Hysterical or calm?

[MysteryReader]

How many of you react to unpleasant news by becoming hysterical or do you remain calm as you try to sort through it?

[Franz]

Everyone reacts differently to an unpleasant news. For my account, I don't think I could become hysterical, but I hardly can remain totally calm.

BTW, Lizzie didn't remain totally calm. You can make your own conclusion by reading the testimonies of Mr. Saywer, Dr. Bowen, and Mrs. Churchill, among others.

[Aamartin]

I have had a lot of deaths in my family, starting with an older sister when I was 10. Another older sister when I was 13. All four of my grandparents, a cousin only a year older than me while in high school, my father in my early 30's. And I lost my mom 3 years ago. With her, I just mentally shut down. I was in a medicated daze for weeks.

Growing up with so much crap like that-- I tend to not sweat the small stuff, but with bigger things-- I am an Ice Prince. No tears in front of people other than those really close to me. (Although I have no problems crying in movies, over TV or a good book in front of complete strangers, etc).

I was born in 1965 and grew up in a small Iowa town-- I am also gay. It wasn't as bad for me as it was for some others I know from the same town as I was not really overtly so and I came from a prominent and well liked family in town. At one point, members of my (paternal side) family owned most of the businesses in town. Unlike Andrew Borden, my father was a very generous man. Volunteer fire chief for 25+ years, volunteer EMT for 10, deacon of the church, President of the Chamber. My mother became more withdrawn from social activities after my first sister died and it took her years to work back up to what was her usual 'self' in many ways. (But I digress)

I did get married, thinking this was the answer for me and had 2 sons. My eldest son has Asperger's Syndrome. He is quite intelligent and fairly social, but will never live on his own. My Ex-wife died the year after he graduated HS and my youngest son was a junior. Long, drawn out illness and death.

Both my parents had long, drawn out illnesses and deaths. The sisters-- sudden accidents.

I can take almost any type of news with relative calm.

And now, that I have town my maudlin life story....

If I came into any room of my house an found someone murdered there, brutally-- I would become hysterical and evacuate (even the maid) anyone else in the house and get the hell out of there. Period.

If the police came to my door to inform me a family member, especially an immediate or close one was murdered elsewhere? I would freak.

Murder is different from accidents or deaths caused from illness. You can wrap your mind around an accident. You can comfort yourself in the fact that the sick are no longer suffering. But murder is senseless and IMO leaves those left behind with an empty feeling. It would be hard to grieve and go on from such a thing.

I don't know how I feel about this whole 'closure' business. I am not sure you ever get it, despite the matter of death-- I know I never really have. However, How do you go through the rest of you life with something like the brutal murders of your father and his wife hanging over your head? Never knowing who did it? If she did do it, I am appalled at her ability to seemingly have totally blocked it from her mind and live a comfortable life. She may not have had friends like she wanted to-- but I think she would have gleefully accepted them if they had not shunned her. She didn't hole herself up in her house, tormented with guilt or even grief of wondering who did such a horrible thing to her parents. This speaks a great deal to her character IMO and is another reason and I am 99% sure she did it.

[Franz]

... She didn't hole herself up in her house, tormented with guilt or even grief of wondering who did such a horrible thing to her parents. This speaks a great deal to her character IMO and is another reason and I am 99% sure she did it.

We are so different, Aamartin. What makes you 99% sure of Lizzie's guilt makes me more convinced of her innocence: if Lizzie didn't do it, she would be serene with her conscience: it was not me who killed father and Mrs. Borden... So she lived her life just as it should occur in that way: she loved a more comfortable house? well, she had money and then she bought herself a big house: she had nothing to fear and nothing to hide because she didn't kill anyone, she "performed" naturally as her character directed her, she didn't need to play. And, at the end, she didn't fear to be burried besides her parents...

Lizzie was not a saint. She could be innocent, but meanwhile, she could have been thinking, before the murders occured (committed by someone else): oh, if one day father died, I would be able to start a new life... And someone made this possible, without being requested by Lizzie...

[Curryong]

I'm like Franz. I don't become hysterical, don't remain totally calm either. I'm not a person who cries a lot. My mother died when I was eleven and I didn't go into masses of tears even then. I'm quite introverted and self-contained, an only child. I keep any sadness inside, (perhaps a bit like Emma and Lizzie) but I do empathise if anything bad happens to others, especially my children.