Feeling let down by friends

[namechangequeen35]

My Dad passed away suddenly a month ago. I'm not feeling ready to go into the details yet and I'm taking each day as it comes.

I have a circle of school friends, that I've known a long time. I am feeling a little let down by my friends. They were initially very supportive, but only for the first week. They haven't been in touch since.

Am I being too needy to expect people to check in?

I feel like nobody understands and they just want me to go back to normal straight away without realising the huge pain that I'm in.

Maybe they don't know what to say. I feel very alone in my feelings.

I have been there. Only people who’ve been there understood, I found. I did actually feel quite guilty that I must have been a fairly shit friend to anyone it happened to before me.

People generally just don’t know what to say, don’t take it personally. It does get better. Just take each day as it comes

Much sympathy 💐

I’m sorry for your loss, loosing a a parent is never easy. It does get better.

i think your being a bit harsh in your friends tho. They have lives too and they could have something going.
my friend has recently lost a parent in awful circumstances and I understand and I feel for them, I really do. However I have things going on in my life and I’m overwhelmed and am struggling to get through each day as it is.
i wish I could be there for her more than I am but I can’t be

I've lost numerous people in my life, the first being my father and I don't remember very much support as such. It is very difficult to adequately articulate the gnawing feeling of bereavement to others and even more difficult to actually be in the other person's shoes and understand.

be kind to your friends, don't place judgement on them for support that they may not be equipped to give. They may even feel incapable of expressing words of comfort that make any difference, and not know how to be or what to say around you. That's life, I'm afraid.

When I lost my DH1 his family pretty much abandoned me but looking back they were caught up in their own bubble of grief just as I was and never empathised with my pain, so be it. Friends came to the funeral and then got back into the job of living. It was the natural order of things, and I definitely didn't expect anything, I was actually grateful for the space to grieve and come to terms with things.

Time is a healer and your friends will still be there, but they aren't bereavement counsellors I'm afraid, so it's best not to burden them with that.

Im terribly sorry for your loss, losing your father is very painful, he was the first man in your life and will always hold a special place in your ♥️

I’m really sorry to hear this but I know just how you feel. The worst friend for leaving me alone and not checking in for weeks on end was someone who’d lost a parent the year before (and I had been very supportive of her). To be honest our friendship hasn’t been the same since, it’s hard to move on from that feeling of being let down. Im sorry for your loss : it might not feel it now, but you will eventually begin to feel a bit better.

My mum died last month. Agonisingly hard, but bar the initial flurry of ‘sorry’ WhatsApps there’s been nothing. All systems go and back to normal. People have their own lives, and there’s little ‘true’ bandwidth for others.

Sorry for your loss OP.

I’m just wondering, what kind of support are you wanting/expecting after a month? Texts every day saying ‘how are you’ might feel a bit much and repetitive, with your friends running out of things to say. Sounds like you might benefit from some bereavement counselling instead. Do your friends also have things going on? Is this something they can identify with?

Sorry for your loss OP. You say your friends were very supportive in the first week which is great, but a month on what would you expect them to do really? Maybe they are waiting for you to get in touch first as everyone grieves differently and they might not know what to do for the best? They also have lives of their own to get on with and their own issues so may not be thinking about this all the time.

Hello all.

Thank you for your replies and kind wishes. It has made me see it from a slightly different perspective.

Sorry, I didn't mean to come across as self absorbed. I know everyone has stuff going on and "life goes on". I suppose I feel like people perhaps don't want to message me. Even to just say hi. I just haven't felt like messaging them (but I suppose they could feel the same!) Haven't really thought about it like that.

We spoke every few days before this. I suppose it's awkward. I could initiate normal chat now I guess.

Didn't know if it was too soon for bereavement counselling or not?

I'm sorry to those of you who are feeling the same or sad too. I know grief is a long hard road.

Condolences OP. I suffered a similar loss.

You hit the nail on the head in your first post. People don't know what to say. It's impossible to know if someone wants space or not, grief is so unique to each person and each loss. It's also something you 'don't get' until you've been through it.

Try to be upfront, do you want to talk about it or do you need distracting? Or maybe just need to get out for normality? It might help your friends to know what you do need.

RE counselling, Cruse are the group I was recommended. The waitist was very long (a few months), consider getting yourself signed up as you can always decline when it comes around.

Your friends aren't counsellors. It's not their job to help you process your bereavement.

I'm very sorry about your dad's sudden death. That must have been very shocking for you and must be hard to get your head around.

Regarding your friends. I know all too well how this feels. Bereavement is a very lonely place. When I was bereaved the feelings of abandonment compounded the original grief. We have lost the rituals of the past around death, death is probably more remote from day-to-day life, and communities are more dispersed. I think people don't know how to behave.

Thank you @Thack I have been looking at their website actually. Will sign up to the list.

You're right. I'll reach out to them today. A bit of normality would be nice!

@Freshair1 Don't beat around the bush

Thanks @LilyLemonade

I think you're right.

It just feels a bit lonely right now. I don't expect to be the centre of everyone's world of course. It's just nice to chat.

I don't mean to be harsh. I had a similar thing and it was pointed out that I was leaning too heavily, and expecting too much support. I was so angry at the time, they were my friends! But I understand their point now.

It's coming up to six months since I lost my Dad. I completely know how you feel, I have one friend in particular that I thought would be there, but they haven't. As a result of this I've no desire to ever have contact with them again.

Take care of yourself

I understand this and can give some people the benefit of the doubt but I also think it's unlikely they all don't have time to text thinking of you.

Sorry for your loss. Bereavement is just awful.

I'm sorry for your loss. It's absolutely not too needy to hope that friends would check in after the first week.

And calling you 'harsh on your friends' for wanting that is, ironically, harsh in itself.

Nowhere have you suggested you expect your friends to "counsel" you through this.

People so often say their previously close friends so not support them after bereavement, but sometimes unexpected people are there for you.

I found Megan Devine's podcast on grief really helpful and comforting (skip forward over the awful ads). The first episode or so was more aimed at HCPs, but then it becomes more general:

open.spotify.com/episode/75PResl1pyyNI4ISOj2U4I?si=s3CsTbm3T--DlNreHatNiQ

refugeingrief.com/

I had exactly the same & felt really let down by so called friends. Just the odd “how are you doing?” text would have been great, rather than the complete silence I got. It’s made me feel very lonely actually as I realise almost no one cares.

Try to be upfront, do you want to talk about it or do you need distracting? Or maybe just need to get out for normality? It might help your friends to know what you do need.

I think if you can telling/asking your friends what you need from them/what you'd like them to do you will get better results. Because They aren't mind readers and grief is so different for each person they just might not know what to fo.

@yogasaurus has got it in one with this post.

As I discovered, only the people who had 'been there' really knew what was needed. For some of my friends who had experienced the same, it was just sending the odd message or meme, and that was enough. Others helped me get back on my feet in the weeks afterwards (one of my friends gifted me a Hello Fresh subscription as she knew I couldn't face cooking).

Most of my friends who hadn't been through a similar bereavement were bloody useless at the time. However, with two years' pause for thought behind me, I've become far more understanding of this and have rebuilt/kept many of those friendships. Sadly, everyone's time will come for this, and I knew I had to accept people's lack of understanding didn't come from a bad place, but a place of ignorance.

If you have a friend who does understand, lean on them for now. It does get easier, I promise. Counselling also helped me in the early days, so that might be something to consider. Best of luck to you.

Sympathies OP - this was me 9 months ago.

I felt, and still feel, extremely let down by my oldest friend who never came to see me (despite only living 25 miles away) - she messaged and offered to talk on the phone but that wasn't the right thing for me as I didn't want to sob silently down the phone, I needed someone to come and sit and hold my hand. And she didn't.

I spoke to another no nonsense friend who said I was being a bit unreasonable to expect oldest friend to know how I felt and if I needed support from her I should ask, but I just couldn't. And tbh our friendship has not been the same since.

I hope you find RL support from your friends, but remember that there is always support here and there is a thread about losing a parent which I have found to be a great source of support and comfort.