Discussion I'm afraid of myself.

I'm afraid that I'm too cold as a person.
Yesterday, My aunt called me to inform me that my grandfather is having a surgery that'll highly likely lose his voice in the process and I could hear the sadness in my aunt's voice yet it didn't provoke grief in me but more so shock and surprise that instantly died down in five minutes.
Its pathetic that I'm more focused on making a thesis than this matter...
My parents is extremely worried about this case. I want to offer my support and personally call my grandparents but I don't know what to say as this is the first time something like this happened to a relative and I'm socially awkward, I don't want to sound like I'm uncaring or insensitive when I do call them.
I'm afraid that in the future when my parents do indeed get sick it might not even cause me the slightest bit of emotional distress. I'm afraid that I can't share the grief with my relatives.

Well the reason I'm posting this on NU is because I don't have anyone to talk about this, I don't think I should discuss this with any of my relatives and I never opened up a topic like these with my very few friends so I could just make a topic about this on NU with strangers using internet anonymity.

*Edit I'll be going to college so there won't be replies for now.

 

Im the same

 

question: are you close to your granfather?
if no, then it's normal
if yes, then you should visit a psychologist....

 

well, when my stepdad, who i view as true father was diagnosed with cancer, and later died two months later, i felt sad, but not nearly as much as anyone else in my family personally. I believe i've just come to accept that people will die/horrible things will happen, and to not lose myself in things that won't change things.

 

just tell them you're still processing the fact he's dead.

 

You have just discovered the limits of your personal monkeysphere or slightly less facetiously an example of the dunbars number

Essentially every human has a finite capacity for identifying things as not things

It's an example of the cognitive limits of the human brain

I'm guessing that the individual in question here is not someone you interact with on a daily basis or at all in some cases

It is unfortunate for humans that in order for other humans to achieve the status of personhood you have to interact with them on some level

Sorry about the poor punctuation I'm doing this with voice on my phone

 

Dude you need to go to Psychiatrist !!!

 

There are a few reasons that this could've happened:
1. You're brain/you are just unable to accept this fact(not very likely tho)
2. You're not that close to your grandpa, who knows
3. In your heart, you believe that your grandpa losing his voice isn't that big of a deal, after all, it's not a surgery with life risks
4. You are just naturally a cold and unfeeling person. (How the f*** would I know, it's not like I stalk you)

If none of the above, you should probably go see a psychiatrist.
- from, a half drunk med student because I decided to celebrate exams ending

Edit: 5. Maybe you're too stressed about your thesis to fully process the extent of what's happening.

 

It may be that it hasn't truly hit you yet. Or that you are subconsciously building up your bad emotions.

 

Are you... Me?

 

I am surprised I found my kind here

 

I think im dead inside so death doesnt affect me all to much.

 

I'm the same even to those close to me i feel more indebted to my family than actual love, not that i would say it because it makes me feel guilty.

 

I'm the same way, I don't feel this is something unusual. How close are you with your grandfather? I imagine you would feel different if it was your parents who were undergoing the surgery and not a grandparent. It makes sense that your aunt would be distraught over her father undergoing a life altering procedure.

Not to be sexist about things, but women(no not all women) are also much more emotionally invested in things than men(no not all men) are. I think men tend to have a natural predisposition towards not showing emotion, or trying to shut down bad emotions. The whole 'boys don't cry' saying is pretty ingrained in our culture and it does play a part in who we are as we grow up. I mean, my mom cried when we had some trees removed from our front yard.. so, I can imagine how shook up she would be if a close family member was having health problems.

 

You're not cold, you're just awkward. That's it. The very simplest of solutions is to just try your hardest to convey your feelings of care towards them.

 

I think I've heard many people describe similar experiences as yours before. It's not as uncommon as you think, and many people react to and experience grief differently. Some people cry more easily than others, and some people can't cry even if they want to. Not everybody is what they expect it to be.

For instance, when my grandfather died (he was the first death in the family I ever experienced), I was really surprised by my own reaction. I didn't cry and I didn't act upset in the same way my mom/uncle did, which was strange to me because I've definitely cried with much more trivial things, but I didn't cry when my grandfather died. And he lived with us too.

That isn't to say that I wasn't impacted at all though. I just happened to react in a different way to death than I expected I would -- mostly I didn't sleep well that night and I played piano for hours and hours and hours to distract myself... and I didn't want to talk to anyone. Which, if I think back retrospectively, was how I ended up reacting to his death.

I think the fact that you are worried about your lack of expressivity already shows that you were impacted, and in fact you probably do care. There is a limit to the vocabulary that we can express our feelings with, and if you don't know how to express it, you may not necessarily express it in the same way most other people do, and that's okay.

 

Continuing on previous things mentioned different cultures also react to death differently based on religion, exposure, etc. and this can also be explored on a person to person level as well to some degree look at what you've think about in life and what you have seen or even read about. More or less you have probably seen or read or even imagined such a scenario before softening the blow for you as I'm sure anyone who has take a psychology class can tell you repeated stimuli provoke less of a response with increased frequency.
So in conclusion there is a myriad of things you can say about it, but most likely your not the horrible monster you're imagining.

 

Do like every other people and pretend to be sad.
But more seriously, if you were a monster you would not post it here.
You care for your grandfather, it is just that the fact that he could die don't come to you and he is still not death, he could become better because of the surgery.
You are an optimist person.

 

Think positive, after he loses his voice he can't complain about it :^)

 

He's not dead, though