baldeagle wrote:Yes, I've seen it. I didn't think the emotions were forced. When you've been confronted with an unthinkable tragedy that affects you personally, you go through a range of emotions far beyond what others do during a "normal" loss. It's not all unusual to laugh, cry, scream and not react at all based on the inputs you're getting and your emotional state at the moment.
I think we humans are far too judgmental of others. What really frightens me is when police detectives use those unusual reactions as a basis to decide a person must have been involved with the crime they're investigating. Sometimes it's true, but sometimes it's not.
This is it exactly. When one suffers of loss of this magnitude - there is no script to follow on how to survive from one minute to the next.
You are at times amazed at the things/tasks you are able to do. You are at also at times surprised by the simple things you are unable to do.
I promise you that one day after his daughter was killed there is absolutely nothing functioning normally in his head. He was sleep deprived and what little sleep he may have gotten is populated with moments of terror and despair.
There are bouts of despair and agony that are so physically painful and seemingly unending that you pray for some relief which may or may not come. And then there are moments when you have cried so much you simply feel as if you have no tears left. Those moments can be separated by mere milliseconds and the emotional shift can be dramatic.
You survive by taking the next breath and doing what is set in front of you to do.
I don't think he was consciously steeling himself up preparing for the interview, but I think he was merely doing each task that was before him to do. That functional part of your mind takes over for a short while. And so just moments before the interview, his task before him was to conduct the interview. Then once the interview process began, his task before was to talk about his daughter which gave free reign to the part of the brain most impacted by the trauma and thus the emotions cannot be contained.
I am sorry, but find it offensive that people are judging him based upon his state being erratic. Of course he was erratic - that comes when you lose a child.
People who have children think they know how painful it would be to lose a child. And, by and large, I think they actually do have a pretty good idea - any parent can imagine what that emptiness would be like. But what one cannot do, is imagine what the grieving process would be like. It is simply unfathomable unless you have been there.
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"read us the riot act"... And we all pointed at my uncle and said "he did it" when he told her she just about died laughing...