posted
I think I may be heartless and cruel. A friend of mine died in a car accident tonight. A girl I have known for two years or so, and I find myself not really caring. That seems wrong to me. It isn't just a way of dealing with my grief either, I honestly am feeling no grief at all. Yup. I just wanted to confess that to someone, and nobody is around this late at night. So that settles it, there is definately something wrong with me.
posted
Maybe you are just numb. Happens all the time. Its one of the many human ways of grieving. Trust me, you loved your friend enough to recognize the need to feel.
Posts: 2207 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
Yeah, I thought that at first, but after thinking about it, I'm fairly certain that is not it. I don't know, it's kind of weird.
Posts: 1612 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
There are plenty of reasons you're not feeling anything, none of which involve your lacking a soul. As long as you behave appropriately around those who are noticeably grieving, you're not heartless or cruel, either.
Posts: 1090 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
It may be that you have no soul. I'm pretty much the same way with empathy, and I think it's because I traded my soul for a pair of Micro-Machines when I was 9.
Posts: 5264 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
Out of interest, if you feel no grief, why do you feel guilty enough about your apathetic reaction to her death to post it here?
Posts: 3293 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
Your soul and it's existance, or non-existance has little to do with it, prolixshore.
Grief, for me, has been a strange phenomenon. It has come on strong for old friends, and lighter for good, but relatively newer friends. Sometimes it feels like nothing at all.
But it is there. Sometimes it's an intellectual puzzle. You ask yourself the questions. Your own examination of whether or not you feel, and does it mean you have a soul? And why am I not feeling anything stronger for my friend? Why wasn't I there (for my own reflection)?
This doesn't mean you are "soul-less", or "heartless", it means that you are grieving in a less emotional fashion. Sometimes it's like that. But if you remember something of that person, some action or quality that endeared that person to you, a little thing. That helps to bring the emotion to the surface. But don't be surprised if the emotion comes, and is more of a twinge of nostalgia than grief.
That's just how it feels, sometimes.
Posts: 2506 | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
I quit feeling anything some time last year. I don't know why. It's not a good thing, really, is it? I wonder if it ever comes back.
Posts: 2843 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
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posted
OK. You feel no grief. Or you have no strong emotions either way. Does that mean you can leap to the conclusion that you don't care?
Remember Gandalf's little talk in ROTK (the "what's so bad about death?" one)?
Maybe, whether or not you're consciously aware of it, you've finally figured it out. There are far worse things than death. Death is just part of the journey.
Posts: 755 | Registered: May 2001
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posted
I think this is fairly common. It passes too. At least I believe that we tend to regain our lost empathy as we go through different life events and see ourselves as part of the world around us.
I went through this kind of thing in grad school and I'm convinced that it was just a period in my life where there was no room for anything but studying, eating and sleeping -- not a particularly normal human state of being, really.
Now that I think about it, though, what must be the reaction of people in medical school? It seems like you'd want empathetic doctors, but you can't possible study that hard and have room in your life for a lot of emotion too.
I wonder...
Anyway, feeling as you do right now, I suspect you merely need to recharge your soul, not yet mourne its loss. I suggest a bit of community service, a trip to see the Sistine Chapel ceiling, and a really good hot fudge sundae. Reading Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover's Soul is extra credit.
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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posted
I think the sense of disconnect is also part of being a member of a culture which deals with death in terms of melodrama, or not at all. it's the Hallmark special of the week OR whizz-bang excitement on ER OR something of the like. Death isn't a normal part of life anymore, which is weird, really, given that we all do it sometime.
The first time I felt this way was when my grandfather died. I was 12 years old. I remember thinking I should be overcome completely -- but why?
Where does that come from? We can't be incapacitated by everyone's death. It actually makes a bit of mockery of having some people so very close that the lose of them would be incapacitating.
posted
I felt kinda like that after my grandparents died. I wasn't really that close with them (had never really met my grandmother b/c she'd had a stroke when I was very little) but I still thought I ought to have felt some grief. I felt nothing until the memorial servace when people told stories about their lives and cried and then I think I was just reflecting their emotion. However, about a year after my grandmothers death and two after my grandfathers two boys I didn't know at all at my school died in a car accident and we had a memorieal for them. Someone sang Amazing Grace which was the song my sister, my cousins and I sang for our grandparents, and that set me off. It was really weird.
Posts: 3420 | Registered: Jun 2002
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posted
I was very quiet, and not moved much by my dads death. I decided not to be. Looking back its as though I chose subconciously, because at the time I felt that I would be hurt more if I were to open up and allow others to see/help me grieve; I still to this day have some of these feelings. My niece who is 15 days older than me remembers seeing me not cry, and not do anything emotional when we were all there at the ER, Although that was roughly 20-40 mins after I had found out he had passed. Come to think of it, I only cried about it once; while there were very few in proximity, and I didn't even know why.
I think that grief comes in different ways. Sometimes I think we try to avoid it as well, but that all depends on your own version of grief.
I don't think you've lost your soul, but rather, You are closer to finding it than most.
Posts: 1132 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
I've had times like this. Sometimes my mother-in-law will be late or something and I start to imagine what would happen is she were dead (I actually love my mom-in-law, by the way) and I feel I'm not really upset by the idea of her dying. It depends on my mood, but it will usually be something I get over a day or two later. (This applies to most people in my family. The only people I can't imagine losing is my kids...I even feel apathetic over my husband sometimes...like I said, depends on the mood.)
Posts: 6367 | Registered: Aug 2003
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