Discussion I'm afraid of myself.

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I am not exactly good with conections or emotions. But my grandmother died this year and my other grandmother become a frequent visit to hospitals. I close down I dont talk to my friends in months ....
That is not very good .....
So try to talk at least talk to your friends if you fell like you cant/shouldnt talk to your family everyone has a death or sick person that they are close.....
They should understand. ...
It may help......
To talk.

 

Well, a lot has said their piece and I might be repeating their answer. But, here goes.

I think you have a different way of expressing said feeling. I didn't said sadness or anything since I don't know how you actually feel about it. Sad? Surprised? Worried? Only you know. Or maybe you don't even know. From your post, I can see that you at least tried to think about it deeply. And the fact that you made this thread is evidence of that. No, you are not emotionless or heartless. At least I can say that. Or at least that's what I could pick from your post. Who knows?

The other thing that might contribute to that is, just like other have already mentioned, is how close you are to him. Do you see him everyday? Once a week? Once a month? Once a year? Or....maybe only once every few years? No, you don't have to answer that. But that does make a very important factor to 'study' your emotion. For example, when my uncle passed away, I was saddened, but not much. That is because I see him only once in a few months. But when my father died, it hit me hard. And I don't cry much. For me, it comes in shape of how I can't activate normally. I became airheaded most of the time and couldn't study well. That is because I see him every single day of my life. See the difference?

And also see the difference in reaction? I mean, I cried, but not much. It just as if I know crying wouldn't help me much. But at the same time, my unclear mind disrupt my daily routine. Take @yuzuki 's story for another example. Different people, different reaction. Don't mind it. But, yes, talking with someone will help. I did talk a lot with my brother at that time and it does help. A lot.

Once again, don't feel bad or anything. Don't feel that you are emotionally dead or anything. This thread is the strongest evidence that you are not. You are bothered by that and that is your reaction. I hope this small rambling of mine could help you a bit. Good luck and take care.

 

Me and my cousin were laughing when my grandpa was dealing with an agonizing pain.. oh the stare that my grandmother give to us... well grandpa condition got worst that he was eventually comatosed.. I feel like a horrible person remembering it now..

 

tbh thats how it hits you. I had a friend who was hit by a car and went into a coma, where he eventually died. At first its just shock, just hearing about it, not really seeing it for yourself is a huge difference. When you see your grandfather, as he is like prepped for surgery it may hit you. Personally it didn't really hit me hard untill i saw him lying on the hospital bed, and i would theorize that you would have a similar experience.
I too am fairly socially awkward, and was very close to him, but really its just being in the moment you kind of shut down and focus to maximum efficiancy.
Hell here i am 6 months later and i cried about it for the 2nd time since he got hit. It comes and goes man.

 

For me due to seeing all the messed up stuff happening around the world I feel like I'm desensitised to death and grief I mean why waste your time feeling sadness and greif all the time when it just won't stop?

 

I did spend a good chunk of my childhood with my Grandparents but ultimately had to relieve my teenage years away from them and occasionally meet at gatherings and that times is easily counted by my fingers.
I found my reaction to be a bit too apathetic overall but it might be because, as you guys have said that there's a lot of time frames in which I'm away from them. Maybe it'll change if I do in fact meet them in person and the news hadn't really sink in.

 

In retrospective, I'm really grateful for making this topic and enjoyed reading the replies.It made a new perspective to my inside dilemma and planning on contemplating about it.
Unfortunately, I want to reply to everyone but I don't think its necessary to give almost the same response to everyone. I'm not that good at holding conversation and can only be straight to the point, so I'll just give a like but I hope you understand.
I do plan on calling my grandparents over the weekends, Anyway a big thanks for the people who seriously helped out in resolving this personal matter.

 

Good luck friend. May your feeling reached them. I know it is hard, but still hope for the best.

 

Same here, I can't give advice because I struggle with the same questions.
Another big problem I have is that I can't actually remember a lot of people well, so when I hear that they have died, I'm not sure what to feel. It makes the feeling even more complicated.

Spoiler: very off-topic

(I started typing an answer and I ended up talking about something completely different. It's mostly me complaining.)

Spoiler

My mind tends to selectively wipe memories of certain people out after awhile. When I was a child, my aunt had a baby that had a lot of health problems, and eventually died. I lived with them for a few years, but I moved away for two years, and then I couldn't remember that they even existed, along with all the other people I knew from that city, including other family members and friends. I've always had to pretend to remember people. The thing that gave me the most complicated feelings, was when I moved back to that city, and had to pretend that I loved and had missed a bunch of people I couldn't even remember.
It was either pretend, or watch them make hurt faces.
Another hard thing is when I meet someone I don't recognize and they say to me:
"Wow, it's been so long! How have you been!"
me: "Oh, I'm doing good, how are you?" and try to get clues as to who this person is before they realize I remember nothing. Alot of those conversations end like "Well, gotta go, it was nice seeing you!" without me ever remembering who it was.
The really bad ones end like "Oh, don't you remember me? I'm xyz who was your classmate/fellow-club-member/teacher/aunt/uncle/cousin/friend/co-worker/etc." and then I try really hard to remember, and come up with nothing, and people feel hurt by it.
I cared about these people when I knew them, but then I forgot, and people automatically assume that I never cared if I forgot.
(I'm able to remember a few, so I know it's not that I didn't care, because once I remember, I remember caring plenty)
The worst thing is that I can't tell people it is memory problems, because it is selective and they don't/won't believe me. After all, I can remember books I read many years ago, music I listened to, etc, but I can't remember some/many of the people I knew.
I've tried researching about this a bit, but I couldn't find anything besides 'face-blindness' which is something different.

 

You shouldn't feel guilty about not feeling sad about stuff. You should do your best to stay happy, and work to improve your life and help the people around you. Not being overcome with grief is a good thing. It's kind of dumb to envy being sad. no offense. It can mess with your life.

On a separate note I know that when people reach a certain level of personal grief and hardship it can be hard to find the mental energy to feel sadness and empathy for other people, just because you are so focused on your own problems and what you have to bear.

Also sometimes the first response to something sad happening to you or a family member near you is numbness/not feeling anything. This happened a number of times to me and the sadness kicks in later. Like my first exgirlfriend, it really hit me when I started to go to the places she and I always spent time together how much I missed her, whereas before her leaving just gave me a numb/empty feeling. And then it was like I couldn't get away from the memories we'd made together. Or a somewhat adopted grandma of mine, when I saw her dead body at her funeral and remembered when we were having dinner together just a couple months before and that we wouldn't get to see each other again and her life was over, that was when I started tearing up and really feeling it. Before that I just thought it was very unfortunate and felt numb regarding it.