Dealing with death

Ever noticed how some people handle death really well? They may cry some at the beginning but then they seem to accept it, or something and move on. I can't do that. Death hurts to my very core and stays there. I even cry when it's people I don't even know. I guess I see any person as someones child, brother, sister, mom, dad, grandparent, etc. And how much this death will hurt them.
How do you break that cycle of deep hurt with death?

Yeah
I have no idea how they do it.
I cannot imagine not getting teary eyed or not crying out loud each time I think of them.
Each loss has impacted my life in a very significant and deep way. Like the meteor hitting the surface of the earth. Those holes are very tough to fill.

It's like a piece of you leaves with each person, and that piece never returns. Makes you wonder how many pieces you have to give before collapsing.

I get what you mean. Most people can blow off news stories about death. I put myself in the story.

I have to be careful what I read.

This is the first year I haven’t spend Dec-Jan crying. But I’m drugged for the first time too. It’s been six years tomorrow since my husband died young.

So sorry for your loss. Will be thinking of you.

I guess I'm one of those people who aren't especially affected by death. I grew up as an only child in an elderly extended family. Most of the relatives I grew up with were born in the late 1800's. My parents were approaching middle age when I entered the picture, so to speak. In fact, in terms of the extended family I grew up in, the next youngest person to me was my mother. And so I spent my whole childhood & teenage years going to one funeral after another as each of my relatives died off. (My parents are now long since gone too.) So perhaps that's the reason death really doesn't have much of an impact? I don't know. I will say though that, historically, I've had little difficulty cutting people who are still living out of my life as well. So maybe it's more of an over-arching quirk of character.

I think it depends on your view of death, your perception of it & how it relates to the here & now.
My views of death have drastically changed as I’ve gotten older & learned more. I’m fascinated by the ambiguity of it & do not view it as an “end.”
I feel religious beliefs can shape our views, yet so can science.

Yet no one knows.....I love that!! I don’t fear that, only embrace it & look forward to it.

I wish I could do that.

Im one of those people. Its partly acceptance and partly not caring. Everytime someone dies in my life there really is nothing i can do to bring them back and i accept their passing. Death is inevitable because we’re all have a lifespan. I’m also not a very emotionally attached person so that also prevents me from breaking down into tears whenever someone dies. I’m too detached from everyone to have their death affect me so much. I have cried before, when my brother died, but it was a couple weeks after he passed and only lasted maybe 5 minutes in total. It really just depends on how empathetic or emotional you are as a person in my opinion.

I don't know why I am so distraught on how disrespectful a family can be to someone who has passed away. It's like they don't want to acknowledge a successful life of someone. even if there were bad, or hard times, a person deserves to be respected at death. Even though I haven't had contact with this person in many years I don't understand people treating her life like this. It's heartbreaking and my hands are tied to help.

(Trigger)
Yes I agree some are very disrespectful regarding death. My nephew killed himself last yr & my SIL told me there were so many people that wanted the intimate details of it all. How rude!
My father was & still is very angry about it calling him selfish & a waste! And the way his parents decided to bury him wasn’t “proper.”
WTH! I don’t even try to understand this except older people will never change. Their conscious & subconscious is already set in stone & unable to change.
To me, I pass them by bec they’re not worth my time or different opinion.
Sigh....

So sorry to hear about your nephew. Sometimes I think people ask about details to try to make some sense of it in their own mind. They are so hurt that they are looking for something to blame. Not necessarily the deceased, or family, but something because they can't believe it happened to this person. Suicide is not selfish, IMHO. It's a personal choice of escaping something horribly wrong. When they get to that point they are not thinking of others, just how they can escape their pain. Sometimes you have to do that and take care of yourself, because "others" can not grasp the pain inside of a person. My father died by suicide.
I don't understand my situation where there was no memorial service, no obituary posted......it's like the accomplishments of the life never happened

Personally I think they are acting or just haven't dealt with it. There is something called delayed grief where people don't bother using time for grieving and feeling up the space with work, friends, etc. Usually it catches up to them. Unless you have no heart or feelings you will be affected by death despite the fact that you might not have been close to the person. Some people are just better at hiding the way they feel.

Maybe this was a request by the deceased? I could understand no memorial service, but I’d think (legally) they’d have to put something on record with an obituary. Maybe?
I’m sorry this must be hard for you.

((Trace)),
This is because when you were exposed to death it was unexpected and traumatic. You also suffer from PTSD and the area of the brain that struggles a lot is the amygdala which is the part of the brain that carries our emotional responses. Trauma reduces the effectiveness of the hypocampus and the hypocampus is the part of our brain that filters things out so experiences are filtered "before" they reach the amygdala. This is why those who experience a major trauma where it results in PTSD taking place will say, "why can't I just like I used to".

When you were young you witnessed a sudden and traumatic death in your family. That affected you and you also saw how badly it affected the adults that were present at the time too. A sudden and traumatic loss can not only affect a person's hypocampus, but because the hypocampus often literally shrinks when experiencing a major trauma, just recalling that trauma can be hard simply because the amygdala is now a lot more sensitive because the filter one used to have isn't working as well. The individual has to learn new ways to gradually gain new filtering skills, and sometime the hypocampus, which it can take time does heal some.

We are slowly gaining in our understanding of how our brains can be affected when a major traumatic event takes place because we have created new technology that allows us to see more of the brain and how our brains actually work.