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Goodpain Episode No. 008: Loss, Grief, & Recovery - The Return of Play
115 Plays3 months ago
This extended discussion deepens the exploration of defiance through the lens of another's response to family trauma. The conversation examines how her "feistiness" and defiance protected her authentic, playful nature from being consumed by the "new normal" imposed by crisis.
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Transcript
Introduction to Sensitive Topics
00:00:00
Speaker
As a content warning, this episode discuss trauma, healing, grief involving a child and catastrophe. Due to the sensitive nature of this topic, please take care of yourself.
Introducing 'Good Pain' Podcast
00:00:11
Speaker
I'm Jeremy. And I'm Tyler. Welcome to Good Pain, where we talk about life's true intensities without pretending they're easy solve.
00:00:19
Speaker
What if the things we're told to fix, optimize, or get over are actually where the real wisdom lives? Each week we gather for the kind of honest conversations you desire to be a part of more often about the relentless demands, the unexpected grief, the quiet victories, and everything between. Because maybe, just maybe, the answer isn't to limit the hard stuff, it's to find the good in it.
00:00:40
Speaker
Welcome to the conversation.
00:00:53
Speaker
Welcome back to Good Pain, where we're continuing our conversation.
Defiance in Playfulness and Trauma
00:00:56
Speaker
Last week, we left off the episode a little bit of a cliffhanger, saying that we're talk about someone else and how defiance showed up for them, whereas mine showed up.
00:01:08
Speaker
professionally. What we're going to be discussing today is how playfulness starts to interact with defiance and what is at risk regarding a playful attitude, a playful spirit, and that embracing playfulness can actually be something that is cathartic, is healing, that helps protect those who have been through or are going through trauma.
00:01:29
Speaker
One of the groups that we think does that really, really well in a space that invites that play that is surprising are stand-up comedians. One of our favorites is Josh Blue.
00:01:41
Speaker
Josh has cerebral palsy and he will frequently roast himself and make light without undermining the seriousness of what he has to carry. He gives the audience permission to laugh.
00:01:54
Speaker
This is something we practiced a couple of weeks ago Tiffany had a great idea for roasting each other, but we were going to do it in a different way. We have been exploring the use of ai in our house, how we do that ethically. We've been talking about it over on some of the Sparks and Embers episodes, as well as the Kindling feature articles on what does it mean to be a human person.
00:02:15
Speaker
in a world where AI is increasingly the topic of discussion with very few answers that are associated with that. But every Sunday night, we have a family night still with all five of us. All of us are legal adults now and we're still trying to stay connected and family night is our means for doing that.
AI and Humor in Family Dynamics
00:02:35
Speaker
This family night, what we decided was we were going to use AI to build profiles of each other. And then we would assign those profiles to a designated AI comedian that would roast us.
00:02:48
Speaker
We're going to set the table a little bit. So what we would do is we interacted with ai and all five of us. would input information into the large language model we were using, describing what our profile was going to be. And so Claire's profile came back with these little pithy self descriptions that were short, funny versions of how she might describe herself.
00:03:10
Speaker
Claire described herself as, I'm the one who sighs for sport. I'm the one who demands to be carried. My legs are just for show. I'm the one who blames all profanity on a glitch.
00:03:22
Speaker
I'm the one who can score with my eyes closed but can't be bothered to get off the couch. I'm the one who traumatizes with talk of testicles. I'm going to give a little bit of of color commentary on that in just a minute because we do need to warn a little bit about the the content that's involved in this this roast of Claire. She continued, I'm the one with the permanent shark escort. that's a We have a small shark that is on her wheelchair to keep her feet from getting trapped inside.
00:03:49
Speaker
within more dangerous parts of the wheelchair. And then she's the one who says, I'm the one who says, quote unquote, this is fun. But she rarely says that. So when we decided to roast her or any of us, we assigned AI to act as if they had the persona of a specific comedian. And in Claire's case, we chose Josh Blue.
00:04:13
Speaker
Claire is going to mention some things that are off color, in tone, and that's going to be reflective of who Claire is. Claire is known for... Wanting to obtain shock value, she values shock. And some of our favorite stories of her at school involve her dropping specific lines that are totally inappropriate.
00:04:34
Speaker
Part of why we love it is because it's hilarious. And secondly, because it gives us the opportunity to lecture her, to treat her as our child that needs to learn that there are social boundaries that sometimes needs to be respected. So some of that gets discussed in this roast, but I'm going to read the roast to you and then we'll finish up the story.
00:04:56
Speaker
So the roast, as Josh Blue delivered it, went like this. Now, I've heard a lot about our guest of honor tonight. She's 19, female, has two sisters and is apparently the queen of the house.
00:05:08
Speaker
I gotta to say, when I first heard, she refuses to move unless carried, I thought, finally, someone who understands me. But then I realized she doesn't have a good excuse, like, you know, being me. She just chooses not to move. That's not a disability. That's just being a teenager, and frankly, a very efficient one.
00:05:27
Speaker
Why walk when you can be a human-sized handbag? And the size. Oh, the size. I'm told she sighs in exasperation all day long. I didn't know someone could turn breathing into a competitive sport.
00:05:40
Speaker
I bet she won most sarcastic by just exhaling really dramatically. You know, most people use words to express disdain. She's out here using atmospheric pressure. I'm surprised she hasn't created a localized low-pressure system in her own living room. She also likes to shock people by talking about ****.
00:05:58
Speaker
then and and testicles. I mean, bless her heart. Most of us just try to make polite conversation at family gatherings. She's out there conducting one-woman sex ed seminar.
00:06:10
Speaker
You gotta to admire the commitment to making everyone profoundly uncomfortable. And the iPad. She's always on her iPad, watching Phineas and Ferb. I get it. Who needs the real world when you have a flat, glowing rectangle that understands you better than your own family? I'm pretty sure her actual goal in life is to become a permanent fixture on the couch, fused with the cushions, with the iPad as her only window to the outside. She's a homebody who literally won't leave home even when she does. She'll tell you she wants to go out, then complain when she's there.
00:06:43
Speaker
That's not going out. That's just bringing the complaining to a new location. And then there's the basket shooting with her eyes closed. Now that's impressive. You know, I play some basketball and I can barely hit the hoop with my eyes open.
00:06:55
Speaker
She's out here living in a different dimension of athletic prowess, probably because she's too busy sleeping during special events. I bet she sleeps so hard she snores in a different language. So here's to Claire, the sassy, sighing, homebody basketball star who proves you can be incredibly lazy and shockingly brilliant all at the same time. We love you most days.
00:07:16
Speaker
And that was the end of the roast.
Playfulness as Healing
00:07:17
Speaker
The thing we forgot to tell AI was that Claire was disabled, that she cannot use her legs, that she is bound to a wheelchair. So when we read this out and we realized our mistake, that we hadn't given the context for the roast, there was this cringe moment. And yet really quickly, it became a part of an actual roast.
00:07:40
Speaker
Choosing these things that can be separating, that can be off-putting, that can violate decorum and etiquette, and instead choosing that Claire can be playful about it. All of us can choose to invite and pull people in, pull an audience in to what our world is Or we can choose to stay separate. And I think that's part of what we're going to discuss today is the nature of how important playfulness is, how it can be a lifeline. And that when we go through trauma, there's this outstanding question of, well, if this is what the rest of my life is going to be like, will I ever laugh again? Will I ever feel playful? Or is this the cross that I'm going to bear for the rest of my life in a way that is heavy, detrimental, where parts of myself get sacrificed on an altar to the life that could have been? This is what we're going to discuss, and we're going discuss it through the lens of someone other than me, but it is my perspective on this person.
Defiance vs. Acceptance in Trauma
00:08:42
Speaker
And I'm excited to share this part and glimpse of who this person is.
00:08:53
Speaker
You talked about another person that's defiance might be a ah conversation point for us. you want to transition to that? Yeah, ah it's obviously Tiffany and the only one that I have the license to talk about to some degrees of of this. And I'm mean ah try to talk about it in a way that is relaying my observations as someone who has been alongside her. And if any point those conflict with what she says, her recollection is the canon.
00:09:22
Speaker
That's the authority. Yeah. Last time we were talking about defiance, we started off with a question around what what's your definition of defiance? You and I had an almost introductory conversation on what's the definition of defiance and then the follow up was what's the opposite of defiance?
00:09:39
Speaker
You started off with talking about the opposite was acceptance. I mentioned surrender and I have changed my answer. yeah. Um, on that Tiffany and I had ah question because defiance has actually been a part of our conversation for the past couple of weeks. Okay. What we discovered in that conversation was a pairing of defiance that I feel is less academic.
00:10:04
Speaker
For me, the acceptance and surrender end of the spectrum opposite defiance is a very academic, almost Miriam's dictionary or Webster's dictionary, whichever you prefer to feel.
00:10:16
Speaker
Well, don't let's not have that conversation yeah today yeah on this peaceful Sunday. The way Tiffany and I have had a conversation and I think what we'll end up discussing during this podcast, I may end up talking quite a bit about Tiffany and her journey and in particular with trauma and defiance, because how she showed up was much more on the defiance spectrum than than I did. Oh, and I think her journey and sharing that with her permission, which I have.
00:10:42
Speaker
Yeah. is going to be. really illustrative in this context in a way that I think is playful. If there's anything that ah for us as we've kind as we continue to record that I have a little bit of a longing and a yearning for is is that I've talked to you about this before is at least when I'm talking, I have a tendency to to be intellectual. And what comes across is what I feel is a little bit more academic in the discussion. Okay.
00:11:10
Speaker
Where I feel the power when you and I talk is anchoring that to a heart, a through line that comes from the heart. Okay. And I think what that requires is just a little bit more playfulness, even with the topic.
00:11:23
Speaker
When it comes to me and this story and where defiance has shown up the most in my life is professionally. Defiance for me showed up in the disillusionment that came with trauma, with Claire's trauma.
00:11:38
Speaker
And by disillusionment, I mean the things that don't matter. i was even more defiant towards the rat race. I had no time for that.
00:11:48
Speaker
And that was something that had started before. Professionally, it had already started. Okay. But the trauma put that on steroids. I stood in defiance to illusions. Tiffany was standing in defiance to the new normal.
00:12:02
Speaker
The fun thing about this that I'm looking forward to about talking about this is ah Tiffany was standing in defiance to the new normal because she had to It is in her being.
00:12:15
Speaker
it is in her being because the opposite of defiance for her, the thing that makes her who she is, is also very clear. What was app threat for Tiffany?
00:12:28
Speaker
What is at threat for me? What is at threat for any family member? any Anybody who's experiencing trauma? Pieces of ourselves are at risk. the The only way I can describe it is almost like it is an internal war that is being waged yeah for reclamation of self.
00:12:48
Speaker
And the way Tiffany's defiance showed up was the only way it could in her path for reclaiming the most beautiful things about herself. And without that defiance.
00:13:01
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if she would have been able to
Tiffany's Natural Endearment
00:13:03
Speaker
reclaim those things. You just lose too much of yourself. Yes. Yes. And and this is, i keep kind of pointing to like, what is this opposite thing? The yin of her defiance. Yeah.
00:13:15
Speaker
What is the yang of of it? What is the opposite? What is that? Yeah. Yeah. One of the things i love most about Tiffany, yeah one of the things that everyone remarks makes Tiffany Tiffany.
00:13:27
Speaker
Had she not had the defiance, the question would have been not only did we lose Claire, did we also lose Tiffany? But the reason why this is such a picture of what defiance actually is, the first time we talked about, what are we talking about when we mentioned defiance?
00:13:46
Speaker
In reflection, it felt intellectual. Okay. So was too formulaic, too rigid, too... Because I'm not having an academic conversation on what is really the opposite of defiance. In this situation, ah Tiffany is is an individual that it is very difficult to find anything not charming about Tiffany. Having known your wife, that is very true.
00:14:14
Speaker
There is a child likeness that somehow yeah she has been able to maintain since I've known her. When I reflect on the things that first attracted me to Tiffany...
00:14:27
Speaker
When we met, I was 14, she was 13. We were... This still amazes me. Yes. We were foreign enemies at the time. yeah The story gets better. But as we continue to go through school together and got to our sophomore and then our junior year, was very clear that we spoke a similar language, which was me and my sarcasm and humor married up with feistiness. In her, that was always childlike. Tiffany will still do this to this day that if, you know, you say something to tease her, it's almost like watching four-year-old little girl cross her arms and... And...
00:15:06
Speaker
ah and She is the most expressive person that I know. The facial expressions she makes. And and she she may not like them, all of them. She doesn't. Sure. I love all of them. Yeah. Because it betrays such a ah emotion, heart on the sleeve, ready to engage, ready to risk.
00:15:30
Speaker
Yeah. her feelings to advocate for them. And there's something about her that people gravitate towards. She doesn't understand it. 100% of the time. Yes. I've seen this be true.
00:15:41
Speaker
She doesn't understand when, when she looks at other people around her and she sees their accomplishments, it makes sense, intellectual sense for her to see people with credentials, with accomplishments and And say, oh, there's a reason why they are liked.
00:15:56
Speaker
ah They've earned that respect, that honor. She doesn't understand. She doesn't have to do anything to earn it other than be herself.
00:16:07
Speaker
And people are delighted. I'm delighted. It is not difficult to love Tiffany. And what I'm describing for all this, the best way I can describe it is this childlike innocence that sometimes shows up with a naivete that shows up, you know, ah she is, she'll describe herself as like, she is the queen of backhanded compliments.
00:16:28
Speaker
but It's funny because her sincerity, her authenticity, yeah there is no question mark in in her mind of should I say this or how should i pack it?
00:16:40
Speaker
She says things in such a way that in polite society, it might come across so authentically That people are like, are you insulting me? Are you complimenting me?
00:16:51
Speaker
And the truth is, it's compliment 100% of the time. Sure. It's so charming. It's the equivalent of your child walking through the store and them saying, oh, that that person is bald.
00:17:05
Speaker
Like, look how shiny his head is. And the parent saying things like, we don't talk that way. You say that. You can't like. Yes. Go say your story. Why can't you talk that way? It's an observation. That child is delighting in seeing something that captures their attention. So magical. It is.
00:17:24
Speaker
It's all magical. And that's what it is like living with Tiffany and getting to witness through her eyes, always the magic of the world. Yeah. The reason I'm building this up is all of that was put at risk.
00:17:37
Speaker
That was what was at risk for falling down for Tiffany. you The opposite of that playfulness, of that magic was a world being reduced to living in something without playfulness, something without magic, mundane, yeah perfunctory, just surviving.
00:17:58
Speaker
And for that reason, the thing that had to be present to give playfulness life, the only thing that in my mind now looking back on it, the only thing that would make that survive was another thing that has always been with Tiffany is defiance.
00:18:17
Speaker
That feistiness, that harumph, that crossing her hands and just glaring, that puffing her chest out and just stomping her feet. That is a defiance that gives life to the playfulness.
00:18:31
Speaker
Mm-hmm. And the reason why i frame it this way, right? And I feel it's so alive for me in Tiffany, why they're so tied together is Tiffany has gone through her entire life having a reaction to rules, to being confined. yeah When Claire was injured and we have a new normal that's emerging, Tiffany's inclination to that was, I don't want this.
00:18:55
Speaker
Can you tell us more about that? That's a curious response. Do you think that she was so aware of who she was in that way and the joy that she brought to other people? I'm i'm guessing not. no So so what what about that? What is it she didn't want, I guess, is the question, which is an absurd question. No, no. I think I recognize none of you wanted yeah was going on, but what specifically with her, if you get if you could articulate that?
Misconceptions About Claire
00:19:18
Speaker
What was happening was out of her control. Yeah. Okay. There are certain new illusions that start popping up into that or reestablishing themselves.
00:19:29
Speaker
Prior to this, a good life equals, you know, ah all of us have been told or conditioned to see is is that you you have the kids, you have the relationship, the marriage, the home, the all these different pieces. All the markers of success yeah and happiness.
00:19:44
Speaker
Yeah. And all of that takes place in this realm of healthy, at least meeting quasi perfection. That's going to make you happy. Right. And I think all of us understand and and go through the disillusionment that says, you know, that's it's that's a little too tidy for my taste.
00:19:59
Speaker
After this, when the new normal starts to set in or you're starting to to learn what is required, there are also other types of illusions that start to pop up.
00:20:10
Speaker
You've got to come down this learning curve very quickly as a parent. In order to be a good parent in this realm, you've got to learn how to research what's going on. And today, in light of the internet, where everything is at your fingertips, you've got to figure out how to ask the right questions. You've got to try out certain modalities. You have to reassert control.
00:20:36
Speaker
And in order to so to do the propping up of these new illusions that I am still a good parent, that I can continue to juggle all these new things, you've got to accept some things about that new normal.
00:20:49
Speaker
Like my daughter is injured. My daughter's spine is starting to shift a little bit. My daughter has not been trying for three months and Claire still cannot swallow, you know, trace amounts of viscous honey and she can't manage that.
00:21:07
Speaker
There were aspects that Tiffany wanted to deny. She reached into denial about some things. yeah And then in terms of what she was going to stand in opposition to, it was going to be the way people saw Claire.
00:21:22
Speaker
and The way people interpreted her as an object versus a subject of her own life, because now more and more people were taking care of her. She was going to defy any of the illusions that were propped up around Claire, even if if she was being asked to prop up some of those illusions.
00:21:41
Speaker
So participating in going to school, for her, that was not a part of the equation early on. Didn't envision that happening, obviously. Tiffany had an impulse to take Claire and escape to somewhere in the country so that no one would see her, that no one would cast judgment, that she could just focus completely on Claire. And through sheer force of will, she could be everything to Claire.
00:22:11
Speaker
Wow. I'm going to defy anything that tries to put Claire into a box socially, culturally, medically. One of the first things that we had to make a decision about because Claire with her brain injury, what ends up happening is after a global injury, you have something called storming that occurs where the brain sends out a whole bunch of signals to the body.
00:22:33
Speaker
And the body responds by tensing. So what you see with a lot of brain injuries where people, their arms are up by their sides, their bodies start to contort under the sheer tightness, constant flexing of the musculature.
00:22:49
Speaker
And what you end up getting from that, you have the risks of muscle contractures where muscles foreshorten and you're not able to get full extension, a whole bunch of things that happen. And and there's a medication that's used for that. In Claire's case, what we were prescribed predominantly to help manage the actual muscle itself, not the brain, but the muscle itself was something called baclofen.
00:23:09
Speaker
And you can administer that orally, which ah delivers it globally to the entire body with decreasing efficacy. Or you can try to tap that directly into the neural system, wow the nervous system. yeah But that requires implanting a device subdermally below the skin and tying it directly into the spine so that the correct dosage of abaclofen is delivered right at the point of contact to help to relax her.
00:23:38
Speaker
And evenly distributed. Evenly distributed as possible. And we chose not to do that for a number of reasons. But one of those reasons was a defiance. My daughter is not going to have a hockey puck sized device underneath her skin.
00:23:56
Speaker
yeah That influenced our decision. There were other reasons for that. But defying that perception that potentially could be inspired in the minds of people who would see that.
00:24:07
Speaker
even in her own mind while tiffany's taking care of claire and it being another reminder of how injured she actually is and and how much not just her mind that was impacted but now she's got to have this thing the physical yeah this the secondary traumas and i think that is the thing is is that tiffany was saying i'm going to stand in defiance of anything that has the perception of secondary trauma to claire to her to me That was the expression, that feistiness.
00:24:39
Speaker
I'm going to fight even if I don't have the right tools, including the right knowledge. I'm just going to fight for this. This is what I believe in this moment. Nobody's going to tell me I'm wrong.
00:24:51
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. When I look at that in that fight for Claire, I do see it now through a lens of a fight for herself. Yeah. When you feel so helpless in that moment as a parent, there's every opportunity to lose sight of who we are. Yeah.
00:25:07
Speaker
Just in the fight. It could have gone any way. Tiffany could have lost sight of who she was. She could have disappeared. Yeah. But the way she showed up defiantly with that, even though some of that defiance led to some things that Tiffany regrets. I mean, there's there's certain things that Tiffany would say, i wish I would have caught some things sooner.
00:25:30
Speaker
um I wish I would have not been as defiant. And my encouragement to her, my encouragement to anyone who's doing that kind of a retrospective on what you should have done. Yeah.
00:25:42
Speaker
is rewriting history doesn't afford us the luxury of knowing what the actual cost is associated with that. The defiance that Tiffany showed was absolutely necessary for delivering Tiffany back to us, which is what we needed yeah and what Claire needed.
00:26:00
Speaker
Claire needed her playful mom, her mischievous mom, her quirky mom. And without the defiance, I'm not convinced that playfulness would have been retained.
00:26:11
Speaker
How Tiffany showed up with the defiance is part and parcel with the way she shows up with an innocence, with a I'm not going to let the world tell me what propriety or etiquette or what a illusion who I should be yeah because it makes them comfortable.
00:26:31
Speaker
When we have something traumatic that automatically is a differentiator from the rest of the world, one of the best ways to go about embracing that over time is to get more playful with it.
00:26:45
Speaker
To laugh at the absurdity of big questions that we all ask.
00:26:52
Speaker
Sit tight and we'll be right back after this short break.
00:27:04
Speaker
In a world where no one listens anymore.
00:27:09
Speaker
Where authentic connection is humanity's last hope.
00:27:16
Speaker
She is the final guardian of what makes us human. I hear you. All of you. When words fail, she listens deeper.
00:27:31
Speaker
Your pain has purpose. Let's find it together. When masks become armor, she shows her true face.
00:27:43
Speaker
I don't have all the answers, but I'll sit with your questions.
00:27:50
Speaker
And when hope seems lost, she finds the humor in the darkness. Well, if we're going down, we might as well laugh about it. She fights not with force, but with presence. Community isn't dead.
00:28:06
Speaker
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00:28:20
Speaker
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00:28:39
Speaker
Welcome back to the rest of the episode.
00:28:46
Speaker
I thought were going in slightly different direction with this. And I thought you were to say that you were thrown something like this, the best thing you could do for yourself, I'm paraphrasing, but also for the people around you, I'm talking about you now, your daughters, is to meet that challenge, that obstacle, that nasty thing that you wish was never a part of your life in that conversation.
00:29:07
Speaker
But if you meet it as yourself, and so you bring yourself into it, maybe that's playful, maybe that's more serious, I i don't know. but if you try to take on a new persona in the midst of trying to redirect what your worldview is that's a lot all at once the thing that we were talking about in preparation of today is that there is also another risk if she had changed if she had modified herself and her persona there is also another detrimental element to that as well i see it all as a means for eventually getting to some definition of wholeness
00:29:44
Speaker
The reason why people who are experiencing acute trauma, what how do we describe them? Oftentimes as broken people. In our brokenness, we can sometimes come to the conclusion that it's too broken.
00:29:58
Speaker
I'm going to discard, I'm not going to try to piece any of this back together. The effort's too great. The effort's too... <unk> It's not worth it anymore. I feel whether it's denial or whether it is defiance, they're collaborators in getting us back to a a form of wholeness that is still authentic with who we are. Yeah.
00:30:18
Speaker
Maybe the illusions we had about ourselves might be gone. We might be somebody else. Tiffany could have chosen. i could have chosen. Autumn, all of us could have chosen yeah to pursue paths that felt less risky.
00:30:36
Speaker
There are times when we did choose those paths. Sure. I think classically, we all know that there are ways of anesthetizing the pain and the suffering that can have real negative impact, whether that is substance abuse, whether that is losing ourselves in back in work or... Yeah. Disconnection from your family. I mean... All these things can take weird forms.
00:31:01
Speaker
When we have something that's important to us that's worth fighting for, the way we go about fighting for it is not as important as what I think is brought forth or to the forefront within that. It's not a license to say that any way we choose to to fight for something is acceptable.
00:31:21
Speaker
I have seen people fight for something to great destruction to other things that are also important to them. And yet what we're fighting for and how we're fighting for it, I've found is very reflective of what is most important to us, what it is that we want to step into in the new normal that actually makes it our own instead of something that is dictated to us.
00:31:46
Speaker
And when we talk about denial and defiance, I think oftentimes we're still in this mode of feeling that everything is being dictated to us, that we are in a position where we have no control, which is true for a lot of it. Yeah.
00:32:03
Speaker
What this has the opportunity of doing is reducing us to some degree of irrelevance, not to the people that are most important to us, but even to ourselves. That this thing could crush us so much that I disappear, that Tiffany disappears, that we're relegated to now we all we are is parents of a special needs child. I think as we've gotten farther away from that and met other parents where we use terms like being a shell of our former selves, the risk is not not even just to stepping into a version of ourselves or or or reclaiming who we are or or finding out who we are again.
00:32:45
Speaker
It's that if we don't do that, we cannot be who we need to be for the very people we're taking care of.
Defiance and Resilience
00:32:52
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, 100%. That to me is the scariest risk of that secondary injury that you were alluding to earlier. And we I wish there was a tracker to count how many times we've used the word process, but it seems like that to you is very much in a necessary process of all this in that It makes very easy sense to jump to that now. And you can say that, oh yeah, well, this is just how that whole thing works.
00:33:21
Speaker
And by going through the things that we went through, ah having the people surrounding us medically, personally, professionally, in those moments, we arrived at this place because of all of these things. But to negate oneself and the responsibility that you play in all this, which is to not give up more than is absolutely necessary in this, I think that is the part that Just in hearing more and more of your stories, it's been really scary. That's what could have been.
00:33:49
Speaker
And when I got to know both of you was roughly around the same time, it was interesting because I think that you you can mark or see those types of people that there's something else, their their mind is elsewhere.
00:34:01
Speaker
There's a distraction. There's something else going on. There's maybe words like sadness or weight of other things happening. I never got that read with either of you. I didn't know about your experience with Claire until ah well into our getting to know each other. That didn't come up as a first thing. And it was quite a shock.
00:34:19
Speaker
That's not good or bad. It's just, oh my gosh, this is so unexpected and tell me more. And so we had those conversations. Yeah. For me, I share Claire's story a little bit more freely than Tiffany does. i can see that.
00:34:32
Speaker
She's a little bit more protective of that. She's also a little more cautious in her mind about what parts of that story she wants to gift to other people. Yeah. ah so There's a real trust with that.
00:34:49
Speaker
Yes. And you have to feel right about that, don't you? Yeah. we We've had conversations over the years with that, especially in mixed company where we've been meeting new people or, you know, it's the second or third time that we've met them. and and I'm more forthcoming with sharing and that could potentially ruin the night for Tiffany.
00:35:07
Speaker
Having a shared story that also is individual stories has been something that has been instructive, instructing to even our relationship of how how do we have one of the most significant events in each of our lives respectively, which was also a shared event for our child.
00:35:27
Speaker
Yep. From the moment that that happened, it moved in a different reality for each of us. Lots of things that might be similar. Sure. But our engagement with that individually was always destined to be very, very different. I think that's why with this, you know, particularly this topic, hers hers did manifest more. Yeah.
00:35:49
Speaker
in that defiance area. And as a, as someone who might have seen things differently or made decisions that might have been different because the collaboration of defiance in my path was not as a parent.
00:36:01
Speaker
That wasn't the mechanism that was being used to grow me, but it was for her might have in some situations put us crossways with each other. How do you reconcile those things? How do you, how do you navigate those things as a couple that you see the world differently? Mm-hmm.
00:36:18
Speaker
Tiffany, at one point, if she was really hell bent on picking up Claire and moving out into the country and yeah that lies in the face potentially of some of the things that I needed to do in order to continue providing for the family. Right.
00:36:33
Speaker
We had to learn how to collaborate with one another in new ways and how to listen to one another. But I think this is where part of the caution and why i think I like this denial and defiance framework that we've used to guide this conversation is is that we have such a bias towards saying that denial and defiance are things that are problematic.
00:37:01
Speaker
We need to get past those that, that I think we forget that. And I think the reframe that we're trying to go after is, is that denial and defiance are not in sitting in opposition to us.
00:37:16
Speaker
They are a part of the team. Hmm. I look at Defiance as a teammate that is present for me to develop the skillset, to develop the perspective, the awareness for what it is that I need to be that is still authentic to me. And I got to watch that with Tiffany. I got to watch that defiance shape her and mold her. I got to watch me try to intervene and make a mess of it. When the defiance itself, even though it might have conflicted with what my journey was, what i've I am continuing to learn, what...
00:37:56
Speaker
collaborating with Tiffany, what collaborating with her as a parent of a a girl with special needs, of a parent of daughters with special needs, of a parent of daughters who are their own beings. All of these pieces got informed by the teamwork that came from denial and defiance. Yeah.
00:38:15
Speaker
Denial and defiance were protecting Tiffany and me and teaching us how to be better collaborators in something that was going. We didn't know how long this was going to take. We didn't like we'd signed up like every parent.
00:38:30
Speaker
We'd signed up that whatever happens, this is not a job that we are relinquishing the reins on. Yeah. Right. But we don't know what this is going to look like. Sure. i mean, what parent actually knows what parenting is actually going to look like that level of going into things, believing you either have it figured out or, you know, you're going to figure it out. Like it, That hubris itself, that you know defines all these things, is what shaped us believing that we could or that Tiffany could control things and stand in opposition and direct Claire's recovery in the direction that she thinks it needed to go was exactly what was needed in order for her to learn again how to be playful with things that are out of her control.
00:39:18
Speaker
Yeah. Which is what Claire needed. Yeah. Claire needs to walk into a doctor's office where she's got new residents or research assistants coming in who are all etiquette, professionalism, yeah straight faced and see her as an object.
00:39:37
Speaker
She needs a mom who's there being feisty and playfully poking fun at these doctors and residents.
00:39:47
Speaker
She needs to be Tiffany. Yeah.
Tiffany's Authenticity and Influence
00:39:50
Speaker
I think without the defiance, Tiffany may not have been able to be Tiffany. She would not have been able to step into that. I'm hearing ah lot of this really lovely love letter to your wife, who is very deserving of all of these accolades.
00:40:07
Speaker
My question for you is with Tiffany's defiance, I'm also hearing that that was something that you needed so that you can do what you needed to do in the moment. Yeah. and be that that mom and dad to get through this together. And I'm guessing she gave you strength when you needed it just by seeing her come through.
00:40:27
Speaker
I think the biggest piece of resonance that comes with that is going through this. There are times where I have taken more credit than was deserved. Looking back on what Tiffany needed to be what she was, how she showed up.
00:40:44
Speaker
I was ignorant to what she was even bringing to the dynamic. Yeah. It's very difficult to draw direct lines that says, do this and you get this.
00:40:56
Speaker
It is a dance. At times, it's funny to look back and actually reflect on the times where I thought I was leading and now to see that Tiffany's intuition, her playfulness, the things she was doing were in control.
00:41:14
Speaker
And it's more comical now to look at my reactions in those situations. Yeah. And what I was trying to, you know, the the control. Tiffany has always planned the girls' birthday parties in a way that is really fun, novel, very creative, and highly demanding of her time.
00:41:33
Speaker
She throws herself into it. Sounds right. And it's like... I get to be the the one who at the end of seven nights in a row of planning, of worrying and the anxiety about checking off all of the lists also to tell her, take just let that thing come off of the list. Don't, ah it's not as important. right And what I'm solving for in that moment is seeing Tiffany in a position where she is stressed and anxiety and potentially losing sleep because of this party. Mm-hmm.
00:42:02
Speaker
Seeing that the solution that's in front of me is to solve Tiffany's anxiety and missing out on what the cost is associated with that, which is another opportunity for Tiffany to demonstrate what it looks like to be playful. to plan things with the focus on experience and making and creating experience for these kids that are coming over to Heidi's or Autumn's or Claire's birthday party, recognizing that for her, what really lights her up and gives her life is seeing these kids just...
00:42:40
Speaker
seeing the world through the eyes of these kids. It makes me question, am I solving for the right things? Am I actually helping? What am I protecting? I think this goes back to our, who, what kind of an advocate am I being for the self, for Tiffany?
00:42:56
Speaker
And what am I stealing away from her by trying to help take things off of the plate? yeah Going through this and seeing how each respective party shows up and not automatically defining that anxiety or stress or impatience or all these things are things to be squelched, to be put into a box and managed. And instead to get playful with those things that without those things...
00:43:25
Speaker
You don't get the joy of the relief from those very things and learning how to settle into them. Walking alongside Tiffany, where where for so long, i saw life as as a means for conquering the self and up-leveling.
00:43:43
Speaker
Claire's accident just happened. We're devastated, but we're just we just got to up-level our way out of this. And Tiffany... in resorting to some of the things that were actually the most germane to her defiance and that feistiness and that, you you know, I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore mode was actually the, it wasn't up leveling.
00:44:06
Speaker
It was finding friendship, fellowship with some of the things we traditionally define as the lesser pieces of ourselves. Yeah. Polite people aren't defiant. They're they're understanding. They're they're accommodating. they're Tiffany had no compunction, did not care about just being.
00:44:29
Speaker
She doesn't know the power of that, the power of that example. Yeah. I don't even feel that I fully, I don't fully know other than what I do know is, is that myself, Autumn, Heidi, Claire, our circle, when we have the opportunity to be within that energy that Tiffany is prompting, that she's bringing to it, we have the time of our lives.
00:44:57
Speaker
It's living. I thank Defiance for bringing that back to us. Really well said. Maybe just wrapping up, I think the difficulty with these type situations is that it's tricky for you and I'm not sticking, not supporting your position because I'm another husband who oftentimes doesn't notice how fantastic my wife is, but I think that we're oftentimes just too close to the thing and whatever the thing is.
00:45:21
Speaker
But I think the real tragedy in all of this is that Tiffany probably will never, just because of who she is, will never acknowledge or allow herself to believe what a force she is.
00:45:33
Speaker
And also going through this experience of showing the rest of the world that she's still her. that's That's kind of ah shame, right? It is. I go back and forth on this.
00:45:45
Speaker
I am thankful that I get to see it. Okay. That I get a front row seat. I'm going to a memorial service next weekend. And I've had a couple of thoughts about how unfortunate it is that all of the impact that people have had in their life is expressed at a point when they don't get to see it, at least in this situation.
00:46:11
Speaker
Iteration. traditional and That's true. Yeah. There's a part of me that desperately wants Tiffany to see that. And yet there's an aspect that points that back for me is like, what what am I doing to convey my gratitude and my appreciation for her without feeling the burden to persuade her of her greatness? Yeah.
00:46:35
Speaker
There have been times where in parenting Claire and the girls where we we have to do some of that rebuilding. Yeah. We have to do some of the rebuilding for but points of devastation where we try to remind people of their impact and give them something to hold on to so that they feel their worth.
00:46:53
Speaker
My hope, I think, ultimately for Tiffany is is that the echoes of me telling her how much I love, care, appreciate her and others telling her the same.
00:47:05
Speaker
yeah That almost in spite of that, which is never fully convincing. That she find that for herself and that she find that in a way that there is no amount of persuading outside of herself for her value because she doesn't need to be persuaded. She she knows it. She inherently knows it.
00:47:25
Speaker
the paradox for that that i think is well i think when that the body of evidence is already there yeah the body of evidence almost just with claire alone is sufficient to show how worthy how how much she just is already enough yeah it's it's that's what i want for her yeah um that's what i want for virtually anyone, that's what I want for for parents.
00:47:51
Speaker
That's something that trauma oftentimes brings up is is that that I'm not enough. Oh, wow. And I think the message is that that's not true. we yeah Yeah. Yeah. I think everybody is deserving of hearing that they are enough, that they their work is valued and the connection they've had with other people is seen and appreciated.
00:48:11
Speaker
Sometimes easier said than done. Absolutely. As we, I think that might be the mantra. Or possibly another title for the podcast. Yes. Exactly. Exactly. All right.
00:48:23
Speaker
Good. Thanks man. Thank you. Thank you for sitting with us in this conversation for bringing your own story, your own questions and your own hard won wisdom to what we're building together.
00:48:35
Speaker
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00:48:54
Speaker
Good Pain is recorded in Colorado on Arapahoe, Ute, and Cheyenne Ancestral Alliance. And let's remember, we are not alone in this. Our struggle is not our shame.
00:49:05
Speaker
Whatever we are carrying today, we don't have to carry it alone. We will see you next time.