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.

I don't think it's strange at all.

I think people are more heartbroken when they hear a child has lost a parent, or when a parent loses a child.
People tend to be more accepting and understanding when an elderly person dies after a long and good life.

Of course every death is different and relationships are complex but in my experience, people are generally more able to cope with a death if it has happened at the 'normal' time.

We don’t understand. Neither of us was in our early 20s and neither of us has been told our mother is going to die in the next few months. So saying we know what she’s going through just simply is not true. We don’t know.

You’ve made the ‘not as bad’ bit up. This young woman’s mother is not dead.

Expressing shock and horror is completely normal.

You sitting there trying to engage others in conversation, waiting for them to say something you dislike, and then berating them for it in order to be the most empathetic person, is absolutely gossiping, and nasty.

When my son had cancer, I had a family member tell me they knew how I felt because their dog had cancer.

At least they hopefully won't say anything to your colleague.

Policing grief is disrespectful and doesn’t help anyone. Neither does co-opting someone else’s tragic situation as a subject of general conversation. This sounds as though it’s verging on gossip in the workplace, and fairly distasteful. Your colleague whose wife is sick might well be glad of the normality work offers, so rather than make this a competition about who can empathise the most, you could all maintain as normal and familiar an attitude as possible - that would be a less performative way to help.

Because they like attention. Surely that’s why any attention attention seems.

HRTFT but DF died when i was in my early twenties and DM when I was in my forties, both to cancer. The loss of DM felt far harder. You don't get to tell people how the feel or make generalisations when it comes to grieving.
Nothing in my life has ever come close to the loss of DB suddenly aged nineteen. I'd spoken to him an hour before. I went to a dark place for a long time. I don't think a 'quick' death makes it easier than a long drawn out one. We never got to say goodbye or give him anything he wanted before his death. It was horrific.

OP, just stop with your hierarchy of pain & suffering. It’s not for you to tell others how they should feel or that their suffering wasn’t as bad, according to your internal, un interrogated rules system.

I'm so sorry about your DH, that must have been scary & devastating.

Some people are so incredibly self centered. I'm sorry you had to endure her!

It is not the same, though, is it? You don’t know what someone in their 50s who has a bad relationship with a parent is going through if you’re told they’re going to die. So why would you say you do?

What attention are they getting though? It doesn't make sense

You are getting more attention from this than anyone. Why does it matter to you this much that they are wrong?

I think it's a relative, there are so many different variables and it just depends on the circumstances. Surely a sudden death is worse? You don't get to say goodbye.

It is so bizarre, isn’t it? I can’t help but think some people on the thread must be the same people who are making these strange and insensitive comparisons.

For the 100th time. I didn’t tell her how to feel. I said it was not the same.

I get what you mean, I think for the majority of people it would be harder to cope with the loss of a parent if you were early 20s and likely still finding your feet. I can’t imagine how I personally would have managed.

I think in these conversations however I would just internally think like this and say nothing. Some people come out with all sorts of rubbish when they can’t think of anything sensible to say. And obviously everyone copes differently. I’ve known a couple of people in their 50s and older who have never recovered from losing a parent.

I wouldn’t want to.

I also don't think they're trying to downplay anything. They're saying that what they went through with their parent dying was awful, and you're downplaying their experiences

Or you could take a leaf from Jefferson Fisher’s book and say “I see it differently” rather than have a direct confrontation. He also has some great advice about what not to say to someone who is grieving eg “I know how you feel…..”

I'm sorry but you can't quantify grief or predict how people will feel or how they should feel
I lost one parent when I was in my 20s and the other when I was in my 50s. The latter took me much longer to get over.
Every situation is different.
Every bereavement is terrible and knocks you for 6.

That's exactly what I'm saying - you're making it too simplistic because absolutely everyone's experience is different. How long you are with someone and how that relationship all had an impact on how difficult it is for you, both positively and negatively.

Ultimately everyone has a different experience and to think there is a simple hierarchy to grief is wrong.

Thank you so much for those kind words. I honestly wouldn't have dreamt of saying that to someone else. She also knew that both my parents were dead too, so it wasn't as if I hadn't known that grief either.

It’s definitely not a competition. I agree, losing a parent at 23 would be devastating. I lost a parent suddenly, with no goodbyes at age 35. My husband lost a parent at age 29 to a slow painful death. Equally both as painful in their own ways. One thing I have learned is that you don’t compare grief with others.

One was her grandparent. It is just not the same at all.

Fuck me. These people do not know how this family feels because they have never been in their situation.

How is this hard to understand?

I lost my Dad to cancer when I was 24, so I totally know how she feels but while you feel awful for her, I think you downplaying their grief is worse, you don't know how close these people were to their grandfather or uncle. Everyone has different relationships and feel grief in different ways. Losing a parent is hard but you can't assume that someone whi hasn't lost a parent hadn't experienced their own grief.