

I lost my adult son two weeks ago and I don’t know how I’m going to get through this most painful part of my life, I don’t know if I’ll ever get through it.

This does read to me a bit more like "it's annoying when people who I think should be over their loss or shouldn't have been this affected by it in the first place carry on not being over it and won't pretend otherwise"

I'm so sorry. I don't even know what to say.

Thinking of all of you who have shared your grief on this post - I'm so sorry

I don’t think they mean that at all.

Do you think 100% of grief - for the Queen, for celebrities, or for people we know IRL - is genuine and sincere? I don’t, because there is always a small fringe of human behaviour which is narcissistic or uses things for gain.

Everyone clamours on social media to make out they knew a deceased person even when their family knows they weren’t friends or hadn’t been in touch for years. Is that genuine grief?

I think feeling sad is addictive. I am currently (as in right this moment) extremely depressed. I’ve been working on depression for about 6 months. And things had improved until the last week or so. I know that I’m the only one that can lift myself out of it but it is so easy to sit here hating myself. There is a certain deliciousness to beating yourself up. Is that what you mean?

(it’s obviously far far more complicated than this)

Who are you to say what is "genuine grief" or "deep and tragic bereavement"?

I had the same relationship with my mum. She was my best friend and life has never been the same.

I can only think of one person I’ve met for whom this seems true.

I know what you mean op. I have a friend who's mum passed relatively prematurely - she was in her mid thirties and her mum was about 60, so not old.
It was 12 years ago, and she posts on social media regularly about her grief/loss. E.g. "love mini eggs, they were always mums favourite, miss her so much at Easter" or "went to x garden centre today, had to buy a bunch of lilies for mum #gonebutnotforgotten", or "they played oasis on the radio, made me cry thinking of mum"

I feel awful for her losing her mum but its every single post, it feels performative

" It rocked my world losing her and I’ll never be the same again. I can’t imagine ever not crying about her daily or thinking of her multiple times."

Do you really cry daily after 6 years? I suppose i can't imagine having enough time to dwell on these sorts of feelings to the extent I'm brought to tears. I'm so busy at work, dealing with children, doing jobs etc, by the time my head hits the pillow I crash.

27 is quite young to lose a parent.

I had a colleague who lost her had when she was in her late 30s and he his 60s, so a bit premature. Very sad of course but when I started working with her I was under the impression it was very recent - she talked about him at least daily, most topics lead back to his death, she told me she wasn’t having a Christmas tree that year because it was too sad without him & that she would be requesting annual leave over the Xmas period to grieve him (he died Xmas eve) which she hoped wouldn’t be competed with as she needs the time off as she’s an emotional wreck. Turns out he’d died 7 years previously. I know it’s not for me to judge etc but while not ‘performative’ I felt she was almost scared of moving on.

I feel my grief is very private - I don't understand the performative aspect - no one can help me, no one can cure me, no one can reach the emptiness and longing. Occasionally people catch me in a moment for sadness - I wish they hadn't, there's nothing they can say - nothing fixes it, nothing makes me feel better. Maybe hug - but words are meaningless and by the same token there's no point in me trying to explain how I feel or worse still, trying to justify how I feel. Time, it helps to dull the pain it, but it's slow.

If you lose someone you love, the loss of an identity is a big part of grieving. If you’re the mum to an only child or you lose a partner and they die, suddenly you’re no longer a ‘mum’ or ‘a wife’ - that’s a massive loss in addition to the heartache of what you’re already going through.

Of course there’s always going to be some people who build their identity around the bad things that happen to them but I think they’re in the minority. For those who’ve experienced a life-altering loss, they’d happily do anything to just have a day of peace away from the unrelenting pain. You’d be hard pressed to find many who enjoy living in that pain.

Perhaps you’re seeing social media posts from grieving people and judging that as ‘performative’? If a person is choosing to share their feelings on social media posts, that’s not performative, that’s often part of their processing. And processing a tragic loss can take a very long time.

For a couple of years after my mum died suddenly, I processed my feelings on a blog and shared the links on social media. For me, writing has always been really cathartic and no one was compelled to read it. It certainly wasn’t performative or ‘for likes’, it was my way of making sense of something that had upended my life.

As my heart began to stitch itself back together, I found less need to blog. I’m glad those who know me best stuck by my side throughout that time.

I know what you mean OP.

I know someone who lost her husband when their son was about 12. A devastating loss for both of them. The son is now nearly 30 and she will not let him move on with his life. He now has a partner, but she sabotages any significant life event by having a sort of mini “breakdown”. Whenever things don’t go her way she begins wearing nothing but black, and uses “I’m a widow” as a way to manipulate the son into doing whatever she wants. When he first wanted to move in with his partner, she began saying her life wasn’t worth living as a widow who her son had now abandoned. Every holiday or trip he takes, she cries and says how upset she is because “Paris is a place your father always wanted to visit and I wanted to be the one to take you”. Every single time. She calls him almost daily to visit the house to do things like change a lightbulb, because she’s a widow. She’s asked him not to have children because she won’t be able to cope with being a widowed grandparent without her husband to share the experience with.

No one is denying she’s had a very traumatic loss. But being a widow truly has become her identity, and she’s very manipulative when she feels the attention slipping from her. Perhaps her behaviour is rooted in genuine grief, but she is able to function quite well when things are going her way…

I agree this sort of behaviour is rare. But I don’t think OP was downplaying grief as such, but more referring to the sort of behaviour I’ve described.

I was quite young when I lost my dad , I was also pregnant with my 2nd child .
To a degree I feel I suppressed my grief as didn't want my baby to feel that grief or a change in me ( probably unfounded , but you never know )
My mum died many years later , and as an only child , I felt that loss because you dont really have anyone who feels that loss as deeply as you .