WEBVTT - Why Does Grief Sometimes Come in Waves? 0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:07.040 Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain Stuff, 0:00:07.080 --> 0:00:11.399 Lauren vog Obam Here. Today's episode talks about grief and 0:00:11.440 --> 0:00:14.200 panic like symptoms. So if you're not up for that today, 0:00:14.400 --> 0:00:16.640 go ahead and skip this one. And Hey, take care 0:00:16.680 --> 0:00:21.480 of yourself. Okay, I've experienced this sort of grief too. 0:00:21.600 --> 0:00:23.680 But the writer of the article that today's episode is 0:00:23.720 --> 0:00:27.480 based on Carrie. She spoke to the emotion visc early. 0:00:28.800 --> 0:00:32.120 She wrote that on a recent grade, recently afternoon, she 0:00:32.159 --> 0:00:35.160 found herself with a McMansion size case of cabin fever, 0:00:35.240 --> 0:00:37.600 in a hankering for the wind in her hair regardless 0:00:37.640 --> 0:00:41.239 of the weather, coronavirus be darned, so she laced up 0:00:41.280 --> 0:00:44.680 her boots, snapped on her Fannie pack containing pandemic essentials, 0:00:44.880 --> 0:00:47.600 grabbed her raincoat, and high tailed it to a nearby 0:00:47.640 --> 0:00:51.800 state park. Moving blissfully through the misty rain on a 0:00:51.840 --> 0:00:54.680 trail she had hiked a thousand times. She felt high 0:00:54.760 --> 0:00:57.360 on the sweet endorphin rush of well being and at 0:00:57.440 --> 0:00:59.880 one with the world. Where the trail met the l 0:01:00.320 --> 0:01:02.920 a man was squatted on the shore fishing, and as 0:01:02.960 --> 0:01:05.360 she put on her face mask to say a muffled hello, 0:01:05.600 --> 0:01:08.760 the sun peeked out, dappling the water with sparkles of 0:01:08.840 --> 0:01:11.600 light that glinted off the side of his rusty bobbing 0:01:11.680 --> 0:01:14.679 bait pale, which she noticed was emblazoned with the fading 0:01:14.680 --> 0:01:19.480 words old pal minnow bucket. And that's when, out of 0:01:19.480 --> 0:01:23.759 nowhere it hit. A roaring freight train of abject sadness 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:27.720 crashed into her, leaving her vibrating with heartache, loneliness, and 0:01:27.800 --> 0:01:31.600 a cavernous sense of loss. She couldn't breathe that, she 0:01:31.640 --> 0:01:34.840 couldn't think the landscape around her had morphed into a 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:38.720 cacophonous blur. She sat down against a tree and bald, 0:01:39.080 --> 0:01:43.840 feeling utterly suffocated deflated. It took about thirty minutes that 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:48.160 felt more like an eternity, but the amplified sensations subsided, 0:01:48.560 --> 0:01:53.200 leaving her mentally agitated, physically drained, and spiritually bone dry. 0:01:55.160 --> 0:01:57.960 What was it that had temporarily knocked her off her feet? 0:01:59.280 --> 0:02:02.400 Carrie had been blindsided with what's known as a stug, 0:02:02.800 --> 0:02:08.400 a sudden or subsequent temporary upsurge of grief. So what 0:02:08.600 --> 0:02:11.959 is a stug? So we spoke with Laura Silverman, licensed 0:02:11.960 --> 0:02:15.440 clinical social worker and owner of Sweet Grass Integrated Counseling 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:19.799 and Therapy in Atlanta, Georgia. She said, a stug is 0:02:19.919 --> 0:02:23.920 essentially an overwhelming and almost incapacitating feeling of grief that 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:26.680 comes out of nowhere. It can occur at any time, 0:02:26.960 --> 0:02:30.600 including many years after a loss, but it's most experienced 0:02:30.680 --> 0:02:35.679 during the first year of grief. Dr Terse Rando, a 0:02:35.760 --> 0:02:38.840 psychotherapist and grief counselor, coined the term stug in the 0:02:38.840 --> 0:02:43.120 early ninety nineties. Randoll likened the stug experience after the 0:02:43.160 --> 0:02:45.800 death of a loved one to waves coming in and 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:49.200 out from the ocean. Occasionally a tsunami comes along and 0:02:49.440 --> 0:02:53.360 rips our feet out from under us. Silverman shares from 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:57.080 her own experience. She said, five years after the loss 0:02:57.080 --> 0:02:59.600 of my mother, I found myself sitting on my staircase 0:02:59.600 --> 0:03:02.480 one night, sobbing, convinced that I had forgotten to say 0:03:02.480 --> 0:03:05.160 goodbye to my mother. My husband and son had to 0:03:05.200 --> 0:03:07.040 remind me that I was with her at the end, 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:10.560 planned the funeral, and did her eulogy. It took several 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:14.919 minutes for me to calm down and to recall the events. 0:03:14.919 --> 0:03:17.960 She continued. The problem with the stug is that when 0:03:18.040 --> 0:03:20.840 we're experiencing one, it feels like it's all there is, 0:03:21.120 --> 0:03:23.919 that it will never end, and in that sense, it's 0:03:24.120 --> 0:03:28.040 very scary. A stug can also leave us feeling completely alone, 0:03:28.120 --> 0:03:31.200 because it's extremely hard to describe to another person how 0:03:31.200 --> 0:03:34.680 we're feeling. Because a grief attack tends to come out 0:03:34.680 --> 0:03:37.280 of the blue and is so consuming, it appears to 0:03:37.280 --> 0:03:40.960 be disproportionate to what's happening at the moment, this can 0:03:41.040 --> 0:03:45.080 leave people around us baffled and unable to help. Stug 0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:49.240 is often accompanied with feelings of confusion, loneliness, deep sadness, regret, 0:03:49.320 --> 0:03:53.080 and more. It's often experienced a sobbing, numbness and ability 0:03:53.120 --> 0:03:56.600 to think, and physical pain. It comes with such strength 0:03:56.720 --> 0:03:59.320 the people often describe it as hitting a wall or 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:03.200 having a older land on them. Some have described feeling 0:04:03.200 --> 0:04:06.280 like they're not themselves during a stug, leaving them feeling 0:04:06.360 --> 0:04:09.840 untethered from everything they understand about themselves, about their world, 0:04:10.160 --> 0:04:12.800 and even about their relationship to God or the universe. 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:18.560 A stug is profoundly linked to the connection or relationship 0:04:18.680 --> 0:04:21.920 we shared with our deceased loved one, so the annual 0:04:21.960 --> 0:04:25.240 cycle of birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, and even the change of 0:04:25.279 --> 0:04:30.159 seasons may magnify our greek Likewise, retirement graduations, the birth 0:04:30.160 --> 0:04:32.919 of a child, weddings, events where our loved one is 0:04:32.960 --> 0:04:38.840 profoundly absent. These may activate painful emotions less predictably, our 0:04:38.839 --> 0:04:41.560 senses may be ignited out of seemingly thin air by 0:04:41.600 --> 0:04:45.039 a particular song, scent, food, or film that we associate 0:04:45.040 --> 0:04:48.960 with a loved one. In the case of the author, carry, 0:04:49.080 --> 0:04:51.440 she was stugged on a random day in the middle 0:04:51.440 --> 0:04:54.440 of the woods by an old minnow bucket exactly like 0:04:54.520 --> 0:04:57.200 the one her father, who had died fourteen years previous, 0:04:57.560 --> 0:05:00.000 possessed that she and her brother, who had died eight 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:04.880 teen months previous, used to play with as kids. Silverman said, 0:05:05.600 --> 0:05:08.960 nothing happens in a vacuum. The nature of the relationship 0:05:09.000 --> 0:05:10.880 we had with the person were grieving, the nature of 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:12.960 their death, and how we were taught to express our 0:05:13.000 --> 0:05:17.760 feelings all impact our grief experience. All of this combines 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:21.600 to create a painful stew of longing, shame, guilt, loneliness, 0:05:21.600 --> 0:05:25.160 and heartbreak. So a stug may be driven by many 0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:28.040 layers of unresolved issues with our loved one. It may 0:05:28.040 --> 0:05:30.400 be driven by feelings of helplessness, at being able to 0:05:30.440 --> 0:05:33.200 prevent their death or suffering. It can be the result 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:35.320 of pent up emotions that had no place to go. 0:05:37.720 --> 0:05:41.680 Our emotions create physical reactions in our bodies. Our brains 0:05:41.680 --> 0:05:45.159 and bodies are not separate entities, so as with any 0:05:45.160 --> 0:05:49.520 powerful burst of emotion, experiencing a stug can be physically exhausting, 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:52.680 and Silverman emphasized that it's important to take care of 0:05:52.720 --> 0:05:55.240 your physical self by finding a quiet place to take 0:05:55.240 --> 0:05:59.360 a break, drinking water, and focusing on breathing. She explained 0:05:59.400 --> 0:06:02.559 that once calm, some people find it helpful to talk 0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:05.799 or just sit with someone, and for others it helps 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:09.159 to stay solitary but engage with something that feels pleasant 0:06:09.160 --> 0:06:12.760 in some way. She said that can be as simple 0:06:12.800 --> 0:06:15.160 as looking at the blue sky, listening to the wind 0:06:15.200 --> 0:06:18.080 in the trees, or drinking a cup of warm tea. 0:06:18.279 --> 0:06:21.200 As unpleasant as a stug is, it's important to note 0:06:21.200 --> 0:06:24.359 that it is temporary. It will pass, even though it 0:06:24.360 --> 0:06:26.800 can feel like it's going to go on forever. The 0:06:26.839 --> 0:06:29.040 fact that you've had a stug doesn't necessarily mean that 0:06:29.080 --> 0:06:31.719 it will recur. What it does mean is that you 0:06:31.839 --> 0:06:34.640 had one, got through it, and now no you can 0:06:34.680 --> 0:06:40.080 handle it if it happens again. We live in disquieting 0:06:40.200 --> 0:06:43.240 times on many fronts, as millions of people in communities 0:06:43.279 --> 0:06:47.120 across the globe or coping with a multitude of threadbare emotions, 0:06:47.160 --> 0:06:51.000 including grief. Silverman says that it can help to keep 0:06:51.040 --> 0:06:54.280 that collective experience in mind as a sense of connection 0:06:54.480 --> 0:06:59.320 and commonality. She said, We're not alone. We're connected to 0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:01.640 every other all on the planet, and none of us 0:07:01.640 --> 0:07:05.200 has lived our lives without experiencing grief and handling hard stuff. 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:08.880 If you're listening to this, you made it through, so 0:07:09.240 --> 0:07:12.640 you can do hard you. We can get through hard 0:07:12.680 --> 0:07:21.440 times and this moment in history together. Today's episode was 0:07:21.440 --> 0:07:24.160 written by Carrie Tatro and produced by Tyler Clay. For 0:07:24.240 --> 0:07:25.960 more on this and lots of other topics, visit how 0:07:26.000 --> 0:07:28.320 stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff is a production of 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:30.679 I Heart Radio. For more podcasts to my heart Radio, 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:33.560 visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you 0:07:33.560 --> 0:07:34.760 listen to your favorite shows.