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The original was posted on /r/bestofredditorupdates by /u/EllieDai on 2023-07-28 08:05:31.
Reminder: I am not the OOP. OOP u/Puppy_Cat_Boots.
Trigger warnings: Death of a loved one, dark humor, coping/grieving
Mood Spoilers: It all works out in the end
WIBTAH for kicking my son out for making “dark humor” TikToks about our daughters death? , posted on Friday, July 21st, to r/AITAH
My daughter (16F) died 7 months ago in a car accident. The other driver was speeding and weaving in and out of traffic like a maniac on the highway, ultimately hitting my babygirl. The driver died on impact, but she died 6 hours later in the hospital due to her injuries.
My wife and I attend individual therapy, as well as marriage counseling. It’s been extremely hard for both of us, but we have made considerable progress given the circumstances.
We begged our son to get therapy and go to family counseling with us, but he refused. He’s 19 and in college so we can’t force him to go. Our therapist gave us a list of warning signs to look out for, and he seemed to be coping well with the loss. We decided to let him grieve in his own way.
The issue is my wife discovered a video my son made that went viral on TikTok. It was reposted by another account. It was a dark humor video. “Before and after getting my drivers license” which was her school picture and then a picture of her gravestone/totaled car. The 3000+ comments were extremely fucked up and had similar “jokes”. We found his account which had more than one video like this. “Us then vs now” which had a baby photo of them and then cut to a selfie of him next to her hospital bed before she died. There were in total 5 different posts similar to this. Each similarly more disgusting.
My wife was inconsolable. She had a severe mental breakdown. I had to take her to the ER so she can be sedated and given fluids due to her vomiting and hyperventilating.
I confronted my son, who defended himself saying he uses these videos to “cope” with her death. That “dark humor” is the way he grieves. I could barley look at him. I told him to pack his things and stay with his grandparents. He was angry and said we both need to “move the fuck on” and stop taking our grieve out on him.
It’s been 2 weeks and my wife doesn’t want to be anywhere near my son anytime soon. I can’t say I disagree. It’s been about giant 10 steps back for both our grieving process.
Our son gone was supposed to be temporary, but my wife and I think it’s time for him move into an off-campus student apartment to give us all some space and establish boundaries. We haven’t told him this yet, but plan to when he returns home next week.
While he was away he did apologize in a text to both my wife and I. However he still insists it wasn’t wrong for him to post those videos publicly for millions of people to see. He believes we are being too dramatic and taking it too personal. It took me threatening to disown him before he took down the videos.
A few of my friends thinks we are going too far by essentially abandoning him and kicking him out of our home. They said to keep in mind he’s still a stupid kid, and he’s digging in his heels because he wants attention.
We’ll be paying for his rent, but he will have to cover the other costs himself (food, gas) since that’s the most we can afford right now. He will have to get a part-time job while going to class.
We still love our son but neither of us can handle this right now for the sake of our marriage and mental health. Honestly I think I need to put my wife first here, and if that means he needs to leave then I’ll do that for her. Plus he’s 19 (turning 20 soon), so it’s not like he’s a child…
WIBTAH?
Comments that OP cited in their update
Agoraphobe961
> > NTA. Using his sister’s death for internet clout is disgusting > Edit to add: he took a selfie with his sister on life support, there’s a time and place ffs. He also gave a text apology, then doubled down and called his parents dramatic and refused to take down the videos even though they triggered his mom into an ER visit. He said his parents were taking it too personally. IT’S ABOUT THEIR DAUGHTER, it’s literally almost the most personal thing you can get. > > >
> > > > > > Where in the world does this confidence that clout was the most important thing coming from? Kids his age live their lives on social media in a way that makes me extremely uncomfortable. But it doesn’t take much time on TikTok to know that it’s a part of life for them now, it’s a core part of the way many teenagers experience and interact with the world, and it’s not just for “clout” > > This kid is apparently just selfish and lacks empathy and wants to increase his social media following, but there’s nothing in the post that indicates: > > > > > > * He said a single fucking word about likes, followers, or anything that indicated those things were important to him > > * That his father ever asked him “How is this helping you son? Why is it important to you to express yourself this way? What about this makes it easier for you to deal with your sister’s death?” > > > > > > People up and down this thread are diagnosing him as a psychopath, saying he has a personality disorder, etc. and it’s fucking bonkers. We have no idea why he felt this was an important way for him to grieve, and the folks labelling him this that and the other thing are accusing HIM of lacking empathy. That’s exactly fucking backwards. > > > > > > It may ultimately be that the son’s a complete dickhead, that he really doesn’t care how these things impact his parents and he just wants likes and followers. But the information we have here is so far away from proving that, unless you are choosing to project your own hatred of social media culture onto this one person. > > > > > > Ultimately, this sequence of events can also be accurately described as: > > > > > > * 19 year old loses his sister > > * 19 year old finds comfort in posting dark humor about his sister > > * Parents find them and become extremely upset. Dad confronts the kid and after the kid defends himself, asks no follow up questions about why it’s helping him and makes no further effort to understand, but kicks him out of the house, becoming so angry with his son that he can’t even look at him. I’d bet every penny I have the son knew exactly what his father felt towards him in that moment, and it sure as hell wasn’t love or empathy. > > * Only then, by the way, does the kid lash out (“move the fuck on”) at the parents. After his father has reached the point where he is treating him with nothing but anger. The son was not the person who escalated away from a place of familial love here. That’s an important detail. > > > > > > Everyone in this thread who is so gleefully tagging this kid with every name or psychological disorder in the book should take a deep fucking breath and consider who really lacks empathy here. > > > > > > I feel deeply for the father but the way he’s lashing out at his son is ultimately on him and he is risking losing a second child because of his grief over the first. I won’t call him the AH, I think all parties involved deserve some grace to figure out such a brutal situation. NAH, but I really hope OP reconsiders his stance towards this and seeks to understand his son a bit better. I think he will ultimately regret it if he doesn’t. > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > > > Grace. Such an amazing thing. It can move mountains. I agree, don’t cut your son off. He may feel very alone right now. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > > > I cannot upvote this enough. As a parent of 20, 24, and 27 year old men, they are very different than than we were at that age. They live an online life. The pandemic made this even worse. I wouldn’t expect a 19 year old male who is separated from his family in college and going through the complete breakdown of a family TO post something psychologically balanced, thoughtful, and reasonable. I have seen worse coping behavior from grown adults. They just don’t post it on TikTok. The mother’s behavior was a complete breakdown and inability to function to the point of hospitalization, and everyone is pointing fingers at a 19 year old? I think this entire family is struggling. Expecting a 19 year old to have the emotional intelligence to cope with not only the loss of his only sibling, but essentially his family is unreasonable. Most people are looking at this through the lenses of far more adult experience, which is just not fair. The parents’ reaction was neither reasoned, mature, or empathic, and they’re more than twice his age. These parents appear to have a lot of unresolved anger, and their son has become a target for their rage. Yes, his post was hurtful, but people do stupid things in grief. His parents are right now. Just because they don’t understand it doesn’t make it wrong. Everyone needs to take a big step back before this family implodes. Grief and anger mix to make a toxic and blinding combination that often destroys the relationships of those going through it. I hope these parents don’t lose a …
Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/15bp09v/wibtah_for_kicking_my_son_out_for_making_dark/
u/thoughtfulchick
NTAH overall OP but did you say to your son that you are there for him if he needs you? Did you tell him that you are sorry that your and his mother’s grief has so overwhelmed you? Did you tell him that you love him?
He is still alive. And he’s hurting too. So, he’s NTAH either. He’s just trying to cope same as you two. However, you and your wife have each other. He has no one. Especially now. Stay in touch, rein in your anger and have some empathy for him. He is your child and he lost his sister, and his parents.
I am very sorry for your loss.
u/LoafOf_Bread
First of all, I am so sorry for your loss. My heart goes out to you and your family. I just want to add my two cents: I’m a teacher who gets along pretty well with my students (middle school and high school level) so they are always showing me or sending me tik toks or explaining new trends to me.
These dark humor-style Tik toks about a deceased relative are actually more common than you’d think. Your son is not the only person who has made them, and they are genuinely legitimate ways of coping with traumatic loss. I totally understand and empathize with your reaction, but I just want to make the case that people from the younger generation are not always making Tik toks like this out of disrespect, and they’re not always making light of a serious situation.
In this case, it’s pretty hard to justify him saying you need to “move the fuck on,” but I wonder if that is an example of him suppressing his grief, rather than him not feeling any. Again I’m not defending him, just suggesting another explanation for how his 19-year-old brain (the brain doesn’t finish developing until ~25 years old) might be dealing with this.
As a final thought, our generation and the younger generation view mental health differently. That’s just a fact. In the same way that you might see this as an inappropriate and unhealthy way to respond to grief, keep in mind that your way of responding to grief might look just as insane to him.
u/Chemical_Act_7648
NTA
If you’re paying for university or his housing, you should make it a condition of continued funding to go to therapy.
It’s not so much the videos that are the problem, and they aren’t great, but his reaction to you shows a real lack of maturity and empathy. And if he is cognizant of the fact that the videos are some kind of coping mechanism, well there are more healthy ways to cope… like therapy.
Hopefully one day he will understand and deeply regret his actions.I’m so very very sorry for your loss, I can’t imagine anything worse and if I lost my daughter there would be nothing left, I’d be gone. So I wish you great strength, she was a beautiful person.
OOP
Thank you for your input. I think requiring him to have some sort of therapy for funding is an excellent idea. I’ll definitely speak this over with my wife.
Truthfully my wife and I are barley holding on most days, but therapy has been such huge help through this process. I suspect we’d both be divorced and dead by now if not for our support system.
Thank you for your kind words. My daughter was incredibly beautiful and strong. She was a force to reckoned with. I know if she was here with us right now she’d be slapping her brother upside the head using some VERY colorful language. She was never afraid to speak her mind, and was opinionated to a fault. Despite her hard exterior she was deeply emotional and empathetic.
A few months before she died we discovered a stray cat she was hiding in her bedroom. I had to put on my “dad voice” and reprimand her, but of course we kept the little dude. He still waits by the front door everyday at 3:00pm, waiting for her to get home from school. He ignored everyone but my daughter. He would act like a lapcat, follow her around the house and sleep with her every night. He just recently started letting my wife hold him. Still hisses at me though.
Also, even though she was a B/C student, she was SO smart. She taught herself Python. She begged us to enroll her into a coding camp for her summer break. She wanted to be a game developer and make games like Animal Crossing and a farming game (I forget the name now). She was so smart and loving. I miss her everyday. She was sarcastic, witty and hilarious. A pessimist like me with a heart of gold. She loved people and had tons of friends, and could talk to anyone and everyone for hours.
EDIT: I’m sorry I went on a bit of a tangent there.
[FINAL UPDATE] WIBTAH for kicking my son out for making “dark humor” TikToks about our daughter’s death? updated later that day.
Firstly, I’d like to send a sincere thank you to everyone who not only commented, but read my original post. This is a very dark and vulnerable time for my family. We are lost, confused and battling with a grief that has consumed us so entirely it hurts to physically breathe most days.
Secondly, my son is a good man, son and brother. He loved and cherished his sister deeply, and I know in my heart that it was never his intention to make light of her death. Nor would he ever intentionally hurt his mother, myself or anyone.
It’s been an emotionally exhausting and draining last few hours for both my family and I. However, I am happy to provide a bittersweet update for all the wonderful people who took the time to read my original post. You all helped me realize I needed to act now and fast if I were to ever repair our family.
I called my son on the phone after reading the comments. I asked him why he posted those videos. He said he was just hurting. We were quiet for a while. His voice broke when he asked if me and his mom still love him.
I failed my son. I failed him. What he needed was a father who gave unconditional love, support and protection. He needed his dad. I was too stupid, selfish and angry to see he was hurting more deeply than any of us. We lost our daughter, but he had lost his sister.
We needed him to be the strong, mature son for his broken parents. The brave one. The one to shoulder our pain. We took his cry for help as him kicking us while we were down.
My wife and I immediately left to go pick him up and bring him home. What I saw was a broken little boy needing his mom and dad. Not the pathological monster our grief painted him as. He had visible bags under his eyes and lost a lot of weight. We were too blind to see it.
We both profusely apologized and will be showing him how sorry we are for the rest of our lives. We vowed to do right by him. We all cried together on the couch for a while.
Our son is taking a year off of school to heal and work on his mental health by his request. He also agreed to attending weekly therapy. He will be home with us.
We will also be seeing a family therapist. My wife is seeking medication to get a handle on her panic attacks. I signed up for a grief support group specifically for fathers.
This is all just a start for a very long and difficult journey ahead of us.
Thank you everyone for giving me a major kick in the ass and a wake up call. I may have lost a daughter, but I will not be losing my son. Not now or ever again.
[Editor’s Note: OOP thanks the users whose comments were shared above, and also thanked several users who shared their own stories of loss, whose comments I chose not to include for the sake of not making this even heavier than it already is.]
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This community can move mountains, and affect the lives of real people facing real issues. I’ve learned a lot about what grief means for different people. No one’s grief is invalid or wrong, and everyone handles it differently. This is a lesson I’ll carry with me for the rest of my life.
This morning I am making pancakes and bacon while my son and my wife watch Netflix in the family room. The windows are open. Our daughter’s cat actually came out of her room on her own for the first time to lay on the couch with them.
Our lazy Saturday. It’s the first time in months we did this since our daughter passed. It feels bittersweet. Different. But at the same time, it feels right too. Reminder: I am not the OOP. OOP is u/Puppy_Cat_Boots, who went through an immense, unimaginable tragedy and is doing his absolute best as a father and husband to keep himself and his family afloat, and doing pretty damned well all things considered. I’m sure we all wish OOP and his family all the best.