Ugh

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Figured I'd post this here, since why the heck not. My mother found out just recently (and hour or two ago) that her brother has terminal pancreatic cancer. He's expected to be dead before Christmas, and my mother was visibly upset. I'm seriously angry and upset with myself right now. Not so much because I don't feel anything after hearing the news (I honestly don't care for my uncle) but because my mother was clearly upset and I came across as an insensitive jerk. I'm rambling here, but my point is I'm really upset that I couldn't bring myself to care and offer my condolences when she clearly could have used it. I'm suffering from massive mood swings and a generally darkened mood as of late, but this is just the most recent thing to depress me.

Don't beat yourself up over it. When you chill out a little bit, call her back and tell her that you feel like you weren't there for her and apologize. Tell her that you want to be there for her, but you are really moody right now and you didn't mean to come across the way you did. Tell her you are so sorry that she is going through this and ask her if there is anything you can do for her.

Also, a nice gesture would be to either make dinner for her tonight or get takeout for her so she doesn't have to deal with worrying about cooking.

Telling her that you didn't mean to come across the way you did will make it better. Don't feel bad that you don't feel anything. It's not mandatory.

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I'm giving it another shot. We will see.
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It's not so much that I want to be there for her, but I feel like I should be and I'm unable to do so. I'm more upset with myself for being unable to feel anything when I should feel something than I am for upsetting her, although I'm not overly thrilled with that either since I had absolutely no right to be such a jerk. It's upsetting that I can't feel anything in a situation like that when I should be grateful and sympathetic towards her after the help she's provided me with in my lifetime.

You don't have to actually feel the emotion to do the right thing. You weren't close to your uncle so it's not a big deal to you. You know you should be nice to your mom right now and you know you weren't so you think you should feel bad. You don't have to actually feel something in every situation, so don't worry about that. Most of the time when I feel something like that it's pretty intense, and while I might say I feel bad for someone, that doesn't mean that I actually feel anything about it. It's really just a saying. It means that if I could do something to help, I would. I'm sure if it was your mother that was diagnosed you would feel something.

_________________
I'm giving it another shot. We will see.
My forum is still there and everyone is welcome to come join as well. There is a private women only subforum there if anyone is interested. Also, there is no CAPTCHA.

The link to the forum is http://www.rightplanet.proboards.com

You could say just that in a text: "I feel like I should be there for you, after all you've done for me, but I just don't know the right thing to say"

My family lost a pet the other day and they were obviously emotional about it, I was affected too but handled it much differently. I recognized that I might have appeared not to care so I sent them texts and that did help