Floating around my FB *trigger*

[gpw]

I'm not sure what to call this trigger.  Pic of dead person?  

Anyway....what do you all think of this?  It's shown up on my FB a couple times and I am just so....put off?  I don't know.  It creeps me out.  




"I'm sure this photo makes a lot of people uncomfortable it may even piss a few people off but the main reason I took it was to show the reality of addiction. If you don't choose recovery every single day this will be your only way out. No parent should have to bury their child and no child as young as ours should have to bury their parent. This was preventable it didn't have to happen but one wrong choice destroyed his family. I know a lot of people may be upset I'm putting it out in the open like This but hiding the facts is only going to keep this epidemic going. The cold hard truth is heroin kills. You may think it will never happen to you but guess what that's what Mike thought too. We were together 11 years. I was there before it all started. I knew what he wanted out of this life, all his hopes and dreams. He never would've imagined his life would turn out this way. He was once so happy and full of life. He was a great son, brother, friend but most importantly he was a great dad. He loved those kids more than anything. But as we all know sometimes life gets tough and we make some wrong choices. His addiction started off with pain pills then inevitably heroin. He loved us all so much he decided enough was enough and went to rehab at the end of last year. He got out right before Christmas as a brand new man. He had found His purpose for living again, he found his gorgeous smile again, he became the man, the son, the brother, the dad that we all needed him to be again. He did so good for so long but then a couple months ago It started with a single pill for a "tooth ache" which inevitably lead him back down the road of addiction instead of staying the coarse of recovery. He said he could handle it, that he could stop on his own and didn't need to get help again. Well he was wrong, last Wednesday he took his last breath. My kids father, the man I loved since I was a kid, a great son and a great person lost his battle. I just needed to share his story in case it can help anyone else."

[ttt]

I guess I don't understand how that's supposed to help anyone?

[josieposy]

I'm not sure we can even assume it's real. I mean I guess it could be, but anymore I tend to believe about 25% of the stuff I see on FB.

[gpw]

Sept 13, 2015 17:52:25 GMT -5 josieposy said:

I'm not sure we can even assume it's real. I mean I guess it could be, but anymore I tend to believe about 25% of the stuff I see on FB.

I think for me, it's the taking of a "family" (?) pic with a person in a coffin.  Blech.  

Unless you mean that the guy may not be dead, which...yeah, I suppose you could be right. 

[ttt]

Also the smiling kids next to their dead (?) dad are really creeping me out.

[mcmel]

Them smiling so much is beyond strange for a message like this.

[ttt]

It seem to be real

www.fox29.com/trending/19526199-story

[rugbywife]

The picture itself is one thing. The smiling is like a whole other level of fucked up.

[twohearted]

I was very taken aback by the smiling faces.

[ringstrue]

I haven't been to a funeral like this, but the ones I have been too- it's just so damn habitual to smile in photos. It feels weird but then again it feels weird not to? It is a really weird image. Then again I don't think I've ever seen a photo of a situation like this.

I think it's wrong to post someone else's pic. If the mother wanted to, and get on her soap box- no prob.

[Deleted]

Hmm, I'm kind of de-conditioned around dead bodies so that part doesn't really creep me out.

Also, in regards to the smiling...I was at a memorial service recently for someone who unexpectedly passed and there was a lot of smiling and laughter. It does seem that she might be taking advantage of her kids (not sure if that's the right term) to get her message across by having them pose for this photo.

Addiction is very powerful that I try not to judge how family's deal with it because I know it's something that affects everyone, not just the addict. Maybe she will use this to get more involved in helping those with addictions and not just for 5 minutes of fame on facebook. 

[josieposy]

Wow. I mean people grieve in different ways, but this would not be my way to do it.

[gardengal]

My first thought was "that's weird" but...it's not my place to judge how someone is choosing to grieve. I don't really get her post, but if it helps her give her husband's death meaning & purpose for her, good.

[ttt]

Sept 13, 2015 18:49:58 GMT -5 gardengal said:

My first thought was "that's weird" but...it's not my place to judge how someone is choosing to grieve. I don't really get her post, but if it helps her give her husband's death meaning & purpose for her, good.

I think it's crappy to essentially take that choice away from her kids though. They're going to always have this very public picture of them smiling next to their dead father out there.

[gardengal]

Sept 13, 2015 18:51:40 GMT -5 ttt said:

Sept 13, 2015 18:49:58 GMT -5 gardengal said:

My first thought was "that's weird" but...it's not my place to judge how someone is choosing to grieve. I don't really get her post, but if it helps her give her husband's death meaning & purpose for her, good.

I think it's crappy to essentially take that choice away from her kids though. They're going to always have this very public picture of them smiling next to their dead father out there.

That's a good point.

[IIOY]

I once attended an open casket viewing for a friend who had two children about the age that the kids in that photo appear to be. The mom was trying so hard to smile and be friendly, and she clearly was still in shock; her children ran around oblivious.

The moment that stood out to me was when the older child approached her father's body and started saying, "Daddy? Daddy?" She clearly didn't quite have her head wrapped around what was going on.

[twohearted]

Sept 13, 2015 19:09:45 GMT -5 IIOY said:

I once attended an open casket viewing for a friend who had two children about the age that the kids in that photo appear to be. The mom was trying so hard to smile and be friendly, and she clearly was still in shock; her children ran around oblivious.

The moment that stood out to me was when the older child approached her father's body and started saying, "Daddy? Daddy?" She clearly didn't quite have her head wrapped around what was going on.

The kids I can understand. The mom looks happy too though which is weirdest to me.

[frlcb]

It is one thing to be smiling and laughing at a memorial, where you share happy memories and funny stories and hope to bring a little love and happiness to a grieving family. It's entirely another to pose your children in front of their dead father, who has had a history of drug abuse, and tell them to say cheese and smile. It's crappy for those poor kids.

[bears]

Sept 13, 2015 19:14:01 GMT -5 twohearted said:

Sept 13, 2015 19:09:45 GMT -5 IIOY said:

I once attended an open casket viewing for a friend who had two children about the age that the kids in that photo appear to be. The mom was trying so hard to smile and be friendly, and she clearly was still in shock; her children ran around oblivious.

The moment that stood out to me was when the older child approached her father's body and started saying, "Daddy? Daddy?" She clearly didn't quite have her head wrapped around what was going on.

The kids I can understand. The mom looks happy too though which is weirdest to me.

It looks very forced to me.

[IIOY]

Sept 13, 2015 19:16:40 GMT -5 bears said:

Sept 13, 2015 19:14:01 GMT -5 twohearted said:

The kids I can understand. The mom looks happy too though which is weirdest to me.

It looks very forced to me.

I agree. She doesn't look genuinely happy. I have no idea what's actually going through her mind but I truly feel for her. I can agree that the posed photo is not at all something I would choose to do while thinking about it with the benefit of a clear mind.

[lexus]

It's her last chance to have a family picture. Who knows when they last had one taken, especially if he had relapsed. Maybe he wasn't involved in their lives much anymore.

[StrawberryBlondie]

I don't like that they're all smiling. That's just odd.

[ttt]

Sept 13, 2015 19:26:39 GMT -5 gravytrain225 said:

It's weird, but I don't judge the mom for it. She just lost her son. She is having crazy thoughts and wants to try anyrhyand everything to help that some other mother doesn't lose her child the same way.

It wasn't her child, it was her children's father.

[bears]

Sept 13, 2015 19:35:42 GMT -5 lexus said:

It's her last chance to have a family picture. Who knows when they last had one taken, especially if he had relapsed. Maybe he wasn't involved in their lives much anymore.

That's what I was thinking.  


I have seen this sort of attitude from the older generation--my grandma kept on telling everyone to see my grandfather's open casket because he had been sick and looking terrible for so long.  She had my aunt take about 30 pictures and she saved them.  I don't think she had taken any pictures of him in years because he had looked so terrible.

[litebright]

I see the creepy factor, but she says right upfront that she expects that this will make people uncomfortable. The smiling, I can see as reflex and/or coming from a place of not really comprehending, as far as the kids are concerned. And maybe she's trying to keep it together. Or maybe she thinks of it as a family pic that they *should* have had, had he been alive, and instead of being there alive and smiling with them, he's dead and that's the reality that she and her kids face for the rest of their lives, and this is their last family picture and it represents what drug addiction stole from them. Grief drives people to strange things.

The post/picture being public? I read it as someone very fresh in grief and very angry at the loss of someone she loved to a drug addiction, and putting that anger out there in a very public way, and that makes me more sad for her than weirded out. Anger is a part of grief and she may regret putting it out there someday, because it's not something you can take back -- or she may feel that it's a very honest and blunt take on the consequences of addiction and stick by it. Unfortunately, I doubt that someone in the throes of addiction is going to be much impacted by that picture/story, or even if they are, that that is enough to put someone on the right path. If only it was that easy.

But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there's a father or mother or son or daughter out there who will look at/read this and be able to tell how much pain she's in, and feel a connection that prompts them to get help or try to get help for a loved one. Maybe that's terribly naive and her 'drugs are bad' is overly simplistic. But I also think when someone you love dies a death that you see as preventable, there's a very strong urge to do something, anything that might make sure that no one else has to go through the kind of pain you're experiencing, and that's the kind of desperation and grief I see behind this.

[vlagrl]

It's weird to me and sad at the same time. My first H was addicted to cocaine and he passed away not too long after I left him and went back to live with my parents. we were actually going thru the divorce process but he passed away 3 weeks shy of the official court date. It's always an akward story for me to tell if someone asks me why he passed. Sometimes I don't say much and other times I say more, but I always want people to know that's not who he was - he wasn't what you imagine an addict to look/be like.

[pixy0stix]

People do weird things while they're grieving. She probably didn't want to think that he lost his life for nothing, so she shared the picture.

[decemberwedding07]

I can't believe anyone thinks this is how addiction works. That addicts just need to "wake up." They're addicts. Many know that they might die. They do drugs anyway... Because they're addicts.

[decemberwedding07]

I can't believe anyone thinks this is how addiction works. That addicts just need to "wake up." They're addicts. Many know that they might die. They do drugs anyway... Because they're addicts.

[laurenpetro]

i'm not bothered by showing a dead person in a casket. i'm more skeeved out by the cheer in the faces of the family posing with him.