Latest / Anchored by the Sword / When Grief Feels Impossible: Hope After Suicide Loss, Dementia, and Trauma with Rachel Dawn!

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When Grief Feels Impossible: Hope After Suicide Loss, Dementia, and Trauma with Rachel Dawn! · Anchored by the Sword

0:00
Thank you for joining me on this episode of the Anchor by the
0:02
Sword podcast. I pray that today's episode will
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leave you encouraged and also challenged in your faith.
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And I pray that you would take the stories that are talked
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about here today and share them with other people.
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Thank you so much for joining me and enjoy today's episode.
0:21
Hey guys, welcome to this episode of the Anchor by the
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Sword podcast. I am super excited today to
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introduce you guys to Rachel Dawn.
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Rachel is a long time friend through the socials.
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We actually got to meet in person once many years ago and
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she has a new book coming out soon.
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The title is still a working title, but you will find out
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more about what the whole book is going to be about through our
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discussion today. And it's a sensitive topic, but
0:47
it's definitely one that is needed to be talked about.
0:51
So, Rachel, thank you for joining me today.
0:54
Absolutely. I am so happy to be here and so
0:57
excited about our conversation. Absolutely.
0:59
So can you start off by telling my listeners a little bit about
1:01
yourself? Yeah, so my name is Rachel Don.
1:05
I am a speaker and author, a storyteller really more than
1:10
anything. Whatever media I can do that
1:12
through, I'm here for the stories.
1:14
I say an imperfect wife and Mama because yes, and I live in the
1:20
Cincinnati area. We used to have a whole house
1:22
full of animals, but now we have 2 accidental cats is all we have
1:27
left. What else?
1:29
I also say that I am a recovering success addict, so
1:32
there was A and in my life when that was the most important
1:35
thing. And I'm realizing maybe that's
1:37
not so much the case so. Yeah, both.
1:39
Being from Ohio, I can't even remember how we met.
1:42
I know it was online, but then we met in person at an actual
1:44
ministry event in Indiana. It was in Indiana when we met.
1:49
So I have loved watching you walk through life, become a mom,
1:55
just all of the things. So how old is your babe now?
2:00
Yeah, he just turned 5, which is bananas because I'm certain I
2:04
just gave birth to him like 2 months ago.
2:06
Right, right. But yeah, he's a whole big 5 and
2:10
he just went through a growth spurt.
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He grew 3 inches since November. So I'm like, he woke up and none
2:16
of his pants fit anymore. I'm like, but anyway, so yeah,
2:20
and he's amazing. I am privileged now that I get
2:24
to stay home with him. He's about 1314 months old.
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I came home from work, I used to do national account sales and
2:32
travel every week and so I didn't want to do that anymore
2:36
and and be apart from him. So I've been home with him for
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the last four years almost. That's awesome.
2:42
I love it. He's so cute.
2:44
Thank you. So let's start off first of all
2:48
by you talking about your own personal freedom story.
2:51
Yeah, so my testimony is really I I told it in my first book.
2:57
So my first book is called Now What a story of broken dreams
3:00
and the God who restores them. And it was actually released 10
3:03
years ago this year, which is also crazy.
3:05
What is even time? Right.
3:08
But that story is about my testimony, for a lack of a
3:13
better description, but it is about how I grew up in the
3:17
church. I was a good little church girl.
3:19
I followed all of the rules. The church that I grew up in, my
3:23
dad's family was like one of the first families.
3:26
He was second generation. So I was third generation at
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that point. And we were there all of the
3:32
time. Like my parents were highly
3:33
involved in the church. My mom was the church secretary
3:36
for a number of years. My dad was in leadership, sat on
3:39
the board, things like that. And so like, that was our life.
3:42
Like church was our entire social circle and everything.
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I grew up in a in a small farm town in Kentucky.
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Not all of this is hyper relevant but anyway it just
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gives you kind of a feel of like literally like I was the good
3:56
little rule following church girl and save myself for
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marriage. Did all the right things and got
4:01
married young. I was 21 when I married a
4:03
sailor. Then I met in downtown Chicago,
4:05
and four years later, so I was 25 when I found myself going
4:10
through a divorce. And I was very, very angry at
4:15
God, mostly because I had done all the right things and
4:17
followed the rules. And this was not at all how life
4:20
was supposed to turn out. And so there was a lot of
4:23
emotion then, but mostly anger. And so I at that point in my
4:27
life, I turned wholeheartedly against God.
4:30
I was like, you know what? Your way didn't work.
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I'm good on my own. I'm going to go do my own thing
4:34
now. And so the way that I describe
4:37
it is it was the season of my life when I was running as fast
4:41
and as hard and as far away from him as I could, that what I
4:46
learned was that he was still chasing after me.
4:49
So it was this point in my life when, you know, I wasn't the
4:53
good little churchgoer one anymore.
4:55
I was breaking a lot of the rules, quote UN quote, and he
4:59
still wanted me. You know, it was the first time
5:02
in my life that I encountered grace personally.
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I was like, that's what that means.
5:06
It was just this hypothetical word that had been thrown around
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my entire life, right? And so I encountered that for my
5:12
first time and, and, and him still wanting me in that season
5:18
when I felt very just ruined and, and discarded and unwanted
5:25
was life changing. I mean, it's the only way to say
5:28
it. And so when I, when I had that
5:33
experience with him, it was like, Oh yeah, I absolutely want
5:38
that. Like, I would love to be in
5:40
relationship with that person. And it's so interesting, you
5:45
know, I called myself a believer my whole life, you know what I
5:48
mean? Like I thought that I was a
5:50
Christian. I thought that I was in
5:51
relationship with him, but what I actually had was just
5:54
religion. And I didn't know that I didn't
5:58
actually have a relationship with him until I met him for the
6:01
first time. And so that's my testimony.
6:04
And when that happened again, I was in my mid 20s, you know,
6:07
that was 1516 years ago. And so since then, like I've
6:12
spent the last 16 years just just getting to know him, just
6:16
walking with him, spending time with him, growing it just like
6:20
any other relationship, growing in intimacy with him and getting
6:23
to know him better. So that's that part of it.
6:27
I love that. And yeah, like I said, I
6:30
remember and I believe if I'm not mistaken, it's still there.
6:36
I think I see the. I see the color bands.
6:39
It's right there. You guys can't see it because
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this is audio only, but I still have the copy that you sent me
6:45
when I was doing launch team stuff and all the things back in
6:48
the day. Yeah.
6:49
For the first book, that's awesome.
6:51
I love that. I love that.
6:53
My husband keeps telling me you need to get rid of the books
6:55
that you have because there's so many here.
6:58
I was like, but there's a lot that have sentimental meaning
7:01
and they're written like they wrote something in there for me,
7:04
so I don't want to get rid of that.
7:07
Yeah, Leo file actually get rid of books now that's.
7:11
Not right, right, right. Let's not subscribe to the Marie
7:14
Kondo like thing because this all gives me pleasure, OK it.
7:18
All makes me. Happy.
7:19
So what Bible verse helps to keep you anchored?
7:23
Yeah, especially in this season of my life over the last five
7:27
years, you know, the verse that resonates most deeply with me
7:32
that I keep going back to over and over and I hear my spirit.
7:35
It's actually kind of a combination of 2 verses in
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Psalms, Psalm 3418 and Psalm 147 three.
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And then I kind of say the same thing, but I kind of smashed
7:45
together the first half of 1, the second-half of the other.
7:48
And it's that the Lord is close to the broken hearted and he
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binds up their wounds. And I actually, I couldn't even
7:55
begin to tell you where, but I heard somebody teach on the
7:59
second part of, you know, he binds up their wounds.
8:01
And when you trace the original language back, I'm going to
8:04
butcher this because it's been a while since I heard the message.
8:06
But what I took away from it was that in the original language,
8:10
that's actually like a medical phrase that they're using.
8:14
And so it's really this picture of a doctor or a nurse or healer
8:20
coming close and literally physically binding up like with
8:25
bandages, something that is broken and shattered and, and
8:28
bleeding or whatever, which was which was definitely the state
8:32
of my heart over the last five years.
8:34
And so those verses really just bring me comfort in knowing how
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personal and intimate and how close that he comes and stays.
8:42
Absolutely. So you were talking about over
8:44
the last five years. So let's talk about one story in
8:47
particular, The story that is the premise of your book.
8:51
It's untitled at this time, so let's talk about it, yeah.
8:56
Yeah, at the moment we were just talking about as a joking about
8:59
how I'm going back and forth and back and forth.
9:01
I can't decide at the moment. The title is Reads Like Fiction
9:04
because it is about the story. The reads like fiction story of
9:11
my brother's life and death. But you know, the, the bigger
9:15
part of the book is me surviving that, surviving his suicide in
9:20
2021 and also doing that being three weeks postpartum from just
9:25
having my first child. And also simultaneously, my
9:28
father had already been diagnosed with dementia and we
9:32
were losing him every day. And so it was a lot.
9:36
It was a lot to happen in one season.
9:38
And the, the book I describe it, imagine CS Lewis's A Grief
9:44
Observed. Have you read that?
9:45
Parts. OK, yeah, so for anybody that
9:48
has read it then you'll understand the comparison.
9:51
But it's like CS Lewis's reads like fiction, except over coffee
9:55
with a friend who is also freshly postpartum and cusses
9:58
occasionally. And that's OK, Yeah, yeah.
10:03
So let's talk about the circumstances because your
10:06
brother's death was kind of public, so.
10:10
Yeah. Yeah, let's talk about it.
10:13
Yeah. So, yeah, I'm glad that you said
10:15
that because I was just writing a letter to someone this morning
10:20
and and wanted to put that in there that this was a very
10:25
public incident and it was and it wasn't.
10:28
It was public that he went missing.
10:32
So I'll just kind of give you guys the, the play by play as I
10:35
lived it. So again, I was 3 1/2 weeks
10:38
postpartum. I had just kind of emerged from
10:42
that cyclone that is giving birth to a child and
10:45
breastfeeding newborn and being sleep deprived and all the
10:47
things and had just come out of that enough that I wasn't
10:51
unconscious that I could sit and play a game of cards with my
10:55
parents, right. And so my husband and I were
10:57
sitting at my kitchen table playing cards and, and, and I
10:59
had gotten an e-mail that morning from my brother that
11:02
didn't make sense. It was very, very manic
11:06
sounding, to be honest, just kind of all over the place.
11:08
My brother didn't have any sort of diagnosed formally or
11:13
clinically diagnosed mental illness, but the letter just
11:17
didn't make sense. And it was talking about how he
11:20
had been skydiving in Phoenix a couple days ago and he was
11:22
getting ready to go skydiving at the Grand Canyon.
11:25
And this was his goodbye letter if anything happened to him in
11:29
the skydiving. And this would have been like 4
11:32
days ago at that point. And I'm like wait, is this is my
11:34
brother trying to say that he had a skydiving accident Like
11:37
that doesn't make sense. We haven't been contacted by any
11:39
skydiving companies or been notified of his death like this.
11:42
It was just weird. And so I had text him.
11:46
It was like at 6:00 in the morning, I text him like, hey,
11:48
what? Like, you know, what's this
11:50
about? And I hadn't gotten a response
11:51
from him. So we're playing cards and I
11:53
remember it and I still didn't have a response to him, which
11:56
was odd because my brother was always attached to his cell
11:59
phone. And so I text his girlfriend and
12:02
then she immediately called me and was like, no, I haven't
12:05
heard from him either. I also got a weird e-mail this
12:07
morning. And then that's kind of when
12:08
everything started on spiraling. And so at that point we learned
12:14
he was missing. We contacted some authorities,
12:17
kind of got the ball rolling on that.
12:18
It was literally like living inside of like NCIS or like a
12:22
crime novel. Like it was, it was crazy, you
12:25
know, to live that in real life, you know, just talking to all
12:28
the different departments and authorities and you know, they
12:31
put out AP B's and all that. I mean, it's like really like
12:34
all the words except this was my real life.
12:37
And in that it became this national news story.
12:42
You know, he was a national missing person for a week, a
12:44
little over a week from the time he went missing till the time
12:47
they recovered his body. And so it was all over the news.
12:51
He had actually just been in the news within the last year for an
12:56
incident in Canada over like the COVID regulations, like he had
13:01
broken COVID travel laws because of course, he that's right in
13:07
the book too. But anyway, and so like Canada
13:10
really loved it. Like they played it up like, oh,
13:12
hey, remember this guy from then?
13:14
Like, oh, now he's missing at the Grand Canyon.
13:16
Like it was actually rather distasteful the way that let's
13:19
handled it. But you know, Good Morning
13:21
America had reached out to me looking to do some coverage on
13:24
it just to attempt finding him. But you know, like I said, it
13:28
was, it was about 8 days that he was missing.
13:30
When they recovered his body, they and I got a call.
13:34
It was like 9 or 10:00 at night. I was in the nursery
13:37
breastfeeding my son. My husband had actually gotten
13:42
on a plane that afternoon and was in flight at the time.
13:46
He was flying out to Arizona to join the search.
13:49
Because, you know, he was like, I know, you know, like, I can
13:52
find him. I want to, I want to help.
13:53
Like he just couldn't stand sitting at home anymore while he
13:56
was still lost. And so I took the phone call
14:01
and, you know, they told me, hey, we've, we've found John's
14:04
remains. He was at the bottom of the
14:06
Grand Canyon. He had ridden his motorcycle
14:09
over the edge is what had happened.
14:11
And so, you know, I took that call, hung up the phone, had to
14:15
put my newborn back in his crib and then walk next door to my
14:19
spare bedroom and wake up my parents and tell them that their
14:22
only son was dead. So that's kind of how all that
14:26
unfolded. Wow.
14:29
First of all, I'm so sorry that you guys had to go through that
14:32
because I mean to go through it privately, but then also
14:37
publicly and you don't have to go through all of the things
14:42
that you guys went through. I know you said he sent you an
14:45
e-mail. Was there any other clues?
14:48
Like did he say anything else? No, no, that's why it was so.
14:52
And I use the term manic again, I'm not a licensed psychiatrist.
14:56
He had no diagnosis, but it just there was a lot of grandiosity
15:01
in there. Just a lot of, you know, just
15:04
really bizarre stuff, which wasn't that uncommon for my
15:08
brother. Like, you know, it kind of read
15:10
like of course he said that. Of course he did, you know what
15:13
I mean? But like I said, he just said he
15:15
was going skydiving at the Grand Canyon.
15:17
And so like I had still, you know, I sit and I can go in
15:21
these spirals. Well, I'm like, was he planning
15:23
to do this? And he think of this like, did
15:25
he think he was going to go skydiving the next day and just
15:27
not pull the cord? Like, was that his plan
15:29
initially? Like so many things, right?
15:31
And that's the thing about when you lose a loved one to suicide,
15:35
you can so easily get stuck in the grief portion of, of the
15:39
questions like why and how and how didn't we see it coming and
15:43
why, you know, like all the things you can really get stuck
15:47
there for a long time and you eventually just have to settle
15:50
on like, I'm never going to get those answers.
15:54
In fact, my OB of all people gave me the best advice in that
15:59
season when I was stuck there. I had gone in for my six week
16:02
postpartum checkup and you know, he's asking me all the routine
16:05
questions to figure out if I was struggling with, with PPD with
16:08
postpartum depression. And I just said real bluntly to
16:10
him, I'm like, look, dude, like I don't know if I what I'm going
16:14
through is postpartum depression or just regular, my brother just
16:17
killed himself depression. But like lying, OK, like, you
16:21
know, like I'm certainly not normal right now.
16:24
Like this is like I'm like I'm what I'm carrying and what I'm
16:28
having a process and what I'm going through is not good.
16:31
And you know, and so I told him, you know, just how stuck I was
16:35
in the, all the, you know, why did he do it?
16:39
And why did he do it when he did it?
16:40
And, and did he mean to do it? Was it a mistake?
16:43
Did he choose last minute? Did he have it all planned out
16:45
like all those questions? And again, you know, the guilt
16:49
of how did I not see it? What could I have done
16:51
differently and what could I have done to help?
16:53
Could I have stopped it? And, and he just looked at me
16:56
and he said, you're never going to understand rationally as a
17:01
rational thinking person, you're never going to understand why
17:04
someone commits suicide because a rational thinking person
17:08
doesn't commit suicide. Their brain isn't working
17:12
rationally at the time. And it was just so like, freeing
17:16
for me to hear that because it kind of took the pressure off
17:19
like, oh, yeah, like, I don't have to figure this out.
17:21
And in fact, I can't. And so you just have to rest and
17:25
settle in that, which is really hard.
17:27
And like I said, you still cycle back to it.
17:30
And I think you always will. But you can go back to that
17:33
reassurance of like, oh, this isn't for me to understand
17:35
actually, this side of heaven, at least.
17:38
And I found out, you know, he was speaking from experience.
17:41
My OB had just lost his brother to suicide about 18 months
17:44
before mine. Wow.
17:46
Well, thank you for so much again for sharing this story
17:49
because, you know, mental health and all this stuff, it's so
17:54
prevalent, like it's been more discussed in the last five years
17:58
than in generations before. Yeah, which is so good.
18:03
Yeah, and COVID started that. And so even if we say that COVID
18:08
sucked, which it did, the whole situation was stupid and it
18:11
sucked and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
18:13
But the thing that came out of it was these mental health
18:15
discussions and the fact that they need to happen.
18:19
Now, You know, I always say the Big C church, not the little C
18:23
churches, but the Big C church still has a long way to go when
18:26
it comes to mental health discussions because I am from a
18:32
medical background and I do have a psychology degree, even though
18:35
I did nothing with it. It's hanging somewhere.
18:37
But just the fact that it's not something that you can see most
18:41
of the time, it's not something you can see.
18:43
It's something that's going on inside someone's mind.
18:45
And I've had suicidal ideations in the past when I was younger
18:49
and then also back in 2014. And you know, and it's a scary
18:55
place to be. It really is.
18:57
It's a really scary place to be that you're literally thinking
19:00
about, you know, all I have to do is do this and then it's
19:03
over. And then I don't have to deal
19:04
with this anymore. I don't have to suffer anymore.
19:06
I don't have to deal with that. It's such a scary place to be.
19:09
And my husband's lost several people to suicide and his
19:13
family. And I know so many other people
19:16
who have as well. And it's just, it is one of
19:19
those things that you, as the family left behind.
19:22
You do wonder if there was anything you could have done.
19:25
You wonder if there was something that you missed.
19:27
And most of the time there's not because people, you know, the
19:31
ones who literally make that decision and they just decide to
19:35
do it. A lot of times they don't give
19:37
any precursors. They don't give any pre anything
19:42
and it just happens and you're left behind going, I don't
19:45
understand, right? But I said I'm I'm so glad that
19:49
you're putting this out there, that you're talking about it
19:54
from your point of view as the sister and also that you were in
19:58
a bad situation because you had just had a baby.
20:00
So yeah, how do you process all of that?
20:03
It was, I mean it was literally bananas.
20:07
So on the four year anniversary, so it's been just over 5 years
20:11
now and I've been journaling about the loss since before they
20:15
even found my brother's body. That is a good bulk of the next
20:20
book is my grief journals. And and that's why I compare it
20:24
to the grief observed. Because a grief observed is, is
20:27
literally just CS OS's grief journals after losing his wife,
20:31
thrown up in for the world to read unfiltered, unedited,
20:34
unannotated, like it's just his raw thoughts and, and reactions
20:38
and, and emotions. And so that's a bulk of this
20:41
book as well as those journals that I kept.
20:43
And on the four year anniversary, I sat down and I
20:49
went back and I looked at that grief journal I was also
20:54
keeping, you know, like a new motherhood journal, like I was a
20:57
first time mom. This is supposed to be like the
20:59
sweetest most precious time of my life and I was keeping a
21:03
journal of all the firsts and the experiences and all the
21:05
things that were just overwhelming me.
21:07
Then my my son was a really really really hard baby.
21:11
He had some struggles with tongue ties and lip ties and and
21:15
breastfeeding and he wasn't getting enough milk even though
21:17
I was nursing him for 8 literal hours a day.
21:20
Wow. And he just cried and screamed a
21:23
lot because he was so uncomfortable.
21:25
He had reflux issues. And so before my brother died, I
21:29
was already like weeping in the nursery to my husband.
21:33
Like, I don't think I can do this.
21:35
I don't think I can handle this. And then literally my brother
21:39
goes missing and then has committed suicide.
21:42
And then or we weren't certain. Like while he was missing, I
21:46
found out he was under investigation by the FBI.
21:48
And so like, all of that piece is in there.
21:50
Like it, it was reads like fiction, like I said, like it
21:55
was so bananas. And so I sat down and I looked
21:58
at that grief journal and I looked at my calendar at that
22:01
time and I just saw like all the other things that were going on
22:04
in my life, you know, OT appointments for my son and
22:06
follow up pediatric appointments to, you know, be we were really
22:09
closely tracking his weight and all those things.
22:11
And, and you know, that's overwhelming enough as a, as a
22:15
new mom. And then also, like I said, my
22:18
dad was already diagnosed with dementia at that time.
22:22
And so I was keeping a separate grief journal for losing my dad
22:26
and the things that I was noticing then and going through
22:28
and processing then. And so like, I kind of went back
22:31
and read all of those things side by side and I looked at my
22:34
calendar and I looked through my photos.
22:38
So it was like, OK, while I'm on the phone with the FBI talking
22:42
about whatever with my brother, I also had like pictures on my
22:47
phone of like my son's poop because poop color and
22:50
consistency and frequency is like all of your life the other
22:56
three weeks. And so it's like, like, how like
22:59
I even sat in that moment. Like how in the world did I
23:04
handle all of that going on simultaneously?
23:09
And it was like this very sweet and gentle way that I felt like
23:13
the Lord was leading me to sit with that version of myself,
23:17
like that girl in that moment, to sit with her and just offer
23:21
her so much empathy and so much compassion and just kind of go
23:26
back and hold her and say, like, girl, it was too much for one
23:30
person to hold at one time. And I'm sorry you had to go
23:33
through that. And it was this very beautiful
23:36
journaling exercise that I did. So I don't have the answers for
23:40
you and how I processed all of it or handled all of it except
23:43
for Jesus. Right, right.
23:46
Well, he took you through that process and he took you through
23:48
the journaling and you talk about journaling.
23:50
And I mean, I, I don't do it as much as I want to, but I, I'm a
23:54
huge proponent of writing things down because we are forgetful
23:59
people. And especially when you get to
24:01
be our age, if you don't write it down, you forget like.
24:05
#Perimenopause. Right, right.
24:07
And I'll just go further and just say menopause period
24:09
because I'm full blown. So it's just, it is what it is.
24:14
But you know, I think the one thing that we can take from your
24:19
story is hope and the fact that even in the midst of all of that
24:26
and looking back and you might not have felt it at that exact
24:29
time, but hope is a big thing. So can you speak to the hope And
24:34
also what God has taught you? You started talking about it a
24:38
little bit, but what God has used your story to do?
24:42
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I haven't talked about that a
24:45
lot, you know, just so far in our discussion.
24:47
But like, you can't overlook or overstate that part of the
24:51
story, right? And that's woven all throughout
24:54
my book is all of the ways that I saw God move that he showed
24:59
up, the ways that he healed me or the the places and the points
25:03
and the processes that he took me to and through for different
25:07
levels of healing, right? So grief is a universal
25:09
experience. We're all going to lose things
25:11
and people and opportunities. And, you know, it's all grief.
25:14
And, you know, it's not time that heals grief.
25:18
It's what you do with that time and who you turn to in that
25:21
time. And you know, it it it's not
25:24
unknown. It's not new information that
25:27
grief heals in layers, right? It's healing an onion.
25:31
You know, you peel back one layer and you think, Oh yeah,
25:33
well, you know, I'm getting better.
25:34
And then Nope, there's just more layers.
25:36
And so the most beautiful thing, if I just kind of sum up a
25:40
30,000 foot view of how I saw God work in this is he was so
25:47
incredibly gentle and kind in that he didn't make me face
25:54
everything all at once. Because like I said, with any
25:57
grief, it's a lot to process. And you're going to process it
26:00
in layers and you're going to heal a little by little.
26:02
When you add traumatic grief on top of that sudden loss, suicide
26:07
loss, and also postpartum and also dementia loss layered in
26:12
that and also, you know, all the other things, then you can't
26:17
possibly face that all at once. Like your nervous system can't
26:21
handle it, right? And that's a protective
26:23
mechanism. Like that's why shock exists in
26:26
grief because your mind says, Nope, can't handle it and just
26:29
shuts off and lets you get through until you can stop and
26:33
kind of peek into it a little bit and then it'll kind of close
26:36
off again. And that is the way that God
26:39
designed our bodies to protect us.
26:40
And so it was so beautiful in that.
26:43
And I said it over and over and over again.
26:45
It's like, oh man, that was a healing I didn't know that I
26:48
needed. Like he took me to this place.
26:50
He had me have this experience. He had me read this in a book.
26:53
He had me hear this. Speaker And that was a healing I
26:55
didn't even know I needed. So like, even things that, you
27:00
know, I could be looking at the situation, thinking like, well,
27:02
I need to fix this. And he's going actually like,
27:06
we're going to just work on this little part over here. 1st And
27:08
and there's this little piece of your heart that you don't even
27:11
know is damaged right now. And I want to seal that up
27:14
before we go on to something else.
27:17
And just seeing that I really did.
27:19
I saw it in real time, but then especially stopping and look,
27:23
thinking back, it was just so overwhelmingly beautiful.
27:27
It was the first time that I kind of saw it all.
27:30
I was sitting and having coffee with a friend and I just started
27:32
weeping as I was explaining it to her.
27:34
And then the other really beautiful part that I like to
27:38
talk about is in my first book, I tell this story and I talked
27:42
about at the beginning when I went to my divorce, I was so mad
27:45
and angry at God for letting that happen to me, for letting
27:48
me go through that, all of the things.
27:50
And I obviously I completely understand why and how people
27:55
have that reaction when they lose people.
27:57
Yeah, right. When they have a loss, when they
28:00
go through grief, that's a very normal and natural response and
28:03
God can handle it. This time when I lost my
28:05
brother, instead of turning away from God and being angry at him
28:11
or being offended by him or because I learned like that
28:14
doesn't do any good, I've been there, done that, and it wasn't
28:17
helpful. And actually, he's not the one
28:20
to blame. And so this time when I
28:23
experienced what I say is this hurricane of grief coming and
28:28
just flattening my house, instead of turning away from
28:30
God, I turned toward him. And what I found was just this
28:34
really incredible friend who, and again, like, I don't think
28:40
that you just get there. Like this is somebody that I've
28:42
built a relationship with for 16 years and he has proven himself
28:46
that he's proven his reliability and his faithfulness and his
28:49
consistency. And so it was easy almost for me
28:53
to turn to him. And what I found was he was the
28:56
most incredible friend that just sat with me and wept with me.
29:01
And, you know, his heart was broken too, about my brother and
29:05
about what my brother put us all through.
29:07
You know, he didn't want any of that for any of us either.
29:10
And he was just so gentle and kind and consistent and solid
29:17
for me to to just go and, and hide in the shelter of his
29:21
wings, to use a real churchy term.
29:23
But literally that's what it felt like.
29:24
It felt like being sheltered by him and just held by him.
29:30
And I don't know how people go through things this traumatic
29:37
and extreme in life without that.
29:40
Like I just don't understand how you survive it.
29:43
Yeah, absolutely. So what would you say to the
29:47
person who is new to this? Like literally this just
29:52
happened to them and they are on the struggle bus, which we would
29:59
all be, but what do you say to them right now?
30:03
Yeah, kind of the first thing that God whispered to me in my
30:07
grief was to be gentle and patient with myself, full of
30:11
grace and patient with myself because I was about 6 months out
30:16
from my loss and I was just beating myself up.
30:22
Like it has been six whole months.
30:24
Like I should be over this by now.
30:26
Like this should still not be affecting me this much, you
30:28
know? Like I was such like a performer
30:30
and a doer and task oriented and I was decimated.
30:34
Like I couldn't like do a task in a day.
30:37
Like I was so knocked off kilter.
30:41
The way that I described losing a loved one to suicide is it's
30:44
literally like having an emotional atom bomb let off in
30:48
your life. And so just use that mental
30:50
image for like what the landscape of your interior life
30:56
is going to look like for a good long while.
30:58
And I don't mean months or even years.
31:01
Like it's decimating. And so at six months, which it
31:05
like makes me laugh now because it was six months is such a
31:08
laughably short amount of time for any grief, but especially
31:11
one like that. And he just whispered that to
31:14
me. He said you've got to be
31:15
patient, full of grace for yourself.
31:17
And I knew it was him saying that to me because that is not a
31:21
thought that I would have had myself, like at all.
31:25
That's not how I would have talked to myself.
31:26
And so that's my advice. Just know like what you
31:31
experience is like, it is as bad and as hard as you think that it
31:36
is. And it's going to suck for a
31:38
long time. Literally like this last week, I
31:40
read an article or something in a book, I don't remember, but
31:44
something about how like three to five years is when someone
31:50
who's experienced a suicide loss like starts coming out of like
31:56
the traumatic, disorienting, mentally disabling part of their
32:02
grief. Like it's that long to just get
32:05
out of like that initial. I can't even function day-to-day
32:08
normally. And then you still have the rest
32:11
of your life to be unraveling the rest.
32:13
But like, it's going to be a minute.
32:16
And so like, it's OK that you're not OK yet.
32:20
Don't beat yourself up about that.
32:22
Lean into your grief. Your grief is your friend.
32:25
It's not the enemy. And by leaning into it and
32:30
listening to it and sitting with it and what it wants to say to
32:34
you on any given day or any given season is the only way
32:37
that you're going to get through it.
32:39
If you ignore it or try to like stuff it away or like, I can't
32:42
hear about that or it's just going to come back around
32:44
another time. So like, you're only saving
32:47
yourself time by being like, OK, time out.
32:50
Let me go be by myself for a little bit today for a couple
32:53
hours with a journal in my hand and sit and figure out what the
32:56
heck is going on inside of me. Like, why does life feel so hard
32:59
right now? Why does it feel like I can't
33:02
even think? Why am I only crying?
33:03
Like why? Why does everything make me cry?
33:05
Things that shouldn't make me cry?
33:07
What is going on that my grief is wanting to show me and speak
33:11
to me today? And again, like it's not a
33:14
one-size-fits-all formula. This is what worked for me and
33:17
this is how God led me through my grief.
33:21
But I'm going to tell you it worked for me.
33:23
So if you don't have any other ideas, start there and try that.
33:26
Yeah, absolutely. And we always talk on the
33:28
podcast about seeking counseling, if medication is
33:32
something you need for a time to get through or for the rest of
33:37
your life, it's OK because these things are in your life for a
33:41
reason. And you have to have an outlet
33:44
to get it out. You have to.
33:46
And So what that looks like for you is going to be, like you
33:50
said, it's very individualized as to how that's going to look.
33:54
But take it to God and see what he does with it and see what
33:59
direction he wants you to go. Yeah, so.
34:02
Yeah, it was right around like 9 or 10 months was when I started
34:07
going to therapy for the first time.
34:08
And the reason I started going was because I was literally
34:11
afraid of myself when I say I was angry, like angry doesn't
34:15
even begin to encompass. Like I was completely filled
34:18
from head to toe with rage, like with the biggest capital R, like
34:23
all caps rage. In fact, just because this felt
34:27
like, you know, my brother already had made all of these
34:30
decisions in his life that negatively impacted my family
34:33
and cost my parents a lot of money and all the things.
34:35
And it was just really, really hard to be in relationship with
34:38
him and, and be in life with him.
34:42
And this felt like just one more thing that he had thrown on that
34:46
fire of like, of course, that's been the way that you went out
34:49
that you put all of this through this.
34:50
And, and so I was so mad at him and I couldn't get past that.
34:57
And, and anger is absolutely a normal, totally expected part of
35:03
any grief. Totally normal that you feel
35:05
that right In suicide laws specifically, that is almost
35:09
always heightened and elevated and elongated.
35:12
Also totally normal. Don't beat yourself up if that's
35:14
where you are. For me, like I said, it got to
35:17
the point that I was afraid of myself, of how boiling I was at
35:22
all of the time, how anything would set me off and make me
35:25
react. You know, I didn't like the way
35:27
that I was as a mother. I didn't like the way that I was
35:30
as a wife, as a human. It felt very out of control.
35:35
And so I called a therapy practice and I just told them
35:39
that. And I said, you know, I'm afraid
35:41
I don't know how to get this under control and I need help.
35:44
And the intake counselor that I was speaking with, his response
35:47
to me was, I'm so proud of you for doing this for yourself.
35:51
And I started weeping like I didn't know a random stranger
35:53
that I'm spending 10 minutes on the phone with it.
35:55
Because again, you know, my thought process was kind of
35:58
like, why can't I handle this better?
36:00
Like, why am I not able to handle this myself?
36:03
And I should be able to do this and this shouldn't be affecting
36:07
me like this. And goodness, as a Christian,
36:11
like I'm not allowed to be this angry, right?
36:14
I mean, all the thing, all the shame, all the voices, all the
36:16
lies, right? And so for him to like frame it
36:20
like that, like this is something you're doing for
36:23
yourself that is necessary and good and healthy and right.
36:27
Like it was just such a gift, you know, for him to say that to
36:31
me. And so I went to therapy.
36:33
I think I was with that therapist, just specifically
36:36
working through the anger and the rage and moving past that
36:39
for about 6 months. And then I actually end up
36:41
having this a really supernatural experience at a
36:44
conference. That was what finally set me
36:47
free and helped me move past that.
36:49
And again, that was one of those things where like, OK, I'm doing
36:51
the work. I'm doing the things like I'm
36:53
showing up and like doing what I can control to move through
36:56
this, right? And then God was like, and I'm
36:59
going to help you with that. And again, like it was, it was a
37:02
healing. I didn't know I need it.
37:03
I wouldn't have known to ask for that.
37:05
I wasn't seeking it. But he was like, and I'm going
37:08
to show up and I'm going to do this.
37:08
And it was really great. It was really beautiful.
37:10
And then I get to move past the rage.
37:13
And then there are all these other emotions that start
37:15
unfolding. You have to work there.
37:16
It's always layers. It's never done.
37:18
But yeah, therapy for sure. When I got stuck there and was
37:24
afraid was the tool that I needed at that time.
37:27
Yeah, absolutely. And like my friend Stephanie
37:29
says, I've used it so many times.
37:30
You're healed and you're healing.
37:32
That's a part of the layering of everything.
37:34
So, Rachel, thank you so much for trusting us with your story,
37:40
for coming on and sharing. Where can people find you and
37:44
follow you to know exactly when this book is coming out?
37:47
Thank you. Yes, yeah.
37:48
So actually, if you just pop on over to racheldonwrites.com, so
37:54
Rachel Don DAWN and writes like writer WR ites.com, you can sign
38:04
up for my mailing list, a e-mail like twice a month, once a
38:08
month, sometimes every few months when I post new blogs,
38:13
you'll get those those you're kind of like first you get those
38:16
first words. You'll get those in your inbox
38:18
and any news surrounding speaking engagements that I have
38:21
coming up, podcasts that I've been on, and then news about the
38:25
book and where we are in the process and, and launch dates
38:28
and stuff like that. We'll all be in that e-mail
38:31
list. So if you want to go join there,
38:33
that'd be great. And you can see all my blogs
38:35
there and past talks I've done and things like that.
38:37
But I would love to connect with you.
38:40
Absolutely. I will put all of that in
38:41
today's show notes. And again, Rachel, thank you so
38:44
much for coming on today. I know that this story will help
38:47
people to know that there is hope and that just keep going.
38:53
Don't should yourself, don't shame yourself.
38:56
Just walk through the process and trust God and just be
39:01
patient, which is not a virtue for some of us.
39:04
All right, guys, I will talk to you next episode.
39:10
Thank you, Tina. Thank you so much for joining me
39:13
for this episode, the Anchor by the Sore podcast.
39:15
I pray that the story that you heard today will encourage your
39:18
faith, challenge your faith, and also help you as you walk in
39:22
your daily life. If this episode has done that,
39:25
please feel free to leave a five star rating and review wherever
39:29
you listen to this podcast so that others can find it and grow
39:33
as well. Have a blessed week and I'll
39:35
talk to you next episode.