Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Growth, Mental Health, Pespective, Podcast, Suicide |
Moussa Mikhail | Mission for Self-Mastery
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY
Do you want to know where to start if you’re tired of settling for the conditions and circumstances of your life?
Ask yourself the question Moussa asked himself and start there.
What was the question?
“What are you trying to forget?”
When we get tired of our past circumstances creating chaos and dictating how far we go to reach our dreams, it takes introspection and committing to self-mastery to create change in our lives.
Self-mastery embodies Moussa’s mission today, but before he got to this point, he endured some challenges and hardships, as many people do. But, not everyone will do something about it. A growth mindset can be ignited through loss and grief, but it doesn’t have to take these things to experience growth. We can also learn from our environment and from signs and signals our body gives us.
Moussa and I discuss the challenges that have shaped him and how evolving with his grief and not fighting it has led to healing and awareness through tools and techniques he shares in this episode.
You will find resonance in Moussa’s message if you are a veteran or service member. However, we all go through hard times, even when not in the military. Let Moussa’s message inspire you to stop settling and take small steps to self-mastery.
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Victoria Volk 0:08
This is Victoria of the Unleashed heart calm, and you’re listening to grieving voices, a podcast for hurting hearts who desire to be heard. Or anyone who wants to learn how to better support loved ones experiencing loss as a 30 plus year Griever. In advanced Grief Recovery methods specialist, I know how badly the conversation around grief needs to change. Through this podcast, I aim to educate gravers and non Grievers alike, spread hope and inspire compassion toward those hurting. Lastly, by providing my heart with ears and this platform, Grievers had the opportunity to share their wisdom and stories of loss and resiliency. How about we talk about grief, like we talked about the weather? Let’s get started.
Victoria Volk 0:56
Thank you for tuning in to another episode of grieving voices. Today, my guest is Moussa Mikhail. He is a submarine, Navy veteran, podcast host entrepreneur, speaker, coach and author based out of Las Vegas, Nevada, he spent cumulatively over two years of his Naval Service underwater, and use that time to develop himself and plan his entrepreneurial ventures. He operates a real estate business and his media coaching company. He’s host of the conquer approach podcast about a journey of self mastery, mind, body, spirit and finances. It has been streamed in 30 countries today, he has dedicated his life to spreading the principles of mastery and empowering others to live their most authentic and highest potential. I love that last line. I’m all about that, too. So what brings you to grieving voices and thank you for being here too, by the way.
Moussa Mikhail 1:52
Thank you, it’s my privilege to be here. And, you know, I love the work that you’re doing. And I feel like the conversations that happen on these topics need to happen more often than not now. And then my military service. You mentioned a little bit I was on a submarine. So it was definitely mentally challenging. Right, because it’s it’s a different lifestyle. Most people aren’t used to being in a tube for weeks, months, on in. So it was a it was a big adjustment. At first, I was actually really afraid to do it. To be honest, I didn’t want to be in a tube. I love being outside. I love nature. And the thought of being isolated, in confinement for extended periods of time didn’t really get me excited.
Moussa Mikhail 2:50
And I used that to really challenge myself out of my comfort zone because it was extremely out of my comfort zone. If there’s one thing the Navy offered, that was outside my comfort zone the most it was probably the submarines. And that’s what I ended up with. So I somehow attracted that to my life. And I figured I would do my best and and use it to challenge myself mentally and get get past it. I did, I had a very successful tour as a Submariner. And I still don’t feel fulfilled. That’s why I got out to do my entrepreneurial things. Now, a lot of it’s to give back to those who are serving, and others who are just struggling with their mindset to get get through that. Those challenges whether it’s on a submarine or anywhere else, because the military has a lot of issues with mental health, and people are not talking about it enough. And a lot of it is in a way stigmatized, like it’s a negative for you to go seek mental help, sometimes and it shouldn’t be that way. So a lot of my mission now is to help people on their journeys get a little bit better, mindset Wise Health and Fitness wise, spiritually, and even finances. So that’s really what is driving me now.
Victoria Volk 4:08
It’s a whole body approach. It’s you know, because there’s not just one part of us that suffers typically, especially with grief. It’s the whole of us, and how we show up in the world and our relationships and how we, how we have a relationship to our money and everything, right spirituality, faith, all of it. So I absolutely love that. And just to your point about the military, and the mental mental health, I mean, there’s been a lot of push and a lot of forward momentum in that department. But just even two years ago, I was at a mental health summit. And I had a booth there with my grief work. And I listened to a bunch of speakers and talkers and stuff and there was a veteran who shared his story of attempted suicide, which was completely was really truly moving. But what I didn’t hear In all of the talks about suicide, was the word grief wasn’t mentioned once. And so I think too, it’s my push is to get people talking about grief, because that’s the route. Really, I believe, that leads people down that path often, can you share your personal story of how this work has evolved for you?
Moussa Mikhail 5:25
Yeah, and I love that because grief is a crucial element, if not the most important because it’s when we’re not effectively processing traumas, or grieving. You know, whether it’s something that we’ve developed as children, any traumatic experiences as the lead up to us being unable to process our emotions in a healthy way, those things over time compound, to really affect the brain in a lot of ways. And then you see things like suicide, or just mental health, mental health issues, mental illness, those things don’t just happen overnight. Right? You wouldn’t want to just wake up one day, and then like, oh, today’s the day that I’m going to lose my mind. Right? It’s a process. It’s a sequence of events, it’s a timeline of development issues, compounded over each other, that lead to these really bad things or just issues that in as a society, I really love the book that just recently came out, I think called What happened to you by Dr. Bruce Perry, and Oprah. And it’s kind of to change the narrative of what’s wrong with you, to what happened to you. And a lot of it is the failure to get support and process things like grief, trauma, right? It’s those things that undealt with, ignored,
Moussa Mikhail 6:58
lead to very, very serious issues. And then we as a society, we look at those people’s like, what the hell’s wrong with this guy? Or this woman? Like, why would they do that? Or why? Or why are they crazy, or whatever the case is, whatever labels we put on them, instead of looking deeper, like what happened? What’s causing that. So in my military service, at the end of 2019, on my submarine, and Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, there was a guy that I served with, I knew, and I noticed there was a lot of things off, but I wasn’t as knowledgeable on these type of things. And I really started taking it more seriously after this event. And I noticed there was things off, and I never thought it would get to a very, very serious point like it did. But at the end of 2019, right before Christmas, there was a lot of things that led up to it, I’m sure but then this particular sailor, on watch on when to M M for rifle and a pistol decided to shoot to Hawaiian shipyard workers that he didn’t know. He killed them. And then he took his own life there. So is active shooter. My submarine I wasn’t there at the time, because I was dealing with processing out of the Navy. However, I have a lot of good friends that were there, you know, and, and then people calling me all over right? I had no idea what was going on people calling me from the base because they hear the they hear the announcement active shooter on USS Columbia shipyard whatever. And they don’t know what’s going on. And I didn’t know what’s going on. So I feared the worst. I didn’t know who was getting hurt. And then at the end of it, it was it was two innocent civilian, Hawaiian men who are great engineers, who had families had no idea that was coming had nothing to do with that. Sailor, then know him, never even probably talked to him for a minute of their lives, and they lost their lives because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. The thing that bothered me the most was this is a common thing in the military is they don’t really make these things public as much right? Obviously, that was a public event, because that was a very serious event made headlines. But what was the response of the Navy from that? You know, and this is not to bash the military, they want to protect their image. So they can continue to recruit people and not think that people are committing suicide all the time in the military, like no one would want to join if they have, and they’re like, Why the hell people are killing themselves because they’re in the military. So they use they do the best they can to, to make it hidden. And I saw that firsthand, because I was on the submarine. When when high level men came down and said, you know, this is an isolated incident. You guys had nothing to do with it. And they did. Didn’t take any ownership for it, which is the opposite of what people needed. Right? These things don’t just happen. There’s a lot of things that we could have took a lot of things we could have done to potentially prevent it. And not to beat ourselves up. Something like that is a tragedy. But what could we have done? How can we take this more seriously? How can we actually help people? Right? And for me, I have a strong feeling that he had went through some serious trauma before he joined the military because he was young guy who’s 22. Right. So he came in, and since day one, he had a lot of emotional walls, his communication was off. Some things didn’t make sense. It was disorganized, in speech. So I, a lot of psychologists can notice a lot of those things are actually signs of serious trauma, which can lead up to things when put under an extreme situation for a long period. And he was on a submarine for about a year and a half. And it was it was a challenging experience for him, it was hard for him to grasp what we’re doing there. So that’s another thing when people aren’t learning. It’s not that they’re stupid, or dumb. Right? Which what people would default saying, Oh, you’re stupid, like, why can’t you learn this? There’s actually parts of the brain, when you’re dealing with a lot of serious trauma, it prevents you from using the other parts of your brain that help you learn faster, or understand comprehension is different when you have a lot of hard issues that have not been dealt with. So he definitely needed some help before, right preventatives things, right. And that’s, that’s kind of what you know, I’m working to do with the podcast experts and specialists and these types of conversations, health and nutrition, because obviously, the body has a big role, the mind and the body is, is connected. If the mind is not in a good state, the rest of the body won’t be a good state. And a lot of those pains and aches and diseases that we have in our bodies are indications of our mental health not being there. So these are all signs. And then that’s kind of what I love talking about helping people understand the signs, so they can continue to work on themselves. So these types of things can happen less and happen, never ideally, right. And those other instances of suicide that I heard about, even when I was active duty, and I never even like they didn’t even give us the names of the guys. It was just kind of like let’s keep this in the dark. Let’s not even talk about I know those didn’t make the news headlines, but it was happening.
Moussa Mikhail 6:58
And those are why like, why is this happening? So this is, this is why I love these types of podcasts and have these conversations because like you said, those families still grieve I’m sure to this day, right? This is right before Christmas. Like those families are missing their fathers or uncle’s, whatever the case is, and I believe those preventable,
Victoria Volk 12:58
You said a lot in there. And I have a few thoughts that I’d like to just circle back to coming back to what you said about what happened to you in that book. That’s what I’ve, I’ve actually said that in a podcast. I don’t know who was interviewing. But imagine if someone who’s feeling depressed or having depressive thoughts goes into a doctor’s office, how often do they say, What happened to you? Never, I think I mean, that’s the first line people don’t go to the doctor when they’re feeling awesome. You know, they go to the doctor when they’re feeling badly. And oftentimes, that can be the first line of defense is someone saying what happened to you? And the most important question, to open up a bigger conversation about where really what’s going on and what what is possibly needed in further treatment rather than just a pill. So that’s one thought. I’m a veteran, as well. And just being at that mental health summit, and on my rotation to Iraq, we lost three guys. And I know that there was no communication about grief. There is no like, even out processing right, though. And here’s the thing, too, I think a lot of soldiers will resonate with and understand you probably to, you will lie, so that you can advance your career. And you will lie to not feel less than and if you’re struggling with your mental health. It’s I think it’s especially hard for people in the military to admit to that. And so like you said, to your point, it trickles from the top down. And I think if the leadership lead by example, in this department, that’s what will ultimately change the conversation around grief, suicide prevention, suicide communication, it’s educating soldiers to Understand what the signs are to understand that you’re not a snitch that you could be potentially saving that person’s life or the lives of others. Right. It’s a big conversation, I think. And I, maybe it’s happening more than we think. I hope so actually, later this week, I’m having a conversation with Scott, man, he runs the rooftop leadership. He was a Greenbrae. In Afghanistan. I’m very interested in having this this particular conversation with him as well, about leadership and the top down and and grief in particular, can you bring up another good point? It’s, you know, the gentleman that did that, and how he probably had trauma and things that were on process. I actually had that mental health summit, I even asked the therapist I said, you know, why don’t why doesn’t the military implement some sort of a study? questionnaire. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the ACE study, adverse childhood experiences, but if they actually made that like a screening tool for servicemen and women, because someone who deploys, who then further experiences more trauma and grieving experiences those and they had a really traumatic childhood. They’re exponentially greater risk for suicide, anxiety, depression, all of those things. So yeah, you spoke to the sign. So can you share a little bit more about that and what you’ve learned about all of that?
Moussa Mikhail 16:38
Yeah, I’ve learned that I can sit there and be upset that the military didn’t do enough, we’re going to do whatever. But that that’s not going to resolve the issues at this moment. Right, it’s not gonna allow me to do the most I can do right now. And you said it, you said it really? Well, it really is. I think that’s a great idea, getting some type of questionnaire take at least screen people in this way, there should be some mandatory mental health checks, work to actually process that stuff, because people bottle it in for so long, and has to go somewhere at some point. And if people don’t understand how to deal with it, it gets big, it’s bad. I’ve noticed a lot of things from that when I’ve reviewed his behavior. You know, it’s usually these weird or off behaviors indicate that like trauma, something or the inability to communicate clearly, or just like stonewalling or like, just anger, shaking, those types of things. We should be inquiring more like, he was like, what, what happened? Like, we should have deeper conversations, because then people can start to realize, because when people make or have any traumatic experience, when they’re younger, they might not consciously make the link between that experience and their behavior. Or why, you know, they might have not been able to make that link, but aside from a trauma to someone’s inability to learn, or to catch along or grasp concepts, right, it’s, there’s links between all that though, and I think that they that they have one of my leaders who were actually he was in a disciplinary review that day. And at a certain point, he stopped responding. And he started shaking, which I don’t know all the reasons why that can happen to someone. But I know there’s definitely, there’s a lot going on there. A lot of emotion that that person doesn’t know how to deal with or process so it just shuts them down and have their bodies involuntarily doing things. There’s things that there’s emotion there. There’s a lot of emotion there. There’s a there’s anger, there’s sadness, there’s a lot of things. Right. So because the body responds in a certain way, that can tell us, there’s a lot of stuff here that hasn’t been dealt with, there’s a lot of energy that hasn’t been processed. Emotion is energy in motion, a lot of energy that hasn’t been removed effectively, it’s still there. And that’s why people can need that it’s always a good idea to get some type of mental health because even me, I’ll say I’m pretty intelligent in this conversation and these types of things. I can only see myself from my perspective. There’s things that I won’t be able to see until somebody else can give me that feedback. Right and Give me the feedback of how I’m reacting and responding to things. So it’s important for us to implement some type of way to create a support system where people feel safe enough to talk about these things, whatever traumas they’re facing, right. And since then, I’ve been doing a lot of work on on me, because leadership Begins With Self. Right. And that’s kind of the whole idea of my show, the quote that got me to name the show was a Plato quote, called the first and best victory is to conquer self. So leadership is a leadership of self first. So the problem we have isn’t just like, Oh, this guy came into the Navy, we issues and it became bigger and bigger until someone died, or he killed himself. A lot of the leaders don’t know how to process their emotions either. But a lot of leaders don’t know. Because they never got that kind of support. And I know it might be different for you, but and my submarine is all men.
Moussa Mikhail 21:05
All men that feel it’s weak, to be vulnerable. That is not tough. To complain or not, it won’t say complain, because complaining is, is a lot of victimization to self too. But just to talk about what’s really bothering you, as a man, it’s weak to talk about your feelings. A lot of times, society says movies, Hollywood says. So when you have a group full of men, and none of them share, none of them open up, none of them talk about how they feel, none of them feel like they can go talk to a mental health professional without getting some type of criticism from their crew, or whatever the case is, you have a group of dysfunctional men trying to function and learning to function within their dysfunction, which is not the most productive, it’s not the most effective, it’s not the most healthy. And then we start getting signs in our body, we start getting diseases and my theory on this, the diseases that we feel around our body, even though it might not sound like it had anything to do I have a thyroid issue when I was in the Navy. Some people might just say, oh, that’s just a thyroid disease that has something to do mental health. My inability to keep my myself stress, free or manage my stress, created disease manifests these disease, because the immune system doesn’t work under stress very well. So these are the type of conversations that I feel is necessary. And part of it is now how can I get these conversations, these type of podcasts and more military people. Because even on my podcast, I’m not saying this is for broken people who have mental health issues, because anyone can anyone can take their journey on. But it can only it could take just a simple person, or just one person to say, Hey, man, it’s okay. Like, let’s let’s do this, let’s talk about this, like what’s going on here? Like, these criticisms are not as important as your well being your wellness. So I get very passionate about this stuff. And it’s really what I’m dedicating everything to now is, how can I support people who really don’t know how to support yourself, because at a certain point, a lot of these traumas become subconscious. And then the behaviors are subconscious. So people don’t know why they do things they do. And that’s what it why we need feedback. We need support, we need more, help more eyes around us to see why we do the things we do. Because a lot of is we just don’t know, we don’t know, we don’t know how those traumas bleed in to our behavior, our learning, health, our performance, and that’s usually what it is someone who doesn’t perform in any business, any career field, if they’re not performing. Well, there’s an issue there with mentality, mental health, there’s something that is occupying most of their mind. So they cannot perform the way they can or are capable of. So I know I got on tangent. I know if I answered your question.
Victoria Volk 24:28
No, it’s I mean, you speak my language because as a Reiki Master, I’m all about the energy and how energy gets stuck in our bodies. And speaking about the thyroid, that’s the throat chakra is unable to speak your truth. It’s unable to communicate, how you feel and communicate, just communicate.
Moussa Mikhail 24:48
Are there because of that?
Victoria Volk 24:51
Wow. I mean, yes.
Moussa Mikhail 24:53
So I understand. I didn’t know at the time, and I refuse to say Oh, I got that. Oh, it’s just like, it just happened. Like it happens. It’s a common thing, right? Nowadays, it’s a lot of people have it. Let me just cut it out and deal with like, no, problem solved. No, I took it up. So I was like, I’m not cutting it out. This is a sign that I need to learn how to processes are I was I could cut it out, but it’s gonna show up somewhere else. Right disease shows up. If the trauma and the pain and the suffering and distress are still there and your your body, it will come out different ways. I have a good I have a good chiropractor. And we talk about like my neck pain. He never talks about like, Oh, it’s a spine or it’s a muscle or like, no, he’s like this is holding on anger. This is why your neck hurts. I was like, Oh, well, this is this is helpful, because this is a way to approach it. Instead of oh, let me go crack your neck real quick. And I see you next week. It’s like, No, we got to get the energy processed. So it can actually relieve the tension there. Long term. Right. So chiropractors, some of them know a lot of this the energy because the spinal cord, the nervous system, when it’s under stress, and under tension, you start getting posture issues, back pain, neck pain. And that was me too. I’m still working on that. I see my chiropractor in two days.
Victoria Volk 26:27
Well, that acupuncture is a lot like Reiki and that it helps to open flow of the energy. Right? You might want to look into Reiki.
Moussa Mikhail 26:37
Yeah, I did one Reiki class before. I haven’t done acupuncture. But I’m definitely was actually really interested in I was asking people about it out here in Vegas, because I definitely want to check it out. And it’s just like that it’s a process. It’s not something you do once. Right? And that’s why it’s all about the journey, and and mental health issues, not like oh, let me go talk to some person one time. No, it’s a practice. How can I practice moving this energy? Because if it gets stored up as anger, like it was for me, it’s going to come out somewhere else. It might blow the lid off when I’m when I don’t want it to write, it’s gonna come out uncontrollably at some point. So how do I process that in a healthy way, so no one gets hurt. And I don’t get hurt physically, when my body. I don’t suffer from disease, because I’m holding on to everything. So this is this is the conversation, I have myself a lot, and that I share with other people because it is a huge, huge part of just being happy and living a fulfilled life. And just performing and creating our maximized life that we can create is dealing with ourselves first.
Victoria Volk 27:57
So let’s circle back because I don’t want to gloss over the cancer diagnosis. But when you first heard those words, what went through your mind?
Moussa Mikhail 28:07
Yeah, I was actually fit, I was still in the Navy. So I was I was concerned. However I knew. It wasn’t. I wasn’t afraid. I was I understood that this type was, it’s one that doesn’t really spread very fast. And it didn’t really spread. Since I’ve had it. It’s very slow growing. And I looked at it. I knew, since I’ve heard it that I wasn’t going to just do the modern approach to removing parts and whatever the only option I had was surgery. And it was at a size that’s a little too small. For most most of them to have surgery, if it’s less than a centimeter, they usually don’t want to remove anything. And mines was less than a centimeter. And it still is. And I was like okay, so I’ll monitor it. Everyone looked at me like I was stupid for not wanting to have surgery. All the doctors, I was talking to any military because they just that’s the language you speak, right? But your cuts, surgeon removes things. So they’re just like, Let’s just remove and it’s gone. I looked at it from a more spiritual lens, right? Like if I’m, I knew I wanted to do this work when I got out the military. This is really right before like a couple months before I got that I found out and then it was like, I want to do this work. So me being spiritual, looked at it as well. This might be necessary for me to overcome and live through so I can live Self Mastery can I get I can live what really mastering the mind, body and spirit is and heal. And when I do that, I’ll be able to speak to everyone who has disease in a different way, and have them listen, that we have a lot of control over these things. I’ve known people who’ve healed from a lot of diseases we we see diabetes, heart disease, a lot, those things get reversed. Right? If you see work by Joe Dispenza, this man got hit by a truck and healed himself with only surgery may get its we say as miracle. However, our body, every single cell in our body is a miracle.
Victoria Volk 30:28
Yeah, he was told you never walk again.
Moussa Mikhail 30:30
Yeah and I study I’m learning, I’m in school for nutrition science, I’m studying a lot of biology. How are our body does the things it does is it’s a miracle. And that’s all I could say about that. So healing is part of our body, our body does that you get a cut on your finger, you don’t have to think about it, it’s going to heal, the body knows it will respond clot caught up that cut, and you get a scattered in a little while be gone. And you know, even though you had, right? Same thing with internal damage and cuts. For me, that was just a lesion on my thyroid, I looked at it as okay, I talked to a nutritionist, she told me the same thing about expressing myself. Right. And I was like, very true. I’ve held in stress for the last three years, I was in constant stress every day. It was not I was succeeding through it, I was functioning. However, it didn’t mean I wasn’t dealing with a lot of stress. I was just holding it in though, they want to talk to oh, he says the story told myself, I could have found an opportunity. But I didn’t. Because I didn’t want to seem weak. I was a leader of a division navigation, I had to be the strong leader. Right. And it you know, it is that’s the type of thinking that keeps people from talking about it. And then now now it’s like, I’m going to heal this, by if I keep my mind in the right way. If I’m moving the energy, from my bodies on that holding on to it from processing my emotions, whether it’s anger, sadness, frustration, now holding on to it. So my body can start healing. Because I believe you have to be in a peaceful state, for your body to maximize healing. And that’s why meditation is such a big thing for me now. And then dealing with these things. So now, it’s like a holistic approach. It’s not just cut it out. Because then if I cut it out, am I show up in a different form? If I’m still doing the same thing that the cause the the causal action of holding everything, and not communicating, not expressing that talking about it, right, so I figured the best way to talk about is make a podcast. And I honestly, I still haven’t really talked about it that much. You know, because I don’t like to identify myself as like I am dealing with that. Right? It’s just, it’s, it’s a small thing for me. And it was enough of a sign to say I need to take care of my body. Because I was very healthy. And I still got it right. I need to take care of my mindset, my mental health, my physical body’s great. You know, I’m active, I’m healthy, mostly plant based. At the time I was fully plant based, I was taking care of myself. It didn’t even it doesn’t even affect my thyroid hormone or anything. So it’s just there’s it was a flag, a red flag for me a sign that I need to take this serious. And this is part of my journey now. And when I overcome this, I’ll help other people overcome their issue. So that’s my view on it now.
Victoria Volk 33:48
I love that. Thank you for sharing all of that. But I do have a deeper question. What was your? What has been your grief experience growing up?
Moussa Mikhail 33:59
Yeah, my grief experience growing up was my parents moved to America from Egypt. I was born here. I grew up seeing a lot of verbal abuse between them. They didn’t I never really saw love in my household. Like that wasn’t really a thing. When I was about 1213, my parents separated. They got a divorce. And that was tough to see too. So a lot of there was there was always anger. There’s always these emotions. There was never really love growing up. You know, I received a lot of love from them individually, but seeing parents that hate each other pretty much and made it imprint on my mind at a very young age. They got divorced, I was still pretty young. And then my father passed away when I was in high school. So that was another thing. Right he passed away from lung cancer. And I had an uncle who was very close to pass alone as about 10 are 11, who had a heart attack at 55. So we both died at 55. And that’s what got me really interested in health. And then as I’m growing in health, I’m understanding why the mindset plays a role in a lot of these things. Where it’s heart is heart disease, lung cancer, right? Smoking cigarettes, it’s an addiction. So now I’m studying addiction in a very different way. And people have that addiction, because of what because it may calm them down from dealing with their trauma, their issues, their problems, their grief, right. So that is their mechanism to feel better in the moment. Right, so what are healthy ways to feel better in the moment? You know, and it was crazy thing is, they they did some study, I can’t remember all the details, but they they noticed that the thing that helps cigarette smokers the most when they smoke, is that they start taking deeper breaths. And they get a sense of calm. And they write maybe it is a cigarette because it has a nicotine, all those weird things? Or is it because they’re breathing bigger now? They have deeper breaths. So read breathwork is a huge thing for me. But yeah, those are the big things that, you know, I didn’t, I didn’t really grieve my father’s that that much. You know, because I wanted to be I wanted to be strong. And, you know, I don’t have any resentment for him. You know, I’ve let that go. You know, and and now it’s like, well, how can I help people here? Who are maybe stuck in addiction? Right? And are using that as a mechanism? Because I feel like most people have some sort of addiction now, too. But that’s a whole nother conversation. Right? Our cell phones are an addiction to so it’s, it’s how can I use that to help people move forward? Because I didn’t have a lot of guidance. I didn’t have a male role model, really? two older brothers, however, it wasn’t. Was it that type of relationship where I was like, inspired. Right, one of my brothers were was in a gang in high school. He’s not in and now he’s doing great. He’s like a pastor in Arizona, he’s like, overcame that he had his own addictions or his own journey. However, I didn’t really talk to him when I was younger. My other brother was also very reserved, very quiet. So I didn’t have a male role model. And my dad gone. And now I’m figuring it out, piecing it together and decided to finish high school, very quiet, reserved, I got along with people, I was friendly, or I was very reserved in high school. High school was just for me, it was just go do what I got to do and leave. You know, I didn’t really have that experience of enjoying it. Right. I was in my head most of the time. And I even even when my father passed away in high school, I didn’t tell anybody. Right. So that’s another issue to the thyroid, right? Yeah, I didn’t tell a single person. Like not a single person knew. Because it was over the summer before my senior year, I came back and it was like, I was quiet. Most of the time. I did my I did all my schoolwork. I was a good student and never got in trouble. But I didn’t communicate these things. Maybe a couple people knew. But yeah, that’s another thing. Where Why did I feel the need to not tell anyone? Not sure. Exactly. However, now I know. That’s not how you grieve. As long as you process pain,
Victoria Volk 38:53
It wasn’t it wasn’t demonstrated for you. And that’s where the generational learning impacts everybody, because we are taught what our children are what our parents teach us, right? And they’re taught what they know. You know. So that’s how that cycle continues. And it is up to me now to break that cycle because I wasn’t taught how to grieve appropriately, not even appropriately healthy, in a healthy way. You weren’t either, right. So break the cycle before my kids before I pass that onto my kids. That’s how this that’s how that cycle continues the grave alone and be strong and Time heals all wounds and all these things that were taught replaced the loss. This is are all myths of grief that we teach in Grief Recovery. And in Grief Recovery, like you said with addictions, we call them serves short term energy relieving behaviors. And we all have a vise of some sort that we resort to to feel Better for a short period of time. But it’s not long lasting, right? So we have to keep that pattern of behavior continues until we can become aware that our patterns of behavior are related to our emotion.
Moussa Mikhail 40:18
Exactly. And one thing I’ve learned, and I share is an emotion, not fully felt, not fully expressed, continues to perpetuate until it’s fully felt, it will linger in the background too, oftentimes, might not be thinking about it. You might have that resentment toward someone from like, 10 years ago, like I forgot about that. Like, I don’t care about that. Screw that person. There’s still some energy there.
Victoria Volk 40:50
I’m fine. Yeah, that’s always angry. feelings inside not expressed. That’s fine as
Moussa Mikhail 40:56
Exactly how many times I’ve I said that, right was saying, it was that every single day I’d show up, like, I’m good, I’m fine, whatever. I just do this, I’m going. Right does even that. Right. And that’s even for something someone to notice when their energy is low. And they’re they feel tired, they feel drained. There’s something there. Right, the brain is suppressing something, and it’s taking up energy. Right, and I ask people, this one, this is a great question to ponder, like, what are you trying to forget?
Victoria Volk 41:34
Hmm, that’s a good one.
Moussa Mikhail 41:37
That is a question that will ask, ask yourself that, reflect on that, because I asked myself, and now now it starts bringing up things because you, when you fully expressed something, when you fully grieve, you’re not trying to forget anything. You’re not trying to pretend it wasn’t there, whether that happened, you, you fully acknowledge it, you’ve came to acceptance and capacity, acceptance and surrendering it. Right. And that is that’s where it begins. But it begins with that conscious, intentional question or questions of some type of work to get you thinking about it? Why am I holding on to this? Like, why do we do we want to be right? Or do you want to be happy and healthy, because forgiveness, surrendering to something that at this point, I have no control over. That’s going to liberate me to be happy, and healthy, and create the greatness that I have within me and share that with the world. But until I face it head on, it’s going to operate in the background, I’m going to be tired, I’m gonna be down, everything’s gonna be fine. I’m going to have pains in my body, I’m going to have disease I have to go to doctor get drugs for I’m going to be just surviving. So thriving, and being happy, fulfilled. All of that begins with acknowledgement, acceptance and surrendering to the pain, the trauma, because honestly, from my experience in this work, I’ve been talking to a lot of people about it. Everybody has something or multiple something’s right. So it’s, it’s when you when I started talking about some of the addictions and some of the issues I’ve had, I started seeing that like everyone has some issue, even if it’s not the same exact one. There’s a lot of people that do deal with the same issues I’ve been dealing with. And that’s another concept for people to grasp. If you have an issue, and you’re not fine, and you have an issue in a relationship or work or whatever the cases, there are, pretty much everyone around you has some sort of issue too. You’re not the only one. And that’s the type of thing that made me isolate myself. I felt like I was the only one dealing with this. Right? And then if I actually think about it, a lot of people lose loved ones. A lot of people seeing family, hate and pain and never seen love in their life and some people seen worse. Right? And it’s it’s all relative, however, it is still stopping us from living fully. And just in the having that, that life of that we think is impossible sometimes. That’s it. That’s the thing right there that limiting belief and starting starting to understand that it is possible to not live in suffering and pain, to be depressed, to have these mental health issues. It is possible to be happy. That’s That’s it. Critical belief, I believe.
Victoria Volk 45:03
So what? What were you searching for when you decided to join the military,
Moussa Mikhail 45:09
I was searching, I was very, in my head logically about it. At the time, I wanted to join the FBI. I figured this is a good way to get out of the small town I was in. Because I was in Vegas, I was born in Vegas, I was living in New Jersey, which I didn’t, wasn’t really fond of, I wanted to get away. So there’s more of that too. Like I wanted to just run away, run away, right, run away from my life and start No, start a new one I wanted to get as clearance. So I can go in the FBI, and give military experience and just get out, right. And searching for a path that I know I can succeed in. Right, because I didn’t really have that many friends throughout high school, and those things. So it’s this, it just felt right, I can go build relationships of military leaders will help me guide me maybe I’ll travel, get out of my comfort zone or challenge myself or get military experience potentially be high quality candidate for the FBI. That changed. I didn’t want to work for the government ever after my second deployment. However, I’ve learned so much in that time, and I probably the best decision I made even though it was a lot of pain and suffering that I created for myself, by not dealing with things held in a healthy way. Right. And that’s another thing I tell people is suffering is optional. Suffering is optional. And we get to choose as hard as it is, it’s still a choice. And that’s that’s what I was running away from my life. Starting over my fat my father passed away. I didn’t like where I was at, I didn’t want to just do what everyone else is doing was going to like Community College. In New Jersey, I just I saw myself doing different. And that’s what made me join.
Victoria Volk 47:11
Well, and I asked that too, because I think your story is is different, but it’s very similar to a lot of people that joined the military. It’s because and it is a lot of people that come from dysfunctional homes that didn’t have that discipline, or they didn’t have that stability, or they didn’t have structure in their lives. And so their look, or they like you, you know, you didn’t have maybe the commodity friendships and solid support in that way. So you’re looking for that in the military, which every branch you’ll find that for sure. But again, like you said, you’re a submarine of dysfunctional men, you know, from dysfunctional backgrounds. And it’s not to say it’s, no one asks for that. Right? Like, you don’t ask for that. But you don’t know how to handle the cards you’re dealt with. If you’ve never been guided or, you know, received that demonstration of how to do that. And, again, I think to like you kind of to your point it I think it’s a waste of our lives, to not ask ourselves the deeper questions that lead to us fulfilling what it is the maximum of our potential. Right?
Moussa Mikhail 48:34
Absolutely yeah.
Victoria Volk 48:36
What is one? Oh, go ahead.
Moussa Mikhail 48:37
No, sorry. I was just gonna say when we when we do start reflecting deeply and asking those questions. We have the answers. And it just takes a little bit of reflection. I did a lot of that. When I was trapped into to most of the time,
Victoria Volk 48:54
but you don’t need to be trapped into tube to do that. Right?
Moussa Mikhail 48:57
You don’t Right. What’s the worst trap is the one we just keep here? Yeah, exactly. Without realizing our minds. Yeah, that’s the worst one. Yeah.
Victoria Volk 49:05
How many of us were in prison or are in prison or feel like we’re in prison to our circumstances?
Moussa Mikhail 49:13
Is optional.
Victoria Volk 49:14
Yeah. But action is the anecdote, right? Doing something about it. And so I guess my question is then to you. What would you say to someone, you know, yeah, it’s easier said than done. What would you say to someone? Where do you start?
Moussa Mikhail 49:33
Yeah. So
Victoria Volk 49:35
Okay I ask myself the question. I asked myself, What are you trying to forget? I’ve asked myself that question. Well, I know what I’m trying to forget. Now what
Moussa Mikhail 49:44
A lot of it is just we think it’s gonna happen overnight or over in a week in a month. And it’s not so first understanding that it is now that you have the awareness and the the idea that it’s possible To get over this, looking at is a lifetime journey, a lifelong process of learning and bettering. Because that’s that’s one of the things I saw that why sometimes people might not succeed and the counseling with a psychologist there like one hour sessions every week or month, sometimes that’s too much at a time. And it’s about just getting a little bit better. So instead of thinking of like, oh, I need to overcome all these issues, right now that’s going to overwhelm. So it’s, how can I do one thing today to get me to make progress? Or if it’s breaking a habit? How can I do one less of that one thing? Right, and it’s breaking it down? Because sometimes it’s many things. Sometimes you might have many different issues, many addictions, and you want to take them on at once. And then you won’t, because it’s too much. It’s overwhelming. And you haven’t grown to the person necessary to overcome all those things at that time, because it’s a growing process. It’s a practice. So was one thing I can do today to help me maybe release some of the tension? What’s one practice I can start right now one habit I can develop, whether it’s talking to a Reiki Master, whether that’s do five minutes of breathing, or whether that’s write something out, whether that’s exercise, or that’s take, you know, take your energy, move your energy somewhere else, right, it’s it’s the little things that really make the big changes. And it’s developing habits. So starting small to just get better, what can I do today? To get better, and then tomorrow, not beat myself up? Because I haven’t overcame everything yet. Know that I just got a little bit better. I did. I did 10 minutes of meditation today. Wow. Like, tomorrow, let me do that, again. Whether even if five minutes, whatever few breaths, like getting started becoming aware, and taking small steps consistently over time, that’s what makes great change. It’s not like, Okay, I gotta stop. Let me talk about my trauma in a one hour session, and it’s all gone. Like, no, sometimes it’s has to be more controlled, shorter increments over time, and you start releasing some of that energy over time. And it’s a process. So don’t set expectations for yourself to have it all done right now. Because it’s a process. And it’s a never ending learning journey. I’m constantly learning ways to overcome the issues that arise for me. However, it’s small steps, small steps, what’s the one thing I can do right now, that can help me just be better, and then start isolating those things, once you break down the most destructive habit, that that’d be the sole focus, right? And then break that down until it’s gone. And when that’s done, you can move on to the next one. But it’s like you want to fix everything all at once. You’re not going to know how. So let’s break it down small and then move forward from there.
Victoria Volk 53:42
And that’s pretty much how it started. For me. My my growth, post traumatic growth. I think it was a midlife crisis, which I think is very common for people end up in midlife asking yourself bigger questions and things like that. And so that’s how it kind of started for me again, a life coach was doing a little bit of this, a little bit of that started writing. But it wasn’t enough for me, like I realized grief is my issue. I had another loss that kind of opened up a can of worms, which often is what happens to when people realize, like you have one loss, like you have one loss that just like okay, I’m done, I can’t take this anymore. I just want to feel better. And so that’s what led me to Grief Recovery, which changed my life opened me up to Reiki and all these other opportunities and things this podcast like it’s been do like a growth just in the last two years after I dealt with my grief, and like to speak to what you said earlier with trauma and stuff traumas what happens in grief is what’s left. And so what has your grief taught you?
Moussa Mikhail 54:50
My grief taught me that it is necessary to have support in my life. You know, it’s necessary for me Have people around me, and to not do it myself, which was, I had backwards before. I thought I had to deal with it myself. So I can, you know, show up the best version, right? But you won’t be able to show up the best version. If you’re holding on to a lot of pain and suffering and grief, and trauma, right, those things are consuming a lot of your energy in a subconscious way. So that that was the biggest thing. And that’s something I’m, I still work on having people around me who can see this, there, my mirrors, my mirrors, if I’m, if I’m not showing up my normal self, or happy or whatever I see around me now, because I surrounded myself with people, right? And everyone’s just a mirror. So having the support, and knowing that it’s okay to feel crappy. It’s okay to feel that because that’s part of dealing with emotions.
Victoria Volk 56:04
And contrast. Yeah. And the contrast, yeah,
Moussa Mikhail 56:07
A lot of times emotion is just data, it’s information to me, if I’m, if I’m angry, angry is not bad or good. It’s what I do with that, that becomes bad or good. Because if I’m angry, and I go take it out, go yell in a pillow, or go run or whatever. And now I’ve expressed that energy, and I’m no longer feeling that anger. Now I can learn from that emotion, like, what, what caused it? Why did it take such a strong root in me, or whatever the cause was, I can learn from that. So I’ve learned so much about how to deal with my emotions. And I actually had to put words to it. Because a lot of times before, I didn’t even know how to like put words to it. So I’ll just be silent. Because I don’t know, I’m the hall here, I don’t know, I don’t even I explain what I’m feeling and experiencing. And that is practice. That’s a huge practice. However, it’s a liberating practice. Because once you start communicating it, and if you speak it out loud to groups or people, you start letting some of that energy out. Right. And it might be a little bit by a little bit, if you do it every week, every other week, and you start doing it and releasing the energy and communicating it. Eventually, that energy would dissipate to nothing. And then becomes nothingness instead of a controlling factor of your life. So that’s something I’ve learned, and that I’m still practicing, anytime something comes up. Now it’s not let me hold on to this and we process it. Yeah, process it. And then I have to communicate it in some way, whether that’s writing it out, or communicating to another human being or group, or group fashion. So those are some of my big keys.
Victoria Volk 57:56
That’s awesome. And one thing that came to my mind, too, is is how, like, how do you know if you’re growing? Like how do you know if you are stepping into a better version of yourself? And what’s been on the top of my mind this week has been the word patience. And I think it’s how you handle the hurry up and wait. That is the military, right? But how you handle the wait, the waiting, whether you’re waiting in a grocery line, whether you’re stuck in traffic, how do you handle waiting? And I think if you can look at truly how you handle waiting, how patient you are, I think that really is a really good indicator of how much you have grown as a human being. Because I had, I had a really challenging situation yesterday, which brings to my mind about patients because I don’t think the guy expected me to be as patient as I was. But I was more than an hour and a half patient. I think it was just like, you know, he’s trying to push me to why I think you you know what, we can do this another time? No, I’m good. I’m very patient. And that was not me five years ago, not even three years ago. So patience. Yeah, that’s been a huge thing on on the forefront of my mind this week, actually going to write about it in my newsletter, because I think it is a really great indicator of how much patience we actually have with ourselves to. If we’re completely impatient with other people, how can you really be patient with yourself? And really patients for yourself as compassion for yourself too. So
Moussa Mikhail 59:43
Absolutely, which is a huge, huge part of this. It’s kind of the essence of what we’re talking about. When I’m saying take you have to it’s a process. It’s a slow process, daily practice. That requires patience. Because when you when you feel like you When you want to get over something in like a day, however, it might take longer than that. What if it takes a month to get process something fully? That’s okay. Like whatever it is, whatever it is, it is what it is. But it requires patience. And that’s a great test. If you’re in traffic, how mad do you get? And is that worth it? If you get mad at that, so although all the other little things that come about in your day to day triggers you, you start noticing, oh, I’m just pissed off like most of the day until I go to sleep. Right. That’s where disease and things like that come about?
Victoria Volk 1:00:41
Yeah, I think we could have just a whole nother conversation about energy. And just the energy of growth, post traumatic growth. You know, you hear that phrase a lot. But yeah, so I just want to encourage everybody to check out your podcast, the conquer approach. And where can people? Is there anything else for someone to give you the opportunity? Is there anything else that you didn’t get to share that you would like to share?
Moussa Mikhail 1:01:10
I feel overall complete, just want to remind people, this is a journey. It doesn’t end, once you process one thing, life is just going to continue to fill those things. So it’s what we focus on. Our energy will flow there. Right. And exchange expectations for appreciation was one of the best things I’ve learned. Expectations, cause suffering,
Victoria Volk 1:01:40
Plan disappointments, expectations, or plan disappointments. Can you say that again, though? What did you say?
Moussa Mikhail 1:01:45
Exchange expectation for appreciation. That’s good. Expectation just causes suffering, a what it should be, it should look like it should feel like whatever the case is. But in the moment can shift that to whatever and change that to appreciation, you’ll find your body being in a completely different state, your mind being a different state. And that is the goal that we’re we’re achieving here is is finding peace, through grieving through communicating through understanding the body and energy. So other than that, my podcast is on every platform. I’m Musa McHale on every platform. So I’d love to connect with anyone.
Victoria Volk 1:02:29
And I’ll put the way you can connect in the show notes, all those links in the show notes. And I thank you so much for your time today for your service as well. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love from my heart to yours. Thank you for listening. If you liked this episode, please share it because sharing is caring. And until next time, give and share compassion by being hurt with yours. And if you’re hurting know that what you’re feeling is normal and natural. Much love my friend
Grief Stories, Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Podcast, Suicide |
Emma G Rose | His Name Is Nicky
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
The ripples of loss reach far and wide within a family unit; often in ways, we don’t expect. Emma shares the impact the death of her cousin to suicide has had on her life and that of her family.
Emma has found solace in writing her grief in the thirteen years since her cousin Nicky’s death, publishing three books since that time.
Suicide leaves those left behind having to navigate the displaced anger this type of loss often leaves in its wake. Emma shares how her family grieved together and how this loss, which left a gaping hole in their lives, has somehow managed to bring them, as a whole, more together. They talk about the hard issues and what matters to them as if they’re talking about the weather. Which, as the creator of this podcast, is my hope for all of us – that, as a society, we can begin to talk about grief like we talk about the weather.
Reach out to someone you know or love today and, as Emma shares, if they need to, they will reach back. It often takes someone to extend the hand of compassion first. Will that be you?
RESOURCES:
CONNECT:
Victoria Volk 0:08
This is Victoria of theunleashedheart.com, and you’re listening to grieving voices, a podcast for hurting hearts who desire to be heard. Or anyone who wants to learn how to better support loved ones experiencing loss. As a 30 plus year griever and advanced Grief Recovery methods specialist, I know how badly the conversation around grief needs to change. Through this podcast, I aim to educate gravers and non Grievers alike, spread hope and inspire compassion toward those hurting. Lastly, by providing my heart with yours and this platform, grievers had the opportunity to share their wisdom and stories of loss and resiliency. How about we talk about grief, like we talked about the weather? Let’s get started. Thank you for tuning in to grieving voices. Today’s guest is Emma G Rose. She is an author, publisher and host of the indie book talk podcast, she started writing her first novel as a way to cope with her cousin’s death by suicide. Today, she’s getting ready to publish her third contemporary fantasy novel about people living through difficult situations, including near death experiences, suicide and grief. Thank you so much for being here. Happy to have you. Yeah, no problem. Let’s start with your grief writing journey. And where that begins,
Emma G Rose 1:34
I guess, to really tell this I have to go back to before the grief incident. So I’d always wanted to be a writer my whole life. As soon as I figured out that books were a thing that people wrote, they weren’t just magically created. I wanted to be a writer. And so I was that kid who was always scribbling in a notebook, I was reading all the time. And I started a bunch of different drafts of books as a as a kid in like middle school in high school age. But I’d never finished anything, to a degree that I felt like it was ready to be sent out into the world. And then I was 20. And I got a phone call that my 17 year old cousin, had died by suicide. And of all of the people I knew in my life, if I had had to list, the people who were at least likely for that to happen to, he would have been right at the top of that list. Like it just was completely out of the blue to in my,
Emma G Rose 2:34
in my experience of it, it just you know, it wasn’t like, we saw signs, you know, people talk about, Oh, I saw this and that. And of course, in retrospect, there were a few things. But it’s hard to tell, sometimes as a teenager, like the difference between normal teenage angst and like there’s something really wrong here. So as his cousin who lives in a different state, I didn’t see it. And it completely shocked me. And started kicked off probably the hardest week of my life, which was flying, to be with the family and be it the week and the funeral and all of that stuff. And that all of that process that ritual, helps to helps you to kind of cope in the short term. But it’s just the very beginning of this long journey of dealing with a situation. And my situation was a little complicated in that I this was this happened in March, in the fall, I was scheduled to move to Japan. So very quickly, after this loss, I moved to the literal other side of the planet, and was as far as I could possibly be and still be on planet Earth, away from my family. So I did kind of fell back on old habits and started writing a lot. And at one point this, this scene kind of popped into my head this, these two characters talking to each other, and they were teenagers. And this is where it gets it actually gets a little lighter. There’s these two teenagers and they’re arguing about whether or not they’re dead. And I don’t know where this came from. Exactly. It was just like one of those scenes that sort of falls into your head all at once. And I knew that they were that they were dead, but that they weren’t sure. And that they were arguing that’s what they were arguing about. And I got up from the book I was reading and I went and I wrote down this scene. And it sort of evolved from there into a story. I eventually wrote my cousin into the story, the whole that whole first novel deals with a journey through the afterlife. And so I was able to write him post suicide. And as a person dealing with this decision that he had made, he was both incredibly challenged. and comforting to write that because it was a way of saying he’s not gone forever, right? He’s just kind of in a different place. And for me and for my family, when I share the story with them, it was really comforting to know that like, there was another place, I made a home for him. And this is where he was. And we all knew where he was, he’s in this afterlife place. And he’s okay. And so when I wrote this, and it was, again, you know, very challenging, there were many drafts, I removed the scene, I put it back, you know, there was a lot of that happening. But when I shared it with family, people who have known Him, they kept saying, to me, this is really comforting, this made me feel better. This, you know, somehow changed the way I thought about this so that I could feel like, okay, I can move, I don’t want to say move on, because that’s never real, but to move forward in this feeling, and not just be kind of stuck in this place. So hearing that, I knew that this story needed a wider audience, because we weren’t the only one. Sadly, we’re not the only people who have dealt with this situation. We’re not the only people who have lost someone to young, we’re not the only people who have lost someone to suicide. We’re not the only people to be struggling months and years later with the ramifications of this act. So I wanted to put it out into the world. And even knowing that that was true, knowing there were people out there who needed it, I still sort of dragged my feet for years. Because first of all, there’s all the complication of getting something published, you know, it’s not a super simple process, always. And depending on which avenue you choose, I originally went with the traditional publishing route, I was querying agents I was sending out, you know, cover letters saying like, this is what the books about and do you think you can sell this? And most people said, No, we don’t think we can sell this. A few said, this is incredibly intriguing. But I don’t know where to put it. It was just it was it was a weird story. It bothered people that the whole thing happened in the afterlife. It bothered people that like it was funny. It’s a legitimately funny book, because they’re teenagers and teenagers are hilarious. But it was also dealing with these really heavy issues. So that was this weird balance. And I finally ended up independently publishing it, starting my own publishing imprint, putting the book out into the world. And it took me 10 years from the time of my cousin’s death to the publication of the book, but I think it was a well spent 10 years and learning how to deal with all of this. And the process of publishing the process of getting it out into the world has helped my grieving process. And as I continue to write, I continue to, to find layers of this grief. So the most recent novel, The one that’s coming out in July, is assembling Ella, and that is a story of somebody who 11 years later is dealing with the loss of her brother. So it was it enabled me to look at some of the things that people don’t understand about long term grief. And the times when, you know, I mentioned my cousin, and people go, and they kind of cringe, and they don’t know what to say next. And or they’re like, why are you still upset about that, which is my favorite response, because I’m still upset about that, because he’s still gone. And it’s still awful. But I found myself kind of telling myself the story that I should be better, where even it was a few months before the final draft of this book. So I had sent it out to beta readers, which is like the first readers who kind of give you feedback, and I had sent it out to them. And so I was kind of in this place where I didn’t have anything to do right this second. And it happened to fall during the anniversary of my cousin’s death. And I found myself thinking I should be I should feel better than this. I shouldn’t be so sad about this. Still, it’s been this many years. How am I still so upset? How am I How was it still await? You know, March, as soon as the month of March starts. It’s like I’m holding my breath. And I actually called my mother and I said, Why am I still so upset, and she said something that actually sort of it was true, but it was also kind of devastating to hear, which was, The anticipation is worse than the day because you know what’s going to happen, you know, that this awful thing is going to happen, and there’s nothing you can do about it. And so every year, like the week, the few days before, is really, really hard. And I’m learning to reach out to people, you know, to talk to my uncle, who has been amazing, you know, he lost his son, and he’s just, he’s found ways to turn that grief and that loss into connection. In many ways. He’s a role model, too. You know, we do different things. We do it in different ways. But ultimately, we’re both trying to say you are not alone. And this should never happen to anyone else ever again. And whatever we can do to save people from that or to You know, bring them forward just a little bit to know like, you’re not alone. You’re okay. And there’s all these people that be really upset if you left, that, that outreach that, you know, remembering that you’re not by yourself is like the biggest thing. It’s, it’s everything in this. And that’s why I write books, not only to remind other people that they’re not alone, but to remind me, because people come out of the woodwork. When I when I share these books, and I share these stories. I get emails, I get direct messages on Twitter, I get, you know, these log messages on Instagram saying, I read this book, it changed the way I think. I read this book, I realized someone else gets it. I heard you speak. They haven’t even read the book. I heard you speak. And I understood. You know, I felt something. That’s why I do it. I don’t think there will ever be a time when I’m over it. I don’t think you ever get over grief. You’ve lived with it and you live through it. And it’s okay to not be over it. It’s expected because you never don’t love that person. You never are happy they’re gone. So you’re always grieving in some way or another extend you a hug. Thank you.
Victoria Volk 11:06
Thank you for sharing. I think your mom had it right? Because it is it’s the anticipation that is almost worse. And all the work that I’ve been doing and podcast episodes I’ve recorded with Grievers. It is a similar story of the week of the month of the day before the day of even days after it’s it’s when self care is really superduper important, and especially in grief. That is that’s your hope, especially maybe early on. So what did help you? And when did this happen?
Emma G Rose 11:40
This was 2008. So it’s been 13 years.
Victoria Volk 11:46
Yeah. And it’s been 13 years, friends. Yeah, there’s no timeline, right? 30 plus years, my dad’s been gone. There’s no timeline, the chairs still empty. My son’s gonna graduate in two years, I’ll probably think about my dad and how I wish he would be there, right, like life events keep going on and that person is still gone. That doesn’t change. So the grief changes, but the missing doesn’t. Right. And I heard the same thing. Well, she you should be over by now. Yeah, well, I’m not a stuffer like you. Because the people who are saying that are stuffing their emotions, excuse me, they’re stuffers. They’re either turning to the bottle turning to relationships, turning to Facebook or reality TV or something that makes them feel better for a time. And they’re not really addressing what’s going on. And it catches up with people. Eventually, it does. So what helped you I’m circling back to the question now, what helped you and is continually helping you, other than writing because not everybody’s a writer, right? When the time gets closer, and when March because March is my month too. So
Emma G Rose 13:02
I mean, writing is like my primary coping mechanism for most things, but outside of that, reaching out to family members, and just saying like, I’m not okay, you know, sometimes I send my uncle just like a heart emoji. I did on my cousin’s birthday this year, like the day before his birthday, I just sent that. And it’s that little moment of connection. And when you’re grieving, it’s really hard to connect with people, because you want to sort of call yourself inward and protect, you know, you want to protect that thing that’s hurting, which is you. But it really does help to reach out and just say I’m not okay, and to acknowledge that out loud and not feel like you have to be smiley and fine when you’re not. That’s huge. For me, one of the kind of sweet things that my uncle did, he took some of Nikki’s old T shirts, and he cut them up, and he wrote his name and his birth and death dates on them. And Nick had always wanted to travel. So we took the t shirt of pieces of T shirts to just random places. I was in Japan. So he sent me one and I left it in a temple in Japan. And, you know, my my family went out to camp that a camp that they’ve been to several years in a row and they like tied onto a rock and dropped it into the lake. And it was all those things that remind you that the person is not here with you, but that they were and that they’re still part of what you’re doing. We still talk about him regularly. You know, it’s not there’s no taboo against bringing him up. My uncle will joyfully tell stories about the hilarious and ridiculous things that my cousin did. He was, you know, the class clown, the funny kid who was always getting up to something and those stories are told and that I think makes a huge difference to and not not avoiding because yes, it makes us sad, but it also makes us happy because my favorite author Terry Pratchett has a quote. Do you not know that a man is not dead? Well, his name is still spoken. And I think that continuing to speak someone’s name is not only a confirmation that your grief is valid, and that this, you know, it’s not like this bad feeling that came from nowhere it had an origin. And that origin was the love of someone, you don’t grieve someone that you didn’t have some sort of feeling for there. That’s just you know, a name on a paper somewhere, but somebody that you grieve as someone that you loved, or sometimes didn’t get along with really well and had complicated emotions around, or they evoke something in you. And so what you’re grieving is not just the person, but also everything around them, the you that you are, when they’re around and the way that they fit into your relationships in your world. We are eight cousins, a boy and a girl and each family. And Nikki is a part of that, even though he’s not present with us anymore. And so he comes up and we talk about him. And that makes a huge difference.
Victoria Volk 15:55
I think your uncle sounds like a really good mentor. And he’s leading by example. I love that story with the T shirts. It’s beautiful.
Emma G Rose 16:04
Yeah he’s done a lot to both remember Nikki as an individual person, but also to help other people who might be going through similar struggles. So he started in Nicky’s remembrance, he started the Nicholas wind Fernandez Scholarship Fund, which gives a scholarship it’s not a huge scholarship. You know, we’re not millionaires here, but it’s a scholarship to kids who went to the vocational school that Nicky was attending. So that exists. But we also did the out of the darkness walks, which are fundraising events for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. And my uncle got really involved in suicide prevention programs in the state of Massachusetts, which is where they’re from, he worked actually with the select the state legislature to get suicide awareness training into schools, which was interesting, because when he started, they asked him to talk at what would have been Nikki’s graduating class. And just before he went on stage, they said, Oh, don’t say the word suicide. And so that, don’t say that word that comes back to the same thing of don’t speak their name, because you’ll make someone’s that Don’t say that word, because you’ll put it in their heads. You’re not putting that idea into anyone’s head. They already have the idea. But when you bring something out into the open, you demystify it, you take away some of the some of that feeling of no one understands no one’s ever been where I am, no one gets what I’m feeling, all of that is connected, the grief, the suicide, all of that is something you have to talk about, and mental health as a stigma. Those are things we have to talk about, and we’re getting better now he can go into a school and give a talk specifically about suicide prevention. And no one thinks that’s weird, but 13 years ago, don’t mention the word.
Victoria Volk 17:49
Tell us about Nikki and the impact he had on you.
Emma G Rose 17:52
He was the the youngest of my cousins, and only my little brother is younger than him. So he’s the youngest of my cousins. And he always had sweaty hands. Some people just do and he always did. Oh, he always wanted to hug you. So get this, this stereotype that like a 1314 year old boy is not going to come hug his female cousin when she walked out the door. Nikki was not he you know, yeah, your hair, give you a big hug. He loved to play video games. He loved to play sports. He did baseball and football and all of that stuff. And he was very much that the life of the party, the class clown kid, the one who came up with the funny prank. He was also he takes after my uncle, he was a bit of a daredevil, you’d have to stop him from doing things like can I jump off the trampoline into the pool? You know, he was that kid? Yeah, to be on watch, because he would get into trouble. But he was just the sweetest person. You know, he was legitimately wanted people around him to be happy and joyful. And he he was that himself for the most part. And I associate the color green with him because he wore it a lot. And so we all wore green for a long time afterwards, their particular shade of green. Yeah, it was my baby cousin. And in some ways, you know, I don’t didn’t know him as well, as I wish I did. You don’t realize until somebody has gone that. Like all the things I wish I knew. I couldn’t tell you what his favorite song was, you know, or my uncle had to tell me some of the things he hoped and dreamed about? What did you want to be when he grew up? And you know, where did he want to travel? All of those things. Like I didn’t necessarily know that because I was 20 and he was 17. And you know, the younger you are the the more those ages matter. And he’s changed our lives since then. I think certain members of our family are much closer than they would have been otherwise. We make more of an effort to be present for things because we’re all very aware that you never know when the last time you’ll see someone will be so you know say I love you go to the event even if it’s boring. Don’t make the effort to do something even if it can only be, you can only go for 30 minutes before work. Okay? It’s better than nothing. Yeah, he was just a really happy kid. I’m so sorry. Thank you
Victoria Volk 20:16
Was the family I was so open and vocal with each other before this happened to?
Emma G Rose 20:23
We’re, we’re pretty good at talking about hard things. I think we got better about it. I think, again, it’s sometimes it’s hard, you know, I was 20. So, the world you live in when you’re a teenager or a young adult, isn’t always 100% reality. But I do think that we were pretty good at being open and vocal, you know, we always said, I love you, we took pictures together, you know, but I just think that we’re much more willing to talk about hard things now. You know, it’s not uncommon for someone to say, Oh, I went to my doctor, and I now want anxiety medicine, and I feel so much better, you know, those sorts of things that maybe we wouldn’t have necessarily shared with everyone, you know, with the whole family. And I think my, my nuclear family, my parents and my brother, we are exceptionally good at talking about things like death, you know, we’ve had very open and honest conversations about what do I want to happen when I die? What, you know, who Who do I want making decisions for me? What do I want to happen to my to my body after I die, all of those things, that, again, people sometimes really struggle to talk about our I don’t want to say comfortable, but they’re not uncomfortable topics. They’re the they’re just as likely to come up well, cooking dinner, as you know, oh, did you see that thing on TV? Or what I’m planning to do next weekend? It’s, it’s becomes a very normal thing to discuss.
Victoria Volk 21:56
That’s very important. Do you think that I mean, was Nikki privately struggling? Did Nikki not communicate some things? Was there any indication that he was,
Emma G Rose 22:06
I think he communicated better, or more, more openly with his father, my uncle, and maybe even to a certain extent, my grandparents who live very close by, I think that I was more removed from it because I was further away. You know, we live in Maine, and third, Massachusetts, we see each other at special events and things and he was definitely struggling. He, you know, he’d had some diagnosis of some sort of depression or something like that. And, you know, and I don’t know all of the details, I know that he was sort of struggling and in the end, and but I, again, it’s so hard. And I think I want to acknowledge this because people who are beating themselves up about this, it’s so hard to tell when you’re when you’re outside someone’s head. Whether this thing that they’re dealing with right now, is this a end of their world sort of thing? Or is this I just feel bad right now, it’s really hard to tell. And sometimes inside your own head, you can’t really tell. So we did that. We did that. Like, well, what if we done this? And what if we’d said this, and if only we’d come home sooner if only you know, this hadn’t happened if only somebody had said this, that or the other thing. But I mean, you could have only all the way back to my uncle never met, who Nicky’s mother, and therefore, Nikki was never born. But I don’t want that. I’ll take this over that.
Victoria Volk 23:28
I’m curious and you don’t have to share. But I’m, you know, just for the sake of those listening, what I know about grief, as a grief recovery specialist is that it’s not just one experience that happens to us. It’s usually accumulation of experiences that takes us over the edge or we either implode or explode. What was Nikki’s life prior to this? Like had he experienced a lot of grief in his life?
Emma G Rose 24:00
I don’t know that I’m qualified to say, I know that he had, in some ways a difficult relationship with his mother. My, my uncle and his mother were divorced. And there was, you know, there was some tension there that we all knew about again, I mean, I don’t know the inside of his head. So I don’t know what thing you know what? Something that can be life shattering for one person might be a Tuesday for someone else. So I can’t say for sure. I do know that. My uncle and my grandparents were always present and loving and supportive. And yeah, they thought about stuff because everybody does. But ultimately, we have always known that they were there for us. And I can’t imagine that Nikki didn’t know that. But sometimes what’s going on inside your head just doesn’t No amount of outside support is enough, you know, you got to find that inside yourself to some degree. So that’s really, I guess the best answer I can give to that.
Victoria Volk 25:09
I just wanted to just highlight though that exactly what you said is that an event can happen to one person, and it can feel like a Tuesday. And it can be an absolutely soul crushing thing to somebody else. And the divorce rate is quite high. And usually children are the collateral damage of that. And this is why too, I’m passionate about the helping children with loss program. It’s for the adults, especially with young children younger, even doesn’t matter the age really, but this is why I’m to I’m so passionate about the education of it, because when we as parents, Are you a parent, as a parent, and I have teenagers, I have three teenagers now it is I have learned the value of cleaning up my own shit. Really, I’m now gonna have to mark this explicit. But it’s the truth, it is the truth, because my junk impacts my parenting, therefore, will impact my children. And I don’t want my junk to interfere with their future. And so if you’re listening to this, and you are maybe getting a divorce, you already are divorced. And if that isn’t even your situation, maybe you’re estranged from the biological, other parent, whatever the situation is, maybe you’re adopt, you know, maybe you adopted children in your divorce, whatever, it doesn’t matter. This is why this is so important. Because when we start to clean up and sweep our doorstep, it ripples in our lives. Your uncle has started, he cleaned up his doorstep, he started, you know, and he’s making ripples in other people’s lives. Look at the influence he’s had on you and the impact and your grief, just by him leading by example, not just in the basics of life, but when it really matters. And when that when it comes to grief, because we don’t know what people are struggling with. But if you can’t allow yourself to ask the tough questions, because you’re afraid of the answer, where you can’t handle the answer. That’s your indicator that you’ve got some personal work to do. I’m getting off my soapbox now. I didn’t expect that. But it’s heartbreaking for me to hear these stories like this. And not just Nikki, it’s just one like it even you know that. We just never know what impact our actions have on others. Not that this is by any means your uncle’s fault. I am not saying that, or his mother’s fault. I’m not saying that. I’m just saying, what do you have to lose by addressing your stuff. And that potential is really high to be a lot, your future, your own future, your own potential, we sacrifice when you when you don’t address the stuff within you, you are sacrificing little bits of yourself. So what has your grief taught you? Because that’s that’s I mean, I’ve learned a lot. So what have you learned in your group?
Emma G Rose 28:29
How do I narrow this down? It has taught me that I am not alone have never been alone cannot be alone. Because there are there’s always another person in the world who has experienced something like what you’re experiencing. And if you reach out, they’ll reach back. That’s I mean, I’ve my whole writing career around that idea that if I reach out the people who need to, will reach back. And I don’t think I would have known that. If I hadn’t had this experience. I think it’s also taught me that life is more complicated than you think. So no single experience is like, Okay, this is everything or network, even something that feels like the ripples of an individual experience spread out through your life. When Nicky died, my brother, my brother’s much younger than me, my brother was 12 and a teacher at his school who also happened to have grief professional training, said that children will grieve as they grow. And I remember as a as a 20 year old I said, That’s stupid. He’s going to grieve and then he’ll just go on with his life, right? Because of course, I’d never had this level of experience. And I have learned that people do in fact grieve as they grow and sometimes they don’t realize that’s what’s happening. And so sometimes that and in some ways, this is what assembling Ella is about sometimes reaching a milestone. Everyone around you is like, Yay, we’re seniors. Isn’t that exciting? And you’re going my brother never got to be a senior. Why do I get To surpass him, my cousin never will get to be 21 years old, he’ll never get to have that ridiculous party that everybody has. And, you know, get into trouble. He missed that. And knowing that no single experience is all happier, all sad, nothing you experience in your life is all good, or all bad. It’s this balance of things. I don’t believe everything happens for a reason. I don’t believe that their fates out there making the world BS. But I do believe, and this has taught me that you can find lessons and and guiding principles out of even the worst things. And that if those terrible things happen, the best thing you can do is look for the lesson in them. Because you might as well learn something, if you have to go through this horrible thing, you might as well let it make you a better person, you might as well let let it connect you more to people, because the alternative is to let it break you down. And I don’t want to do that
Victoria Volk 30:58
I had a podcast guest once say I said in grief, and she had lost a child. And she said, when you lay you decay. Yeah. And I like to say that you’re already suffering, you might as well be suffering and moving your feet, taking action, baby steps, whatever you have to do to I had a podcast guest Yes, the who is living with metastatic breast cancer. And sometimes it’s just your goal is just to get out of bed. That’s it, just to get out of bed, and because when you lay you decay, I’ve just never forgotten it throughout your grief experience, which I totally identify with what you said, grieve as you grow, because I was eight. So that’s why I say I’m pretty much a lifelong Griever. But in your grief, experience, what has given you the most joy and hope for the future.
Emma G Rose 31:48
I mean, I’d have to say that the stories I get back from people, when I put when I share my grief experience, and people reach back and say, I understand I feel this, you made me feel better, you made me think about this differently like that, that’s the joy that comes out of this is that I experienced this. And it made us more empathetic people, it made us comfortable people for someone to reach out to if they’re hurting, because they know we’ve we’ve hurt they know that it’s safe to talk to us about these things. And as sad as it is when someone comes to you with a grief it, it’s also it’s also a relief to know that they have someone you know, they’re not having to navigate this, by themselves, sadly, have been there and have kind of blazed a trail and you can walk in those footsteps. So that’s been I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t written books like I don’t know how I would have dealt with it. This was my way. And I think other people are going to have other ways. You know, you could paint tour start a charity, or I don’t know, lay on the floor and cry. I mean, there there are lots of ways there are paths that aren’t this one. But for me, this was the only way forward. And if I had not written this the first book and not continued to write, I don’t know where I would be. It would not be here. Certainly, I don’t know where I would be
Victoria Volk 33:10
Writing gave you hope. It sounds like you’re not the first Griever to that found solace in writing. I’m sure to have one of them too. What else would you like to share today?
Emma G Rose 33:21
I think I just want people to know that I hope this has come across. But I will say it more explicitly. I want people to know that your grief is not wrong. And there’s nothing wrong with you. This is hard, it sucks. It’s sad. It’s feels meaningless and stupid. And why should anyone have to do this and whatever weird cocktail of emotions you get out of that, whether it’s anger or sadness, or any permutation of that, that’s okay. It’s okay, fighting those feelings saying I shouldn’t feel this way I should feel better, I should do this, that that is not going to help you. So it’s really okay to be sad. It’s really okay to not be okay. It’s really okay to block out three days of the month and say, I’m not working because I’m, I can’t because this is my observance. This is what I’m doing. That’s totally okay.
Victoria Volk 34:11
I like how you called it days day of observance, even like days of observance. It’s really observing how you’re feeling. It’s observing, you know, what would you have done with that person if they were here and maybe doing that thing? I like that, like I said that I did think of another question, because I know that the loss of your cousin wasn’t the only loss you had. But I’m also curious if you had grief yourself experiences prior to losing your cousin,
Emma G Rose 34:39
The only person I had ever lost before. Nikki was my great grandmother, which is a very different experience. She had been in a nursing home for many years, she’d had a stroke. She wasn’t herself and she knew she wasn’t herself. And so when when she died, it felt More of a relief almost to say like she’s not she had a full and beautiful life. And now she’s left us. And that’s very sad. And we were, of course, all very sad. But it wasn’t the same. There was no anger. With Nikki, there was a lot of anger. And it’s hard because it was a kind of displaced anger, like who am I mad at not really mad at him. I’m not I’m not mad at anyone. I’m just like mad that this is even a thing. I’m mad that this is possible in the world. I’m mad that somebody who had his his wake was like, there were people out in the driveway, waiting in line for like an hour to walk by the receiving line. His childhood orthodontist was there like that somebody who could have that big of an impact could choose to leave was very upsetting. And I was kind of angry at him. Let’s be honest. I was I remember sitting on the floor during the week with my little brother leaning against me and just being so angry at Nikki like, if he could see what’s happening right now. He would undo what he did. And so it’s very different. But the year Dickie died was actually really hard. Because it was the year everyone died, we lost Nikki and March, a close family friend a few months later, my aunt in law, I guess you’d call her died, complications related to her cancer, which she had fought breast cancer in one, but the treatments have weakened her heart and she died. So my last weekend before I moved to Japan, I went to a funeral. And then in December, my paternal grandfather who granted I wasn’t super close to he died as well. And it was just like that culmination. It was just saying after thing after thing, everyone died. And then I moved to the other side of the planet. And yeah, so Nikki is the he’s, he’s the focal point of my grief often. But there’s more than that, you know, it’s it spreads. And I don’t know, grief feeds on itself, right? You get into this like, like any other mental habit, when I’m sad, eventually, that’s where my thoughts go. And I think it was a very well ingrained mental habit by the end of that year, to grieve. To a certain extent, I think people are grieving now. I think everyone is grieving more or less right now, and may not be the loss of a person though. For some people, it absolutely is. But the loss of experience, the loss of a year or more of our lives in in the world that we thought we were going to have. Because ultimately, grief is about the experiences you miss. It’s the the relationships that didn’t happen. The the tribute didn’t go on. All of that is grief. And we’re all feeling that right now. So I think in some ways, this is the exact right time to be talking about grief. We need it really badly. We need these conversations. And we need them to be open and honest. And things we can talk about and acknowledge
Victoria Volk 37:42
I say too grief was our pandemic long before COVID was a pandemic. To be honest, grief has always been there in the fact is, is for example, two years ago, I attended a VA mental health summit, Veterans Administration mental health summit in I was in a room full of social workers. And I’m not dogging social workers, but I’m just stating a fact here and in aroma soldiers. And there was two soldiers that shared their experiences of coming really close to ending their lives and the social workers that spoke and in the breakout rooms where I attended other speakers not a once in the entire day was the word grief used not a once and that is the problem, because we’re not even addressing the elephant in the room. People I feel like yes, there are mental illnesses diagnosed, yes, that require medication that do require, you know, forms of psychosis, there’s all these things right, that medically can be legitimized on paper, and whatever. But where do these things begin? And how do they get to the point that they get to and knowing what I know about grief, trauma and Childhood Adulthood is childhood reenactments. I’ve said this several times on the podcast I’ll keep saying because when you’ve experienced trauma in childhood, and especially when you are a soldier and you go and deploy, that changes you trauma and childhood changes you It’s proven on a cellular level, it changes your brain chemistry completely. So grief is the pandemic and we just don’t want to talk about it. Like you said, talk about what you want with your body when you die. Like it’s like you’re talking about sweet potatoes for supper, right? Talk about how sad you’re feeling today because your loved ones birthdays coming up and they’re not here. Like it’s a recipe for mac and cheese. Like it’s the weather. Let’s talk about grief. Like we’re talking about the weather, make it normal conversation, because it’s normal and natural to grieve. Yeah. So thank you for the work that you’re putting out the conversations you’re having with people sharing your story, inspiring them and given them hope. Thank you for being here today.
Emma G Rose 39:58
Thank you for having me and giving me another place to connect with people
Victoria Volk 40:01
And where can people connect with you? If they want to find you.
Emma G Rose 40:04
You can find me at Emmagauthor.com. There’s all of my social media and everything there. So I am on a lot of the social media. And if you message me, send me a note. I will absolutely respond. So feel free to reach out. I love that. It’s why I do this work. Tell me your story. Just say hi. Hey, I heard you on the podcast, emmagauthor.com. And then, if you feel so inclined, and have any interest in publishing, you can check out the indie book talk podcast.
Victoria Volk 40:32
And I will put all of that stuff in the show notes. And thank you again for being here. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love. From my heart to yours. Thank you for listening. If you liked this episode, please share it because sharing is caring. And until next time, give and share compassion by being hurt with yours. And if you’re hurting know that what you’re feeling is normal and natural. Much love my friend
Child Loss, Grief Stories, Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Podcast, Suicide |
Eric Hodgdon | Opening the Door To a Parent’s Worst Nightmare
SHOW SUMMARY:
It was a great day; nothing seemed off with his daughter Zoi. They enjoyed a meal together; she headed to her room while he went downstairs to do some computer work.
Sometime later, before heading to bed, he went to say goodnight to his beloved daughter, Zoi. The music she loved blaring from her stereo; he opened the door only to see an empty bed.
What he discovered next changed his life forever – changed him forever.
No parent should ever have to experience the death of a child. And, it feels like one of the cruelest experiences a heart could ever possibly endure.
Listen to Eric’s story of how he went from struggle to strength. He describes a defining moment that set him on a path of empowering and leading himself through his devastating and life-shattering loss.
RESOURCES:
CONNECT:
Victoria Volk 00:00
Thank you for tuning in to grieving voices. Today my guest is Eric hodgdon. He is a best selling Amazon author TEDx speaker and coach after losing his 15 year old daughter Zoe to suicide in early 2014. He fought for his family and Zoe’s friends to find their pathway to better days, he found a way to get back up and walk his grief journey. Now he is sharing the lessons he learned so that no one else has to walk alone on their journey. Eric has trained 1000s of people who want to go from struggle to strength in the face of their worst setbacks. Thank you so much for being here.
Eric Hodgdon 00:38
Thank you so much, Victoria. I’m deeply honored to be here with you.
Victoria Volk 00:42
And this is a very important topic, we’re talking about suicide, and teens. And before we started to record I shared that I had looked up some stats for my own state of North Dakota, I would like to open with that. And then kind of, if you want to piggyback off of that in what it’s like where you live. So in the state of North Dakota, one person every 60 hours dies by suicide. Wow. In my State, it is the first leading cause of death for ages 10 to 24. In my State, and the North Dakota teen suicide rate is three times higher than the national average. Wow, North Dakota has the second highest rate and suicide from 2000 to 2018. And we’re just behind New Hampshire, New Hampshire is number one. And where do you live? Eric?
Eric Hodgdon 01:43
I live now in Tampa, Florida. But I grew up in New England. I grew up in Maine, very close to New Hampshire, of course. And while those numbers are staggering and shocking, in some cases, it doesn’t surprise me with how the struggle is being dealt with in folks lives, especially teens.
Victoria Volk 02:11
And in rural more rural areas, or major areas that aren’t as progressive or cities that aren’t as progressive and maybe states that aren’t as progressive when it comes to mental health.
Eric Hodgdon 02:23
Correct. And where are the resources for them? Where are the resources to help them figure out that there are options out there that don’t include taking their life as that only option to remove the pain that they’re in, or the struggle that they’re dealing with that they don’t believe is the there’s a way out of and so finding and getting access to the resources that help them is missing? I think a lot of cases and I don’t think that that’s why you and I are here, I think you and I are here to provide a different optic on on those resources and where to find them and how to get them and how to how to show that there are there are setbacks in life that we will always face. But there are tools to help you to get from that struggle to the strength that you need to make it to the next and sometimes the next hour.
Victoria Volk 03:22
So share, if you wouldn’t mind share the start of your grieving story.
Eric Hodgdon 03:29
Thank you. So seven years ago, I was fighting for custody of my 15 year old daughter Zoey. It was a reluctant decision that I made to follow that process but it was to protect and to ultimately care for Zoe’s well being at a very formative ages and and so Zoey was trying to handle things as best possible. She’d been hospitalized four times in adolescent units. And each time I did see a progression in her strength. I saw her capacity to help others and to be available to them when they were struggling and ultimately, in the beginning of 2014. Zoey went quiet. And one Saturday I picked her up and I brought her back to my house she was able to come home and stays with me on weekends. Which were awesome honestly, because we would go to a mug and muffin restaurant in our town for breakfast maybe or we would go to the beach and we would collect rocks in the middle of winter and just freeze our hands or sometimes though it would be up in her room, playing music listening to her music or playing the ukulele and but I brought her back to my house for this one particular weekend and she was upstairs Burning some Jasmine incense and applying this really cool henna tattoo on her hand. And I went up and asked her if she wanted to hang out with some friends. And she told me that she didn’t have any and I, I pushed back a little bit on that with her and she, I said, Well, do you want to make something to eat instead and just hang out? She said, Yeah, let’s do that. So afterwards we’re cleaning up and she’s told me that she was tired and she wanted to go to bed and say, I love you pumpkins. And she said, I love you too dead. I went back to my computer to do some work. And a little while later, I went upstairs to say goodnight to Zoe and eyes opened her bedroom door. I could hear her stereo playing Jonathan Ashanti’s music very low. She had a string of Christmas lights that were lit around the perimeter of her room. But she wasn’t in her bed. out of the corner of my eye, and in a dim light, I could see that. So he was standing in her closet and I was so sure she was going to jump out and scare me. I said Zoey, what are you doing? But she didn’t answer me. Because she wasn’t standing in her closet. I called 911. And what I thought was going to be a nother hospitalization. After we got home from the ER that night, turned into awake Five days later, we’re over 900 people came to honor my family and Zoey. And I think when I experienced that loss, I wasn’t sure that I was going to survive it. I remember driving home from the hospital that night with my sister in utter disbelief, and they had my hand gripped on the seat belt. And I told her I don’t think I’m gonna, I don’t know anything, I’m gonna survive this. And she looked at me and just said, I’ve got your back. I don’t know what to do. But you’re, you know what, we’ll find a way to make it happen. And so obviously getting through that next week until we laid Zoey to rest was challenging. Just a ton of emotions. But I think something incredible happened in that week is that all of her friends started to come over to the house and they were staying at the house with me. And Zoey was there in energy, it was really a strange feeling. Her physical body wasn’t with us, but her energy was there and and that really helped. I think a lot of us understand what survival was going to mean for us, especially May. And so in the weeks and months after we lost Zoey, I found myself sitting in my couch in my living room, everybody had gone back to their lives. Because typically a couple weeks after you lose somebody, you feel like you’re kind of at a crossroads. What do I do with this because everybody has gone back to their lives and you’re left to walk this new path that you didn’t choose to be on. It feels very lonely, it feels like you have no direction, or no energy to even get in a bed some days or you’re going through boxes of tissues. And you don’t want to be but you What’s the other what’s the other choice. And so I feel like now, having the resources for kids having the resources for adults is going to be so important because I think there are resources out there right now are focused on survival being the end game. It’s a handoff point. And I believe that there are other ways to encourage others to empower folks to lead themselves first, so that they can get back up. And and not only survive, but as you would say Victoria to thrive after their loss. And I think it’s so very important. It’s much needed.
Victoria Volk 09:10
My eyes welled up, I’m my heart. I’m a parent, I have a my son’s gonna be 16, my 14 year old and a 12 year old and I cannot imagine the it’s like your heart is ripped out I imagine.
Eric Hodgdon 09:31
It is. It is and if I can share something really personal with you is that I remember being at the wake and I was not upset during the week because I was ultimately convinced that Zoey and I were going to be able to communicate like you and I were going to communicate. I was just waiting for that message that that voice and it didn’t come and I figured that I would use what everybody else told Me would heal all my wounds Time, time would heal my wounds. That didn’t work. You know, how’s that working for me? I’d be asking myself, how’s that going right now. And it probably it wasn’t until about 18 months later that I was in such a state of self sabotage for beating myself up is probably a better way of putting it. Where I was just, I was stuck in a pattern. And I did hear Zoe’s voice one day, and it scared me in a very unique way, I was in a pattern where I would get off the commuter rail train in my town, it’s a two mile drive to my house. And inevitably, by mile one, I would start to cry. And that’s when I would start the little beat up process the self beat up process and I’m so sorry Zoey, I should have been a better dad for you, you should be here. And it was a pattern. And when I pulled into my driveway, I pulled myself together and went in the house for the night. And then the next day of do the same thing and over and over again, but it built up to one day where I left work and the second I left work that’s when the the self sabotage started. The the the head chatter, if you will, and I just let it go when it cascade and by the time I got off the train and got in my car, second, I shut the door, I was sobbing, I was crying so hard, that my windows fogged up. And now I was screaming at myself. Not giving myself any permission to figure out what was going on. But rather expending energy, valuable energy, healing energy on beating myself up and I, I screamed in my car. I’m so sorry, Zoey. And it was as if she was sitting in the seat next to me, Victoria. And I heard her say, Dad cut it out. Geez, I’m okay. I froze. And I didn’t make another sound until I pulled into my driveway. And I sat there for what felt like probably an hour and probably 10 minutes, but so was right. What am I doing? She’s okay. I did everything I possibly could for her while she was here. I did the best that I could with what I had. And that wasn’t serving anybody, her friends, my family, even myself in terms of healing, if I was yelling at myself, and putting myself down and beating myself up over something that I didn’t have any control over. But what I did have control over Victoria. And I think I’m going on here. What I did have control over was how I approached getting back up and surviving this because the alternative was just more of that self sabotage?
Victoria Volk 13:07
Can you speak to that? What actually what was the so that sounds like it was a defining moment in your healing?
Eric Hodgdon 13:14
Absolutely. Yeah, you know, as interesting. As the month started to tick by, I don’t know about you. But I remember every Saturday night at a certain time, I would watch the clock. And I would watch the clock at the time that they called 911 would watch the clock, it was like I was going through it every week at the same time. But once I had this defining moment in the car, I started to look at things a little differently. That so he would be really upset with me if I was wasting all of the good memories from her life by not living mine. And I could still honor her and carry on at the same time, because it’s okay to do that. And I released anything internally that was telling me otherwise. And I’ve never been more grateful for so we’re talking to me that day. With that message now I’m sure it was in my head. But nonetheless, I feel like it was a very powerful message that I needed to hear at that moment. And so I started to look at Okay, now I have to accept that I did everything that I could. I have to forgive not only Zoey for taking her life, but myself. Especially then I think it was the moment that I started to really focus on the gratitude of what is in my life now that I found some opening if you will, on my path, some light started to start. The path started to be illuminated with some hope that way. A minute, there is something beyond this, this yuckiness of survival. That is just not going to get me anywhere. But there’s a light that I can actually start to work walk towards. And I know eventually I’ll get to it. So does that. Does that help?
Victoria Volk 15:18
No, thank you for sharing. And I would ask you, well, first just tell us about Zoe, who she was,
Eric Hodgdon 15:25
you guys, your audience can see this, I just got a big smile on my face when you said that this, Zoey isn’t Oh, I feel like she’s an old soul. She was always so eclectic in her thinking in her activities. In her humor, even in with her music that she wrote, and she would sing for us on her ukulele. It was just, she just had this way about her that was all about connection. And after in the days and weeks after, so he died, I started to receive many handwritten letters from her hospital friends, and each one of them told me that it was Zoey that helped them when they first went to the hospital, because she just knew that it was their first time. And she would go up to them and she would hug them. And she’d be like, Hey, guys, I’m Zoey. Look, there’s nothing to be afraid of. I know it’s scary. But there’s nothing to be afraid of, it’s going to be okay. And when the staff isn’t looking, we can draw on the walls. And I did wasn’t too happy about the drawing on the walls. And I didn’t know all this was going on Victoria. And so Zoe’s energy, her, her desire to help other people, even when she was struggling, I couldn’t be more proud of her. I couldn’t be more proud of the person that she was and the energy that she brought, and that’s still to this day with her friends talk to me about how much she helped them to get through that time in their life, because no one else was coming to help them. The staff was doing their jobs, the doctors were doing their jobs. But these kids were there to support each other shoulder to shoulder because they knew that this is how they were going to get through those days. Sometimes those minutes of being in these adolescent units. And I’ve never seen a more creative set of kids a more create immense intelligence with the kids that were in these units. And she would always introduce me to her friends or the staff or the doctors, she was, this is my dad, hey, Zoe’s Dad, you know, and, and so I was so grateful for that. And I am just so ultimately proud of the person that she, I still say is, because I feel like her energy is always going to be with me, I, her body might not be here, but Zoey will always live on in my heart. And I’m just so grateful for that. Because I don’t know about you, I was always afraid that eventually I was going to forget about her, or that the love would stop. And it does. And in fact, I love Zoey more than I did the day that she was born. And I’m so so grateful for that. Is that been your experience as well?
Victoria Volk 18:13
Yeah. And actually, I just want to highlight something that you just said and that I think if we’re it’s when we’re able to actually think of the person the loved one and not get pulled into and sucked into the the, the traumatic memory or the horrible memory, the sadness, that’s when we really honor our loved ones, and remembering them as they would want us to remember them. Absolutely. And how we would want to be remembered if it was us, someone was grieving. And I think people fear like you just alluded to I think people fear that with healing comes this. I’m gonna forget or I’m going to, it’s by not feeling sad and tormented by this loss. It’s somehow dishonouring my loved one and the total opposite is true. And, and the seat at the table is never is always going to be empty that sadness will always be there but it’s not going to it there it is possible like you have said it is possible to think of that person with joy and love and carry on in your life. In their in, in their memory that is honoring. Absolutely. How have you been doing that?
Eric Hodgdon 19:32
I found a tremendous energy and direction about two years after Zoey died. I knew I wanted to talk about Zoe and I didn’t want it to be in a place of, you know, of of. I’m just always going to be sad about this. I wanted it to be a place of sharing who Zoey is and was as a person and I was invited to attend a leadership event in Dallas, Texas. And I was introduced to one of my mentors, his name is Bo. He said, He’s a former football player of all things. And Bo invited us to come out to California and write our story. And I’ll never forget that experience. Because the day one of this storytelling event, Beau asked us specifically and explicitly to write about a pivotal moment and mind our lives. And he said, Did you typically this pivotal moment is anywhere from eight years old to 14, and so I got stuck there. And something really happened between eight and 14. Yeah, a lot of stuff happened, I was a kid and kids are always awkward and all that. And so I wrote about a very benign situation where I told on a girl that I had a crush on because she smashed my devil dog at lunch, and she got a detention. I’m like, that’s not my story. But I was so upset with myself because I was trying to find a way to make that story work. And the challenge was, is that that was the story, I was telling myself that I needed to kind of stop that I that I didn’t know how to talk about Zoe, so I’m not going to. And that was really showing up that weekend in a very powerful way. And the knock on the head came from one of the story coaches at this event. And I went up to him afterwards. I said, Man, I don’t know I’m just not feeling it. He’s like, Well, what do you got? I said, Well, I, a girl I had a crush on I crushed her, she crushed my devil dog at lunch. And I told her, he’s like, what else he got. I said, Well, my daughter took her life two years ago. And he’s like, dude, that’s your story. And I just gave me permission to talk about it. And I felt so open to the point where I went back to my hotel room. And for the next four hours, I wrote, I just bled on the page for the next four hours, which I still have the notebook about the moment that I walked into the ER that night, and my experience of living for the last for the previous two years. And I felt this tremendous weight come off of my shoulders. One because I wanted to share Zoey in a way of who she was, and how she impacted my life, how she impacted all of our for her friend’s life, how she impacted my family in such a very positive way. And the biggest lesson that she ever taught me was that life is going to knock you down you’ve got to get back up again. As I saw her do that time and time and time again and I understand that ultimately the weight of her what she was feeling was too much. But in the the odd thing is is that in Greek, the name Zooey means life and so knowing that when we get knocked down in life we have to fight to get back up every time I that’s the story that I wanted to tell. And so honoring Zoe became about telling not only my experience of losing Zoe but working through that battle within yourself to honor your lost loved one and yourself at the same time because ultimately that’s okay. And and you can find some energy and some direction you can find some you can leave that nasty survival mode behind you because is it really serving you right now? Yes, at the beginning, it’s necessary and I think Victoria You and I were talking about at the beginning how important that is to survive first, but survival should be temporary. You can let yourself remain in survival mode like most people do, or you can let it sink in that just because you lost your loved one that your life is not lost, too.
Victoria Volk 24:05
That’s a quotable right there. Let’s hit the rewind a little bit. Okay, who was the Eric before Zoey?
Eric Hodgdon 24:14
Before Zoey was born or before? So we took him for it
Victoria Volk 24:18
before this experience? Like, what was what what do you feel like the trajectory of your life was Did you have a certain passion or something that really lit you up? And was the reason you got up every day? Like,
Eric Hodgdon 24:32
yeah, I’m a career IT guy. I was in it from a very early age. It was all self taught. And it spoke to me when I was 22 years old. And it was a career that I could just continually move up in. But what I was finding was that I was I was continuous. I was in a job of service. It was helping people to get their computers to get back up to a certain point where they could use them and so So that fulfilled me. And I liked that line of work. It gave me a sense of accomplishment if there was a massive, complex problem that needed to be solved, and finding a solution to it, and storing that in my memory banks and how I could use that moving forward and other situations that came up. And I think everybody experiences that too. It’s those big lessons in life that you actually store and you can pull from and they just, that’s where your strength comes on, you know, and so 25 years and it and it was, you know, Zoey and I, I was divorced in about 2005, so about 15 years into my career. And I would have my girls every weekend and every week, throughout the week, and it was a fantastic opportunity for us to bond and connect. And we used to do a lot of things, we would go to concerts, we would go to the beach, we did the beach a lot up in New England, that’s just a thing to do. Up there. And we would take day trips, sometimes we would come down to New Orleans and visit some friends who lived down there. And I just valued that time with them. And there were some weekends that that Zoey and her sister those two were like peas in a pod. And they would just spend all weekend upstairs in their room with the pile of arts and crafts, supplies, just making stuff and sometimes those don’t, that’s really good, you know, and, of course, every parent says that about their kids artwork, I have saved every scrap of paper that they drew on. I have saved every every a trinket that they made for me or craft that they wanted to give to me. In fact, behind me this painting, Zoey painted this for me for Christmas, the month one month before she died. And and I absolutely loved this because it she’s at peace in this image. And I know it’s her, even though it’s supposed to be a Buddha and and so I’m so grateful that I have this gift. And I think of everything that they did everything that they drew every experience that we have as a gift. And so when I started to focus more on the gifts that I was getting along this path of being a single dad with them, I was I was starting to recognize the value of what it means to be a parent. And I started to think that’s where a shift started to take place in me I wanted to do more how to do something that was bigger than myself. And so I had actually a few years before so he died, I started to look at other ways of earning a revenue that was not earning income that wasn’t based on a nine to five job. And so I tried my hand at some network marketing I tried to get I got into some personal development because I just found such great depth in that and, and what made me tick, how I could help others. And when Zoey died, I felt like I had a good set of tools to work with. Even though I had to access them through all the fog. It took a while to really get a good handle on what I had at my fingertips at this point. And I and and yet at the same time, I still had some defaults, I still had some of that baggage that I was pulling into this situation that was not helping me. And I think that just there’s been so many gifts since so he has died that have just shown up on the path only because I’ve continued to walk and let those things come to me and be open to them coming into my life. And have you had a similar experience retort to that.
Victoria Volk 29:04
Absolutely.
Eric Hodgdon 29:06
Can you give me an example of that?
Victoria Volk 29:08
Well, if it wasn’t for me actually working through my own grief, I wouldn’t be a Reiki Master I would not be a grief recovery method specialist I would not have this podcast I would not everything that I’ve done since clearing out my baggage has been as a result of taking ownership of my baggage and doing something with it. Like not working through it and getting rid of it.
Eric Hodgdon 29:41
Yeah. And that’s not something that happens overnight right? I mean that takes time. And and where did you start to feel like you are gaining some traction with that process.
Victoria Volk 29:52
Well and as we kind of talked earlier, my personal development started in 2014 And my youngest was starting kindergarten. And I was closing, I was really contemplating at that time closing a business I’d had, that was really my creative outlet, I was a photographer, and I built that business from scratch, and not having an online social network not having people to tell me what to do, you know, there wasn’t, I wasn’t even in a Facebook group, you know, till well into my business. And so it was really grassroots, have a have an experience in entrepreneurship. And that taught me a lot. And all of that all of that prepared me to really dig as far as I was, I had never gone before in my grave, right? Yeah. And so my question for you is, given that you had done some personal development work, and you know, what we learn, and we tend to give off what we? Yes, I think is, okay, so like, if you’ve done, I look at myself, before person, like digging into personal development, wanting to learn about myself, I think of myself as the pre personal development parent. Yes. And then I look at myself after and I’m like, Whoa, there is a stark contrast. Yes. Because, again, like you said, we resort to the defaults, what we know and what we’ve been taught in childhood, and for what the work that I do, particularly around grief. And because I didn’t deal particularly well, at least I thought I was that’s the thing, we think we are ready for dealing with it, we think we’re I’m fine, you know, sure, yeah, I got this. But yet all of these behaviors are showing up on a on a daily basis, or we are just angry people were just angry, or our kids show bring out in us what is not resolved within us. Right? And that’s what was happening a lot. Hmm. You know, when I look in hindsight, and so that’s what I’m kind of curious about for you, and as a parent that you were before, versus how these experiences have shaped you as a parent now.
Eric Hodgdon 32:21
Wow, that’s such a powerful question. And a great one. One, because I’m going I’m thinking back to how I dealt with difficult situations and challenges as a husband, as a father, early on. There’s I think there’s two ways the personal development has taught me that I could look at it one of two ways I could look at it that that’s just the way it’s going to be, take it or leave it? or How can I get better at talking to my children? How can I get better at talking to my spouse? How can I get better talking to my family, friends, and connecting deeply with others, who we may not know what they’re struggling with? But how can we make those deeper connections with those around us that we love, because that’s typically what suffers first, when we’re struggling. And I don’t know if we can afford to do that, in this day and age with those statistics that you were sharing with me at the beginning of the podcast, Victoria. We, I think as a human race, not as an American, not as any other country, or a citizen of a country in this world. But as a human, I believe we have to get better at connecting with others on a deep level, showing them that it’s not just about sending a text to say, hey, Call me if you need anything, it’s showing up at their door. Or it’s sending them a text and asking them how are you doing? It’s doing some outreach to the people that are closest to you. Teenagers are a good, a good point. I just heard this the other day for one of my mentors, his name is Scott man. And Scott was saying he was you know, if you ask your child or a teenager, how their day was they’re gonna blow you off. They’re not going to talk to you much. But if you ask this one question, what annoys you today? Oh, man, the floodgates open up and just ask that question of your team who annoys you today or what annoys you today? And they will give you the goods? They’re going to answer you in a narrative format because we are story animals. We’ve been communicating with story long before we could actually speak language. And so that is one of the biggest ways that you can make deep connections these days is story. And going back to when I went to that story workshop out in California for the first time, I saw the power of that and how that connects people who might be struggling with their own grief that you and I would not be talking if I didn’t share my story. And likewise, you wouldn’t be talking with me if you didn’t share your story. And so it is healing. Our brains are wired for story. And it has been scientifically proven. That story helps our brains heal. And so I use that opportunity to, to heal at any time I can. Somebody just kept my door and it’s somebody that’s staying here with me for two days. Hold on one second. Sure. Thank you. Sorry about that. That’s okay. I didn’t realize I locked my front door. So I’ve got some family friends here. It’s interesting. One of my guests Her name is Cory. And Cory. I wrote a book a couple of years ago called a Sherpa named Zoe. And corys. Dad is at the epicenter of this book. Before I got to my story of Zoey losing Zoey, I wrote about my experience of of being a friend to Corey, his brother, Cory, his brother and I have been friends for 42 years. And we were 19 at the time, and she lost her dad, my friend lost his dad. And it was such a powerful experience to, to know what to do with that. And even speaking to what you and I were talking about in terms of how you connect with others, especially after a loss. I was just talking with Cory before this podcast, and she just said, she said, you know, you did something different than other people didn’t do and I don’t know, you know, I just had the, she said, You showed up and you were there with us. Even if you were just hanging out with us, you were there. And she said, that meant more to my family and me then then you could imagine. And so I think that’s where we can continue to make deep connections is to show up for those that we love and care for, and be there for them. I don’t know about you. I did not want to hand my grief off to somebody else. What I wanted to do was to have somebody just be an empathetic witness and hear and actually listen to I don’t want them to solve the problem because they can’t walk that path for me. But no, I don’t think people are going to dump their grief on you. I think they just want to be heard.
Victoria Volk 37:24
Absolutely in grief recovery. Call it a heart with yours. Yes, perfect. Oh, that’s perfect. But some people aren’t that person. Right? That person. Yeah. And I think that’s important to mention in that. And I think too, we this is my belief in that we we can we are able and this is why healing ourselves is so important. And working on ourselves is so important. Because the deeper that we allow ourselves to go with our own grief and our own challenges and, and whatnot. Is that’s the depth we are able to go with others and for others, I believe.
Eric Hodgdon 38:00
Yes. Absolutely.
Victoria Volk 38:03
Yeah. What were some of the unhelpful or hurtful things? Did you hear any of those types of comments?
Eric Hodgdon 38:12
I always laugh at this because I think that personal development helped me get to a place where I didn’t let it get me angry or frustrated. There were some folks that didn’t show up that I expected to show up for Zoey and for our family, some close relatives, even some family friends that I was just okay, I don’t understand why this is happening. But that’s not for me to understand right now. I remember about four years ago, I was visiting Zoe’s resting place when one summer afternoon and I always went over there I went over there once or twice a week just to say hi sometimes I would take a little Bluetooth speaker and just set it down and play some of the music that she used to like to listen to and so it just felt I felt closer to her there. And I was I just showed up at the at the at the cemetery and got to her resting place and there was a woman that was walking by and she said so sorry for your loss to thank you so much. And you know who is this? I said it unfortunate it’s my daughter. And she said Oh What happened? Do you mind me asking? I said unfortunately she took her life. And without skipping a beat. She said, Ah, you’re young, you can have more kids. And I didn’t get angry with it. Right? I my eyes kind of like and you know what I imagined Victoria, imagine that Zoe was standing in front of me looking at me like you just looked at me like did she didn’t say that. Right? And so I couldn’t get mad at it. That the personal development and the growth of understanding that people are where they are and I can’t expect them to be in that same place. allowed me to kind of release it and be like, that’s where she is. That’s how she deals with loss in her life, and so no judgment, that’s just where she’s at. And so I wasn’t in a place where I was going to take offense to that. In fact, I said, You know, I need to remember that so that I have conversations later on, I can share that. So I think that there are times when things are not done or not said, that can feel make you feel a bit lonely. In all of this, there are, you know, when somebody says you aren’t, you know, you just need to get over it. Again, that’s their level of healing in any setback that they’ve had in life, their baggage, their defaults. And so it’s typically not about you, when they’re when somebody is saying something to you like that. And so if you can let that thought or that statement, or the words that are you read, or are said to you, literally and figuratively pass through you and go out the other end. You are better off. Because Yeah,
Victoria Volk 41:11
yeah, I was just gonna say, I think as Grievers you almost need to have selective hearing.
Eric Hodgdon 41:17
Yeah, I think so. I mean, is it going to help you in any decision that you’re making on the grief journey? Is it hurting you? Or is it helping you heal?
Victoria Volk 41:27
And here’s what I was gonna add to that, too. I think that’s reason why that’s like reason 385 million to, you know, work on yourself, because someone who hasn’t really allowed themselves to process what they’re feeling. They really could take that in and it could just downward spiral them that day. You of course, that’s that’s why things like that are very hurtful and hard. They can actually be harmful. For people. They can I think, especially with teens, can we speak to that a little?
Eric Hodgdon 42:02
Yes, absolutely. I can’t tell you how many times I had conversations with always friends were a thought turned into a problem that they had the one thought and and so I remember, it was about a month or so after Zoey died. And I’m standing in my kitchen with one of her very good friends. His name was Jerry. And Jerry was just somber that day, he was the weight of the situation was really settling in for him. And he was missing. So he’s like, so he’s gone? What am I going to do? I just I was taking a lesson that I learned from my therapist, because I asked my therapist, the same thing. When I was going through my divorce, what am I going to do, and she was very explicit. And I shared the same thing with Jerry and I said, Jerry, you’re going to get up in the morning, and you’re going to put your feet on the floor, you’re going to get dressed, you’re going to get breakfast, you’re going to go to school, you’re going to come home, have dinner, and you’re going to practice the guitar for hours like you have since you were four years old. And after that, you’re going to go to bed and just do the same thing over and over again, until that becomes the norm, despite how you’re feeling. That’s how you keep going. That’s what you’re gonna do. And so it’s giving those resources it’s reminding the kids, the teens, anybody who’s struggling, that there are resources out there, whether it be people, parents, others, teachers, others in your community, even good friends that have walked this path before and can meet you where you are on your path and help you walk with you on it. Give you some solid advice make you laugh when you didn’t think you were going to be laughing again. And I used to share a story about Zoey with some of her friends. I got a call one evening from one of Zoe’s friends I’ll call her Cammy kameez mom called me and it was probably 1130 at night and like they recognize the number but I answered the phone anyway because those calls on the Saturday night 1130 are always good right? And so kameez mom is like hey, this is kameez mom, just want to let you know that. We think Cammy is going to end her life tonight. We just want to let you know like wait, she’s going to or she did like what’s going on here? And she said No, we’ve just we tried everything. We don’t know what else to do. I just want to let you know because I was kind of throwing our hands up like we just don’t know what to do. I was pissed like that. No, this I said Look, I can tell you right now as long as your daughter’s breathing, you’re fighting for her. And you please put me on the phone right now. And she’s I don’t know if she’ll want to talk to I please if you need to throw the phone in the room. I’ll scream it out. I don’t care, but get her on the phone. And so I got candy on the phone. She was embarrassed, because her mom called me and I said, Look, kid, this is me. I’m Zoe’s Dad, you know this. I’m okay. You can tell me anything. I’m not your mom and dad. What’s going on? She said, I just don’t care anymore. I just don’t care anymore. And I asked her to tell me more about that. I wanted to ask her some thoughtful, open ended questions that weren’t yes or no, I wanted to find out what she was struggling with in the moment. And so I may have had to ask her a few times What’s going on? Like, what? I just don’t care anymore? Like, I just don’t, I feel like I’m a burden. So that Oh, okay, we’re getting somewhere. And I shared with her, I said, you know, there are people in this world that probably could be a burden, you’re not one of them. You know what, you know, you’re 18 years old. And you’re not a burden. we all struggle. We all have moments when it feels like nobody cares. When it’s too hard to go on. We feel like there is just no other way. And so we just settle on some really dark thoughts, and it’s that scary. Said, but Sweetie, you can find something that is that lights you up. And and makes you excited and motivated. She said, I just don’t feel like I want to do anything else, you know? And I’m like, I feel like I’ve done everything I can do in my lifetime. She’s 18. I said, Well, what did you like to do when you’re growing up? Well, I said you’d like to take pictures now sometimes. Did you like to draw a little bit said, What about animals? And oh my gosh, I love animals just go to the zoo. Like, sure I heard the turn. And so so keep going with that. Tell me more like what do you? What would it be like for you to do something with animals, and she just started talking? I would be fantastic. You know what I want to always do, I always wanted to be a vet tech. Okay, so Kimmy, here’s what we’re gonna do. Tomorrow morning, we’re going to get back on the call and get back on a call. And we’re going to go through the phonebook or we’re going to go online. And we’re going to look for that tech positions and how you start that process. And she was so excited. It’s that’s where we have to get really deliberate and intentional about connecting with kids. Because they need to be heard. They need you to know they they need you to know that. Even though they may feel like you’re not going to get them I understand where they are, that through open ended questions, they’ll tell you exactly where they are. And Cammy ultimately didn’t go for a vet tech position. But it was enough to pull her back from the edge to give her a different optic on that there were options out there for her. If that makes sense.
Victoria Volk 48:04
Do you think for especially older teens, maybe 16 1718, I’ve often wondered this just in the last couple of years. If it’s just this pressure of making something in your life doing something with your life, pressure to please our parents, you know, please the parents are pleased the community are pleased. Because I what I see often not well, not often, but I see a trend and especially with teens that are high achievers. Hmm. I don’t know the statistics of the suicide rate of high achiever. teens, right, but sometimes it’s just the pressure, right? It’s too much.
Eric Hodgdon 48:48
Yes.
Victoria Volk 48:50
What have you found? I don’t I don’t know, do you work specifically with teens now,
Eric Hodgdon 48:55
I work more with folks who are on the other end of a loss. Okay, and so I, what I will always do, and will always have my door open to I give my phone number out all the time. And I’ve talked to a lot of parents who have struggling teens. And I say here’s my number give this to your kid and tell them to call me but I don’t leave with that I always follow up and check in how are how you know, how’s your child doing? How’s your kid doing? And I here’s the thing that I think is is is going to be important. And I’m seeing this now, especially now I’m hyper focused on it, seeing how my my boss talks to his three boys and connects not talks to but connects with his three sons and how he asks them questions. And because all of them are in high pressure situations, teens, you know at 18 you’ve had 18 years on this planet and at that age, I think that there is a pressure to become something bigger. Now that could be an external pressure that’s coming in. But a lot of times, it’s an internal pressure that you’re feeling. And that can be overwhelming. And I guess the best piece of advice I would give there is that it’s giving yourself permission to figure things out on a pace that works for you. If you try to figure out your life, for somebody else, you’re just adding fuel to the fire of that pressure. But give yourself permission to fail, give yourself failure is not a bad thing. Failure is a learning opportunity. You know, failure, you fail at john Maxwell say you fail forward. Oh, my gosh, I wish I would have had that advice A long time ago. And so being able to give someone permission to learn and grow and adapt, I think that helps with the pressure. And I know that some people aren’t necessarily they’re not only kids, but even some parents and adults, they, they may have had that same pressure when they were growing up. And so they’re just kind of bringing that that forward into their family as well. And so, but but giving yourself permission to figure things out, and permission to fail, permission to learn, and giving yourself the runway that you need. I you know, I think that when we place ourselves in a box, that’s where I think this anger and frustration really comes out. Because if we step outside of that box, it’s almost it’s almost like we’re conditioned to that something’s going to happen. You know, we’re either going to be shunned or shamed or cast out of the group or whatever it might be. And that’s very old. That’s, that’s why are deep within us as well. But it’s okay to give yourself that permission, that box can be as big as you want it to be. There’s no limit to that box, and doesn’t even have to be a box. How about removing those borders and just saying, I’m going to figure it out on my own pace at my own time. And, and I think that that can even help some adults as well. When they’re talking about grief in kids, if they’re talking about grief, kids, if they’re talking about situations that they feel like there’s no out from there in that box, they cannot see a way out of that situation. And there’s never just one solution to getting out of that pain, or that struggle, or that situation, there’s always a multitude. And sometimes you need others to kind of help you figure out what those other options are. And that’s okay to get it’s not a weakness. It is absolutely it’s actually a strength. When you think about it, if you’re struggling, you’re on the precipice of figuring out something very important for your life. And if you look at anybody out there in the world who has faced a deep struggle, and they’ve come out of the other side, we’re wired for that. And so there’s there’s make those options available and connect deeply with those around you. And you’ll find that you’ll be able to have those options that you didn’t think you had previously.
Victoria Volk 53:11
Well, that’s a lot of advice and best tips and how, you know, that’s great. Thank you for sharing that. So what has your grief experience taught you?
Eric Hodgdon 53:23
It has taught me that there are so many things to be grateful for in this world. Zoey was in my life for 15 years. And I am so grateful that she was I got to be her dad. I’m grateful that I have the capacity to wake up in the morning and take another breath and see the sun or even the clouds doesn’t matter to me obviously. It’s it’s gratitude for the folks that I have in my gratitude to be able to share with you and your audience. I mean it’s there’s so many things that are are so beautiful in this world that I feel like gets us back to our nature and that’s been probably the biggest lesson for me is that I’ve I’ve gotten back to my nature, what matters most in life. And when you look around you and you say cheese, I’m really grateful I’ve had a rough day at work today, or Yeah, my kids were frustrating me and all that stuff. But you know, I’ve got a roof over my head. It’s the things that you that are invaluable. You know, I have eyesight or I have the capacity to breathe and the capacity to see some nature of that side or plan a trip or even during the pandemic, families coming together you know, board games selling out because what else you gonna do you know, I mean, just there’s so much that there is grateful that you can have gratitude for and it is really getting back to what matters most
Victoria Volk 54:55
is gratitude the foundation of the work that you do with the people you work with?
Eric Hodgdon 55:01
Ultimately, yes, I think that it certainly was an accelerant to my healing. Because I was just I was even though I every day, I was using a journal called the Five Minute Journal, I don’t know if you’ve heard of this journal or not. It’s straight, six months journal, and every day, it’s one page, where you write down three things that you’re grateful for, in the morning, an affirmation and three things you want to accomplish that day. And then at the end of the evening, you know, you write down, what’s your biggest takeaway from the day. And there were days when I would write the same three things down, grateful for life. I’m grateful for Zoey. And I’m grateful for the roof over my head. And sometimes I would introduce new things to be grateful for. But I think overall, it was focusing on that. That that kind of pulled me out of those doldrums of feeling like, this is going to be really hard. Yeah, it’s hard. But you know what, I’ve got a roof over my head. I got to be Zoe’s dad. I’m still Zoe’s dad. I’m connected with her friends. And Zoey, by the way, if I say, you know, Zoe, I mean, I, in my mind, Zoe is everything that encompasses Zoe, or my family, her friends, the energy, her, her voice, all of it. And so yeah, gratitude is at the heart of it, Victoria.
Victoria Volk 56:39
I have a curiosity question, please. So I hope you don’t mind me asking because I think it would be helpful for our listeners who may have found themselves in the same situation of losing a child.
Eric Hodgdon 56:54
Okay.
Victoria Volk 56:55
I’m curious if you have kept her room as it was.
Eric Hodgdon 57:00
Well, now that I’m down here in Tampa, I did for five years. I did for five years, I did not touch a thing, if anything I added to it. It was a few months after Zoey died, and I was invited to go down to her school. A few towns away. It was a therapeutic school that she was attending. And they wanted just to share with me two things, one that they were planting a tree and so he’s on are in their courtyard, and then to to present me with a shelf that Zoey had started to make. And that’s the shelf right there that the kids finished. And I brought that back to my house. And I placed the shelf up in her room and I set it up as if I think Zoey would set it up all over Chuck T’s were in one of the cubes. And all of her art supplies were another cube and some of her incense was on top and you know, some rocks, every time I took a trip, I would collect a rock and I would bring it home and put it up in her room and, but everything else in the room did I didn’t move it, I didn’t find the energy to move it. Because I was afraid. I felt like if I were to do anything in this room, that I would be cutting myself off from Zoey completely. And nothing could be further from the truth. And when I made the decision to sell that house, five years later, it took me two days and three boxes of tissues to go through that room. And she had clothes that other kids could wear that I donated to a goodwill, I can’t remember the name of the company. There were boxes of her drawings and notebooks with poems in it. I still have all those. Her ukulele is with her brother, her drum set I donated that to a kid who was eight years old in town who needed a drum set was time. And I didn’t want to do anything with her room until it was time and there’s no time frame on that. And so there’s some folks that might be with that same room at their house for one year, one month. 10 years longer. It’s okay. When it’s time, it’s going to be okay, you will find a way to make that make it happen. And so one of the biggest lesson I think afterwards when the room was done, and I was looking at this room was just a mattress on a bed frame. So he’s still with me. I never got rid of Zoe. I’m not leaving her behind if anything, she’s still with me. And so I took a ton of pictures And I have those pictures. And when I look at him today, they don’t bring me sadness, they actually bring me joy because I get to see a snapshot of who. So it was, it’s always going to be with me. And just like Zoe’s memory is always going to be positive. It’s just stuff at the end of the day, and the memories are always going to be with you. And so nobody can take that away from you. And so you’re not really letting them go. In the sense of forgetting them. You’re actually helping yourself heal. I think, when you do have those moments in your journey where you can actually move on, it’s just another step on the path.
Victoria Volk 1:00:42
Thank you for sharing that.
Eric Hodgdon 1:00:44
You’re welcome. Thank you for asking.
Victoria Volk 1:00:45
So what gives you the most joy and hope for your future?
Eric Hodgdon 1:00:50
that I can continue to share Zoey. You know, one of the I think one of the most profound events, I guess, if you want to call it that that happened was when I joined option B, many years ago, I was asked to be a moderator later on. But early on, when there was about 500 people in the group. Option B was started by Sheryl Sandberg, who’s the CEO of Facebook, and she lost her husband in early 2015. And she wrote a book called option B, it’s fantastic book, and I would recommend that to folks. But She subsequently started this community. And I joined in early April of 2017. And the next month, when Mother’s Day was approaching, it was the day before Mother’s Day and I wanted to make a post for the folks in the group. One because I was thinking about so his mom and how hard it must be for that. For that Mother’s Day that was coming up, especially for Zoey not being I know what it is on dad’s Father’s Day. But I just think about this. So I know that there was some mothers in this option B support group. And so I just did a video and I just said, Look, if you’re a mom, if you’re a mother figure, if you’re missing a mother figure, anybody in your life that reminds you of Mom, I know tomorrow’s going to be difficult for you. But if it’s okay, I’d like to offer a little suggestion for you. So that when you wake up in the morning, the tendency is to let the pain make you feel like you just want to stay in bed with the curtains drawn. But I would invite you to sit up in bed first, then put your feet on the floor, open up the shade, go get dressed, and go do something in honor of your mother figure that day. Even if you’re a mom. And you’re missing a spouse that doesn’t matter. Or wife, you’re missing a spouse doesn’t matter. Get up and do something that honors your loved one. And later that night. My my phone lit up with a message. And I looked at it briefly I was half asleep and it was it said Sheryl Sandberg on it. I’m like, there’s no way. So I opened up my phone and I looked and sure enough, that was Cheryl. And she basically said hey, look, I just wanna let you know, I just shared your video with all of my friends and family. And would it be okay with you if I shared this on an interview with Oprah next week? No, no. So I said no, please do. And thank you so much. And I was so touched by that. And so what that taught me was that it doesn’t matter who we are in life, we could have billions of dollars. We could be working as a car mechanic or in a corporate job, we could be a child, we could be a teen doesn’t matter who we are. We’re human, and we’re all wired pretty much the same way. And grief is going to hit us. No matter what we do. No matter how much money we have in the bank. No matter what gender or ethnicity we are, we’re human. And so we can always find ways to make a connection that changes someone’s life. And if we don’t step into the arena and do that, then I think we’re leaving a lot of value on the table for those that are around us family, friends or otherwise.
Victoria Volk 1:04:29
My kids roll their roll their eyes whenever I give him a quote. I think of that.
Eric Hodgdon 1:04:34
Thanks, Mom. Yeah. Is it again? Is it worse than a dad joke? I mean, because those are pretty bad too. Right?
Victoria Volk 1:04:46
Thank you for sharing that. Is there anything else you’d like to share?
Eric Hodgdon 1:04:51
No, I’ve just I’m deeply grateful for being able to share Zoey with you and your audience, Victoria. It means the world to me that That, that I can still say her name. And it brings me the same amount of joy, as it always has. And I just am so grateful for the opportunity to be here with you and us fantastic questions. And you really made me think about what has really made a difference. And I’m gonna walk away from this discussion, feeling like I’m full today. So thank you so much, it really means the world to me.
Victoria Volk 1:05:31
Thank you, likewise. And I think that the theme of this interview, conversation I prefer to call it is impact. Yes, we don’t often realize the impact that we have on other people. Right? And that is regardless of our age. Yes, regardless of our age. So if there are any teams listening, you might think you have no friends. And I would argue that that’s probably not true. But I would also add, I have no doubt in my mind. If you’re a team, if you’re anyone listening to this, you have an impact on people in their lives, you impact people. And your presence would be lost and missed.
Eric Hodgdon 1:06:26
100% so true.
Victoria Volk 1:06:29
Thank you so much for sharing, where can people find you if they like to connect with you?
Eric Hodgdon 1:06:35
Thank you, Victoria. People can find me online at erichodgdon.com. And they can also pick up my book. It’s called a Sherpa named Zoey. It’s available on Amazon. And I hope it helps in some way. And finally, I have a TEDx talk that I performed two years ago that is available and I can provide the link for your for your audience as well.
Victoria Volk 1:07:02
Perfect and I will provide the links in the show notes for everything mentioned. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
Grief Stories, Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Suicide |
Crystal Partney | Finding Hope After the Loss of Her Sister By Suicide
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
Crystal shares the impact of losing her sister by suicide and the process of working through the grief that led her to start not one but two businesses in honor of her sister.
What you will learn, though, through Crystal’s episode, is that the loss of her sister was not the first. It was actually one of three within a short period of time. And, if there’s one thing that I’ve learned through the work that I do and conversations for this podcast, it’s that grief isn’t a one-and-done experience. We often have many losses or grief-causing experiences that all blend into one another. And, there are ripples of each and every loss. We touch on this, too, in this episode, including how Crystal talked to her then three-year-old about the death of her aunt.
Through Scattering Hope and Owl and Thistle, Crystal reaches both those who have lost a loved one by suicide and those who feel disempowered or at a loss to help those struggling with depression and/or suicidal ideation.
Through her work, Crystal has brought panels of experts, including myself, to share on topics that embody a variety of areas of mental health.
If you wish to reach out to someone struggling that you care about, check out Owl and Thistle. And, if you are wanting to learn how to navigate this kind of loss, check out Scattering Hope.
RESOURCES:
CONNECT WITH CRYSTAL:
Victoria Volk 00:00
Thank you for tuning in to grieving voices. Today my guest is Crystal Partney, and she will be sharing the loss of her sister. And thank you so much for being here, Crystal.
Crystal Partney 00:14
Thanks for having me, it’s an honor. Thank you.
Victoria Volk 00:18
Yeah. So, tell us a little bit about yourself before we dive deep.
Crystal Partney 00:24
Sure, so I am the founder and CEO of two companies, the first one being scattering hope. And the second one being Owl and thistle. So, owl, as in the bird, woohoo. And Alan thistle focuses on prevention of suicide. And scattering hope helps families heal after losing a loved one to suicide.
Victoria Volk 00:49
Awesome. And so, I guess we can assume that you lost your sister to suicide? Correct? That’s kind of what led to your work that you do now? Yes, let’s start there. Tell us about your sister Gina.
Crystal Partney 01:04
So, in 2019, the day before my 32nd birthday, my mother called me. And I could tell she was upset. I didn’t know what was going on. But you could just hear in her voice. And she immediately said what’s wrong. And then she proceeded to tell me that my sister Gina had taken her life that morning. And as a family, we were completely devastated at this loss. And that was tragedy of losing my sister. And the, as you can imagine, the birthday that I would have the next day was not the most joyful birthday. And it was something that I had to really adjust and adapt to as time would go on. But I also realized in that moment that things would never be the same. And that my heart was really was grieving. And at this loss, and unfortunately, there was just a lot of things happening in my life. At the time, I was literally getting ready to graduate for my bachelor’s degree to receive my bachelor’s degree within a month after my sister had taken her life. And so I was just right in the thick of things. And I told myself over and over again, Chris will just graduate, it doesn’t matter about the grades just graduate. And so I did, thankfully. And I told myself after graduation, that I would give myself a year to really sort of process what has just happened. And also because I was so busy with with just focusing on graduating, and the buisiness of my senior year and finishing up, I also wanted to just take a breath, because up until that point, I felt like it had all been kind of a blur and I wasn’t able to fully process my emotions as they were coming. And so after graduating, I just told myself, okay, like I was very fortunate, I didn’t have to rush out and try to find a job in my field that I had just graduated in. I had a very steady job. And, and so that was a blessing. And I took that year off and I said okay, I’m just going to begin the healing process, whatever that looks like. And yeah, that’s just a little bit my heart behind why I’ve started and why I started the healing process, and a little bit about that day.
Victoria Volk 03:55
So was Alan Thistle, the first just that you started.
Crystal Partney 04:00
Now actually, ironically enough, it was scattering help and it didn’t really set in until golly, I would say at least a year’s time almost a year’s time had gone by since my sister’s passing and we were coming up on the the one-year anniversary of her of her death and I kept you know having throughout that years timespan, I kept having this prompting on my heart. And that was to help other families that are going through a similar journey. And I kind of was like okay, this is this is a little bit strange. Like what am I doing, and I just really graduated in in health care administration and I’m so proud that I graduated and I and I finally you know have I had this accomplishment that I had worked so hard for so long and so it really kind of took me off guard a little bit that that this prompting kind of wouldn’t go away. It just kept coming back in. And I have no doubt it was my sister saying crystal, I want you to help other families that are going through a similar situation. And thus I started my company scattering hope so tanzer, your question, yes, scattered hope was actually first and then as I was mapping that out and deciding, like, Okay, this is how I want to do this, then I also got another prompting no data from my sister saying, I want you to also focus on prevention, because it’s one thing to, to help that mindset or heal. And you know, after such a tragedy as this, but it’s an entirely different approach and an entirely different feeling, if you are also going to focus on prevention. And we do that without the soul in such a loving way, that’s not a shameful way. That’s not guilt ridden. Because very often times people are struggling behind closed doors, and they’re not vocal about it, at least I should say, majority of the people that are suffering behind closed doors, they’re not vocal, and wanting to end their life. And they’re not vocal in, in just saying and sharing their vulnerability about the simple truth that they’re struggling. And they don’t know where to turn to, they feel very alone. And so that’s, that’s my approach with Allen thistle is, we do that in such a loving way in such a graceful way. That’s not shameful. That’s not guilt ridden. And it’s just ultimately, it’s a way for you to be able to tell the people in your life, how much that you love them, and how much they matter, and how much you appreciate them.
Victoria Volk 06:59
So, what does that look like in your business then? Like, if I come to the website, and I know someone’s struggling, or I personally am struggling? What does that look like? What does that service look like?
Crystal Partney 07:12
Yeah, so we offer several different options. We offer a subscription box that that someone can receive for every quarter or every month, depending on how often you would want the box. And then also, we offer a subscription, or excuse me, we offer a membership site, as well, where we have monthly discussions, and we have guest speakers. And we just have the conversation, I think that became very, very transparent and very apparent that I needed to begin the conversation around such a sensitive topic of suicide, and let people know that they’re not alone. Because as I began that process, I very quickly discovered that I wasn’t alone when I’ve when I lost my sister to suicide. But I also got people reaching out to me and being vulnerable and saying, Hey, I’m so glad that you’re doing what you’re doing that you’re focusing on prevention. And you know, I’ve never told anybody this, but I actually have attempted suicide when I was younger, or just having the courage to share their story with me and being vulnerable and saying, Hey, you know, I was struggling. And this is so needed right now. And and that’s the the path that both companies follow. So both companies follow subscription box model as well as a membership site.
Victoria Volk 08:49
It sounds wonderful. And we’ll link a link to where they can find that. Show Notes. Going back to your sister’s story in that loss for you. What were some I mean, were there not warning signs? Did you feel like did you have a sense that she was struggling, but you didn’t know how to? What was the experience before you? I’m sure, obviously it was a shock when you found out but no, and then you kind of reflect and you look back? What were the things that stuck out to you as you reflected back on the relationship leading up to that decision she made?
Crystal Partney 09:25
Yeah, well, it’s such a beautiful question. And there were absolutely warning signs. And in fact, on the website, Alan Thisle, there is a download that you can get that shares the warning signs to to look out for if someone is struggling. And I just wanted to mention that right now. But there were absolutely warning signs. My sister was kind of the opposite. You know how most people are struggling behind closed doors. They don’t want anybody to know that they are struggling and in contemplating suicide that My sister was the opposite, she was very vocal and saying, she would have a bad day. And then she would be very vocal and saying, well, I’m just going to end my life. And my family was very proactive in getting her help and seeking out a trained professional in this manner. And unfortunately, my sister didn’t open up, she didn’t allude to the difficulties that she was facing, and the struggles that she was having to this professional. And we, we, of course, as a family were very, like, aware of her struggles and, and that’s why we were so adamant on her seeking out a professional and, and it got to the point where, you know, she was on medication. But when, after she passed, we very quickly realized that she stopped taking the medication that was prescribed for her. And she was also very vocal towards the end about not wanting to you know, pay for, for services, not wanting to pay for counseling, sessions, because let’s be honest, it’s not covered by most insurances, because it would be considered an elective and, and she just simply said, flat out, I don’t want to go because I don’t want to pay. And I think towards the end, it’s there were definitely warning signs. And we had thought she had turned a corner towards the end of her life that we were hopeful that okay, this whatever medication she has been on is working. And she is, you know, she stopped seeing the the counselor, but she’s taking the medication, so everything must be going good and weird, really believed as a family that she was turning a corner and, and she was starting to see hope again. But unfortunately, as we discovered that she stopped taking her medication, and she stopped going to counseling and, and then as I said, she was alluding to the fact that she just didn’t want to go, and she didn’t want to pay for the services anymore. She didn’t think there were help, if that was helping
Victoria Volk 12:35
I think it’s so hard for someone who is in that headspace to really consider the impact of their choices. Because it’s really difficult when you’re and I mean, I’ve had outs of depression. But you know, the clinical depression or be diagnosed with depression really needs to be, you know, consistently on medication, I imagine that it would be very difficult to see the effect that you have on others, and how your choices and decisions impact the family. So I’m glad that you kind of address both aspects and both sides of that. So when it comes to your loss experience, and at the time, I know you said that you were going through college, you’re about to graduate. But you also have a family, correct?
Crystal Partney 13:30
I do. Yeah.
Victoria Volk 13:33
So, you get a lot of balls in the air, not just school, but husband and kids, right?
Crystal Partney 13:40
Yes, yes. I have a daughter. Yep. She was three at the time. And it was hard. It was hard for me to be honest. I didn’t want to tell her. I didn’t want to tell her that her and Gina had passed away. And that was a extremely difficult conversation. But I’ll I’ll share it with you if you don’t mind. Yeah, please. The as I mentioned earlier, my sister passed away the day before my birthday. And my daughter who was three at the time, she had just turned three in January. So her birthday is actually coming up. And she noticed that I was I was crying like a loss. And she didn’t understand why because I kept wrestling with the idea. Do I tell her if I tell her? What details? Do I tell her? Do I be transparent? Or and also do I be transparent but how do you tell a three year old about how do you talk to your three year old about suicide? How do you how do you talk to them about something so tragic is this in a way that she would understand? but also just understanding that she is three and she’s not going To understand as much as say, like one of my nieces or nephews who are older, they’re teenagers. And so there is a delicate balance there. But I was, you know, in the bathroom and my little girl came up to me and she just said, Mommy, why, fine? And I said, well, and I decided I was like, Okay, I have to tell her, I can’t like, I can’t just not tell her. So I did. I said, Well, Honey, I’m sad. And she goes, why are you so sad? And I said, Well, I’m sad, because your aunt Gina has has died, you’re at Gina’s passed away. And she looked at me and she said, Mommy, why? And I was completely transparent and said, You know what, honey? I don’t know. I don’t know why she passed away. But I do know that she was really sad. And, and she got kind of quiet. And then, you know, she started to smile. And I was like, smiling. I don’t understand. Why are you smiling? I just told you that. Your aunt has passed away your ass died. What? Why are you smiling? And I asked her, I said, Hi, my wife smiley. As she goes, Mommy, does that mean that she’s with Grandpa? And Grandpa Lany is my dad. I said, Yeah, she says grandpa Lany. And she goes, Okay, and she runs out the bathroom.
Crystal Partney 16:33
It was that quick. And that seven. And I remember that moment, so vividly in my mind, and I always will. But it took a moment that was so difficult for me and turned it on its head and made it realize that it was going to be okay, that if I could just take the approach as my three-year-old did, and know that she’s in good hands, she’s in good company. And even though I’m sad, even though I missed her, not a day goes by where I don’t miss my sister. It’s gonna be okay. That she’s safe. The sadness that she felt in this life is gone. And she’s happy. And she’s just, she’s in good company. And so that just, it warmed my heart. And it really took me off guard, because, you know, like I said, she was just like, Okay, and then rush rushes out. And so it just, it really did warm my heart. And it made me kind of take a step back and say, okay, that’ll be okay.
Victoria Volk 17:49
Beautiful story. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you for sharing about your sister. I just want to say that children are like, especially three is honest, be honest about their feelings. And I commend you as your mother being honest about yours. Because I think that is the first lesson that children learn about grief is how to a level of honesty that we have about our feelings. And so, she really reflected that back to you, but gave you insight. Like you said, I’m a four-year-old, the innocence the maybe that was a message for you to write. I mean, there’s a gift in that message that she shared with you. I had goosebumps when you said that. She said that. What a beautiful little girl. Wow. Yeah. Thank you. So, what has your grief taught you?
Crystal Partney 18:51
It’s taught me so many things. And just as I just shared that it’s going to be okay. And even though you’re sad and you you’ve missed them, like Not a day goes by where you don’t miss them, like your heart yearns for them. But I’ll share another example. This was so in 2013 I lost my nephew. He was 39 weeks gestation. And my brother and his wife, they are worse we’re struggling to have another baby and they were able to get pregnant and so she you know, as I was struggling with with multiple miscarriages all throughout, you know, her time getting pregnant, and there was no there was no warning signs with with well it just happened. And so that happened in January, and she hasn’t been 13. And then my dad passed away unexpectedly in April of that year, and then I also lost my best friend in December of that year. So, I kind of a joke. And in, in all seriousness, I’ve nicknamed that the year of hell for me, because it was just back-to-back to back. And all of those were completely unexpected in my life. And these relationships, were extremely important to me, especially my dad, and my best friend, and I didn’t get a chance to meet well, but I know that he is an amazing person. And, and after having experienced that I was at, I believe it was the Christmas or around Christmas time, because I had lost my best friend before Christmas of that year. And I remember just feeling so bogged down, and just like, I was angry, I was so mad. And I remember just, you know, screaming out and just kind of yelling and saying, you should be here right now. Like, you should be here right? Now, why are you here. And I immediately got this soft whisper. And I have no doubt that it was my dad, and probably my best friend. But they said, Chris over here, or here, we are just not in the form that you want us to be in. And I said, You’re right. You’re right. You’re just not in the form that I want you to be in, I don’t want you to be here physically, and you’re not. But and again, I got this just gentle, like warmth on my heart that said, we’re here, we’re not missing anything, for just not in the form that you want us to be in, you can’t see us that we’re here. We’re not going anywhere. So, I just wanted to share that with your listeners that if you find yourself in this really sort of dark place in this sort of, like we just had the holidays. And a lot of times the holidays are the most difficult part of the year, because you’re surrounded by family. And obviously this year, this past year looked vastly different than any other holiday but but maybe this is the first time without your loved one. Maybe this was the first holiday that you experienced without them. And I just want to encourage you and and let you know that they are there. They’re just not in the form that you want them to be. But don’t mistake for one second, that they are not with you that they are not experiencing life with you. I always joke with my sister, I said, we used to call her Jean. And I said, Jamie, you’re welcome to hang out with me. But I’m kind of boring. And you know, but you’re more than welcome Nick, you know, just kind of hang out and, you know, observe. But I do have to give that caveat that I’m not the most exciting person. But that’s okay. That’s, you know, that’s one of the reasons and one of the things that she loves about me.
Victoria Volk 23:18
Thank you for sharing. I think it is a good reminder, I think because when we lose loved ones, we often forget that we can talk to them, and still talk to them. And I think people struggle with that, too, I feel depending on the circumstances of their eighth life, before death knocks on their door or after. I think that shapes also to how we feel about that or talking to those who love of the party. I actually just had a conversation with a 21-year-old that I very similar losses as myself and also in the same ages. And I just shared with her that you’re either safe, which is very strong. And then their spirituality which I feel is maybe goes deeper and is more of a connection. As not a belief or a feeling. It’s more like a feeling. And it’s a connection that you feel like you know, is there. And I think that really determines if you’ll feel open to talking. I think that helps. I mean even if you don’t believe that even just voicing what you’re what’s on your heart. Think of it like a prayer out loud or think of it like just sharing your heart with the air. You know you don’t even have to share it up especially if you don’t have a safe person to talk to Grievers unknowingly and unintentionally and I say we’re all Grievers because we all agree something. We’ve all agreed something. So when I say Grievers, it’s even if you don’t identify yourself as a group, you’re still agree with my book. It’s my belief that we say hurtful, we say hurtful and harmful things. I’m intentionally, especially if we haven’t, you know, we haven’t processed our own stuff.
Crystal Partney 25:29
Yeah.
Victoria Volk 25:33
You know, so were there any things that people said to you too during that time that I’m well meaning, but didn’t really come off that way? If your heart received it differently?
Crystal Partney 25:45
Yeah, Oh, absolutely. I’m not exempt. I’m not exempt. And, you know, I think, having experienced a tragedy like this, specifically to suicide, I really believe that people just don’t know what to say. And so oftentimes, like you said, their heart is in a good place. But they are often you know, kind of speak out of turn or, or say something that they, they normally probably wouldn’t say, because they are trying to be helpful. They’re trying to show how much they love you. And, and absolutely, I had several times, like going back to my might have conversations that I was like, why in the heck did you say that, but, but ultimately, what I had to the conclusion that I had to come to for myself was crystal, they’re just trying to help you. They’re just trying to help you. And they just don’t know how. And so tell them, tell them how. And it could be something as simple as I need you to. I had a friend. She was very close to my sister, actually, ironically enough. And she, she, you know, she let me know, she’s like, Crystal, what can I do for you? And my initial reaction was, Nope, can’t do anything. I’m just gonna, you know, I’m gonna wonder woman. I mean, I’m like, No, I’m good. And then it, you know, again, because I’m in tune with, with my spirituality, because it’s such a driving force in my life. I felt this this warmth come over me that’s prompting St. Krystal, no, don’t, not this time. Tell her what you need. And so I did, I said, You know what, it would be really great. If I didn’t have to make breakfast, that I have to make breakfast for the next three days, and I could just grab something like yogurt or fruit, or both, whatever it is, and I didn’t have to make breakfast for my for my little girl, then that would be amazing. And so she’s like, Okay, done, consider it. And so she did, she went out, she got this huge, like, like, gift basket, essentially, of like fruit, and like chocolate milk and yogurt and just like, piled it all in there. And she dropped it off at my house. And she just said here. And I just said, Thank you so much. Like, this is exactly what I did. And, and, yeah, there’s, there’s just being, you know, vocal and just sharing. And I know, oftentimes I can speak from my own experience that, then you just want to hold it all in. And it’s, it’s always gonna come out sideways, when you finally let it out. I just well, and but I would give the advice that has, if anybody’s lost anybody that they love, whether it’s suicide or other health complications, whatever it is to just allow yourself grace, and allow grace for others as well. That they’re just trying to help and they just want to, to do what they think is right at the time. And and just give yourself grace. I mean, give them grace to because they’re gonna say stuff that, you know, like, why in the heck did you say that? I get above all of our fabulous vocabulary. You chose that, really, but just take it a step back and saying, you know what, there’s just right now.
Victoria Volk 29:38
That’s the motivation behind my podcast why I started it is for the education piece, but also, obviously for people to share their stories. But I think through story we learn and so that’s and to bring home I want to go back a little bit to Loss of your father, because I’m curious how you believe that that impacted your sister. And is that, when that happened is that when you noticed a change in your sister, was she younger than you? Was she older than you?
Crystal Partney 30:15
So, she’s my, she’s my oldest girl in the family. So, she’s the oldest girl in the family. And so, I’m the youngest of eight. So, I come from my family. Wow. And that was it. It’s very similar to my sister. But when we lost our dad, it was kind of it was complete shock, like, it was very sudden. But quite honestly, for anybody that knew my dad, my dad would not have wanted it any other way. Like his nightmare was to be like, stuck someplace, having like, he said, like every day, if not, very often, his nightmare for him, would be for his children to take care of him, to have to take care of him. And why he had kind of this, this impression that we didn’t want to take care of him when he got older, I don’t know. But I think that has to stem with his experience with taking care of his own, taking care of his own father. And so, he just wanted so badly to not have that experience for us. And so, it was really this, this kind of, you know, this gift of love, but, but like I said, it, knowing my dad, he wouldn’t have wanted to, you know, pro long, bad health or anything like that. So it really was a blessing in disguise for him, that he passed away suddenly as he did. But absolutely, it had a tremendous effect on on my family as a whole. And especially my sister Gina, she, towards the end of her life she and looking back, I was like, oh, okay, now I can see that because she was vocal and saying, I wish she knew my dad. And for those of you that didn’t know, my dad, he was an amazing person. And, you know, these are some of the characteristics. These are some of his his quirks that I just miss about him. And so looking back at this, and that was Kali, that was I want to say at least three, maybe a little bit longer timespan before her path before her passing, when she when she expressed those feelings of missing my dad, or missing our dad. And so yeah, it just it absolutely had a tremendous effect on us as a family and it still does. They’re still you know, moments where I wake up, and I’m like, I’m gonna call dad and I can, it’s just in a different way and a different form. And like I had already shared, he’s here, he’s experiencing life with me, just not in the way that I want him to be. So, I just want to emphasize that point, because I know that some of your listeners may feel lost some of your, your listeners may feel like, gosh, I just feel so alone, and to just remember that they’re here.
Victoria Volk 33:39
So, throughout your grief experience, what has given you the most joy, and hope?
Crystal Partney 33:47
Oh, golly, I’m looking at my looking at my daughter. In that moment, I already shared telling her about her aunt Gina, passing away. And I didn’t realize this, but at the time, I was setting the bar for her. So that whenever she experiences a tragedy, she’s going to look back at this moment in time and say, Well, how did mom handle it? Because that’s how I should handle this. And notice I said when not if she experiences a tragedy, and that has brought me a lot of peace and a lot of joy. Just also see how she’s handling the loss of my sister. And just the other day she goes, Mommy, that’s her aunt Gina died. And it was the funeral home that we had my sister’s private family viewing. And I and I didn’t want to take her but I decided okay, she needs to connect the dots. I didn’t want this to be something that became this, this experience of me showing her or me telling her I actually wanted her to see and connect the dots in her in her mind. And yes, she’s three and but now that she’s going to be turning five, she’s connecting those dots. And she’s saying, hey, that’s right Gina passed away and, and she’s really just bringing me so much joy and so much hope throughout this whole journey that whenever I’m having just a down day, I look at her and I go, your body, your mind why, like, you’re the whole reason why I’m doing what I’m doing. And if I can be a light, and a service to other people, through my experience, and to share my story of hope, then I mean, what better? What better purpose there than that?
Victoria Volk 35:58
I want to come back to to the conversation that you had with your daughter, and the thoughts you have like, what do I say? How do I talk, you know, because I think there’s a lot of fear that people have, when there is a death in the family, and what they should do and what they feel is right, I’m going to start by saying you do need to do what was right for you? But I’m going to speak from the aspect of grief recovery specialists and that children understand far more than we give them credit for. And their honesty will tell you what they understand if you allow them to communicate. And I’ve heard stories of parents who almost shush their children around a specific loss, because it’s painful for them. It’s too painful for them to talk about. But they don’t understand the damage that’s doing to the child, by not being able to talk about it. What they’re learning in that situation two is that we don’t talk about it. And that’s sets them up for life, and how they process and deal with and address grief, and how they treat others in their grief as well. So that is a huge passion of mine, educational piece around this. You know and help in grief recovery, too. We have a facilitator method is helping children with loss program. And it is online for a group. And that’s a four-week program. So, I just want to mention that if you find yourself in a situation and you’re not sure how to help a child process their grief, the next one program that I’m very passionate about because I’m a child Craver, myself. And that’s the thing, you know, I was eight and people just didn’t think that I need them to talk about anything. Children can seem like they’re okay. They can act like they’re dealing with it. But there might be other behaviors that you don’t connect to the grief. So, if they’re having angry outbursts, if they’re not sleeping well at night, if they’re coming into your room, you think, well, they just had a bad dream. I mean, they’re wetting the bed. If a behavior changes, that’s a Mark, Mark change and familiar pattern of behavior. That’s what grief is. It’s a change in or a familiar pattern of behavior. And so those are just some things I wanted to bring up. I thought you handled it beautifully. And you were honest about yourself, therefore, your child reflected back to you honestly, with her giggles and, you know, no, she’s in a better she’s in a good place. She’s in good company, right? I don’t want to say a better place because that’s one of the things that people may say, Well, they’re in a better place. No, they should be in this place with me. That’s how gravers feel they always want their loved one with them. So don’t say that. Yeah. Yeah. Don’t say that. They’re in a better place. Don’t say that. They say at first, yes, they say at first, again. Are they being strong for you? You know, because Grievers do that reverse will dismiss their own feelings to make other people comfortable. So, you really have to follow the lead of the Graber and in how you direct the conversation, but let them lead the conversation. You don’t need to say or do anything. You just need to listen. I think that’s that’s my biggest message on almost every episode is just listen. Yeah, nothing else you need to do. Let the griever be. Was there something you want?
Crystal Partney 40:01
I was I, yeah, I agree 100% with all that you said, and, and again, you know, even when going circling back to what you had just said about, like, oh, they’re in a better place. And even though that, I find that I’m not alone, and that can be a little bit triggering for me. But again, it goes back to grace, and saying, I, maybe they don’t know what maybe they don’t know what I’m experiencing, maybe they haven’t lost a loved one to suicide, or maybe they haven’t lost a loved one yet. But ironically enough, when I was talking to my uncle, he said, kind of a little bit jokingly, but in a serious sort of tone. He said, Crystal, because we were talking about my dad, and he said, you know, no one gets out of your life. And I was like, yeah, as hard as that, for me to hear that it’s true. And so it, it just kind of again, just was like how you’re right, and just allowing people just grace, you know, they say that in a very loving way. Like, I know that, I know that someone, that’s what’s that has said that to me in the past. They do it in a loving way. And they’re just trying to help and what better way than to say like, Okay, this is what I need you to do, and, and be transparent, and say, You know what, I know you guys are trying to help. But I’d really appreciate it if you don’t say XYZ. take those out of your vocabulary, because those are really triggering for me. And I just don’t want to hear it right now. So do me a favor, and just don’t say those, because that’s true. And I guarantee you they will, if they even have a little bit of love for you, which I know that their love is off the charts. But they will respect that, and they will listen.
Victoria Volk 42:06
Anything else you’d like to share?
Crystal Partney 42:10
I just wanted to kind of circle back to what you were saying earlier about, about me telling my daughter and everything. And I think there’s just a lot of ways to approach death in general and how you approach it, and how you, you know, mention it to different age, age groups, age brackets. And so as I mentioned earlier, I’m going to talk to my three year old about her, her n passing away, and a completely different light in a completely different tone than I would my nephew or nieces that are older and in their teenage years. So but ultimately, it it comes down to, you know, telling the truth, but doing it in a very loving way. And not in a fearful way, I would say. And that’s just based on my own experience that, you know, suicide is an extremely difficult conversation to have with someone, especially, you know, at a younger age like my daughter was, and so I really wrestled with the idea of do I tell her do I tell the truth, but I felt really strong in my approach and how I alluded to the fact that she was extremely sad. And I obviously am not going to go into details about her passing. But I am, I would say that I’m prepared for as those conversations come into play, as she gets older over time.
Victoria Volk 43:53
Exactly, yeah.
Crystal Partney 43:57
But it’s important, it’s important that you have the conversation and that you be as as delicate and and truthful around it as best you can. That’s, that’s most age appropriate. And so, I kind of like I said, I set, I set the example and I set that bar for future conversations and that was extremely important to me.
Victoria Volk 44:22
The conversation will evolve over time as she gets older and she inquires and she learns more and, and you know, someone in the family might say something, and she might overhear it and what was that about? You know? Yeah, so as her curiosity comes to you with the probing questions. That’s the thing like as she gets older, the conversation will change and evolve as she gets older and it’s just taking into consideration and also to I think maturity of the individual child is a huge factor as well. I think that really needs to be something to consider, regardless of the age They might not be, I’m not sure. 10-year-old or you know, so that is something to consider as well. But yeah, thank you for bringing that up again. Where can people find you if they’d like to reach out to you and learn more about boxes and membership?
Crystal Partney 45:21
Sure, well, you can find either one of my companies at scatteringhelp.com, as well as owlandthistle.com. And inside the website, you’ll find links to social media and all of that fun stuff.
Victoria Volk 45:41
and I’m not sure when exactly this episode will air right now it’s where mid January, but you know, you have a summit coming up? Would you like to share a little bit about that? Because I believe they’re going to have the recordings made available, correct?
Crystal Partney 45:57
Yes. So, the the summit will, will be March 8 through the 12th. And yeah, we’d love for you to join if you are interested. And we will just be having a conversation around how we can begin the conversation around suicide and, and what that looks like in our healing and how we can, we can heal from losing a loved one to suicide. And then we’ll also mention about how we can prevent this from happening to other people in our lives. And ultimately, just, it begins and stems back to the conversation that I began with that my whole heart and soul behind Alan thistle is to have the conversation and just let people know in our lives, that there are a lot, because at the end of the day, when people don’t feel that their love, and they don’t feel like they matter. those thoughts of suicide enter their mind, and they don’t leave, they will get louder and louder as time goes by. And I do not want that to be your fate, he not want that to be your outcome. You You are the author of your story. And let’s write something different. Let’s write something that’s more joyful, more hopeful, more purposeful, and inspiring to others.
Victoria Volk 47:28
I do want to mention one thing, too, because I’ve learned through grief recovery work. And also, through conversations that I’ve had with mental health professionals who work in suicide prevention, that probably one of the best questions you can ask someone who you think may be suicidal or having suicidal ideation, is asking them outright? Are you thinking about harming yourself or someone else? Because oftentimes, that’s a question that very few people will actually as. And the thing is, is most people in that situation, want to be asked that? Yes, absolutely. Oh, I just wanted to bring that up that don’t think that that’s going to be the thing that’s going to send them over the edge to actually complete suicide? Because regardless if you said it or not, they’ve been thinking about it.
Crystal Partney 48:25
They will be, you know, most people will be, they’re gonna be kind of caught off guard when you ask that question, especially if you lead with that question. Because here’s the thing, looking back at my own experience with my sister, I have was very vocal with her and getting the help that she needed. But there was a moment when I did I asked her, I said, Are you and so she said yes. And I think it just again, looking back in my own conversations with her, it completely kind of threw her off guard. And so, they’re naturally going to be open, and they’re going to respond yes or no. And because you’re leading with that question, because you love that, and there’s no shame in it. Like let’s, let’s do this together. We can, you know, get you some help. And here’s the thing, if this person doesn’t work with you, if this person was like, That’s all right, it’s okay. Go find someone that does. Go find somebody that you connect with on a personal level, and let’s just start to have the conversation and be bold, be bold about it, and but again, just having grace for them and having grace for yourself and is so so key.
Victoria Volk 50:00
My recent our blog post that’s coming out of mine soon is talking about shame. And I think shame has a huge role in people’s lives. And you know, it’s a heavy weight in the pits of our stomach and oftentimes weathers shame they’re wrong. I wear their shame. There’s grief. Yes. When there’s grief, there’s shame.
Crystal Partney 50:22
So yeah, this dual, what do you call it? The teeter totter.
Victoria Volk 50:29
Yeah. And so, that’s one thing too, is someone who’s possibly thinking about that probably has feelings of shame. It’s maybe linked to that blog post in the show notes as well. But okay, so you’re gonna have we have like a opt in for the summit where people can catch up at any time because this is 2021 now, January, March.
Crystal Partney 50:59
yes, I’m just wrapping up with with the with the finer details, like the opt in and all of that. And then as soon as I have that ready to go, I’ll send the link over so you can put that in the shownotes and let your people know.
Victoria Volk 51:15
Sounds great. Thank you so much, Crystal for sharing your story. I think there’s, there’s something in this episode for everybody, whether you’re experiencing a loss to suicide or otherwise, so thank you. Anything else?
Crystal Partney 51:33
Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It was it was a lot of fun, and it was a pleasure.
Victoria Volk 51:39
Well, grief isn’t fun. But I do hope that you know, the lighter stuff like what brings people, what brings you joy, maybe inspire some listeners and the work that you do. So, thank you again. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
Addiction, Grief Stories, Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, LGBTQ+, Mental Health, Suicide |
Jordan Brodie | Growing Up Gay, CODA & With Addiction
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
Jordan grew up knowing he was different. And, it was in that knowing where he could be himself with his loving, supportive father.
However, in the outside world, he navigated the harsh reality of mean kids. Aside from his sexuality, growing up as a child of a deaf adult (CODA) also felt like a dirty little secret.
What happened, as Jordan grew, is years of trying to deal with being put in a special class for kids with high intelligence, and in middle school, he found himself drinking and starting to experiment with drugs. This was on top of the medication he had been put on and was on since the age of 8, and was later able to get off for “diagnosed” ADHD and anxiety, which, by the way, he’s no longer taking.
The years that followed were challenging and would lead Jordan to follow his childhood friend to Hollywood, who also would later die of an accidental drug overdose, who was the one who took Jordan to his first meeting to get addiction support. Thankful for that start in sobriety, Jordan has been sober for four years, but not without a lot of inner work and therapy.
On top of the grief Jordan shares in this episode, one week following our recording, his older brother, who is deaf and who had also been struggling with addiction, died of a fentanyl overdose. Jordan will be coming back on the podcast to record a follow-up. In the meantime, as you listen to Jordan’s many stories of loss, attempt to put yourself in his shoes.
RESOURCES:
CONNECT WITH JORDAN: INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK | TWITTER
Victoria Volk 00:00
Welcome to grieving voices. Today my guest is Jordan Brodie. He is a performing artist, an LGBTQIA advocate, self proclaimed digital marketing Queen, and sober in recovery from drugs and alcohol. For years actually just you recently had an anniversary on January 13. Congratulations, huge congratulations on that. And thank you so much for being here.
Jordan Brodie 00:29
Thank you. I took digital marketing Queen out of my bio, I just, I didn’t I didn’t want to put too much emphasis on that.
Victoria Volk 00:40
Okay, okay. Well, you are no longer the digital marketing queen, its official.
Jordan Brodie 00:47
I just don’t want to draw attention to that. Anyway, so but it’s okay. Like, I’m cool, like happy with.
Victoria Volk 01:00
Alright.
Jordan Brodie 01:01
Thank you.
Victoria Volk 01:03
Yes, thank you for being here. So, tell us a little bit about yourself. How, how, maybe your why for wanting to be on the podcast today.
Jordan Brodie 01:13
Why? Well, we just recently had a memorial for one of my best friends who passed away from an accidental overdose. And this friend was very close to me. I’m 29 years old now. And I’ve known him since the sixth grade. So that is quite some time, like 20 years. 2020, something like that, right? A lot of years. And when he helped me move to Hollywood, he moved to Hollywood before I did, and I followed him out here. A year later. He’s an actor and I’m a performer and we both grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico together. And he moved out here and then he let me stay on his couch showed me around introduced me to some people. And one of the friends he made while he was out here while we were out here because we both I stayed since I meant that he needed to walk back and forth from Albuquerque. He met Katie Tanaka’s and he would always tell me about Coco. He called her Coco. And he said I was basically the male version of Coco. He was like, you have to meet my friend Katie. She’s so much like you. You’re like the man. She’s like the male version of you like and I was like, okay, like, Who is this girl? And I felt then he was like, he played me one of her songs. Her spoken poetry song. I almost lost my heart in Monaco. I don’t know if you’ve heard it. It’s it’s the best song y’all need to go look up. Katie Tanaka’s left my heart in Monaco on YouTube right now. Pause. Anyway, so. So you’ve and it’s a fabulous Argh. And it’s so it is me it’s and move. It was funny because he saw a version of me that I didn’t see in myself, which is, I’d happens a lot, especially because I was in my addiction for most of my life, up until the last four years that I got sober. I was not fully self aware of like who I was. And a lot of my friends would see me in a different way than I saw myself. And when he passed away, it was actually the night before the memorial last Sunday. I I, the night before the memorial, the family had asked me to put together the memorial. So, I’ve been organizing, inviting people for the friends on zoom. And then the night before I was kind of it was starting to hit me that the memorial was the next day. And I was starting to get sad, and I made a playlist. My friend and I would speak through music, we shared songs a lot. And that’s how we communicated was through music a lot of the times we I know like 100 songs that I learned from my friend and and then, so I was listening to a playlist that I made with songs that we shared, and then I remembered Katy song. I was like, I need to listen to that song. And I was like, wait a minute, this and I forgot that he was her friend. I was like they were friends. I need to let her know about his memorial. So, I found her on Facebook, on Instagram and I messaged her and told her and she joined us for the memorial the next day and she told me about you and your podcast and and the thing about the reason why I wanted to have this conversation is that my friend’s death brought up a lot of anger and resentment and me towards Hollywood and the entertainment industry and the music industry. And there’s a lot of massage money in the music industry. Meaning, like, in the straight roads, where there’s and they don’t talk about it, you know, the me to movement just happened with Harvey Weinstein and all these other people. And in fact, my friend, when I told you I stayed on his couch for a few weeks, he was renting a room from this guy, I want to say his name, but this guy got just got me two, three years ago. So, what I’m trying to say is a lot of people that my friend fell into, we’re shady knee tattooers If you like it, the massage me of the straight world of the masculine man dominating the feminine and dominating the industry. it rubs off on to the gay world. It’s like it passes down. And then and then it’s also a lot of times invisible, like you’ve heard about that guy who was basically put together the Backstreet Boys, he had all those charges for molestation and stuff. There’s just a lot of that going on behind the scenes, and a lot of people that move to Hollywood, and they fall for the casting couch, the idea that you need to sleep with someone to get ahead in your career, and they and then people with power in the industry, abusing their power and not denying it just to get laid. Because the truth is, it doesn’t work sleeping up to the top doesn’t work. And I’ve know some from some pretty famous people like coaches that that’s Bs and I was always really upset with my friend for being so naive and letting all these people take advantage of him because I knew it wasn’t the correct way I knew the correct way was to focus on the talent that’s what my heart and my intuition told me. And my family taught me not to do that. And and I had my own experiences in college where I kind of got burnt out and screwed over by some guys and I learned pretty quickly that you couldn’t really trust people and and and so that’s why I want to do this is because it made me really upset about the entertainment industry. I I had to let Katie know he passed but I also had to let that old roommate I told you about and like at least five other people that I know that I love because they were scumbags. They were so sleazy. Yeah, they were in the entertainment industry. But they were taking advantage of my friend. They were taking advantage of other people, they tried to take advantage of me. They felt like because I was young and cute. I still am young and cute. But I was a lot cuter than and a lot of people like people tend to underestimate me especially because Paris Hilton is one of my idols, okay, I love the idea of putting on this presence of being light and fun and aloof and stupid and kind of, like out of it. Because I love that type of humor. And I, I don’t want people to take to get uncomfortable with me like being way smarter than them because that’s usually I’m a lot smarter than most people. And I don’t just say that to brag or anything. It’s taken me a long time to get here. But I grew up in special ed classes for really smart kids and like, and I tested like at a really high IQ level when I was like in elementary school and I always made me uncomfortable like that. So I learned to pretend to be stupid. When I was with people, and not in class. It’s how I kind of like would like talk to people and relate with them. So What I’m saying is that these like, man would try to, like do that to me, like what they were doing to chase. And we were the same age. And I would, I would not say anything, but I wanted to like, I would just get silent and leave, you know, or just, but I wanted to stand up for him, I wanted to stand up and put these guys in their place, because I knew if they were doing it to my friend, they were doing it to other people. And it like hurts my heart, because my friend that I’m telling you about, I loved him, like a lot more than a friend, I had a huge crush on him, like, and he was beautiful. And I knew him since sixth grade. And he was kind of like my high school crush, and he had trauma and I wasn’t his type. He only really like older guys. But I had a total like, I had feelings for him and, and he was a good guy, and he loved God and he had a good heart. The thing is, I don’t want to like, make him seem like he’s like a complete victim in the situation because it takes to to play like, he made the active choices to be doing the things he was doing. And he was getting from these people in the same way that they were getting from him. So they were both using each other, you know what I’m saying? So it’s not saying it’s okay, what these guys are doing, but it wasn’t okay, what my friend was doing either. He was being manipulative. And anyway, so. So that’s why I want to do this is, and I love my friends so much, and I miss him. And if anyone out there and struggling with addiction, or alcoholism or drug addiction, just know that there’s someone out there that loves you a lot. And you may not know it right now because you’re in your disease and you’re in your head and you’re in the darkness. But there’s someone out there if you pass away, they will be heartbroken. Ever. I strongly believe everyone has at least one person, even the most isolated people and I myself to have just got four years sober on Wednesday. And my friend that I’m talking to y’all about he took me to my first meetings before I even knew I had a problem. So that’s why I’m doing this took me so answer that.
Victoria Volk 12:38
No, that’s okay. So, I do want to circle back to something you said about growing up and how you felt like how you couldn’t even really be yourself like you were out of integrity with yourself. Like you couldn’t feel like you could own your smarts. You couldn’t feel like you could. I mean, I don’t want to put words in your mouth. But do you feel like living out of integrity with who you felt you were but couldn’t live out? Do you feel like that’s subconsciously set forth like a pattern of behavior and things that kind of ultimately lead to your own addiction?
Jordan Brodie 13:19
Definitely. And it’s funny, you’re focusing in on that I never really thought about that incongruent and how creating that in my brain at a young age would cause that I’ve thought about one being a gay a gay man that’s another reason why I want to do this is my friend was gay and I think in the gay community especially like on top our right and feeling weird for being smart there was the my dad marrying my stepmother going from the hood like because I see myself as kind of like a HUD kid even though like they got married when I was a like I my soul My spirit is very like casual and fun and more go with the flow it’s not so I don’t know I like I don’t like like fully I’ll Of course I love having things being associated with with wealth and that sort of stuff. However, I still like being associated with just hustlers with people who don’t have much and have to make ends meet and so it was traumatizing. What I’m saying is one trauma was the being really smart trauma thing that was like confusing for me. And then the other was the was the moving from the hood to like, basically Beverly Hills overnight when I was eight that Was traumatizing for me because most of my friends didn’t have a lot of stuff, a lot of things they had small. My bedroom was bigger than most of my friends houses in high school, and elementary school and middle school and I felt guilty about that I felt extremely guilty. I felt weird. I never talked about it and never asked my parents about it. I never talked to anyone about it, actually, this you’re the second person I’ve talked about this with. And it is actually really healing to talk about it. So that was one trauma. And then on top of that, being gay and feminine. My dad is the opposite of me. Like I told you, he’s in the military. He was a basketball coach, really masculine. I’m so grateful to have such an amazing father. He supported my femininities for my whole life. He’s always loved it about me, he thinks it’s cool. Like when I was eight years old, I wanted to start dancing and he went it was just him and me and my brother and he allowed me to dance, and I was always dancing, and he let me do that. So, I was feminine. And I don’t think I think the separation the beating myself up and the on inauthenticity and the the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde like hiding stuff from the world and putting on this character started when I started going to public school, and middle and in middle school after my dad married my stepmother, we moved to the other part of town. And we went to this public school and the kids are really mean to me, they bullied me and up until that point, I was never self conscious. I was my stepmothers always told me you were really confident when you’re a little like I was really confident, really flamboyant, not afraid to show my feelings, not afraid to talk. I was fearless. That’s what she told me. And then I started going to elementary, middle school, and people were making fun of me and I didn’t know why. Like, I was always hanging out with girls. I think I I think when we’re little we, when we’re truly little and innocent. I didn’t really see my sex or my gender. I didn’t really see it yet fully. I always felt like a girl. And I always vibe with the girls. Like I always played Barbies, I wanted to play Barbies, I wanted to play that. This clapping game. I wanted to do all the girls. That’s like what I did. And then when I went to this middle school, that’s when I started realizing it was different. I was different than the other boys. They started making fun of me. I think they were jealous because I was friends with all the girls that they wanted to date or whatever. But I wasn’t, we were just friends like, and they started bullying me. And do I’ve done a lot of therapy, the last four years in my sobriety, I did a year of EMDR, it really helped. And I’ve done a lot of therapy, to come to realize that. That was when the separation started. That’s when I started feeling weird and ashamed about certain things and not wanting to share everything with everyone. Because if I gave people too much information about me, they were throwing my face and they would use it and they would make fun of me. And the thing is, I was different I had my biological mother was Dev, I’m gay like after that happened, I started realizing they’re making fun of me for being a feminine man, a feminine boy for dancing and all this stuff. God forbid they find out my mother’s disabled. I didn’t want it because they made fun of disabled kids, they would make fun of people. It was mean these kids are some mean, so I didn’t. I didn’t ever talk about my mother being deaf. She was like my secret. I didn’t even let my friends now and and then you know, and then I went to and then I was put in that class for smart kids and, and then I was separated from everyone in middle school, I was put in this class called to x when everyone’s going around and their periods they can leave. I had one class and it was for smart kids with behavioral problems. Because I would fight with everyone. It was hard. I had a really hard childhood, and it was very difficult. I felt very isolated and alone. That’s why he was so close to my heart and helped me in some of the darkest times of my life. Like when I was really in my addiction, and I like basically I was trying to kill myself with my addiction without knowing it. And he would scream at me and yell at me and let me know how love die was and, and like, took me to my first meetings and yeah, so that’s why this I’ve never lost anyone that’s close to me. I wasn’t this close to my grandpa, he wasn’t that close to me, and my aunt Julie passed from drug addiction from alcohol addiction four years ago, and then my uncle Brian, three years ago, so it runs in my family addiction, that addiction oftentimes runs in the family. Yeah.
Victoria Volk 20:47
So how old were you when you started drinking? You started with alcohol?
Jordan Brodie 20:51
Yeah, when I was like, 14, I started drinking. I was middle school like seventh grade. One of my friends from that class I told you about the 2x class. He was from Detroit. And so he had already been drinking for like two or three years, and we were in seventh grade. And I also was on a lot of prescription medications. I’m not on any anymore. When my dad married my stepmother. They saw that I was damaged, like this damaged little kid and my stepmother started sending me to therapists and psychiatrists, and they were all doing all kinds of experiments on me with different medications. And I was on a shitload of drugs. When I was little, like, I don’t like, and this is to each their own. I think everyone should find a doctor and make smart decisions. But I think I was mis diagnosed, I see my, my ADHD, my mood swings, my anger, my my other things on my addiction were caused from pain. So, it was like, from pain and confusion about my mother being deaf. And her, she would neglect me unintentionally. Because of it. Just because she couldn’t hear me like when, when I was a baby, when you’re in your developmental stages, those first few years, you’re crying to your that’s how you communicate is through crying. You’re saying, I want food. I want cheese. Like you’re crying for the things you want. My mother couldn’t hear me. So, she unintentionally when neglect me, I’d be like crying for like 30 minutes, and she wouldn’t bring food. It’s a common thing for they’re called kotas children of deaf adults. And I’ve learned that we have a name. It’s a really, really common thing for coders to have feelings of not being heard. Being a it’s a lot of coders will experience difficulty and in obtaining their needs and desires and communicating what they want and like in relationships and being assertive with what they want. They don’t. And it comes from that from being an infant. It’s really common. And I’ve learned that recently and I have more in a from a therapeutic standpoint, I have more work to do on that, because that’s only a newfound thing. But my point is that, that that it’s what was the question?
Victoria Volk 23:46
Well, I just want to circle back and just really, because what I hear you saying and everything that you’ve said, your life experience so far to me, like I can sum it up in one word, grief. I mean, it was grief from an early chat from early on.
Jordan Brodie 24:05
Oh, yeah, that’s what I was telling you. Because you asked when I started drinking. Yeah. And so I was in a lot of pain that being neglected unintentionally. As a little baby. I was in pain, and I was confused. And then my dad divorced my step, my mom, and my mom was angry. I think she has borderline to be honest with you personality disorder. She can’t take a boundary like if you tell her no on something, she starts screaming at you. On top of that she’s deaf, you know what I mean? So it’s like really hard, and she calls the cops incessantly. She doesn’t know the purpose of the cops. She sees them as like mediators. So anytime she would get in a small argument with my father. She would call the cops and tell them he was attacking her, and all this stuff and I I experienced it recently. That’s why we don’t talk. I got into argument with her because she was breaking one of my boundaries. And I stood up for myself. And she started getting denying it, and I got mad. And she called it and I was just yelling, and she called the cops and told them I was attacking her. So like, she will lie. She told them, I was trying to kill myself, she told us she will lie to the cops and say whatever she wants to them. And then they come, she sees them as a mediator. If she did, it’s just it’s insanity. But yeah, um, so there was a lot of trauma at a younger age. And I believe the reason why I couldn’t sit still, when I was little, the reason why it was hard for me to focus on adults, and take them seriously and respect authority was at all of the things that I struggled with. It’s not because of my genetic makeup, it’s not because of eight, it wasn’t genetic. For me, it was from trauma. Because and, and I’ve and, and I have the proof, like I have the receipts that it was because the last four years of my sobriety, I’ve spent hours and hours of therapy and EMDR. And if I were to just coldly walk into a psychology or psychiatry office today, since I’ve done all this work, they would not they would not diagnosed me with bipolar or ADHD or any of that, because I’ve worked on my symptoms, like I’ve worked, I’ve done a lot of work. And I have more work to do. And so anyway, but when you’re little you don’t know this, I didn’t they don’t teach you about emotional health in school, they don’t teach you about the things we really need to be learning. And, and they just the psychologists, they just didn’t look at my pain. They didn’t look at my trauma, they ask questions. They just gave me drugs to deal with the symptoms, who it makes me so mad that they are prescribing eight-year-olds, amphetamines, they are giving eight year olds meth. Like it makes me so mad. And that was me. I have been on net, like a form of meth since I was eight years old. And that’s why like, that’s what Adderall is. That’s what Ritalin is and that’s why when my stepmother when my doctors were trying to give it to my little brother I I told them not to but she didn’t listen and it’s just it makes me so mad. Because I feel like I have some like holes in my head and stuff now like it’s like hard for me to my brain is healing thank God for neuroplasticity, it’ll heal, but, but I really wish the doctors would have tried to stoop to my level and just see me as a creature that’s been damaged that’s been wounded and, and tried to understand me, at a younger age, instead of tried to just sedate me or change me. Because I didn’t need to be changed. I just needed to be hurt. That’s all I needed. And and I’m thankful that I have this realization today and that I’m on a better path. And I have a story now that can help a lot of people and, and, and my friend’s death ignited this passion in me to start really sharing it because I’ve always had the passion to share it. But I’ve been hitting the grind. Since he passed and just getting organized. I’m hiring people. I’m hiring an assistant to help me today or tomorrow we start training her and I’m getting my stuff together. But yeah, so I started on amphetamines when I was eight like prescribed prescription drugs. And then when I was 14, friend from Detroit, was taking shots in the kitchen when I was staying with him one night and I was like, ooh, what are you doing? And he was like, I’m not gonna tell you to do it. I was and then I took that as a challenge and started taking shots of Bacardi and, and then I wanted to do it every weekend after that, and I wasn’t the type of alcoholic or addict that drink every day. And I think that’s the misconception for alcoholics and addicts is that you don’t have to drink every day from 10am to two to be an alcoholic or an addict. I was an alcoholic or addict because I use drugs and alcohol as sober lubricant and I wanted to do it every weekend. It was my escape. It allowed me to feel like I could be myself. Because of myself, who I am now sober is who I was when I was blacked out drunk. Because I’ve worked so hard on breaking down the trauma and getting rid of that. Because I is someone that is super social is super talkative is the life of the party sober. That’s who I am. And that’s who my friend that passed was. And I needed drugs and alcohol to feel like that, because of all the trauma in my brain, it would shut off my brain, and I could finally just be present with people and, and I didn’t know it. I just loved it. I, I thought it was so fun. And I did it every weekend and partied, I did a lot of drugs. My friend, one of my boyfriend’s was a coke dealer and like, I just had a lot of fun. Like, it was, like, fun for me. So, and then my aunt and my uncle, the ones that passed, they were the alcoholics like I didn’t have a problem. And then my friend, he was the addict, right? He was on. He was on meth. I was on prescription math, but it wasn’t like, you know, like, so I didn’t think I had a problem because I wasn’t the one my aunt Julie. She was one of the most fabulous people I know. And she would drink every day from 10 to two for the last 10 years of her life. She drank herself to death. She had all the money in the world. She could have done anything she wanted. And she drank at her house from 10 to two she died loaded with jaundice. She had a brain aneurysm. It was really bad and really sad. And I tried everything to get her out of the house, but she just wouldn’t. in the mail go Brian as well. He died from like, from brain from liver failure, I think. And my point is they were the alcoholic acts. They were the ones that drank all day, all night. Not me. I just would go out every night and drink in the clubs in my underwear, trying to get guys to buy me things. That’s what I did. I didn’t have a problem. That’s just being resourceful. And it took me a lot It took me until I hit rock bottom. getting arrested after chase had been taking me to meetings, getting arrested in West Hollywood for blacking out and doing some embarrassing things. And it took me to be court ordered to go to like some support meetings before I could really realize that I was an alcoholic and that’s the misconception about alcoholics and addicts is that some people don’t drink like all day long. It doesn’t mean you’re there’s some addicts that are the weekend warriors. It’s the point is that when I start drinking and if anyone can relate to this, I recommend them get like how is it that when I started drinking I I couldn’t stop like I would drink a whole bottle of vodka or like a whole and it was all about just getting Blitz out of my mind and escaping and just like basically not being here not being present. And because blacking out turns off the blood to your brain. And I just like that’s that’s an alcoholic to it. You don’t have to be an everyday drinker to be an addict or an everyday user to be an addict. You can some alcoholics and addicts’ news recreationally and it’s just about like, does your life become unmanageable. When you drink or use there are normies that like, can have a glass of wine at night, and then their life doesn’t spiral out of control. My life was never in control. Like, I couldn’t control it. I never could, I cannot stop I had no self control. I was in so much pain, emotionally. And I didn’t even know it. And I was using drugs, alcohol and sex to try and numb the pain. That’s what it was. And now when I want to do something stupid, I have to journal and figure out what is my fear? What am I in pain about like, what is this and I’ve been digging through the pain the last few years and it’s been really hard. Getting sober is not easy. It’s very hard. It was really difficult. I had to change everything about my lifestyle. I had to get really, really pour beef to figure out how to work How to make a living. It was really hard and I’m still struggling, I’m still on my way up.
Victoria Volk 35:07
Not to mention the friendships that change, I’m sure in the process of that, too, because like, I like how you said and I, I think it’s a really important point to bring up in grief recovery, we call them serves the short-term energy relieving behaviors, the things that you mentioned, to help you to feel better, because like to put a bandaid on the pain. I’m sober now a year. No, it was a no November it was a year, I was a weekend warrior to you like I could. And because people didn’t see me as an alcoholic. They didn’t think I had an issue. You’ve even now still people closest to me. You weren’t an alcoholic? Yeah. And it’s like, do you realize a bottle of wine is like four glasses. Yeah, I knew that because I would drink the whole bottle. You know, I wouldn’t stop at just one. You know, I would be making supper, grilling outside making supper for my kids drinking a beer. I’d have to by the time we ate, and I was buzzing, you know, you don’t. I like how you mentioned that. Because it is important if it if you have to do it, to feel better about who you are. And to feel more comfortable in your own skin. For me it was social situations. really brought up anxiety for me. I just I felt like I had to drink in order to relax into the fun. So thank you for bringing that up. Because I think addiction or whatever it is that we are using to numb ourselves or to feel better. If you are not functional the next day, you have a problem.
Jordan Brodie 37:01
Yeah. Yeah. 100% and, and that’s the thing. Another part of it is you mentioned that you would drink the whole bottle and you couldn’t stop or and to escape and I was doing the same thing. So, I didn’t think I was an alcoholic or an addict. And, and then and then so and there’s the element of addicts and alcoholics and with my friend that passed they call it Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, right? It’s like the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Dr. Jekyll was the the doc and it’s kind of funny because my last name My surname is Brody from Scotland and there’s actually a Brodie castle in Scotland. And if you look this up, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the person who wrote the fable Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It’s the way he wrote it. It’s a fantasy story based on reality on on a real person. And the real person is a long lost relative of mine. It’s a it was a Brody. He was related to that Brody that Hasbro and so Dr. Jekyll and that’s the fable of Dr. Jekyll Mr. Hyde because he couldn’t write about the person is that Dr. Jekyll is like the doctor that’s all nice and good and whatever and distinguished in society. And he had a dark side Dr. Hyde, who would like rob people at night. End on story comes from and they talk a lot about it and sobriety and recovery world Dr. Jekyll Mr. Hyde. This story comes from a comes from a Duke Brody like if you look him up, it’s Brody something his last name was Brody and he was like a Duke or something in high society back in the day. And he was really he owned a locksmith company. That’s how he made his money and his wealth. And so all the aristocrats in that area of Scotland, he would do their locks, he would fix their houses, or their castle has their estates and do their locks. And so, he had all the keys to all of these wealthy people’s places. And then the Hyde Park came because the scandal was that he would go in and Rob everyone at night. And that’s what that story comes from. And so, a lot of alcoholics and addicts, even unknowingly, we have we hide how much we drink, like, because and we don’t intentionally do it. It’s not like you drink a whole bottle of wine and you announce to the whole party. I just drink a whole bottle of wine. No, you just drink a whole bottle of wine, and you keep drinking and then you don’t talk about it. You know So there’s like, we don’t disclose it. So, people don’t know how much we’re doing it. And that’s what happened to me. When I started going to meetings and talking about my problems. My parents were like, you’re not an alcoholic, you’re not an addict, like, why are you going to those meetings like, you don’t have a problem with it, because they always thought my problem was mental health. And that’s the problem with psychology and some forms of that type of medicine. And say, put the emphasis on the diagnosis. And that, and then taking medications becomes the solution. In my parents had the solution for me, my whole life was my medicine. They were like, they didn’t know enough about therapy and psychology to know that I could have done EMDR, I could have done all these therapies to work on the pain to work on my brain and reprogram my mind. They didn’t know about that. Because the doctors told them my solution was medications. So they thought they had it solved. Like, oh, here’s the problem. Here’s your solution. They thought that my solution was medications. So when I told them, I was getting sober and stuff, they didn’t know I had a problem, one because they didn’t see how much I was drinking. And two, they, they thought that my solution, my whole life was get on my meds. And since I wasn’t on meds at the time, they were like, that’s why you’re having problems if you’re not on your medication. So now I’m not on any medicine, and I’m fine. Like I’m able to live and function well in society. And it’s all because of the meetings I’ve been going to. Did you hit a really, really good point is that it and it and that’s the thing, you know that you had a problem. And you knew, and you were able to be honest with it. It doesn’t matter what other people think about us, it only matters what we think about ourselves and what our own problems were. And the thing with my friend, and a lot of the people that pass is, since I was so in my Z’s I got I was in my Mr. Hyde with them, I got to meet their Mr. Hyde’s and their dark sides. And so that’s why I knew it, but to their family, and a lot of their friends and other people they didn’t know like, we were all living like these double lies. And that’s another big thing that comes with it. And so that’s another reason why I think it’s important, we don’t use his name, too, because a lot of people didn’t even know all this stuff that I’m telling you about. It’s really sad.
Victoria Volk 42:47
Well, the thing is, I we don’t talk about our shame. We don’t talk about the things that are shameful to us that we are carrying, right. And so, and we don’t, we aren’t encouraged to talk about the things that are painful for us either. So that’s where, just like you said, you were able to talk about it probably for the first time.
Jordan Brodie 43:10
I would like to hear more from you. You said that it sounds like my whole summary of my childhood in life has been grief. And I would like to hear more from you of like, what your definition of grief is, and what are some ways to approach it? I this is definitely helpful. Like it’s been helpful talking to about this. And I’ve read the book called the grief recovery handbook. And it talks about making a timeline of memories, good and bad. Reading that to someone writing a letter of thoughts that are not like, fully processed. Yeah. undelivered communications, reading the letter to someone. I are those just what do you think about those tools? And maybe you could tell me more about grief because I didn’t see my childhood or the neglect from my mother, or my parents divorce, and that kind of stuff as grief because I think a lot of times people think grief to be just when someone dies. But the grief recovery handbook. I remember reading it and it talked about divorces caused grief. Any of you experienced any sort of loss, and I and I didn’t realize that and I don’t know where the loss is, in my situation with my mother being death. And that’s what’s been hard for me to wrap my head around that.
Victoria Volk 44:49
Well, it’s a loss of connection. You can’t connect with her in a way that you see maybe that you see other children connecting with their moms, because we learn by what we see. Right? And so There comes a time where you kind of probably looked at other relationships and was like, my relationship isn’t like that. But you, as humans, we know what we need. Right? And so, when we’re not getting that, we know that too. And that’s great. It’s anything we wish that would have been different, better or more. It’s a loss of hopes, dreams and expectations,
Jordan Brodie 45:23
Anything we wish that could have been different, better or more. That’s the definition of grief.
Victoria Volk 45:31
In the grief recovery Handbook, it’s in there. Yep, loss of hopes, dreams and expectations, anything we wish that would have been different, better or more.
Jordan Brodie 45:39
That is interesting, because that means everyone’s experienced grief.
Victoria Volk 45:45
Everybody, everybody.
Jordan Brodie 45:48
When you’re not, when you’re not being responded to, or you have an expectation, and it’s not being delivered the way you expect, or, wow, that just and we’re not talking about this, and people aren’t aware of it. It’s not. If it’s such a common thing, that experience that we experienced on a regular basis. Why aren’t we talking about it?
Victoria Volk 46:13
Jordan, that is exactly why I started this podcast. Thank you for bringing that point up, because that’s exactly why I started this podcast and that’s why it’s called grieving voices.
Jordan Brodie 46:25
Well, I love this. I’m so about bears.
Victoria Volk 46:31
There’s one question I want to ask you, I want to make sure we get to because we’re about running out of time. But I want to ask, because we we’ve heard your story. Thank you for sharing all that you shared, you highlighted so many different ways that children grieve. And interestingly, I used to work as a I don’t want to say I don’t even know what the job title was actually. But I would actually take the phone calls for people who want let’s say, you wanted to call your mom and you use the TTY. I would be on the other end. I was I was the operator. So, I would actually type what you would say, and read what the deaf person is writing.
Jordan Brodie 47:17
Beautiful job, you have no idea how many conversations I’ve had to have with my mother over those services. And people don’t recognize it’s such a marginalized community. They’re like, this is another universe. It’s like, and the problems they experience are similar to those in the LGBTQ community. It’s feeling marginalized, it’s feeling without a voice. It’s it’s the same type of feelings of inequality. And I really think we need to bring affirmative action back because they’re like, there’s I don’t know if you’ve heard of the whole breaking code silence like Paris Hilton’s. new thing, she has just recently come out about some abuse that happened to her at a border school, boarding school in high school, she was always too afraid to talk about it. And she’s finally someone pulled it out of her and her last documentary, and she’s finally talking about it. And so it started this whole thing, where they’re, they’re basically they are investigating all these schools in the United States that have been hurting people. And the reason I mentioned this is because like, my, the deaf community is a very vulnerable community. And they are being taken advantage of all the time. And I have a little so it’s genetic. My little brother is deaf, too. And he was he’s been molested in school. That’s another part of my grief is we were really, really close. He was basically like a little kid to me. Like my, he looked at me like a father, basically. And when I found out he had been molested, and these schools, I was like, thank God, I wasn’t in Montana, like I would have found those people. Like, I just was so mad. And so her and so sad. And I talked to my grandma about this recently. And she said in the 80s, when the Kennedys were president, and like, when they were really popular that Kennedys, one of their sisters started this movement for affirmative action and actually made some laws that required big companies to hire at least one or two disabled persons, on staff and they upped the budget for the dis schools for people with disabilities. And stay put a lot of support for that community and because the problem is and parents, I was listening to a podcast last night with Kate Hudson and and Oliver Hudson, they were interviewed. It’s called so sibling revelry. And it’s really good. And it was, it’s siblings, interviewing other siblings. So, they were interviewing Parris and her sister, Nicole, or Nikki, and I was listening to this late last night, and Paris was talking about, about this, a lot of these schools hire under an under qualified people that because of the lack of funding, because of the low budgets, they’re hiring people that aren’t qualified. And that’s what my grandmother told me. One solution that can be done for these people is if affirmative action comes back, and we’ve raised the budgets for private for public schools for the deaf, there, they would filter out they would have better hiring programs, and they could hire better people. And because people are being molested, like every year at these schools, and that’s just adding more trauma, more grief, more problems to our society, might I pray every day for my little brother, like I’m so worried about him that he’s gonna just turn out and like, become crazy or something because of all this stuff he’s been through.
Victoria Volk 51:26
That’s just it. That’s I mean, if you’ve read, I know, you said, you read the grief recovery handbook. And we’re all Grievers. And we all have life experience. And, you know, one person’s trauma is going to be different from someone else’s, and it doesn’t have to be like big t trauma, it can be something little like for you, you know, at first, you know, just not being able to feel like you could own who you were a smart kid, you know, just, I mean, that’s something that seems so insignificant to probably adults and other people.
Jordan Brodie 52:02
it’s your right, to like yeah, to know who you are. And to be able to. Just like all I’ve ever wanted is to be in a room and like you said your you would get anxiety. And that’s probably the reason why you drink is to be imagine just being in that room or to be able to go into any room and not have to be hyper focused on your breath or hyper focused on your thoughts are hyper focused on how you’re moving or hyper focus on how you’re, you’re speaking or, like just hyper focused, it would be so nice to be able to walk into any room anywhere we go and like, you know, the whole George Floyd movement, just be able to breathe, and just be able to, like, be one with that room. But our traumas caused us to get in our head and separate and and that’s all I’ve ever wanted was to just feel like I could be myself in a crowd of anyone and bullying caused me to feel separated. And part of my journey in recovery is getting back to that how do I calm my brain? How do I calm my nerves? How do I allow myself to feel like I can be anyone I want to be. And that’s part of the reason why, as an artist, I have a small fan base, we’re really tiny, like a little cat and I’m like a little candle and I just, they are basically the ones that that see me exactly how I am and I feel like I don’t have to put on a show for them. And I haven’t performed for them yet. They’re all on the internet. And hopefully after COVID I’ll be able to do some shows for them. But it’s Kim Petrus talks about it too, like she feels like she’s created this heaven where she can go on the stage and fans that are like her show up to her shows. And she can go up on stage and just be as weird as she wants to and whatever outfit she wants to singing during whatever she wants to. And it’s empowering for her like It’s like she created her own group therapy and her performance.
Victoria Volk 54:24
And I think to it comes down to self love and I think it’s this radical self love that we find in ourselves and give to ourselves when we do the work on ourselves. Exactly. I think that’s what you’re finding too. That’s what I found. This has been so good.
Jordan Brodie 54:44
Thank you. Yeah, this has been super helpful. When so when this is are you posting a video to or is it just the audio?
Victoria Volk 54:55
For now, it’s just the audio, the podcast. I do keep the I do have the have eventually possibly I want to get these on YouTube or closed captioning or community. And I’m just not there yet because it requires editing of the video as well as audio so not that, I’m a one woman show. Right there. Yeah.
Jordan Brodie 55:22
Have you heard of fiverr.com? I did. Yeah. We could probably find some editors on there to collaborate with that wouldn’t charge a killing you know?
Victoria Volk 55:33
Yeah
Jordan Brodie 55:34
Cool. Yeah. Let me know when you are when when will you post this because I will be sharing this for sure.
Victoria Volk 55:43
I will let you know. But before we go, I want people to know where can they reach you if they want to want to reach out to you? Where can they find you?
Jordan Brodie 55:51
Well, on Instagram, tik tok, Snapchat, Facebook, my most of my I have a few different handles, but it’s jbrodie Music on Facebook and Instagram, and Twitter. And then on Tick Tock and Snapchat, it’s brodiejmusic. It’s the opposite, just because the other one was taken. But I also just recently, and I don’t know if you’re on clubhouse, or if you’ve heard of it. I just recently joined clubhouse. And it’s jbrody music on clubhouse. And what it is, I, when I get, I have a few people in line. But when I get a few more invite codes, I’m sending you an invite code, because it’s invite only right now because they’re in beta testing. But a lot of podcasters are on there. A lot of entrepreneurs, it’s a new social media platform based on voice. So, people create these rooms of topic, interests. And I created last night I was up late last night because I was creating different rooms. I’d love to get you on there. And we could start like a weekly grief room. And it’s really cool because when you start following people, you just invite people and it’s like interact. It’s almost like it’s like a conference on your phone. And I’ve been listening to some really like famous people. I’ve been having conversations. I had a conversation with dead mouse the other day. It’s a really famous DJ with Perez Hilton. I had a conversation with Richie squirrel yesterday. He’s, he’s Lady Gaga is choreographer, like just all these people are on there right now. And they’re having these conversations. And it’s really cool. Like, I highly recommend that you can find me on there too.
Victoria Volk 57:48
I’ve heard about that through a podcasting group, but I haven’t checked it out yet.
Jordan Brodie 57:53
And maybe we could all start a group on there sometime.
Victoria Volk 57:58
I’ll have to check it out. Thank you so much for being here, Jordan. I’ve really appreciated what you’ve shared and what we’ve all talked about sharing your story. So, thank you so much. It’s been wonderful
Jordan Brodie 58:10
Thank you.
Victoria Volk 59:25
And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
Addiction, Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, LGBTQ+, Mental Health, Suicide |
Angela Williams | Abused by My Mother, Homeless, & Heroin Addict to Ph.D.
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
Based on the experiences she had in the first decade of her life, Angela was destined for a life of struggle, and, as her mom declared – die with a needle in her arm by the time she was 16. This prophecy nearly came true more than once. Instead, she got her Ph.D..
A life of trauma, physical, emotional, and sexual abuse by her mother led to early motherhood, heroin addiction, looking for love in all the wrong places, and losing her son to her own mother who put him in foster care. It would take over a decade for her to get her son back.
As her book describes, she was a child that fell through the cracks of the system. And, nearly paid with her life for it. Her story is a hero’s journey where she paved her own path out of living hell.
Connect with Angela:
Victoria Volk 00:00
Welcome Grievers to another episode of grieving voices. This is your host, Victoria. And this week I have a special guest. They’re all special, because all Grievers are special. But this special guest is named Angela. And Angela is an author, a free-range researcher, independent podcaster and survivor of many horrible things in her words. And she is from Sydney, Australia. Welcome, Angela. Thank you for being here.
Angela Williams 00:34
Hi, Victoria. Thank you for having me. It’s lovely to be talking to you today. Well, you know, difficult but lovely. Yeah,
Victoria Volk 00:41
I know. It’s heavy stuff. And I have thoughts on that. Moving the podcast forward actually how I can bring a little lightness to all the heavy, you know. I think we need a little bit more balance in times
Angela Williams 00:53
Think of the cactus flowers, cactus flowers. They’re the theme in the shop. It’s and we find the beauty is hiding there waiting to just pop out. Yeah.
Victoria Volk 01:02
Yeah. And that’s actually where a specific question came from that I came to me today that I will ask you later.
Angela Williams 01:09
Okay.
Victoria Volk 01:10
All right. So, we just met just now, man.
Angela Williams 01:15
Yep, yep.
Victoria Volk 01:16
Yeah, no history here.
Angela Williams 01:19
I feel like we’ve clicked.
Victoria Volk 01:21
Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. I think that’s the thing with grief. It’s where we all experience it. On some level. And that’s the one thing that we nobody can run from.
Angela Williams 01:35
We can try.
Victoria Volk 01:36
You can try.
Angela Williams 01:38
Yeah.
Victoria Volk 01:39
And that’s what the education piece is all about.
Angela Williams 01:41
Yeah.
Victoria Volk 01:42
The work that I do. But what I do know is that your story begins when you were four.
Angela Williams 01:49
Yeah. So that that’s when I started grieving. When I was four, my father had was an alcoholic, and he died of hepatic cirrhosis. And so, I was four years old, my brother was three years old. And we found out a lot lighter that we actually found him at the time, but it was very traumatic. So, he died. And my mother had, we had been living with my two older brothers who I only met last year for the first time. And they had been raising myself and my brother, because my mother wasn’t very good at it. So then when he died, she just took us and left We went to a couple of different places. And she was incapable of looking after two human beings, but also very, very abusive. So, from she then told my brother and I, for a very long time that our father had died of suicide, and specifically told me any number of times that he’d killed himself because I was a naughty child. So it was, yeah, like I started grieving him 40 years ago, and part of grieving him was that that that gradual awareness as a child that my mother wasn’t like other people’s mothers, so she died on Halloween last year. And I never really liked my birthdays, because they were always really dodgy at home. And she somehow managed to time it so that she committed suicide on Halloween and was then buried on my birthday last year. So instead of going to the funeral, I made a podcast about the situation and so I’m now in this really kind of unique situation of grieving this woman who I started grieving 30 years beforehand, so yeah, she Yeah, my father’s. I probably told the whole story and you were gonna save it up for the whole interview, and I spurted it all out in one go. Yeah, that’s where it started. And that’s where I am now trying to balance all of the lies that she told me about myself and about my world and who I am and how to grieve someone. When it feels like to grieve someone, there has to be a connection, there has to be love or a link there. And it’s very, very difficult to work out how to grieve someone when you almost wish they’d never been born, you know. So yeah, it goes back a long way. And it’s really all flared up in the last year. But since she died, I’ve, my whole life has changed. It’s been remarkable from the day she died, everything got different and that’s why I decided to do a podcast to talk to people like me who are going to have to face this really complicated grieving process somewhere along the line. Lots of us are estranged now and we need to talk about that.
Victoria Volk 05:09
So, you mentioned that she kind of plucked you out of the life that you were living so and where you were and everything familiar. So, it wasn’t even just the loss of your father. It was the loss of yours. Whatever support you did have, correct?
Angela Williams 05:25
Yeah. We, we went from, I’ve only really found the details of this out in the last couple of years from kind of extended family members who I found gradually through poking at the Internet. She she just took us away we had, I was at school, my brother was in preschool, and we just kind of got picked up and moved overnight, she sold my father’s house, liquidated all of these assets, left his other children and his first wife with nothing, and then just took us and, and then we went through this series of living in tiny, isolated places like small flats, and we went to stay for a while in this weird Christian commune in the middle of like regional New South Wales, where we all farmed together, we had to leave there, after she got really violent with me. And when we left places, it was always bundle everyone into the car, pack everything up, and now we go. And then, so it was just, it was this horrible experience of not actually ever having, learning the basic human things. So, like, by the time I left school at 16, left home, I didn’t have any human skills, all I knew was how to be an abused child. Everything I’ve made since then has come out of recognizing the strength I got back there.
Victoria Volk 07:00
So, at the time to when you left at 16, and your brother would have been 15
Angela Williams 07:06
Yes.
Victoria Volk 07:07
She’s equally as you said to him.
Angela Williams 07:10
It was weird mine, it was gendered, very specifically gendered. women had one job according to my mother’s view of the world and men had a different job. So, my brother was abused, but in different ways we both kind of he was a lot of mine was really weird sexual stuff, and emotional abuse and yeah, kind of public humiliation and things but all linked to my sexuality from when I was like a small child she was offering to sell meet men and to auction off my virginity for a boat at the golf club. And she just thought this stuff was funny, she thought she was the funniest person in the world, and it was 1980s 1990s Australia, people didn’t step in with child abuse, we have a terrible history of what we’ve done to children in this country and things that have been covered up institutional child abuse and stuff. And nobody stepped in. People just assumed it was the mother’s job Oh, and so many people said to me over the years, a mother wouldn’t do that to her daughter, particularly the sexual stuff like a mother wouldn’t do that to her daughter. So, it was kind of I was always just trapped in all of these messages that she was giving me the really dangerous messages that then the rest of society was not challenging those messages not interrupting and saying hey actually that’s wrong. I am a little bit by psychiatrists likes to remind me I could have gone to jail for this one but I once ran up at a woman in the supermarket and slapped her across the head and told her to pick on someone around sides because I walked behind over three aisles watching her slap the child across the back of their head every time he reached for something and I wait to stand by it and ignore it because I was that kid that people stood by and ignored so yeah, she gave me a real put a fire cracker and to me that woman I had to be this is where I can read it. Let me Can it Can I just read that bit from my book? Yeah, so I wrote this book. It’s not about promoting this for everyone else that already told Victoria this, but I wrote this book and in this book I talked about it’s called Snakes and Ladders wonderful book, but in their awful awful book I lie It’s not wonderful. But I survived spoiler. It’s about it includes the the horrible things that my mother did to me and the dedication in this book, I wrote it. When I first started writing the book it says to my mother for making me the strongest woman I could be to my mother for making me the strongest woman. I could be all stop That’s what you do with it, you take it and you go, this stuff is intolerable. This is unbearable, you cannot live like this. And then you change it, you do something different with it. So I did something so different to what she told me to do. And now it’s like, right up until the day she I’ve been in therapy for 20 years, okay? 20 years with the same psychiatrist, you can do that in Australia. He’s been both billing me the whole time. It’s free. Because I’m really broken that so you don’t normally get that, but I’m pretty broken. He likes me. But you can get free therapy here. It’s amazing. I forget where I was going, I started talking about therapy. Does it every time you can take all of this stuff and make it into something different. And odd. That’s where I was going. The day she died. I’ve been in therapy for 20 years. And I thought I processed at all. But the day she died. I sat there and because she died of an overdose. She’s she overdosed we don’t know for sure if it was suicide, but it was a painkiller overdose. And that’s what she always said to me. From when I was so young. She said, you’re going to die in the ghetto with a needle hanging out your arm, Angela. And she said it was gonna happen before I was 21. So 21 was when I was like, Oh, I won that. Then 42 I was like, Oh, I got to double what she said, I totally won. But then when she died the same way she told me I was gonna die. Something dropped off my gaze, and I was able to see how much of everything she ever said about me. She was actually saying about herself. She was talking about herself with all of those things that she said to me, and just that moment of realizing she was finally dead. Let me just own the truth of myself as a person separate to that abuse. To like really step into being that strong woman that you have to be when you when you’re raised with all four things you have to be strong or die. As I tried to die with a needle hanging out my arm, I’m just obviously better at surviving. She thought I was going to be I gave it a good read hard go. Heroin is not the way to solve your emotional problems. I can say that 100% confidence, but I’ve gone somewhere different what she planned for me. And letting her go is letting that hold over me go. I am. I started my podcast after she died because after years of worrying about talking and being heard in the world, because she would hunt me down everywhere. She never respected my no contact. As soon as I popped up the social media accounts, she was there she would send requests through friends and constantly had some illness that I needed to rush to her side and comfort her. So, the poor people who had to email me about her finally dying, got that response of I am so sick of this. No, I am not rushing to her bedside again. And then she was actually dead and all I felt was relief. I already processed all the grief. I’ve processed the grief through the book and through the therapy and through making myself into this amazing, strong, capable human being. And I don’t regret not having contact with her. I don’t regret having kept myself safe. I don’t regret prioritizing my safety over her comfort
Victoria Volk 13:42
For the audience, it is Dr. Angela Williams. So, it’s an incredible story. What’s up?
Angela Williams 13:53
I said I’m comfortable in lecture mode.
Victoria Volk 13:56
Can I ask what kind of with doctor?
Angela Williams 13:59
Yes, yes, you can. I actually have a PhD in Creative Arts. I like to tell people that I’m a doctor of making shit up. I taught critical theory at university for seven years, which is all of those big ideas. We used to think about the world like philosophy so the feminism and the socialism and all the different isms and ologies. I taught a big first year class of around 300 students where we taught them how to do things like think and write essays and paragraphs and sentences. Let’s be honest. And so, I’ve given a lot of feedback. Oh, my favorite subject I ever taught was a I was just a tutor for this one. It was a third-year research project. So, the students got to write like a mini thesis, and I did. I was working with about 90 students helping them all make their own little mini thesis research pro at the end of three years of creative art, so there were across all of the disciplines visual arts, dance, and dramatic pin performance and all the rest of them. And including a couple of writers, creative writers, which is my field, they’re always the quiet ones sitting, they sit in a little clump in the middle of the room, and then the louder students get around them. But yeah, so I spent seven years wrangling creative art students to learn how to think while I was writing my PhD well, and after I finished my thesis, but my research was into how writing a memoir is like self surveillance, and we turned the lenses on ourselves to discipline ourselves into being more socially acceptable human beings. proved that theory, didn’t I? Yeah, so that’s what my doctorate is in, I think way too much. And I’m overqualified to do everything. But podcast turns out so yes, I’m technically an expert. They told me. Obviously, I am. Yes. Can I arrange my favorite bit of the book since we’re talking about me being a doctor? Here we go. This I didn’t even write this bit. Neither did my publishers. This is by an Australian author called Anna crying. Sorry, my microphones there. Oh, this is why I started a podcast. Snakes and Ladders is devastating and brilliant. Williams is a tremendous writer, her insight into power and punishment is brave, honest, and revealing. Thank you, Brian. Yeah, so that’s what kind of doctor I am. I am really good at looking at stories and looking inside them and behind them and underneath them. I did University and therapy at the same time. So, I just think all the time.
Victoria Volk 16:51
I think it’s absolutely incredible how I mean, you’re the epitome of the heroine story. And can we circle back to when you were 16? And like, come back to like the time in between now, if the time is between?
Angela Williams 17:11
Say, between 16. And now?
Victoria Volk 17:14
Yeah, like, how did you get from a needle in your arm to a PhD? And like, how did you quit? Like, you just like, kicked heroin, like, I’m done.
Angela Williams 17:24
I’m, I’m really smart. I didn’t know that when I was a kid. I thought that I was creative, which was an insult in my family. So we went to a Pentecostal church, and I had been reading it, my job was to work in the bookshop. That was my volunteering gig. And I read all these books about heroin in the church, bookshop. It took me about 10 years in therapy to realize that what I had done was put those messages together and worked out the consistent thread through all of those books was that when a person started taking heroin, their family stopped talking to her. So, she had already been predicting this for me for many years. So, I didn’t come up with these ideas by myself. But it was a really good escape hatch for me. I used heroin for a few years, got myself in some terrible, terrible trouble, ended up in jail, and then back in jail, 10 years later, the same thing, but um, when I left home, I just, I found a place to live. And she came there and saw me. So, then I moved further away into the city right into the city, and she came and found me. And so, I ended up actually just I lived homeless on the streets of Sydney for about nine months. Um, I was at the time, I was like, I’m pretty sure there’s a private investigator following me. And then my friends will like your paradine Angela, that’s the drugs found out years later that my rd actually had paid a private investigator to try to come and try and find me. And so, I did have a private investigator following me. for brief periods there, I had to make myself so unpalatable to my mother she had, she went through this period of every time she saw me, she would give me money for heroin and would try go and buy it for me offered to shoot the app one day because my hands were shaking too much. She was really it was kind of like Munchausen by proxy. She really liked having a broken child. When I was a kid, she used to feed me toothpaste so I would have a fever and go to the hospital. So by the time I left home, like it took me about a year and a half to get her to leave me alone. And then I met this man and, and he convinced me that he was going to rescue me and when we’re gonna get married, I was 17. He was 26. He’s the father of my child. He convinced me that my parents needed to be involved. In this so they came and met his family and it got really weird. And then it turned out he was abusive, because like part of what you do when you’ve had abusive parents is you go and find a bunch more to keep that abuse going don’t is so I actually have had I think my next book will be about how many relationships are fucked up on the way to having one that actually works. But um yeah, I had a child I was spiraling out of control, and I needed to, I got so sick that I actually genuinely don’t know how I’m alive, I weighed like 36 kilos, you guys can confer those two pounds yourself. And I had this big, crap sores on the corner of my mouth where every time I talked pass would run down my face. And I really liked to talk. So, I got really, really sick. And then I went to rehab, because that’s what you do. And I did 12 months in rehab, and my first therapy while I was there, and I started thinking, and I started putting things together. And the first three months I was in rehab, you weren’t allowed to talk to your family. That was one of the rules. And then I got through 12 weeks, and then my mother rang me. And I stood there, and I had not wanted to use heroin. I was going through the program, I was loving it, I was enjoying being clean. And then I heard a voice on the phone, and I wanted to use again. And I was like this is and then I said, no, I can’t have any contact with you. And then about six weeks later, a social worker turned up at the rehab and told me my mother was dying in hospital and that I needed to go and make my peace with her. And that was in 1997. So that was the first time she got me out of the No Contact thing. And then I just I refused to play by the rules I’d been given. So, I, my son might, she took my son to live with her and put him in foster care. And I didn’t see him for seven years, the police wouldn’t let me file a missing persons report because he was with a family member. So, in that seven years, I tried to kill myself really hard with other drugs, not just heroin, I made my track marks into a work of beauty, you can use them as little soup bowls. And then I went No, I said, this is not working for me. So, I attempted suicide, which was kind of in my genes as well, when you look at it, or how I was raised, but then my suicide attempt failed. And while I was in hospital, the doctor who assessed me was my psychiatrist. And, and how I still see him to today. He, he was the magic thing I had just applied to go to university. And I have been spent 20 years telling this man these stories about myself. And he just he just gives me constant positive regard. He likes me no matter what. And 20 years of therapy, and 13 years at university and the two combined to just I can see so clearly how my teenage years were just like those years after I left home, that was all I Those were the only options I had. I didn’t know how to open a bank account. I didn’t know any of the basics of like economy of how the economy works, how politics works, how to engage with the world, how to get a job, but how to do anything. And so I spent 20 years being my own parent, in therapy, doing, giving myself all the things that my mother hadn’t given me to make myself into a human being and I think I probably technically hit like a human being around about 26 or 27. Before I was actually able to see myself as being the same kind of creature as the people around me. Now I bought I am 100% convinced I am a human being but took a long time. A lot of therapy. He charges $360 an hour to people who are being both build. Oh, I am so privileged this man. It changed my life forever. Oh yeah, absolutely. He is the captain of my fan club. Yep, yep. Yeah.
Victoria Volk 24:46
Sounds like an amazing guy.
Angela Williams 24:47
He is, he is.
Victoria Volk 24:51
Perhaps a father figure you’ve never had?
Angela Williams 24:53
Well, yes and absolutely the father figure I never had but also a kind of rebel. representation of society because the school ignored the abuse, the church ignored the abuse, our Doc’s the Community Services, they got sent out to see us. They saw me at the school and then went back home and told my mother what I said about her. So, all of society was just saying this is okay. shrink Allah, my psychiatrist. He was the first person who said, Actually, no, this isn’t okay. Like, there was a moment where I was telling him this story about how my grandmother said that if I could get a recording of my mother abusing me, then she would go to the police with me. And I was telling my psychiatrists this as evidence that my grandmother was my hero. He was like, hang on, Angela. If she was like, what adult asks a child to provide a recording of them being abused before they will believe you and take action on it. Yeah, he was the first person who ever said actually, no, no, this is not okay. And I needed to hear that.
Victoria Volk 25:58
In grief recovery. We talk a lot about my grief recovery specialists. talk a lot about beliefs. And what I mean was your I don’t know if this is okay to ask. So, if it’s not just let me know. But do you know if your mother who was abused, growing up?
Angela Williams 26:20
Okay, so there is, this is totally intergenerational. This has happened a lot in Australia. We’ve actually just put the story together. In the last, say, four months before my mother died. My auntie died. Well, three and a half months before my mother died, my auntie died and my auntie had been her younger sister, and had been the victim of her abuse growing up my mother and my grandmother used to team up on my sister and my her younger brother who died of suicide Would you believe? So? Arnie Liz died last year in August, September. And then my mother died in October, but in between, we found his briefcase that Ali Liz had had sitting for years and she would say to my uncle, don’t worry about this, this stuff for the kids. And she was kind of like my standing mother, I lost contact with her. She tried to kidnap me when I was 11 after my mother broke a fry pan on my head. And so, then we didn’t see them again until I was an adult and I found myself Um, so Arnie layers had kept this suitcase, this briefcase. So the way the story goes, we put all the documents together. My grandfather was a in the Navy, and he went off to World War Two, and he met my grandmother. And so, he went off to World War Two was on a boat, they accidentally told him my grandmother was at home, pregnant with my oldest Auntie, and they accidentally told my grandfather that she was dead her and the baby had died. And so then he ceased all contact with her back in Australia. And at the same time, the Navy decided the way to treat his grief was to feed him heaps of rum and put him in an officer training program. And then because of you know, all those screw ups that happened in World War Two, he didn’t come back to Australia for five years. And he lived as an officer in the Navy drinking heaps of rum and constantly reporting back to the hit the medics that he wasn’t dealing wasn’t coping with this while at home. My grandmother was going mad because her brand-new husband had deserted her and left her at home with this baby. So we’re pretty sure that something broke in the family then they went on to have three more children and my mother was the eldest of those three children. So, my grandmother was a nasty woman. And everybody agreed with that. She was nasty to her children, and she taught my mother her unique brand of nastiness. So, it wasn’t my mother would tell you she was abused by everyone. Everyone abused her. My stepfather abused her my father abused her my grandmother abused her. The people who were victims and my mother tell it very differently so I’m something broke in our family in World War Two. I’m trying to put we’ve got all of this in my grandparents own handwriting. My grandfather’s written this to the Veterans Affairs trying to get recognition of what was done to the family. But I think something broke back then. And so, then they came back to Australia and Australia had a really long we have made torturing children a tradition here. We routinely dig up backyards in the inner west of Sydney where there are multiple babies skeletons buried around because you could make money at certain stages of Sydney’s history by we call them the baby farmers. They would take babies on to look after them or to rehouse them and then just kill them and bury them in the backyard. We had orphanages set up just to bring homeless destitute children from the UK and the US to Australia to farm them out for profit. And this is like 100 years ago 150 years ago, so we had a really bad history of child abuse in Australia that was ignored on every level. So, it’s kind of filtered down to it is ridiculous how many friends I have. It’s such similar stories of mothers like mine. But down to really ridiculous. I have one friend and we both had the same identical experience of being made to paint ceilings in our house in the light one at two o’clock in the morning, standing on tables whilst being beaten with broomsticks. That is such a precise, it’s like we taught women in this country mothers in this country how to abuse children. So it, I can understand why she was the woman she was, but I can’t forgive it. But luckily, it turns out that forgiveness isn’t as necessary as they make out. Yes, so she there was something broken in the whole family. And my grandfather was one of the first people to get off the boat and set foot Hiroshima after the things did you know, we let Navy officials just get off and wander around there after the bombs went off without any PPA. Whoa, and then his hair was falling out and he was bleeding from his rectum for the rest of his life. Yeah, yeah. So I’m, I’ll do something with that suitcase full of records, write a book about it, but we can always you look at society, you look at any level of society, you can find something there that is guaranteed to turn a person into a monster. But at the same time, we have to look at the monsters and go doesn’t make it okay. The monster I should have been a monster I should be Myra Hindley, the serial killer, the most murderer had such a similar upbringing to me, I should have been Myra Hindley. But instead, I did therapy, wrote about my stuff, changed my life. And now I’m a beacon for good. We don’t have to live out the histories that were given.
Victoria Volk 32:12
It takes people like you to break that cycle to break the pattern of that generational learning. Because imagine then, if you hadn’t, how would your relationship be with your son? How would your son be, you know?
Angela Williams 32:27
Well, my son came back out of foster care to live with me when he was 11. Apparently, that never happens. So, we talked about it, he was officially put back into my care when he was 16. I took him back from the state. I was like, give me back those papers, which apparently again, never happens. But he lives with me now. He’s an adult 26 we have the best relationship in the world. He has been very slow about getting any relationships. And there’s damage there that comes from having a family like mine, but we did something different. He’s my hero. Would you like to say a picture of him from the book? So ah, he’s amazing. His name is Finn. I call them decks in the book. He got to choose his own name. There he is. Oh, that’s what he was little. And there is with me and him. No call. Oh, there’s my boobs. Look, I covered my boobs.
Victoria Volk 33:22
Check out this book.
Angela Williams 33:24
I’ll do but yeah, you don’t get the pictures in the edition. People have been very disappointed about that. It’s a very good book. Lovely. Yeah.
Victoria Volk 33:33
I like a book in my hands. Yeah, like a book in my hands.
Angela Williams 33:37
Sniff them. You can’t sniff in a book.
Victoria Volk 33:41
You can’t doggy ear you can’t like right?
Angela Williams 33:45
Take posted notes. Where do you put your posted note?
Victoria Volk 33:51
I know! So let me ask you this. Among all the chaos and the trauma and use and and and and where did you find your joy? How long did that take too?
Angela Williams 34:09
Finally my middle name is Joy, Angela joy because I’m an angel of joy. Yeah, I don’t know where she was going with that. But um, I found my joy by recognizing my superpowers. complex trauma does has an effect on the structure of your brain, particularly complex trauma with really young people so your, your brain wires differently to normal people and it gives you some things that like when we talk about pathologies, they kind of describe these as symptoms but I prefer to think about them as superpowers. So it was a really slow process, going to university and realizing that I was very good at critical thinking. I can put a Very sound argument together; I can read some very disparate different sources and bring them together to make a hole. And it took me a very long time to realize that that was because I was smart, I had been creative was the insult I it took me a really long time to realize that I was smart. Once I started to let myself relax into that. studying and learning and writing and creating is where I find my joy. It’s I’ve won a couple of awards for the book where I got to before it was published, I got to go and stay in this amazing writer’s retreat up in the Blue Mountains just above Sydney. And one day I wrote like 22,000 words, in one day, I was from like, three o’clock in the morning, I woke up just with the flow of burning in me and just wrote, that’s where I found my joy, I found my joy in not quite retelling, it’s reimagining every story I come up against, I challenge it, and I think about all the different angles and that’s, that’s why I started my podcast. So, I could just share this stuff with the world, I usually just share it with my Facebook and people are like, Angela, you need to talk to other people about this. I’ve done some conferences, a couple of appearances, and I just I love taking the bad stuff and making it into something good being able to find those cactus flowers. When I, when the editors of my book first read it, they were like this is an amazing book, there is a wonderful story, we just need you to find. Some of them are pretty bits, we need you to find the joy in there and bring it out because it’s a very heavy book to read otherwise. And so I’d gotten addicted to this kind of flow activity of learning and reading and synthesizing information before I realized that I was enjoying it. So, I was at university getting those really good marks going, spending 80 hours a week reading and researching and writing. And then never making the connection that the really good marks I was getting. And the fact that I was happily and willingly spending all of these hours reading things that other people were very resistant to reading. That’s where I get my joy and my flow. It’s the superpower of part of the brain damage that’s inflicted on you as an abused child is hyper awareness, you have to watch for everything, you have to read the tiny, tiny details because that’s what keeps you alive. I took hype awareness and made it into a craft an art form skill that I can use to make myself stronger. And that’s it. That’s where I found my joy in flipping all of the narratives and all of the stories I was ever given. And turn upside down look underneath find out the other version of the story and then do that instead. Yeah, yeah. And build the superpower theory has only really formed over the last five years or so when I got quite heavily into researching cortisol and neuro Neuro Linguistic prayer. I’m not I’m not doing NLP. I think it works, but I’m not doing it. But once I started researching how brain chemistry get to get gets fits together, I realized that Yeah, I get way too excited about research. So I just let myself do it now, freelance researcher, I am not affiliated with the university, I am considering a current research arrangement that might let me stick my nose into corrective services. But mostly I just to work from my fun
Victoria Volk 38:33
Was it your therapist that encouraged you to apply for university.
Angela Williams 38:37
No, no, it was not my therapist. It was well yeah, he encouraged me to apply for university, but I’d already kind of started the process before I met him. I was flirting with the idea people. I used to take a lot of drugs. I know I don’t seem as sort of way, but um, for a very long time. Or maybe it just seems longer because I was on drugs. I would have these conversations with people and the pool tables in the toilets at the pub at the bus stop. And they’d be like, you should go to university Angela. Um, so lots of people said it. And then I met this guy. He’s like, I was 26. He was 16. It was nothing romantic. He’s gay. Were bsfc lives in Canada. But he started going to university, and we were hanging out quite a bit. There was drugs involved. He started going to university and he was like, honestly, sorry, Chris. I know you’re listening. Not very smart. Not very smart. So, I was like, well, he’s going to university surely I can go to university right? And so, he made me drive with him to Wollongong University, just south of Sydney. And I was like, oh, this is pretty nice, isn’t it and then I watched him get to put your form in in person back then I watched him put his form in and I was like, by the time we got back to the car, I was like, dude, I’m gonna go to university. It was like, I think you should, And I didn’t know you could get scholarships because that I hadn’t done your 12 the end of school HSC we call it, I didn’t know you could get scholarships to pay for the bridging course. So, I was working in the sex industry. So, I just went to work and stayed at work until I made enough money to pay for that course. So, I could get in and go to university. Um, yeah, yeah, I was just determined to go. And then I worked in the sex industry the whole way through university, to pay my way there, which is legal in New South Wales, and we pay taxes and things. It’s excellent. And by the time I finished my second degree at university, I was just taught, I just stayed there until they started paying me to be at university. And then I got so involved, and I saw the back end of University and I went, I don’t want to work for your people anymore. I’m just gonna go and think for myself now. Yeah, so it was Christopher’s fault. He’s the reason I went to university. He’s just upstairs from you in Canada, give him a poke with the state.
Victoria Volk 41:02
There’s so many layers to you. Like it’s just,
Angela Williams 41:05
I know, I know.
Victoria Volk 41:06
What’s the next what’s the next chapter?
Angela Williams 41:10
I’m on, I’ve met this woman. I’ve had lots of very awful relationships in my time. And I’ve met this woman and she’s pretty excellent. We’ve been together for coming up on two years now. And our families like each other. And her mother gave me a card at Christmas time that know for my birthday right before Christmas. That said to my daughter in law, so we figure she’s dropping some pretty heavy hints there. Um, yeah, we are talking about going Bush, we’re gonna go and live in a tiny town and grow vegetables except for when there’s a drought, then we’ll just eat dirt and stuff. Because Australia and she started a business. I’ve got a couple of different things I do. I’m writing another book, of course, actually, that’s a lie. I am writing six different books at the moment. So, I should probably focus in a bit pour my energies towards just one of them for a while. Yeah, I’m just relaxing. I’m 44. I’m pretty sure that I’ve started metaphors. I’m going to see the doctor about that on Thursday. I’d really like to just relax and enjoy the second half of my life. I want this thing to go away. Like to. Yeah, my son’s name is Finn. I told him it’s my Finkle.
Victoria Volk 42:34
These are my like the number 11 I got you know, 11 lines. It’s Are you effing KIDDING ME lines?
Angela Williams 42:41
Well, I think I’ve done it so much. Mine squashed into one. Yeah, yeah. Oh, I am I’m a bundle of contradictions. My podcast, I go 20 minutes, Monday to Friday and,
Victoria Volk 43:00
Wow. What’s your what’s your podcast?
Angela Williams 43:03
Oh, my podcast is called the Deboning Power. I like to stick my knife into things. I just I’d make terrible puns. And I can’t stop myself. So, I talk about mostly I talk about New South Wales and Australian politics, I bust a lot of spin there. But then at the same time I have at least once a week I do one on getting better. The therapy stuff, Badaling, all of that amazing therapy I’ve had and just trying to speed it at the intent. And on Mondays I talk about kink. BDSM. I’m a bit of a community leader. So, I educate people about how to do things safely. It’s all a good combination. Power just pretty much covers everything, doesn’t it? You talk about power; you can talk about anything you want. Um, yeah, I asked if you’ve got questions. I’m very good at reading media. And I really dislike my politicians. So, I have to tell them that frequently. Um, yeah, but my therapy ones are my most popular. No, that’s a lie. People love the kink ones they get very excited about those, but the therapy are the second most popular episodes. Yeah. Politics is just what I do for fun.
Victoria Volk 44:11
I just, I love, I love this interview because it’s going from heavy to light to so many spectrums of the human experience that I mean do you feel like you’ve lived like three lifetimes?
Angela Williams 44:26
Oh, yeah, totally. I’m waiting let me I know I wrote this bio. Yeah, no, it’s in my bio. It says Where are you by Oh, come back here. It says that I’ve lived way more lives than by 20 I’d lived more lives than anyone should have I’ve but that was it right? Because I wasn’t my mother didn’t teach me how to be a human so I had to learn for myself and all of the predictions she made for me She told me I’d end up in sex work so I went into sex work became an incredibly successful like professional dominatrix. She told me I was gonna die from using heroin. So I use heroin. Instead used as a tool to escape and to get away from her. And she told me that I was creative. And that meant that everything I said was a lie. And instead, I became a writer and became very well equipped at just speaking truth. Truth is what I do better than anything. And this for a podcast about grieving. This is so important, because I’ve grieved my auntie, this year and my stepfather in a much more complicated way. But everything I’ve made in my life, every single weird thing that I’ve stuck my finger into, has been in response to my grief for not having a mother not having that central cohesive, because she was there, but she wasn’t a mother. So that’s everything I’ve done. My psychiatrists, my sex work, my education, it’s all been about mothering myself, giving myself the things that she wasn’t giving me and the thing. The thing that’s been hardest about her actually dying, was, how much relief I felt. And how uncomfortable I felt saying that other people I could tell my girlfriend or my psychiatrists, but it’s really hard with most people to say yes, my mother just died and I feel absolute relief. Over the years, lots of people have said, you need to make your peace with her. She’ll regret regret it when she’s dead. Everything I’ve done has been me making my peace with her. And I didn’t realize how efficiently I’d already grieved her. I didn’t realize how making myself into the opposite of what she thought I was gonna be was. It was a gift I was giving myself because that’s all grief is isn’t it? They don’t know were grieving them. They’re, they’re gone. They all of our grief is something that we give ourselves. It is a for some people, it’s soothing. for other people. It’s relief. And it’s about us, though, not them. And yeah, I couldn’t go to the funeral. I couldn’t my brother when she changed her name, after the court said that she wasn’t legally allowed to have access to my son. Cuz, she tried to get him removed from my care and put in foster care up near where she lives. So, she could see him up there. And I’m like, no, that’s not happening. And I, in exchange asked for an order saying that she never be allowed to see him again while he was child. So she changed her name after that. And so I would have had to turn up to a funeral with all these people from her church, who had become her church was very important to us. And I couldn’t have my truth there. I couldn’t, I couldn’t. I couldn’t perform the grief that they would expect me to perform. And I couldn’t fake it. If I walked into their I would not call her by her name that she talked to you avoid. Police finding out she was talking to children. I would just I’m too honest, I couldn’t do it. And every single funeral that I’ve been to, my army chose not to have a funeral. We got drunk on her river and sent her ashes out there all happily and celebrating under her tree where we fished together for years. I couldn’t give my mother that I couldn’t did a podcast instead. talked about it. Yeah,
Victoria Volk 48:32
Maybe a podcast about a eulogy that you would have liked to have written.
Angela Williams 48:39
Oh, well I tried that right. I was gonna give her a eulogy. And instead, I just ranted about how horrible it was that she decided to get buried on my birthday. Because you know, I do my podcasts every day. So, some of them get quite a lot of research. Some are just I am yelling at you today internet and that’s okay. When you do it every day, they can’t all be amazing. But that one was quite amazing. It was very raw I am I didn’t want to give her a eulogy. She um she left a stack of notebooks a stack of them and my brother burden I am I asked him to because we knew we knew that all that would be in there would be pages and pages and pages of explanations for why she was a victim in the world and everyone was out together and I’ve had it I’ve had the letters sent to me pages saying if you don’t respond to now I’m cutting you out of the will cut out of the well the first time when I was 14. So, it’s like you can’t keep holding that thread over me forever. And it turned out there was no will so or anything to leave.
Victoria Volk 49:43
The truth how you saw at people close to her? Probably never did.
Angela Williams 49:49
No, no, no. My brother asked if I wanted them. Or if I wanted him to say anything. said tell them to read my book. But that’s my truth. Yeah. Yeah. Because I’m, that’s it, I’m on to them, I said goodbye to them. By writing that book, I had to find some kind of sympathy for them in writing in that empathy that you have to have for your characters, even when you know their people abused you. I found a whole new level of understanding for my mother and writing that book and who she is as a person was as a person. But um, the only reason I would have turned up to that funeral was to make the other people there feel better about it. Yeah, I felt more guilty about being the MTC in the Pew then missing saying goodbye to my mother I’ve been. I’ve cried over too many times. Every time I cried myself to sleep after a beating, those were the tears that should have been at the funeral. And like I said to her, when she tried to ask me if she could move in with me a couple of like, last year sometime, I said I am. If you want to have children who are going to look after you’re in your old age, you have to skill your children up as human beings before they leave home. You can’t abuse someone for most of their life, and then say, Well, now it’s your turn to look after me. Yeah, can’t you just can’t do that? Yes. Yeah.
Victoria Volk 51:23
So she’s the epitome of a narcissist too?
Angela Williams 51:27
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Top to bottom. Yeah, and prescription pill addicts. So, you know, had lots of doctors treating her for lots of different illnesses and all kinds of prescribing. Yeah, medication for different things. And she would self diagnose and then go to a doctor and tell them that someone else had diagnosed her with that thing and then,
Victoria Volk 51:54
Coming back to what you were talking about with, like how other people would say that. You need to make peace with her regretted it’s like, what people don’t understand is like you like in grief recovery? Oftentimes, the people that give us the most grief are people who are living.
Angela Williams 52:11
Yeah, absolutely. And a lot of people when they say that they’re projecting their own experiences onto other people as well, if you’ve grown up with loving, supportive parents, it is very, very hard to conceptualize. Like, it’s equally hard for me to conceptualize loving, supportive parents, you can’t just assume everyone else has had the same experience as you. And when people say that to you, when they say, well, you’ll regret this after they’re gone. what they’re actually doing is trying to place this responsibility on you to value your blood connections over your own safety and security. If someone has just told you that they’ve been terribly abused by someone, and you turn around by saying, or you need to stay in touch with them, you need to have their your mother You have to have that connection, what you’re actually doing is I’m telling them, that all the stuff that that person has done to them matters less than their safety, no, sorry, matters more than their safety. It’s and grief is so difficult, we need to know to people will grieve the same way. And it’s been really strange talking to my brother about this, because we never, we’ve had a very difficult relationship because we were co victims, you know, victim bonded, and then talking to our kids about it. He has five kids and I have one kid and we talk to them about stuff. Particularly stuff with suicide, because my brother has four girls, my cousin has three girls, we talk about the suicide stuff, because not talking about it is more dangerous than talking about on now. My father’s suicide was not real. So, I don’t count that in the tally anymore. But apart from my father, I’ve lost half of my mother’s generation to suicide. And that’s enough. That’s enough. Yeah, so we talked to the kids, and we talked about the abuse, and we talked about what it means. And we talked about suicide because that’s it right you know, when you when you live with this risk, how can we reasonably certain I have complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, one of the most likely ways I will die is from suicide. That’s just the reality of my illness and my history and my baggage, so I kind of live around that risk knowing that yeah, and I suppose my mother’s done it now. So that’s even more likely, isn’t it? Um, that pushes me into even further into a risk category and that was that was one of my biggest concerns over the period where she was being buried. It was my birthday, which the last time I saw her on my birthday She sexually assaulted me in front of a big group of people and made a joke out of it. And yeah, so I was in a real risky place around that week and, but I just did what I do I talk to my psychiatrist, I talk to my girlfriend and kept myself safe. Yeah. I got docked in it. It’s okay.
Victoria Volk 55:25
You’re talking to me. You’re here.
Angela Williams 55:28
I know. I know. You’re like Oh, so many times over the last 10 years I’ve just stopped and yelled at the sky, I win! I am, I did so different to what I was told to do. I became whole.
Victoria Volk 55:44
The whole suicide narrative that doesn’t have to be your story. You don’t have to live into that story.
Angela Williams 55:51
Yeah, but we have to talk about it. Exactly.
Victoria Volk 55:55
As much as you talked in, you know, I’m sure your therapist, ie your father figure.
Angela Williams 56:03
In Australia, were as scared of talking about suicide as we are talking about child abuse. We have named renamed world Suicide Prevention Day is now called Are you okay? De? Shut up? No, it is and instead of talking about suicide, people say, are you okay to all their friends and everyone wears a badge on that day and then we don’t have to talk about it the rest of the year. And our Prime Minister has just hired a woman for one of these marketing buddies who is going to she is revolutionizing the Suicide Prevention space in Australia by she’s making a program where we’re going to identify people who might be at risk of suicide and then offer them support and counseling but without bringing up the topic of suicide so we’re going to talk cast people go up and have conversations with them where we just all of a sudden look really positive and cheerful that I’m sure will say Are you okay? And but we’re not ever going to mention the word suicide So yeah, I respond to my environment. This country is a bit toxic in some ways. So yeah,
Victoria Volk 57:08
Better line would be, how do you feel?
Angela Williams 57:12
Well, yeah, I’ve been every year. I’ve I kind of I get a bit activist around Are you okay day, and I like to do things like, why isn’t it okay for me to say I’m not okay. Yeah, and this year this year, it was Oh, sorry. Last year. 2020. Do you guys have kitkats? Over there? Yes. Yeah, yeah. Do they have the have a break? Have a KitKat? ad? Guess who sponsored Are you okay, day in 2020. kid? Are you okay? Have a break? Have a KitKat?
Victoria Volk 57:46
Anything related?
Angela Williams 57:50
Yes. Someone in the marketing room thought they were an absolute genius coming up with that sponsorship campaign.
Victoria Volk 57:56
Make suicide talk clever.
Angela Williams 57:58
Yeah, yeah. How to kick cat instead of killing yourself.
Victoria Volk 58:01
Oh my god.
Angela Williams 58:02
We want to talk about it without talking about suicide. So yeah, yeah. It’s one of my topics.
Victoria Volk 58:08
Yeah. bring that to the forefront, more regularly. Yeah, for sure.
Angela Williams 58:14
Yeah. I’m a bit of an activist in the circle. Yeah. Yeah.
Victoria Volk 58:19
My Bringer.
Angela Williams 58:21
Truth speaker, brutal, unflinching, and honesty is my brand. Yeah. I say the things that other people are just too uncomfortable to say.
Victoria Volk 58:33
What would you like to scream to the world? and wish people knew about your grief?
Angela Williams 58:39
I did write something that didn’t I?
Victoria Volk 58:42
I think it comes down to just that you don’t always have a loving relationship.
Angela Williams 58:47
Yes. All right. I already said that. No, yes, that is the thing. The thing I would like to scream to the world is that not everyone has a loving relationship with the person they’re grieving. And we need to make space for people who don’t we’re in Australia, there’s a fly there. Not everyone is going to mourn with sadness and tears. The shock on some people’s faces when I said they said, I said my mother died. They said, how are you I said, I feel relief need to make room for people to feel relief, we need to welcome these kind of stories of grieving that challenge the norm and challenge the stereotypes because lots of people have come to me over the years and asked for my support with going no contact with abusers. There’s a lot of people out here living this truth. And the reason I’m talking about this as much as I am right now is just to say to all of them, you’re not necessarily going to regret it. You’re not we don’t all grieve the same way and we don’t all love the same way and we weren’t all raised the same way. We have to give each other room for the differences.
Victoria Volk 1:00:01
Because we’re all unique, and every relationship is unique, and like you kind of brought up a little bit earlier, like you and your brother lived in the same household with the same person, but your experiences, you’ll see it from your own unique perspective, and you won’t believe the same.
Angela Williams 1:00:17
I don’t. No.
Victoria Volk 1:00:19
So, coming from a place of understanding and compassion?
Angela Williams 1:00:24
Absolutely compassion, we need to just be more gentle on each other. We’re also willing to tell each other what’s wrong with the other person, but much less willing to look at ourselves, I it’s the biggest value I’ve had of therapy every two weeks, I spend an hour fact checking my reality and identifying when I have fucked up when something is my fault. And when I have contributed to something, and then changing that.
Victoria Volk 1:00:54
What does that look like? What does it process for you?
Angela Williams 1:00:58
Oh, I’m big on accountability and honesty, and I screw up all the time. It’s, for me that it’s hard, it’s hard to realize that you’ve done something wrong, or that you’ve been an idiot, or that you haven’t noticed something harmful you’ve done to another person. I did a I did a really good podcast recently about shame and secrets and about how we talk about them. And I think for me, a big part of living so honestly, is learning to also cope with shame, deal with shame, acknowledge shame, Own your shame. It’s the the feeling that we run away from the most is shame. And I know that my feeling of not wanting to leave that empty seat at my mother’s funeral was linked to my shame of never having been a good enough daughter for her never having. And I’ve carried that shame so long, but it’s still something that I need to check again and again and again. And its stuff that it’s so easy to project onto other people.
Victoria Volk 1:02:13
This is like the third time the word shame has come up today.
Angela Williams 1:02:18
Really?
Victoria Volk 1:02:19
Yeah, and so that’s actually where I was kind of going and how shame is very much tied to grief. Oh, yeah. Because, you know, we may feel guilty about something. It’s these conflicting feelings of I should feel this way. But I really feel that way. I want to feel this way. But I have this weight of shame. Yeah, and, and that blocks us from the ability to be intimate with ourselves, like to really look at ourselves, and really connect with other people.
Angela Williams 1:02:59
Yep. Or shame is such an uncomfortable feeling it is. It’s prickly and horrible. It’s when our chest gets warm, and our throat gets warm, and our face gets warm. And most people will never even recognize that they’re feeling shame. In my opinion, I think a lot of us flip it instantly into fear or disgust or anger or rage to avoid having to feel shame. And I think that people like myself, and like my mother who blamed everything outwards. That’s about doing anything possible to avoid having to come close to that shame. And what you’re saying is true. It blocks you from any kind of intimacy with yourself or with other people. Because when you’re 100% doing everything you can to avoid feeling shame, you never give yourself the space to connect realistically with people because everything is about protecting yourself from shame. And it means that when you need to be accountable to someone, if you’re doing everything you can to avoid the shame. All you’re going to do is put up a wall between you and that person. And that’s usually cut that wall is really frequently blame. It’s your fault. You did this to me, you made me do this. And as soon as we put the word you in there, we’re pushing our shame away putting it onto another person and saying this is yours. It’s it’s so much harder to just say, I’m really sorry I did this, and I can see how awful it’s been for you and then just stop talking.
Victoria Volk 1:04:40
Be honest. Right?
Angela Williams 1:04:41
Yeah, it is.
Victoria Volk 1:04:42
And that honesty is the drug is the wrong word. Antidote for shame.
Angela Williams 1:04:45
Oh, that’s a good one.
Victoria Volk 1:04:52
It is the antidote for shame.
Angela Williams 1:04:55
It is. Do it, do it. I think I might have said something similar in my shame. People message me all the time to say they’ve read that one. I mean, listen to that one, it’s amazing. We need to talk about shame more.
Victoria Volk 1:05:10
And the word grief, and the word suicide.
Angela Williams 1:05:13
Oh, yes. And how they all lay it together, I was I’ve spent so much of my life, thinking that if I could just be a bit more something, then I’d be the kind of person my mother could love. And my first suicide attempt, when I was really young, came as a reaction to feeling that I would never match up to that. And my last suicide attempt came from a feeling that I would never match up to that. And that feeling that I would never match up to it. That is shame. That is, but that is that’s absolutely shame that’s been kind of mis smeared on to me, but I never did anything wrong, I didn’t actually have anything to be ashamed of there, there was no way that I could have made that woman love me no matter what I did, but
Victoria Volk 1:06:04
And then here’s the thing. She wasn’t there, when she wasn’t, she wasn’t there for you to even blame and wanted to blame her, she would turn it around and spin it on you. So that’s where that self destructive behavior, if people don’t, aren’t able to communicate, and get that out, like, just even speak it.
Angela Williams 1:06:31
But the other thing is right, that that shame, I can see that shame now and know that it’s not my shame. But before I could do that, I had to feel that shame, and process it and think about it in all of its deeper layers. So, when I first met that shame, it was my shame because I hadn’t looked at it enough to know that it wasn’t. And so, when you can identify shame that has been smeared on you from outside like that, then you can step back from it and go, no, I don’t own it. It’s not my shame. But you’ve got to go through the process of feeling at first. And so, a lot of a lot of things that people turn into more dangerous emotional, well, toxic emotions, like anger and rage is things and blame was something where if they just sat with the shame, set with the feeling and thought about what it said about them, it might have been that they’d done something that they needed to apologize or be accountable for. Or it might have been that they were carrying some baggage that had been smeared on them from outside. But by refusing to feel the shame through that uncomfortable bit and think about it, they’ve lost the ability to it becomes their shame, then no matter where it comes from, because they can’t look at it long enough to categorize it, sort it into its basket. Shame is toxic. I’m pretty sure that shame is linked to the majority of suicides that happen and I can see my mother’s as a direct result of her own shame made had finally gotten to the stage where she couldn’t keep spinning games to people. But that was her shame, not mine.
Victoria Volk 1:08:16
I believe the root of shame is grief.
Angela Williams 1:08:20
Yeah.
Victoria Volk 1:08:22
I believe grief is at the root of a lot.
Angela Williams 1:08:29
Yeah, and we haven’t I think we’re carrying a lot of kind of societal and cultural grief as well. Some of the things that we’ve seen humanity being capable of in the last 100 or so years. I will buy way before that as well. But you look at things like World War Two and the impact that had on my family we all kind of we have a lot of shame that’s spread around and it is about grieving it’s about when you feel shame you’re grieving something in yourself. We don’t only grieve deaths we lead grieve losses as well. And payment grief so much shame about grieving. I was supposed to bounce back we’re supposed to be able to deal with it. We’re supposed to,
Victoria Volk 1:09:14
Yeah, I could talk all day about grief. It’s really the loss of hopes dreams and expectations and anything we wish would have been different better or more. And so, when you think of grief in that way it that’s why I say everyone, every single one of us has grieved something.
Angela Williams 1:09:33
Yet, all we’re putting off grief to later we’ve got something we should have grieved, or we need to grieve and we’re saving that up for ourselves to do some other time.
Victoria Volk 1:09:45
But we’re dealing. Dealing with it yes, some way. Yeah. You know what, if you turn into the bottle, if you’re turning to sex, if you’re turning to gambling, you’re turning on your turn into shopping. You’re you’re addressing it?
Angela Williams 1:09:58
Well, yeah, I did a podcast on this yesterday where I was talking about endorphins and pain and how endorphins work just there your brain’s natural heroin. So, when you’re doing things that give you an adrenaline rush, basically all you’re doing is getting your brain to shoot out its own heroin. And that works for emotions as well as for like physical pain. So yeah, the great eraser is what they call alcohol in the AIA movement, the great eraser and it is it’s just, you’re not dealing with it, you’re just kind of putting a cap on it and hope that it will stay there for a while. But your card that those caps don’t hold, they got to cover off eventually.
Victoria Volk 1:10:42
Well, no grief recovery can be equated to picture yourself as a tea kettle. And you either implode or you explode.
Angela Williams 1:10:52
Yeah. Yeah, that’s good. And that bit in between, you’re going to be spitting stuff in every direction. Yep. Yes.
Victoria Volk 1:10:59
I’m assuming it was your therapist, who was the most supportive of you? What did you find? was most helpful to you? And I started to navigate everything.
Angela Williams 1:11:14
When I first got the email, saying that they needed me to call about my mother. I am. I hope she was dead, after all the times that she’d kind of use that as a tool. But I couldn’t let myself hope because it had happened a lot before, but I couldn’t I also couldn’t. It’s really difficult to say to a person who was ringing me to say your mother’s in hospital, you need to come and see her to say no, I’m not doing this again. So, I rang my brother and said, I think can you call this person I think something’s gone wrong with our mother. And that was the best thing I did. asking him to do that for me. I couldn’t have done it. A year ago, we drove to my Arnie’s for her funeral together it was the longest we’d spent alone together since we were children. So, I called him and asked him to take that and then in the bit in between me saying that to him and him ringing back to tell me that she was dead. My beautiful girlfriend just I didn’t cry. It was really I felt shame about not crying. But I just kind of sat there with it kind of gradually dawning on me that maybe this time she actually was dead and and then I had four or five days of just was like I was startled cat constantly. It was really bad timing. The Jacaranda trees were out, and they triggered off some really bad stuff from my 16th birthday. So traditionally, my entire life every single time I’ve seen a Jacaranda tree. I’ve had this moment of being triggered back into my 16th birthday. And day after she died, I went out driving with my girlfriend and a sort of Jacaranda tree. And I just had this moment of lightness in my heart. So it took me a couple of days to actually believe that it was real this time that I wasn’t going to open my email or my messenger to a big long message or lots of messages from people she’d messaged about me, but I just I took that space, my girlfriend has sat on the lounge next to me and held my hand and she just kept saying to me, I’m here, like whatever you need. I’m here. First, I got an in practice I had, when Annie LEDs died in September, I grieved really hard, I cried on the floor in the kitchen for hours. And I cried on the floor in the bathroom, and you know all the places with tiles, let’s go and cry there. But I couldn’t cry over my mother, I couldn’t. I just needed the space. And I needed the space to own that reality, and to go yet. And then I had my next therapy session. And then it’s harder she died, and we talked about that. And then I have my next one where I said and you wouldn’t leave, she got married or got buried on my birthday. And he was just like, of course she did. And it was like I needed those people around me who I knew would just affirm my decisions. And luckily, I’ve curated my world quite well. All of the people who said things like, our mother would never do that to her daughter, I’d gone I just haven’t I don’t give them space in my world. So I just yeah, I needed that space and I needed a couple of days to just test. I kept expecting to feel regret. I kept expecting to feel loss. And all I felt was like the threads are finally gone. The threat that she could pop up any second and want my attention again or The worst thing she ever did was every single time she saw me as an adult, she apologized for what she did to me. And then she said, I don’t remember any of it. I wasn’t there when any of it happened. So yeah, yeah. She said, I’ll let you publish that little book, and you say whatever you want, because your reality is your reality. And it was like, your reality is your reality is pretty good. But the bait at the beginning what you say, will you publish that little book. Um, yeah.
Victoria Volk 1:15:28
Give him permission.
Angela Williams 1:15:30
No, I didn’t. And I kind of can’t believe I waited until after she died to start a podcast because I’ve been yelling a lot for years. But um, I just gave myself space to let myself be however I was. And it was a surprise for me every day. I’m still kind of surprised that I don’t feel regret.
Victoria Volk 1:15:49
So, advice. And it’s that’s advice too, for others.
Angela Williams 1:15:55
It is nice. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Victoria Volk 1:15:59
The people around you that,
Angela Williams 1:16:02
Connect with people you’ve similar experiences. if for no other reason, then just so that you’ve got someone you can talk to? Who knows? Because really, I can’t imagine only having friends who’d had excellent relationships with their mother and then trying to talk about this. About this big circle of friends. I call them the bad mothers club. We um, we know, we know, because we’ve all been there. So those are the ones I went to talk about it because they want to know.
Victoria Volk 1:16:36
Can I ask you something?
Angela Williams 1:16:38
Yes.
Victoria Volk 1:16:39
How do you hear something today, too? And I’ve been given it a lot of thought even before, but do you identify yourself as a survivor? Like, is that a word? That you feel like you wear like a badge of honor.
Angela Williams 1:16:58
Some people hate that way.
Victoria Volk 1:17:00
Or do you feel like that’s something that I don’t want that to be my story anymore?
Angela Williams 1:17:05
Um, no, I do identify as a survivor. I’ve had a lot of conversations with people who I also use the word victim about myself, though. And I know a lot of people who refuse to use either of those words in relation to themselves. I survived this stuff. If I wasn’t a survivor, I would be dead well, and truly did many, many times over. Sometimes I watched that survivor show. And I think you guys wouldn’t last five minutes in my life, some bits of it. Yeah. Let’s do survivor where you’re just homeless in Sydney instead of on a tropical island. I’m a survivor. Because you’ve got to you’ve got to value the superpowers, don’t you, you’ve got to see the things that are most valuable there. And when you live with a constant risk, like suicide, sometimes the only thing that gets you through is being a survivor. My house is filled with ridiculous craft projects that I did, because I was putting off committing suicide. That’s one of the things I do, I’m like, Well, I will make this stupid thing in my kitchen, I have a little angel made out of why you know how you do those string dolls, where you tie them up, and you make the legs and things. I made it out of really horrible why I where I must have stabbed myself dozens of times. And it’s got these little beaded wings with string. And I made that doll about 20 years ago instead of committing suicide that day. So I’m a survivor and I’ve got like, evidence of my survival all over my house and my life and my body and things I am I have to celebrate it because I haven’t traditionally had a lot to celebrate. So celebrate the things you can and I know that some people don’t like the term survivor and they don’t like the term victim because it that kind of disempowering element that by saying we’re survivors were giving over some of our power whereas I think being a survivor should be mark of honor. And it should be seen as a mock Ivana, it should be. If you know people who’ve survived bad shit standing or have them, look at them and go you did something that I could never imagine. I like it. I like it. I’m happy. I might get a tattoo that says survivor. I put it next to my feminist killjoy.
Victoria Volk 1:19:31
I just, you know, I just heard a story today, a woman she was an addict for I don’t know how many years and she she had a different perspective of the word survivor and hers was, I didn’t want to be that I didn’t want that to be my story. Like and, and like suffering. And yes, this idea of, let’s get out of the suffering and let’s get into the joy, let’s just work on the joy.
Angela Williams 1:20:02
Absolutely. And that part of it, like people talk about tragedy porn, and trying to avoid just your entire life being a story of tragedy, which is I talk about the tragedy and the bad stuff. But I try to talk about the good stuff as well. And I don’t want being a survivor to be the only thing I’ve done. But I never want to forget that it is something that I’ve done
Victoria Volk 1:20:26
It and it’s, we have both right, in society in our human experience.
Angela Williams 1:20:32
Yeah.
Victoria Volk 1:20:33
You know, you don’t have to have traumatic physical experiences for something to be or feel traumatic.
Angela Williams 1:20:40
No.
Victoria Volk 1:20:41
To feel like you’re a survivor of something.
Angela Williams 1:20:43
Yeah.
Victoria Volk 1:20:44
So yeah, I’m just you know, I’m actually going to add that as a question.
Angela Williams 1:20:50
I think that bit where I was talking before about the superpowers. That’s it, like I could celebrate being a survivor, because I can identify the superpowers, I got from what I survived. So, I can celebrate my strength.
Victoria Volk 1:21:04
Yeah, its deeper. It’s going deeper than just this identity.
Angela Williams 1:21:10
Yeah. Well, when I get to talk about surviving, and means I inevitably get to talk about how strong and powerful surviving made me. So, it’s kind of that flip side. Yeah.
Victoria Volk 1:21:20
Can I ask you another question?
Angela Williams 1:21:22
Yes.
Victoria Volk 1:21:23
This just really just drives me nuts. What are your thoughts when you hear people say that children are resilient?
Angela Williams 1:21:31
Oh, I hate the word resilient. Oh, God. It’s so shaming, I keep hearing it from our politicians here where they’re like, our country has been on fire, then we had some floods. And now we’ve got COVID. They’re like, you just need to be more resilient, because that’s what we’re saying, instead of let’s talk about suicide. Oh, my God, children don’t need to be resilient. No one needs to be resilient, if you are. Resilience should not be our natural state resilience is to stress and yes function. And I don’t know if anyone’s noticed. But when you put kids under stress for too long, their brain chemistry changes. with superpowers and celebrating being survivors. We don’t want our children to have to end up with superpowers and celebrate being survivors. So we’re not going to force our children to be resilient, I firmly believe that every child deserves to have a period of their life where they’re not under stress. I cannot imagine what that would be like. But imagine if you did Imagine if you just woke up every day knowing you were secure and loved, whoa, children don’t need to be resilient. And now when the entire world is falling apart, and were taking bits of their future away from them just because of you know how capitalism treats things like illness. Now is not the time to tell them to be resilient. When we say to these kids, you need to be resilient, we are shifting the responsibility for what the world we’ve made them. We’re saying, Well, now this is your responsibility. You deal with all the crap we left you just be resilient. It’ll be fine. No, I hate the word resilient. Yes, yes. Our Prime Minister keeps saying our kids don’t need to be anxious. We’re looking after things. He says that about climate change, we’re going to get we’re gonna hit our climate targets by pretending we hit and 10 years ago, we’re just making up these climate credits. And he’s saying to the teenagers, just don’t be anxious. Okay. He took a lump of coal into parliament and hugged it on the floor of the Parliament. And he’s saying to the teenagers, don’t be anxious. Yeah, it’s an insult. It’s awful. Teenagers rise up rebel burners all tell us to piss off and make the world in your own way.
Victoria Volk 1:23:46
With your creativity.
Angela Williams 1:23:49
Exactly.
Victoria Volk 1:23:52
No, and I think it came up not that long ago on another podcast episode I did where it just it. I just I’ve heard it so much lately, especially with Kobo and everything. And it’s just so resilient. They bounce back. I mean, I’ve heard that as I heard that around me, like in my personal experience, what I went through, and it’s like, kids that you’re saying that about did not choose to be resilient? No, no, why not something they chose with you. You catch yourself saying that they’re resilient, that that child is resilient. You’re there in an experience that they did not choose?
Angela Williams 1:24:29
Yep, yep. Yeah. And nobody needs to says or yell or be resilient when I grow up. They want to be right. They don’t want to be resilient. Yeah, yeah.
Victoria Volk 1:24:42
Yeah. Um, I love this episode. I love this. Very rich. Where can people find you?
Angela Williams 1:24:51
They can find me on Facebook. If you search for my group, Deboning power podcast. You can find me there. I even share myself sometimes. Yeah, I also have my podcasts which is deboning power. And that seems to be pretty much everywhere where you can get podcasts you can find that one. Yeah, yeah, I’m not gonna give people my address because this is the internet. Well, links my book you can get anywhere. It’s in audiobook form. The performer who does made a remarkable impersonation of me. She’s excellent. It’s also available in ebook and in beautiful, sexy paper form. And they will send it to you in America on ada booktopia. Or, what’s the other one that’s got sold on Amazon. So, it might be it might be on Amazon. But booktopia ships internationally I think or the Book Depository one of those too.
Victoria Volk 1:25:51
Send me a link. I will put it in the show notes. Anything else you’d like to share?
Angela Williams 1:25:55
My final thoughts. Love yourself. Love yourself. Give yourself the love that other people could give you even if you are loved by everyone in your world. Still love yourself. But if you’ve got no one and nothing, give yourself love. Because that’s it is that is that?
Victoria Volk 1:26:18
I heard when as a kid, I think my dad would always say this. Something about if you think I’m this? If you want a helping hand, look to the end of your own arm.
Angela Williams 1:26:33
Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. Hmm. I like that. I like that.
Victoria Volk 1:26:41
You were your own hero.
Angela Williams 1:26:43
Yes, we all can be
Victoria Volk 1:26:46
We all can be. Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.
Angela Williams 1:26:49
Oh, thank you, thank you.
Victoria Volk 1:26:53
And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
