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 isn’t the same though. That is my point.

You obviously want to be angry and insulting but it is just a fact that being told your mother has a terminal cancer is different to never having born told that.

I understand what you are saying that your colleagues experiences are not the "same".

However most people would not take it so literally and would understand that they are just trying to empathise by sharing their own experiences.

Whilst awful i dont think 23 is the worst.
Mine had a heart attack when i was a similar age.
i think as people are having kids later it is more common now. At least 23 they are maybe finished uni and at work maybe moved out.

You're the self appointed grief police I take it? Perhaps you could enlighten everyone on how many points different types of relatives or friends get and how many points for their ages? Then you could let us know what degree of grief we are allowed to have and when we are allowed to mention it in conversation?

I agree with you, but in current social situations, I don't think the average Joe likes getting 'deep'.
I blame the internet, the fragmentation of attention and empathy.
And basically just not wanting to put oneself in that place and feel it.

My mother does have cancer. Breast. Stage 4. For your info.

I have also lost family members in a horrific car accident. 3 of which were young children. The youngest under 2 years old

And still, I would never, ever try and tell someone else their grief isn’t the same as mine. Never.

To be honest, I’m glad I had a chance to say my goodbyes when my dad died. I always thought a sudden death must be more difficult because of that. But that is very personal.

It’s not the same though.

Why is anyone who disagrees with you trying to criticise,be angry or insulting? You are the one criticising , coming across as being angry and insulting .

"it doesn’t matter. We’re all just walking each other home."

Yes.

I'm sorry for your losses.

Do you think they sound calm and conversational? They’re clearly just trying to be dicks because some sad acts hang around on AIBU just to attack all posters.

You stated it as fact, I was just pointing out that it was an opinion, not a fact.

You do realise everyone on earth is different?

You do realise everyone on earth has different relationships with their loved ones? Different circumstances. Families are complex and complicated.

Grief has never, and will never be ranked on age or closeless.

No death is more or less important than the other.

No death is more or less easy.

You’ve got to be a very dense person to even attempt to rank people’s grief on which is “worse”.

I don't think you can say it's better or worse depending on which family member dies or what age you were when they died.

For example, I lost my Grandma when I was 16. It was a slow, drawn out illness which slowly took her over two years.
I was extremely close to her, and it was the worst grief I've ever had to date.
I lost my Mum in my early 30s very suddenly with no warning. However, we had a fraught relationship and, although I still grieved, it was nowhere near as much as I had grieved for my Grandma.

However, my friend recently lost a parent very suddenly in the same way I lost my Mum. She's beside herself and really not coping at all with her loss.
You can have very similar losses at very similar ages and feel completely differently, yet two people can also have very different losses at different ages and grieve just as badly.

Like I said, it's you who sounds confrontational towards those who don't agree with you. You're the one calling people dicks and making accusations.

What an absoutley horrible response to someone who has shared their experience. I do not think this OP is for real.

Ah, so we've moved onto the "Anyone who disagrees with me is a dick" portion of the evening.

Looks like we've all been wasting our time folks, OP is a plonker.

Exactly.

In my opinion you've taken your colleagues comment too literally OP.

You are the one, who when posters disclose multiple tragedies in their life, responds solely with "but it's not the same" rather than a human and compassionate "I'm so sorry, that must have been dreadful for you"

I think it's time you stepped back from your thread. It's not doing you, or posters who've experienced such tragedy, any good.

Absolutely. This is an awful thread. Such a sad subject matter, yet the OP seems to be using it to put people down and insist that
only her opinion is the right one. Talk about downplaying others’ grief. I think if it was a genuine concern she would be taking on board other people’s feelings and thoughts, especially where they are sharing their own experiences.

You didn’t reply to the poster I was replying to who also ‘as a fact’. Strange.

I think people understand what opinions are without you having to come and explain them.

Wow. Nothing else to respond to OP, but I just thought it was incredibly interesting how easily you can clock who on this thread is:

1. fucking sick of it (me and OP?)
2. still being kind about other people centering everything on themselves, and believe it’s an attempt at empathy
3. Are just grief vultures themselves.

Pretty much every commenter on the thread falls in one of those three categories. And for those of you in 2 (a lot of you), I get it, that you want to give people the benefit of the doubt. When you run into an absolute, honest-to-God grief vulture, I think maybe it changes your thinking? It did for me.

You are welcome not to engage if you don’t like the thread.

I like the term grief vulture. This sums up what has annoyed me actually.