Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi there, does anyone have any experience or thoughts on supporting a loved on through death, dying and grief - which importantly isn't based in whimsical cliches?
I'm struggling at the moment and would appreciate some specific advice, perhaps in the form of your own experiences of something like this.
My situation is that my wife's father is very close to the end of his life, is in some form of pain and has a small amount of delusions/confusion as to his own situation. I expect that the perception of his quality of life is quite poor.
This is where I am - I don't care, despite seeing him every day for 18 years, I have no emotional bond to him, I have no sadness towards his imminent passing. However, I do fully understand my lack of emotional connection to this situation is a product of autism, and that I understand that to explain this lack of empathy, feeling and care to anyone who does feel they love him, would be distasteful or even downright rude. So I'm very much not going to be doing that.
I am a very big supporter of allowing Autistic people to be who they are without the pressure of neurotypicals making them follow the social "rules". However, I think perhaps on this occasion I may need to be completely hypocritical and start pretending like I'm neuroT saying things like "there, there - it'll all be better... he's gone to a better place" etc. Although I'm worried it will sound very fake and will do more harm than good.
Does anyone have any thoughts?
Listen to your wife and others who need to talk, you don't need to say much, just actively listen.
Another person you can listen too is your father in law, I think one of the worst things about dying is that so very few people will actually engage with the process and death is a process. The dying need honesty, they need to speak and be heard, they need to be able to speak thier fears and not have them fobbed off with platitudes, they need to be able to speak of their hopes too, not just for those left behind, but for what comes after death. We may not believe, they may not believe, but they might and they might have a variety of beliefs about what comes next, it's important to have these convesations.
Hi, I went through exactly the same situation when my wife’s father was near the end. I didn’t dislike the person but very often just don’t have any emotions.
I just had to mask and fake my concern, I gave hugs when needed, I’m surprised my wife didn’t notice as I never hug anyone. All you can do is support your wife and try to make all the right noises.
Its a conversation I’ve tried to have with my wife about my lack of emotions for people, it’s not easy without sounding cold or like a robot.
Yes, you're the second person to say listening and being quite was important to them. I think this sounds like something I can work with. Thank you very much for taking the effort to respond x
Everybody deals with grief differently, but I know that if someone has said to me after my dad had died that he had gone to a better place, etc, it would have wound me up and made me want to scream. However, I know that some people can find such platitudes comforting.
You have no emotional connection to your father-in-law, which is something that your wife is probably well aware of seeing as you have been married for 18 years. However, you do presumably have an emotional connection to your wife. I think the best thing you can do for your wife is just to listen, and to hug her for as long as she needs as and when she gets visibly upset. This is how my son comforted me during the days, weeks, and months that followed my dad's death.