Speaker 1: Hey everybody, it's me Josh and for this week's s
Speaker 1: Y s K Selects, I've chosen How Grief Works. It's
Speaker 1: an episode from April of two thirt and it covers
Speaker 1: everything you ever wanted to know about grief, like, um,
Speaker 1: do animals grieve? Of course they do, don't be ridiculous.
Speaker 1: And if you happen to be grieving right now, I
Speaker 1: hope this episode helps, So sit back and enjoy or
Speaker 1: whatever you might do with it. Welcome to Stuff you
Speaker 1: Should Know from how Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and
Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W.
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant that makes the Stuff you Should Know the
Speaker 1: podcast Good Grief. Yes, good Grief. I looked that up.
Speaker 1: Would you come up with? Well, it just struck me
Speaker 1: at you know, because Charlie Brown says it, you know,
Speaker 1: and that's where I know it from. Then I thought,
Speaker 1: why would where did that come from? Because from one
Speaker 1: of those things, and it's just apparently they think it's
Speaker 1: just what's called a minced oath, like when you substitute
Speaker 1: God for good gravy or good google ees or I
Speaker 1: got you googly moogly, googly moogly. But then I thought
Speaker 1: grief was weird because that's such a specific thing. But
Speaker 1: then good gracious gracious is very specific too, and like
Speaker 1: ill fitting. So I guess it's just a minced oath
Speaker 1: good grief. Well, maybe good gracious came from good grace
Speaker 1: and somebody's like just feeling a little buzzed on schnops
Speaker 1: and they added gracious instead. Maybe, so minced oaths good gravy.
Speaker 1: That's good. It's probably the funniest thing that will happen
Speaker 1: in this show. Hopefully that wasn't even that funny. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but this one's not supposed to be funny. It's about grief,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, And um, I think we should point
Speaker 1: out from the get go that this is about grief,
Speaker 1: human grief, Western human grief. Yeah, but that's not to
Speaker 1: say that there aren't different types of grief and that
Speaker 1: humans are the only ones who do grieve. In fact,
Speaker 1: I have a story for you animal action too, So
Speaker 1: what will you do? That was the funniest thing in
Speaker 1: this episode? Uh. This story took place back in the
Speaker 1: spring of in um Uttar Pradesh State, India, specifically in
Speaker 1: the town of luck Now and even more specifically at
Speaker 1: the Prince of Wales Zoo, there was a seventy two
Speaker 1: year old elephant, female elephant named Dominie, and Domini was
Speaker 1: hanging out in her little house at the Prince of
Speaker 1: Wales Zoo when all of a sudden she got a
Speaker 1: younger pregnant friend delivered to her um named Chumpacali. And
Speaker 1: Chumpacali was, as I said, pregnant. She was actually on
Speaker 1: maternity leave from her regular gig where she would just
Speaker 1: let tourists ride on her back. Okay, all right, um,
Speaker 1: and so she was she was taking to the Prince
Speaker 1: of Wales Zoo to to basically just have a nice,
Speaker 1: comfortable term and then give birth. And Domini just fell
Speaker 1: in love with chompa collie. This is so sad already,
Speaker 1: so um. She basically became a maternal figure Chumpacali. They
Speaker 1: were best friends. Um. Chumpacali would lay around and um
Speaker 1: Domini would stroke her pregnant belly with her trunk. They
Speaker 1: just got really really tight, which is very normal in
Speaker 1: in um the elephant world. Um. So you can almost
Speaker 1: imagine that Domini was growing excited as Chumpacali got closer
Speaker 1: and closer to her due date and when finally she
Speaker 1: did um go into labor. Champacali died during childbirth and
Speaker 1: gave birth to a stillborn calf, and Dominie, I guess
Speaker 1: they let her come in and like, you know, hang
Speaker 1: around the body because elephants are known to grieve well,
Speaker 1: even as far as elephants go, Dominie stories a little.
Speaker 1: That's pretty bad. She um. She cried over the body
Speaker 1: for a while and then went over to her enclosure
Speaker 1: and just stood still for a week. Right, you're killing
Speaker 1: me after the week, um she During this week, she
Speaker 1: she stopped eating. Um. She got to the point where
Speaker 1: her legs swelled from basically starvation and dehydration until she
Speaker 1: fell over. And then she just laid there for what
Speaker 1: turned out to be the rest of her life, where
Speaker 1: she wept and refused to eat and refused to drink
Speaker 1: and grieved over the death of her friend, and finally
Speaker 1: died herself a few days later. Uh and the vets
Speaker 1: tried to keep her alive. They um, they did what
Speaker 1: they could, but they said in the end, Um, in
Speaker 1: the face of Domini's intense grief, all her treatment failed. No,
Speaker 1: they're buried next to one another. I had a dog
Speaker 1: situation like that, similar when I was a kid, one
Speaker 1: of my dogs died and they were best buds, and
Speaker 1: the other one just like it was never the same
Speaker 1: and died about three months later and seemed healthy at
Speaker 1: the time. And I went out and laid down the
Speaker 1: doghouse and cried when I was like seven, devastating. That's
Speaker 1: a wonderful thing to do. That's working out your grief,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, But as far as the animals go,
Speaker 1: it really is pretty evenly divided among scientists who say, yes,
Speaker 1: they show all the signs of grieving and that's what
Speaker 1: they're doing, and then others that say, no, they are
Speaker 1: not grieving. We're putting that on them as humans. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's I totally disagree with that. Yeah, it's just you know,
Speaker 1: it's really two camps um. So we've talked about before. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we've run up against this before, and I don't think
Speaker 1: either one of us have changed our positions at all.
Speaker 1: I think they grieve. But then you hear like this
Speaker 1: one great ape you know, was famous recently for carrying
Speaker 1: her little dead baby around for like three days, and
Speaker 1: other scientists came out and said, like, you know, this
Speaker 1: is a long gestation period they have. Singleton's having a
Speaker 1: kid is a big deal. And so she's carrying this
Speaker 1: baby around and hopes it it will come back to life,
Speaker 1: and it's like in a comatose state, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's a practical, adaptive, evolutionary thing that's happening. It's not grief.
Speaker 1: And then I think you're heartless, right, Yeah, they're grieving
Speaker 1: because they they took the baby chimp and made a
Speaker 1: purse out of it. After that. Well, but then for animals,
Speaker 1: I don't want to get two sidetrack, but you have
Speaker 1: to think, like when some clearly show signs of what
Speaker 1: looks like grief and some don't at all, Like the
Speaker 1: chimpanzee and the same you know arena, like they eat
Speaker 1: other chimpanzees while they're still alive and screaming. Well, those
Speaker 1: are the ones that back talk, or they go off
Speaker 1: to die by themselves and there's no grieving, or they
Speaker 1: will make like if one of them is dying, that
Speaker 1: will like kill them. Right, But imagine, imagine you're an
Speaker 1: outside observer of the human species. We we lose chemical
Speaker 1: weapons on one another, and yet we still have funeral practices.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's interesting. I wonder why certain animals
Speaker 1: do and certain, don't you know, it's very interesting. Well,
Speaker 1: getting back to um humans the human realm of grief,
Speaker 1: there was a man who recently um was married to
Speaker 1: his wife for sixty two years and she died and
Speaker 1: on the way to her funeral, he died in the
Speaker 1: back of the limousine and um, yeah, which I thought
Speaker 1: was incredibly sweet. And then his his daughters they died
Speaker 1: at the funeral. No, no no, they they put a sign up.
Speaker 1: They decided to just have a double funeral and they
Speaker 1: put a sign up at the wake that said surprise,
Speaker 1: it's a double header and then buried him next to
Speaker 1: her like that that day. Well, I guess their family
Speaker 1: has a good sense of humor relates. But the point
Speaker 1: is is, yeah, that is that that's a that's they
Speaker 1: used a sense of humor to grief or else they
Speaker 1: weren't going through grief. And the point of that whole
Speaker 1: thing is is that there's no set way that grief works,
Speaker 1: which is great because we can say just about anything
Speaker 1: here and still being the right because psychology is still
Speaker 1: grappling to define the process of grief. And some very
Speaker 1: recent studies that you found show that grief is not
Speaker 1: present and everyone and that everyone deals with it very differently,
Speaker 1: and there's not really any specific way to handle it.
Speaker 1: There's just some great general guidelines and that we should
Speaker 1: say grief is a very personal thing. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: myself have experienced the spectrum of grief in my life,
Speaker 1: like including you know, like family members passing away. Not
Speaker 1: to be too cold, but some are you know, you
Speaker 1: super grief for and some it's like, well, you know,
Speaker 1: they were very old and they had a great life
Speaker 1: and we saw this coming, and that's one of the
Speaker 1: things that you know, it's one of the types of grief.
Speaker 1: Anticipatory grief, they say, is probably easier because you're working
Speaker 1: that stuff out over time and it's nothing like an
Speaker 1: accident or a child dying. Unanticipated grief well, completely different, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is, so you So you mentioned anticipatory grief. That's
Speaker 1: like if somebody's got a prolonged illness or something like that,
Speaker 1: you have the chance to say goodbye ahead of time,
Speaker 1: maybe deal with these emotions exactly, and then once death
Speaker 1: actually comes, you've been prepared for this for days, weeks, months, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and a lot of times something maybe there isn't any
Speaker 1: quote unquote traditional grief going on at all because you're
Speaker 1: just so prepared and it's just a matter of executing
Speaker 1: all the things that you need to do if you're
Speaker 1: the person that's in charge of that kind of like
Speaker 1: you're so prepared you blow off the funeral to go
Speaker 1: the grocery store. About that, Um, it's like a serial killer.
Speaker 1: Psychologists call that kind of grief anticipatory grief basically the
Speaker 1: money grief because it's it's about is um as light
Speaker 1: as you can get post grief post death? I should say, right, yes, um,
Speaker 1: And then again I want to say, like there's there's
Speaker 1: probably a listener out there who like help their their
Speaker 1: husband or their mother through a long bout of cancer
Speaker 1: that the person finally succumbed to. That's like, that's absolutely untrue.
Speaker 1: I agree with you wholeheartedly. Like there again, there's no
Speaker 1: specific um, Like, no one can tell you what your
Speaker 1: grief was. Again, it's personal. This is just these are
Speaker 1: very broad strokes. So okay, then, like you mentioned unanticipated grief, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: I meant that's from my experience. I had a friend
Speaker 1: that fell off a building and died, and that's like
Speaker 1: definitely the hardest someone young an accident and uh, but
Speaker 1: still if you want to talk about five stages. I don't.
Speaker 1: I'm not a big believer that that's the case because
Speaker 1: I didn't experience all these stages at all. Um. But
Speaker 1: again it varies. Someone might experience tense stages. It does.
Speaker 1: But but the point is with unanticipated grief like you
Speaker 1: couldn't have you or your friend didn't wake up that morning,
Speaker 1: like he was gonna die, but he still died, and
Speaker 1: you have to deal with it all of a sudden um.
Speaker 1: And then there's ambiguous grief, which for my money, is
Speaker 1: probably the worst kind of grief. This is the kind
Speaker 1: of grief that comes where, say, if you have a
Speaker 1: loved one who is kidnapped and you never hear from
Speaker 1: them again, or ever felt that one your parents abandoned
Speaker 1: you as a child, um or just something happens is
Speaker 1: somebody and there's no real resolution or closure or you know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't have to be even death. It can be
Speaker 1: like your girlfriend you come home to a note on
Speaker 1: your bed you never hear from her again, or a wife.
Speaker 1: I guess, yeah, because I guess we should also say,
Speaker 1: like grief doesn't just have to come from death. Grief
Speaker 1: is basically the deep and poignant distress caused by bereavement,
Speaker 1: and bereavement is the state of being deprived of something
Speaker 1: or someone, so that could be through to death whatever.
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. Um, but yeah, so those are the three
Speaker 1: types of normal grief just off the top of our heads.
Speaker 1: We made those up right, Um, and you mentioned the
Speaker 1: different kinds of Um, they're the different stages of grief
Speaker 1: and you, I mean, that's just such like a pop
Speaker 1: trope these days, but it was actually new just as
Speaker 1: recently as a nineteen sixty nine when Dr Elizabeth Coogler
Speaker 1: Ross came up with the five stages of grief that
Speaker 1: you always hear about today that any ten year old
Speaker 1: could probably recite to you. But I have since been
Speaker 1: kind of deconstructed and change in question and challenge. But
Speaker 1: these are the kind of the road map to go
Speaker 1: through grief, right, Um, Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Right.
Speaker 1: And denial is just basically saying this is you're you're
Speaker 1: not true that there's still alive, Like what you say
Speaker 1: is a lie, And I don't want to be anywhere
Speaker 1: near you because you're lying to me right now about
Speaker 1: something very horrible. Yeah, I've never experienced that, even with
Speaker 1: my friend who fell off a building. Like that's as
Speaker 1: sudden news as you can get over the phone. And
Speaker 1: I'm just not the kind of person who's like, no,
Speaker 1: that didn't happen. I was like, man, it immediately hit
Speaker 1: me that that had happened, you know, And I started
Speaker 1: from there, I guess. But I didn't experience anger either.
Speaker 1: But you know, if it might have been my brother,
Speaker 1: I might have experienced anger. You You raise a very
Speaker 1: good point. There's different there's different Um, I guess, risk factors.
Speaker 1: There's different elements to grief, and some of it is personal.
Speaker 1: Some of it has to do with how close you
Speaker 1: are to the person. Sure, Um, some of it has
Speaker 1: to do with the type of person you are. You're
Speaker 1: a pretty resilient person. If you were a very sensitive,
Speaker 1: bookish type, you might have taken it a little harder,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Um, you have a very
Speaker 1: very very strong, tight support group, you do. Yeah, So, UM,
Speaker 1: I would say that that that probably helped quite a bit.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you had a group of friends that like
Speaker 1: helped you through that, that were probably friends with the
Speaker 1: kid too, So you went through it as a group. Yeah,
Speaker 1: going through something alone is always hard, even if you
Speaker 1: think you're a loner and don't want to be around anyone,
Speaker 1: you're probably not doing yourself any favorite. Uh. And then lastly,
Speaker 1: you had prior experience with grief. You're throwing yourself down
Speaker 1: in the doghouse when you were seven, so you had
Speaker 1: that experience to draw upon and to know you can
Speaker 1: make it through it. It does get better, it does
Speaker 1: go away. Yeah, So you're gonna have the hardest normal
Speaker 1: kind of grief if you are, like you said, a
Speaker 1: loner with no support group, if this is the first
Speaker 1: time you've ever experienced grief, if you're the sensitive, bookish type,
Speaker 1: and um, if you were extraordinarily close to somebody, right, yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: In fact, I used to do acting exercises in college.
Speaker 1: What took this acting class? And believe it or not,
Speaker 1: I took one acting class and I was not very
Speaker 1: good at it. And that he used to tell us
Speaker 1: to try and do like crying exercises and stuff. So
Speaker 1: what do you think of my brother? Was always to
Speaker 1: go to like imagine my brother had gotten killed or something.
Speaker 1: I would just like boom, yeah myself, I if I
Speaker 1: thought of your brother dying, I'm just kidding about the
Speaker 1: other family members all right, so anger, that's the second one. Yes,
Speaker 1: it is pretty self explained to her. Um bargaining. It
Speaker 1: fascinates me, like the idea that that you I feel
Speaker 1: like you're suddenly in a position to make a deal
Speaker 1: with God to reverse the circumstances or bring the person
Speaker 1: back or take away the pain. That's just so crazy.
Speaker 1: And it's it's you know, like you think of somebody
Speaker 1: bargaining with God or some higher power and they're like
Speaker 1: looking up talking to the ceiling or the sky, and
Speaker 1: that that is one of the normal stages of grief.
Speaker 1: That's I just find that fast. I did that when
Speaker 1: I was young with girls. Oh yeah, well I was
Speaker 1: heavy into church, very emotional kid and girls like you know,
Speaker 1: it was one of those deals like God, I just please,
Speaker 1: if you would just come back to me, I promise,
Speaker 1: I'll do this, and i'll do that, I'll clean behind
Speaker 1: my ears. I grew out of that pretty quick because
Speaker 1: I realized, to make any different, that girl is either
Speaker 1: coming back or she was hitting the road exactly. And
Speaker 1: God probably had little if anything to do with that,
Speaker 1: that's right, he was dealing with bigger problems. Um. After
Speaker 1: that's depression, and this one is kind of tricky. Um,
Speaker 1: if you if you go through the stage of depression,
Speaker 1: if you do, it's not necessarily requisite. Um, they're starting
Speaker 1: to wonder if possibly you're already depressed, and uh, if
Speaker 1: you were already depressed, that probably means you're going to
Speaker 1: maybe get stuck in the stage for a while, or
Speaker 1: you might go through a depressed stage and then come
Speaker 1: out of it. It's not necessarily But the problem with
Speaker 1: this stage is that depression is a recognized mental disorder
Speaker 1: and grief is not considered a mental disorder. And yet
Speaker 1: in one of these five widely accepted stages, you go
Speaker 1: through a period where you're you have a mental disorder. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's part of a normal process. And you know,
Speaker 1: that's basically like taking psychologists and throwing them into the
Speaker 1: thunder dome, you know, greasing them up with chicken fat
Speaker 1: and handing them battle axes and saying like, explain that.
Speaker 1: You know, that's the funniest thing said in this podcast. Uh.
Speaker 1: The last one is acceptance, of course, Um, when you
Speaker 1: are finally able to move on And UM, I found
Speaker 1: that one fairly interesting article where they they charted this
Speaker 1: and they said it would look like a w is that, right,
Speaker 1: like the high points and the low points. Yeah, which
Speaker 1: I guess some denials a high point and then it
Speaker 1: goes down to um anger. Yeah, up to bargaining. I
Speaker 1: guess if you feel like that's getting you somewhere, maybe
Speaker 1: it's an up. Maybe maybe um At the very least
Speaker 1: it's manic. I would think, back down to depression and
Speaker 1: then finishing the W with a nice bit of acceptance. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And they've, as you said that, we've sort of been
Speaker 1: studying this for like thirty or forty years, and there
Speaker 1: was always that five stages thing, but recently they're looking
Speaker 1: more into it, and they've done some studies with widowers
Speaker 1: and widows, and they found that they really oscillate wildly
Speaker 1: from day to day, and it's not necessarily going to
Speaker 1: be a W. It's I felt great today and really
Speaker 1: my spirits were up and I was even laughing. Then
Speaker 1: the next day they were really sad. And it just
Speaker 1: really is all over the map, right, But I think overall,
Speaker 1: what they're finding is that on a long enough arc,
Speaker 1: people emerge from it. And it seems to be somewhere
Speaker 1: on the order of six months to three years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: seems to be And I think that's the outliers are
Speaker 1: maybe six months to three years. That's such a ridiculous
Speaker 1: time frame. But the bolt but I mean like if
Speaker 1: you study enough people, you can't probably create like makeup
Speaker 1: like three months to five years, you know, no totally
Speaker 1: and then say anyone else as an outlier. Right, But
Speaker 1: that's the thing, like you can't. That's why everybody is
Speaker 1: very wisely. Um they avoid aid saying things like that
Speaker 1: like this is this is like it's almost respect for
Speaker 1: the process. Like no one wants to come out and
Speaker 1: say no, this is how it is, Yeah, because you can't,
Speaker 1: and that's a mean thing to do. And actually there's
Speaker 1: there's um the grief is is in danger of being
Speaker 1: medicalized in the d s M five. One of the proposals,
Speaker 1: there's a there's always been an exemption to bereavement with
Speaker 1: depression like a depression UM diagnosis. If the person has
Speaker 1: recently gone through the process of grief or is in
Speaker 1: the process of grief, Um, you can't diagnose them with depression.
Speaker 1: You can, but you're not gonna get reimbursed for any
Speaker 1: meds you prescribed them. Well, under the d s M five,
Speaker 1: they're taking away this bereavement exclusion so that doctors can
Speaker 1: get reimbursed. Yeah, but it medicalizes grief, it says, no,
Speaker 1: now it's a mental disorder, well when it's not supposed
Speaker 1: to be and it's a story slope. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: a temporary disorder though you would hope. So yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: very keen insight. Nice work, Thank you psychology today. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Is that where you got it? Oh? Yeah? Okay, Um,
Speaker 1: so should we talk a little bit about dealing with it?
Speaker 1: I guess yes, Um, you know these are it's it's
Speaker 1: good advice, but it's also anytime I read something where
Speaker 1: they're like take care of yourself and eat right next,
Speaker 1: or some avoid drugs and alcohol. Yeah, but it is
Speaker 1: very much true. You know that it only is going
Speaker 1: to make things worse if you wallow in this and
Speaker 1: abuse yourself with drugs and alcohol and don't eat and
Speaker 1: you don't think there's all night. There's not a therapy
Speaker 1: to pouring like half of a forty out on the
Speaker 1: herb for someone who's gone and then drinking the other half. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean sure, but don't do that every day for
Speaker 1: like weeks and weeks starting in nine A. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I think me and my friends got together and
Speaker 1: got really good and plowed after we got the news
Speaker 1: about my buddy. But but alcohol, My advice is to
Speaker 1: avoid it after yes, but okay, So in addition to
Speaker 1: avoiding drugs and alcohol, eating right and getting regular exercise,
Speaker 1: just the standard stuff. What was that also in jet lag?
Speaker 1: Every time it's anything, um, the the there are like
Speaker 1: some really good suggestions to dealing with grief. If you
Speaker 1: find yourself overwhelmed by a profound sense of sadness, there
Speaker 1: are things out there that you can do to make
Speaker 1: yourself feel better. You can, um write a letter to
Speaker 1: the deceased that's said to help booking. Yet, why not
Speaker 1: throwing yourself into say making a memorial like those roadside
Speaker 1: memorials or a video clip show who knows you? Actually?
Speaker 1: You know what when my friend added did a video
Speaker 1: see because his family put together a website like a
Speaker 1: memorial website, and on the I had video footage back
Speaker 1: then of him, and I did a little video for
Speaker 1: the family. But it ended up really being like a
Speaker 1: great thing for me. It made you feel better, absolutely, Yeah.
Speaker 1: So basically putting yourself into a project there where you're
Speaker 1: thinking about this person, I imagine this isn't an article.
Speaker 1: This is just me doing some armtir psychology, but um,
Speaker 1: I imagine it forces you to remember good things about
Speaker 1: the person, and so during this time when you're possibly
Speaker 1: a little more emotionally fragile than usual, you are being
Speaker 1: reminded of positive memories, positive things as well. You know.
Speaker 1: So you're maybe that's why that would help, but it
Speaker 1: definitely doesn't help, you know for sure, because when you're
Speaker 1: going through and doing like a scrapbook, it's these great
Speaker 1: memories and these pictures and it's not you know, you
Speaker 1: are remembering the good stuff, and that like the life,
Speaker 1: which is I think how everyone wants to be remembered,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like these great lives that we have
Speaker 1: exactly you know, you want to be remembered as alive. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm one of those people that always wants
Speaker 1: my funeral to be you know, a little bit more
Speaker 1: of an upbeat affair as much as it can be.
Speaker 1: You know, where some people like, no, man, I want
Speaker 1: people really sad, right, Yeah, I want to be mourned
Speaker 1: for days. It's not me. Yeah, so you want the
Speaker 1: upbeat affair? Yeah, OK, I have have a party and
Speaker 1: you know, make fun of me, but not like g.
Speaker 1: G Allen's funeral. I have to research that one. I
Speaker 1: can only imagine what it was like. Yeah, it's pretty
Speaker 1: hardcore pretty much. Okay, Yeah, did they inject his corpse
Speaker 1: with heroin? Or he's buried naked though and they lived naked?
Speaker 1: It was. Yeah, you can do some research if you
Speaker 1: feel like, Okay, Man, he died in like in a
Speaker 1: horrible way. Didn't they find him, like murdered in an
Speaker 1: alley naked and like never found the murderer. Now, I
Speaker 1: think he killed himself. I thought he was murdered or o'deed.
Speaker 1: I thought he was like stabbed a death. I don't
Speaker 1: think so. He used to ease to threaten to kill
Speaker 1: himself on stage. That was a big thing, was that
Speaker 1: he's like, one day it's going to happen. I thought
Speaker 1: his big thing was like pooping on stage. He did
Speaker 1: that a lot too. Yeah, he kept that promise. Um
Speaker 1: Man was going to show up in the grief episode.
Speaker 1: For another thing you can do to um I guess
Speaker 1: kind of helped through the grief process is to throw
Speaker 1: yourself into a project that you think the deceased might appreciate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: or some organization they might have been affiliated with right,
Speaker 1: that's what I meant. Yeah, Yeah, Like if you lose
Speaker 1: someone to cancer or maybe get involved with the Common
Speaker 1: Foundation or one of the other groups, or apparently Mad
Speaker 1: Mothers Against Drunk Driving was founded in memory of a
Speaker 1: deceased person absolutely killed by a drunk driver. One would imagine, Um,
Speaker 1: there's just a lot of stuff out there that you
Speaker 1: can do yourself. A lot of people pretty much immediately
Speaker 1: go to therapy, at least initially to get a little help,
Speaker 1: to get some insights, some advice whatever. Um, that's not
Speaker 1: necessarily the case for everybody. And they they've definitely found
Speaker 1: that therapy is not even necessarily helpful for everybody. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of people out there who probably wonder if
Speaker 1: they're dead inside because they don't grieve like supposedly everyone
Speaker 1: else does. But study after study is finding that actually,
Speaker 1: people who go through significant grief, um is a fairly
Speaker 1: small portion of people who experience a loss. Yeah, didn't
Speaker 1: we have a study in here? Yeah right here? Um.
Speaker 1: They what they do generally is they track groups of
Speaker 1: widows and widowers for a period of time and just
Speaker 1: have them, you know, remark about how they're feeling on
Speaker 1: a day to day basis, and uh, this one was
Speaker 1: for up to five years I think and between twenty
Speaker 1: six and had no significant symptoms in the initial years
Speaker 1: after the loss, and only nine to forty percent did.
Speaker 1: And there's a big variability there, but they said it's
Speaker 1: partially from how the symptoms were measured. And in another
Speaker 1: study they found that about experience what you could diagnose
Speaker 1: this depression after the loss, and only about eleven um
Speaker 1: had trouble with it, like couldn't shake it after six
Speaker 1: to eighteen months, I believe, right, and ten of people
Speaker 1: who lost a spouse felt relief. These were people that
Speaker 1: had reported being unhappy in their marriage. So there's that
Speaker 1: those are the ones that dance on their spouses grave
Speaker 1: I guess so. And I don't necessarily think it's that cold,
Speaker 1: but there there could be some mild relief if you
Speaker 1: weren't genuinely weren't happy in your marriage. And it doesn't
Speaker 1: mean you're dancing on graves and partying, but it might
Speaker 1: just be like, all right, well, now I can go
Speaker 1: move Tobas in Lucas like I always wanted to and
Speaker 1: hang out with Sammy Hagar, but my wife hates the ocean. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and now I can do that, right, And my wife
Speaker 1: also hated Sammy hagar it. I'm gonna go hang out
Speaker 1: with them. Yeah. They also think that men may grieve heavier,
Speaker 1: even though it's at long believe that women do. Um,
Speaker 1: but I think a study like that is sort of silly.
Speaker 1: It's so variable, like from person to person, don't know, right,
Speaker 1: But we say all this to point out that if
Speaker 1: you don't experience what other people would recognize as grief,
Speaker 1: there's something wrong with you anymore than there is if
Speaker 1: you experience grief. Exactly what psychiatry and psychology have started
Speaker 1: to pay a little more attention to is what's been
Speaker 1: termed complicated grief, and that is technically, if you go,
Speaker 1: say several months to where your life is really really interrupted.
Speaker 1: You can't sleep, you can't eat, You're having trouble focusing
Speaker 1: on anything but the death of this person, the loss
Speaker 1: of them. Yeah, you start to seriously doubt things very
Speaker 1: important in your life, maybe like religion even um lost
Speaker 1: a child, like there can't be a god that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff, right, Or conversely, if you can't even mention
Speaker 1: the person's name or hear the person's name, basically, if
Speaker 1: your life is disruptive for many months. Then basically everybody
Speaker 1: from the Mayo Clinic to the a p A says
Speaker 1: maybe you should go see somebody about this. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: it can also manifests itself in aggression and UM violence,
Speaker 1: self destructive UM physical self destruction. So it can complicated
Speaker 1: is an understatement here for this kind of grief, I think, right, Um,
Speaker 1: so there's different kinds. If you go see a counselor
Speaker 1: with what's considered normal grief, they're probably going to help
Speaker 1: you let go of the person while still honoring their
Speaker 1: memory and recognizing them and the impact that they had
Speaker 1: on your life, but to get out there and live
Speaker 1: your own life. They're gonna try to reach the same
Speaker 1: goal if you have complicated grief, but they're going to
Speaker 1: do it a different way, and they're probably going to
Speaker 1: encourage you to really form an even greater bond with
Speaker 1: the person now that they're deceased, that you can nurture
Speaker 1: and hold onto and carry around with you. That makes
Speaker 1: sense to me. Yeah, And this kind in this case,
Speaker 1: it's not like you can't tell a parent who has
Speaker 1: lost a child, like and you know you need to
Speaker 1: work through this and get over it, right and that's
Speaker 1: actually one of the risk factors for complicated grief. Grief
Speaker 1: is the death of a child, the death of somebody
Speaker 1: that you are possibly co dependent on, right and very
Speaker 1: very close to, or um, the death of a sudden death,
Speaker 1: usually from trauma, say like a murder, right or something
Speaker 1: like that. Um, those are risk factors for complicated grief.
Speaker 1: So I would imagine that if you if you had
Speaker 1: a loved one who has murdered, you probably are already
Speaker 1: getting some sort of professional attention, and if you're not,
Speaker 1: maybe you should. Well. Yeah, And that's what we're basically
Speaker 1: talking about was the difference between grief and trauma and
Speaker 1: when you've experienced it to that degree. Trauma is the
Speaker 1: whold front deal. They'd say, it feels unreal and it's
Speaker 1: can be terrifying. The terror is the most common emotion. UM.
Speaker 1: It's common if you have dreams about a deceased loved one,
Speaker 1: But if you're having traumatizing dreams about yourself being endangered,
Speaker 1: then you've you've crossed the line from grief into trauma
Speaker 1: and complicated grief heavy stuff. It is very heavy. Losing
Speaker 1: a pet is for some people a very very very
Speaker 1: big deal. UM, and other people, well, people that aren't
Speaker 1: into pets at all don't get it. And then some
Speaker 1: people that do have pets are just more equipped to
Speaker 1: deal with the loss of a pet and not like
Speaker 1: it's the loss of a human. But for people like
Speaker 1: me and Jerry over there, I know that losing a pet,
Speaker 1: you know, is like equivalent to losing you know, a
Speaker 1: family member, and the grieving process is about the same,
Speaker 1: I would imagine if it's you know, that impactful. And
Speaker 1: my advice is you should talk to other people who
Speaker 1: have similar feelings, because one of the things that can
Speaker 1: be toughest about losing a bet is when you talk
Speaker 1: to people who don't have pets. And I don't think
Speaker 1: it's that big of a deal to lose a bet,
Speaker 1: and that that can make things a lot worse. Well,
Speaker 1: they say that if you, um, if you do experience
Speaker 1: the loss of a pet and you find that you're
Speaker 1: grieving over it, you should go ahead with the grief.
Speaker 1: Don't feel embarrassed or dumb for that. Go lie down
Speaker 1: the doghouse and cry like a six year old. Uh,
Speaker 1: you got anything else? I ran across one thing. Um,
Speaker 1: there was a guy in three named Paul Rosenblatt, who
Speaker 1: UM carried out a study of I think like fifty
Speaker 1: six Victorian diaries of people who would experienced loss interesting
Speaker 1: and UM, so grief is definitely cultural and also historically
Speaker 1: bound to like UM they found. He found that the
Speaker 1: goal for these diarists was to keep the person alive
Speaker 1: around him, like all the time, like they would try
Speaker 1: to sense the person around them, or like maybe sitting
Speaker 1: their favorite chair because they could tell that they were
Speaker 1: still there in somewhere or whatever. And that under those circumstances,
Speaker 1: he found that grief never really seemed to ever go away,
Speaker 1: that it was something that they carried around for the
Speaker 1: rest of their lives. And in fact, UM, one of
Speaker 1: the things that the Victorians did was they would wear
Speaker 1: black for a year, I believe, and then dark colors
Speaker 1: after that, especially if you were a widow and the
Speaker 1: on the anniversary, you wear black too, right, I think so.
Speaker 1: And you're expected to carry around this grief for the
Speaker 1: rest of your life. Um. And one of the things
Speaker 1: they also did that actually still around today was bereavement photography,
Speaker 1: which is post mortem photography. We put done the thing
Speaker 1: on that have we um? And it's we did, didn't we? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And we got an email just as recently is today
Speaker 1: from a woman who lost a child UM and had
Speaker 1: cast made of the baby's hands and feet. Really, and
Speaker 1: she said that it was something UM has very much
Speaker 1: helped her through. Yeah. She said it was a gift
Speaker 1: from the hospital UM to help them through their grief.
Speaker 1: And the hospital said, Hey, you know, you might not
Speaker 1: want it now, but we really encourage you to have
Speaker 1: this done and we'll pay for it, UM, because you know,
Speaker 1: years from now you may really be happy that you haven't.
Speaker 1: She said, They're absolutely right. Wow, that's really great. Yeah.
Speaker 1: What was that email in reference to death masks? Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: but it just happened to come in to day when
Speaker 1: we were researching grief. That's about it. I guess. Huh,
Speaker 1: that's it. That's a to Z grief. We touched on
Speaker 1: every single thing possible. What UM. Yeah, I guess If
Speaker 1: you want to learn more about grief, you can type
Speaker 1: that word into the search bar how stuff works dot
Speaker 1: com Remember I before E except after ce UM Chuck,
Speaker 1: hold on, let's let's take a message break. Huh. So, Josh,
Speaker 1: you can, by the way, to jump back look into
Speaker 1: more grief on our website, or you could go to
Speaker 1: Google and look at pigmy coats. That helps too, That's
Speaker 1: what I would say. All right, So now not listener
Speaker 1: mail Josh. Today we have nice Chuck, well done. All right,
Speaker 1: So we're gonna this is gonna be an ongoing thing
Speaker 1: because as usual they stack up. Well man, we have
Speaker 1: very busy work schedule us and we like to say
Speaker 1: thanks to as many people as possible for those of
Speaker 1: you who don't know. Administrative details is a segment that
Speaker 1: replaces listener mail, in which we read out thank you
Speaker 1: to fans who have sent us stuff, tokens, yeah, anything,
Speaker 1: yep um. For example, postcard of Rapa Nui from Ryan Confort,
Speaker 1: thank you for that. Nice that's that's Easter Island, okay. Um.
Speaker 1: Jacob Board sent us Yellowstone Park shirts, postcards, info cards, hats.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, because he works there. Yeah, that was a
Speaker 1: pretty sweet kif and he gets a discount. Hopes he
Speaker 1: hope he is. Um. Thanks to Shanti Diva for the
Speaker 1: postcard of the monkey k nots. Casey Herring sent us
Speaker 1: cookies and they were delicious. Which cookies the delicious one? Okay,
Speaker 1: not this crappy ones. Um. We got a wedding invitation
Speaker 1: from Rachel and John Reid. Congratulations, surprising no one jestice
Speaker 1: to officiate. I do that. Oh man, you just opened
Speaker 1: the flood gate. Um, hitch safe inventor Tim Freeman sent
Speaker 1: it's a hitch safe and that is a little thing
Speaker 1: that you stick in your trailer hitch if you have
Speaker 1: a truck pickup truck and it's got a little key
Speaker 1: and this hollowed out and you can like put your
Speaker 1: wallet and stuff in there if you go kayaking and
Speaker 1: lock it up. I didn't see this. Well, because you
Speaker 1: don't have to pick Okay, you get a trailer hitch, buddy,
Speaker 1: you can will split the hitch. Okay, Well happy here. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: let's see. We got a Christmas card and postcards plural
Speaker 1: from Becca Evans at uc sc alright, justin Norman, Um citius,
Speaker 1: an Ergo desk and iPad holder and I'm actually using
Speaker 1: the one for the laptop on my desk. It's quite
Speaker 1: lovely and it's handmade wood and you can find that
Speaker 1: debt wood bold dot com. Yeah, that's really a sight
Speaker 1: to behold. Yeah, it's amazing. It looks like plastic, right,
Speaker 1: but it's would Yeah. Yeah, Um, we got a Christmas
Speaker 1: postcard from Daviny b who for some reason was dressed
Speaker 1: as Wilfred from the TV show Wilfred. So thank you Davini.
Speaker 1: Uh Lorian Leonard Sinus some yummy chocolates from Ficus in Marshfield, Wisconsin. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was lovely. Um we got a copy of the
Speaker 1: book Brushing the Teeth of Elvis's Monkey and a nice
Speaker 1: letter from Nurse Beeth. So thank you for that. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm gonna go and busted do my
Speaker 1: books here. Um. We got how Colin Why How We
Speaker 1: Do Anything Means Everything by Darv Siedman. We got Swing
Speaker 1: Colon to Search My Father Louis Prima by Alan Gerstell.
Speaker 1: Uh Science Nearly Explained by Dick Maxwell and that is
Speaker 1: on Amazon. And kindle the Vampire Combat Manual from our
Speaker 1: buddy roger Ma who sent us the Zombie Combat Manual.
Speaker 1: And I imagine pretty soon we're gonna have a werewolf
Speaker 1: Combat Manual, I would hope. So it's Rogers Getting Lazy
Speaker 1: and trunk List, which is a children's book from Sean
Speaker 1: Antoniac and Matthew Antoniac. That was sweet. It was like
Speaker 1: a graphic novel. Yeah, and they sent us some cool
Speaker 1: stickers from uh eight one one Graphics dot com. So
Speaker 1: those are my books. Um, let's see what else. We
Speaker 1: got another postcard from Rapa Nui from Emily B. That
Speaker 1: rhymes Yeah. We got trifold wallets from trifold, try hold
Speaker 1: from trifle wallets thanice man. Yeah, you should get paid
Speaker 1: for this. There's a dude named lars c who kind
Speaker 1: of went all over the place and he went to
Speaker 1: Las Cobos, Las Cabos of course, Sammy Harry Gary's place, Seattle, Philadelphia, Calgary, Montreal,
Speaker 1: Nova Scotia, and he kind of took us with him
Speaker 1: and sent us postcards along the way. So thanks a
Speaker 1: lot largs Aaron Cooper, thank you for your cool phone
Speaker 1: Corps poster versions of some of your best stuff. You
Speaker 1: should know photoshop jobs. Yes, I love these. That's not
Speaker 1: the first time they sent those either, so thanks a
Speaker 1: lot erin it's a regular coop. Um, we got a
Speaker 1: nice postogram from Michael Store Caroline Larsons in this magnetic skulls. Yeah,
Speaker 1: those are awesome, like the Day of the Dead skulls
Speaker 1: of her own art, I believe, I think so. Um
Speaker 1: I've got her down too, and I have her website.
Speaker 1: It is um. I believe Caroline Larson Art dot com.
Speaker 1: If I come across it, I'll correct myself if that's wrong,
Speaker 1: but I'm pretty sure that's right. Okay, I got one
Speaker 1: more for now, and then you pick one more good
Speaker 1: one and then we'll pick this up again. Jennifer Dunaway
Speaker 1: sent us a knitted tree scarf. And this is just
Speaker 1: a scarf that you go and you pick a tree
Speaker 1: and you put a little scarf on it. Okay, and
Speaker 1: it's pretty darn cute and it makes the city more beautiful. Nice.
Speaker 1: So thank you Jennifer Dunaway for that. Um. And then
Speaker 1: I got a nice handmade birthday card for me, specifically
Speaker 1: nice from s Y s K Army member Courtney Hoover.
Speaker 1: So thanks a lot for that, Corney. Uh. And that's
Speaker 1: administrative details for this week part one. Uh. As far
Speaker 1: as this list goes, we've got this for the next
Speaker 1: six months. And I am right it is Caroline Larson
Speaker 1: Art c A R O L I N E l
Speaker 1: A R s E n RT dot com. Yeah, get
Speaker 1: a tree scarf, Yeah, that's what I say. And a
Speaker 1: school magnet. All right. Oh okay, let's see if you
Speaker 1: want to uh tweet to us, you can join us
Speaker 1: on Twitter at s y ESK podcasts. You can join
Speaker 1: us on Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know.
Speaker 1: You can send us a good old fashioned website. Visit
Speaker 1: to stuff you Should Know dot com for moralness and
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics. Visit how stuff Works dot com