Grief Is Not a Competition And No One Is Winning
Grief is hard without other people making it harder. But sometimes people will make it harder. One of the worst reaction I’ve received while grieving was when a women in what was supposed to be an online support group told me that my grief could not be compared to hers. In her mind, her loss was a lot worse than mine. She proceeded to list everyone she has ever lost and included the dates of their deaths.
I had no idea what she was trying to accomplish by that but it seemed to me that she was competing for the title of the greatest griever.
She devalued my loss and even yelled at me in all caps when I tried to explain that my loss hurts as well, that it hurts like hell, and that I do not know how to bear and deal with it. I can see no end to it and I wonder will it ever end.
To be told while trying to cope with this that my experience is a joke comparing to somebody else’s didn’t help. To have my experience devalued and be yelled at in a support group didn’t help. I left that group in a worse state than I was in when I joined. I fell apart again and it took me quite a few days to get over what happened there. Thankfully, I had a much better experience with other support groups and this was a unique case.
But still… I understand that people can often find it hard to understand those who grieve. I just don’t understand how can those who are going through the same thing hurt others with their comments and show so little compassion for them and their sorrow. That’s what hurts the most.
