Is resolving familiar situations essential, or are some things beyond repair?

Dear Beau

Please accept my deepest condolences for the loss of your mother and for the distress and upset that the preparations for her funeral are causing you and your family at this sad time. 

I wish that we had an easy solution to solve conflict.  Sometimes, unfortunately a loss in a family will bring out the worst in people. From working with people before and after the event of a loss, this has meant that I have experience of hearing about and also seeing behavior that has run along the whole scale of behaviors, both good and bad.  Often when families struggle to cope with the death of the loved one, individuals of the family can end up fighting or disagreeing with one another, this can seem like a secondary loss.  This is due to the loss of potential support network of others but this loss can also be an additional source of stress. You are not alone, many others can relate to family discord following the death of a lost one.  Reaching out for support outside of the family can often be of benefit to gain some perspective and respite from the issues being experienced within the family.

If conflict is something that you avoid, the reaction you mention is to be expected and is perfectly normal.  This is caused by our primitive brain that kicks in to keep us from the worst of danger and is known as our flight, fight or freeze response.

Unfortunately there is little detail given in your question in relation to what the issues are other than the funeral.  What other issues the families may have had before the loss may be exaggerated as additional stress causes our brain function to be less rational and we tend to think more on impulse and with more of the emotionally influenced parts.  These are the parts that struggle with reasoning, memory and the longer term thinking.  Due to this, when groups under emotional stress interact conflicts are more likely to arise.

We all react and behave differently to bereavement and loss, each of us grieve in different ways and on different timescales too.  This too can cause conflict within families as the expectations of those around us are different and not the same as ours.  There are no right or wrong ways to grieve, just ours which are unique to us and each loss that we experience in life.  If retreating is what you need right now, then that is ok.

Best regards, Louise