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It's Not Always about Us
There’s a lot of discussion in widowhood circles about the “insensitive” things people say to recently widowed people. I put the word insensitive in quotations marks because I’m not 100% buying into this whole line of thinking. To me, it seems more likely we in the widowhood phase of life are so hyper-sensitive, and have our emotions so close to the surface, that there’s nothing others could say that won’t feel like they’re picking the scab off our wound and making it bleed again.
Sure, people shouldn’t tell us that we’ll find someone else. No one wants to hear that the love of our lives could be "replaced" or as one woman so aptly put it, “My husband was not a goldfish!” The you’ll-find-someone-else kind of statements are actually saying more about the person doing the talking than it was meant to comfort the widow in front of them. What they are really saying is they perceive themselves as being so weak they can’t imagine facing widowhood. They believe if they were in our shoes they’d have their thumbs stuck in their mouths until they someone comes along to solve all their problems. In other words, they still believe in the fairy tale about the white knight who rides in to saves the fair maiden in distress. Well screw that idea and the people who believe it! If we’re modern women we’d let them hear us roar out the message that our pain is too deep right now to look to the future. We don’t need a white knight in the foreseeable future or to acknowledge the fact that most widows actually do remarry in time. What we need is to finish mourning the “white knight” we lost.
Then there’s the statement that so many people say to recent widows: “You’re so strong!” There again, when you analyze the source of these kinds of statements aren’t they really talking about themselves and how lost they think they’d be in a similar situation? Well, duh! that's how we feel when we don't have our public faces plastered in place. But as misguided as these kinds of statements are they’re not meant to comfort. The person saying them is measuring their perceived shortcomings against our perceived strengths and scaring the holy crap out of themselves. The fact is most of us eventually will find our way out of the darkest days of our lives because failure isn’t an option. The you’re-so-strong kinds of statements could also be read as actually meaning, “I’m so glad you’re holding yourself together in public because I don’t have a clue what to do to help.” Clue to the clueless: when you don’t know what to say, offer a hug.
The bottom line is that people are human and as so we don’t always say or do the right things at the right times. When someone says something insensitive we can’t let it worm its way deep inside our hearts to fester and grow like a cancer. Speak up! Tell someone when something said isn’t helping. People don’t mean to hurt or upset us. Few people are educated in giving grief support and that includes giving ourselves the grief support we need to find from within.
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Comment
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Comment by Lynne on July 16, 2012 at 8:58pm -
Excellent piece and I agree with you completely. While I'm sure there's always the rare exception when someone honestly IS trying to be unkind but, for the most part, people just don't know what to say or how to say it. Like you said, few people are educated in how to give grief support and, on top of that, many people are SO uncomfortable with the subjects of grief and death that they get incredibly awkward when confronted with someone who is grieving. I love your advice about speaking up - might just help to "educate" the person on what WOULD be helpful and why. Great post - thanks. L.
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Comment by Abby on July 16, 2012 at 8:26pm -
Thank you for that breath of fresh air and clarity. I have been consumed by people asking me "how I am doing?" I keep holding myself back from answering them with "FANTASTIC, I have never been better!" After reading your post the light just went on...instead of taking all of these igorant comments personally or better still trying to make those that said them feel better, I am going to 'try' and just let these comments go and chalk them up to the fact that no one knows what to say to say to us so they say ignorant thinks that are more a reflection of themselves than us. Maybe I was ready to hear what you so eloquently wrote or maybe I am exhausted at being hurt and angry at people who really don't know any better. You are right...the smartest people just hold out their arms and hug us!
Whatever it is, what you posted resonated with me and I thank for sharing what should have been more obvious to me. One less hurtful thing to worry about......10 million more to go!
Abby
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Comment by Blue Snow on February 24, 2012 at 11:04pm -
This turned into an interesting discussion! Thanks, everyone, for sharing your opinions and experiences.
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VOLUNTEER Comment by Supa Dupa Fresh on February 24, 2012 at 5:55pm -
Yeah, I agree that MANY of the comments are just... we don't know what else to say.
I made the video "Shit People Say to Widows" mostly because we do love to laugh at how ridiculous they sound.
I think the reason people get so upset is that MANY of the comments are designed to reassure the person SAYING them and not the widowed person. These statements often CREATE distance instead of intimacy and further our feeling of being "different." As someone who usually can figure out the wrong thing to say (even now) I understand that stupidity is not always meant that way... things can also easily come out wrong.
And a lot of them, as you say, are based on misguided expectations of what we "should" be doing. You can give folks who say things about that the benefit of the doubt or treat them with contempt.... it is ignorance, either way.
We do need our connections to the world. We CAN be resilient and understand that other folks have their own feelings, even though those may mean they have problems connecting with us. I believe those folks have their right to their own feelings, but sometimes I wish they'd take care of that somewhere else.
You raised great points and I'm glad to hear you taking on the world with this perspective and not letting stupid garbage keep you away from other humans!
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Comment by bad ass widow on February 24, 2012 at 4:32pm -
While I know that there are some truly nasty people out there I believe that the majority of people only mean well. I also think because we are at such a heightened awareness we take every single word said and turn it into something bad. I have learned to take these statements at face value. I can not waste energy on dissecting everything said. If the guy at the deli counter says Have a nice day, I reply in kind, you never know he might be grieving too and need the physical words of Thank you, you too. I came into Widowed Village to listen and to learn and to heal and while I have heard some insensitive remarks I do not believe they are spoken in malice but in ignorance. Because even us as widow/ers can be ignorant of others feelings.
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Comment by Joyce on February 24, 2012 at 2:11pm -
@Kim, I keep telling you girl that you should start a blog because you have a wonderful way with words.
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Comment by Joyce on February 24, 2012 at 2:09pm
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@Cyndi, I am very very sorry that someone said that to you. We are here to support each other and like Kim said should handle each other with kid gloves
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Comment by CrazyWidow on February 24, 2012 at 1:32pm -
"To me, it seems more likely we in the widowhood phase of life are so hyper-sensitive, and have our emotions so close to the surface, that there’s nothing others could say that won’t feel like they’re picking the scab off our wound and making it bleed again." I loved this. And YES YES YES, thank you for sharing this!
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Comment by kimkirt (KK) on February 24, 2012 at 9:52am -
All my life I have put others before me. My family, my husband, my child, my friends. I am Co-Dependent, I know that, I try to fix people. My family and friends don't know how to handle this 'new me' who is . . . selfish. I wallow, I cry, I pity myself, I am SAD. So sad. I am TIRED, tired of trying to shrug off the insensitive, yet well meaning, comments. It IS all about me right now. I AM going to be selfish. I told that to my mom yesterday when she said "You know, you're not the only one in this world who has lost someone." I told her I know, I'm not. Then I told her for once in my life, I'm putting my grief before anything and anyone. I putting my grief first. Because my soul mate left me. Damn it. He went away. I wasn't done loving him yet. This wasn't on my terms. I don't care how well meaning people are right now, if they say something insenstive, I'm going to come here and complain about it. I KNOW they don't MEAN it. But dammit, it makes the hole in my heart bigger. I'm not going to disparage them, I'm not going to knock them down a peg or two, because I still have to live with myself through my grief journey, and I won't do things that make me feel worse. But I don't have to like it. No, people don't mean to hurt or upset us. But the fact is, they do. We are all only human, they are, and we are. And right now, right now I'm going to be gentler on myself then I am on them. Right now I'm going to use the tools at my disposal to help heal by broken-ness. I'm broken, and when something you love is broken, you pick it up gently, you handle it with kid gloves, you try to put it back together. You stroke, you soothe, you handle with care and you are sad, that that something you love is broken. So you keep checking on it, but you don't handle it roughly, that will only break it some more. You handle it with kid gloves for a while. No, the world does not see the stress cracks it continues to put in me. But each of those insenstive comments IS a stress crack on us, and if we get enough of them, eventually we will fall apart because we are not strong enough to handle it right now. My journey has been short thus far. But I will not point fingers at others that have journeyed longer and say they should be healed. They are broken still, so I will pick them up gently as they are doing for me. Because I want them to be selfish too, and put their grief journey first so that eventually, hopefully, they will start healing.
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Comment by Lisa (lost) Lamb on February 24, 2012 at 2:35am
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@ Cyndi- I'm sorry you had to hear that from anyone, especialy someone here. You have every right to say something to anyone that has hurt your feelings or is being unkind. We are all at different points in our journey but time means nothing here. I'm 9 months out but someone at 15 months may be at the same point I am for what ever reason. Be true to your self, we love you the way you are. If you have a bad day no one should fault you for that, we all have them. If I want to whine, vent, screem or cry I should be allowed. Once again I'm sorry someone made you feel that way.
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