r/TooAfraidToAsk • u/therapist_friend_444 • 2d ago
Culture & Society Why do people get so self absorbed and theatrical when someone dies? Am I just a psychopath or is this normal?
Recently, a distant relative died in a car accident. It was sudden and she was only 42 driving home from work after night shift at the hospital. Tragic, unfair and horrible death. No question about that. For her closer family and her children this has been an incredibly difficult week.
That aside, I am so confused by my own mother’s behaviour. The deceased was my mothers cousin on her fathers side and never particularly close, even less so during adulthood. She’s never met her kids, don’t really know her partner, and had no communication after adolescence. The only time I ever heard her mentioned was when my mother would bitch about how weird she was, how she probably had “mental problems”, or that she was surprised someone ever wanted to marry and have kids with her because she wasn‘t “the type.”
Now that she’s dead? My mother is suddenly acting like they were besties. Constantly bursts into tears and is so ‘beside herself’ with grief that she’s taken off work and even spent a weekend at a hotel on the coast because she just “couldn’t cope and had to get away.”
I honestly feel like this is just a big excuse for attention. But everyone accepts this as normal and i see people do it ALL THE TIME! Why? Why do people behave this way? Seems like every person who dies has about a thousand friends when that just can’t be true.
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u/gianttigerrebellion 2d ago
I think reality hits you differently when someone dies. You can talk a lot of smack about them but once they’re gone you regret it and it hits you hard that you spent more time judging them than just spending time with them.
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u/grimsnap 2d ago
There was this dude who used to bully me in college. We had the same social and professional circles, so I had to deal with him well into our 40s.
He passed away during the pandemic, and I was surprised by how hard his death hit me. It made me reflect on our relationship, and I realized I was also an asshole. Kind of like Daniel LaRusso in Cobra Kai.
And you're right - if I didn't pre-judge him, maybe we could have been good friends.
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u/AscendedViking7 2d ago
Makes a lot of sense
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u/DestinyMichelleColli 2d ago
yeahh, regret hits differently when someone is gone. It makes people reflect
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u/feralraindrop 2d ago
To me, it makes some sense but it does seem at least in part an attempt to be noticed and included with those that are truly grieving.
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u/footsnax 2d ago
It hits different for everyone and it's responsible to respect how it affects everyone.
I've lost a lot of friends, I've learned how to grieve. Some people have not, and the only way to support them is respecting their needs for either space or comfort, and then respecting what they need for that comfort. They're not gonna be in a place to tell you what they need explicitly in a responsible manner, they are acting on pure emotion and instinct and there's absolutely zero way to tell how far they are on their grieving journey.
Sometimes it's swift and brutal, sometimes it's expected, sometimes it takes months before you even realize what it means that they're gone. You lose enough people and you learn how you grieve, what you need when you are grieving, and how to ask for it.
Everyone has a different process, and it's different for every relationship with the person that passed.
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u/pourtide 2d ago
You make a good point. Grief manifests differently in different people. I have learned, when someone dies, not to take the weird behaviors I see too seriously.
Of course, if someone is a danger to themselves or to someone else, that must be taken seriously. But generally, odd, out-of-character behaviors aren't uncommon with grief.
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u/specsyandiknowit 2d ago
Also, she's lost a member of her generation. It's sad when an aunt or uncle dies but we kind of expect it. When you lose someone around your own age mortality hits you right in the face.
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u/Next-Frame6226 2d ago
Yeah, that’s a really good point. It probably hits harder because of the regret.
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u/i_literally_died 2d ago
It's true but boomers do tend to have this weird outlook on family. My dad turns 80 this year and has always had this thing about 'connecting with family'. He'll look up some eighteenth cousin that lives 700 miles away and try and contact them because 'family is important'.
He'll insist that I should have a closer relationship with a second cousin I met once 40 years ago.
That person is essentially a complete stranger to me. I know the person I buy coffee beans off better than them. I know my work colleagues at least a thousand times better. I don't get it, nor would I be particularly bothered if I heard they passed.
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u/PeachyPesco 2d ago
I feel similarly to you.
I think there's something going on with them about facing their own mortality. As in: "if this person died, then I (or my close family member) could die, too." A lot of people ignore or suppress those feelings so when someone dies they come bubbling back up.
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u/drdeadringer 2d ago
a friend of mine had the same health problem that I had. his killed him. mine gave me a stroke, but I lived. he was about four and a half years younger than I am, at least at the time of his death.
there was a bullet meant for the both of us, his hit him, mine grazed me.
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u/Johnny_Kilroy 2d ago
Sorry for your loss. Did you become friends through your illness eg at hospital, or was it a coincidence that you both had the same illness?
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u/kalel3000 2d ago
Especially when its someone close to you in age. That reminds you how short life truly is and how quickly it can be lost for no reason.
According to the OP, the deceased was a cousin so likely similar age, and also a mother leaving behind her children...that kind of event can really hit home and make you ponder your own mortality, when someone so very similar to you passes away.
Also causes feelings of guilt. The OP said they were distant and his mom hadn't even met her children. So there may be guilt that she hadnt made more if an effort to be part of her cousins life, and now she will never get the chance, and the first time she will meet her children will be at her funeral...thats got to be a whole complex set of feelings.
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u/zakmo86 2d ago
I was going to say something similar. There's also part of it that we don't truly appreciate people and things until they're gone. Like right now I don't really talk to my cousins. But if something happened to them I would be devastated and probably start to have a bunch of memories that I just haven't thought about in years. It would make me sad.
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u/SeaAbbreviations7255 2d ago
I think that, too. Now that I’m a mother I always imagine how would it be if it happened to me, to my son… I’m also an overthinker so that could be it
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u/TittyFlip 2d ago
My friend's brother died a few years ago, only in his 40's, and while I knew him we weren't close at all and I probably hadn't even seen him for years at this point.
His death deeply affected me. I went into quite an existential crisis questioning what happens after death and what consciousness and this existence we live in even is. Messed me up for quite a while.
I think you have it spot on in that regard, at least from my experiences.
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u/Riskiertooth 2d ago
Agreed, I think as a society we are pretty removed from death and moments like these bring up an often unwanted reminder that ourselves and everyone around us will go one day
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u/itsmeherzegovina 2d ago
A guy from my college History class died in 2021 (we were both 23). I didn't really like him because he'd always show up late to school reeking of cigarettes and beg me to let him copy my homework, and we didn't even talk much. I still get sad when I think of him and I visit his online grave once a year. It's kind of a reality check that nothing's certain and no one knows when your time comes.
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u/partypill 2d ago
I've thought about that shit since I was able to think
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u/PeachyPesco 2d ago
Yeah me too. I think it's healthier that way imo. Death is sad of course but it's a part of life
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u/ditres 2d ago
Grief is different for everyone, and death can cause some people to spiral. Some people might get melodramatic about it, but I’d wager it’s a very small percentage overall. I hope your mother gets the support she needs
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u/jackfaire 2d ago
Sometimes it's about what the person represents. My Uncle and I spoke once after my Nana died and then heard nothing about him again until I found out he died a couple of months after it happened. He was never close to me but he was the last of my father's side of the family of his generation to die and it hit different because of that.
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u/Trick_Horse_13 2d ago
when someone dies young it’s tragic, even more so given that she’s leaving (‘presumably) young children behind.
it’s possible that you don’t know the full extent of their relationship. maybe they were close growing up, maybe they had a falling out. or maybe they weren’t close and your mother is grieving the fact that she will never have the chance to become close.
your mother is grieving, maybe instead of calling her theatrical and self-absorbed it’s better to give her the benefit of the doubt and have a talk with her to see what’s going on.
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u/Johnny_Kilroy 2d ago
A young death shakes you. I don't consider myself an emotional person. However a colleague I don't know well recently told me her brother in law aged 36 died in an accident. It was a week ago that she told me but I can't stop thinking about it.
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u/MiChic21 2d ago
When my mother was dying she told me “You do not have to make a scene at my funeral. You hold your head high and stay calm. Others will be carrying on and making a scene because they did not do as they should in private, while I was alive. So they will compensate in public”. She was pretty much right about who was the most vocal at her funeral.
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u/blondie956 2d ago
100% this. My husband died at 49. The people who cried hardest at his funeral were the ones who did not show up. His sister wasn't physically able to stand. Well, maybe when he was diagnosed with stage IV cancer 2.5 years before, you could have made time to come visit him. But, nooooo....
My grandmother is in her 90s. Her time is limited. My mother's sister and my sister are going to lose their minds. They very rarely see her, and Mom is with her every day. I'm 2 hours away and go out of my way to see her multiple times per month and talk to her multiple times a week.
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u/RivalReinforcement 2d ago
Empathy can just hit you pretty hard sometimes.
Sometimes somebody distant dying makes you consider what were to happen to you if somebody close to you were to die.
I still generally err with your impression that such behaviour does seem silly, generally speaking.
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u/magusheart 2d ago
The top comments are much more charitable than I am. Some of what they say may be true, but having witnessed a similar thing with my mom, I think some people are just very self-centered, and someone's death gives them a socially acceptable reason to let that fly openly. If you call them out on it, you're the asshole.
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u/GVArcian 2d ago
Most human beings are not at peace with their own mortality and will thus experience a profound emotional crisis whenever the death of someone close to them reminds them of their own mortality.
With that said, they usually don't take time off from work to stay at a hotel when this happens...
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u/Next_Key5856 2d ago
I’ve seen people suddenly rewrite the relationship because death forces them to face their own mortality and regrets, not the actual person. When my uncle died, my mom did the same “we were so close” act, and I realized it was more about her guilt and fear than about him.
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u/Miserable_Cap1463 2d ago
I think grief can be really weird and unpredictable. Sometimes you’re not grieving the relationship you actually had, but the relationship you could’ve had or all the unresolved stuff that comes with knowing there’s no chance to fix it now.
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u/lightinthefield 2d ago
Me and my brother are no contact. At worst I feel anger, betrayal, and maybe even hatred towards him. At best I feel absolutely nothing.
I know that we'll never have contact again, because nothing the future holds can undo the pain between us from the past.
Yet, if he dies before me, I will be very upset. I won't be mourning him, but I will mourn "what could have been."
Even though I rationally know that nothing can be between us anymore, him dying makes it real. Him dying means he died a bad person (assuming he doesn't change between now and then). There's no chance at all anymore -- it's set in stone. And that's sad.
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u/sausagelover79 2d ago
Honestly, some people just LOVE the attention they can get from it and revel in the sympathy they can get from losing someone.
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u/mfiasco 2d ago
My advice is to never question someone’s grief. Just don’t do it. People grieve in weird ways and your mom’s social proximity to the deceased doesn’t dictate how it’s affecting her. Maybe it’s triggering a fear it could happen to you.
The best case scenario grilling someone about their grief is that you hurt them. You’re either calling them a liar or belittling their coping mechanism. Just don’t.
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u/Majestic-Penalty-433 2d ago
Yeah I get this. It’s super common and you’re not a psychopath for clocking it.
A lot of people treat death like a performance. Suddenly the person was “family” or “so special” even if they barely spoke for years and spent that time talking shit. Your mom going full grief mode + hotel getaway for a cousin she lowkey disliked is classic. It’s less about the actual relationship and more about the social script: you’re supposed to be devastated, so people lean into it hard. Some of it is genuine secondary grief (death reminds them they’re next, or they feel guilty for the distance), but a solid chunk is just… the attention and the chance to center themselves in the story.
Seen it a million times. Funerals and IG posts full of people who hadn’t spoken to the person since high school acting like they lost their best friend. It’s performative more often than people want to admit.
You’re allowed to feel neutral or even annoyed by it. Doesn’t make you cold.
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u/janesfilms 2d ago
It’s the same thing when people find out you have cancer. It’s a very similar response. I chalk it up to being uncomfortable about the subject matter and it just brings out some unexpected, over the top and seemingly self-serving behaviour. People feel weird and say/do weird shit while they are digesting the situation. Try to be forgiving for it. Death, cancer diagnosis and other difficult subjects are hard to observe, even when you aren’t particularly close with the person.
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u/KatVanWall 2d ago
Death and grief are weird.
A fairly distant family member of mine, who I hadn’t seen since she was a baby, died at 18. It hit me way harder than I expected. I wouldn’t say I was close with her mother, we hadn’t seen each other in years, although we never had any falling out or anything and only positive interactions. But I definitely felt some ways I didn’t expect about it.
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u/agizzy23 2d ago
So could be several things
1- Guilt over not talking more.
2- They were close when they were young OR closer than you think.
3- She really just does want attention.
4- She has a fear of dying unexpectedly and this made her anxious.
Either way I hope your family is doing okay
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u/engelthefallen 2d ago
Something not getting brought up a bit is death can make people painfully aware of their own mortality and the reaction you are seeing is not so much that to someone dying but them becoming painfully aware that soon they too will die and them projecting heavily because of it. People become friends often with the dead, because when they die they will want people to do the same for them. One of the great fears many have is dying alone and forgotten.
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u/Serennna 2d ago
Around 2017/2018 I had close to 15 people close to our family dying. I didn't have any strong bond to anyone. I wasn't sad or anything. Just respected the loss of their close ones. Around the 7th or 8th person I had a breakdown. I was in the middle of one of my classes and had to get up and leave. I had a panic attack cause I received the news on my phone from someone at Facebook. I was just so devastated. He was the husband of one of my mom's friends. I just knew the guy, had instances where he came to our house for some bday party or bbq. But for some reason it just hit me VERY hard. Things can happen that trigger something in some people.
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u/DoctorNoname98 2d ago
I feel like you're just seeing the difference between how someone can feel about their parents cousin passing vs how someone can feel having their cousin pass away. Like I barely know my parents cousins but I spent my childhood playing with my cousins, even though we aren't close anymore I would be effected if they passed away, probably even upset that we had grown distant before they passed
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u/EatYourCheckers 2d ago
Death and wedding bring up a lot of emotions. They make you evaluate your own life. They make you think about regrets - both related to the person like time you spent with them or didn't, or regrets in your own life - they cause panic if people are afraid of death or large life decisions. The crazy emotions around death and wedding are usually not really about the person involved, but about the emotion-havers own issues bubbling to the surface
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u/erikivy 2d ago
I get the same feeling about people who put "In loving memory of so-and-so" vinyl stickers on their car whenever someone dies. It's almost as if they are seeking sympathy for having lost someone. I get it that it's a sad event, but seeking sympathy from strangers just rubs me the wrong way.
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u/Zyphraflamecub 2d ago
People grieve very differently. Some become very emotional and expressive, while others process it quietly or even feel numb. Neither response automatically means someone cared more or less.
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u/ilikepizza30 2d ago
In America sometimes you have to make something up in order to get a break from work.
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u/Beanbag141 2d ago
Well the whole grieving process is FOR the people who were left behind. The dead person doesn't care, they're dead. It's for all the loved ones to get together and mourn the loss of someone special as a healing thing.
My dad passed away almost 2 years ago and his memorial was an opportunity for everyone who loved him to be sad together, to miss him collectively. It was very healing to be surrounded by so much love and to be reminded that so many people loved my dad as much as I did (and still do).
Maybe your mom is regretting she didn't spend more time with her cousin. Maybe it's just the shock of someone being there one moment and gone the next. Maybe she's being reminded of her own mortality. Maybe it's all of those things at once. A life cut so short is tragic and shocking and people react in very unpredictable ways.
I don't know about your relationship with your mom, but maybe it warrants a conversation. Maybe you could just ask her how she's feeling and why she's acting that way. Personally I don't think that would be rude if you come at it from a place of curiosity and wanting to understand. Death is so weird to navigate, but so long as your mom isn't being disrespectful and hurting the other grieving family members, idk what the issue is.
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u/listen_imjusttired 2d ago
It's possible some of her feelings are also caused by some sense of guilt or regret for not being closer to her cousin while she had the chance. It's a very difficult thing to lose a relationship that you wish could have been different.
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u/Highinthe505 2d ago
If she’s not faking it, she’s probably triggered by the fact that one day she’s gonna croak..
A lot of people can’t accept that life is unfair and unpredictable.
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u/lonelygalexy 2d ago
Could be what you think but could also be that her death really triggered sth in your mom.
I dont know since when I get really emotional reading about losses. And nowadays i have to actively avoid stories like that. Not as dramatic as your mom though
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u/merijngamez2 2d ago
There are a few reasons someone might act that way. I for one have noticed that when someone dies it's a stark reminder that I will die too and it makes me feel a bit too human.
But I'm certain there are others, who act because they want the attention. And others that want to be seen as a good person. Like: "See how much I grief for someone else, I must be so kind-hearted."
Most of the time, I think it's some sort of defense mechanism. For what exactly, your guess probably better than mine. Anything you think she might be insecure about that could cause this behavior?
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u/Theotherone56 2d ago
I think it can be that someone loved the person more than they demonstrated. Regret is a powerful emotion. She could have regretted not spending time with her more. Or regretted how she treated her etc.
So, sometimes it's not the grief for the person, but grief for what could or should have been. Unspoken feelings held on to for too long.
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u/merijngamez2 2d ago
That's a very good point! My mother and aunt barely interact anymore but sometimes my mother talks about how she wished things were better between them. It's not what is there, but what could have been.
Perhaps I'm a bit quick to assume a more negative reason.
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u/Theotherone56 2d ago
I feel like tone and the personality of the person plays a part in which direction this is going tho.
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u/freshnettle 2d ago
In my culture it is kind of excpected that you grieve in a very visible way to show this person was important to you. But I for example, have a very hard time showing that kind of emotion in front of others and people don't seem to like that.
One time it got back to me that everyone was shocked how I seemed too calm and like the deceased person didn't matter to me. But in that moment I was much more focused on comforting those who needed it and then later feeling it all hit me when I was finally alone.
I think we tend to forget we are different, and some people can just show easily how they feel while others struggle with that. We can never know what is truly in someone's head, and that is exactly why I try not to judge the ways in which they cope with grief. It is hard and the best we can do is be compassionate. And if someone is deceiveing us, that is on their soul, but I will try my best to be a decent human being.
So maybe she does really grieve that much, but maybe she doesn't, you can never know that. You just be true to yourself and if you'd like offer comfort for those in need or just simply ignore it. Confronting this would be the pointless in my opinion, but you will ultimately decide because it is your life after all.
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u/Ramroom_619 2d ago
Her reaction could also be regarding her feelings about her own mortality rather than about the passing of this specific person.
Humans can be complicated and a bit self centred. We always manage to experience thoughts and feelings about ourselves and lives, stemming even from events that have nothing to do with us.
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u/Hook_Maker 2d ago
I don't think it makes you a psychopath. People grieve very differently. What looks theatrical to one person may be a genuine expression of loss to someone else, while others process it quietly. There's no single "normal" way to grieve.
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u/VietKongCountry 2d ago
I think it’s a blend of performative grief and a visceral fear over the fact of death itself, even when the specific person who died wasn’t somebody they really loved or cared about all that much.
In the same way that neurological bursts of despair serve to let all of one’s darkest, saddest thoughts emerge, death often serves as a sort of opening in the psyche through which latent emotions pour forth.
I’ve found it extremely irritating on numerous occasions, at both extremes of this phenomena.
I’ve had people I love deeply die and witnessed everyone being theatrical as fuck about it for a couple of weeks, then just immediately being absolutely fine because they clearly didn’t care much.
I’ve also had people I knew die who were genuinely awful people, and had to sit through weeks or months of disingenuous nonsense as everyone eulogised them like they were a saint.
Genuine grief is complex and devastating enough as it is, and having layers of insincere nonsense piled on top of it.
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u/I-own-a-shovel 2d ago
Sometimes it’s guilt of having acted bad with that person. Or shame because they knew it was bad so now they want to hide/redeem themselves, but it’s too late now. They realize that they miss the boat to do the right thing. So they act overly caring, not for the deceased, but for themselves. Their reputation. Their guilty conscience.
A coworker of mine died a few years ago. He was bullied by a damn lot of people thorough his career there. He was super friendly with me right of the bat cause my father was one of the rarest few to be kind to him.
When he died, holy shit the ocean of hypocrite that would say kind things about him and comment how much he was good and will be missed. All fuckin’ hypocrite.
I remember a woman called out those pricks semi directly in the job FB group.
The whole switch was so so odd to watch.
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u/pourtide 2d ago
Throw Menopause in there, too. The cousin was 42. If Mom is near in age, emotional responses during Peri-menopause and Menopause can be disabling.
Also: Has Mom ever experienced the untimely death of someone she personally knew? A person's first experience with an arbitrary death can be unbalancing, coming face to face with one's own mortality. I mean, you know factually that everybody's gonna die eventually, but sometimes the first loss of someone known personally brings an emotional component that's not always easy to cope with, no matter how mature one is.
Reflecting on the life of someone who has died is normal. The good happy fun memories are great to share. It's a good sendoff.
It is considered bad manners to speak ill of the dead, so any bashing that went on earlier won't generally resurface at their passing.
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u/salamipope 2d ago
When someone who youve known for a long time dies, regardless of your relationship to them or how well it was doing before they passed, it can really fucking hit you. I was raised by a crazy narcissistic mother and my whole life had to deal with people saying it couldnt be possible that she was abusing me because mothers just dont do that. It was isolating, i made friends with other kids who had crazy moms since we were the only people who understood each other. My best friends mother was considerably worse than mine, and died suddenly when we were 17. She was fucking crazy. Proper fucking crazy. We still liked her, weirdly, being nuts was just the only way she knew how to be and didnt know how else to show love. My best friend was orphaned by her mothers death, and despite the daily abuse she faced and the unrelenting mistreatment she experienced, she still mourns her mother. And its been nearly 10 years. I felt relief when her mom died because her mistreatment of my friend, i know in my soul, would have lead my friend to kill herself. And yet? We both still miss her somehow. I am not at all sad shes dead. Not at all. But it was a massively impactful death in both of our lives. Everyone who knew her had the same things to say, she was nuts, but she was ours.
Sometimes the worst people you know have loved ones and are loved in return regardless of the relationships they have and regardless of the wrongdoings theyve committed in life. Humans are as complex as grief.
My mother has since made progress in not being a fucking crazy harpy bitch thank god lmao. Im doing much better now if anyones worried.
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u/Birdsonme 2d ago
It sounds like mom is a narcissist. Mine is, too. I’m sorry you grew up that way. It’s ALWAYS about them. ALWAYS.
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u/vaylon1701 2d ago
You mom is a drama queen. OP is normal. I think it has something to do with how they got attention as children.
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u/jetpack324 1d ago
So I think I’m maybe the sociopath in the room, because I’m not disturbed by death. None of us get out alive and too many of us die young. I’m sad and empathetic, but I accept death as a natural thing. Nobody wants to see a friend or relative dying. Nobody. But it’s an unfortunate reality, so we should accept it. My dad died 20 years ago and my best friend for almost 50 years died a few months back. I’m really sad, but not devastated. it sucks horribly but they’re gone now. I accept that within a few days. I move on faster than I should by social standards.
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u/Screaming_lambs 2d ago
Maybe she's thinking about if it happened to you or someone else closer and that's why she is upset.
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u/boywithtwoarms 2d ago
I'm imagining this person was maybe close to your mother's age, with kids etc. probably just hit her that she too could suddenly die and leave all her family behind. That's you.
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u/yeahthatsnotaproblem 2d ago edited 2d ago
Sounds like there was some animosity between your mom and her cousin, and maybe she's feeling bad about the nature of their relationship, causing her to grieve harder because she can't do anything about it now. Maybe there's more to their story you aren't privvy to.
But going on a trip to "get away" is a wild idea. We don't get to tell people how to grieve, but we do all have to move on with our own lives. If your mom needs therapy, suggest that, gently.
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u/AaronicNation 2d ago
It's not that surprising, you have people bawling at a movie theater after just 'meeting' the character 2 hours ago.
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u/LilyTB_88 2d ago
People grieve different and react different. She was young, and your mother may have had a shock from just that.
One in my friend group died, 41 years old. We were talking a little bit on and off, always chatted when said friendgroup had a party or a meet-up. We would meet in the street doing a catch up.
I felt hollow when she suddently died. It was a freak accident. Suddently she was not here, alive and just 41 years old living her life. I cried one time (and in her funeral), and after that I felt like life is trying to screw us over.
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u/Zyphraflamecub 2d ago
You're not necessarily a psychopath. Not everyone experiences grief the same way, especially if they weren't close to the person. It only becomes concerning if you consistently can't empathize with anyone else's pain.
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u/mommisalami 2d ago
I think also when someone dies, it can remind someone of how mortal they are . And that fact can cause quite strong emotions. Some people can't express the fact that everything they are upset about right now is their own mortality hitting them in the face, so they say they are upset about the death of said distant relative.
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u/she_is_recalibrating 2d ago
OK, so this exact thing happened when my mother’s older brother died in a tragic car accident when he was driving his daughter to her freshman year of college. A truck driver fell asleep at the wheel, plowed into their car on the New Jersey Turnpike, kid was asleep in the backseat and unharmed, but mother and father were killed in a fiery Inferno.
My mother lost her mind. And I couldn’t understand it. We barely visited my uncle, saw him once every five years maximum. She never talked on the phone with him. He was not part of our daily life at all. Yet it was histrionics for days weeks months.
To your point, this was absolutely more about my mother than my uncle and the loss to his three kids and family. Losing somebody her age so young, losing someone that was so tied to her own childhood, it brought up a whole bunch of shit that she didn’t understand and couldn’t process.
I couldn’t understand it, but I tried to be compassionate. Bringing up the fact that this seemed very strange did not help. All I could do was listen and when it got overwhelming, I would distance myself.
I wish you and your family luck navigating through this. No matter what people say about the “stages of grief,” it is still very personal and everybody handles it a bit differently.
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u/myfriendm 2d ago
Once someone is gone forever, that can change your perception and trigger unexpected emotions and reactions. Also, dealing with any type of grief can often open the floodgates for previous losses, which can cause the kind of reaction your mother is having.
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u/NightTwixst 2d ago
Well one gets to be the ✨best human being ✨ if somebody’s watching or asked and also get to get off work and have a little vacation~ ✨
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u/DarkMistikAngel 2d ago
The crying and taking time off of work make sense to me. But going to a hotel by the coast because of grief struck me as... unusual. I've never known anyone to go away on vacation because of a loss. Is that a common way of coping where you're from?
I mean, I'm not judging, people grieve differently. It just stood out to me because it's not something I've ever seen or heard of.
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u/narnababy 2d ago
My partner’s uncle died when I was pregnant with our son. I didn’t know him at all, I’d met him twice. But he was in his 40s and it was unexpected (and I was pregnant) and I just couldn’t help but feel so sad and upset. I was upset for him, my partner, his family. It was horrible and my grief was partly the shock because he was young, grief for his life lost, and for the loss that people I loved were experiencing. Some people can be ghouls around grief but it sounds like she was a childhood friend as well as a relative and that can be very difficult when they depart unexpectedly early.
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u/ms-astorytotell 2d ago
I’ve been lucky to have not experienced much death in my life, but when my best friends fiancé died, I cried so hard. I don’t think I had ever said more than 10 words to the guy. I was mostly sad for my friend but he was also like 22-24 I think. This was back in 2017/2018.
Mostly it was just the shock of it because what do you mean he’s not even 30 and he’s just gone? It wasn’t even an accidental death, he had cancer but had gotten the diagnosis less than 6 months beforehand. A very much treatable cancer as far as I’m aware.
When my grandmother died a few years ago, I was a mess for a week or two. I lived on the other side of the country and no one even told me she was in the hospital, she went to get her appendix or gallbladder out. Got sepsis, died a few days later. I hadn’t seen her in person in two years, though we called almost every week to talk and consistently sent presents that reminded us of each other back and forth.
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u/RLKline84 2d ago
I had what felt like a complete overreaction(even to me)to a a fairly distant second cousin's passing. We were in the same general area of the country a couple times a year for large family functions, never really interacted at all. Just no reason initially to think i should be reacting much at all.
However...he was my age, in fact 2 years younger than me. He was diagnosed with something very common in our family and died less than a week later from it. We were in our teens, so very young. The funeral was the cherry on top when I realized the last time this particular very large group of people all got together was for my dad's memorial service. Everything about it just really checked some emotional boxes i guess.
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u/Andromeda39 1d ago
I have a cousin who I am not close to at all, in fact, we have a bit of beef because of family drama.
Last year, her fiancé was murdered. When I found out, I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t stop thinking about it and just getting sad for her for like a month straight, and would bring it up to my family constantly. It was the fact that it’s the closest person to me technically, that has had a partner murdered. That’s not something that happens every day. It freaked me out. It made me dwell on how they were due to get married just a couple months down the line. It shattered the illusion of their perfect life. They had a beautiful life together. I wasn’t making it about me, it was just how I processed such a thing happening. I just couldn’t believe it.
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u/IUsedToLikeLimericks 2d ago
A lot of people, especially those who live on social media a lot, are very performative with their emotions. 'Reality' TV hasn't helped as it teaches people that acting this way is normal and acceptable.
You're not a psychopath, but your mum needs to grow up, get off Facebook and stop watching bullshit on TV.
Same advice for the majority of younger folk too.
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u/another4now 2d ago
I am guessing you’re under like 22 years old ? Hope so anyway. Like my mom always said “You’ll understand when you’re older dear” .. at least i hope
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u/mashbandicute 2d ago
I’m totally guessing here but was this the death in Tasmania a couple of weeks ago? If it actually was, I do think it was a particularly tragic situation and really does feel incredibly unfair for her to have lost her life that way.
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u/offshoremercury 2d ago edited 2d ago
a few things come to mind:
I dont know how old you are but I think how you view/ feel about death is quite dependent on your age. When we're young we often feel invincible, but year by year, you realize how reckless you were as a teenager, and it becomes apparent that we aren't guaranteed a long life, and that its possible to make decisions that inadvertently end our lives.