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00:00:01
At the Intersection of Trauma, Grief, and Loss
842 Plays4 years ago
Steve House and Sky Yardeni, the therapeutic director of the Climbing Grief Fund continue their discussion about integrating stress, and most often how that relates to risk-taking and grief. Specifically how grief is not necessarily linked to loss and death, but may come from other forms of loss. This conversation traces an arc which moves towards creating and manifesting an attitude of wholeness, as individuals and as a community. Integrating the good and the bad. Lastly we discuss the stress continuum, PTSD and it's context, and the spiral of guilt that is so common in accident survivors and responders.
Links we reference:
https://www.responderalliance.com/
https://americanalpineclub.org/grieffund
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Transcript
Introduction to the Uphill Athlete Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome to the Uphill Athlete Podcast. These programs are just one of several free services we provide to disseminate information about training for mountain sports. If you like what you hear and want more, please check out our website, uphillathlete.com, where you'll find many articles and our extensive video library on all aspects of training for and accomplishing a variety of mountain goals. You'll also find our forum, where you can ask questions of our experts and the community at large.
00:00:30
Speaker
Our email is coach at uphillathlete.com, and we'd love to hear from you.
Hosts and Mental Health in Mountain Sports
00:00:36
Speaker
Hello, uphill athletes. My name is Steve Haus, and welcome back to another episode of the Uphill Athlete podcast. I'm here once again with Sky Jardini for the second in our series about trauma, grief, loss, mental health, and mountain sports.
00:00:58
Speaker
First off, Scott, I just want to say it's good to see you again. Welcome back from your trip. I love seeing you and talking to you, and I always love our conversations. Yeah, it's my pleasure. Thank you, Steve. I think one of the things that maybe we need to establish the obvious here is we are having this conversation because
00:01:25
Speaker
at least I, before I met you, had this conversation many, many times in my life. I have been involved personally in
00:01:37
Speaker
in a number of tragic experiences, whether it was someone who was really close to me or whether it was someone who I didn't know before the trauma that maybe they experienced have been involved in rescues, have been involved in mass casualty incidents, have been involved in
00:02:03
Speaker
watching a friend of mine be struck by a rock fall two feet away from me standing next to me and killed. I don't say these things, certainly not, as some sort of
00:02:22
Speaker
These things have been said as sort of badges of honor almost or sort of like war medals or something, but I don't like that at all. I really regret having to say that I've experienced those things and it's the least good thing that happened to me after spending my whole life in the mountains, climbing and skiing and guiding and in some
00:02:53
Speaker
being the victim himself. So this is a real part of our, I don't want to say every day, but let's say maybe our reality as a climbing community, as a back country skiing community, we are taken in risks and sometimes we all know that those risks,
Conversations on Grief and Trauma in Climbing
00:03:18
Speaker
have, you know, have consequences and we lose, we lose good people and we lose people that we really love. And, um, and that's always going to be hard. Right. I mean, that's where you, where you and I, that's where you and I connected on that particular, on this particular topic. Yes. And it's hard. It's uncomfortable. Um, it's bumpy.
00:03:47
Speaker
And it's so human and so important for us to have these conversations. And because it is an inherent part of our reality as humans and as climbers and ski mountaineers, I think the more we have these conversations, the more we can educate ourselves, the more we can normalize that this thing exists, that grief and trauma and other struggles and challenges and adversities exist.
00:04:15
Speaker
Um, the more whole we are as humans and as a community. So I'm just great, really grateful for you to uplift this conversation on this podcast. Really grateful to be here. Oh, thank you for that. I mean, I can say that I feel exactly what you just said that I settle into the chair here to have this conversation. I start to get tight. I feel it in my neck. I feel like tense.
00:04:41
Speaker
across my body and my face, and we haven't even started yet. But that is probably a normal, like as you pointed out, that is the normal reaction to having hard conversations like
Physical Reactions and Healing Conversations
00:04:54
Speaker
this. There is a real visceral physical reaction to these discussions. And I actually take that as a signal that it's a really important discussion to have.
00:05:09
Speaker
The stronger that feeling is, the more I want to have that discussion. And it's the elephant in the room, so to speak. And it needs to be talked about. And yeah, I'm super grateful that we're talking about it. So let's, where do we even start? How do we even start thinking about this? Let's just, we've established essentially that this is,
00:05:38
Speaker
I hate to use the word normal, but the fact is that for me, in my experience with a lifetime in the mountains, it has been unfortunately a normal part of my experience, a fairly regular part of my experience. I'll say it sometimes goes in waves where there's tragedies.
00:05:59
Speaker
bunch together, then maybe there's a little while where there aren't any. I'm in one of those periods right now where there haven't been any. I haven't lost anyone in a while. I'm really grateful for that. But even then, I'm like on edge. Part of me is always on edge.
00:06:14
Speaker
Like if I ever get a phone call and like a known caller, like my, I immediately, like my mind immediately goes to that. That's, that's the thing that, and then it's probably just a bank because I don't know if somebody tried to hack my credit card or something. So, but yeah. So, um, your question is where do we begin? Um, we begin by talking about stress. Okay. Um,
00:06:44
Speaker
by seeing that as some overarching umbrella that both grief, loss, and trauma belong under.
Understanding the Nature of Grief
00:06:57
Speaker
And so every time that I talk about stress in a general term, that's what I refer to. And stress is inevitable. Stress is perceived. Stress is actual. Stress is threat.
00:07:14
Speaker
stress is an overwhelm of the nervous system. And it can show up in our bodies and in our minds in so many different ways, which I'm not going to get into right now. But even what you just said of getting a call from an unknown number and having those thoughts in your mind of like, who is it now? What's going to happen? And it's actually the bank. That in itself is stress.
00:07:45
Speaker
And again, so many different things can cause stress and it can show up in our lives in many different ways. But the conversation here that we're talking about is stress and how what we do in the mountains can cause stress, the different risks, the different dangers, the different baggage that we bring with us to the mountains of previous experiences, all that can really contribute to the amount of stress that we're having.
00:08:15
Speaker
And if we start going down to what consists of stress, of grief, of loss, of death, that grief is an internal process in response to a loss. That loss can be many different things. It can be loss of someone's life, loss of an identity, loss of a relationship,
00:08:45
Speaker
loss of whatever or whomever. And mourning is kind of like the external rituals that folks engage in in response to that loss and how they grieve inside. And so when I talk about grief, when I talk about loss, yes, it is rooted in death. And
00:09:11
Speaker
Again, loss can be so many other things, and so many people can experience grief that isn't related to death, which is really important for us to talk about. Yeah, because people think that people who have lost someone have a monopoly over grief, and that is just not true. It's really important to burst that bubble or that myth.
00:09:39
Speaker
And I'm immediately flashing to memories of people that I've known who have, for example, had an injury, like there was a real problematic long-term recovery. And I have watched them and looked at them and be like, wow, they're really grieving. And I had that thought, but I didn't equate it with the grief I would attribute to someone who's experienced a death.
00:10:08
Speaker
But yeah, because loss is loss. Loss
Grief's Non-linear Process and Personal Variations
00:10:11
Speaker
is loss. Yeah. That's really good. That's helpful to me. Another few myths that are important to put aside or to burst when we talk about grief is that grief is not linear. There's no one way to grieve. There's no one progression. It's not like, yes, there are
00:10:39
Speaker
phases or stages of grief. That is one work or theory that there are five or six stages of grief. And I refer to them as more experiences than stages that I really believe that most if not all people experience the
00:11:03
Speaker
you know, the depression and the bargaining and the anger and all those different stages of grief or what we know of as stages of grief. And again, there's not one progression. It's not like, okay, done with this stage, and then I'm on to the next one. It doesn't work like that. And people grieve differently. Folks have different needs. They have different pace. And it just looks very, it's kind of like a fingerprint. Brief is very much like a fingerprint.
00:11:32
Speaker
personal, it's very subjective, very individual, and there are also universal themes and experiences that folks go through. I like that analogy of the fingerprint. I can see that. That's really good. Yeah. Yeah. And when folks talk about different frameworks around grief, it's really important to keep in mind that what they're trying to do is to describe and not prescribe.
00:12:02
Speaker
It's not trying to fit people into certain existing boxes. They're just trying to offer experiences that folks can expect to go through and to like normalize that, oh yeah, I'm not alone in it. So many people think that I'm the only fucked up person in this world that is going through whatever I'm going through and no one else has ever been through this ever before or even in my family.
00:12:31
Speaker
And so it should just have this common universal experience that a lot of people really go through. Yeah, so those are just some myths that are important to bring up and to describe.
Stress, Performance, and Coping Mechanisms
00:12:51
Speaker
We talk about, from the coaching point of view and the physical performance point of view, we talk about
00:12:58
Speaker
stress in the same way you talk about it and that it doesn't, it kind of doesn't matter what it is, it doesn't matter if it comes from being overworked or having a hard time in your relationship or it manifests itself in compromising your
00:13:15
Speaker
ability to function on athletically as well as possible. So I think we can add this to that category as well. And I certainly know athletes that experience that. Yes, absolutely. And to just really name that there's no right or wrong or good or bad way of grieving. There's no such thing. People have different
00:13:41
Speaker
things that work for them, different support systems, different coping mechanisms, and especially us as athletes. A lot of times climbing or skiing can be the source of adversity, the source of stress, and it can also be the source of our healing, the source of our coping, our actual support systems.
Climbing as Trauma and Healing
00:14:05
Speaker
That starts to become complicated. There's a lot of nuance in that as well. I want to talk about that some more because that's certainly something that I have personally wrestled with a lot in my lifetime because this is
00:14:25
Speaker
exactly what you said, like I'm going climbing and I experienced trauma and grief as a result of that. But then the way I know how to feel better is by going to the mountains. And sometimes I feel guilty about that. Sometimes I almost always feel confused about it.
00:14:48
Speaker
Now that I've been through this as many times as I have, and in my fifth decade of life, I accept it. I just know that that's just what I have to do. But it took me many, many, many, many years to kind of figure that out for myself. So it's great to hear that you say that. So how does that affect people? I mean, is that a common experience, what I had?
00:15:16
Speaker
I think it very much is. And I think it's something that every one of us has to reckon with exactly of what to really identify what the different sources of stress or sources of adversity. And, you know, in the world of stress or trauma, there's a lot of black and white thinking. It can be very polarized thinking. And so if something happened to me in the context of climbing, then that can color the whole
00:15:46
Speaker
like world of climbing and say that is the trauma. And so I need to find my healing elsewhere. And if we slow down enough to break it down and to see like the nuances and the particular details of whatever happened and to see, okay, that happened in this context and
00:16:14
Speaker
These are the things that led up to it. And this is the impact that it had on my life. Maybe to see that there are other parts of climbing that can be nourishing, that can be supportive, that it's not cutting clear. It's not, like I said, very polarizing or black or white, that it can be very nuanced and subtle. And it's important to say that climbing isn't the answer to everything for everyone.
00:16:44
Speaker
I know for the most part it is for me. Until this day, I can't really explain it. I can't really explain why I don't have more trauma than I do from timing, even after so many accidents, so many near misses, and so many real
00:17:10
Speaker
objectively traumatic events that I've experienced in the mountains. I still don't understand until this day why I find climbing so nourishing and so supportive. That is still like a mystery to me, honestly. Well, there can be, there can be, we can allow for mysteries, I think. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. One of the things that I think, I think you kind of hit on it pretty well, and I want to tease this out a little bit and take it to the next level in that.
Explaining Climbing's Allure Post-Trauma
00:17:41
Speaker
It's often hard to explain that to your loved ones, right? Like if you have this traumatic experience and you're leaning on your support network, which is often your family or your loved ones, and then you're trying to go back and do more climbing or skiing or whatever it is. I mean, you frankly look a little crazy to them a lot of times, and I've certainly heard that in my experience.
00:18:07
Speaker
How do we talk about that with our support network, whomever that is? You know, that's such a good question, Steve. I think ultimately, on one side it's hard to understand. It really is. Why am I going back into the fire? Yeah, it's hard for yourself to understand, right? Let alone decide if we'll see someone else that is just trying to be protective of you. Yes.
00:18:37
Speaker
What I've found to understand within me and also with other people that I work with and support is that for so many of us climbing has become embedded in our identity as humans. And that it's just more complicated than that. It's more complicated than that. I'm just going back into the fire.
00:19:06
Speaker
that my, a lot of my identity is wrapped up in climbing. And so it's, like I said, it's just more complicated than, um, okay, I experienced this, so I find my support elsewhere. And one of those complications, Steve, is that, um, I like the two way street of impact. And so if, if I said climbing is
00:19:34
Speaker
wrapped up in my, uh, a big part of my identity or centerpiece of my identity. And something happens to my climbing or in the context of my climbing that'll translate in other places in my life and vice versa. And so, um, because in, you know, you and I last, last time in the episode, we talked about climbing as a relationship.
Identity Rupture and Repair in Climbing
00:19:57
Speaker
And, um, when I work with folks around relationships, there's a cycle of rupture and repair.
00:20:03
Speaker
You know, like in any relationship, there is rupture, there is conflict. And so a traumatic or tragic event in climbing is a rupture. And how do we bring repair to that relationship? And, um, and the rupture in one part of my life can manifest in other parts of my life as well. And so, um, it's important to, to name the rupture, to really end it to the rupture.
00:20:33
Speaker
and then to see what is helpful for me to bring repair to that rupture, to that relationship. And so that's the way that I frame these experiences and they help me contextualize it in a way. So let me try to nail you down on that so that I make sure I'm understanding what you're saying correctly. So the rupture, if the rupture occurs,
00:21:01
Speaker
in your sport and you're climbing or skiing, then there is usually another rupture somewhere else. There can be. Not necessarily. Yeah, not necessarily. I'm just trying to... That's what I wanted to clarify. Yeah, yeah. I'm just trying to bridge between the climbing part of my life and other parts of my life that there can be a connection between the ruptures that happen.
00:21:29
Speaker
And they're just trying to uncouple them. Uncouple, what is the rupture? Where is the rupture coming from? What is the quality of that rupture? What does this rupture impact? And what, how do I tend to it? And how do I bring repair and healing to that rupture? Yeah, I really like that.
00:21:56
Speaker
And I would add, from my experience, is that the ruptures can multiply. That's why we need to tend to them. That's why you need to tend to them. Because if you don't, one becomes two, and two becomes four, and four becomes eight. And I've experienced that personally, and I've witnessed that with other people as well.
00:22:25
Speaker
it sometimes happens so fast. Um, and everything like you feel, I would also want to say that at least what I have felt, you know, it's this strange sensation of confusion and numbness. Like it's, it's really hard in these times to think this through for yourself because your brain doesn't, my brain,
00:22:54
Speaker
doesn't work the way it would when I'm not experiencing this.
Therapy and Community Support Evolution
00:22:59
Speaker
I can't, I can't kind of, it sounds great that I could just sit down and think about or maybe meditate or maybe write my journal about what the rupture is and how I could keep that from, from metastasizing to other parts of my life. But the reality is I'm incapable of having that discussion when I'm in that place, having that discussion with. And there's, and it's not, it,
00:23:24
Speaker
It's not particular to you, Steve. That is just a human experience. That our nervous systems are overwhelmed and overloaded. And most people really benefit or can really benefit from therapy. A, I'm biased. I am a therapist. So I believe in therapy as a form of processing, of slowing down, of helping me identify
00:23:54
Speaker
What is going on? Where's the rupture? How can I bring repair? And to create a space that is really conducive to healing. And that's not only the professional side, like I've been in therapy for the past nine years and have benefited from it, not only in response to stress, adversity, trauma, grief,
00:24:20
Speaker
Also just as a human being, you know, last, last episode, we talked about resilience and how me engaging in my own, in my own therapy really kind of prepares me for when shit really hits the fan and knowing myself enough and equipping myself with it. Well, it's not that I can later go on and do it myself, that I can, that I know how to utilize my support systems and therapy being one of them.
00:24:50
Speaker
So I'm really glad that you brought that up. Your tarn is brimming to the rim of its potential. Yeah, there's a few different ways that we could go here and I'm torn, but one is I'd like to go back to
00:25:14
Speaker
I want to connect it back to kind of community. I mean, the two things I'm thinking about before I forget them both is, and maybe we can come back to both of them if we have time, but one is in my experience where I was first involved in a fatal accident, obviously that wasn't fatal to me, but a good friend of mine, man, I was really, I was young, like, I don't know, 22, 23 years old.
00:25:43
Speaker
until even much more recently in the last year or two when I've been involved, it seems to me like Search and Rescue, the community there has realized that having these therapy resources available basically immediately to the survivors or whatever term is the right term, that didn't exist in 1990. That didn't happen. You're just kind of like,
00:26:11
Speaker
basically totally on your own. But the last few times I've been involved in something like that, like I really noticed that there was a big effort to kind of receive me and say, Hey, here's this resource. Are you interested in talking to somebody? Here they are. You wanted, when do you want it? You want to do it now? Great. Here, here they are. Here's a room. Here's a cup of coffee. Um, and I think that that's a really interesting change. Is that kind of the state of the art from the therapist point of view that something sooner rather than later is useful?
00:26:41
Speaker
Absolutely. Yes. Again, people have different paces and different needs, and that's important to say. And the sooner someone can tend to whatever rupture, whatever experience they've had, the more likely they have to minimize later symptoms. Interesting.
00:27:05
Speaker
Um, that's counterintuitive to me because it feels so hard at the moment. Like you're just like, dude, I just, I just got down. And it's, it's, it's also important to note, Steve, that like bearing your soul right when you got down is not necessarily what you need. And that's where the therapist, um, is there to hold you, you know, and cause what happens in trauma and we have actually haven't talked about trauma yet.
00:27:34
Speaker
But what happens in trauma, Steve, is there's suddenly a loss of resources.
Trauma, Support, and Empowerment
00:27:44
Speaker
When someone feels either threatened or really in danger and they don't have enough resources to react, to respond, to protect themselves, that's when the trauma happened. And I also want to separate between a traumatic event and trauma. Okay.
00:28:04
Speaker
I'll take myself as an example. I've been in Puerto Rico now for several months. Last week I went on a harder, more obscure multi-pitch and we got into the night because it was warm days. Last pitch became really crumbly and dirty and I pulled off a big block. And it was terrible. It was scary. It was dangerous. It nearly hit me. It nearly hit my belayer. It nearly cut his rope. It could have
00:28:34
Speaker
been much worse than it was and it didn't. Thankfully, we both were safe and it was fucking scary. It really, really was. And that's a traumatic event. That's objective. That is danger, that is risk, that is threat. And the subjective experience, the impact of that threat, the trauma, the loss of resources to
00:29:03
Speaker
to respond, to react, to protect myself and him. That is more the trauma, the mental health aspect of it. And so just using that as an example of separating between the actual event and the impact of the event on my state, on my mental and emotional state. And then, you know, it's a question around regulation.
00:29:32
Speaker
of how regulated I can maintain or dysregulated, how many resources I do have around decision making, around safety, around communication, around functioning and meeting my basic needs. And then the more like processing and debriefing and kind of tending to those at my own pace.
00:29:59
Speaker
And it was really interesting to see how me and my timing partner were dealing with it really differently based on experience, based on, um, that level of resilience and, and also how we just operate and function differently in like crisis situations. And, um, and so, yes, I really believe that, um, tending
00:30:25
Speaker
as close to the event as possible is the best, but the tending can look different for different people. Some people are more verbal, some people are less verbal. And again, people have different needs in different paces, but the tending needs to happen. The intention, the care should happen as close to the event as possible. Yes.
00:30:48
Speaker
Great. That's, that's, that's, I'm really glad to hear you say that because that was just my observation as to how things have changed over the years. And I was wondering from a professional therapist's point of view, what the, what was going on there, if that was intentional or just, just something with my perception. The other thing. Yeah, it absolutely is intentional. Yeah. Yeah. The other thing that just one second, Steve, like the last thing I'll say about that,
00:31:17
Speaker
is the intention there with like the first responders, the mental health first aid, psychological first response is as quickly as possible to put the survivor, as you called it, back in their own driver's seat. Allow them to make choices, because again, there's a lot of resources, there's a lot of choice, there's a lot of helplessness, and the quicker someone can get back into their own
00:31:47
Speaker
driver's seat. And even if it's do you want Kool-Aid or water, the empowering the person to have choice of whatever they need, it can be you want to sit or stand that that is tending that that is enough like, you know, mental health response or support that one might need in that moment. And so again, like, just just emphasize that there are various levels and degrees of
00:32:14
Speaker
mental health first aid and response in those acute stages after an event. I just wanted to complete that before we move on. Well, you described some of my more recent experiences with that, where I'm like, oh, yeah, that was intentional, huh? I thought they were just good hosts. But now it makes total sense. Yeah, that's good. Yeah. It's very interesting.
00:32:40
Speaker
And I like that concept of choice because that extrapolates, it's not just Kool-Aid or water, it goes well, well, well beyond. And because that is, let's just say it plainly, it's not my choice to lose someone I love. And so that is really, really at the heart of it.
00:33:10
Speaker
The other thing I wanted to connect back to that we touched on is maybe the extension of what we've just been talking about or the broadening. And that's the role of community and actually culture. And one of the things that I've noticed
00:33:30
Speaker
And that I struggle with, particularly in North America, less so here in where I'm sitting in Europe and Austria, is that mountain sports are not as much of the culture, part of the culture in North America as they are, at least in the Alpine countries in Europe, like I'm sitting in Austria, but I can also speak to Slovenia and France and Switzerland and Italy.
00:33:57
Speaker
of these processes that we're discussing in these cultures. And it's very, very different how the different cultures and the different communities kind of come together. And I think I want to say that I feel like in North America, and we're so geographically spread out,
00:34:22
Speaker
that when we do get together, it's for the wake, it's for the morning, it's for the activity, but it lasts like, you know, maybe 24 hours. It's not nearly long enough. And then everybody disperses back to and some go off and go back climbing and some go home and some go back to their families or their jobs.
00:34:45
Speaker
I don't know if we could design the ideal situation. How would we design that, and could we? Or is it just different for everyone, what they need? Well, I think you're talking about two things. You're talking about an individual level and on a community, more systemic level. Yeah, let's tie those two together. Sure, sure.
The Climbing Grief Fund and Mental Health Resources
00:35:07
Speaker
So I'll take the climbing grapevine as an example.
00:35:10
Speaker
and my role in the climbing grief fund as a therapeutic director and Madeline Sorkin as a founder and the director of. Let's back up and say what that is real quick. Sure, yes. So my good friend Madeline Sorkin several years ago founded a program within the American Alpine Club called the climbing grief fund. Climbing grief fund? Yes. It was originally created to
00:35:37
Speaker
provide financial support for folks in the climate community to receive mental health support therapy for folks who are dealing with grief. And that evolved into what it is now. It's a pretty, it's becoming bigger and bigger program. Trying to both on the advocacy side and like in the industry in the community to
00:36:05
Speaker
normalize and create conversations around mental health and specifically grief and trauma, tries to educate organizations, communities, different groups, both who have been impacted by grief and loss and folks who just want to build their tarn and foster their resilience and just equip themselves with more education and knowledge and information. And also on the ground support for
00:36:36
Speaker
those individuals, families, and communities who are directly impacted by loss. And that is in the form of these grants that we give out to folks to get mental health support in their healing processes, which are extremely easy. We try not to discriminate, and we try to make them as accessible as possible and easy as possible.
00:37:05
Speaker
It's basically just a chunk of money for folks to get therapy, honestly, and other various forms of professional health. It's also a mental health directory. So we try to be the middle point between folks in the community who are seeking out therapists that have any orientation or association with the climbing world.
00:37:29
Speaker
Um, and so we have a list by state of different mental health professionals who again, self identify as climbers, um, from a belief that entity between a client and the therapist of, of the climbing world, uh, um, the knowledge, the common language, uh, can can create
00:37:54
Speaker
that relationship, that rapport, that trust, that understanding of what folks are talking about. And kind of like doing what we were talking about earlier of that response, that mental health first aid, crisis management, both Madeleine and I received a lot of calls, texts, and emails of folks on the ground post-incident of like,
00:38:24
Speaker
Hey, this happened, what do I do now? And so we refer them to different resources and do whatever needs to be done to really support them in the moment. And yeah, and it's continuing to be bigger and bigger and becoming a player in the community and in the industry as a hub for support and for advocacy on those levels.
00:38:51
Speaker
And that's my role. That's a big part of my role. And I should say that that's how I found you. That's how I got connected to you, because I knew about this project. Madeleine's a friend of mine, and I knew that she was doing that. I thought it was really interesting and a great initiative, and that's how we found each other for these conversations. So we're a manifestation of that work right now.
00:39:14
Speaker
So let's go back to connecting this, that individual in the community. You know, the community is more than grants and resources. I think of it, I almost prefer the concept of culture over community, but that's just my personal kind of maybe over analyzing the words a little bit. No, I'm right there with you. I'm right there with you, Steve.
00:39:40
Speaker
Yes. So, okay, good to hear. And I think that this takes me back to asking your community for support and the community knowing how to respond appropriately. Not that they would try to respond inappropriately, but
00:40:04
Speaker
But I think the first thing about is this word that keeps coming up that sounds a little shocking when it comes up is this normalized. Like I hate this idea that would, that this is normal. I hate this, but I think, I think these are two separate things. I think it's not normal, but normalizing is trying to be stigmatized. Okay. Okay. I'm good with that. Yeah. Cause, um, in our culture,
00:40:31
Speaker
In the North American culture, in the climbing culture, there is stigma that exists around mental health, around support, around therapy, around conversations about grief, loss, and trauma. And to normalize or to destigmatize is to say, hey, this is a part of our lives. And in order to have a whole full life, we also need to address these things because it's an inherent part of our lives.
00:41:00
Speaker
let's not keep rushing this under the carpet. Yeah. So when we talk about, you defined trauma, and correct me if I'm wrong, but you defined it as a loss of resources, or an absence, is that right, of resources to protect oneself? Yeah, from like an actual threat or a perceived threat.
00:41:31
Speaker
Yes, and an overwhelm of the nervous system. That is like the visceral impact or response to trauma, yes. And that very much resonates with my experience, that feeling of a over-simulated nervous system. And then we have grief, and the two sort of come together
00:41:58
Speaker
We've sort of created this umbrella. We've said stress encompasses these things.
Integrating Grief and Viewing Stress as Injury
00:42:04
Speaker
We've talked about grief and trauma individually, but let's bring that together and talk about that. Yes. Yeah. Thank you. Because they can both be confused or used interchangeably sometimes. And it's very specific when they do come together. And so when I talk about
00:42:27
Speaker
that intersection between grief and trauma and when they meet, what happens, what happens to our nervous system, what happens to the way we see the world, what happens to our daily functioning is really specific, actually, that grief can happen separately, grief and loss can happen separately, trauma can happen separately, and they can also come together. And, you know, you shared
00:42:55
Speaker
an instance when you were, you know, almost 30 years ago when you lost a climbing partner. And that's exactly what we're talking about. We're talking about when someone is on site, experiencing both the trauma of whatever traumatic event happened. Cause remember with the pulling the block off last week, we separated between a traumatic event and trauma. Yes. So.
00:43:23
Speaker
whenever someone is on site and has experienced that traumatic event and has trauma from that and has lost someone by dying in front of them as well. And what happens then is both in the moment and in the later stages of
00:43:52
Speaker
that processing is the trauma can be so dominating over the grief because it's just really, really strong. And so what I'm doing now is I'm taking my fist as if that's the grief and I'm having an open hand like wrap around my fist. And it's not that they come together. All I can really experience is the trauma and it's so dominating. It's so strong.
00:44:23
Speaker
that I can't even start thinking about the grief. I can't even start thinking about the sadness because the threat, the overstimulation of my nervous system is so strong that I just don't have access to really start processing the loss and the grief itself. And so in those initial stages, it's just really, really important to slow down enough and to start uncoupling and tending to the grief
00:44:51
Speaker
and to the trauma and saying, hey, these things are existing here together. I need to name it, acknowledge it and receive the appropriate support to really do that uncomfortably and tend to them separately. And it's hard. It is really hard. It's really complicated. I can share that, you know, almost three and a half years ago, I lost my best friend in a climbing accident. I wasn't there. He was in Israel. I was in Boulder.
00:45:21
Speaker
And the minute that his wife called me and told me what happened, something happened to me. So I collapsed on the ground and I had a trauma response. I had an overwhelm of my nervous system. I felt the threat of my body along with the sadness and the brokenheartedness of losing my best friend. And that is also what I consider secondary trauma. So secondary trauma,
00:45:49
Speaker
is a traumatic response to something that isn't happening directly to me, either through a story, through something that I'm reading, through something that I'm experiencing, but not directly. And that can have the same effect as well. And it was only when I really tended to them separately
00:46:18
Speaker
I started to really, I don't know, bring healing, bring repair to those ruptures. Because I had traumatic responses. I had mechanic attacks while climbing that was a result of his accident, not only of his death, but his accident. And it was just really confusing. I was like, why? Like, where is this coming from?
00:46:48
Speaker
And again, the moment that I was able to acknowledge and start to understand and engage in all the complexity of this and how it can very easily get wrapped up in each other is when I started really, again, engaging in it in a more healthy and healing way. Thanks for sharing. And that is really powerful in it.
00:47:18
Speaker
You know, it parallels my own experiences with these sorts of things. I mean, yeah, I remember, yeah, I don't need to tell the war stories, but yeah, this brings out memories. And that actually brings me to a point, and I don't know if this is the right moment in the conversation to bring this up, but you know, I'm sometimes surprised myself
00:47:48
Speaker
by how often I think of these people that are gone, that I've lost, whether I was there or not, like you said. And in most cases, not, actually. In most cases, I wasn't present. And the funniest things trigger it. It could be like a crampon that somehow associated with that person or
00:48:13
Speaker
or it could be a name somebody mentions the name of a town happens to be the town where they were from or something like that and all of a sudden you know you get it never really goes away no it doesn't um and i don't i hope it never goes away and i hope it never goes away and i never want to i'm not saying i want to forget yeah of course not but uh
00:48:39
Speaker
I said that Steve I said that because A lot of times people think that there's an end to the grieving process exactly what I wanted to say and and ultimately I really believe that The healing process in grief is integrating this loss into my life Continuing life with this new reality. This person is not alive anymore and I
00:49:08
Speaker
And my life continues forward and moves on. And how I integrate that loss into this new reality, into my life, I truly believe that that is an important part of my healing. And so when I said, I hope that never goes away, what I truly mean is that I hope these triggers
00:49:37
Speaker
in our lives will remind us but not manage us. Does that make sense?
00:49:58
Speaker
I haven't used those words in my own description to myself, but that's a great analogy of how I've come to think of having to live with, you know,
00:50:11
Speaker
I don't know, dozens literally of these kinds of losses in my lifetime. And, you know, you can't escape it. It never goes away. The triggers never stop. The memories never cease to come up. And I don't, like you said, I don't want them to cease. I don't want to forget my friends. These are my friends and people I loved and cared a lot about. And some of them also, I would say, are not dead. They're also just,
00:50:41
Speaker
out of my life most commonly because of injury that changed the course of their life. And we drift in part over years because we're not involved in the same activities in the same communities as we once were. So there's a whole spectrum of kind of cases, I guess you could say. And integrating that is a great way to think about it.
00:51:12
Speaker
Yeah, I really believe that engaging in it really creates a more wholeness, you know, both on a individual level and on a community level, how can we be like, move towards wholeness and, and not like fragmented? Oh, I just signed up for the fun parts. Right. You know, like, and understanding that really experiencing the very wide range of
00:51:40
Speaker
emotions and experiences can really lead to a full life or a whole life.
00:51:48
Speaker
Yeah, I'm going to go out on a limb here and be a bit philosophical for a moment. But I think that that realization, which was not an instant, it was a slow process over time, that I went through in sort of midlife was the moment, looking back, and maybe I'll have a different view another 20 or 30 years from now, is that that seems like the moment where I fully grew up.
00:52:18
Speaker
I fully realized that, yeah, I'm not just, as you said, I'm not just in it for the fun part. I'm in it for integrating all of these experiences into my being, into my humanity, and living with it, and living with it the best I can, and knowing that I'm as fallible
00:52:48
Speaker
And that's going to be enough. And that for me, you know, happened for me around, you know, I'm sure other people have this kind of realization much earlier, but for me it happened in my 40s, early 40s. And it was like the biggest weight was lifted off my shoulders because I just was like, I felt like, oh, I know how to live life now.
00:53:13
Speaker
You know what I mean? Like I don't because before I was just, it was just these swings from the really fun parts to the really not fun parts. And it was just this roller coaster or a swing back and forth between these things and that realization of integration, though I didn't have it in those terms was really a monumental kind of moment for me personally.
00:53:42
Speaker
I totally hear you. And I also believe that that is exactly what's happening on a more community level in climbing. That we as a community are in that threshold of starting to grow up and realize that there needs to be more reckoning around mental health, around social justice and race, and how integrating all those different parts of maybe the shadow or the more uncomfortable
00:54:12
Speaker
difficult conversations, how that is, we're moving in, or the direction of, you know, adulthood or development as a community as a whole. Yeah, and they're growing pains, and it's hard and, and it's so important. And it's, there's, you know, we were talking about stress,
00:54:36
Speaker
And I was talking about, and you as well, about how these traumas recur and never sort of go away. And for me, there's also this sense or this feeling where there's just this cumulative, you know, the load gets to be heavy that you're carrying.
00:55:03
Speaker
How do you advise or how do you talk to people that feel like that? So I believe that the framework of my good friend Laura McLeodry who started the Responder Alliance really meets that inquiry, really meets the notion of how do we really conceptualize stress? How do we
00:55:32
Speaker
um, and contextualize stress too. Um, a lot of the DSM or the world of psychology and psychiatry around mental illnesses. Um, it's very easy and efficient to put things into boxes. Okay. I have this disorder, this condition, so I know how to treat it. I know what meds to give. I know what protocols to go through. And again, it's easier. It's more efficient. Um, it's more comfortable.
00:56:02
Speaker
And it doesn't work for everyone. And what Laura McLeodry proposes is seeing stress and trauma as an injury rather than an illness. And which means that we all as humans have exposure to stress. No one gets a pass. People have different levels of it. It impacts them in different ways.
00:56:30
Speaker
depending on many different contributing factors, and we're all exposed to it. And so that means that we all have it. And she proposes this stress continuum, or a spectrum that we all live on. It's not either we have it or not, because in the world of
00:56:53
Speaker
PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, and mental illnesses, there are nine criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder. And one has to meet five out of the nine to be able to be considered as someone who has PTSD. And so there's a checklist and they're either people check all the boxes or they don't. So it's either you have it or you don't. And okay, if someone does
00:57:20
Speaker
answer or check five out of the nine boxes, maybe there's a protocol for that person. But what about all the people who don't? And does it mean that they just don't have stress? The answer is no. And so that's where this continuum really is relevant to all of us who are impacted by stress, who are impacted by trauma, and to kind of de-pathologize that it's not a condition, it's not an illness,
00:57:51
Speaker
It's just part of our human experience, our human lived lives. And so what she says is that whatever instance, whatever incident happens of an accident, whether it be traumatic or tragic, doesn't happen in a vacuum. It happens in the context of someone's own life.
00:58:13
Speaker
And that one exposure to stress is on the back of so many other exposures to stress and that it's an accumulative process. And I react and respond to this incident in that context, whether it be the resilience and the tools and the resources that I've accumulated through all these experiences of adversity and slash or
00:58:43
Speaker
the different scars and the traumas that impacted how I respond and show up in this one incident. And so I just, I'm so bought into that framework because it just really makes this conversation accessible to everyone.
00:59:08
Speaker
whether they check whatever boxes or not. And to see that there's also mobility in this spectrum. Folks can go towards more the red, because it's a green, yellow, orange, red kind of spectrum. There's mobility towards the red. And there's also mobility towards the green. And it's not deterministic. There's fluidity, there's mobility, and there are things that we can do that can affect where we are
00:59:37
Speaker
on that spectrum as well. And folks can look it up more on the responderalliance.com website. Responderalliance.com, okay. Yes. Now I think that that kind of, that absolutely corresponds with my experience and I like that visualization without having known anything more about it than what you just described.
01:00:07
Speaker
And I would add that you're moving towards the red or you're moving towards the green, but then you could the next day move back up towards the red. It's a sliding scale and it slides both ways on a regular basis, it seems.
01:00:21
Speaker
And that's part of, you know, taking us back to this concept of community and culture and how we support one another.
Cultural Coping Differences and Community Importance
01:00:30
Speaker
And I like what you said about how we as a community or as a culture are maybe starting to kind of grow up around this and start to learn how to integrate these experiences into our wholeness, as you put it.
01:00:50
Speaker
And then I go back, I keep coming back to my experiences with this and how sometimes being back in the mountains, being back, you know, maybe it's technical climbing, maybe it's ski touring, maybe it's resort skiing, maybe it's just a walk in the woods.
01:01:13
Speaker
And sometimes I feel like any one of those things and sometimes I really don't. And it's hard to connect with my community when I don't. Right? Because that's what my community generally does. You know, I can remember one of the more recent
01:01:30
Speaker
events, you know, this is maybe five years ago now, but you know, a group of friends that I really wanted to spend time with after this, they went off and went into the desert, went rock climbing, and that was like the last thing I wanted to do, you know, and it made it hard because it sort of did disconnect me from the people I felt like I needed to connect with the most, but I just couldn't bring myself
01:01:53
Speaker
to go rock climbing at that time. And it confused me. I think it confused them. But again, it just comes back to this
01:02:03
Speaker
you know, allowing ourselves as a community and a culture to figure out on the fly, because that's the way it seems to work, how to support each other the best, how to know where these resources are that we can connect with the resources, whether it comes from, you know, the climbing grief fund and the Alpine Club, or whether it comes from the other one you just mentioned that I forgot already. Responder Alliance. Responder Alliance.
01:02:35
Speaker
and then do the best we can. Yeah. And I think these conversations and this culture shift, this normalizing, de-stigmatizing that, or this movement, let's just say, that we are embarking on as a community, hopefully allows folks to see people in their different needs, in their different pace and, and how we,
01:03:06
Speaker
include them and bring them in and not create more isolation. And so, yeah, your, your crew wanted to go out to the desert and rock climb because that was their way to support themselves and you didn't. And that was your way to support yourself. And hopefully that's not the end all. Hopefully there is also a coming together. Hopefully there's also a fire or barbecue or a walk or whatever follow up that it doesn't, it doesn't just end there that folks
01:03:35
Speaker
and to their needs and also come back and see each other in our differences as well and how we can come together in those differences and not separate or isolate or make someone feel guilty that they don't feel up for going to the desert to climb.
01:03:58
Speaker
And that comes back to our previous talk where we kind of focused on resilience and it's, you know, recognizing that your harness drained and recognizing that maybe rock climbing doesn't fill up my time right now and I need to go be with my family or I need to go for a walk in the woods or I need to do something, engage in something that's not related to climbing for a little while.
01:04:28
Speaker
Absolutely. I know from my own experiences I've often felt resistance and that's maybe a baby source from guilt of like you know I wanted to be there in the desert to help my friends too because I knew that you know we need each other in these times so I felt guilty that I couldn't do that. I felt bad that I couldn't do that.
01:04:56
Speaker
And these things, you know, these rabbit holes are so deep, you know, we can get ourselves so worked up. Maybe that's not the right term, but we can get ourselves so involved in these
01:05:16
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, to me it is kind of a whole, I guess. I guess that's still like the analogy that fits for me is this, you know, and personally my experience with this is related to depression. So I think that that's why I think of it and visualize it that way. I would say it's probably not everyone's experience, but I think it's probably a pretty common one. Yes. Yeah.
01:05:45
Speaker
the notion of spiraling, spiraling down into that whole of listening to all the different inner dialogue, inner voices of shoulds. I should be doing this. I should be feeling this. And the guilt that comes when I don't meet those shoulds and how that just perpetuates and continues to spiral down. Absolutely. Absolutely.
01:06:15
Speaker
I think this has been a really good conversation, Skye, and I really hope, as I'm sure you do, that the audience that listened today got something out of this and that we could help move the conversation forward a little bit in a tiny way around this and help bring these discussions more to light and as much as anything
01:06:41
Speaker
people to know that this is not a unique experience, that you may be feeling that this is unfortunately, or fortunately, or the fact that it's just part of our life, it is something we have to live with and integrate into our wholeness, as you so wisely said. I like that a lot.
01:07:09
Speaker
So thank you, Skye. Thanks for the words. From all my heart, I'm right there with you, Steve. Thank you for listening, everyone. And we will be back with Skye for one final episode where we will talk about healing, sort of the backside of that. Thank you.
01:07:36
Speaker
Thanks for joining us today. For more information about what we do, please go to our website uphillathlete.com.