Episode 530: Walking Through Grief

No need to whine, it's whiny palooza. Have some wine and join us on the whiny palooza podcast with Rebecca Greene.

Welcome to the whiny palooza podcast. I'm your host, Rebecca Greene. I'm a wife, mother of 3, and licensed clinical social worker. I also have 3 fur babies at home too. My passion has always been to help children and their families. I always dreamed of being a wife and a mother. Parents are always learning through their struggles, failures, and successes and joys. I am no stranger to this wild ride of parenting, and I know behind every great parent lies a team of supportive friends and family. I want to be part of your support system. I want you to know that you are not alone. We are in this parenting world together. Join me every week for insightful discussions with experts on parenting and marriage, as well as other parents who have found the secret to successes in parenthood. You'll learn tips and tricks to make life with your family better than ever. I hope you will follow along with me while we dive into what it takes to achieve a happy family.

Hello everyone, happy Whiny Balooza Wednesday!

How's everybody doing? I'm a little distracted by my cat. She, uh, seems to be following me around the house today, which I am not gonna object to. She is my therapy cat. Faith, you have been labeled the therapy cat.

Congratulations on your promotion.

So we have, um, I guess I am torturing us with this topic this week. Yes, I apologize for that. I will move on to other things.

Yes, after this.

Well, so I wanted to do something about grief, like the grief topic, and then we will move on and not talk about it and not torture ourselves. Okay, so I apologize because the reason I'm saying that is number one, because I'm having an emotionally stable day, and now I have to talk about this.

I messed that up.

Like, I have had days where I can't, like, think about it, get out of my sadness.

Yes.

And I have had days like today where I feel good. So grief is interesting, and I realized as I was writing this that people have lost their mothers, their children, their grandparents, their husband, and I'm crying about my dog.

Yes.

But my dog was my best friend who I was with all day every day, and he was a family member. Yes. And pets are family members.

They are.

So it's just very weird to be with some— someone— what do you call him?

Yes, he's a person.

To be with him every day to him not being here.

It's a big shift, a big difference in your life.

So Seth leaves and goes to work.

Yes.

And I work at home, so it's very different for me.

Yes.

So anyways, um, after having an emotionally stable day, I— it's going downhill as I talk, so let's see how I do. Yeah, I'm gonna do my best to get through this. And I think this is a very important topic for us to talk about, just in general, with, with parents and kids. And everybody experiences grief, every, you know, in one sense or the other. Yeah, whether it's a pet or a grandparent or whatever. So let's talk about it. I will tell you good news about my cats. So my cat and my dog hung out with me all day, every day. And they would all be in the same room with me all day. And then the cats just like, you know, Tanner passed away and the cats just like disappeared.

Yeah, they were hiding in the basement.

So, so no, that wasn't the case. Joy was hiding in the basement. Faith was sleeping on her cat tree the entire day and not moving. And Joy was hiding in the basement. So the good news is It's been a month and the cats are doing better. Joy was upstairs all day and Faith is not sleeping on her cat tree all day. Faith actually followed me around most of the day. So things are improving in the greenhouse. We are adjusting. It is still very sad. I still have moments like I did yesterday at Pet Supplies Plus where I'm standing there crying and embarrassed and trying to hide it from the people because I'm crying about my dog because because I'm looking at the stuff and I'm like, I don't need any dog stuff. So anyways, let's walk through grief. That is the title of the topic. We're walking through grief. I, Monday morning, I was like, I am so tired of being sad. And Seth is like, just be sad.

There's no timeline on it.

Like, just be sad. Stop resisting. He's like, stop resisting and just be sad. So it was excellent advice.

Thank you.

And I was feeling exhausted from myself. I was feeling exhausted from the sadness. And there is no timetable, there's no expectations, there's no right way. There's healthier ways, there's healthy ways to walk through grief, and there's some not healthy ways to walk through grief, which Seth and I have talked about. Uh, just be sad, talk to your people, exercise. Make fun plans, be with people. Can we need connections, people? We can't be by ourselves all the time. So you probably know that, uh, it shows up unexpectedly, like at the store.

Yep, random moments.

The— I think one of the hardest things for me is getting out of bed and he's not right there.

Yeah, he would sleep right there and we'd have to be careful if he moved during the night not to step on him.

And he's not there. Yeah, okay, pull it together. Stages of grief. I learned— okay, so I went to school for this. I learned about 5 stages of grief. I am sure when I do my continuing ed, there's gonna be a grief one, and they're gonna talk to me about the fact that they added stages. It looks like they added a couple stages. I'm not gonna add in the stages. I'm gonna talk to you about the 5 stages. So I thought in my mind, you know, and I'm, and I'm rusty, you know, it's been a while since I studied grief. I thought I would just like move through the stages. I thought I would start with denial and shock, and I thought I would move through them in like a flow state, logical order, like there would be an order to my madness. Oh my God, I was so wrong. I want you to know that my grief is all over the place, and it's up and it's down and it's through. I said to myself one night, you just went through the 5 stages of grief in like an hour. It's just a roller coaster.

Yes, you can have them one at a time or all at once.

So I can feel acceptance and then the next minute I'm bawling. I can feel like, ugh, the whole bargaining. Okay, let's start with denial. The first stage is denial, and you know that that's shock, like this can't be real. The second stage is anger. We experienced the denial and we experienced the anger. Like, why would this happen? Why would this happen to my dog? He's only 7 and a half. He has another 7 years to live. Why would this happen now? Anger. Bargaining. Bargaining. I am the master at bargaining.

I skipped this one. Tell me more about your bargaining.

You did not skip this one.

I didn't bargain. I didn't say, God, if you fix him, I'll do X, Y, and Z, or if you bring him back, I'll you know, whatever.

No, bargaining can look different. Okay, bargaining looks like your wife going, what if I would have— what if I did it this way? What if I could have done this? What if I would have changed this? It's called torture, right?

I wasn't labeling that bargaining because you can't go— you weren't saying it. I thought you were just asking yourself questions, playing what if. And making yourself feel worse. To me, bargaining is I'm trying to negotiate with somebody for something.

To me, bargaining is if only I had, what if we, okay, our mind trying to gain control.

Okay, I did not know this.

I played such mind games with myself. I was at bargaining for a long time, like what if I would have gotten him an MRI sooner, What if I would have done this differently? What if we would have just taken off the leg? Maybe he would have had more time. Maybe I would have gotten more time with him. Like, what if? What if I did this? If only I had done this. How come we did the MRI so late? What if we would have done it a year early? Would we have seen anything if we did it a year early? I did this nonstop. That is bargaining.

Okay.

And I still sometimes hear myself do it, and I'm like, stop. Because even if you did things differently, doesn't mean anything would have changed, right? So stop torturing yourself. Depression and sadness. We've had a lot of sadness. Yeah, this hurts. This feels heavy. Acceptance. This is part of the story now. I'm not okay with it, but I can keep going. Where are you at in the stages? Where are you at?

I think it depends on the moment. Yeah, I think it depends on the moment. I think I've accepted it. It's not gonna change because I changed my thoughts about it. I think I'm just Sad.

Yes, we're sad.

Yes.

How can grief look in kids? This is important. Oh, this applies to my cats. This applies to my cats. Increased clinginess. Yes. Yes. Isn't that interesting? Yes. Uh, separation anxiety. Yes. You should see Faith looking at me when I'm leaving the house now. I'm like, crap, now I got the cat not wanting me to leave.

I promise I'll come back.

I'm like, oh God, Tanner used to be so hard to leave the house with. I used to be like, I promise I'll be right back. Regression: bedwetting, baby talk, wanting help with things they used to do, irritability, anger, big reactions over small things. Sleep trouble, nightmares, stomachaches, headaches. Do you know how many headaches I had when Tanner passed away?

A lot.

So many headaches. Trouble focusing at school, more risk-taking, lots of questions or no questions. So just so that you know how it shows up with kids, we need to be honest with them. And not hide things from them because when we hide things from kids like this, it just stresses them out and makes them wonder. They feel the feelings in the house and they feel uneasy because they don't know what's going on if we're not honest. So we just need to be direct and simple. Don't over-explain, just be simple with, with what you say. And when they ask you questions, Just answer their questions. Don't go on and on and on and on. Keep it simple. I have been told by many people to read your children— if you have small children, read them books because there's good books on this subject. Um, ah, so you're a parent and you're grieving and your kids are grieving, so what do you do? They don't talk about how exhausting grief is. Like tiring. Yes, I felt very tired.

Yes, you definitely slept more and were more tired.

You noticed that?

Yes.

And then you have to parent.

Yes, while you're exhausted and depleted.

And keep going and keep working and keep— I mean, the good thing is, I mean, the good thing is the work and the chores and the kids are distracting. Like, I don't want to just sit and be sad all day.

No, going to work was a good— is a good distraction.

Yeah, like he gets to leave the house and go Lily asked me, she's like, is it better to go to an office or work at home? And I said it's better to go to an office for so many reasons, but I love— I, well, I love that like Tanner had me at home, right? Like, I love that the kids have— I love working around the kids. I love a lot about it, but I think it's better mentally to go to a job.

Yeah, I agree.

Okay, let yourself be seen. I did not hide my tears. I couldn't hide my tears. I wasn't capable of hiding my tears. Let your kids see you feel. Let them see that you're tired. Let them see that you have a headache. Let them see all of this is normal parts of grieving. Like, it's okay. You get through it, and this is a part of the process. Life is not all happiness, and we need to show our kids that so that they learn that life is full of all of the emotions. We don't want to make them— we don't want to hide the, the more negative emotions. We want to show them that this is part of life and this is how we handle it, right?

They gotta have exposure to it to learn how to, you know, deal with it.

You know, Mom is sad, she's crying. Mom is sad and stressed and tired and she has a headache. Like, it's okay, it's okay. So keep things consistent for your children and yourself. Like, I kept the schedule the same. I kept making meals. I kept the routine. I didn't like stop anything. I mean, if you need a break and you need to rest, it's okay.

Yeah.

When you can get back to the routine, that's good for everybody. So I'm gonna say this to moms on almost every single vlog. We are not very good at accepting help. And my friends who helped me— I had to text my friends to drive my children on Friday. We need our village. We're not supposed to parent alone. If you're grieving and you're sad and people offer to do things for you, just say thank you. We just, as women, we just need to learn to say thank you. Amen, right? Invite your kids to talk to you, but don't force your kids to talk to you. I'm— don't ask too many questions.

Lily says don't ask too many questions, but that's what she means, that every day, all day, not just when we're grieving.

You get question quotas with your kids, so keep them simple and short and few and far between. Don't bombard your kids with questions. Like, ask— like, I would say to my kids You know, how are you feeling about everything? Anything you want to talk about with me?

That's it. That's two.

I'm here if you need to talk. Like, my kids are like, ah, I'm okay. Okay, well, I'm here if you need to talk.

Yeah, they are doing much better than we did.

Yes, yes. Um, Max had his moment. Yeah, I don't even know if you were home. I don't even know if you were home, but I was home when he was upset.

Oh, okay. It depends on what—

I don't know what day we're talking about, so, um, it was maybe, um, when was he home?

Oh, this was while he was home over— okay, this wasn't like a FaceTime?

No, this was when he was home last. When was he home last? February break?

Yes.

So that's what it was. So maybe you were at work or something. I don't remember. Um, but when they're ready to talk, be ready. Be ready.

Even if that's 11 o'clock at night.

It's always— my phone goes off at 10:30, 11 o'clock at night when Seth and I are falling asleep. Max, it's okay. It's okay. That's always been Max when he lives— when he lived here, he would walk in our room at night ready to talk. It's just, I always tell Seth he was born at 11 o'clock at night, and I really think that's why.

I don't know if there's any scientific research behind that.

I'm gonna look it up.

I think you should find out if that's a thing. It certainly feels that way for him.

Uh, we have to help our kids name what's going on You know, it's, it's, it's really hard. I'm so sorry. Create a ritual. I, for Valentine's Day, gave my children, um, golden retriever stuffed animals that I thought looked like Tanner. Yeah, I got Seth and I necklaces. Seth's wearing— so Seth's necklace has Tanner etched on it with his name.

His picture is etched on it with his name on it.

And mine is his name. They can't see it.

It's okay. But dog tag with my dog.

But you can create rituals. Um, I'm in the middle of making a photo album for Tanner. That was a lot of work today. I did not finish. Um, light a candle, write a note to the person or pet. You know, make the photo album, cook the favorite food, choose this, you know, a song, plant— people talk about planting things in their honor. Um, who was just telling me to plant a tree and spread some ashes in the backyard?

Interesting.

So, uh, create some rituals. What works for your family? And what not to say. Let's talk about what not to say. Okay. I hate when people say they're in a better place. Please don't say that. That is so ambiguous and it's not going to make a child or anyone feel better. I think, I mean, I will say people, a lot of people will say to me, he's not in pain anymore, he's not suffering. Like, I hope that he's running around.

Yes.

We hope.

Yes.

I don't know how this works. I would like some proof. Who has some proof for me? Is my dog running around in doggie— no, hopefully it's just one heaven.

Right.

Not doggie heaven. Okay, so please don't say they're in a better place. Please don't say be strong. Let your freaking kids cry. Let yourself cry. Please don't say, "Don't cry." I hate when anyone says that. Just let people cry.

Yes, let them have their feelings.

You need to move on. Really? There's no timetable.

There's no rush.

There's no rush. Say something better. Say, "I'm sorry." Say, "I know this is really hard. I'm here for you." Say something right.

Yes, dear.

There will be times where Seth and I are not communicating well, and I will get frustrated and I will say, "Can you say something right?" And then what does he usually say?

I'm sorry.

No, he usually says, "I love you." I love you.

Yeah, that's something.

I can't get mad at "I love you." I can't get mad at that. So, if you're feeling— there's never a wrong time to get help, okay? I'm not going to tell you you need a certain thermometer of feelings to get help. You can always ask for help, but really get your kids or yourself help if it's interfering with like your daily functioning. Like you can't get out of bed, you can't move on, you're, you're turning to alcohol, your kids are— you know, there's so many behaviors that we could talk about. You know, they don't want to go to school, they're talking about self-harm, whatever. There are extremes where you most definitely need help, but you can always get some help. And you can even, like, tell the school and see if the school social worker or their teacher could talk to them. It's always good to let school know if there's something going on, like, especially if your kid is in elementary school and is with the same teacher all day. You can always, like, give them a heads up and say, listen, you know, our dog died. They might be really sad this week. So it's always good to let people know what's going on because they might be like, Sally is like falling asleep on her desk and not paying attention, what's going on? So the good news is that I had a lot of support through this, and I had 3 friends who were going through this at the same time as me, which is crazy. It was like boom, boom, boom. And I talked to all of them, and it wasn't easy for any of us. And talk to your people and reach out to people and know that you're not alone, and know that it's part of life, and that I do think that it gets easier. I will tell you, a month ago I was a mess crying all day, and I like barely cried today.

It's progress.

Yes, so I see definite progress. And anything I didn't cover about this topic that you think is important as you're dealing with this too?

I, I think you did a thorough job.

I didn't talk a lot about adults, but a lot of this stuff is about adults too. And I think we just need to be patient and kind to ourselves and give ourselves grace and understanding and compassion. And there were days, and there still might be days, where I can't focus and I can't do things and accomplish things and might not be as productive as I normally am. And I'm not getting mad at myself.

Good.

I don't think you had that problem.

I didn't. I don't think I had a choice. I had to go to work.

There were days that I stared at my computer and got nothing done. And you know that's not normal.

That is very abnormal.

I was like, there is nothing being accomplished right now. Adrian was probably like, where did Rebecca go? Yeah, she disappeared. She's crying in the corner. But I did a bunch of work today and yesterday, so I'm definitely feeling more focused. I'm definitely getting more done than I have been this month. Um, probably not my most productive work month, but I'm, I'm not upset about it. Not upset about it, but the, the podcast is still going strong, doing incredibly well. I, you know, I have to say, these women— I tend to talk to other— I tend to talk to women experts, and they just uplift me. And I just love that this is what I get to do. And I did talk to Dr. Alexandra Rebecca Greene Rogers, about a lot of topics. Seth, tell them the title this Friday.

Parenting Tools for Anxiety, OCD, Autism, and Hyperactivity.

We talked about a lot, and I said to her, I said, listen, this is, this is how it's gonna go. I'm gonna ask you questions about all this wonderful stuff that you do, and maybe in the future we focus on like one of those things. Because she, she does so many things.

Yes.

So you're gonna learn a lot from her and you're gonna love her on Friday. That comes out on Friday. We did just do the Whiny Plus a Mom March Challenge on Facebook. There is a free supportive Whiny Plus a Mom group on Facebook. Come find us and join us. You can ask questions and get support and and feedback and advice, and you can give advice. And this month, the winner of the March challenge is Megan Blake. So, I will go post the winner and deliver her prizes. And every month we do challenges and I give away prizes, and we talk about so many things. And we have this wonderful newsletter, winyblizzard.com.

Scroll down. Enter your email address for the free Winey Palooza parenting and marriage email newsletter.

So I will say I got a text message from a wonderful lady in our life who listens to my podcast for the first time, told me how wonderful it was, told me she never knew how to access it.

Wow.

So I think that Seth and I are ignorant in the fact that we talk about the podcast But people don't necessarily know how to get to the podcast. So you have an Apple Podcast app on your phone, it's purple if you have an Apple, and you click the purple button and you type in the Winey Palooza podcast. And Winey Palooza is spelled cuckoo, so hopefully—

H-I-N-Y P-A-L-U-Z-A.

So type it in. There are 5, like, and I'm guessing, I think there's 520 8 episodes on so many different topics. So you can scroll through and see all the topics, binge it all, baby. You can listen to all of them. You can listen to the most recent one. You can just listen to the one Ella's on because Ella seems to be a fan favorite. Ella just did one, and I get so much feedback when Ella does the podcast.

Our daughter Ella just turned 17.

I will have to talk to Ella about the text message I got No, I got a couple messages today about her podcast, so you can go find it. She just did it. So listen to the podcast, share it with people, because it is on every platform, not just Apple.

So if you don't have an Apple phone or you want to listen to it on Spotify or Amazon or Pandora, um, or Google Play, or watch it on YouTube, there it is, all there.

So most people listen to a podcast, but, but people don't know that You can also watch it on YouTube. Yes, we get most of our listeners from Apple. Thank you, thank you, Melissa. Melissa says happy 17th to Ella. How is she 17? Tell me this.

We kept feeding her.

I have a 19— for those of you who don't know, I have a 19-year-old away at school, I have a 17-year-old who just turned 17, and I have a 13-year-old. I was getting to the baby. The baby is very important. Thankfully, I have a 13-year-old who makes me feel a little younger. Mom, who's that mother? Lily, be nice to your mother. So what else, Seth? Is that everything?

I think that's everything.

So if you have questions, because we assume people know things, so please ask us questions. We are open to any of your questions. No questions are dumb. I forget that people don't know how to access the podcast. And you can find all my blogs at winniepoohs.com. My son, my brilliant son, was like, Mom, you gotta make your blogs longer. And I'm like, honey, how long do you want them to be? Like, this one was like 6 pages that I just did. How many pages do I need to write? He's like, Mom, they're so short. I'm like, what is he talking about? Well, He was looking at the newsletter.

He was looking at the email that promotes the upcoming podcast. It promotes the upcoming blog, thinking that was the entire thing.

So if you are reading the newsletter, that is just a teaser of the blog. You have to actually go to whinyfools.com to read the full thing. And there are— how old are you, Lily? 13. There are 12 years of blogs.

They're searchable, so that helps.

So you can search a topic. So hopefully we helped with questions. Yes, send us your topic suggestions, send us your guest suggestions, tell us if you want to be on the podcast. We— I have people all the time say, hey, can I be a guest? So thank you for joining us. Thank you for getting through a tough but necessary topic. We are moving on from grief, Seth. We will not talk about grief next week, and we will be back next week.

Thank you for tuning in to the Whiny Palooza podcast. If you like what you heard, please be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode.

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I love to hear your feedback. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time.

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