Why are people trying to downplay how awful this is?

[laughloseya]

We got the news a couple of weeks ago that a colleague’s wife is terminally ill. Their daughter is only 23. It is so awful and I can’t stop thinking about them.

I was talking to another colleague about the situation. We are all good friends as well as colleagues and have been for many years, so know the family well. The colleague I was speaking to agreed it was awful and said she knew how they felt because she’d lost her father in her 40s. I lost my mother in my 30s and I said it wasn’t the same as being 23, and that our parents had both died suddenly, we didn’t have to endure watching it happen slowly. She immediately said ‘my uncle died slowly in my 20s, I know exactly what they’re going through’.

And then another colleague mentioned yesterday that she also knew exactly what the family was going through because her grandad had cancer in his 70s.

I just don’t understand this attitude of trying to shoehorn your own experience into this family tragedy.

It’s not a competition. Everyone will have their own stories. You need to stop comparing @laughloseya it’s not helping you or anyone else.

How do you know that never having gone through those experiences? I feel you are being unfairly judgmental . I feel I would have coped better in my early 20s than how I did in my late 20’s when I had young children and wanted my mum’s support but I can never know that as I didn’t experience both . Don’t rank grief

People just need something to say in what are obviously difficult conversations. You are massively over involving yourself in this.

The difference is stark.

Chances are your parent has been robbed of some good years and will die from dementia, whereas very elderly people with dementia still had all their best years and will likely die with dementia rather than from it.

No two griefs are the same, no two people are the same. If the young woman has any siblings, they will all be experiencing the grief around this differently. Has the colleague whose wife is dying made any indication that these words have caused harm? I'm presuming you aren't close enough to know how the daughter feels or you would have mentioned it.

Saying they know how the other person feels is not accurate and I wouldn't use it; however, I think for most people who say it, it's a normal way within their communities to normalise grief so the person feels less alone and an attempt to
say that they are using their own experiences of grief to empathise. We are limited social creatures, and we use our own experiences to connected with each other.

Language in these situation is always very limiting and different communities develop different ways to express that and they can clash with how these difficult experiences are shared in other communities. While I get how it can come across as downplaying, I don't think saying that in itself is downplaying, it's when people go on how about much worse they had it or how they just got on with it after experiencing a death that it turns into downplaying.

This is pretty common around death. A similar one that caused issues in my family were those who went on that my MIL was 'in a better place' repeatedly, which caused some upset to others, including my husband. We could get that to them it was a normal thing to say at the time to comfort at a painful time, but to my husband, it came across that there was a better place for his mother than here with the family. As his mother had chosen not to undergo cancer treatment that had very low prospects to maintain quality of life as long as possible in a horrible situation, grief had those kindly meant words feel like salt in the wound. Even thinking back on it brings tears to my eyes.

I'd only get involved or really think much of those kinds of common place lines if I became aware that they were hurting someone directly involved. Otherwise, I'd probably not think twice about it. It's imperfect language, but language around this is quite limited and we're all imperfect in this. Others may feel differently, but I'd rather they expressed something even badly than nothing at all. At least doing it badly can be a start.

I do think they are just trying to relate. I’ve been in the other end of this too when I was TTC and couldn’t and many friends in their second babies trying to empathise how difficult it was when I had my third miscarriage and was going for IVF.

i was enraged! It’s not the same in any way! But I think you must be an empath and a high sensitive person which I am too.

People say daft, inappropriate things all the time ? Death is a difficult conversation, and people can struggle to know what to say.

No idea why you are so hung up on this, and I highly doubt the young women involved cares about you and your colleagues opinion on what is a ‘better’ death for grieving families to deal with.

I agree op this young woman is going to experience many losses, many losses many people have not experienced.

She will also not understand at the moment the losses she is yet to encounter.

Unconditional support for her has gone, it will make her life harder.

I am a highly sensitive person OP and people have suggested that you are but given your responses here I really don't see it.

@saraclara I quoted Miriam Webster in my post and told you what I think of the definition, and I feel the same way about the Cambridge definition. I mean, go for it - tell someone you can experience their exact feelings just by imagining it and see how that goes. I think a lot of people would look at someone who does this askance, but maybe I’m completely wrong. I would not keep a friend who did this repetitively. And in fact, I’m not talking to one right now, and I’m definitely not a “silent treatment” or “stonewall” person, they know exactly why we’re not talking, but my work in hospice showed me how unforgivable this kind of behavior is and we SHOULD shun it. Maybe that work made me hypersensitive to this behavior, I admit, because I saw it SO often.

In my world. I can’t imagine someone would say, “Oh I completely understand because I can imagine what that feels like,” to the victim of a crime? So… why death? Why is that the acceptable time to pretend you understand a pain you haven’t experienced? I mean, my grandmother taught me that was gauche AF, but I completely realize I may be very outdated! (I mean that seriously, not flippantly - my opinions may be VERY outdated because I also find it incredibly gauche when someone just leaves a comment on Facebook or Instagram saying “sorry 4 ur loss ♥️” and that’s the completion of their empathy/sympathy. Maybe others in this thread agree with me, but I also understand if they don’t).

Others may feel differently, but I'd rather they expressed something even badly than nothing at all. At least doing it badly can be a start.

I really appreciated your post @TiredShadows and this but is spot on. I expect some of the communication difficulties are because some of us on this thread agree with that (expressing things badly is better than nothing) and some of us don’t (better to say nothing than to be an arse). I can’t argue that either side is right, because obviously it’s up to you how you feel about communication when you’re experiencing a loss.

They are probably trying to relate and empathise, not one-up or minimise.

Unconditional support for her has gone, it will make her life harder.

Presupposing she has that sort of mother. So much assumption and projection on this thread.

You sound weirdly obsessed with ranking people's bereavement experiences.

@LouiseMadetheBestBroccoliPasta I’m sorry you had to deal with that when losing your mother! It’s really awful. And yes, this often happens, where the loved ones of the deceased (including friends) are insulted by the grief vulture who suddenly claims they were the deceased’s best friend.

I hate that people do this, but please just know you’re not alone (I don’t know if that helps at all? Maybe not!) - I’ve seen it happen when people have lost mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, children… it’s one of the most selfish actions in human behavior. No one can think logically that pretending they were closer to the deceased than the deceased’s own family is going to gain them anything good, which is why I think a lot of these people have mental health problems.

In the same vein l hate 'RIP' l was furious at my son's funeral florists for shortening my final message to my son Rest in Peace , my beautiful son to RIP etc.
He was well worth writing out a few extra bloody letters, just made my blood boil tbh. Felt so disrespectful and cba'd .

I also am an hsp and empath. I’ve honed those skills to better feel where my dd is emotionally as she’s had a lot of issues, still as yet unresolved but improving. I see someone, who is very emotionally blocked and doesn’t want to deal with emotions at all. It may be this is all a defence mechanism and complete emotional shut down as op is coming across as the opposite of empathetic.

Sounds like they are trying to emphasise. For info - neurodivergent people are very likely to quote a similar experience in order to show empathy. It’s a very common way to show you understand. Also, if one of my colleagues had a wife who was dying I wouldn’t feel sad, unless I had a personal connection to them. I have autism and would try to show I cared by sharing a similar experience.

This is awful, and I can’t believe the florist did this - yes, it is incredibly disrespectful of the last message you wanted to share with your son! I know it may not help, but in my belief system, he looked down and saw the correct flowers that said “Rest in Peace,” because that’s what you said with your heart. I’m incredibly sorry for your loss and cannot even imagine the pain; I’ve counseled people who have lost children and it changes everything.

I think this is what I’m worried about, for anyone reading this thread. I know I sound daft, but people with autism in particular (I’m on the spectrum) will naturally use an experience to relate to people, but when you ALWAYS mention something that happened to you when someone mentions something that happened to them… until I learned NOT to do this, and to sometimes just say either “I’m sorry” or nothing at all, I lost a lot of friends. People will assume you’re not listening to them, and sometimes you honestly aren’t, because you’re thinking about what to say next.

And doing this when discussing death and loss is a bad look, because unfortunately, a lot of people can’t tell if you’re autistic or just a self-centered arsehole. And I mean “unfortunately,” because I personally would love a big blinking sign that says, “NOT AN ARSEHOLE; JUST AUTISTIC. GIVE ME A MINUTE.”

When I’m pissed I’m having fun with my friends, not sitting on Mumsnet.

Thank you for your kind words.

I imagine your hospice work has trained you to spot the grief vultures, who really are obnoxious.

In my case, I wasn't confronted by the beautician's grief vulturing at my mother's funeral because I'd seen her somewhat hyperbolic condolence card and had mentioned to one of my mother's friends that I found it weird and described my previous encounters with her. So my mother's friends quietly made sure she came nowhere near me and my sister during the funeral - like they were heading her off and distracting her every time she tried. Only a year later did I learn how she had been telling everyone how close she'd been to my mother and me. My mother had lovely friends, because she was lovely herself.

But I think in the OP's story of her colleagues, there wasn't any grief vulturing going on, it was just people trying to empathise and perhaps even process their own shock at such terrible news.

A parent should never see their child for, it must be the worst thing in the world.

Honestly, I don’t know how I feel about OP’s colleagues. I think maybe their comments were a bit ridiculous, along the lines of, “People don’t know what to say so they just say something.” But yes, I think on the whole, it wasn’t grief vulture behavior; that’s more like what you experienced with this beautician. I think a lot of people make foolish comments when confronted with grief because we’re not a very expressive society (I’ve been places where, when you just say you lost your parents and not even how long ago, they grab you in a great bear hug and start crying for you! 😂 I found it very kind and comforting, not trying to “steal” or “compare” grief, but some people might find that absolutely stifling and over-involved). I do understand that we’re all different and as you can see on this thread, we feel a lot of different ways.

And yes! It is not uncommon with a grief vulture for someone to have to act as “funeral security,” to keep the CF or CFs away from the actual family and friends. I always hated when that was required!

Yes, it's been an interesting thread :)

Thank you for explaining about grief vultures.

I'm going to visit my mother's friends in their village next month, I'm going to give them a big hug for being my funeral security. So kind of them, especially since they were griefstruck themselves.