When someone dies, and especially if that is a young person, suddenly not having them in your life can be scary and deeply upsetting. This can be even more intense if their death was sudden and unexpected. There can be many overwhelming and surprising feelings to cope with and accept, including feelings that are hard to understand, whether you are a young person or an older one. Coming to terms with what has happened, to process your grief, and find a way to move forward has no rules; everyone finds their own path, as there is no right way or wrong way to grieve. But creating a safe, protected space, where you can think about how you are feeling, can help to process your grief, and gradually move forward.
Yet today, in our connected world of the internet and social media, protecting that space for remembering the person we lost is not so easy. We can be bombarded by too much information about them, uncomfortable questions and doubts, false information and even hate. We might learn something quite at odds with our memories of that person. Whilst hearing some information can be helpful, ensuring that unhelpful information or opinions do not intrude too much will help.
The death of anyone, particularly the death of a child, can trigger powerful feelings of anger, blame, bitterness, and even hate. A feeling of injustice can be intense. When there are questions as to how or why someone died, the uncertainty can be hard to bear. Some will go looking for answers, and may be influenced by conspiracy theories, as not knowing is harder to bear. Others, fuelled by wider feelings of injustice or personal grievance, may become cruel or attacking, and go trolling. But when someone expresses anger or hate, it is worth remembering that they could have been triggered in some way.
But whatever the reasons, keeping a safe space to process grief is important, and recognising that this may be more challenging in the digital age can allow us to put safeguards in place, to protect our right to grieve in peace.
Here are stem4’s tips to help young and old process loss in our connected world
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Memorial pages or sites
Creating a place where people can share positive memories or photographs can be comforting. But it is important that the page or site is protected from trolls or people who share overly negative views, or share unhelpful conspiracies about what has happened. The following advice may be helpful:
- Establish what settings you’ll be able to use to control who is able to leave comments on the page/site. Make sure you are familiar with any tools that help you moderate comments, or block users, in case you need to remove anything upsetting.
- Ensure that whoever acts as admin (page/site administrator) has set up suitable protections, such as a complex password of many characters, numbers and symbols, or, better, 2-stage verification, so it is very difficult to hijack that role.
- Establish clear rules on what posts are acceptable, and what are not acceptable. For example you might want to encourage positive memories, but moderate comments that involve any speculation about the death, or more negative comments. What you decide will very much depend upon the person who has died, and the reality of their life.
- If the person was old enough to have a social media account, check the Apps guidance on memorialising the account, and who might be able to act as admin. It is important to also check the privacy settings and avoid public settings.
- You may want to suggest to anyone who may be linked to the person who has died to review their privacy settings of any social media account, to protect themselves from unwanted contact and opinions from people they don’t know.
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Managing speculation and theories
Many deaths involve questions regarding what happened, or why some things occurred. This can be agonising if an investigation is taking place. Yet speculation doesn’t help and can lead to conspiracy theories that get shared, causing more confusion and distress, and can even get in the way of important investigations. The following tips may help you to minimise the impact of unhelpful speculation:
- Reassure everyone that there will be a proper and professional investigation, if that is what is occurring, and advise that it is better to support that than interfere with the work of experts.
- If questions arise, or speculation commences, remind people about the formal investigation, and ask them if they can try to keep any questions private until the investigation has concluded.
- Not all questions can be answered by an investigation, and it is helpful to ask that any gaps in our understanding of what happened are not filled by speculation.
- If speculations or conspiracy theories become more public, recommend that they are not shared, which could amplify their impact and possibly attract the wrong type of interest.
- Recognise during the process of investigation how hard the waiting is, when they long for closure and understanding. But supporting the formal investigation process will cause less distress in the end.
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Managing the Risk of Trolls
If you have given thought to privacy settings and have protected access to any pages or accounts, the risk of trolls will be reduced. Yet there is a particular type of online troll that is drawn to the spaces where people are grieving: RIP Trolls. As trolls may seek to provoke intense reactions in others, no matter what the situation, it can be very distressing to be exposed to their comments, but engaging with them may only increase the suffering. The following tips may give you some idea as to what can help, should trolls appear:
a) Starve the trolls
You may recognise there are times when someone is looking for an argument or fight, and it is best not to engage with them when they are in that mood; it is similar with trolls. Yet engaging with them only seems to lead to a spiral of ever more outrageous comments to keep you involved. If you can step back from that fight, this usually leads to the troll deciding to go elsewhere. It’s tough, but ignoring them can be very effective.
b) Keep a record
Trolls can go back and delete provocative comments, as some bullies might also do, and so whenever you see something offensive or upsetting, try to take a screenshot. If things get worse, it is good to have got as much evidence as possible for platform moderators or even the police.
c) Empower yourself
It doesn’t come easily to many to block or report someone, even when they are behaving inappropriately. But, sadly, kindness is not always enough, and it is a good idea to remind yourself how to block and report someone that you find concerning. It is good to check whether a particular App has any other support or guidance to help you manage a difficult situation in the App.
It is always important to call out inappropriate behaviour, because it is unlikely that it will be just happening to you.
d) Step back from social media
Finding the time and space in your life to process grief is hard enough, but the noise from social media, even if not connected to the person who has died, can be overwhelming. So, allow yourself a break from it all, so you can reconnect again with what is important to you.
e) Share with others you trust
When we grieve, it can be so overwhelming that forming a judgment about anything can be very complicated. So, make sure you connect with those around you if anything is troubling you; a partner, friends, family or colleagues can help you think better, and consider what response might be needed, if anything.
f) Don’t share if you are being targeted
It may be tempting to call out a troll, and make public what they are doing. But that might also draw the attention of other trolls. Ignoring, blocking and reporting them may be better than attracting the wrong type of attention.
For further advice from Clinical Psychologist Dr Nihara Krause on understanding grief and loss, and how to cope, read here.
