Answering condolence messages when you have no energy left

Within days of a death, a bereaved family typically has more unread messages than they have had at any point in their lives. Texts, cards, voicemails, comments under a post, emails from people they last spoke to a decade ago.

Every one is kind. Collectively they can feel like a job you have been given at the exact moment you are least able to do a job.

That reaction is not ingratitude, and it is not weakness.

NCI's description of normal grief includes emotional numbness, shock, disbelief and denial straight after a death, and lists sleep disruption, appetite changes and fatigue among the reactions people commonly have.

Read that again with your inbox in mind. Someone who is exhausted and not sleeping is being asked to compose a hundred short pieces of personal writing about the worst thing that has happened to them.

There is a second problem. NCI describes grief bursts — intense episodes lasting around twenty to thirty minutes, typically triggered by reminders of the person who died. A message that names them, or recalls a shared memory, is precisely that kind of reminder. Reading fifteen of them in a row is not neutral admin.

Nobody who sent you a card is expecting to be repaid in prose.

The most effective solution is not a better system. It is a different person.

NCI's caregiver guidance lists being the contact person who keeps others updated among the tasks that can be handed to a helper. That role exists during illness, and it works just as well after a death.

Ask one capable person — often someone one ring outside the immediate family, who is sad but not devastated — to take on messages. They can read everything, keep a list of who wrote, send a short acknowledgement where one is needed, and pass on only the things you would actually want to see today.

NCI's wider point about asking for help applies here. It says people often do not understand that you need help unless you ask them for it directly, and that explaining your needs can prevent resentment building up. "Would you take over the messages for two weeks?" is a request someone can say yes to. "I'm drowning" is not.

Some people find answering messages steadying. If that is you, a few things make it survivable.

• Set a time limit rather than a target. Twenty minutes, then stop, whether or not the pile went down.
• Write one short message and reuse it. Nobody compares notes, and no one is owed originality.
• Answer in batches by category, not in order of arrival.
• Leave the hardest senders — the closest friends, the ones who were also there — until you can call rather than type.
• Keep the cards. Many people find they want to read them properly months later, when they can.

Some messages will land badly. A phrase that sounds hollow, a comparison that does not fit, advice you did not ask for.

NCI notes that some people may not be able to help a family, whether because of their own difficulties, fear of cancer, or not knowing what to do. The same is true of what they write. Clumsiness is usually fear rather than indifference.

You do not have to reply to those, and you do not have to keep them.

Very little, and it is worth separating it out early. Practical matters — anything involving an appointment, a document or a deadline — need attention or need handing to someone who will attend to them. Everything else can wait, or can go unanswered permanently without any real cost.

If you want to acknowledge people at some point, a single message to everyone weeks later is entirely acceptable, and often more welcome than a rushed reply would have been.

NCI describes complicated grief as symptoms that do not improve, last for a long period of time, cause extreme distress and affect multiple areas of life. It also notes that for most bereaved people, symptoms lessen between 6 months and 2 years after the loss. If months on you still cannot open a message, cannot function at work and cannot sleep, that is worth raising with a professional. Hospice services include grief counselling and support, and that is one route in — ask the hospice team what they still offer your family.