I hate funerals, wakes and memorial services! | INFJ Forum

I hate funerals, wakes and memorial services!

Blind Bandit

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I know [MENTION=442]arbygil[/MENTION] had a thread on this subject but it was rather old I felt it might be better to start a new topic. Also keep in mind I'm comming at this issue from an INFJ prospective.

So I hate funerals, I hate wakes, I hat group mourning. I hate the fact that we remember someone with a ceremony and a lot of talking about that person. Which is often by people who didn't know the person very well. Or if they did they don't talk about the true person. They talk about the idealized version. But we don't do more than that. Its an impersonal send off.

I hate the fact that I'm expected to go a long distance for a funeral which in its self is draining. Whats worse is you drained both during the funerals and comming back so your a shell of yourself for a couple of days until you restablize if you do at all.

I also find the idea that if I need to mourn, I need a ton of people I'm not close to around me to be absurd. I need to retreat and spend time truly grieving (IE screaming, crying going through the stages of grief) ect. Not with a bunch of people who are all trying to hold it together because we all can't make a scene.

I think for me part of the problem is when your at a service. You fall into a few categories.

1. The hardest hit and the most numb. Your either so deep in shock you can't feel anything. Or your in so much pain your trying to hold yourself together from breaking down completely. And all the nice words and all the people who are offering support. Just makes you sick. You need to be alone so you can actually deal with it all. You want to tell everyone go jump or tell them where they can shove their condolences.

2. Your hit hard but your dealing with it. You may be sad but your moving on and your mostly alright. So you feel weird this isn't hitting your very much. Your stuck in a weird grief and gult trap. Because while you feel bad your not the person who having the most trouble. So you feel like your not missing someone enough. So end up feeling worse.

3. Your not hit much by grief and you may not have been as close to the person as some were. You feel guilty and out of place. As if you don't belong and you have no right to intrude on this service. You end up feeling horrible because you know your not hurting like most everyone else. And there is nothing you can do to help.

So as to what brought this on. My grandmother passed away several months ago and they are just now having the service. I wasn't hit as hard as some. And I dealt with it in my own way. I have to accept what happened and I feel like I'm as ok with it as I will ever be. But my dads family is now having a service this Monday. I'm not going. As I will either feel horrible for being a combination of number 2 or 3. I'm also horrible about picking up everyone's emotions and I can't take that right now. I would be overloaded withe sadness and dread. And lastly I'm not wiling to be stuck out of town until I can get a ride home.

So dose anyone else hate funerals/wakes and other such memorial services? If so why?
 
I agree with everything you said there.
 
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You said it all, BB.

I hate funerals, I hate wakes, I hate the hymns they play that have no relevance when the person wasn't even religious. I hate when they try to make people look like they're only sleeping for an open casket service. I hate the lame things I feel obligated to say that are ultimately meaningless and repeated by everyone else. I hate being surrounded by grieving people I know I cannot comfort.

For most funerals I've attended, I fall into your #3 category. I've tried to imagine if my husband or one of my kids die before me and how I'd feel. I'd be in the #1, for sure. I honestly think I'd need to be sedated to even make an appearance. The idea of others trying to touch or comfort me makes me want to scream. If anyone tried to tell me that they're in a better place now, I'm not certain I could refrain from punching them in the face.
 
I've been to four funerals. First, friends dad died suddenly, second, great uncle i never met, third, friends grandpa sick a long time, fourth grandmother who had been sick a long time. the last three were ok, sad but ok. i was mostly upset because of the pain they felt with their illnesses.

the first was the worst. still hurts to this day. my friends dad died of a heart attack, he was overweight...but its still tragic. my friend is one of the kindest people i have ever met. i think she's an isfp...but anyway. her and i were close when we were younger and less so in highschool.

her brother was on student council and so a lot of school people were at the funeral, and they didnt know her father. i know that its a showing of support, but when you dont know the person, i think its better not to go. it was also a terrible funeral, the reverend was someone else i have known my whole life and he was awful.

oh and a lot of people went to the funeral to get out of a biology test. cant say ive ever let that one go, a memory complete with me watching a girl i dislike smirk as she walked away from the teacher saying she was going to the funeral just to get out of the test like everyone else. mind you there were some people who legit knew the family...

i also know someone who was very close to me whose uncle was murdered. he didnt invite me to the funeral but im not going to ask why. its a personal thing. i was pretty distraught over it, though yes it didnt happen to me or my family, it is still a terrible situation with many sad repercussions.


anyway i digress. funerals and grief are very personal things. i generally say nothing and give people space offer my help if they need it but mostly stay away. its a very personal thing. i tend to cry a lot because of the amount of pain i feel off the families. and how i cant do anything to help them in their grief. i am usually a #1 or a #2 on your scale. funerals just suck.
 
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I totally agree, those types of deals are extremely draining. Having to travel just adds to the drain. I spoke at both my brothers' services and I couldn't help but cry and having to show your pain is not cool. The only thing that didn't bother me was getting to see family and friends, catching up with others makes things slightly less unbearable.

Like you, when my grandpa passed I was not sad or distraught in anyway. I barely cried. We weren't bff's but he was a good guy and I do have a lot of fun memories of him. This was three months after I lost my older brother in a violent way. I think I was relieved my grandpa went peacefully and had lived a full life. I didn't even go home for the service. My heart was very broken for my Dad though, who lost a father and a son in 3 months time and has since lost his only other son :(

I know people, particularly a coworker, who makes it a point to go to every fricking funeral in this town. She's obsessed with it. I can't do that. I did go to another coworker's father's funeral though that was three months after her Mom passed away because I wanted to show her my support and that, even though I didn't know her Dad, I cared about her.

I could go the rest of my life peacefully without having to go to another one.
 
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You think you have it bad. Here we have a practice called the nine night. That's right, nine nights of mourning. Nine nights of people coming to your home, bugging you and saying the same unhelpful nonsense repeatedly. Nine nights of wondering if you'll have any good china and cutlery left by the time the whole thing is over.
 
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The function I feel most awkward at. It's so fake. I don't wanna see the body, the people "mourning", don't wanna talk, don't wanna be told I'm cold for not crying, don't wanna go. Don't have one for me, I don't wanna put anyone through that. Ugh.
 
It actually depends who is in attendance.

one of the most beautiful events that I attended was the wake for a folk singer who had died in a very painful way in hospital, but he was one of the greatest men I ever knew, who I had the pleasure of performing with several times.

Wakes for musicians, though I have not attended any other than for this person I mentioned above, tend to be celebrations of life more than everything, an excuse for musician friends to get together and drink and sing in honour of the memory of the deceased, and the tears seem to be left at the funeral. There is a lot of love and friendship involved.

the wake for this person went on for hours and hours, and we never stopped singing or playing. When I die, I hope that someone will think to hold a wake like that, instead of the fake ones that I have attended for others.

on the other hand, I hate attending wakes for my family members, because I have to see the rest of my family, including my mother and grandmother, who attacked me at the last funeral I was at for crying too much.

I can't help it, I cry a lot in emotional situations like that, god, I cry at movies and while reading books or listening to songs.


and noone seems to be particularly honest at funerals. noone ever mentions that the person who died was a drug addict, or an alcoholic, or an idiot for not waring a helmet while motorcycling.
 
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I find funerals/memorials to be a necessary evil.
While I don't like the impersonality of them, I do like the idea of honoring the deceased and attempting to find closure.
When one of my best friends died I actually needed to go to his funeral. One, because I was having a hard time believing he was really dead, and because I desperately needed to be around people who knew him, his parents. And going really helped me. The funeral itself was some guy who barely knew him saying things that did not encompass who he was. But being able to be around people whose lives he had made better by being in them...that helped with the healing process. I'm still not healed from it. But I think if I hadn't gone, I would be far worse off.
And though I don't do well grieving in public, I do find it a comfort to be around others who are going through the same loss I am.

I do hate wakes though. There is nothing creepier and more pointless than standing in a room full of people and a stuffed dead body. It's worse when you are in the family because you have to stand there, for hours, and greet people as they come to fawn over your dead relative.
 
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I agree with you 100% BB.

The versions of funerals/memorial services I've attended my whole life are extremely difficult for me. The very idea everyone has to keep it under control and put on a show seems ludicrous. Lately, I've noticed a huge effort at 'dressing' up everything involved with the whole process. The flowers. What they put on the casket. What they put IN the casket. What kind of casket. What kind of music would the deceased have liked. Ironically this has a tendency to make people cry even more - and then of course they're not allowed to do so. Down here they'll give you tranquilizers to keep you "calm".
I don't get it at all.
The last funeral memorial service I attended was for a young man killed by his own excessive drinking. We know his father.:eek:hwell:
I didn't know the young man at all....but went to "express my condolences" as was expected. Everyone was walking around in shock trying to smile when they saw people.
I had to practice my breathing patterns to keep all of their emotional energy in the room from being locked up in me. While at the same time keeping a neutral look on my face.

imo - you're damned if you go and damned if you don't go. It's a social custom and one is expected to attend these functions.

When my favorite grandfather had his catastrophic stroke and wasn't expected to live much longer, everyone in the family gathered in the hospital and went in to see him one by one. Ostensibly to say goodbye and gain closure - or some bs like that. I refused to go and see him like that. I didn't need to see him lying there mostly dead with tubes and machines all around him to know he was dying. I certainly didn't need to see him that way to gain "closure" on his death. Whew....was I ever viewed as the black sheep. I didn't care. I loved my grandfather very much and we were close. They could do what they thought best for themselves. I was doing what I thought best for me. End of story. He died a day later. I don't remember going up to "view" him while he was in the casket either.
Till the day she died, my grandmother cried about him being gone almost every day. I remember hearing my mother say that she did not understand why "Granny" couldn't grieve and move on. Well duh. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that a person is not allowed to cry at the funeral (they drugged my grandmother so she could get through it). And then there is no other ceremony or rituals where a person is encouraged to cry with acceptance by others.

No. I'm convinced the Victorian Ethics and Standards of behavior suck! This "don't show or feel one's emotions" is what's driving people insane in this country.

Ok. Sorry about the rant BB.
I'm glad to see you're taking care of yourself.:hug:
 
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I do not think my going to a funeral is for myself.
 
You said it all, BB.

I hate funerals, I hate wakes, I hate the hymns they play that have no relevance when the person wasn't even religious. I hate when they try to make people look like they're only sleeping for an open casket service. I hate the lame things I feel obligated to say that are ultimately meaningless and repeated by everyone else. I hate being surrounded by grieving people I know I cannot comfort.

For most funerals I've attended, I fall into your #3 category. I've tried to imagine if my husband or one of my kids die before me and how I'd feel. I'd be in the #1, for sure. I honestly think I'd need to be sedated to even make an appearance. The idea of others trying to touch or comfort me makes me want to scream. If anyone tried to tell me that they're in a better place now, I'm not certain I could refrain from punching them in the face.

Oh my gods yes.
 
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I'm absolutely with BB (and thanks for the shout-out).

Sometimes convention won't let you skip the funeral, and in that case you weather through it as best you can. I don't like funerals and if I don't have to go I won't. But I'll go to support my friends and family through it. I do know that some will receive comfort by me being there, because I'll let them be "real" in the situation. I haven't attended funerals (or I've chosen not to attend funerals) where I've known the person and there was plenty of family/friend support around for the loved ones left behind. But I really don't like funerals - at all. They drain me as much as hospitals do.
 
I answered this originally without understanding what it was to really experience existential crisis inducing level loss. I had lost grandparents and that had been expected and I was upset and grieved but it didn't knock the ground out from underneath me. Losing a parent and especially in an unexpected tragic accident has been a completely different level of loss.

My brother and I just buried our dad last month. I have a totally new appreciation for the wake/funeral process.

It gave me a mission amid being a grieving wreck. I had to pull it together to get things done. Every little item I checked off my list felt like doing something for dad, honoring him in a way. It forced me outside of my own feelings or it forced me to do something meaningful and constructive with them. It set me on a path to closure. I'm not there yet, but it placed me on a path.

For the most part, I'm a private person and do not like to show much emotion. Especially vulnerability. But I couldn't help it at the end of the wake and I did start to cry. And my family surrounded and comforted me and I realized it was better to be with others than alone. It made it much more bearable to feel enveloped in love. Even though it was family I don't see often. I still felt their love and I accepted it. It helped strengthen me.
 
I didn't think I would have to imagine such concepts for a good decade or so. Unless one just goes by their day to day expecting an accident at any point, you feel like when such a prospect becomes a reality, you have a bit of a heads up beforehand. I'd been to a couple when I was younger... But I was younger. And they were by and large family I interacted with very little.

To an extent, I did hate the whole process. The calling, the talking, wallowing in grief and there not being an awful lot of opportunity for it to be private. But people underestimate how important it is to be around the people you love, and are connected to, when suffering a profound loss. If I hadn't had to go through both the process before the funeral and during, then I know I would not be anywhere near as sound of mind as I am now. Sure it was a bitch at the time, and I didn't look forward to being so publically emotional, but ultimately I think I would have regretted not doing what I did throughout it all. Sharing the pain with others. It forces you to adopt a healthier coping mechanism of sorts, instead of slowly self-destructing in private from what can still feel like suppressed emotion. Loss is something to be shared, be it with family or those who understand the breadth of loss. I am certain that if not for basically being forced to deal with it with family, I would have gone down a darker path, emotionally speaking.

Plus it also comes down to how these things are organised. With covid restrictions in place at the time, and how big the family is, the only 'non-blood' we could invite were very few, of whom were essentially extensions of the family through friendships, or people the family had grown up with. Would I have a completely different perspective if we had made it as big as others would have wanted, considering her popularity? Most likely, and I would have hated it. It all just comes down to who you choose to be with at the time.
 
Hugs @acd. <3


If I'd read acd's words yesterday I likely would not have skipped the memorial for our friend last night. His family wasn't there. It was a celebration for his friends at a dive bar. It would have been four hours commuting for us. Excluding the friend who passed and a few others, my SO doesn't feel close to that group and he honestly has good reasons.

My SO and I said to each other, "Who is this event for? Our friend (who passed) won't know we are there."

It seemed like there were at least 200 people at my mother's wake, maybe more. Maybe twice that, even. Lines of people down the street for hours and hours. I talked to people for hours. We had a break for lunch. All the people made me feel like she and my dad were loved and popular. My aunt cared for us, fed us, gave us clean towels daily, let us stay in her home. Her love enveloped us. For me, this was much more important than the crowds at the wake and funeral. This was real love, real tenderness. This is how I want to be there for others.

I don't know why we don't have "wakes" before people die so they understand how loved they are. Maybe we should have these celebrations on significant birthdays.
 
I don't know why we don't have "wakes" before people die so they understand how loved they are. Maybe we should have these celebrations on significant birthdays.

I love this idea