What things did people say that you wished they hadn't

[fisil]

I have found the "What 1 thing" thread very helpful - because you always want to support friends when they are going through rough times, but it is often hard to find something to say.

I know I have said stupid things at times and I was wondering if it would be equally useful (and cathartic) to remember the awful things that people said - so that we know to avoid them!

I'll kick it off with "oh well, apparently everyone loses their second. It's your body's way of telling you it isn't ready yet."

its incredible how insensitive people are and also how in time you do get fairly numb to their thoughtless comments, just last week my MIL commented on how lucky my ds is two have great grandparents as she is a second wife and therefore he has two grandmothers what she seemed to completely and utterly forget is that both of my parents have died in the four short years he has been alive. Amazing really that she could say that straight to my face but i have become quite good at brave facing peoples insensetive remarks.

puff i would just like to say that the comment made to you clearly upset you and i think i can understand why, but i have to say that my mother also killed herself 3 years ago and I hold enormous anger at her and feel that she was indeed the most selfish person ever, so its interesting that we can all feel so differently about our feelings, our situations and indeed the comments made to us. Language is a dangerous tool really i think we should all just speak in emoticons, its safer

A friend of mine was (unsurprisingly) very upset when on hearing that she had lost her twins to cot death another friend said "Oh, I know exactly how you feel because when our dog died I felt so etc etc". Comparing the grief of losing a pet to that of losing two babies?!?

i lost two babies both 12weeks 1st i didn know i was preg til 11 weeks my friend who came with me for scan said, well least you only knew for a week, yeah but for that week i was overwelmed with delight needless to say i didnt turn to her after 2nd mc

from my sister's MIL after my 2nd m/c....

so did you find out if it was a boy or a girl?

My friend's MIL said after her miscarriage - 'Can I do anything? I could bring a cake over!'

These are all so very sad. When I had my second mc and got pg quickly afterwards a man said to me 'make sure you look after yourself this time' I said 'yes I've stopped drinking a bottle of meths a day and given up the dangerous sports!

ANd I thought it was just my MIL. After I had my mc and was very down my mother in law said that I should get over it because plenty of people she knows lost their first one and had children afterward, I am not the only one...

A week later she compared her having abortion (her husband apparently made her) about which my husband did not know, to our loss. My husband was furious with his mother.

Also somebody talking about possible genetical causes and her saying "my son did his bit, putting the seed in (how crude) it is not his fault that you could not carry IT.

And to top it up when I was pregnant second time )two months later) and we told everybody after the first scan, obviously overexcited, my MIL turned to one of the ladies who did not know us very well and said: Oh this is the second one you know, she already lost one", despite us asking her several times not to tell people about our loss and at least respecting our privacy. Many things happened since (much worse comments) and not even my husband wants to speak to her now.
But gosh people can be insensitive.

A doctor once said I would never see ds's 21st and I should not have had him!He was completely in earshot and claimed he thought I was asleep It made me v scared as every birthday passed but I now think he was showing off to his colleagues as there were several students there at the time

The day i went into hospital for my D & C because of mt missed miscarriage, DH cousin/best friend died.

We went to see his family the following day and his mother said to me, "I heard what happened to you, best lose them like that than how i have."
I was mortified, i was devastated by my loss.

Best not lose them at all was my answer. xx

Some of these posts have made me cry. People can be so insensitive. My mother (yes, the woman who gave birth to me and brought me up until I was 21) told me that it was probably a good thing that I lost the baby because I would not have been able to manage a third.
When we announced that we were expecting again (8 months later) she actually asked me if I knew how to prevent pregnancies! Thankfully, she is lovely to the grandson that this pregnancy produced. Needless to say, she does not even know about our recent losses. What would be the point in telling her that I do not share her belief that one boy and one girl is really all that you can expect?

OH God where do I start>
After my beloved Nan died at the age of 92 .

"Well she was a good age"

from my work colleagues when they phoned to see why I was still off sick a week later.

I know she was a good age FFS but I surely still have the right to be upset and grieve.

After my miscarriage of a much wanted and waited for first pregnancy.

"It wasn't meant to be"
"It's nature's way of getting rid of something not quite right"
"Well you wern't really pregnant" (this was because I had an empty gestational sac - all the bits except the baby who had died early in development).

Depressing isn't it?

It wasn't anything that was said, but when I was waiting to see the nurse, having just been told my baby had died inside me, they were playing Christmas carols in the waiting room and I had to sit and listen to "When A Child Is Born".

After my former dp died my mum phoned every day to ask if I was eating.

Frosty that's awful.

All these stories are awful.

(((hugs to everybody)))

Some of these comments are terribly insensitive, but I think it's important to remember that the vast majority of people mean well and do not intend to cause hurt or upset by their comments. Perhaps because death is such a taboo subject in our society, people feel uncomfortable when confronted by it and by the grief that accompanies loss. Many people are simple not able to properly express their sympathy and it comes out all wrong.
Rather than making unhelpful, ill-thought-out remarks it would be much better if people were honest and admitted that they didn't know what to say.

When my auntie had a still born many years ago my brother who must have been about 6 asked my uncle if he was getting a new wife because the one he had "wasn't any good at making babies." The whole room went quiet and everyone learnt a lesson about how if you keep things from children they will imagine all sorts of things.

when my Dad dies in a traggic accident 9 years ago my mum and dad owned a pub! We had a painter in painting the downstairs and the night my Dad doed everybody was there having a drink etc.....Just after he died the painter said to me my sister and brother HE NEVER LOVED YOU KIDS ANYWAY!!! it was the most awful thing anyone has ever said to me! my Dad loved us all very dearly we were the most precious things in his life so i never really came to terms on how someone could say that?! The next day he tried to blame it on the alchol saying he was drunk but thats no excuss in my book!! I had just lost my father FFS!

*DIED help if i spelt right!

When i gave birth to my stillborn ds, a so called friend of mine said that it was better to lose him that way than to have him born alive and for him to die afterwards. She figured that i would have bonded with him more and therefore made my loss even more difficult!!
I wouldn't dare repeat what i said to her!

I hate it when people say sorry . I dont want people 2 feel sorry 4 me i know they mean well but i rather they didnt say anything if the only thing they can come up with is sorry . After 11 yrs since my dd Chardonnay died people still say it .

When my first baby, Sam was stillborn at 26 weeks 14 years ago, the midwives said, it was a misscarriage, you werent 28 weeks( the age of viability was 28 weeks then), they took sam away without me seeing him, then the midwife came back in and said well you were too young to be having a baby, youll get over this and have another one when you are older.( I was 17 at the time) Ive nevr forgetten those hateful words and eventually had to have counselling after ds2 was born 4 years ago to come to terms with it.

4kids, that's a bit harsh. What should people say if not that they're sorry? It's really hard to say something that won't offend anybody...surely most bereaved people would prefer "I'm sorry" to someone crossing the street to avoid them rather than saying the wrong thing.

spacecadet, that's terrible. I hope most midwives are kinder than that.

JanH

Those were my thoughts - generally better that people say well intentioned albeit hapless remarks rather than completely avoid / blank out the bereaved...I can actually imagine myself saying a few of these things...

Although having said that I do think there are some astonishly crass remarks on here like Cams example "never mind you've got 3 other children"

In 1994 Matthew my then only child, collapsed and did instantly in my garden, he was almost 15. Oh, how many times people said to me
only the good die young
he was wanted for an angel
he had done what he needed to do in this life
etc etc etc
A year and one day after his death a friend telephoned about something, I started crying and she asked why. I said it was a year and a day after Matthew had died and she said, "Matthews gone and you just have to get on with it"
The same day I had another call from a friend, I cried and she said, "do you still feel that way"
Well its 11 years on the 2nd June, and I yes, I still feel that way and always will,I have never known total happiness since.

Sorry about the mistakes, I am tired, and just typing those words makes me so sad.