Shownotes Transcript
Hi guys, it's Nora. If you like what we've done here on Terrible Thanks for Asking, you might want to check out our YouTube channel. We have two new videos going up every week over at youtube.com slash at feelings and co that's feelings and co there's a link to it in our show description. So see over on YouTube, if that's what you're into, what a sales gal I am.
It's time to live your life and dream in American Eagle. We've got everything you need for everywhere you want to be. This spring at AE, we're going wild for bold prints, utility-inspired looks, and can't-miss camo prints. Plus, don't miss your fave jeans now reimagined in tensile fibers for max comfort without losing that authentic jean look. Visit AE.com to shop online or shop in store. Um, how are you?
Most of us say fine or good, but obviously it's not always fine, and sometimes it's not even that good. This is a podcast that gives people the space to be honest about how they really feel. It's a place to talk about life, the good, the bad, the awkward, the complicated. I'm Nora McInerney, and this is Thanks for Asking. When you think about grief, what do you think about?
I'll go first. Crying, tissues, confusion, anger. Anger, yeah, anger. It's not pleasant to feel. It's not pleasant to experience. It is not pleasant to be on the receiving end of, but it is a very real part of the grief experience. And today we're going to talk about it.
If you ask anybody about grief, chances are they are going to reference the five stages of grief. They might not be able to name all of them, but they'll have a vague idea of what they are. Denial, bargaining, anger, depression, acceptance,
The five stages of grief originated with the psychologist Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. She published a book in 1969 called On Death and Dying. And this was focused on the experiences of dying patients, not of the loved ones that they left behind. But in the 50-some years since that book was published, the five stages of grief have become a key part of our understanding of grief, even if
I think we fundamentally misunderstood who she was talking about. And even if those five stages of grief have been challenged over the years, and rightfully so,
Professionals have challenged the linear nature of how the five stages of grief were presented, that five stages is overly simplistic when grief and death are nuanced and complicated, and that the five stages of grief aren't necessarily universal.
The stages aren't laws of nature, in other words. You might not go through all of them. You probably won't go through them in any sort of specific order. In my experience, people go through a lot of phases in multiple times, kind of willy-nilly. Grief is not a straight line. It is a tangly web. But that said, if you have gone,
through the anger stage of grief, or if you are in it right now, it feels horrible. I don't think there's a part of grief that feels particularly fantastic, but grief has to be
One of the worst stages. I mean, I guess I'm not a fan of any of the – acceptance is nice, I suppose, but anger is not. Anger is not fun for anybody. Nobody likes to be around an angry person. Nobody likes to be an angry person.
People understand sadness when you are grieving. If you are crying, they're like, I get it. This person is grieving. They can feel sad. When you are an angry grieving person, that's harder. That's harder for people to understand. It's harder for people to deal with. And I get it.
anger is uncomfortable. It is scary. And like any difficult emotion in American culture, we don't like it. And we'd like you to get over it, get out of it and get on with it. But not today, not here at least. Today, we are talking about grief and anger. When it comes to grief and anger, I promise you, it is not just you.
I got some great messages from listeners who wanted to share their stories of grief rage. I'm going to read this first one. My mom died four-ish years ago, and while I was devastated and still am, I think I handled the sadness pretty well. However, what I did not handle well and did not expect was how angry I was. I knew that anger was a stage of grief, but I've never felt rage the way I felt after losing my mom.
I was angry about specific things and angry in general. My sister was pregnant with her first child and my mom's first grandchild while my mom was fighting cancer. She was so excited to be a grandmother. She specifically told her doctor, "My daughter is having a baby in January and I need to be there. When she died, my sister was six months pregnant and I could not deal with this blatant injustice."
One day, my sister's mother-in-law called and they talked on speakerphone. She was talking about the baby and how excited she was for the birth. I was livid. It made me so angry I had to leave the apartment and take a walk. How dare she be excited when my mom missed her chance to be a grandma? This is irrational, of course. She would have been the best grandma. I was so angry about everything she would miss out on, but this was the worst. Throughout the first year after her death, I was just angry all the time.
I wanted to hit something. I fantasized about going to a batting cage or one of those rooms where you destroy things. But I couldn't do those things during COVID. Ugh. God, seriously. I was so consumed with anger about how unfair it all was. She deserved to be here. After a while, the rage just dissipated. I still don't know if I ever dealt with it correctly or what it did to me inside. I just know that it's mostly gone and I'm mostly fine now.
I love this message. Of course you would be mad that your mom didn't get to be a grandma. It's never the horrible people we know who die too soon. It's always like the decent ones, the real good ones. And of all the things that happened during COVID, I don't think we've even scratched the surface of how that grief affected us on a large scale and also how it affected people individually. To lose somebody and not be able to
to commune with people, to not even be able to go to a rage room because there's COVID. I felt grief rage before there were rage rooms or at least before I knew about them. And I used to just like go down to the train tracks and break glass bottles. I don't know if that's a good thing. I don't know if that's even legal, but I did it. I'm pretty sure the statute of limitations is up. So I guess come for me. I've got a few voicemails too. Let's see if I can figure this out. Let's see if I can figure out how to play a voicemail. Okay, here we go.
So I saw on Instagram a post that Nora posted about anger, rage for grief. And mine would be when my sister passed away unexpectedly. There was a lot of family drama with it. And something in my culture is buying life insurance for family members or people you know as victims.
kind of an investment, not really a, oh my gosh, what if someone happens kind of way. But I remember my sister passed away. Literally, that's all that everybody cared about to ask me instead of asking me if I was okay. It was always, how much money did your parents give from your sister since she wasn't married? How much money did she get?
for her life insurance from work? Did your parents have their own policy on her and so on? And I remember one day I was somewhere and I saw this lady that knows my parents and
I felt bad. I feel bad thinking about it now, but at the time I was so deep in my grief and there was so much drama going on with my sisters passing away and people constantly asking this question. And then the lady asked me, how much money did your parents get? And I literally just napped. I got so angry and I just looked at her.
And I just said to her in the most stern voice that I had, I just told her, I don't know if you want to know, go ask my parents because that's none of my business or yours. And then I just walked away. I just want to pause here because that's still so polite. That's still so polite. And I know this is like a cultural difference. I don't have, as far as I know,
culturally, my family, my friends and family, I don't think we're buying life insurance on each other or asking about that blatantly. So I think you actually were really polite. But I would be also very upset if people were asking me about money instead of asking about the loss of my wonderful, unique, beautiful sister. And then after that happened with her, she went and told a bunch of
people that knew my parents and I just became known as the mean sister. Okay. The mean sister. Okay. I just want you to know that I am on your side with this. And if that makes you the mean sister, I hope these people never meet me because they would be, then they'd know a mean sister.
But I think sometimes that is good to be known as that because it gives people the right to know that they can't ask you certain questions. Because when I was so deep in my grief, those are just the type of questions you don't want to hear. Yeah. Yeah. Those are the questions you don't want to hear. I think that if you are...
grief adjacent. It is so hard to know what to say. Lord knows I have said so many dumb things in my life. They play on a loop in my head every night. I get it. Sometimes you could just write those questions in a journal. I think that's something that we all need to remember. You don't have to ask every question that pops into your mind. You don't need to. And also, if you are afraid that you are being too rude to me and
I feel like I'm running the risk of not just validating, but encouraging your meanness, your anger, whatever. I think this is very justified anger. That is an upsetting thing. But I sometimes ask people, oh, why do you want to know? Because I think they should think about it. Why do you want to know? Why do you want to know? Because I'm sure they're like, look...
Death is stressful. Grief is stressful. Money does tend to make things easier. It does not fix things. Your sister will still be dead, but at least if you're not worrying about money, that might help in some way. But also it's like, it is none of your business. Normalize shutting up, I guess is what I'm saying. Okay, we have one more voicemail. So you wanted rage tales of grief. And one of my favorite stories is
was maybe my mom. My mom died and maybe six weeks later, my, one of my closest friends was having her wedding and I was part of the wedding. I was a bridesmaid and one of our other friends was a bridesmaid with me and we were still grieving her. We were still heartbroken and in shock. And we, we just were at the, the, um, what is it called? The front desk thing, the,
table and we're just stopping talking about my mom and how much we miss her. And this guy later on the, on the dance floor, kind of like smugly, he's a nice guy, but he's smugly. He's like, are you okay? You were crying a lot earlier. And I said, well, yeah, my mom died. And I just loved bringing the rage on the dance floor and seeing his face just drop with
This realization that, oh, God, I should not have brought this up to her. And I felt so smug in that moment and walked away feeling this righteous anger that people have no idea what people are carrying around every day. And he was so sweet. And I felt bad for him. But in the moment, the very funny outburst of rage and grief that I didn't plan for. So, yeah, I love that. He's just like, hey, yeah.
You were crying earlier. You okay? Like normal wedding conversation on the dance floor. And then you're like, my mom died. Yeah, I'm not okay. I'm angry dancing at this wedding. And I'm letting you know that my mom's dead and I hope it ruins the wedding for you. Sometimes you just got to tell people. Sometimes you just got to tell people. And I get it. I get it. I get why you would do this. And also it's
I think it's a good – I think you really – you did that guy a favor. You were like, don't try to dance on a girl at a wedding and ask why she was crying. That's just – that is an odd conversation starter for a wedding reception on the dance floor. Like maybe –
quietly by the bar, fine, maybe one-on-one at a table, sure, on the dance floor while we're, you know, listening to Black Eyed Peas, who are the, they've made all of the wedding reception anthems. That's not the time to ask why I was crying. So you know what? He asked, he got an answer. Don't ask if you don't want to know. And that's what it comes down to.
I'm always here to listen to your stories like this. I love getting voicemails. I love getting text messages. I love getting emails. The phone number 612-568-4441. You can text, you can call. The email is thanks at feelingsand.co. I want to hear more. I want to hear more about your grief, more about your anger, more about really anything you want to tell me.
Searching for a job is stressful and searching for the right person for the job is also stressful. If you are hiring, if you realize that you needed to hire somebody yesterday and you need to find amazing candidates and find them fast, use Indeed. When it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. You can stop struggling to get your job posts seen on other job sites because Indeed's sponsored jobs help you stand out and hired fast.
Sponsored jobs mean that your post jumps to the top of the page for relevant candidates, not just everybody, so you can reach the people you want to reach and reach them faster. And it makes a huge difference. According to Indeed data, sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed have 45% more applications than non-sponsored jobs. And you don't have to worry about monthly subscriptions. There are no long-term contracts. You only pay for results.
Now, how fast is Indeed? In the minute I've been talking to you, 23 hires were made on Indeed worldwide, according to Indeed data. There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com slash TFA. Indeed.com slash TFA.
Go to Indeed.com slash TFA right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash TFA. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need.
Hi guys, it's Nora. If you like what we've done here on Terrible Thanks for Asking, you might want to check out our YouTube channel. We have two new videos going up every week over at youtube.com slash at feelings and co that's feelings and co there's a link to it in our show description. So see over on YouTube, if that's what you're into, what a sales gal I am.
This episode is brought to you by Walmart. New beauty is in bloom at Walmart, and it's all about springtime radiance. From Drybar, Tula Skin Care, and hundreds more available online, Walmart has the premium brands you want and this season's on-trend products for flawless, glossy hair and hydrated skin. Big name beauty brands? Check. The things you love? Check. Find trending spring beauty and all you need to look and feel gorgeous at Walmart on app and online.
Hi, sorry, I just got to turn my phone off quick. You're all good. There we go. Oh, I just got a very urgent text from World Market. 20% off trending gifts. See, that's vital.
Okay. 20% off. Is that a cat or a bunny? It was a cat. Okay. That's okay. That's okay. You're allowed to have a cat. I would be more excited if it were a bunny, but I can accept a cat. Okay. So what's going on? You called about anger. Anger, yeah. But you don't seem super angry right now, but I know that's because our brains are so tricky. Yeah.
Our brains are so tricky. When do you feel the most angry? My brother was an artist. And every time I look, I have his work hung around my house because of course I do. And every time I sit and think about what has been lost,
what, how the systems have all failed him so deeply. And that there will be no more art from Andy is really when I get just enraged and thinking how he could still be here and still be giving and doing. And he's not. Yeah. How old was Andy?
He was 39. He had been struggling and we learn more of this always, like more comes out as you go, right? But that he had been a daily drinker from the time, from like 2014 or thereabouts. And just this cataclysm of horrific events. My stepmother died in 2019. He came home to help out my dad who has Parkinson's disease and
And then the pandemic happened almost immediately. He could not take care of my father because my father was in a worse shape than we realized. And so Andy was alone in the house in Easton, in our hometown, in this house full of terrible memories. And it just spiraled. Yeah, he was young. He was so young. He had so much to give. And...
He tried to get help. He tried so many times. And none of the medical establishment that he had access to because of his Medicaid insurance, because of his pre-existing conditions, because of all of it, yep, allowed him to... The best advice he ever got from any of the doctors was, have you tried AA? Yeah.
Yeah. The minute you mention access systems, insurance, lack of resources, what happens to my blood pressure as it starts to exist? Otherwise, I don't have any blood pressure. I swear to God, my blood just stays put. It's just in my body. The minute you bring that up, that is – I think that kind of anger –
is almost like the hardest to deal with because like there's nowhere to put it because it's an immovable object almost. It's like you running full speed into a brick wall. It's only going to hurt you even though it should hurt them, right? Like it should and it doesn't. And that is so infuriating. And I don't know, what is your experience with that been? Because-
I, you know, I want to write a letter that only a customer service person will read and be deeply emotionally affected by. But yeah, it's so, it's so absolutely horrifying. A lot of it is screaming into the void at the moment because, because what else can you do? Yeah. I, the, the,
We knew he was sick for a long time. He could not possibly be healthy with the rate at which he was drinking and all the rest. But he always refused help because he's always had such negative experiences going to doctors, just generally. And the way his girlfriend was able to finally say, we have to go, was because she promised to take him to a hospital in a nicer part of town.
And I am incredibly fortunate that they were able to be at that better hospital, that he got better care, but you shouldn't receive better care depending on what zip code you're living in. Right. And all of this, especially in light of the election and the way our country appears to be moving forward or backward is all the more infuriating. Yeah.
So, yeah. So what do I do, Nora? Yeah. I don't know what you do. I think it's an appropriate amount of anger too. And no, you shouldn't get better care depending on where you go or what kind of healthcare you have or don't have. And it should not be a privilege. It should not be something that is a...
multi-billion dollar business predicated on the denial of access to some people. And what else can you feel about that other than angry? Yeah. But I don't think you can be angry at yourself. Like that's the part of your note that really affected me. Not just, you know, there's something about having a little sibling and they'll always, I still say little brother. Yeah. Yeah.
My brother's also almost 40, but will always be like my little brother. You know, I still say like my big sister, my big brother. But there's – the anger should not be directed at yourself. You know, you're not – you're also a person who is at the mercy of these huge unfeeling systems, right?
And it's not like the people at the very bottom of it are unfeeling, right? Like there's people that you encounter with it and then where you're like, you know, this isn't good either, but you're stuck in it too, right? Like it just feels like we're all kind of stuck. And if, you know, the last few elections have showed us anything, it's that we've been turned on each other when really like all of our fates are so connected. Like you could very easily be an Andy. You are not going to end up being an Elon Musk.
Like you are much more likely to be an Andy, you know, and to know an Andy and to love an Andy and to lose an Andy. Like that is a tragedy. That is a tragedy, Sarah. Of course. That's like your baby brother. And he tried and you tried and everyone tried and it just wasn't enough. And that's not because you weren't enough. It's because there wasn't enough or there was enough, but not for him. Yeah.
And that I think is also deeply bucked up to know like there is treatment available, right? But it is being like gatekept and locked away. And he is being pushed to, you know, a church basement and a peer support group that works for some people and is not in and of itself enough for everybody. And if it was, then we wouldn't have...
you know, any substance use disorders. If, if the, if the end all be all cure was just in a church basement that anybody could walk into at any point in time, like, I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. Like I would be, I would be screaming at the top of my lungs. And if you want to just rage out right here, I will be here truly. Like, yeah, it's in a world in which like everything has been stacked against. Right. Um,
Yeah. I don't know. Do you let yourself like get angry? Like, do you let yourself like just like I had a therapist once who was like, just, and I was on like zoom with her and she was like, I truly want you to just like scream as much as you can and hit a bunch of shit. And I literally tantrumed like I was two years old and it felt so good. Like I was like, just like throwing myself on the bed over and over and over. And it felt amazing. It felt amazing.
Yeah. I'm a mom to two small kids, one of whom is autistic. And as in a lot of households, I am the end-all be-all to my kids, whether I want to be or not. Yeah. Yeah. So I...
And, you know, working multiple jobs and going back to school and trying to be the emotional support, not just for my kids, but for my brother's widow and dealing with my father, who still has Parkinson's and dementia, which means that sometimes he calls me and says, I saw Andy. I think he feigned his death, Sarah. I saw him. Oh, wow.
Does it – this is going to maybe sound a little fucked up, but like – No. Wouldn't that be kind of nice? I mean, I think dementia is horrifying unless your brain gives you the alternate reality where your son's alive and he just pranked you, you know? Like, isn't that just kind of like a nice dream? What do you say when he says that? Are you like, good, yeah, tell me where you saw him? Or are you like, oh, no, dad. Yeah.
Well, the doctors say, they say, right, to lean in to whatever they're saying so as to not cause upset. Yeah. Which means that when my dad, who lives in an urban nursing home, tells me he saw black bears outside of his window. Yeah.
I go, oh, what were they doing, dad? And he tells me about how the handlers walk around with them. And it's very funny. He just laughs and laughs. So now I'm picturing my father staring out at the window into nothingness, just laughing maniacally, which is great as well. But so I kind of lean in and go, well, where did you see him? And then he told me the last time we talked about it, how my brother was there with his mother and his sister who have also passed. Yeah.
And he's like, I could put my hand right through him. And that's just... And he was calm and he was good. And I'm so happy to let him just sit with that. Yeah. Instead of the times when he tries to remember or wants to talk about when Andy was so angry. When Andy was so angry and would call drunk and screaming. And so we talk about how...
how Andy's painting apparently someplace else now, painting murals. And he's tricking us all. And isn't that good for him? And it's a really lovely image to have. Yeah. And something I really want to lean into, especially because the alternative is the rage. Yeah. Yeah. But also the rage has to be felt too, Sarah. It has to be felt. Like,
And I know there's like really not time to do it though, which is kind of the thing. And you mentioned that too, which is like kind of another layer of anger too is like when do I get to feel something? Because kids are so magical and wonderful and you wanted them so badly, right? It's like when you get pregnant, you're like, oh my God, I like did the most miraculous thing. I can't believe anyone on this earth exists.
Or like my sister is a nurse and we were talking. She's like, I can't believe any of us survive. We're so soft. Our skeletons are inside. What bad design. Like we're just so squishy. Like us versus a car, we lose. You know, like just – but cockroaches –
Skeleton on the outside. Smart. Smart. Hard. Harder to squish. Okay? We're very squishable. And like the kids, there's just so much touching when they're little, which was really – the sensory overload all the time. Like all the time. And like –
If you're looking for a place to like scream, I do suggest a car because it's like a little sensory deprivation chamber. And if you do it, you just scream as loud as you can on the freeway. No one's going to notice. But it's a lot. Like it's so much to be carrying in your body. It really is. It's so much. It's so much. Oh, God.
I wish I could hug you. It just feels like so much. It's so much. It really is. Even one of those things would be enough, but you have all of it layered up. You know? You didn't get resolution with Andy, it sounds like, either. Like, we love these people so much, and you know it's not him. And, you know, it's like, oh, it's not him. It's the disease. But the disease hurt you, too. Yeah. Yeah.
Like a lot. It does that, you know? Yeah. I had a friend who died of cancer and she was very adamant in her, when she was coming to her final days and saying, don't you dare say I fought broke, you know, I fought bravely. I was murdered. I was make sure it says in my obituary, I was murdered by cancer. My brother was murdered by his alcoholism.
Yeah. And by like a whole system too, you know, what would happen when you try to get help? Like, can you tell me a little bit more about that? Like they'd say, Oh, sorry, we just don't take Medicaid. Sorry. We can, we can only treat people who have $40,000 in cash. Right. So, um, part of it was, it was, it's always comorbidities, right? So Andy was deeply depressed. Um,
And which led to his alcoholism and his alcoholism made him depressed. And it was just like vicious circle. There was one point at which he, he almost made it into a treatment facility, but they wouldn't accept him because his blood pressure, like in the intake, his blood pressure was too high. So he went, he had to get moved to just an ER and,
to get that checked out and taken care of. And then he was supposed to independently go back to this facility. And he just refused to. He's like, they're going to lock me up. I can't be locked up. He was, he had so much childhood trauma as well from having an alcoholic father and a narcissistic mother. And just the battle between
He was always trying to find a place for himself and a force for himself and to advocate for himself, even if what he was advocating for was not in his best interests. Because he was going to do it this time and he didn't need anybody else. And he had a plan. He sought out several doctors for medication to help make the... There were different medications to make alcohol ineffective or undesirable. Yeah.
And, um, it wasn't necessarily covered by his insurance or, um, it would require multiple follow-ups, which he didn't have a car. He was deeply depressed to get out of the house to go is a huge undertaking. Um, and, and just continue to spiral. Um,
We had like this beautiful two weeks, the October before he died, where he was sober and he was there and he was my brother again. And he came and made art with my kids and we visited my father and I was so proud of him. This episode is sponsored by Friskies, who would like to tell your cats hi. Now, if that didn't get your cat's attention, there is one thing that always does the trick.
Just pour some Friskies crunchy food in the bowl and you'll hear those paws come running. Works every time. With so many Friskies choices, you can always bring your cats running from their secret napping spots. There's always more to explore. See for yourself at friskies.com or visit your local store.
Hear that? It's Springfest Savings calling your name, only at Lowe's. Right now, get a free Select Ego 56-volt battery when you buy a Select Ego trimmer, blower, or mower. Plus, get your choice of any two bags of Miracle-Gro Organic Soil Mix for only $16. Shop these can't-miss deals in-store or online today. Lowe's. We help. You save. Valid through 4-2. Selection varies by location. While supplies last. Exclude to white.
His girlfriend had to leave town for work and he had convinced himself he couldn't be without it for even a week. It would be too hard without her around. And the time after that he tried again was when he ended up in the hospital. He had such poor experiences with mental health providers when he was young, when our parents were going through the divorce. And he was very literally stuck in the middle between my father and mother that he...
discarded the entire profession because he was also a stubborn jerk and he knew what was best always. But yeah, with his lack of health insurance, he was so limited to what doctors he could go to, what hospitals he could be seen at, what treatments were available to him. And there's no follow-up. The caseworkers aren't there anymore.
And no blame on the caseworkers who are there, right? The entire system is broken. And if somebody had only been able to help that was not a family member who... Who also has no expertise in the, you know, like... And who he wouldn't listen to and who he can immediately discard and deny. Yeah.
Yeah, because you can't do it for him either, you know? Like, even though, you know, it sounds like, too, probably throughout your childhood, that was your role, too. You said that, too. Oh, like, that's my little brother. I have to take care of him. And it's like, well...
your parents were supposed to take care of them. And then, you know, when you grow up, like you do hope that we live in a country and a world and a society and a culture where like we belong to each other and we take care of each other. And you grow up and you realize that's true for some people and not for others. And that care is very selective. And that's
deeply unfair and it should make you angry, Sarah. And honestly, like under all my anger was so much fear and just so much sadness and it had to come out as anger because like the molten hot core of that was just this like deep, deep, deep like sorrow that was too much for me to touch, you know? Like anger at least feels...
I don't know, productive in the way that it's destructive, you know? But like you do have to feel it. Oh my God, why can't I remember her name? Because I'm so tired. That's why. That's why. Edith. Edith Eager. And she's a psychologist that we talked to before and she said what stays inside of you doesn't make you – no. No.
What comes out of you doesn't make you sick. What stays inside of you makes you sick. And so the opposite of depression is expression and like getting it out. So I hope you have a place where you can like actually get it out. I hope you have a therapist who's like, come scream. Come scream as much as you can, which I know is hard because you have two little kids. It's like, who's taking care of you?
It's a plan. There's a plan for the future. Okay. Also, what are you going back to school for? I'm just curious about that. It's neither here nor there, but it's here. No. Yeah. So my undergraduate degree is in music performance. I'm an oboist. Oh, thank you. Yeah. That's so cool. So then I got a master's degree in music and women's and gender studies because I'm a raging feminist. Yeah. But turns out we don't really love...
well, we don't love adjunct professors. We don't love professors that don't have PhDs. We definitely don't want to give them full-time jobs and absolutely no benefits. Oh my God. So the only way I can be hired full-time is if I get a PhD.
But I cannot get a PhD in music in the area in which I'm living because there's just no programs available. So instead, I've decided to go back and like midlife crisis masters in English. Why not? Let's do it. Love it. Love it. So why not?
I spent a part of the semester talking about Virginia Wolf and her dealings with mental health and how the medical system failed her as well. So, yeah. Yeah. Um, I have a book on Sylvia Plath. I'm about to read. Yay. Um, it's called parties, something work. And it's like the story of her, like last year in New York. Yeah. Pain parties work. Yeah. Um, it's been sitting in my like TBR pile for a while. Um,
Anyways, I think your anger is holy. I really do. I think it is. I think it is. And I also think it's okay to just be sad about this too. It's a tragic story. It's a tragic story. Your brother deserved better and you deserve better too. One thing I just have noticed is we're all just big kids. I think...
You start to see that in your parents as they get older too. You're like, oh, that really is all you could do. You did what you could do and I'm doing what I can do. And the hardest thing of it all is the collateral damage is other people always. Yeah. Yeah.
I'm definitely taking you up on your advice and screaming in my car the next time I'm on the freeway. Scream in your car and then go on psychologytoday.com. There's also a new like better help challenger called Alma and it's like a tech company run by women and they do teletherapy. And I've heard good things about them. This is not sponsored, but I've heard good things about them because like, also it's like when you're in this mode too, Sarah, it's like,
You're taking care of kids. You're going back to school. Like all that stuff happened with Andy, but that was like a long, long, long, long road. Your dad is sick. You are in the caregiving sandwich right now too. So you have been in like fight or flight or freeze or fight again for so long that your body is just like in so much stress. Like how would you not feel overwhelmed and angry? Yeah.
And is stuck and overwhelmed. Like, how would you not feel all of these things? So it's like, you're the only person who can like, boop, boop, pause and like, truly try to like carve out like that, like hold like that small amount of 50 minutes for yourself once a week. Yeah.
Oh, God, which is another thing, too. It's like, and I know people have, like, opinions on telehealth, too, but it's like whatever can get somebody access to it, like, it matters, you know? Because, like, a winner, realistically, do you have the time to drive somewhere during the day, spend an hour crying or whatever, and then drive to wherever the kids are and, like, get back into the race? Yeah.
like the relay race of like what having small kids is. No, so do it online, whatever it takes, whatever it takes. But I'm angry with you. I hope everybody's angry. Everybody should be angry at the state of American healthcare and everybody should be angry to the point of, you know, action. Like, cause this is not tenable. This is not sustainable. And everybody is just like somebody else until it's your person, right?
who is, you know, just the getting ground up in the gears of this giant machine. And it's not, it's not just Andy. It's not just your family. I promise you like.
And that is not even comforting, right? Like, oh, no, don't worry. This is happening all day, every day in America. Don't worry. Plenty of people are, like, being turned away and, like, left to their own devices. And, you know, plenty of families are trying to figure out how to manage their father's dementia and their brother's alcoholism. And, you know, like, it's like, yeah. And they shouldn't be. Like, they shouldn't be. Like, you should be able to just go and get help. Like, that is not just, like, oh...
you know, go to a meeting. So I'm sorry, Sarah. I hope that was like vaguely helpful. It was very much so. All right. Thank you for calling your beautiful and your beautiful sister and
mom and daughter and like, oh my God, it's all so much. It's so much. It's so much. Like think about all the people that you are like carrying on your back right now. Like, and it's, it's wonderful to be the MVP of a family. It's also deeply, deeply important.
It's a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot. What are you doing with the rest of your day? What happens after this? I have to finish writing a paper. Let's do it at midnight tonight. Woo. Okay. Yeah. And then I also teach because – Okay. Yeah.
Yeah. No, you can't do it. Yeah. I have a couple of meetings with students to make sure that they are passing their classes. And then I will probably take a nap before the kids come home from school. Yep. Good. Good. Or maybe drive around and scream. That is also an option. Yeah. I think you should do both. Okay. I think you should do both. I think you should like
I mean, do you live in a house or an apartment or what's your situation? I live in a house. We are a connected house. Okay. But I don't think my neighbors are home right now. So screaming at home. I think you should go scream and just like – you know like when your kids like just totally freaking melt down? Like go boneless and then they're just like thrashing too and you're like, what is happening? It's like crazy but it's like – I'm like also like sometimes I've watched it and I was like, that's got to feel good. Yeah.
I just kind of feel kind of good. I think you should do that and go – like take a little anger nap and then write your paper. That's what I would do. Write your paper afterwards after you're like – after you've like reset. Go give yourself a hard reset. You're doing amazing, Sarah. I'm sorry. It's a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot. And I'm giving you the Minnesota goodbye. Sorry. Sorry for that too. Sorry. I adore it. All right.
Thank you. Thank you for all the work you do. I'm grateful for you. Thank you, North. Goodbye. Over the years, I've had a lot of conversations with a lot of grieving people. And a lot of those people whisper to me about the anger that they have felt because they feel so much shame about it. They feel like having that anger means that they are grieving wrong.
Having that anger and expressing that anger has negatively impacted their lives, has filled them with shame, or they feel shame because they are still carrying that anger and they still struggle to express it. I will never forget the young widow that I met at a speaking event. She raised her hand. She wanted to talk about her anger. She had been told that her anger was evil. And
And let me tell you what her situation was. Her husband had died in a very preventable, stupid accident. He was the only person in the accident who didn't survive the accident. And she was a brand new mom, freshly postpartum and now widowed and solo parenting.
So yeah, she was angry. She was angry about the accident. She was angry that he was the only person who didn't walk away from it. She was angry at this perceived lack of support that she felt. She was angry that people had moved on so quickly and expected her to move on, to be grateful for the fact that she had a baby to remember this husband by. And you know probably how I feel about that, as though...
You can use your gratitude to erase your grief. Like a baby is just a replacement for a whole other person. It doesn't work like that. She had expressed her anger to people and been told that she was evil and she felt evil. She felt like she was evil for being that angry. What? No.
I have been very influenced by the work of Susan David. She wrote the book Emotional Agility. She has been on the podcast before. Susan David says that emotions are data. They are trying to tell us something. They are signaling something to us, something that is important to us. Your anger is telling you maybe that you are afraid, maybe that your values have been
that compromised, that your boundaries have been crossed, that anger is information. All emotions are information. Dr. Edith Eger, a psychiatrist, no, a psychologist, Dr. Edith Eger, a brilliant, brilliant person who I've also had the honor of speaking with, has said that what comes out of you doesn't make you sick.
what stays inside of you does. And I'm not advocating for you to just spew all of your anger willy-nilly wherever and however you can. Of course not.
But all of your feelings, even the ones that other people find unpalatable, deserve to be heard, seen, respected, and expressed somewhere safe with somebody who gets it. And maybe that is therapy. Maybe that is a grief group. Maybe that is finding one person who is in a similar enough
situation to yours that you guys can connect on that level, a level that maybe your friends and family aren't able to. We have rage rooms now, okay? You can do art. You can simply scream in your car on the freeway while you're driving, windows up or down, it doesn't matter. That anger, the grief, whatever else is underneath that anger, it has to come out somewhere.
Because if you don't let it out in a safe... Because if you don't let it out...
slowly, safely. Pressure needs to be released. It's going to come out sideways and it's going to come out in a way that doesn't feel appropriate to you or anybody else. It's going to come out on the dance floor at a wedding. It's going to come out when somebody asks you about the amount of life insurance your sister has. It's going to come out somewhere, sometime, because it has to.
I actually have one book. I have a lot of books to recommend, but I'm going to limit it to one right now. This book is called The Grieving Brain. It's by Dr. Mary Frances O'Connor. She is, honestly, this is, I did not think that I would want to
read this book. But she's a neuroscientist and a psychologist. She works at the University of Arizona in the Grief, Loss, and Social Stress Lab, which is fascinating to me. She studied grief as neuroscience, as the way that it affects your brain, and it affects your brain so much. I think just from a
neutral, scientific standpoint, this book was really, really helpful. I wouldn't have been able to read it when I was in abject, profound grief. But now, looking at it more objectively, I can see it. I can see it in this book. It was actually a really, really helpful read. She has a new book coming out called The Grieving Body that I'm also really excited to get my hands on and read. But this is a great one. She had this to say about anger.
During grief, we are not sad or angry simply as a reaction to what happened, the way we would be if a possession were taken away from us. In some cases, we are sad or angry at ourselves because we have failed to keep our loved ones close on the closeness dimension. This failure on our part or on their part is upsetting in all sorts of ways.
It doesn't have to make sense. It's just your brain.
So find a way to let it out, but mostly, this is the most important thing that I'm going to say, be nice to yourself. Give yourself grace. Give yourself compassion. Grief is a neurological process. It is a physical process. It is a psychological process, and it is a lot. And if your anger comes from grief, well, then it comes from someplace holy.
And again, that does not mean you can just Hulk out when and wherever you want to, but if you did, forgive yourself, seek forgiveness where you can. You are not a perfectly programmed robot. You are a person. How you feel now is not how you will always feel.
I'm Nora McNerney. This is Thanks for Asking. I always want to hear from you about what you want to talk about because creating anything is a group project. Our phone number is 612-568-4441. Our email is thanks at feelingsand.co.
This episode was produced by Marcel Malikibu. Our theme music today is by my youngest son, Q, who charged me $100 for the usage rights to this song and also asked to be credited as my youngest son, Q. He's eight years old. He's entered the garage band phase of his development, which is a sacred part of a young man's life.
development. We're just gonna, we're letting it happen, okay? He's making music. He's very proud of it. And I actually think it's pretty good. He composed this as a theme for us.
All right, we will see you back here next time. In the meantime, you can go over to the Substack app to comment, make a discussion, all of that good stuff. If you are watching this clip on YouTube, we have a Substack with full podcast episodes, essays, all kinds of good stuff. The link is in our show description. I will see you next time I see you.
Hi guys, it's Nora. If you like what we've done here on Terrible Things for Asking, you might want to check out our YouTube channel. We have two new videos going up every week over at youtube.com slash at feelings and co. That's feelings and co. There's a link to it in our show description. So see over on YouTube if that's what you're into. What a sales gal I am.