The internet is both one of the best and the worst things to happen in the world of grief support. We now have websites, pages, and support groups for grievers; places where we can be heard and feel understood by people around the world. Celebrities are even opening up and sharing their stories of loss. Suddenly, we aren’t alone.
And yet, the internet can also encourage the cruelest of human behaviors. Too often grievers who post openly are met with unwanted advice, contradiction, guilt, and criticism for their very normal feelings. And once the comments start to go negative, others will pile on without thinking.
Above all, people who are grieving want to be safe to express themselves and to be heard. So before you next comment on someone’s post or start to dismiss their grief, please consider these points.
“If you are still avoiding babies after a week, you must be grieving wrong”
“You are crying too much…it wasn’t like it was a real person. You must need therapy”
Tough love is often anything but love
In a world of televised interventions, tough love has somehow become synonymous with support but love should never start out as tough. Yes, sometimes people need to hear their actions are wrong or that their actions may be contributing to their pain. Yes, some of us could benefit from therapy in helping us cope with our grief. But before you offer advice or criticism, you first have to meet them in their pain. The griever needs to feel and know your love before they are able to accept your tougher words. True interventions require close friends and family, people who have built their relationships over time, in order for the concern or criticism to be heard. Criticism from casual friends or internet strangers is not an act of love — there is no trust, no relationship and no understanding that the one offering criticism has the griever’s best interests at heart. The words will not be heard and will only cause them further pain.
“It hurt so much when my family said I couldn’t understand because I wasn’t a real mother.”
—- “Oh you know they didn’t mean anything by that.”
The devil does not need more advocates
Grieving people should not need to justify their pain. But all too often when someone shares something that hurt them, they are met not with empathy but instead a list of ways to re-interpret the event so that somehow the one who hurt them was innocent or right. Yes, of course, there are times when people are being sensitive in their pain and seeing offense where none was intended. But when you immediately jump to alternate reasons on why the griever should not hurt, you not only lose the chance to ease someone’s pain by letting them be heard but you actively tell them you are not a safe person to talk to. Yes, Hanlon’s Razor “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity” may well apply to the situation. But someone whose grief is new or freshly triggered needs to feel first before they can step back to decide what action, if any, to take.
“If you hadn’t had your miscarriages, you wouldn’t be able to help people now.”
“If you had kids you wouldn’t have all this free time.”
We don’t need you to point out the silver lining
Grief brings with it a whole host of negative feelings — anger, sadness, depression, bitterness, loneliness, jealousy and more. These feelings are hard for the griever and can be hard for those around them. But the feelings are still valid and need to be expressed. When you present the griever with all the ways it could be worse or they should be grateful for some obscure blessing in the pain, you are dismissing their pain. You are not helping but are making it worse. Only when the darker emotions have been worked through and accepted, can the griever start to move toward looking for the light in their life, to figure out how to make the best of this new life. Only the griever can find the silver linings in their life and not until they are ready.
“Your child wouldn’t want you to be sad”
We don’t need to be guilted with what you think our child would have wanted
Grieving parents are too often met with dismissive comments about how our children would not have wanted us to be sad or they would have wanted us to do this or that. Let’s be honest here. People who say these things are generally speaking for themselves and not the deceased loved one. The speaker is saying they are uncomfortable with your grief and use the love you bear for your child as a way to shut you up. Don’t do that.
Are you seeing the pattern? The griever needs to express their emotions, to be heard and understood before they can begin to see the bigger picture. Any attempt to force or skip the process just results in the griever being more hurt and becoming more closed in.
Maybe this is an effect of the many anonymous groups online. It is easy to forget that the screen name you are directing your words to is a real person. Also, online support lacks the facial expressions and tone of voice that make reading the situation easier. It can be hard to tell from words on a screen when someone just needs to be heard versus when they are looking for advice or a broader perspective. I have noticed a disturbing trend in support groups of people jumping to offer advice and criticism and skipping than support. The desire to be right, or point out where someone else was wrong, comes before the need to actually hear and share another person’s pain.
Life is tough enough. The world judges our grief harshly enough so why do we choose to judge each other?
Let’s be gentle with each other. Listen more and talk less. Practice kindness.
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