Latest / Groove with Portia / Why “Holding It Together” Can Feel Like Abandonment in Grief

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Why “Holding It Together” Can Feel Like Abandonment in Grief · Groove with Portia

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Guru Portia, the podcast that uncovers the hidden
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: treasures within grief. I'm your host, Portia the producer, and
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: I'm inviting you to join me on a transformative journey
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: where we will exchange laughter, of course, the best medicine
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: of them all. Reflect on cherished memories. Remember that time
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: that the little boy grabbed my hand instead of his
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: mother's at the amusement park?
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Yikes.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: And of course, discover gratitude while navigating one of life's
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: hardest challenges, loss. So get ready to grew with me, Portia,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: the producer. Let's dive in.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: Let's dive in.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Why, hello, everyone, and welcome back to Grew with Portia.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, Portia Booker, and as always, don't forget
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: to like, share, and subscribe to keep up with all
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: things Grew with Portia. So one of the things that
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: I recognized over the last couple of years is that
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: my storytelling gift has always been around me, but I
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: didn't really understand storytelling before. until I had to share
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: my own story. So those of you know, my career
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: path has taken many turns from my TV career to
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: even running grief groups to now hosting Guru at Portia.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: But it really took that pivot from the newsroom, learning
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: all the different techniques of storytelling, and then applying it
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: to my own story to understand what true storytelling looks like.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: So today I have the opportunity to be joined by
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: an incredible woman who also has kind of a similar,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: if you want to call it path, not exactly in
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: the career space, but grief. She is a psychotherapist and
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: also the creator of Advocate to Create. And also before
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: I bring her on, I want to give a special
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: shout out to Noemi Barris for introducing us. So welcome
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: to Guru with Portia, Dr. Patricia Timmerman. Welcome to Guru
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: with Portia. How are you?
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: I'm doing well. Thank you so much for having me.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: How are you doing?
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: You know, every day is great. That ends in why?
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: even when life is taking so many different crazy twists
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: and turns. And Dr. Timmerman, one of the things that
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: I was doing some research on you and I know
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: that you've worked in the suicide space and the trauma space.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: And as I brought up in the beginning about my
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: own story, sometimes when we're working in industries, what we
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: learn on the job doesn't always apply to when we
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: actually have the shoes of experience firsthand on our feet.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: And I'm curious, Dr. Timmerman, for our audience, When Scott,
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: who helped you create Advocate to Create, when he transitioned
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: from suicide, what did personal grief teach you that all
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: of your professional training didn't?
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: So that's interesting, right? Because as you said, I've worked
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: in suicide and I've gone through different areas, right? I've
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: done prevention and intervention because I worked at the 1-800-SUICIDE.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: And then afterwards, I facilitated groups for survivors of suicide loss,
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: transitioning to postvention. Even my dissertation, my study, all of
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: that was towards postvention, which is the grief to suicide grief.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: And so I was maybe facilitating groups for about... a
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: year or so two years when my dear friend I
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: took his life on and I remember that I'll say
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: when and the funny thing about studying is usually when
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: you study grief, there's like a paragraph in a master's,
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: there isn't really much, but because I really dove into
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: it and understanding prominent aspects of suicide grief is, you know,
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: feeling the guilt and the movie of the what if.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: The one thing that I did experience, and I loved
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: when I was with the group that they checked me
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: on it, was that I felt that since my kinship
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: was friendship, I diminished... Not diminished, but I... When speaking
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: with them, I felt that my grief didn't belong. Because
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: it's not... a husband that passed or a wife that passed,
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: a partner, a child, a mother. And I'm dealing with
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: people that lost everybody. And it's funny because when I
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: work with other people and if they lost anyone, being
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: it a friend, it's your loss. But when it was
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: my loss, I remember diminishing it. And one of the
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: things that they checked me on it and they said,
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: it doesn't matter who it was in your life. You
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: are feeling the impact of him not being here. So
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: don't do that. And it was amazing to be able
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: to have that support be reciprocated. I'm not just a facilitator.
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  Speaker 2: I'm also part of this membership that we all wish
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: we were not part of. So being practically in it,
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: not just theoretically in it, but being practically in it
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: as a clinician when I was with them, I feel
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: like I was a lot more well-rounded into what to
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: expect from myself and for myself. being actively in it,
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  Speaker 2: that was, I guess, the most shocking part for me.
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  Speaker 1: And Dr. Timmerman, I'm glad you brought up something that
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  Speaker 1: I think a lot of mental health professionals are too
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: afraid to admit that their grief is tends to get
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: diminished because you're so conditioned to be the helper you're
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: so conditioned to go to everybody else's needs and put
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: yours on the back burner but Scott played a key
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: role in where you are today and It's hard for
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: other people to see that disenfranchised grief because it's not obvious.
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  Speaker 1: It's not a spouse. It's not a kid. And you
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: just disenfranchise.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: Your own grief. Right. No one else is doing it,
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: but you are. Yeah. Yeah.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: And Dr. Timmer and I have the same issue sometimes
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: where I run grief groups. I run the suicide loss
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: group and the parent loss group. And sometimes I felt
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: as though, even though I'm there to facilitate the conversation
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: and keep obviously the participants in a safe container where
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: they're able to speak about what's going on, what's on
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: their heart. Sometimes I have to remind myself, Portia, you're
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: not far from them either. You have your own grief
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: to share.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. And if nothing else, I think it connects us more.
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  Speaker 2: Like you're one of us.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I remember when I facilitated, there was a question
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: that I asked. This was before officially joining the membership. Yeah.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: I asked them the difference, like, would you prefer to
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: have somebody who is a survivor of suicide loss run
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: the group or somebody who isn't a survivor, but it
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: is a clinician? And no one really knew who I was, right?
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: Coming to like before I... I would see them and
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: the people who knew me knew me, but the new
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: ones didn't necessarily. But their response was having somebody who
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: is a survivor of suicide loss because you know what
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: it feels like, like you experience it. And they were
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: very shocked when I told them that up to that point,
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: I wasn't. And one of the things that we talked
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: about was, you know, in facilitating groups and in running groups,
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: you know, There is a type of empathy or understanding
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: that you don't know. And as a clinician, you're going
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: to learn here. You're not there to teach. You're there
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: to learn and to disperse the information that you've learned, right?
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  Speaker 2: My role is to make sure that instead of focusing
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: on the content, which is what happened, focus on the process.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: How have you been doing since it happened? Right. And
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  Speaker 2: so as the facilitator, you're just making sure that if
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: somebody is too focused on one thing that's not serving
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: the other person, how can we, you know, like shift
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: the conversation a little bit to not be so focused
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: in the content? But the majority of it is me
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: learning from them, from myself even. So I don't know
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: how come I went to that.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: No, but that's a key. That's a key part, though, Dr. Timmerman,
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: because I think a lot of times when people are
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: obviously in grief, you want someone who has the experience, right?
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of stigma around the disconnection of some
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: mental health professionals when it comes to experience with whether
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: it's grief, loss. All the above. So and and I
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: don't want to dive too much into that today. But
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: I think that's that's a key point that you brought
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: up because a lot of people feel that way.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 1: They feel how can you honor my grief when you've
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: never walked the path?
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  Speaker 2: And so being able to like be there to learn
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: and then express like I work with suicide grief a lot.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: I work with grief and we talk about the difference
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: between expected, unexpected, complicated or now prolonged, however we want
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: to kind of call it. And so like I think
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: providing a lot of the times it's funny, I just
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: had a client yesterday with suicide grief. was entering the
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: second year. And I said, based on my experience, I
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: noticed the first year is surreal. You're living in a haze.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: You live in the day that it happened or the
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: days right before it. And today, because you've got to
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: live in the today, but then you're often there until
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: you're brought back here. The second year is harder because
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: the second year you're no longer necessarily in the haze,
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: but you're in a reality that you did not choose,
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: nor do you like. There I say you hate this reality.
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  Speaker 2: The third year, it seems like I'm adjusting to it.
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  Speaker 2: I don't necessarily like it, but I am adjusting to
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: understanding that there is a life after their death. And
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: my client will say, you know, I am noticing that
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  Speaker 2: it is harder. I'm noticing that like sometimes I'm laughing
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  Speaker 2: because my automatic self that like just knew her way
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: will make a joke. But my internal self is like,
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: how are you laughing right now? And there is this
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: dissociation of like, who am I? As you're trying to
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: figure out, like I am is a relationship between the
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: person that always existed and the grieving person. And how
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: the two of them live in the same world. And
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: one of the things that, which kind of goes back
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: to a point that you made, the taboo of it,
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: it was, are people thinking I'm fake? Do they see
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: me in that light? And sometimes we may experience judgment,
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: but sometimes we are projecting judgment, even though we're not
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: experiencing it.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: You're right, Dr. Timmerman, because grief takes so many different
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: forms of expression. For some people, it is laughing. For some,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: it is sarcasm. You hit the nail on the head
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  Speaker 1: about the feelings throughout the years. The first year, yeah.
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  Speaker 1: You're wondering, did I just walk into Armageddon? What kind
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: of bad movie script did I just get handed and
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: I have to play the role today? Then the second year,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: you might find your footing. You might feel some, but
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: you're still kind of in between the haze and the reality.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: And then the third year is, It can vary where
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: you may reach that point of, I can't believe this
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: has happened. I can share, Dr. Timmerman, for me, this
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: is the fourth year that my mom has transitioned. And
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: I remember the first year, it was horrible. The holidays
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: were no. My birthday, everything was just the waterwork show.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: And I was numb. I couldn't believe what I just
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: went through. I couldn't believe that I just watched you leave.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: Second year, it was still the in-between. In-between some feeling,
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: but at the same time, I'm angry. I'm angry that
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: this happened. Third year, I started to find my footing
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: in life again, where I'm like, okay, I can laugh now.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: a little bit at some things, but also still hold
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: that space for if I need to cry.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: So it varies differently for everybody. But you're right about
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: that first year is and even the second and third
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: year can even be hard for a lot of people.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: And what you're saying hits me. I'm about to do
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: a presentation actually on using on communicating through grief. And
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: now I created this communication model that I call the IAP, intention, action, perception.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: And I use it a lot of the times to
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: be able to communicate. So really quick, what the intention, action,
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: perception is. Our intentions are internal to us. Only I
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: know my intention unless I'm really good at verbalizing or
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: the other person knows me so well that I don't
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: really need to say it. Perception is also internal, is
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: internal to the person receiving the action itself, right? The
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: only external thing is the action. So like we were saying,
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: we can breathe differently. In a family, when we've lost
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: the same individual, for example, one person may be very
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: emotional and cry and allow themselves to cry, whereas the
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: other person can't even, I can't even, right? Or the
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: other person dives into work and they are working. So
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: we tend to assume, as per our perception of what
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: the other person is doing, whether or not they are
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: grieving the way that they should be grieving. Or do
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: we connect or do I feel alone because no one
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: else is? Am I the only one experiencing this? So
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: I call it individual and then familial, right? We grieve
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: individually and we grieve together. I love the question, what
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: do I need from you to give you what you need?
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: So using that with one of my clients, when we
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: talked about the IAP, I expressed like, what would you
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: like from your partner, right? We lost our child. What
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: would you like from your partners? Like, it seems that
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: my partner is holding it together because he believes that
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: if he doesn't, I'm going to break, right? His intention
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: is to be a pillar for me. But what I'm
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: receiving is that I'm alone in our grief. Right. So
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: to be able to express like. Please break down with
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: me like I need to know that. We are in
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: here together because I'm receiving it as if I'm alone.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: And in response, if what you are needing is to
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: not break down frequently, when we are able to grieve together,
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: I'll give you your space to grieve apart. Does that
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: make sense?
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, 100%. I know exactly what you're saying, Dr. Timmerman,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: because grief, especially suicide loss, I can share really quick
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: that I have a set of friends who lost a
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: sibling by suicide young, and young, bright college student. I mean,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: just had the whole world before him. And When she transitioned,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: I'm very good friends with her parents. And one of
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: the things that came up from her mother was, You know,
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: my husband doesn't say anything. He doesn't want to talk
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: about it where I want to talk about it all
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: the time. And, you know, I listened to her and
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: things like that. But the thing that I understood was
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: that her husband, he had experienced the loss of his
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: brother young by suicide. So for him, it's probably, oh,
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: my goodness, not again.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: Right. And I don't know how old the brother was
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: when he, you know, when he died, if it was
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: an older sibling or younger. But either way, if that
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: was your person growing up, then all of a sudden
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: now you're in this same boat where you probably didn't
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: get the opportunity to grieve back then. Now it's compounded.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: So I 100% know exactly what you're saying, Dr.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: Timmerman. Dr.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: Timmerman, before we continue with the conversation, if our audience
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: wants to connect with you, if they want to get
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: involved with your Advocate to Create, get your books, book
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: you to speak, how can our audience connect with you today?
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: Uh, you can visit our website, which is advocate to create.com.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: The two is, uh, the number two A to C,
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: which is actually a logo that was created with Scott. Um, it's,
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: it's funny. Cause like when I came up with the name,
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: he's like, I don't know if I like it. And
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: then he kind of loved it. And then as I'm
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: at the one 800 suicide, like we're going back and
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: forth about the logo itself. So it means so much
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: to me. So a two C for short with the
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: number two. So again, uh, Advocate to create dot com.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: And there you're going to find information about my book,
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: which talks about the IAP model, how to communicate with
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: me for speaking engagements. If you're in Florida, possibly for
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: a contact our team for therapy services and anything like that. Excellent.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: So for our audience, Advocate to Create. If you forget
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: that I'm the host of this podcast and my guest, Dr.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: Patricia Timmerman, you can also do a search through whether
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: it's chat GPT perplexity to say, what was this show
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: about again? And who are these people? So AI probably
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: has more dirt on us, Dr. Timmerman, than what we realize. Dr. Timmerman,
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: I want to bring up something you brought up earlier.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: You brought up about the questions that people tend to
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: ask when their loved one dies by suicide. Why didn't
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: I see this coming? What is wrong with me? They
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: tend to internalize the grief and take it on themselves.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: And I'm curious, from both a therapist standpoint and someone
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: who's experienced that transition personally, what do you think... we
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: need to do differently when we approach people who say
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: those types of things to not continue to beat themselves up,
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: but also remember to show them that compassion and love.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh, that's a wonderful question. One of the things
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: about suicide grief, I guess the most prevalent is one
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: is that video that never ends of the days of,
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: the days leading to it, to kind of find the
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: missing piece of the puzzle of what happened, right? And
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: because we are rational beings and we need to understand,
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: but there's a piece of the puzzle that's missing, we
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: will either assign blame Or blame ourselves. That's why guilt
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: becomes such, again, a prevalent, prominent aspect of suicide grief,
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: because it's our way of trying to understand something that
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: we don't have the answer to. So being able to, one,
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: I guess, understand from a rational standpoint why we do that. Um,
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: I remember once somebody wanted to interview me for, uh,
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: it was a suicide, um, prevention awareness. And the question
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: they asked when it came to my experience was, what
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: did you not see? And I was like, wow, really?
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: That's the question you're asking. And I said, That's not
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: the question because my friend had a mask on as
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: most people do. And I think a source of pride
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: is making sure that you, the person that I love
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: is seeing who I want you to see. Right. And
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: so if you got to see that person that they
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: wanted you to see, How beautiful is that? You didn't
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: see beyond it because it was their pride that you didn't.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: You know, it has, with all due respect, nothing to
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: do with us.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And, you know, men are very different than we are. Men,
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: depending on the age, how they were raised, they're conditioned
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: to put on the 10-man suit where they're not allowed
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: to show emotion. I'll use my uncle as an example.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: My uncle's a Vietnam veteran. So you figure the way
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: he grew up is you got to man up.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: That too. And he's told me many times that the
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: way he was raised, it was reinforced. Boy, get up.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: Dust yourself off. You can't cry. You can't show certain
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: emotions because then you're going to be looked at as weak.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: And even we as women, we beat ourselves up too
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: about it as well. And tears, especially for men, because
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: I often get a lot of men, Dr. Timmerman, who
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: come to me who've experienced a transition in their life.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: And I feel honored that they feel safe enough to
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: confide in me. Because I know that's not easy as
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: a man to let your guard down when you're hurting.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: When something has literally hit you so hard that the
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: only thing you can do is cry. Whether those are
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: physical tears or you're yelling. whatever it might be. I'm
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: just glad I can be here to be that life
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: jacket of support for you that you may have never had. Right.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: And it's, you know, I think in our society today, Dr. Timmerman,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: more and more people are becoming vocal about their grief,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: but at the same time, we still have a long
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: way to go as far as accepting a, if you
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: want to call it universal language of Because grief speaks
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: its own language. It's not a mental health crisis. This
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: is a experience in your life.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: We're all going to go through grief. It's just how
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: it happens.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: How we experience it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: Well, Dr. Timmerman, this has been an amazing conversation. And
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: I thank you again for coming on the show. Before
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: we conclude for today, Dr. Timmerman, when I think about
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: your story, you've worked in the grief and trauma field.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: You've also experienced your own loss through suicide with Scott.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: You've also created this advocate to create. You've also experienced
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: different levels of changes such as immigration in your life,
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: kind of losing your voice type of thing. I'm curious, Dr. Timmerman,
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: after all these different forms of loss and reinvention, what
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: does finding your groove mean to you now?
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: Building upon it is using my past to forge my
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: future as opposed to an obstacle to it, right? Being
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: able to talk about it, talk about having lost my
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: voice as opposed to being scared to speak about it
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: or shy away from it or feeling embarrassed is using
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: my past to educate my future and forge it as
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: opposed to incarcerate myself in it.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. And so many of us, we become a prisoner
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: by just our environment, by the doors that close, right?
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: I tend to say, Dr. Timmerman, that what if grief
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: is not what we think? What if grief really is
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: giving us that door of opportunity to redirect that love
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: energy that we're putting into a job that we were hating?
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: a relationship that ended because of different circumstances, being relocated
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: because there's war where we are. What if that's the
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: opportunity for us to shift that love energy back to
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: us to reinvent who we are and transform?
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, I absolutely agree, right? Grief changes our world.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: The normal that existed no longer exists now, which requires
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: us to then look deeper and into ourselves and who
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: we are and what we're doing with our time here. Yeah.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: And your grief is personal. That's the one thing I
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: will say. You get to grieve on your own terms.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: You get to choose how it looks because one of
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: the things I did, Dr. Timmerman, some people know this
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: story that the day that my mom made her transition,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: I said to her, ma, make sure you come visit me.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: Let me know that you made it where you're supposed
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: to go. And sure enough, Three days after she transitioned,
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: a monarch butterfly was flying in my front yard. And
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: that's how I knew. I said, you know what? There's
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: something here. There's something definitely here to say about grief
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: and opening up and being in that space of both
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: bittersweetness and beauty.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: Thank you. Well, everybody, that was Dr. Patricia Timmerman that
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: you heard from today on Grew Up Portia. And that
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: concludes our conversation. And until next time, everybody, peace and
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: hair grease, everyone.