A family friend passed away today of leukemia; he was way too young, and has been fighting it way too long. I didn't know him all that well, but it's still pretty heartbreaking to hear about someone suffering for so long.

My grandmother, who I live with out of sheer necessity, has a lot of untreated mental illnesses. Her BPD is the absolute worst to deal with. Especially on days like this.

I tell her the news after getting a call about it, and her reaction is to immediately burst into uncontrollable sobbing. She gets passive aggressive with me when I don't acknowledge her distress or behave in kind. (Sorry gma, I have a vastly different perspective on death than you do.)

What's so insincere about it? Well, I probably knew the young man better than she did--that is, not so well--and that, just three years ago my grandfather, her first husband, died of cancer also. This obviously hit my mom and I much closer to home than the family friend, and my grandmother could barely manage a "I'm sorry for your loss". In fact, it was a chore for her to even be in the same room with us while we talked about it because it bored her to pieces. If I had a nickel for every time she changed the subject back to her whenever grandpa came up...

Anyways. Ugh it's just so frustrating and gross and sometimes I can't deal with her. People have their own ways of grieving, but she's not even grieving! It's just dramatic signalling because she doesn't know how to feel genuinely, or let others feel genuinely, about anything.