When Your Loved One Chooses Death with Alexandra Wyman

Transcript

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Hey everybody, this is Brian.

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Welcome back to the Grief to Growth podcast.

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I want to extend a warm welcome to all of our new listeners who are joining us for the first time.

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This podcast as a safe space where we explore many of the facets of grief, personal growth and belief in the afterlife.

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We share stories, insights and techniques to help you navigate life's most challenging moments.

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Today's episode is particularly special as we have the privilege of hosting Alexandra Wyman.

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Alexandra is not only an advocate and a public speaker, but she's also very courageous as an individual.

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She's experienced the profound impact of loss in her own life.

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She tragically lost her husband to suicide in August of 2020.

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And after that, she felt compelled to change the conversation around suicide.

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Her memoir is entitled the Suicide Club what to Do when Someone you Love Chooses Death and it's touched the heart of many as becoming an Amazon bestseller.

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She's taken her advocacy to various conferences, including the Bridging to Divide Suicide Prevention and Awareness Summit in 2022, the 2023 Northwest Conference on Childhood Grief and the 2023 Military Social Work and Behavioral Health Conference.

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She's also been selected to present at the International Association of Suicide Prevention Conference in 2023 in Slovenia.

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Not only should inspiring speaker and author, but she's also shared her insights on numerous podcasts, such as the Unlocked Moment, she Persistent and my Wake Up Call.

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Additionally, she hosts her own podcast, which is called the Widows Club.

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Her dedication to raising awareness about suicide and offering support that those are affected aligns perfectly with what we do here at Grief to Growth, and together, alexandra and I will delve into her journey, into the challenges she's faced and the strengths she's found through her experiences.

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So, whether you personally experienced loss, if you're passionate about mental health advocacy or you just want to sink inspiration for your personal growth journey, this episode is for you.

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And before we can start, I just want to tell Alexandra I really admire your, your courage and your dedication to helping other people to be doing this so soon after the passing of your husband, and I want to give you my condolences.

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Oh well, thank you so much, brian, and thank you for having me on your show and giving me the opportunity to speak a little bit more about my experience.

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Well, I'm really excited about this interview today and the way this is a subject that people struggle to even speak about and it's hard to find people to talk and help other people feel, you know, comfort and company as they go through the journey.

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So we were talking earlier.

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I know your husband's name is Sean, so tell me about Sean first of all.

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Oh my gosh.

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So Sean was the classic life of the party.

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Such a big joke, sir.

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He was a very, very bright storyteller.

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He was a mechanic and I never really understood the logistics or I don't have that kind of mindset, my brain doesn't work that way.

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So he was just very mechanically minded and he would tell these really long stories about stuff happening at work and I would just be enraptured.

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I'd have no idea really what he was talking about, but I just had to hear the whole story.

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He was a great dad, just a lot of him.

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Very musically inclined.

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He could hear, you know, even if a car was backing up and beeping.

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He could turn that into a song and love to create new songs for our son and just really handy, very creative.

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So I mean, I have, I have got this idea for a painting and go into her basement and then come back out with a painting like two months later.

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So just like just someone who had a lot of talent.

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He never really felt that he was talented or really saw his own talent, but definitely with someone that people looked up to and he was very loyal and such a good friend and, yeah, just a very fun person to be around.

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And how long were you guys together?

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So we were married just under two years and then together for about three years.

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Okay, and I in terms of his passing as suicide.

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Did you have any indication that this was coming, or how was that like for you?

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Yeah, no indication at all.

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It was.

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It was a complete shock and through the whole process and looking, you know, in hindsight, we kind of go back, look for signs, look for something that would have given us a clue that something like this was coming down.

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And the truth is I didn't have any of that.

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I did know, you know, sean did experience childhood trauma and I will say that I was privileged enough that he felt that he could share that with me.

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I found out posthumously that he was not as open about a lot of his experiences with other people who are close in his life, but he was open with me about those things and I didn't really understand the level of impact and I think that is something I've learned since he's passed and really there's no, no prediction, which is really hard.

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Right, someone could have the same experience as Sean had had and still be alive today.

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So it was definitely very much a shock and I knew that there are a lot of stressors.

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We had, you know, family stressors going on.

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It was in the midst of COVID still trying to figure that out.

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Our son had just turned one.

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That in and of itself can be a challenge, and then being married and trying to navigate a relationship and a house and manage all of these things definitely created some additional stress, and I think that's essentially where things came down to is just not knowing how to manage or handle all of the stress that was kind of compounding on him.

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And just you know, just a couple of days before he passed, we had been talking about vacations we wanted to take after COVID and lifted.

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We talked about expanding our family.

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You know there were all sorts of things that were kind of future plans that we were discussing and doing.

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So it's there wasn't anything.

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You know the classic idea of giving things away or expressing that you want to end your life.

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These were not things that even were a part of what was happening before he died.

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Yeah, I think when it comes to suicide, we often want to try to understand it, but when to be able to say that we could have predicted it or we can predict it?

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And from my understanding and I'm sure you know a lot better than I do that there's no one classical way that people present before they make that decision.

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That has been my experience.

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I'm very early on, after Sean died, I joined a suicide specific support group and I've met lots of people who've come through that group and I still participate in it to this day and I found that seems to be thing there's, there's nothing.

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There could be certain characteristics that might be similar, but there's nothing to be effective.

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You could say here's the magic, here's the magic thing that we're finding is in every person who dies this way.

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One of the things I will say, because I'm often asked like is there something you wish you'd known?

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Is there something you know honestly after, right before Sean died.

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And then I continued, after I started trying to do my own reading about understanding trauma, how it impacts the brain.

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I've always been fascinated with the brain.

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That was something that was already an interest prior to Sean's death and looking at like, okay, how does trauma actually impact the brain?

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What lights up differently for individuals who've had this kind of, you know, sustained trauma and childhood.

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And again, there's no predictability to it, but that is something I wish I had understood a little bit more about what happens between survival brain and then coming out of that, you know, in order to find, like, better coping skills to help individuals who've experienced trauma, but there really, you know, there aren't any two people I know that have the exact same story for how their people die or what was happening before their loved ones died.

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Yeah, that's been my, my limited experience as well.

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And I think that question, you know, is there anything you wish you'd known differently?

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It comes from the sense that we want to have a sense of control of her lives and we wouldn't be able to say I can look at this and I can predict this, but that also can lead to guilt.

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I know there's a lot of emotions around suicide, so what were some of the emotions that you went through after Sean's passing?

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Guilt.

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Guilt was very big and I still have my moments with guilt shame.

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Definitely there was a lot of self blame.

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What did I do?

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And in my situation was a little complicated.

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I did have other individuals who actually did openly blame me for Sean's death and so I had to work, work through that.

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They're so much sorrow I mean that's gonna.

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I think sometimes we'd say like maybe that's a given, I don't know.

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Initially my anger was less towards him because there was almost an understanding of you have to be in a lot of pain to get to a point where you're going to end your life, because that's not an easy act to go through, and so I had this understanding about that, even though I wish the outcome had been different.

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But definitely the three that were the most, the largest and were the guilt, shame and that self blame, and it took a while for me to actually start to unravel those and be able to come to a place of I wouldn't say that they're gone.

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Like I said, I still have my moments of maybe I could have done this differently or I do feel guilty about how I handled this situation or or that one.

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I think that's just part of my healing process, but those were definitely the ones that were the largest initially.

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I would imagine that one that you might have would be a sense of, maybe, abandonment.

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That maybe wasn't I, I hate to even say this, but good enough to keep him here or make them want to stay, and this is not just for a wife.

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This would be for if you lost a child or anybody else.

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I've heard people say like if I could have been better, that they would have chosen to stay.

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You know, what's interesting is I actually haven't gone that route of.

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You know why wasn't I enough for you to stay?

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I have gone the route of though this was not part of our deal, like that's one that they're best here is quite a bit.

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This was not our agreement.

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This is not how we plan things to go.

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And and you're right with that idea of sense of control, as you mentioned earlier is, you know, control and predictability create a feeling of safety and and that's just how we want to.

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You know, I think, as human beings, we're constantly looking for that feeling of safety and security.

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And but I definitely was like this this was not part of this, not part of our plan.

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You know, we were expanding, like I said, we were planning, we were expanding, and then what like?

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For me, there's like what just happened and there's no way of knowing.

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I'm like what happened between this time and this time.

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It was clearly something shifted and changed, and then this is the end result.

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Yeah, and I think that again, that that feeling of wanting to have control, but then that can also lead, I think, to the feelings of guilt that we have, because if it's true that I should have been able to see this coming well, then somehow at least a little bit of it is my fault.

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So what do you say to people that are that have had someone who's taken their life and they're like they're turning the blame to themselves?

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Yeah, it's so complicated and those feelings are just so common, real and huge.

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We, I'll say, culturally, we have this idea almost, and I think, with the way that suicide prevention and I'm all for suicide prevention, I'm for the hope and help and getting to people and getting that message across and having that connection.

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I think, though, it also creates this sense of we're superheroes and can save people, and if someone ends up dying my suicide, that somehow we have failed because we weren't able to save them, and that, to me, is just very slippery slope, and that can definitely have a snowball effect to continue that idea of self blame.

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And then what it does is it takes kind of the responsibility off of the individual, and it took, again took me a while to get to a point of saying, ultimately, this was Sean's choice.

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That's painful.

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It's painful to say that.

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It's painful to go, oh my gosh, out of everything that was available, that we talked about or could have talked about this.

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This is what ended up happening, and I do think that for someone to get to a point that they want to end their life, the pain is just that severe and we don't see it right.

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We don't see it like we do something like cancer.

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We don't see it like we do other forms of death.

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We're like, well, obviously you would want your pain to end, because we can see how much pain you're in, but often with emotional pain, we don't see it.

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And so I think that there's that piece of it is really coming to terms with the fact that someone made a choice that they would have rather died than lived.

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But also we tend to project our ideas of the state we're in in making that decision.

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If I'm healthy and I'm feeling great, then of course it wouldn't cross my mind to end my life, but we project that onto someone who's in that much pain and I think that makes it more difficult.

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And I think when we can shift our mindset from we it was like for me, it was my job to save him to this was his ultimate choice to end his pain I think it creates an opportunity to have a little bit more compassion, because instead of focusing on the death, let's focus on how much someone was hurting and I feel like that gives us a little bit more space to have that compassion and then relieve us of the responsibility.

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And again there are things within my own situation that I wonder could I have done this differently?

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Could I have done that differently?

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And the truth is I could have and the outcome could have still been the same in having to kind of separate myself from that and it's hard, it's painful because I still wonder and have a little bit of that, if he had just picked up the phone, if he had just texted me back those things that we say and I can spend so much time and energy focusing on that.

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Or I can make a decision and say I need to start focusing on how I start putting one foot in front of the other and start my healing journey.

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Yeah Well, those are what ifs I want to say to someone who lost a child, but not by suicide, and who has talked to hundreds of thousands of parents who've lost children.

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At this point, we all go through those what ifs.

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What if I had taken her to a different doctor?

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What if I called her that morning?

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What if we all go through all those what ifs?

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I think with suicide it's particularly.

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Maybe we go through a particular so much because it is a choice, at least ostensibly it's a choice.

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I know that these people are in such pain that they feel that they have to end it, but we see from the outside it's a choice.

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They chose to do this.

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Then it becomes down to that human question okay, whose fault is it?

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Because it's got to be somebody's fault.

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We have to either blame them or blame ourselves, or blame both of us.

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I love what you said about just accepting the fact that this was their choice is, I think, a long way to go to relieving your own guilt.

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That's not going to do you any good anyway.

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Absolutely.

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The thing with suicide is you're always going to be left with that question of why.

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I can say here and say, I speculate that the compounding stress continued to impact and with that, with the history of trauma and not great coping skills, this all compounded on Sean and this is what led to the decision.

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I can hypothesize that, but I have no idea.

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That's what's so hard about this type of death is you don't get the answer.

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In fact, my sister, when time we had been talking about it and I was like you know, when I see him again, I'm going to ask him.

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I'm going to be like dude, why did you do this?

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She was like, and by the time it's your time, you might not even care anymore.

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I was like, oh, that's a good point, but it's true, you just started left with this.

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And again we as the survivors get to have that choice.

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Are we going to sit here and run through beyond that hamster wheel of trying to answer a question we don't get that answer to you while we're here on earth or are we going to say and what I like to say is find an anchor, find that thing that you can attach to that's still here on this earth and living.

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That's going to be the thing that when you're getting on that hamster wheel, when you're having a harder day, it's going to help you just to even put one foot in front of the other by a half inch, because that's where the movement is, and then it'll lead you to more growth.

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I love that.

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So what's the anchor point for you?

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Oh, totally my son.

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I say if I didn't have my son very early on, I knew I had said I know that the situation is going to impact both of us and I'll be honest, I still have tantrums, that's right.

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I have parties and I still say I have tantrums over my grief process and how much it still impacts me.

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But what I didn't want was this to dictate our lives to a point that it would just be and he was just over one and so that's been.

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My thing is how can I heal to teach my son lessons of how to have healthier coping skills, excuse me, how to be able to embrace the emotions and the feelings that he has and to be allowed to feel those and to work through them in a healthy manner?

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And I knew that I couldn't do that unless I started putting one.

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It took me a while to be honest with me.

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Yeah.

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But to put one foot in front of the other.

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Well, I want to say this again because I know having lost someone and knowing what the process is like for you.

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It's just over three years for you and I want people to understand that this is still very, very raw.

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Three years is very early in this process.

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So again, my hats off to you for doing these interviews and doing the podcast and writing the book and being so open, helping people step through these early days of this, because they're very difficult and we can sit here and talk and rationalize about like I shouldn't have anger, I shouldn't have guilt, but we're human and you're left in a very difficult situation having to deal with all these emotions and all the things.

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I know you talk about, even just the little not the little things, but the things we have to go through, like planning funerals and all that kind of stuff.

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I would imagine you weren't even thinking about that at your age and with your husband.

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Oh, not at all, not at all.

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And he didn't have a will.

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He was not complicated, he was even more.

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No, this was absolutely not a situation I would ever, ever thought that I would find myself.

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I was someone who bought into the conditioning of what a successful life looked like you go to school, you meet someone, you buy your house, you have your kids, your white picket fence, your animals and you retire.

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And I was little bit.

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I was in my 30s when I met Sean and I was so excited once I was like check, check, check.

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I'm not successful, I'm legit, I've made it.

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Right.

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And then, just short of two years of our second wedding anniversary, was just like oh okay, that is not.

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And that's been my biggest lesson, I would say, is that so often we're looking for life to be predictable.

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What's predictable externally?

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What is it that externally is going to help us feel better, rather than turning inward and figuring out?

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No, what's predictable is how we respond to things.

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What's predictable is me trusting myself that I can handle whatever life throws me, and this is all growth that I've done since Sean died I did not feel this way at all before he died and being able to understand, and I've even said multiple times like, haven't I, isn't this loss enough for life?

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Like, have I not just checked off now the list of like I've had enough happen?

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Like, can I just coast?

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And the rest of the way?

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And the truth is no, no, I don't get to coast and things are still going to happen, but it's through this healing process I can again I said, learn to trust myself so that I know that, even if I don't have the answers for how to handle something, I can learn to and I'm able to look to people like you to be able to get tips and tricks on how to handle things.

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Yeah, what you just said is so.

00:21:21.776 --> 00:21:29.378
So I understand, because you feel like when you go through something like this, losing someone so close to you, it's like okay, that's, that's enough.

00:21:29.378 --> 00:21:30.953
That's enough for a lifetime.

00:21:30.953 --> 00:21:36.416
But life continues to throw challenges at us and that's you know, it's part of the process.

00:21:36.416 --> 00:21:41.541
But what did you learn about yourself after, after Sean's passing?

00:21:41.541 --> 00:21:44.025
What, what, what did you find in yourself?

00:21:45.451 --> 00:21:47.538
Oh well, the trust was a big one.

00:21:47.538 --> 00:21:58.594
I wasn't necessarily raised to actually trust myself or know that I could make solid decisions and follow through with them and know that it's okay to make mistakes and fail and it's all learning.

00:21:58.594 --> 00:22:01.057
It's all learning and growing.

00:22:01.057 --> 00:22:06.515
So that was a big one, cause initially, I mean, a big thing for me was how am I gonna do this?

00:22:06.515 --> 00:22:07.895
Am I gonna keep my house?

00:22:07.895 --> 00:22:10.136
How am I supposed to raise a child on my own?

00:22:10.136 --> 00:22:13.239
You know, there I still work through this.

00:22:13.239 --> 00:22:22.958
So, oh my goodness, am I gonna end up destitute on the street with my child, which now I have enough support and family that I know that that wouldn't happen, but these are all those things that come running through your head.

00:22:22.958 --> 00:22:25.337
Am I gonna be able to financially take care of us?

00:22:25.337 --> 00:22:33.221
You know there's so many different aspects of that and I'll say that even now I'm still learning that I can do it.

00:22:33.221 --> 00:23:04.957
I mean I often my therapist is amazing and he's specifically a grief therapist, which I do recommend for people, if they're gonna find one, to find someone who actually is trained either in trauma or in grief, and he'll reflect back to me and be like but look what you've already done, look how you've been able to handle these situations already, cause when you're tunnel vision in the moment and you're just surviving, you're just trying to get through day by day and minute by minute, you don't always have that opportunity to take a step back and look at it.

00:23:04.957 --> 00:23:11.596
So trusting myself is definitely a big one and another.

00:23:11.856 --> 00:23:18.017
I mean there's been a lot that I've had to heal over the type of person I was before Sean died and now who I am after.

00:23:18.017 --> 00:23:20.375
I do miss my sense of humor.

00:23:20.375 --> 00:23:23.459
I'm hoping one day it'll come back a little bit more.

00:23:23.459 --> 00:23:26.358
That kind of is gone for a little bit.

00:23:26.358 --> 00:23:42.478
But even things of just recognizing how insecure I was and how that impacted the relationship Sean and I had and we had, I mean, he was one of the first people I ever felt like I could 100% be myself All the good, bad, ugly, everything about it.

00:23:42.478 --> 00:23:44.596
We could talk about anything and everything.

00:23:44.596 --> 00:23:47.416
And I still recognize the insecurities.

00:23:47.416 --> 00:23:56.877
I still recognized how much I was trying to control certain situations in order to feel that predictability and safety.

00:23:56.877 --> 00:24:06.239
And so letting go of some of that and surrendering I guess surrender would be another big lesson of not only trusting myself and surrendering.

00:24:06.239 --> 00:24:10.701
I have to almost let things play out in front of me first.

00:24:11.910 --> 00:24:18.858
Yeah, yeah, you talked about your sense of humor and hopefully that'll come back one day, and it will.

00:24:18.858 --> 00:24:33.938
Again, I wanna say to you that this is still very early in the process, but when people go through this and we're so profoundly changed and we lose some of those aspects of ourself that we feel like it's gonna be this way forever.

00:24:33.938 --> 00:24:40.673
So I know it's only been a short time for you three years but what changes.

00:24:40.673 --> 00:24:43.832
And I ask you, what you've seen as far as growth?

00:24:43.832 --> 00:24:45.678
But have you seen yourself heal?

00:24:45.678 --> 00:24:47.855
Do you find those moments of joy?

00:24:47.855 --> 00:24:53.534
Now, I know maybe not all the time, but what was that like when you first caught yourself having a moment of joy?

00:24:54.951 --> 00:24:56.016
Yeah, such a good question.

00:24:56.016 --> 00:25:46.900
And I'll say I absolutely have those moments of joy and I love that we're having this conversation now, with it being just over three years, because I actually recently just had a whole another layer of grief become more apparent to me and I don't know if you've ever, if you've had that in your own process or journey and it kind of hit me a little bit because I was like I'm doing well, I'm doing really well, I've got my career, I'm handling stuff, figuring stuff out and parenting, and then this whole other layer of grief just hit me and I went oh nope, okay, got a little bit more to do, which, of course, is where my frustration may come up, because I'm like great, this is something that I have that's going to be with me for the rest of my life and it will morph and change and shift, but I was a little frustrated on that one.

00:25:46.900 --> 00:26:12.575
But my point in that was that I started to notice that there was a little decrease and I was having a few more harder days and then trying to find those moments of joy and I'll say, in the immediacy, after Sean died, one of the first things that came through to me, where it took me a moment was I realized my son's been in swim lessons since he was about seven months old and I realized I was looking forward to taking him to swimming.

00:26:12.575 --> 00:26:16.519
And it was the first time I was looking forward to something.

00:26:16.519 --> 00:26:20.359
Because, you're right, it feels impossible.

00:26:20.359 --> 00:26:23.179
It feels like this grief is just impossible.

00:26:23.179 --> 00:26:24.776
There's no way to move through it.

00:26:24.776 --> 00:26:29.396
There's that it is permanent, that I won't get any of myself back.

00:26:30.190 --> 00:26:40.476
And that first moment of going wait a second I'm actually feeling a little excited about doing something, and that was, and to me it was.

00:26:40.476 --> 00:26:50.717
After that moment, I think there were moments of joy that were happening all around me the whole time, but I just wasn't able to see them because of how heavy that grief was.

00:26:50.717 --> 00:27:14.960
And once I saw that one moment, I started to see more and more and then I started to feel a shift of my harder days were becoming less, my good days were becoming more and, like I said, it's still very much a roller coaster and up and down, and those moments of joy still exist now, even just hearing my son giggle like the really heavy belly giggles are good too.

00:27:16.210 --> 00:27:18.519
Yeah, well, you just described it very well.

00:27:18.519 --> 00:27:26.638
I think grief is a roller coaster and I've heard described as like it's like being in the ocean and waves are coming.

00:27:26.638 --> 00:27:30.433
And the thing about the waves at first they're totally unpredictable.

00:27:30.433 --> 00:27:32.714
They're huge, they just totally wipe you out.

00:27:32.714 --> 00:27:36.335
Then they become more predictable and they get farther apart.

00:27:36.335 --> 00:27:45.940
But there's also, as you said, we work at it at different layers and different levels, and a lot of times anniversaries will trigger us to reflect on where we are.

00:27:45.940 --> 00:27:54.994
So we'll be going along, we think we're okay, and then a birthday will come up or an anniversary will come up and it's like boom, you feel like you're right back where you were, where you started.

00:27:54.994 --> 00:27:56.994
You're not, but it kind of feels that way.

00:27:58.660 --> 00:27:59.912
Oh, yes, and I've been.

00:27:59.912 --> 00:28:08.076
So Mother's Day and Father's Day I didn't think those would be the days, but Mother's Day and Father's Day are the ones I'm like I just don't wanna celebrate these at all.

00:28:08.076 --> 00:28:25.538
And it is interesting how, in that moment, I can feel like I am at day zero and it's almost like just a flood of those emotions are right there with me and I'm just experiencing everything all over again.

00:28:25.538 --> 00:28:33.099
And I have had times where I've been frustrated with myself of shouldn't I be farther than this?

00:28:33.099 --> 00:28:34.615
Shouldn't I have healed more than this?

00:28:34.615 --> 00:28:37.919
Why am I reliving this so closely again?

00:28:37.919 --> 00:28:41.458
But the truth is that's just kind of how it works.

00:28:41.458 --> 00:28:49.016
After it, after this kind of trauma and I completely agree with you about the oceans I'm like sometimes it's a squall, sometimes you're in a nice reef.

00:28:49.790 --> 00:28:51.255
I never know.

00:28:51.255 --> 00:29:07.898
But I do like the sense of and with that analogy, I had someone recently say the more we heal and start trusting ourselves, the more we're prepared and have an understanding of how to handle when those waves come.

00:29:07.898 --> 00:29:14.936
And I thought that was really good too, because, again, I forget sometimes how far I have come and then I go oh, that's right, I can handle it.

00:29:14.936 --> 00:29:17.417
Oh, that's right, I can take a step back.

00:29:17.417 --> 00:29:25.838
If I need to let my boss know I need to take a day or go do some self-care, then I might need a little bit more to work through this.

00:29:28.153 --> 00:29:29.537
Yeah well, there's always this.

00:29:29.537 --> 00:29:31.816
To me, it's like figure out which is true.

00:29:31.816 --> 00:29:34.679
Does the grief get easier or do we get stronger?

00:29:34.679 --> 00:29:39.141
And maybe it's both, but I think we get stronger, so-.

00:29:39.161 --> 00:29:39.842
Oh, I like that.

00:29:39.842 --> 00:29:42.519
I haven't thought of it that way, but I like it yeah.

00:29:43.391 --> 00:29:43.952
I think we do.

00:29:43.952 --> 00:29:57.013
I think we get stronger, because there are those times when it's just like I'm done I don't wanna go through this again or you feel like you're right back to where you were before, but you bounce out of it more quickly, is what I've noticed.

00:29:57.971 --> 00:29:59.750
Yes, yeah, absolutely.

00:29:59.750 --> 00:30:06.233
I've had that experience to work could be instead of weeks and weeks and months of reliving everything.

00:30:06.233 --> 00:30:14.577
So maybe it's just a couple of days and then I'm right back and I could notice that that's a really good point, though, of getting stronger, because I haven't really thought of it.

00:30:14.577 --> 00:30:19.118
I just was like, wow, with time maybe grief just dissipates a little bit.

00:30:19.118 --> 00:30:27.738
But I do like that idea of as we're healing and I did have actually someone else ask me one time very point blank are you healing or are you just coping?

00:30:27.738 --> 00:30:29.695
Well, that's a fair point too.

00:30:29.890 --> 00:30:37.415
Sometimes I might feel like I'm healing and I'm actually just coping, and no matter which one it is, it's what I need in the moment.

00:30:37.415 --> 00:30:46.077
And then, as long as I continue to work through and that's a big one for me is you have to work through it, and it's awful.

00:30:46.077 --> 00:31:03.055
But to ignore the feelings is worse, and that's where I feel like people get stuck is when you ignore the feelings or ignore what's happening, versus I call it sludge work through the sludge, because those moments of joy are there, just have to be able to see them.

00:31:03.769 --> 00:31:14.557
Yeah, healing is one of those words when it comes to grief that I'm still undecided on, because I use the word sometimes, but it implies that grief is a disease and the grief is something to be gotten over.

00:31:14.557 --> 00:31:21.319
It's a very medical type of model and I think grief is a challenge.

00:31:21.319 --> 00:31:25.298
I think it's something that and I have a client I love what she said about.

00:31:25.298 --> 00:31:27.698
She said my grief is a companion.

00:31:27.698 --> 00:31:32.417
I'm gonna carry it with me for the rest of my life and my grief has taught me a lot.

00:31:32.417 --> 00:31:40.416
It's caused me a lot of pain, but it's also taught me a lot and it's caused her to grow, and this is a person who lost her fiance.

00:31:41.269 --> 00:31:46.494
So it's grief is a very interesting thing that we go through.

00:31:46.494 --> 00:31:52.179
But that because then when we get into healing, then people are like, well, shouldn't I be over it by now?

00:31:52.179 --> 00:31:54.116
And we get into like, shouldn't I be further?

00:31:54.116 --> 00:31:55.655
You know, shouldn't I be further along?

00:31:55.655 --> 00:32:06.573
And sometimes people get really upset if you said, well, you're gonna have the grief with you for the, you know, for the rest of your life, because then it sounds like it's a almost a terminal thing or a permanent thing, but it's not.

00:32:06.573 --> 00:32:07.153
We just.

00:32:07.153 --> 00:32:15.551
It changes us in various ways and just having this conversation with you, I can see how it's changed you and it helped us.

00:32:15.551 --> 00:32:20.978
We look at the world differently, so it's a mixed bag, I think.

00:32:22.101 --> 00:32:29.498
Oh yes, and I think it's so unpredictable and I think that's what's so hard is we like things to fit into boxes and be linear.

00:32:29.498 --> 00:32:32.578
If I just do this business is how I'm gonna feel.

00:32:32.578 --> 00:32:34.998
If I just you know it doesn't work that way.

00:32:34.998 --> 00:32:36.835
I like the idea of the companion.

00:32:36.835 --> 00:32:40.553
Recently I was telling someone that I want to.

00:32:40.553 --> 00:32:45.632
I'm horrible with social media, like being able to put anything together, but I wanted.

00:32:45.632 --> 00:32:51.358
I wanna make my own little poster meme that's, you know, has a budding rose or really nice flower.

00:32:51.358 --> 00:32:54.479
So this is how I wish my grief looked.

00:32:54.479 --> 00:33:03.376
And then next to it would be Gollum from Lord of the Rings and be like but this is actually what it's like, because it is so hard.

00:33:03.376 --> 00:33:05.538
I mean, it's a companion thing.

00:33:05.538 --> 00:33:08.238
I think it's just about learning.

00:33:08.238 --> 00:33:10.016
It's almost like a dance in a way.

00:33:10.076 --> 00:33:19.332
I think of it, you're just learning how to find rhythm with this thing that you have and being able to understand that it is with you and it is.

00:33:19.332 --> 00:33:26.538
Some days it's going to make you a better person and some days you might feel like you've gone backwards, and all of that is part of the process.

00:33:26.538 --> 00:33:37.382
And now you do have a relationship, especially, I think, with such a close loss or such a big loss, but you just have a different relationship with the grief.

00:33:37.382 --> 00:33:46.875
And I do agree that you are changed and it does change how you look at life and how you approach life.

00:33:46.970 --> 00:34:01.701
And that's something that's been really hard for me, for my acceptance piece is that I am around people where I can tell they're still trying to connect with me, they're still trying to relate with me in ways that works before and it just doesn't work now.

00:34:01.701 --> 00:34:16.876
And I can see the kind of reaction they want, I can see what they're trying to do, and yet I feel so stuck because I can't give them that, because that's just not who I am anymore and so trying to kind of figure out, well, who am I and how can I relate differently.

00:34:16.876 --> 00:34:25.014
And that is still very much a process that I'm in now of how do I connect with people now, especially people who knew me before.

00:34:25.849 --> 00:34:31.255
Yeah, that's a really good point, because one thing that people a lot of times we go through a profound loss.

00:34:31.255 --> 00:34:33.161
It's surprising people.

00:34:33.161 --> 00:34:37.501
We will lose friends, sometimes even family members.

00:34:37.501 --> 00:34:40.639
We'll lose people because we're different.

00:34:40.639 --> 00:34:43.036
They feel uncomfortable around us for whatever reason.

00:34:43.036 --> 00:34:49.476
But then, the other hand, I always find we always pick people up too, People that we might not have expected.

00:34:49.476 --> 00:34:52.418
So you kind of touched on it a little bit earlier.

00:34:52.418 --> 00:34:54.317
You don't have to go into detail if you don't want to.

00:34:54.317 --> 00:35:05.813
But you said I know you said you felt some guilt after Sean's passing, but you said other people were putting guilt on you also, which is just unbelievable that someone would do that.

00:35:07.757 --> 00:35:20.027
Well, I agree, I mean a big part of this and what I'm doing now is how could we shift from that blame and judgment and anger and turn to compassion?

00:35:20.027 --> 00:35:30.432
And I like to say, like, how do we link arms and come together as a community to mourn the loss of a loved one and say you know Sean's way more than his death, and I so appreciate.

00:35:30.432 --> 00:35:49.659
At the beginning of this conversation you wanted to know about him rather than just his death, right, but it was definitely shocking because I was so I naively, apparently, was ready to link arms and really come together with some of the people who are in our lives and then to quickly find out that that was not the case.

00:35:49.659 --> 00:36:04.958
Sean had been married before their speculation that if he had stayed with his ex-wife he never would have died this way, that it must have been something in our marriage, I must have said something, I must have pushed him over the edge.

00:36:04.958 --> 00:36:20.835
You know all of these things and I think you know from from my experience and again, this is just off of my own experience I feel like, for whatever reason, death by suicide, it almost like cracks open your life, to be under a microscope, and that's what happened.

00:36:21.076 --> 00:36:28.349
Everything about me was was open season, my personality, my parenting, my marriage.

00:36:28.349 --> 00:36:29.478
I mean I had people.

00:36:29.478 --> 00:36:36.896
I had someone come to me and say I know all about your marriage, I know all about how you were with Sean, like really, because we saw you maybe once every three months.

00:36:36.896 --> 00:36:43.059
But if you, if you can tell me you know the ins and outs of my marriage that way, okay.

00:36:43.059 --> 00:36:48.637
But these types of things were people and and now I can recognize it doesn't change the hurt.

00:36:48.637 --> 00:36:50.443
Let me say this it doesn't change the heart.

00:36:50.443 --> 00:37:09.219
I can recognize that these things that are being said or speculated were out of the grief that these individuals were feeling doesn't take away my hurt, but I can intellectualize it a little bit more and then I can work on the forgiveness out there yet, but the forgiveness and working through the hurt that I feel.

00:37:09.936 --> 00:37:10.460
Yeah, that's.

00:37:10.460 --> 00:37:12.451
I think this is a really, really important point.

00:37:12.451 --> 00:37:25.659
If you don't mind like to stay on it for a little bit, because you know, I wrote a book about grief and one of the things about it is people will say the most inappropriate things to you, and it's it's not with the intention of hurting you.

00:37:25.659 --> 00:37:31.442
But again, and I think in the case of suicide, actually I have to find somebody to blame, right?

00:37:31.442 --> 00:37:36.706
And I'm not going to blame Sean because he's my buddy or my son or my whatever.

00:37:36.706 --> 00:37:43.673
So I'm going to I'm going to blame Matt Xandrum and I'm going to find a way to put this on her and as the grieving person.

00:37:43.693 --> 00:37:51.920
It's unfair, but a lot of times we have to learn how to whether you want to call it give them grace or forgiveness or just whatever.

00:37:51.920 --> 00:37:55.067
We've got to find a way not to not to accept that.

00:37:55.067 --> 00:37:59.376
And then, if we get angry with them now, we have another emotion that we have to deal with, right.

00:37:59.376 --> 00:38:12.306
So now I have to deal with my grief and being angry at this other person, but it comes from that human again, that human thing of wanting to control and wanting to be able to say well, this has been different than we wouldn't have had this outcome.

00:38:13.817 --> 00:38:33.079
Right and I had to get to a point where and I love that you do a lot of the you know post death exploring and curiosity, because I, I definitely believe that Sean is in a better place I don't like to say necessarily a better place, a healed place.

00:38:33.079 --> 00:38:43.847
Healed place because I would say, you know, I think where his soul is is definitely he's not feeling what he was feeling here, and so I do think we will be reconnected.

00:38:43.847 --> 00:38:54.786
But one of the things that I there was one day, and I call them pings, where you get those little messages and and I like to say that you know, get these little messages.

00:38:54.786 --> 00:39:00.490
Or it says you know, maybe this friendship isn't really good for you or maybe you need to move on.

00:39:00.530 --> 00:39:08.976
And then if you're not paying attention, then you kind of get bigger nudges and I got a ping at one point that said that.

00:39:08.976 --> 00:39:17.322
For me that was like if Sean's not feeling that way anymore towards towards the people, why am I still holding on to the anger?

00:39:17.322 --> 00:39:19.746
Why am I still holding on to the frustration?

00:39:19.746 --> 00:39:21.239
Because it's eating me alive.

00:39:21.239 --> 00:39:41.445
He is not here to do anything about it, he's good where he is, and that really helped me start to release some of the anger and the frustration and, like I said, still working on that forgiveness piece but, at least it allowed me to start setting boundaries, to say I don't have to adhere to this, I don't.

00:39:41.826 --> 00:39:45.141
you can feel that way, put it all over social media, do what you need to.

00:39:45.141 --> 00:39:47.239
I just don't have to be a part of your process.

00:39:47.239 --> 00:39:48.668
I don't have to acknowledge your valid.

00:39:48.668 --> 00:39:58.724
I think that was a big thing for me, as it felt like all of these individuals were trying to get me to admit to something like I did do it in order to validate their feelings.

00:39:58.724 --> 00:40:01.202
I was like you can feel that way, I just don't need to be a part of it.

00:40:01.202 --> 00:40:04.018
Like, stop trying to get me to to acknowledge or validate it.

00:40:04.018 --> 00:40:05.101
I'm not going to.

00:40:05.594 --> 00:40:11.056
Right, yeah, they, they want you to engage in their drama and that's yeah, and sometimes we just have to.

00:40:11.056 --> 00:40:12.820
You know, let that go.

00:40:12.820 --> 00:40:21.326
And you know you said something about better place and I think that's I hate and I love that, because it's not.

00:40:21.326 --> 00:40:38.838
We are here where we're, where we're supposed to be for right now, you know and, and we are here, I say I say we're here on a mission, so, but our loved ones are in a place of where they're, where they're healed, where there's no judgment, where they don't we don't have the, the burdens that we have here.

00:40:38.838 --> 00:40:42.751
So you you talked about Sean being in a better place.

00:40:42.751 --> 00:40:48.445
So what are you, what were your beliefs before his passing on the afterlife, and what are your thoughts now?

00:40:49.335 --> 00:40:57.246
Yeah, and I agree with the better place, like as soon as I saw that it's not really because one of those things that people says, oh, they must be, they must be in a better like.

00:40:57.246 --> 00:41:03.257
No, no, I don't want speculation about that, although at the same time I'm, like I agree with you on the heel.

00:41:03.257 --> 00:41:05.543
You know being healed, like how do you describe?

00:41:05.985 --> 00:41:06.346
Yeah.

00:41:07.436 --> 00:41:20.083
So I was raised in a Christian household and my spirituality was definitely pushed, because there are just these ideas oh, when someone dies, go to heaven.

00:41:20.083 --> 00:41:24.021
And we want to be mindful of our sins and we confess our sins.

00:41:24.021 --> 00:41:26.797
And I wasn't Catholic, I was raised Eastern Orthodox.

00:41:26.797 --> 00:41:31.777
So you know, be mindful of your sins and try and be the best version of yourself.

00:41:31.777 --> 00:41:36.108
In all of this, and the theology really is based in finding what you know.

00:41:36.108 --> 00:41:52.438
How can you find purity of love, which, of course, in practice is always different Because, as you've been saying, you add this human component and it's really easy to take something and make it into something that's not necessarily looking for that purity of love, because that sometimes what religion does.

00:41:52.438 --> 00:41:59.340
And so I'm still on a spiritual journey of trying to figure out what I truly believe.

00:41:59.340 --> 00:42:06.581
But honestly, I believe in something that Sean is in some place that maybe could be like heaven.

00:42:06.581 --> 00:42:12.603
I mean, we talk about heaven and so that's a word I can use to describe where I believe he is.

00:42:13.847 --> 00:42:23.297
Because I honestly feel that it is really difficult for our earthly minds to really understand and conceptualize where our sins are.

00:42:23.297 --> 00:42:24.402
There, you, go.

00:42:25.195 --> 00:42:29.103
And so, to put words to it, I just don't feel like we do it justice.

00:42:29.103 --> 00:42:34.601
But what I found is I do feel Sean is around us.

00:42:34.601 --> 00:42:41.068
I've had some interesting things happen around the house, or I joke that right, it's been more than three years.

00:42:41.068 --> 00:42:51.222
I've had lots of pictures taken on my phone and there are two pictures of Sean and me that pop up on my phone the most often, and so I usually think that there's some.

00:42:51.222 --> 00:43:01.119
He was just trying to send me a message, but I definitely feel that there's connection between the afterlife and those of us who are still here on earth.

00:43:01.119 --> 00:43:07.800
And I mean I could go down the rabbit hole of how and looking at physics and all of that.

00:43:07.800 --> 00:43:16.481
I won't go into all of that in the exchange of energy, but I definitely have felt that.

00:43:16.481 --> 00:43:19.887
You know, I believe in God's source universe.

00:43:19.887 --> 00:43:21.510
I will change that.

00:43:21.735 --> 00:43:32.420
And one of the things I'll say that I was met with that challenged me probably the most in my spirituality is this idea and I still, to this day, have people say this to me about oh, if you die by suicide, you go directly to hell.

00:43:32.420 --> 00:43:35.655
And that one is a big struggle for me.

00:43:35.655 --> 00:43:37.878
Because, number one, who are we to judge.

00:43:37.878 --> 00:43:46.240
And number two, it creates the sense of oh awesome, well, god's source universe is with you.

00:43:46.240 --> 00:43:50.239
Until you do something like this, and I just don't I don't believe that.

00:43:50.239 --> 00:44:09.594
I believe that God's source universe is with us always, and I don't think Sean was any less worthy of being able to go to a place where his soul can learn the lessons it needs to learn and be able to continue on that learning path.

00:44:09.594 --> 00:44:11.878
I know that's not very direct.

00:44:12.541 --> 00:44:18.581
No, that's, that's that's not an easy, it's not an easy question or an easy answer.

00:44:18.963 --> 00:44:35.896
My feelings and thoughts are still all over the place as well, but I think it's really important, this idea that you know the ultimate sin is to take your own life and to me, that's the ultimate level of control that the church people want to have over you.

00:44:35.896 --> 00:44:40.092
Right, if you, if you do this one thing, then God will never forgive you.

00:44:40.092 --> 00:44:45.885
Well, once you start to understand what God is, who God is and I mean you have a child.

00:44:45.885 --> 00:44:53.257
I remember when I, when I had my first daughter, that's when I first, that's when I've got a glimpse of what God's love might be like.

00:44:53.257 --> 00:45:00.177
And would you torment your child because they couldn't handle the, the torment that they were going through?

00:45:00.818 --> 00:45:13.661
And I think people that take their own lives, if anything, if anything's different about the afterlife, is they get more love, they get more treatment, they get more healing, because maybe they need it more because this life was was so rough.

00:45:13.661 --> 00:45:27.291
But I find it to be one of the most important teachings that people try to put on you, and for someone to say that to someone who's lost someone to suicide is it's to spit a bomb.

00:45:27.291 --> 00:45:28.536
Sorry, I can't think of a better word.

00:45:29.637 --> 00:45:30.740
It's, it's definite.

00:45:30.740 --> 00:45:37.757
I've had to learn again how to respond, cause I do wear my facial expressions.

00:45:37.757 --> 00:45:44.960
It can be very active and so sometimes it definitely shows when I'm shocked or I'm like what are you, what are you saying?

00:45:44.960 --> 00:45:46.083

When Your Loved One Chooses Death with Alexandra Wyman

Alexandra Wyman

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