I'm grieving excessively for a distant relative (TW death of a young person)

[Ammonity]

NC in case this is outing. I am excessively grieving a death and I'm confused and ashamed about it. I feel like I am stealing grief that isn't mine. Sorry this will probably be long as I want to explain the relationship situation.

My Dsis stepDD has been killed in an accident. She was 25. Obviously this is a terrible tragedy and shock, but it isn't my tragedy.

Context is Dsis and her now DW dated years ago when Dsis still lived at home, DW is older than Dsis and has DC including Amy (not real name) who was of primary school age when they met. So I knew Amy as a little girl but not well, obviously as she'd mainly be at her dad's when her DM was dating my Dsis but occasionally the DC would be around. They were together for a few years but split up for over 10 years. They then got back together and got married, by which time Amy was away at uni so again not around much, at the wedding obviously and the odd family event but she was off living her life as a young woman. So I've known her since she was little but not well. I'd send her a token birthday present and she'd send me a token thank you text. I hadn't seen her since Dsis birthday meal in the summer and I don't even remember talking past saying hello then.

Amy was killed in an accident 3 weeks ago, and I have been a mess since. I cry every day (I'm really not a crier usually). I've cried at work, I cry every night when DC are asleep, I'm carrying around the order of service from her funeral in my handbag. I think about her all the time, far far more than I ever did when she was alive. I want to support Dsis and her DW, this is their tragedy, and I can't be like this around them. I feel like a fraud mourning a girl I rarely thought about and didn't really know as a person and I don't understand it and I need to calm it down so I can be there for the people who did know and love her, and I don't know how.

What make it more confusing is I'm not a stranger to young people dying. My cousin died not much older than Amy, from a reaction to medication. I never shed a tear and I'd known him all his life. I work with people with a degenerative illness which in it's severest form is fatal, and I've known people in their teens and twenties who've died. Obviously I knew them professionally but still I spent a lot more time with them and knew them as people a lot better then I knew Amy.

Thanks anyone who read all that and I'd appreciate any advice or help to make sense of this. I want to support my Dsis and I can't be dissolving into tears around her when it's her loss not mine. I didn't really know Amy, I didn't love her, she didn't cross my mind most of the time and how I'm being isn't right, and I don't understand it especially when I've been around young people's deaths more than most would. Please help if you can.

I know this sounds strange, but it might be delayed grief of your previous losses. You mentioned the death of your cousin, it could be this grief coming out.

Yes I was wondering this.

im sorry to hear your family are going through this.
I’m not sure why this has stirred this depth of feeling in you. But I do hope you can find a way quickly to reduce the levels of shame you feel. I’d suggest finding a good psychotherapist if possible. I appreciate this would be a big financial outlay.
but it sounds like you might need someone skilled to help you unpack this. It may be that for some reason, what she represented to you, what other things in your life are happening that her passing has connected you to a lot of grief that you haven’t accessed before. It sounds like you see a lot of loss in your work. I cannot imagine what it is like to be in touch with that 5 days a week. . Maybe this is the loss that has connected with you so much other loss.
But it could, of course, be something else. Having someone to talk it through couod be helpful.

I did think about that. When my cousin died I think I treated it the same as a death of a patient at work. At work I am known to be one of the staff who can cope with grieving family members or will be ok talking about death with a patient who is going to die. And I genuinely am ok with it, or thought I was. I've always seen it as a good thing I can provide that service when needed. So my reaction to Amy's death is even more confusing to me as I believed myself to be able to cope with death even if a young person.

How old are your own DC? A friend's brother's young child was killed in an accident last year (who I had never met) and I was really upset by it (perhaps not to the extent you're feeling).

But I think it was more the fact they were so young, and it made me think about my own kids and how awful it must be for the parents. So it's not so much about the child, but the effect the death has had on the people around them of that makes sense.

Could it be something similar?

How old are you OP? It could be that peri menopause hormones are confusing things and giving you an extreme reaction? Before I was on HRT I found myself with extreme tearfulness and once I’d started crying the tears just kept on and on and were hard to stop. There was something that I was sad about, but the amount of tears were disproportionate. Therapy didn’t help me but HRT did.
But also, if this is affecting your immediate family and you are close to your sister it will have an impact on you. Whether or not you have seen much of this girl in recent years, it’s still a tragedy that has happened within your own family circle, so be a bit gentle with yourself as that is a terrible shock.

My DC are teen and tween. And yes I am definitely in peri menopause so maybe that has made me more of a crier than I've been before!

I do think partly I am grieving for my Dsis and her DW and Amy's siblings, that makes sense. Via work I have seen what losing a child or sibling does to a family. This will be with them for the rest of their lives now, and I think I feel guilty in a way that I know what's in store for them and I can't make that any better.and I so don't want that for them. And I want to be able to say, you will get through this, this is survivable, I've seen it done, but that's not very convincing when I'm in a puddle myself is it?

And I do think there is more going on as grieving like this for Amy is excessive..and I feel horribly guilty about that, like I'm using my DSis and her family's tragedy for my own benefit. That's a horrible feeling.

I think Amy might be the straw that broke the Camel’s back. You have said you have seen more death of young people than the average person, prided yourself on being the one to cope with it but this isn’t just one more death. It’s quite close to home but it’s not medication reaction or degenerative illness, it was an accident. If she’d passed through that spot 5 minutes earlier, she would still be alive. I imagine it’s a combination of knowing young people can die from a long term degenerative illness, a sudden reaction to medication and just by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Grief is weird and the way some deaths affect you more than others often doesn't make objective sense. The DS of an old friend of mine was killed in an accident earlier this year. He was 19. He was a lovely boy, but I didn't know him very well. However, his death absolutely knocked me for six. For weeks I was an absolute mess - I couldn't stop crying - it shocked me how upset I was.

When I analyse it, I think it was really three things: 1) I have sons and so it felt very raw and real; 2) I felt huge empathy for my friend. People always say 'I can't imagine losing a DC', but actually you can, if you let your mind go there. During that time I did go there and contemplate that loss and it's every bit as terrible as you imagine; and 3) I felt utterly devastated for him - that he lost his life when his adult life was only just beginning. He was bright and adventurous and popular and full of plans - he'd have had a great life and contributed hugely to society. His death is just such a waste.

Amy being the straw that broke the camels back is terrifying. If I've got grief stored up from the deaths I've known at work then I'm in real trouble. And I've always thought yes I'm sad but it's not mine, if that makes sense? And Amy's not mine but here I am in bits.

But yes this is different because it was an accident. There are a million ways it could have played out where DSis would have messaged oh Amy had a near miss the other day, that girl what is she like 🙄and I'd have sent Amy a text and a bar of chocolate or something and thought no more of it. At work there aren't any 'what if's where the outcome would have been any different. Amy should be alive, it's pure chance she's died..Maybe that's what has hit me so much harder. But I feel guilty for being so affected, like a fraud when I wasn't close to her at all.

Yes I really connect to what you've said, thank you. I grieve for Amy's parents and siblings and for what she could have been. She'd been a bit directionless after Uni but had just recently found her calling and was happy and had plans. It is a waste.

Maybe part of it is acknowledging that you did have a relationship rather than dismissing it. If you thought of her on her birthday and texted etc you did have a relationship. I think you might need to give yourself permission to feel your feelings and get through to the other side so you've processed it.
You sound like you're putting so much pressure on yourself to be there for others but this isn't like a loss at work. It's family and you've lost someone in an unexpected way.
Yes it will be having a bigger impact on those closer to her but that doesn't make your grief less worthy. You just have to find people less directly affected to talk to about it.

I feel like a fraud because I feel like my only relationship with her was as a duty to my Dsis, if that makes sense? Not a relationship with her as herself? I'd send her a birthday present because she's DSis stepchild. She came back into our family once she was an adult and I didn't know her like a niece I'd seen grow up so I feel like saying my stepniece has died is making out a closer relationship than it was.

I don't know maybe I'm being a bit judgemental on myself. When I've told friends and when I've been upset at work people have been kind but it makes me feel worse as I feel I'm making out I've lost someone closer than I really have, so I feel guilty for their care, like I don't really deserve it as I wasn't close to Amy.

Writing this is helpful to set it out though. Thank you to everyone who has posted

How the fuck peri menopause made it onto this thread is baffling.

Sorry for the loss OP, it's so sad and you're probably grieving for your sister. Hope you feel better soon

@Ammonity You are being much, much too hard on yourself, you really are ( I do it too)

Some really insightful replies here. Can you access therapy ( rather than counselling) through your work?

Last year I suffered a series of major losses and traumatic life events. This continued into this year and the last one ( although objectively not the most life changing) has absolutely broken me. I was slightly mad for several days. I think grief can compound over time. And maybe the more removed losses serve as a conduit for all the others which are too huge to contemplate at the time.

I also have a job where I sometimes have to deal with horrific things the general public do not. I bury it away, but I think eventually it bursts out. Hormonal changes may well affect things too.

I have such empathy for you. Do not blame or judge yourself for how you feel. Please.

Grief is a very strange animal. Be kind to yourself op. It’s very thoughtful and considerate not to try and elbow in on the chief mourners but that doesn’t mean you’re not entitled to the depth of emotion that you’re feeling. It isn’t always straightforward how death affects us. And sometimes we’re grieving others or aspects of ourselves vicariously.

I watched a short film on holiday this year which made me cry and cry to the point that it was embarrassing. I think it was all the trauma from the past year at work (I take a lot of funerals). Grief comes out at unexpected times.
I wonder if you have access to supervision or counselling as part of your work? It sounds as if the personal and professional experiences of grief and bereavement have become entwined. And that's entirely understandable- but it might help to be able to unpack some of the feelings in a safe space.

Thank you for your kindness. I'm really trying to be ok with myself and accept that how I feel is how I feel. Amy's death is a tragedy and how she died is cruel and an awful shock, and outside any experience I have of death despite me knowing deaths through my job.

My colleagues and manager are very supportive and my manager has said there is a route to access bereavement counselling through work. I still feel that's not appropriate for me to take up but will think about it.

I'm meeting up with DSis and Dsil on my day off this week, it'll be the first time I've seen Dsil since the funeral and of course she hardly knew who was who that day. I so don't want to let them down by making it about me, my nightmare is that I break down and they try to comfort me

I don't see a problem with grieving for her it shows you cared about her.
I guess it was a shock as well her being at a young age. Was it a car crash?
The whole thing has shocked you and I don't think you should be hard on yourself...

How she died is harrowing, and I think outing to say. We are rural with patchy phone signal, DSis and Dsil and the siblings searched for her when she didn't arrive and didn't find her, phoned the hospital etc then got the news from the police after she'd been missing for several hours. It is honestly so shocking and awful.

I saw DSis and Dsil yesterday, I had one moment I choked up when Dsil mentioned something that Amy was looking forward to but other than that held it together. So it wasn't as I'd feared, I didn't put my feelings on them which is what I didn't want.

I still cry every day in the car to and from work and in bed when DC are asleep. I cried at work today in the morning but pulled myself together for the rest of the day. I'm trying to be ok with this being how I feel.

It's not outing, sounds like a suicide or a crash. Your fine to feel the way you do though. Your trying to come to terms with it!

I've been severely affected by a couple of deaths in the news that had absolutely nothing to do with me. Your emotions are valid, and you need to work through them without shame or guilt.

Of course you can access bereavement therapy. In fact, in this situation I think it's a really important consideration. It is how you feel and how it is affecting you that is crucial.

I'm trying to be ok with this being how I feel. I think I feel a bit less guilty.

And also I have realised that this is so awful I'd be hit hard even if it was someone I knew even less well I think. When you have DC the idea of them leaving the house to go to a fun event and never coming home is horrifying. And the details of the accident are awful to think about. And the time it took for her to be found and the thought of her DM and siblings and my Dsis fear growing as the time passed, and then the worst news, I just don't want to think about them living that reality. But it is reality.

Setting it out here and getting views has helped me. I'm still ashamed in real life but less so I think, so thank you

I think it can be a combination of grief for the life she could have lived, grief for your sister, grief for past losses, and the horror of imagining that this could happen to you.

It's entirely reasonable to access bereavement counselling at work. You have been bereaved and it's causing you pain and you need to work through it. If all bereavements were simple people wouldn't need counselling.

I think all you can do is allow time to pass and to make sure you vent outwards not inwards - which you've made very clear you will do. And actually the fact that you held it together when you saw your sister shows that actually this is a normal and appropriate grief - your brain got it's act together enough to make sure you didn't burden someone who it wasn't right to, while letting you unburden yourself to people who are better placed to shoulder it.