death

[ashlea]

ive never spoke to anyone about this as it makes me feel like a freak and i dont want to be labled as abnormal . however im not affected by death as others are. ive had people i know die and yet have felt no greif for their loss although i miss them, its more like they've just moved away or something. ive tried to think of many reasons why this might be yet i come up with no answers. sometimes i think that it might have something to do with the fact that i drowned when i was young yet every time i do i think im just being stupid. does anybody have any thoughts as to why im so diffrent? i no that there are stages of greif that everybody is supposed to go through yet for some reason i dont go through them, it makes me scared as i know that suppressed guilt is meant to be unhealthy.

[JerryB]

Originally Posted by ashlea

im not affected by death as others are. . ive had people i know die and yet have felt no greif for their loss . . . does anybody have any thoughts as to why im so diffrent?

ashlea I think you may be assuming too much to say you aren't affected
by death as others are. You may be thinking that because they cry and
show their grief more than you do they must be feeling more grief than
you. It's possible that they just feel a need to display their grief more.

Frankly, I've always been suspicious of people who are extremely
emotional at funerals. It may sound terribly cynical but I remember
some funerals in my family where the people who cried the most
were the people who had treated the dead person worst. I had the
feeling that they were crying out of guilt. Not all people do that but
some seem to. Also some people are better able to control their
feelings than others. So I don't think you should judge by
appearances. I don't think you should judge at all.

[JerryB]

Originally Posted by ashlea

sometimes i think that it might have something to do with the fact that i drowned when i was young

One or two more thoughts on this matter. I've heard about
the experience of drowning, I think from a person who had
the experience personally but I'm not sure. Anyway I've heard
that a great feeling of serenity takes over. I guess that's what
you were referring to. The feeling that death is kind of a serene
feeling so you needn't feel sad for someone who dies.

That reminded me of something I realized many years ago about
death. I was a bit shocked because what I realized was perfectly
obvious but I had never really thought about it much. People who
cry at funerals or mourn after them are crying for themselves, for
their own sense of loss.

I guess I was naive as a child and maybe others didn't feel the need
to make a distinction between the 2 types of grief, but at first I thought
that people were crying because they felt sorry for someone who had
died. I don't know if I'm making that distinction clear. I guess what I'm
saying is that the reason for their tears was more selfish than I had
realized previously.
.

[justforfun]

Im not affected by death as others in my family are. I go into a kind of shock but don't respond emotionally. I like to think its because I don't believe we die, just our bodies. We are more than just our bodies. Because I can cry like a baby for a corny movie or book. But who knows?

[ashlea]

Originally Posted by justforfun

I don't believe we die, just our bodies.

I have similar thoughts on that topic i like to believe that after death we go on. Personally though i dont like the idea of the Christian after life as they say it is perfect, yet how can something be perfect without imperfection? I like the idea of reincarnation as you can continually go on learning things in different forms.
Favorite quote: "Life is a lesson, earth is the classroom."
Yet when you say our bodies die this isn't necessarily true as they will decompose and become part of another living organism such as a tree.

[sanctus]

JerryB, this distinction you make between crying in a selfish way otr not just isn't there, whenever one cries you do it because you feel the loss, because it makes you feel better. I mean, what does it mean to cry for somebody?

[Turtle]

___I have been both tearfully grief stricken at peoples' deaths, as well as emotionally flat tinged with guilt. It bothers me either way.
___I have been poisoned nearly to death by nuts numerous times beginning when I was 2 & I don't know if that affects my view of death of others or not but I live in constant fear of dying that way myself (anaphalaxis).
___That you reflect on your emotional state & behavior on the occassion of a particular person's passing honors them well enough.

[Fishteacher73]

Originally Posted by sanctus

JerryB, this distinction you make between crying in a selfish way otr not just isn't there, whenever one cries you do it because you feel the loss, because it makes you feel better. I mean, what does it mean to cry for somebody?

There are some that use the misfortune of others as a proxy to establish sympathy for themselves (Munchausen biproxy (sp?)) for example). Granted this is an extreme example, but I feel that some do use the chance to bemoan how sad they are to gain sympathy (without actually causing the tragedy themselves as in the example).

[sanctus]

Yes, but isn't what I meant. I wanted to say that crying is always selfish and not only when people do it to gain sympathy. Simply because you cry because YOU feel the need to.

[orbsycli]

i heard somewhere that if a human were alone, with nobody around, and the human knew it, (like the desert, not your bedroom) AND this human was face with something that would normally make him/her cry, they wouldn't. i don't know who told me this, but they said that crying is always ALWAYS about attention. i don't know if i believe it, but i'm wondering if any of you have heard this?