Reply to How to respond when asked about deceased sibling

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am so sorry for your loss. It is incredibly rude for people to ask follow up questions or keep pressing when when it’s clear you don’t want to talk about it. I think saying whatever you need to say is just fine, even if it’s not the truth.

Personally, I found it is easier for me to give a factual, blunt answer and then explicitly say I don’t want to talk about it. In my case ‘he died suddenly in his sleep 6 months ago from an undiagnosed heart condition, and I would rather not talk about it.’ And then I immediately change the subject or say I have to leave to cut off all the ‘I’m so sorry, how is his wife’ etc because I just don’t want to deal with it. I have found that people are just so damn curious and nosey, just saying ‘he passed away’ pretty much invariably brought questions about when and why, and I would rather just say it once clearly and be done. No one is owed this information, but I also have no particular reason for keeping it secret, so this works for me.  [/quote]

Yep, this.  Also, if you're truly interested in protecting your privacy, you should lie.

Although I never ask nosy questions about someone's death, I think it is natural to be curious when a young, seemingly healthy person passes away.  If you give some of the answers on this thread, know that you're pretty much ANNOUNCING that your sibling OD'd or killed themselves.

You can just fudge the truth a little or a lot.  Accidental OD can become an "undiagnosed heart condition," since many OD's cause heart attacks.  Suicide can become something else brain related, like a stroke a stroke or aneurism. Like PP said, follow it up with, "I would rather not talk about it."[/quote]

Great advice from both PPs.[/quote]

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