DEAR BEL: My closest friend at work has been spitefully cold since my dad died. But what she did next took my breath away and made my grief even worse…

Dear Bel,

Early last year a friend encouraged me to apply for a job where she worked. No sooner had I started than my father fell gravely ill and steadily declined until his death in November.

The stages of his illness were marked by increasing infirmity, dependence, sadness and desperation. By the end of the year, my mother and I were exhausted.

I have struggled with guilt at having prioritised a job above my darling Dad and this has not been helped by my friend’s attitude. I can’t shake the uneasy feeling that she has left me in the lurch – both professionally and personally – when I need her most.

I admit she was stalwart throughout the final week of my dad’s life when she came over daily. But on the night of his death, she and a friend of my mother sat in the kitchen chatting animatedly over a glass of wine while Mum and I, in a state of shock and grief, sat in stunned silence because Dad had just died.

A few weeks later, due to a restructure, I had to reapply and sit an interview for my job while planning Dad’s funeral. My friend’s attitude was that it was just something we all had to do.

My HR department and other colleagues all felt it was a deeply insensitive request. I had only two weeks off, consisting of annual leave, unpaid carer’s leave and compassionate leave. I don’t feel I have had any time to properly grieve or recover from what has happened.

On my return to work and with a number of deadlines to meet, my friend took time out to go for a health check. Meanwhile, I worked long hours at home to meet our deadlines.

The following day she rang me and asked what I had left to do, before telling me that, among other things, she had a piece of work, forgotten from 2023, that also needed completing. I said I couldn’t promise I’d get to it but I’d try. In stern terms, she said: ‘I need this done, please.’

I sent an email stating I’d welcome the opportunity to clear the air but it, along with a previous text message, went ignored. I knew she can be selfish and I was going to have to stand my ground, but I find her very hard to be around.

My resentment is making me not want to engage with her, yet I need her support to try to pick up the threads of the job. She has begun leaving me out of things which would help my progress.

My friend is now the last person I feel I can rely on for natural empathy or, at this juncture, professional support.

Do you have any advice?

Helena

Bel Mooney replies: I am so very sorry to read of the recent death of your beloved father and to imagine how terrible his last months must have been for you and your mother, taking care of him at home.

You had only just begun the new job which was (as you explain in your uncut letter) challenging in terms of your prior knowledge.

So during all those months you were working to establish yourself in the role, supporting your mother, in anguish over your father’s deterioration, mourning his death and then having to sort out his financial affairs and organise his funeral.

Please realise you have nothing to feel guilty about.

You did everything you had to do and the burden was immense. To then have to reapply for your own job (which happens in businesses, I know) was rather a brutal imposition. You must have been utterly exhausted as well as full of grief, and I have nothing but sympathy for you.

I file incoming problem letters under various categories but I’ve rarely had one which straddles three of them.

As well as bereavement (when you almost certainly experience painful flashbacks to your father’s last days), you have all the stress of a demanding job plus this awful sense of being hurt and disappointed by your friend. So grief has you poleaxed while work and friendship have let you down.

It’s a lot to bear – and I want you to take deep breaths when you feel panicky in order to calm yourself. I really mean this; you need to build that focused breathing into your daily routine. 

It’s important you recognise that your friend was very supportive during that awful week.

But when she and your mother’s chum were having that glass of wine they were doing what all people do when they feel helpless: just be there and try to escape into their own normality.

I ask you to realise no insult was intended, but I suspect this friend is one of the very many who just cannot cope with grief.

When I say it’s common, I’m not excusing that lack but just suggesting you understand it.

It’s very hurtful indeed that she seems to have turned away from you, but I suggest that if you keep your head down and do the work and try to prepare your bravest face to meet her and your colleagues … this awful period in your life will slowly pass.

Give it time – and please choose to remember the good things you and she have shared in the past.

My midlife sister is old before her time 

Dear Bel,

My sister is 51 and seems to have adopted a belief that she’s ‘old’.

She’s always been gregarious and extrovert (the opposite of me). She is incredibly tolerant, never judges people and is just wholesome and real.

She’s always worked hard in a caring profession but seems to have lost all lust for life.

The past few times I’ve seen her, I’ve been shocked to see that she’s piled on weight and was dressed in clothes you’d expect to see on someone of 80.

She no longer wears a scrap of make-up and her grey roots have mostly all grown through.

Nothing wrong with that, of course, but impressions DO matter – and she looks like someone who couldn’t care less about herself.

Last year, she lost her mother-in-law and her dog, which was the light of her life. The dog had been ill for years and she always used the excuse that she couldn’t go anywhere because she had to care for it.

Now there’s nothing stopping her, but she won’t go anywhere or do anything.

All she does is work and sleep. I suggested she may be depressed. She said maybe – but didn’t want to see a doctor as last time they gave her anti-depressants which made her fat.

I’ve tried sending her mindfulness apps, suggesting gym/walking/anything, but she says she won’t have time, can’t afford it or says she’ll try them out then does nothing.

My parents and I are frustrated and upset. It’s terrible to see her wasting her life like this.

Her husband is 11 years older and always an old-before-his-time-type. Is there anything else you could suggest?

Diana

Bel Mooney replies: Diana, it’s clear you are a loving sister who has always looked up to your more outgoing sibling. Your uncut letter fully describes her engaging, energetic personality, liked by everyone.

The fact that your parents are also now worried does suggest a problem; she has changed and the outward signs of it disturb you all.

I omitted details of your sister’s career for the sake of her privacy, but your account paints a picture of a woman who still works hard after retraining but felt ‘burnt out’ after Covid. Surely that’s highly significant?

It sounds as though that was the beginning of this current malaise.

Was it then she was given those anti-depressants? That would all make sense, given the stress that terrible time put on everybody, but especially people like your sister due to her job.

Your longer letter explains she had to retrain – and then we come to last year and she supports her husband through the death of his mother, followed by the loss of her beloved dog.

That latter bereavement would have been huge – a fact not understood by those who have never adored a dog.

Her dear animal companion was family to her, all the more so because you don’t mention children. Now there is nothing. How can she find a meaning in life now, to make her think it’s worth wearing decent clothes and colouring her hair again?

If you arranged for her to see a therapist, would she go? I’m thinking that Cognitive Behavioural Therapy might work well for her, but her hand will have to be held, or else she won’t bother.

Yes, it costs money but sometimes the decision to invest in yourself is the first step to recovery. Might you and your parents club together to fund (say) three sessions for her, hoping that she then continues?

Would it be a sweet idea to book her an appointment at her hairdresser, to have the grey hair treated properly and celebrated?

In time, might you suggest you go together to an animal rescue centre, because her old dog would certainly want her to give love to a new one?

And that’s when she might start walking again. I’d stop worrying about her clothes (although in your position I’d be the same) and focus on positive, concrete actions which might help her feel there’s a reason to get up in the morning.

I hope she will be able to see her life in colour once more. And that you will have the energy to be quietly enthusiastic as you help her take the first tentative steps toward normality.