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38. Giving The Ghost A Name, Empowered Me! -With Kirsten Carlson
67 Plays4 years ago
Kirsten Carlson shares with us her grief journey after the sudden, recent death of her mother. She is still in “the gray in between” part of her journey. Her mom’s death was also the catalyst for her to share with her family about the sexual abuse she had endured as a child from her own father. This also became a reason for her choosing to no longer have him be a part of her life, now that her mom has died. A great part of our conversation is on the topic of her abuse and how “giving the ghost a name, has empowered her”. We also talk a lot about the different dynamics and relationships that have shifted in her life because of her revealing this truth, but also about her own growth and knowing that she can trust her intuition and thoughts. She uses writing about her thoughts and feelings, as a tool to help her in her grief and healing journey.
Her outlook on life is positive and she focuses on living her emotions moment to moment as they come instead of worrying about what her grief or life will be like in the future.
Follow Kirsten's Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/through.a.lookingglass.darkly/
Contact Kendra for a complimentary coaching session or to be a guest on the podcast: http://www.griefgratitudeandthegrayinbetween.com
IG: http://www.instagram.com/griefgratitudepodcast
Music: http://www.oneplanetmusic.com
Production: Carlos Andres Londono
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Transcript
Coping with Grief: Living in the Moment
00:00:01
Speaker
You watch people who are serving a life sentence and they always say they never look ahead to the next day. They just take everything moment by moment and I'm right here in this moment and then the next moment I'm right here in that moment. So that's the way I'm choosing to approach grieving is just being right in the moment and not trying to forecast how I'm going to feel even the next two hours away.
Introduction to 'Grief, Gratitude, and the Gray in Between'
00:00:25
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Grief, Gratitude, and the Gray in Between podcast. This podcast is about exploring the grief that occurs at different times in our lives in which we have had major changes and transitions that literally shake us to the core and make us experience grief.
00:00:48
Speaker
I created this podcast for people to feel a little less hopeless and alone in their own grief process as they hear the stories of others who have had similar journeys. I'm Kendra Rinaldi, your host. Now, let's dive right in to today's episode.
00:01:11
Speaker
Hello, thank you so much for tuning in today to listen to this episode. I am glad you decided to click and listen and you will be grateful that you did.
Meeting Kirsten Carlson: From Instagram to Podcast
00:01:25
Speaker
Today, I'll be chatting with Kirsten Carlson, and I have her on the line. She's chatting all the way up from Ontario. I've got an international, international conversation. Since I'm in Texas, it's not that exciting. Texas, Ontario. Doesn't that sound better, Kirsten? I feel like I'm the one talking to someone from a very exotic locale, so this is amazing for me.
00:01:52
Speaker
Oh, you're the one chatting with somebody from exotic place. You're the one chatting. And you're the one with the accent here. So that's also amazing to me too. Which, yeah, but then you have an accent on my end because you've got the out and about and about. Out accent. You know, the Canadian. So we both have accents. So that's awesome. We're both talking to exotic, with another exotic woman. So that's from another place with another accent. And so that's
Writing Through Grief: Kirsten's Instagram Journey
00:02:21
Speaker
awesome.
00:02:21
Speaker
Thank you so much for joining today and Kirsten and I met through Instagram. I've mentioned this before in other interviews I've had that it's amazing. Isn't it like this community that there is on Instagram for us that are in the grieving circle or people that are grieving using
00:02:45
Speaker
uh instagram as an outlet do you want to share a little bit of how it was that you opened your account because you write that's kind of how we connected was i was commenting on one of your yeah poems one of the things we wrote that's kind of how it started so
00:03:00
Speaker
share a little bit of why it is you started this Instagram account with your amazing writing. Well, thank you. I started the Instagram account just as a way to, like I think you just said it, like as an outlet for my grief and just as a way to process how I was feeling. And through that, I just kind of found this amazing community of other people that are feeling a lot of the same things.
00:03:24
Speaker
And I've always liked to write. I've always loved words. Words are one of my favorite things ever. And I love fairy tales and storytelling. And I love hearing stories. I love the telling of them. And it's just been something that I've wanted to do for a long time. And then when my mom passed away in July, it just seemed to be a really good time to kind of bring those feelings
00:03:49
Speaker
to the forefront, I guess you could say, and put them down on, not on paper, yeah, but on virtual paper. To the world. On virtual paper. To the world. Not just to yours. It's funny how we...
00:04:06
Speaker
Now we use an Instagram post as our journal. It's true. When I was in high school, it would have been an absolute nightmare to think that somebody was reading my diary and now it's like, here are the most private parts of who I am. Please enjoy and consume it at will. It's a different world.
00:04:26
Speaker
It is a different one, but do you think that it's a little bit because we see now how much when we put something out there, how much that can help somebody else because we might, we ourselves might have been the receiver, we might have been on the receiving end of something like that.
00:04:43
Speaker
in some other cases. Yeah, absolutely. That's what I was saying before about storytelling. I think for me, and obviously everybody's going to have something different to say, but for me, there's two main ways that you can take a relationship from like a casual acquaintance to deepening the intimacy. And one of them for me is sharing a meal, like, you know, breaking bread, sitting at a table together. And then the other one is through storytelling. You get to know people and hear them and it's a way to build bridges and commonality versus
00:05:12
Speaker
you know, thinking that we're all isolated in what we're going through. That is so true. And in these conversations, that's one of the things I end up realizing because when chatting with somebody, you realize how much you have in common because of those stories. And we just went straight to just talking about, I mean, we will have something in common. Of course, we both have had a mom that died, you know, so that's something in common. But sometimes within the intrinsic
00:05:42
Speaker
Intrinsities. Am I saying that right? You would like words, so please correct me on the word. Intrinsic little details. What's the word there? Intrinsic. Intrinsic cleaning. I think that would work. That would be correct.
00:05:57
Speaker
All those little details is where we end up finding those common grounds. And when we do that, it also, like you said, the building bridges, I wish we would do that more culturally. And that if we would know that through storytelling, like you just said, that we could find things in common with somebody we may not even think we have anything in common with.
00:06:19
Speaker
It would be a very different world. Exactly. Exactly. Like my background, I'm a biracial person and I have very, very differently. So I'm part Swedish and part Jamaican from my dad's side and then Croatian on my mom's side. And it's funny because like living in this duality of like you're kind of part black, part white, but I kind of don't fit in anywhere. And that's how it's been my whole life. And I always try to build bridges with the different people in my life to say, we're more alike than we are different.
00:06:48
Speaker
You know, as much as there's a lot of difference and conflict in the world, there's so much more that we can agree and sit down at the table to say that we're alike than not, you know? So, yeah, that's something that I've always been pretty passionate about.
The Sudden Loss of Kirsten's Mother
00:07:05
Speaker
That is just so true. And I know that when we spoke last week, was it last week? Yeah, it was last week. Was it last week or pre-interview? I think it was last week, yeah. It was last Thursday. Last week when we spoke. Which was delightful, by the way. It was such a lovely chat.
00:07:18
Speaker
It's so good, right, to have those conversations. It's like, yeah, it's nice. It makes you also feel, when you come into the podcast, I'm like, oh, we've already chatted. We already know each other. So it's like, sometimes it's a good thing, and sometimes it's not, because then I was like, I already know the story. I'm like, what if I, you know, maybe I don't need to have everybody else in the listeners, you know, get to hear every detail I already know. Exactly. I know in that conversation, you mentioned a lot how even
00:07:47
Speaker
in your job now with the people that you work with that now that you've experienced this process of grief, how that's even become a bridge their conversation. So let's talk a little bit about your mom's passing. Would you like to share the circumstances of her passing? Sure.
00:08:08
Speaker
happened? So my mom was, um, my mom's had a lot of health issues over the years. So it's not like she was in the best of health when she passed away, but it was definitely unexpected. And you know, it wasn't, it wasn't, we, none of us saw it coming when it did.
00:08:25
Speaker
So over the years she's been in the hospital for you know multiple things and you know I remember one morning getting called like five in the morning to come down to her place to bring her to the hospital because she was vomiting blood and like we're not talking about bloody vomit we're talking about like it was something out of a horror movie where it was just blood gushing out of her mouth and in all of these health crises that she faced I always thought okay this is it.
00:08:51
Speaker
But she would always make this turnaround. She was a woman of immense will and strength and character. And she just always came through it with flying colors. And so I would say for the past seven or eight months, she was facing these really crippling stomach pains. And the ironic thing is it's not funny, but it is ironic. And every time in the past, like I said, I thought, OK, this is it. This is what's going to be the end.
00:09:19
Speaker
i didn't have that feeling so i thought okay well it's an ulcer because they told her she had ulcers she went for colonoscopies and endoscopies and scans and every medical test that you can think of and they kept coming back and saying there's nothing there like we can't find anything wrong with you and with every test saying that she was fine she was getting more and more frustrated because she was like i'm not imagining this like i'm in like it feels she said to me she's like amy i feel like i'm
00:09:49
Speaker
in labor but also with a hot poker stuck through my stomach and it's excruciating and so I guess it was so she passed away July 2nd so I guess like you know closer to the middle of June she went in the hospital again they did more tests couldn't find anything and then finally the morning that she went in for the last time
00:10:13
Speaker
My sister called me and said, so they finally figured out what it is. Part of her colon is dead because it hasn't gotten any circulation at all and it needs to be removed. So we went to the hospital thinking that she was going to have a surgery.
00:10:33
Speaker
And we actually had like a, I have two sisters, two older sisters. And we had this very rushed telephone conference saying, are we going to say yes or no to surgery? Because they said it only has a 20% chance of success. And we all decided mom's a fighter. She's always wanted to fight with everything in her to give her the best chance at living. She was always very passionate about where there's life, there's hope. That was always her thing.
00:11:01
Speaker
So I get to the hospital and even amidst all this COVID madness, my sister was able to get us all in. And I thought, Kendra, like I thought we were there to see my mom into surgery like usual. And when I got there, my sister said, so the plan has changed. And I said, okay. And she said, they're putting her in palliative care. There's nothing they can do for her.
00:11:25
Speaker
And it didn't absorb for me. So I was just like, okay. And I worked in a nursing home before. So I know what palliative care means. I know the weight of those words and what they carry, but it didn't register for me. And I was like, okay, so are they going to give her a blood transfusion? Because she was anemic and she was really, really weak and we knew her blood count was low. And she looked at me and it was the gentleness in her voice that I think carried the weight of what was actually happening. And she said,
00:11:55
Speaker
honey they're not going to do anything for her like they're it's end of life care at this point and so it went from it took me 45 minutes to get to the hospital because i live right on the outskirts of Toronto and my mum lived right downtown Toronto so it took 45 minutes for this she was going to have a surgery and now all of a sudden they're not doing anything for her and then um i was able to tell her she was very very doped up on morphine
00:12:26
Speaker
and it was hard because she wasn't really lucid and I told her that she was my best friend and that I loved her and we made plans for her to die at home and she didn't make it the very next morning we were supposed to go back to the hospital my sister actually texted me and said whatever you do don't come too early because she didn't have a very good night so the doctors want her to be able to sleep for as long as possible
00:12:54
Speaker
and before they transfer her by ambulance back to the house right and so we were supposed to go for noon and at 10 11 in the morning she sent me a text and said are you still home and i called her because i just had this horrible horrible feeling and she said um yeah mum passed away and it was just a shock so it i never really got that closure to
00:13:20
Speaker
this is happening you know like I think I don't think it never would have been easy but it wasn't a sense of I knew it was coming it was just like one day she was supposed to have a surgery and the next day she was just gone and they said that she would probably have weeks and she didn't last week she was just gone so that's it in a nutshell oh gosh
00:13:40
Speaker
And it makes it feel like it had been like an accident type of thing, like one of those sudden deaths because it just happened so quickly. So the way you grieve is very different because you don't have that anticipatory
00:13:58
Speaker
type of grief prior, for when it's a long illness, you kind of start your grieving process at the moment of diagnosis. But in your case, she gets diagnosed for something and then is going to have surgery, then not, and then right away, time changes completely.
00:14:19
Speaker
And this is very recent, as we're recording this, it's only been three months. So that is just very, very, still very new. What do you...
00:14:33
Speaker
What did you do like after? So what happened after her death? And now with the circumstances with COVID, were you able to have a funeral? What were you able to do to honor her? I'm not sure what the standards in Canada are right now with getting people gathering and things
Funeral Delays and Seeking Closure
00:14:49
Speaker
like that. We would have been able to have a small gathering. And to be honest with you, it wasn't one of my
00:14:56
Speaker
main needs or concerns to have that closure. But my sisters do feel that way. And they felt that we should wait because they really wanted my mom was all about family and old school old world values like she was a very Canadian woman. But at heart, she had a lot of, you know, values from what she would call the old country. So Croatia, so feeling like you need to invite everybody, you know, you need to do the right thing in every situation.
00:15:24
Speaker
So my sisters feel very strongly that we shouldn't have any funeral until we can invite everybody who my mom would want to be there. So I'm kind of just going along with that because I think for me, it's like she's already gone. She was cremated, so we do have her ashes. I don't feel that sense of urgency. I don't feel closure, but I don't think a funeral is going to
00:15:51
Speaker
help me feel closure at this point. And I remember when we spoke last week and you asked me like do you want to wait because this is still so fresh and I really didn't want to wait. I think that because I've listened now and I really enjoyed a lot of your past episodes and a lot of the people that I've heard though are quite far out in their grief journey
00:16:13
Speaker
And this being so fresh for me, I wanted to kind of get it out there. It's kind of like my writing where I just wanted to, I just want to get it out without a filter, without the passing of time to dull the edges of the feelings, you know?
00:16:29
Speaker
That is so brave of you to do. And I know, yes, I did mention, I'm like, did you want to wait? Because we were having that conversation. Sorry, I have to clear up. But when you swallow your own saliva, you're like, yeah.
00:16:47
Speaker
So that just happened. And now I swear, I try to hold my, anytime I sneeze or anything. COVID, don't have COVID. I can't believe he's in public. Exactly. You have to walk by the side that says, I can't have allergies now, you know, there's no way. I can't leave my house if I have allergies, because people would think I'm sick. Anyway, sorry for the detour there. But when I mentioned, yes, that it was fresh,
00:17:12
Speaker
Because you you don't everybody's grieving process is so different and everybody's journey so different and you probably You probably have experiences by hearing these stories of people that has been have been probably years in their journey and that are sharing their grief it must be kind of odd to some extent to see that grieving still continues when you're just right now experiencing it does it feel that way when you hear a
The Longevity of Grief: A Panic-Inducing Realization?
00:17:42
Speaker
Somebody shared like if you hear an episode and it's been 10 years or 20 years and somebody still chokes up, for example, if they're talking about it.
00:17:51
Speaker
Is it odd for you to think of it that it's going, that it's basically something that's going to be in your life in one shape, one way, shape, or form? It's not odd. I wouldn't use that word. It's panic inducing, to be honest. I know it's not just, it's not even just like the episodes that I've listened to.
00:18:13
Speaker
you know a very small tribe of people in my life that mean the world to me and a couple of them have lost people who are extremely close to them so I've heard their stories and I said to one of them actually the morning my mom died it was a very beautiful sunny morning and we were still in pretty much lockdown mode over here so work had not continued yet
00:18:37
Speaker
And I just needed to see some of my, you know, some of my tribe, so to speak. And I went, I used to work at a dance studio part time, because my other job is I work in a restaurant. And there was a meeting, because they were talking about reopening, right? And I said to my husband, I was like, I am going to that meeting. And he was like, what? Like, why? Like, the day afterwards, the day? No, the day of.
00:19:05
Speaker
Yeah, so I found out at 10, 11 in the morning that mum died and the meeting was for one and I went to the meeting because I needed to see the people that were there because it's a place where I've always experienced this sense of, you know, being loved and feeling like I'm, like I belong, you know? So I went there and I said to a couple of my really good friends, I said, I feel like I'm on day one of a life sentence.
00:19:32
Speaker
And I don't know how I'm going to get through this. And my one friend, he looked at me and he said, you, as hard as today is, he goes, I'm not going to lie to you, this week is going to get worse. He lost his dad. And so I knew I could trust what he was saying kind of thing. And oddly enough, like those words were more comforting to me than all of the Hallmark kind of sentiments where people say,
00:19:57
Speaker
um you know your your grief is so deep because you loved so deeply like those things don't help me because i already know that but i would rather hear the truth even if it's painful so that i can kind of prepare myself for it um but at the same time i i work with a girl and she lost her mom 10 12 years ago and she said that 10 years after is when it hit the hardest so it's those things like it's like it
00:20:26
Speaker
it's good to know what you're in for and everybody handles it differently but at the same time yeah like it kind of induces panic a little bit because i i've had panic attacks i deal with that every now and then and the way i get through it is having this mental timer you know counting down saying okay you can do this like the last time i had a really bad panic attack i was on a flight this was like after my mom died i was on a flight um
00:20:53
Speaker
from one province to another, and it was really bad turbulence. And I thought to myself, I can do this, even though I feel like I'm going to jump out of my skin, I can do this because there's only another half an hour left in the flight, right?
00:21:06
Speaker
But with this, I don't have that. So it's like, this is going to last. It's tied to my life. You know, it's tied to my own mortality and the amount of time that I have left here. And so that's scary. So I am in the middle of processing that and trying to work out, OK, what does this look like? You know, how do I day by day, how do I deal with it? And the way that I've chosen to approach it, I love prison documentaries. That's one of my weird quirks.
00:21:32
Speaker
And you hear, it's weird, but I really do. And you know, you watch people who are serving a life sentence and they always say they never look ahead to the next day. They just take everything moment by moment. And I'm right here in this moment. And then the next moment I'm right here in that moment. So that's the way I'm choosing to approach grieving is just being right in the moment and not trying to forecast how I'm going to feel even the next two hours away. So.
00:22:00
Speaker
Whoa, like just what you just said right now, Kirsten, being that it's still just so fresh. You just said something that is just...
00:22:09
Speaker
probably the best advice for anybody that is grieving is just really just live it moment to moment because you really do not know. It's not even day by day. It is literally like within a day you can have all the different kinds of emotions anyway, right? In a regular day without us having even had
00:22:32
Speaker
a death, we can still go through so many different kinds of emotions, right? We could be angry, we could be sad, we could be disappointed, we could be this. So when you add grief to the equation, it's exactly that same way. Yeah, you do not know at what moment it may creep in or what in your day may make you feel extreme sorrow. Yeah.
00:22:59
Speaker
even though you may not have control over the things that creep in and emotions that creep in, you do have control over how you mourn. And that is what you're doing right now. So I want to honor you for that. Thank you. Thank you. I did reach out to, sorry, I reached out to another friend of mine who had lost his mom. And she was also like a family member to me. And I said to him,
00:23:29
Speaker
I keep trying to look through my mental glove box to find a roadmap.
00:23:33
Speaker
and I can't find any roadmap. So I don't know where I'm going and I don't even know where I am. And he said the fact that, and the reason I'm saying this is because it kind of echoes in a way what you just said. He said the fact that you're doing that and you're thinking about that, you're creating your own roadmap. So I try to carry that with me too in the back of my head that, okay, I can't, I don't really, can't even read this map cause I can't see it, but apparently it's there. So I'm just going to trust that I, that I have it. So yeah.
00:24:02
Speaker
Yeah, and it is very, again, because if you had a road map, which there are road maps out there for grief, okay, let me just put that, there's certain things or steps or things like that or stages that maybe are out there that maybe for some people it makes kind of sense of saying, okay, this is what I do in this, but at the same time,
00:24:24
Speaker
because everybody is so unique, if you were to have that roadmap, but maybe that day you did not feel like going off the road in that direction, it may feel like a little even more daunting for people that don't necessarily grieve in that manner. So creating your own
00:24:43
Speaker
roadmap of this grief journey, I believe is the best way because it is unique to you. I actually just did, I have to post it, but I did a recording the other day about that, how unique grief experience is because we all are unique. So your roadmap is yours and that is, and you've probably noticed this in your grief journey, very different ways in which you're all grieving. Can you talk a little bit about that?
00:25:09
Speaker
How, how, because you mentioned you have several age difference between your and your.
00:25:14
Speaker
sisters is that correct? So one sister is 10 years older than me and the other one is 11 years older than me and they are both from my mom's first marriage and I'm from the second marriage obviously and they we're all handling it like you said we're all handling it very differently my oldest sister is the responsible one out of us and she is the one that is handling this
00:25:41
Speaker
with details like planning things. And she's very much about like, you know, let's divvy up all of mom's stuff. Let's get together. Let's let's like it. She's a doer. And then my middle, my middle sister is an extremely, um,
00:25:57
Speaker
free spirit she's kind of like the most hippiest chick out of all of us and she's very very wonderful but wild in her way but she suppresses a lot of her emotions so she's a recovering alcoholic and you know she she deals with her her stuff
00:26:15
Speaker
by pretending that it's fine. Everything is fine, you know? And for me, I'm a very much more raw person. Like even I told my sisters, I said, you know, because
00:26:28
Speaker
and I'll get into it later because you and I spoke about it but there's a lot of issues with my dad right now and I told them I said I am going to misbehave sometimes like I'm not going to not misbehave just because mom is gone and they said well you know just tone it down and I said I'm not going to tone it down actually I'm probably gonna tone it up so we are
00:26:49
Speaker
You're the rebel. You're the rebel, but not without a cause. You're the rebel with a cause. You're not the rebel without a cause. My mom was very spicy. Like my mom was the consummate lady, right? Like you sit with your legs crossed and you, you know, don't put your elbows on the table when you're eating, but also she was so spicy at the same time. And I get a lot of my spiciness from her and my sisters are like,
00:27:13
Speaker
Oh, my goodness. My middle sister said to me, she's like, we don't need any shenanigans, Amy. And I was like, there's going to be shenanigans. I promise you that. So. If I'm around, there's shenanigans. Yeah. If you're there, there's going to be. So with that, then, with the rawness, I'm curious, would you want to read any of the things you've written? I'm sorry?
00:27:43
Speaker
Would you want to read anything that, would you like to read anything that you wrote in, on Instagram on the podcast? Is there anything that you'd like to share that just kind of shows a little bit of that? Oh my goodness. Or do you want just people to go check it out? I didn't tell you that. I would say probably just check it out because there's so much, I feel like if I were to choose something, they were all from different, very dark nights.
00:28:12
Speaker
and I don't think they're all equally real but I don't know which one would best I don't know which one like I could really talk about that would say this is what I want people to know right now you know that you're writing is well I use this stuff to be honest with you nobody is there's only two personal friends of mine
00:28:32
Speaker
that actually follow me. So I don't really share this with a lot of people who are close to me because it's my dark space. I call it the well where I push the dark things down. I generally I think I kind of we talked about this I think a little bit last week. If you were to just look at the things that I write, I think that you would probably think that I'm a very different person than I am in person. I'm pretty
00:28:59
Speaker
I love to laugh. I love to laugh. I love happiness and joy and all that good stuff. I'm not this dark, gloomy cloud of badness in real life, but I use that place to put that stuff so that I don't need to visit all of this heavy darkness on the people that I love.
00:29:21
Speaker
And I talk about, you know, childhood sexual abuse and grief. So those are the two main themes to my writing. And my dad was the one who sexually abused me. And so that has been a really big part of my grieving process, because for years and years, I denied that that had happened at all. And then later, when I came to a realization that, OK, it did happen, I denied that it could be him. And everybody in my life that I shared my story with,
00:29:49
Speaker
which is only about four people. It was my husband, my childhood best friend, my pastor and my pastor's wife. They all believed me that something happened, but none of them believed that it was him because he's such a quote, air quotes here that you can't see. He's such a great guy. And so that made me doubt myself. And so I kept thinking, what kind of a horrible person are you that you would accuse this great person of doing this to you, right?
00:30:18
Speaker
So after mom passed away, I, the same day I was talking to my oldest sister and I told her, I said, listen, like, I'm just giving you a heads up. And this is where some of the misbehaving comes in. I said, I am done with dad. Like I'm done. I'm like kind of washing my hands. And I told her what happened. And she was like, huh?
00:30:38
Speaker
And I was like, what's that sound? And I said, did he do something to you? And she said, no, but I think that there's some bad memories there for Whitney and I also. So that was the starting point, right? And then from there, just to make a long story a lot shorter, he did abuse both of them too. So he molested all three of us. And so we're talking about if they're 10 and 11 years older than me,
00:31:04
Speaker
his career in this started from a long time before I was born and then it just continued with me and so that's been part of the grieving process because they're still taking care of him they're still invested in his well-being and I'm not and I'm the only biological child so I think that there's a lot of resentment on their behalf that we're carrying your load for you like we're doing your share of the work when it comes to him even if it's just emotional work like that emotional sense of
00:31:34
Speaker
caring about him. And my oldest sister actually did. She got really angry at me. We were at her house and she said, you know what, my mom would be so disappointed in you the way you're treating dad. And I said, I disagree. I said, I think that if she knew what he did, cause none of us told her, like none of us ever told my mom what he had done. So we all kept this secret as singular individuals. We didn't even share it with each other. Right. And I said, until her passing, until her passing, it was like a,
00:32:06
Speaker
opening that Pandora's box all of a sudden after the passing. And she said, she was like, what? Because mom was very big. Mom was the consummate good wife. Like, I think I'm a really good server because my mom modeled for me what it is to anticipate people's needs and to cater to people because she did that with my dad and she definitely did that with us too. And I have a lot of those personality traits towards the people that I love too. And so my sister was like, what would mom say?
00:32:25
Speaker
a complete shift of like,
00:32:34
Speaker
And I said, she wouldn't force me to even be in his presence if she knew. And that's when I said to her, I said, I love mum and I will try to live my life in a way that honours what she put in me. But I refuse to let that be a burden that I'm going to keep carrying because I'm done with it. Like I'm completely done and I will misbehave. And that's where that line came from. And
00:32:59
Speaker
Later, she tried to pull the religious card on me, which is ironic because my sister is not religious at all. My mom was a woman of faith. I am also. She was like, what would Jesus do? I said, just stop. Honestly, just stop. I'm not going to carry this. I said, I will forgive him because I know that that's good for me, but I haven't forgiven him yet. I've just started to come to terms with the fact that yes, this happened.
00:33:28
Speaker
And that it was him because you didn't even know. How did you come to the realization? Because you had these memories, you felt it was him of how you felt around him.
00:33:42
Speaker
because you were saying of how when you'd see other children hug their dads or things like they would feel kind of weird to you to see because you had never thought. Yeah, tell us a little bit about that. So my earliest memory is very, very, very foggy. And it was me going downstairs one night.
00:34:03
Speaker
I didn't like to sleep alone so I was a very restless sleeper and my mom was always working and I went into the living room and it was this memory of him pushing me on the ground like back onto my back and lifting up my nightie and touching me but it was a very indistinct memory and I remember the next day very clearly like we I was in like preschool preschool age and I remember the next day I was terrified
00:34:28
Speaker
he was working outside because he was a contractor and he did carpentry and we had a barn. I grew up on a farm and so he was in the barn in his wood shop like doing stuff and I was terrified that he was going to come back in the house because it was just me and him alone that day and then as the years progressed I remember him I was maybe 12 and I was changing in my room and again it was just me and him alone at the house in the afternoon
00:34:52
Speaker
and he tried to get in my room, even though I told him, dad, I'm not wearing anything. And I was like closing the door and he was trying to like force his way into the room. And then from there being a grown woman and, you know, saying things to me, like, I would be happy to give you a breast exam. Like I told you that story, right? And it is great. Yeah. Yeah. You had not mentioned the other ones. So like for me hearing it and I know for the listeners, all this, it's so hard. It's such a hard topic. It's like to even,
00:35:21
Speaker
so hard. I can't imagine living with those kinds of emotions. Yeah, so telling my husband, telling my childhood best friend, and they just all kept saying to me, something happened, but maybe it wasn't him.
Revealing and Confronting Abuse
00:35:35
Speaker
And even after he made the comment about examining, doing a physical breast exam on me, my husband was in the car, and I said to him later, I said, did you not hear that?
00:35:45
Speaker
And he said I did and it was weird. But, you know, he's he's like he has MS, like he says weird things sometimes. So at every point in my journey of opening up and telling people, I was kind of met with this thing of doubting myself because they doubted my story. They didn't doubt that what I was saying was true. They just thought that it couldn't be him. Right.
00:36:08
Speaker
And so the defining moment for me was just before, maybe about a month before my mom passed away. And again, we were in lockdown and I have what I call my person. And my person is someone who's incredibly special to me. And we were going to have a Zoom call because we hadn't seen each other in literally months. And I just knew in my heart, I have to tell this person, I have to tell them tonight,
00:36:36
Speaker
what happened and we started off with this really great light-hearted conversation and i was just like so hey and i just kind of blurted it all out and they said it happened and it was him and i said how do you know that like how do you just believe me just like that and they said you because it's you like you you wouldn't feel this way about somebody you wouldn't have these feelings knowing the person that you are you wouldn't have these feelings unless it actually happened
00:37:02
Speaker
So that gave me my courage to then say to my oldest sister after mom passed away that it did happen. Cause finally I felt somebody was in the octagon with me and that I wasn't just by myself, like this crazy woman. And then from there, after hearing that he did it to them too, it was validation that I'm not crazy. Like it actually happened and the details that came out were just horrifying. So yeah, I would say that my person gave me that strength to believe myself.
00:37:31
Speaker
Yeah. That insight. That insight. When you decided that in that moment you were going to cut ties, like when your mom died, that you were going to cut ties with your dad, did you tell him?
00:37:49
Speaker
of the why you were not longer. Okay, so what is this conversation? What has it been then since in the last three months? With him, like why does he think you're not contacting him? Well, that's another thing that my person said to me. They said, you know, like knowing the kind of person you are, if you just all of a sudden decided to cut ties with me,
00:38:10
Speaker
I would break through a brick wall to find out why. Like I would need to know why. So my dad has never ever tried to contact me or reach out or ask me anything. So he does have MS. And one of the things that was happening before my mom died was he was, and again, my mom was 80. So just for anybody out there listening, my mom was frail. She could barely walk and she was not, you know, hot to trot.
00:38:35
Speaker
At all like she was she was not very mobile and he kept accusing her of cheating on him and We thought at first that it was just like dementia, but he went for tests. It wasn't dementia He was just being really mean and vicious and he ended up Calling her a lot of mean names and the last time she went in the hospital. He was actually a
00:38:57
Speaker
very gleeful and anticipatory he was like so is she gonna die you know and just being really mean about it and so we were all at my sister's house after my mom passed away and he was sitting we were all outside and my sister has a pool I was in the pool they were sitting in front of the fire and I heard them talking and my dad was just saying to my eldest sister you know she was a whore right and he was just badmouthing her so much and saying that he was
00:39:24
Speaker
kind of happy that she was dead and everything else and this is like two days after she died so we're not talking about any kind of passage of time and that's when one of my misbehaving moments happened and I went over to him and I said repeat what you just said and he repeated it and I told him that the wrong person died which probably wasn't the best thing to say but I did say it and
00:39:48
Speaker
Yeah, it was a little bit of a bad scene. And so he knows that I'm angry at him, but at the same time when he left, he gave my husband a hug and said, make sure Kirsten knows that her mother was a whore. Please make sure she knows that. So he's just, I don't think there's any ambiguity on his behalf of how I feel and why. I think though that he has no idea that we've all been talking about the sexual abuse. I think that's not in his head at all.
00:40:21
Speaker
So when he said that, was that out of his personality or out of his illness that he said that kind of comment? Or is that his personality? It became his personality near the end. The last time that my mom was here visiting was less than a month before she died. And she always felt better around me, like physically.
00:40:43
Speaker
She was very equally loving towards all three of us, but she definitely drew different things from us. So my middle sister Whitney was her laughter. Whitney could always make her laugh. And Kim was her rock. Kim was the one that she could depend on no matter what. And she told my brother-in-law that I was her joy and her soul. And she really drew spiritual strength from me, just like I drew it from her.
00:41:12
Speaker
she told me she said I don't want to go home but your father's pressuring me to go home and I want to stay here because when I'm around you I feel physically better and so he pressured her and when they got home she texted me and she said he just told me that he effing hates me and effing wishes that I would die you know so it became his personality I don't know when that happened but it wasn't
00:41:39
Speaker
I mean, I know other people with MS because and the doctor even said that's not something that typically would manifest for that, you know, he just became this hateful individual. Wow. It's so it's so it's hard. It's definitely hard to hard to hear. And the fact that
00:42:09
Speaker
She had just, the person you love has just died and hearing those kinds of words about her. Like I, I can't, uh, can't imagine how that feel, you know, that the, her partner saying, that's what I was asking was that the illness or the, or his personality. So, and thank you by the way, let me just like, it's just so, so much it's, um, do you feel,
00:42:38
Speaker
after sharing, do you feel that is there a lightness to some extent for you? I mean, in the heaviness of all this, of course, and of your grief, the fact that you shared this truth with your sisters and now, you know, now that you know exactly who it is that had molested you,
00:43:06
Speaker
Do you feel lighter because that's out? Like it's not something you're keeping and I know that your writing reflects a little bit about that, but it's not something you're like just pushing in. I do, I feel free. I feel like I gave the ghost a name and the name gave it form and now that it has a form, it can be conquered kind of thing. You know, I feel like for so long not
00:43:35
Speaker
not giving it a voice, not giving it a name, not giving him a name in my life and what he did to me, it empowered him even more. And I feel a lot of guilt too. I feel like we all should have said something to my mom. And we were all just trying to protect her. That's the ironic part of it. But I think that
00:43:57
Speaker
I think that she would have definitely left him and I think that we just did her a disservice, not trusting that she could have dealt with that, if that makes sense.
00:44:08
Speaker
But I do feel lighter and I do feel freer because it's not my shame to carry. And, you know, there's never been a point in this where I felt, even when I didn't want to admit it was him, there's never been a point where I thought to myself, what happened was my fault. And I know that some people who survive sexual abuse feel that way. That's never been my inner narrative. My inner narrative has always been, I can't trust myself.
00:44:34
Speaker
And so I've embarked on this whole new path where I'm learning to trust myself. And, you know, even with my friendships in my life, one of the easiest ways that you can hurt me is to kind of call me reactionary and to say, oh, calm down. Like, I think you're overreacting.
00:44:50
Speaker
Because that just mirrors the inner dialogue that's in my head 24-7 I've lived without my whole life doubting like I can't trust myself I'm not seeing this for what it is like I'm reacting all wrong and so again like giving this thing a name giving him a name is Empowering me to trust myself and that's been really healing in and of itself just for me personally That it that is just a
Dual Grief: Navigating Loss and Betrayal
00:45:20
Speaker
an incredible way of being able to view it because it is, again, you're dealing with two different kinds of griefs. You're grieving the death of your mom, the passing of your mom, and then there's also
00:45:39
Speaker
the, even though you don't necessarily probably grieve the fact that he's not in your life, there's still a component of grief when you're kind of served, you know, changed relationship for sure, right. And then all that also affects the dynamics with your sisters, because now all these things. So there's so many years of the grief, there's the second, you know, secondary losses, as they call it because of that.
00:46:07
Speaker
but it's also, so again, I want to say brave that you in this moment of very vulnerable moment of pain and grief that you still were able to just allow yourself to finally breathe per se, you know, because again, you let it out of the, you let it out of the, of the box. Now in the, in your, so writing your, um,
00:46:35
Speaker
your poems and would you say poems would be the right word? I don't know. Like I think when I do it, I kind of think of it as stream of consciousness writing, you know, just like kind of, it's just free flowing. I don't know. I really don't know if it's poetry or not or prose, but it's, yeah, I don't know.
00:46:58
Speaker
Yeah, I know, it's like, I don't like, does it follow the pattern? Is it like, what do you, what do you, that you don't like that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, I don't even remember the metrics of, you know, those, I don't even remember poetry when it was, I'm like, does it, I, what was, yeah, like, was it like a penta, penta, penta, something, and this, okay. So yeah, I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. So sometimes it's hard. But so writing has been one of your ways of expressing your grief. What are other ways? You mentioned in work,
00:47:28
Speaker
Because you have this persona that you have to be when you work, you work in customer service. How is it for you when you're at work and having to be on, per se?
00:47:45
Speaker
happy you go lucky when you're going through so much inside. It's been challenging, especially because the place where I work, it's a small town. It's a small community. We have a lot of regulars and I'm a very, very private individual. I don't let a lot of people into my inner world and what I'm going through, but nobody else that I work with is like that. So literally, I went back to work less than a week after my mom died.
00:48:14
Speaker
I was assaulted right away with questions about her and they didn't know she had died. So that kind of made it worse. They're like, we heard your mom's in the hospital. How's she doing? So I would have to smile through it all and say she actually passed away. And so now it's awkward for you and me. I didn't say that, but this is what's going through my head. So yeah, that has been a challenge, but kind of blessings in disguise with everything happening with COVID. Our shifts are all really reduced.
00:48:43
Speaker
So I haven't been working as much as I used to so I averaged two to three shifts a week versus the five that I used to work So that's been good. So I would say that the other ways that I kind of manage is I really lean heavily on the people that I love and that the people that I know love me and They've been incredible. Like I don't think like we talked a little bit about the gratitude piece last week and
00:49:07
Speaker
And that's the number one thing that I can say I'm so grateful for the people in my life because I wouldn't I don't know how I'd be standing right now without them in all honesty checking in on me.
00:49:20
Speaker
I have two incredible friends who come to see me at the pub at least twice a week and I know that I can actually be real with them and take my mask off literally and figuratively and just be real and they're there for me no matter what and I do have other people too but there are more people that I don't see on a regular basis so I know that they're there and they check in with me but yeah it's those friendships and relationships in my life like I said my person just people that I can
The Role of Friends in Authentic Grieving
00:49:49
Speaker
completely break down in front of and know that they're okay with it, you know, they don't have an expectation that I'm going to pretend, you know. It is so important to be able to have those places in which again, you could just be completely transparent about your emotions. And again, especially since you do work in an environment in which you do have to be or expected
00:50:15
Speaker
that you have to be happy and, you know, and cheerful because you're in customer service. And it made us, we were having, when we talked last week about the aspect of having empathy, right, of when people are,
00:50:30
Speaker
when you're being served by somebody to know, like imagine that day, a week after your mom's passing, if you were serving me, bringing me my lunch, and if I asked something, and if you would have responded a little bit less nice than usual, that empathy that has to exist without us really knowing everybody's journey and story. So I really saw that as a eye opening for me as well, like when you shared that you had gone,
00:50:59
Speaker
right back to work of thinking of how many people we interact day in and day out that have stories like this that maybe that day they didn't they couldn't even pay their rent or you know different stories that somebody may go through of hardship and um or if they had gotten a car accident overweight to work and then they're here serving you're complaining about whether
00:51:25
Speaker
you had the right touch up or not, you know, whatever. Well, what's crazy is one of my, I don't know if it was my first or second shift back. I was serving, it was pretty late at night and I was serving these two young girls and they were pretty drunk at the time. And you know, girls get weepy when we get drunk and you know, I love you and I love you more and that kind of stuff. But this was different. Like these were different tiers and I looked at the one of them and I said, I don't mean to be intrusive. I said, but,
00:51:52
Speaker
you're here crying and I said and I just want to let you know that I see you and I don't want to ignore your tears because it's so evident that you're here and you're broken like it I know you're going through something I don't know what it is and I don't need to know and I said but I just lost my mom not even a week ago and I said and I feel right now that like
00:52:15
Speaker
people kind of I said the day that she died I was breaking down in the stores that I was at right and I said and nobody wanted to just look at me and see me even I went for a walk right after my mom died I went for a walk and I was literally Kendra I was doubled up in the fetal position on a patch of grass in my neighborhood sobbing and people were just walking right by and I said to her I said I don't want to do that to you I want you to know that I see you
00:52:43
Speaker
And she gave me a huge hug. She was like, is it okay if I hug you? And I said, yeah. And she was like, I lost both of my parents. So I think that, you know, and that's why she was crying because she had lost both of them. And to me, this has taught me like that whole piece about empathy is just
00:53:02
Speaker
honoring the person in front of you by seeing them you know because we are so uncomfortable with grief as a culture we're so uncomfortable with sadness and you know the negative quote-unquote negative emotions that we just avert our eyes and sometimes we do it because we're trying to be polite
00:53:20
Speaker
but people are feeling so lost you know and it just it made a difference for her it made a difference for me and we had a really great conversation after that so yeah it's just been a learning curve for me for sure steep steep learning curve so amazing yeah now do you think that knowing your personality do you think had you not just experienced
00:53:45
Speaker
the death of your mom, do you think that you would have been bold of saying, I see you, I know you're crying, you know what I mean, in another circumstance? Or do you think the fact that you had just had this immense wound made you be more empathetic in that circumstance? Yeah, it made me more empathetic. I think
00:54:08
Speaker
I love connecting with people. I love talking to people. Relating with people comes fairly easily for me. But I also, I am culturally conditioned to not want to seem like that nosy neighbor that just wants to be in your business and like, what's wrong? You don't know me. So I think I probably would have asked her, are you okay? Is there anything I can do for you? But I don't think I would have maybe approached it the way I did. And I'm so glad that I was able to.
00:54:37
Speaker
you know like because we talk about like i'm not grateful i can't find the silver lining in my mom's passing yet because i've listened to some of your other guests and they'll say that they you know they're not happy that their loved one passed away but there's a silver lining in there somewhere i haven't found mine yet but at least in the process um i feel like it's refining me as an individual i think i mentioned it to you even last week like i've been doing a lot of soul searching and
00:55:06
Speaker
losing my mom shattered me like it shattered me into a million million million pieces and you know the story that I shared with you about like hurting myself on my own jagged edges I've just been trying to figure out like okay what can I turn this pain into what kind of purpose how can I upcycle it and repurpose it
00:55:26
Speaker
So the theme that's been on my mind a lot lately is mosaic and just taking these fragmented pieces of myself and making something, at least gluing them up in some kind of a pattern so that I'm not tripping on them and cutting myself on my own pain and getting broken over and over and over again. So I think that was kind of the first stepping stone for that.
00:55:52
Speaker
No, and then we were talking about the the what the different the Japanese form of art is the wabi, wabi, sabi and then the other that it's what's the other one that I don't know that it's basically that mosaic like what you just said. But mosaic is a good example, too, because it is that it's all these pieces and suddenly they come together into this beautiful
00:56:20
Speaker
form of art and expression. And that's exactly what you are doing right now. And with how you express yourself on your Instagram account, which we will share if you want the link in the show notes so that people can go and read and get to know a little bit more of that side. And again, like you said, it's a way of you being able to get those feelings out
00:56:46
Speaker
in a way that instead of bottling them in, right? And it helps for your own...
00:56:54
Speaker
cleansing and healing to do that. And it's just great. It's just the way that you express. You mentioned you were a dancer, that you worked at a dancer. Are you a dancer? No. So I actually got hired there, ironically. So the two people that I told you to come to the pub to see me, one of them owns the studio and he became one of my regulars.
00:57:17
Speaker
And from there he was like, I would love you to come work at my studio and make my students feel as welcome as you've made all of us feel here.
00:57:26
Speaker
And so I was like, OK, but I don't dance. And he said, that's OK. You'll never have to learn how to dance. And he lied. He's a dirty liar because as soon as I started there, they're like, no, we're going to teach you how to dance. Right. And it's funny because all of that is actually tied into the sexual abuse. Like I'm a very shy person, especially when it comes to anything bodily kinesthetic, like movement. Like I don't even like to walk across the room. Like I like to be invisible.
00:57:54
Speaker
and where my cloak of invisibility and like you just don't even look at me and so to be in a place where there's mirrors wall to wall that was torture in and of itself and then to
00:58:06
Speaker
Now, you know, become vulnerable enough to do something that I already felt uncomfortable doing. It was torture. And I kind of like just kind of made some strides to start taking some lessons. But I'm not a dancer. But I was taking lessons prior to lockdown. And I was enjoying it just because it was like one of those things where I love all the arts and I love creativity. But more than that, I like the fact that I didn't think that I would have the courage to try.
00:58:33
Speaker
So I started to approach the lessons not in terms of I'm gonna be good But I approached it in the sense of I'm gonna probably be really crappy But I'm gonna push myself and pushing myself means that I've won a victory against myself, you know, so yeah
00:58:51
Speaker
Absolutely, absolutely. No, and it is actually, who knows? Like, what if you never knew you were a good dancer just because you never tried? You know what I mean? Like, what if? What if this is like this hidden talent that you didn't even know you had? Spoiler alert, this is a good dancer, but yeah, I understand what you're saying. You know, I'm gifted in being clumsy. I can trip on my own bare feet, so.
00:59:18
Speaker
I am not a vision of grace at all in any way.
00:59:24
Speaker
No, but it's still like, you know, it's everybody finds different ways, again, of expressing their grief. You've found it through writing. Others might find it. There was another guest. I had dances the way that she was, you know, she travels her grief through dance. So everybody finds a way and art, art ends up being one of those venues in which a lot, you know, music, you know, again, just different, different ways can be a tool
00:59:52
Speaker
And for you, it's been the writing, it's been the talking to your people, to the people that are close to you, being able to express yourself with them honestly and candidly about all your emotions. And that is just so important. And again, like you said, even though it's been very recent since this happened, and who knows, we may have an interview a year from now and see what
01:00:18
Speaker
how your grief has changed then and your grief journey and the gratitude maybe a year down the line because you did say that there's been some things you're grateful. I would say that for sure, the fact that the gratitude of now that experience being the catalyst for you to be free from this story that you thought was not even real or it was real, but it was different transitions in the story. Yeah. Yeah.
01:00:49
Speaker
Yeah, that now you're like, okay, now I can actually trust Matt. I can start trusting myself again because I was right all these years, what I thought had happened had. And now I can start this journey of relearning to trust me and to trust my intuition and to trust my gut and to trust, you know, that what my thoughts are real, you know? Um, so that in itself is a,
01:01:18
Speaker
a big gratitude component for sure. And again, that's just the beginning of things to come. But you are in that gray in between, as we call in the podcast, the gray in between right now. It feels very gray. And I'm just so grateful that it's gray. And like you said, and in your writing, sometimes really dark, and it's
01:01:40
Speaker
It's so true. Grief can be very isolating. It's lonely. And again, it is lonely. And especially when you grieve, everybody does grieve very differently. It can be very lonely not being able to express it in the same way as your sisters or your husband or this. You know what I mean? Because everybody grieves differently.
01:02:08
Speaker
So thank you. Thank you for coming. Oh, thank you. I was shocked when you asked me. I was like, oh my goodness. This is delightful. So yeah, thank you for having me. I'm so grateful that you accepted and sharing and having the courage to also share
01:02:29
Speaker
this other side of your journey. And I hope that we continue to see all these amazing things that are gonna come from this now Kirsten trusting herself in this walking into the world, walking differently into life and eventually walking in front of a mirror, feeling confident and secure.
01:02:55
Speaker
into who she is and I know that that is the path that you are embarking in. Thank you very much. I hope so.
01:03:12
Speaker
Thank you again so much for choosing to listen today. I hope that you can take away a few nuggets from today's episode that can bring you comfort in your times of grief. If so, it would mean so much to me if you would rate and comment on this episode. And if you feel inspired in some way to share it with someone who may need to hear this, please do so.
01:03:40
Speaker
Also, if you or someone you know has a story of grief and gratitude that should be shared so that others can be inspired as well, please reach out to me. And thanks once again for tuning into Grief Gratitude and the Gray in Between podcast. Have a beautiful day.