After seven years of challenging but fulfilling caregiving for my dad, he made a peaceful transition three months ago. I prepared for this. However, what has me in shock is the insensitive and cruel reactions of some friends. I haven't seen my so called best friend in the three months since he died. I'm only child and mom went first but few understand that. Many people avoid me now and my boyfriend hung up on me three days before Christmas and we haven't spoken since. I've tried to have little to no expectations but I feel very angry and shocked by some of this. I have a good life in many ways, I work on myself and feel I'm more than a label... More than an adult orphan. Hard to get thru grief when I feel like I'm losing more friends and the pain isn't understood. I was raised to have manners and say " I'm sorry for your loss." Some can't even muster that. Going to try a grief support group but nothing right now and it hurts sooo bad!!!!
I am very disappointed to hear in these shares that friends & family desert those who have lost a loved one to death in the same way we hear often that they desert those who have lost a loved one to alzheimer's. I was hoping that the desertion was due to feeling awkward about mental issues like AD or not wanting to be called upon to visit the patient or help out.
Apparently the desertion is due to any kind of loss close to you. But in answer to above poster my son had lost too many immediate family members not to death but to family splits & father desertion and when Grandma came with alzheimer's I don't know why but he changed overnight from the sweetest people pleaser to an expletive I can't spell here. He checked out emotionally. He & I had endured 3 years of domestic abuse from the ones who moved out & I became his rock as single moms do & you would think he would understand mom needing me but it was just too many deserting him. Some of the emotional distance happened gradually but his temperament & meanness changed overnight. If you had known him as a child & adolescent you couldn't believe it was the same person.
Conversely I have a girlfriend in my area that I used to love to talk to on the phone & she was actually my eldest son's godmother. We were very close at that time. She lost her husband in a freak accident about 5 years ago & it doesn't matter how often I try to email her or call her she never responds & I miss the friendship. I never knew her husband that well. I just loved her. Can't get back in touch.
So I do wonder & in fact have found it confusing & maybe a little insulting that now that he is gone she won't have anything to do with me. I have tried many times maybe every few months to reach out. Nothing.