Feeling no grief when someone dies?

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I am a Registered Nurse at a prison, and I absolutely LOVE my job--not only am I obsessed with anatomy & physiology, but my work environment is a perfect match for me, for whatever reason(s). What I am wondering is: what kind of feelings or emotions should I have when a patient (or anyone else, for that matter) dies?

While in nursing school, when someone on the unit to which we were assigned that day died, my fellow classmates would cry and "need a moment to collect" themselves while I thought nothing of it. I was not happy when someone died, but I was never moved to tears either. It was more like "OK, back to business." God only knows what my classmates thought of my seemingly cool demeanor.

I experience the same thing at work. It is inevitable that some inmates will die from various causes--suicides, illnesses, murder by other inmates, overdosing on hoarded meds, etc. While attending an emergency or death, I am able to stay very calm, methodical, and focused whether I am holding an inmate's skull together after he was thrown from the 2nd story walkway or performing CPR on an inmate who overdosed hoarded meds (I've done both of these and more).

Other people may think I have no feelings, but I think my ability to emotionally detach is a huge advantage in the medical field because I can approach each situation/emergency clearly and objectively while not clouding my mind with emotional static.

Even when my dad died 25 years ago, and when my grandparents died within the past couple of years, I was not overcome with grief nor did I cry. But SHOULD I have? What do you think other people think of me when I'm the only one at the wake or a medical emergency who is not crying or visibly upset? Do you suppose they think I don't care?

Please know that I love my husband and kids more than I could ever express, and I'm sure I would grieve if I were to lose them, but I just don't feel like this for anyone else. Is anyone else here like this as well? Thank you...

No, you shouldn't force yourself to cry. It doesn't mean you don't care or love your family.
At a wake they may think that you don't care, but you shouldn't worry too much what others think.
In a medical emergency they may admire you for being able to stay calm and focused.

I'm sure not everyone cries with grief, of course you still miss your deceased loved ones. But having Asperger's/Autism does mean you react differently to these things I guess, some people can be not very emotional at all.

When someone like a patient you don't know dies, it's normal not to feel grief because you don't have an emotional attachment to them.
However it is normal to feel grief when a loved one/family member dies.
I didn't cry when my nanna died when I was 12, I didn't feel anything, but the grief did hit me later.

Maybe you are just very strong and resilient and you see people pass on a lot so you may have accepted death as a natural process more than most of us do.

A psychologist or therapist would be able to find out exactly why you don't feel grief.

There is no right or wrong. They're judgements people decide on how others should act in these situations. If that's the way you are, then that's the way you are and you should never feel guilty or the need to explain yourself to others.
If you had happy thoughts about people dying, then I might be inclined to think you were deeply disturbed and in need of help but people react differently to emotional situations and as I said, there is no right or wrong.

I find I tend to react to bad news by smiling. Completely inappropriate reaction according to popular belief but it's just the way I cope with hearing bad news. I have known others who also do this. It's a coping mechanism. Don't worry about it!

As I said, we're all different and there is no right or wrong. Don't beat yourself up over it.

Death is one of the only certain things going to happen to someone who lives, eventually. I have to say I think I would only feel any grief if it was someone close to me such as family or a partner. Death is such a natural feature of life that I don't have much of a negative view of it. I don't see that anyone who would have a significant level of grief should be in a job where they are likely to see people die on a daily basis.

It was even commented on in my Childrens Society assessment that I had shown no emotion when my Grandmother had died, she was my primary caregiver at that stage, I was 3 or 4.
Like wise when my Grandfather died when I was 5, I recall thinking I should be crying or something as he was the only person I ever felt an attachment too, but once again nothing.

I was very distraught however when one of my Lovebirds died a few years back.

There are some situations where it is advisable to fake distress when you don't feel it. A number of parents of children who have been abducted or killed have gotten in a lot of trouble because they did not weep enough on TV.

Because most of us are indoctrinated by TV actors who have an incentive to portray over-emotionalization, we have a monolithic expectation of how we and others should react to things. Consider every murder mystery you have ever seen. Can you remember a time when the person who discovers the body does not scream?

If you are concerned about how others view your reactions, you can make an effort to take advantage of a situation to make a comment such as, "It too bad about Mr. xxx, he was really nice". This way you communicate verbally what others may feel you don't communicate non-verbally. They then may ascribe to you a label such as "silent sufferer" and you would fit better in their view of the world.

When I was in the Army I knew a guy who was in the Green Berets. He wasn't very bright and he told me that when he was in Viet Nam he had the job of putting body parts together for shipment back the US. It was important that parts match up. I told him I didn't think I could work in an environment like that (high heat and rotting corpses). I have always remembers his comment, "In two weeks you can get used to anything".

I once worked on a crisis hotline and found that hospital emergency room nurses and police can have great sense of humor that they try to hide from people who would expect them to be more somber.

People will have expectations of you. You cannot alter yourself so that you always behave like others expect or prefer. However, you can act occasionally in such a way as to reassure others and reduce their concerns.

I don't feel grief as much as regret if it's a person who could have taught me something. When my father dies I'm sure I'll be upset that he's no longer going to be there to talk about politics, hunting, or fishing. I also know that it's a part of life and will not be overly upset, however. I'm merely trying to obtain all knowledge I can from him and when I have kids I will make sure to not make the same mistakes that he did and I will do what I can to pass on my legacy to my child.

My mother has a lot less to offer in terms of information to me. I would like to have her teach me a little bit more about cooking and sewing, but these are things that I already know how to do and there's not too much more that can be done besides certain tips and tricks.

One of my good friends from high school blew his head off with a shotgun a year after graduating and it was an inconvenience to go to his viewing and funeral to me. It felt like a waste of time but he was also my fiancee's cousin so I was obligated to go. I ended up taking a day off of one of my classes (it was stupid anyways) to play video games. I wasn't upset but used this as an excuse and it was excused because of grief.

I grieve, but I tend to do it at my own speed and have delayed reactions to deaths. I think that a big part of this is because it's been rare that I've gone to funerals, which means that I haven't really gotten a strong sense of closure and it's taken a while for the losses to seem real. Even in the case of my father, we never had a funeral because my brother and I were not successful in obtaining his ashes. (Long story). But, it could be somehow tied into my AS, too. I'm not really sure.

Yes, when they are the murder or the accomplice!



Hollywood has a lot to answer for..

So about unknown peope I dont automatically grieve. So sure I feel pitty if a coworker tells me, that his mother died and tell him so, but its not really aiming at my heart.

I didnt as well grieve much at my grandaunts funeral. I liked her really much and was much in contact with ther, as long as it wasnt medical necessary to go into a care center. (When she broke her leg.) Still when I got the call of her finally having died, I didnt feel overwhelmed or whatever. She broke some years before her hip as well, when doing a walk in the park, and then was totally enabled to move around, because even sitting in a wheel chair hurted her much and the bone didnt heal that much anymore. So she didnt go on vacations anymore, and when we visited she just wanted/could sit in her room, watching TV. She had minor problems of "Alzheimer/weirdness/...?" before (like neighbors calling in the middle of the night, that she is out in her thin night-cloves end of autumn and doing gardenworks. But it was only rarely as long as she could have an active life. While after breaking her leg, and her rarely leaving her room anymore, her mind went away in two years. In the end, she didnt recognize us when visiting her, she didnt know where she was or why, her hip that never really healed, hurted her....she got thinner and thinner. Until she died with over 92 years. I really liked her, but I think the cause why I didnt grieve, was that I already felt like saying goodbye to her, much, much earlier, when her mind faded. So her body was still there, but you knew that the memory and mind of the person you knew was going away, and so you already had to say goodbye much earlier.

While when an relative of mine died out of a sudden with around 60 years, I was pretty shocked and cried as well a lot. While for my grandaunt, you already knew months before that the moment will be coming, for that relatives it was like a lighning striking. It seemed so weird for me, to people that I expected to be alive the day before, suddenly being dead.

I had to create an account because of the original post on this thread. I, too, am a nurse at a prison and there is nothing that shocks me because it honestly has no emotional effect on me. I think my flat affect makes being a prison nurse the perfect job for me. I was a paramedic for years before this and like you, was able to easily detach any emotions that "normal" people might have.

You are definitely not alone because when I read your post it was like I was the one who had written it! I think it just makes us good at what we do, and I also think that we catch a lot of things that others miss.

In my case, I don't grieve the death itself. In some cases I'm actually glad for it, because it's a deliverance from a lot of pain. But death is final and irreversible, and so it seemed to me needless to mourn that which cannot be changed.

Where I mourn is the change. I am saddened by what the impact will be on others. Honestly, what terrifies me most about losing a parent, is what impact that will have on my other parent, or sibling, or family. I mourn for the great loss that the death creates.

double post

Last edited by Codyrules37 on 29 Oct 2013, 10:42 am, edited 1 time in total.

emotions are humans greatest weakness but also their greatest strengths.

I'm exactly like you, and I have to control myself to not get annoyed cause others aren't like me. I just stay quietly in the corner hoping it will end soon and everyone can go back to their normal lives. I refused to go to my grandfathers funeral so that family would not judge me.

In your case because of your work it's perfectly acceptable to not grieve copiously, it's sth you're used to seeing every single day.