Speaker 1: Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a weekly
Speaker 1: conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small
Speaker 1: decisions we can make to become the best possible versions
Speaker 1: of ourselves. I'm your host, doctor Joy hard and Bradford,
Speaker 1: a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or
Speaker 1: to find a therapist in your area, visit our website
Speaker 1: at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com. While I hope you
Speaker 1: love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is
Speaker 1: not meant to be a substitute for a relationship with
Speaker 1: a licensed mental health professional. Hey, y'all, thanks so much
Speaker 1: for joining me for session three forty eight of the
Speaker 1: Therapy for Black Girls Podcast. We'll get right into our
Speaker 1: conversation after a word from our sponsors. The loss of
Speaker 1: a child is often an unimaginable reality for parents everywhere.
Speaker 1: For those who experience the sudden pain and grief, losing
Speaker 1: a child can also cause feelings of shame and failure.
Speaker 1: To shed light on this experience, as well as share
Speaker 1: resources for bereaved parents, I'm joined today by grief and
Speaker 1: clinical trauma professional doctor Niosha Graymon. Doctor Graymond has over
Speaker 1: twenty years of clinical experience working with African Americans as
Speaker 1: an independently licensed LCPC in the state of Maryland. In
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, she founded a boutique traumatic grief counseling practice
Speaker 1: specifically for Black women working through bereavement. In our conversation,
Speaker 1: doctor Graymond shares ways for parents to honor their child
Speaker 1: after their passing, strategies for community men members to show
Speaker 1: up for berief parents other than the typical I'm here
Speaker 1: for you if you need me, and how traumatic grief
Speaker 1: symptoms can show up differently in Black women. If something
Speaker 1: resonates with you while enjoying our conversation, please share with
Speaker 1: us on social media using the hashtag TBG in session
Speaker 1: or join us over in the sister Circle to talk
Speaker 1: more about the episode. You can join us at community
Speaker 1: dot therapy for Blackgirls dot com. Here's our conversation. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining me today, doctor Graeman.
Speaker 2: No, thank you for having me, Doctor joy. I'm a
Speaker 2: big fan of your work in the podcast.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, so I'm curious to hear a
Speaker 1: little bit more about your practice. Can you tell me
Speaker 1: what is traumatic grief and why you decided to send
Speaker 1: you your practice in this HM.
Speaker 2: So, traumatic grief is a response to losing someone. In
Speaker 2: this sense, I'm thinking about death of a person. I
Speaker 2: know there are many ways that people can experience grief,
Speaker 2: but my practice focuses exclusively on death of an individual.
Speaker 2: So it's a response to that permanent physical rupture that
Speaker 2: maps on to what we know are symptoms of traumatic stress.
Speaker 2: And those symptoms can manifest in multiple dimensions of our experience.
Speaker 2: They can manifest in physical symptoms such as heart palpitations, difficulties, sleeping, nightmares.
Speaker 2: They can manifest in perceptual disturbances like flashbacks. They can
Speaker 2: manifest in cognitive disturbances like ruminating thoughts and thoughts of
Speaker 2: not wanting to be here anymore, and self harm. And
Speaker 2: so my practice focuses on working and companioning black women
Speaker 2: who've experienced a loss and are exhibiting traumatic grief symptoms.
Speaker 1: So I'm curious, actual agreement. Is there a difference between
Speaker 1: traumatic grief symptoms. This is, I guess, the typical kind
Speaker 1: of grief reaction.
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 2: So when I think about reactions to grief, I actually
Speaker 2: liken them to different stages of hospitalization, if you will,
Speaker 2: So you think about the highest level of care would
Speaker 2: be an intensive care unit, and then below that would
Speaker 2: be a regular inpatient unit, and then below that outpatient care.
Speaker 2: When I think about traumatic grief, I think of someone
Speaker 2: at the highest level of care. Their symptoms of distress
Speaker 2: are really acute, and they're in need of a lot
Speaker 2: of supportive services. Now that phase may last for a
Speaker 2: short period of time, a few weeks, a few months,
Speaker 2: up to a couple of years, and beyond that, some
Speaker 2: people may say that you're then stepping into what is
Speaker 2: called prolonged grief. I don't know how I feel about that,
Speaker 2: but that's how I differentiate traumatic grief response from a
Speaker 2: common grief response. Seventy percent of people with I'll not
Speaker 2: experience a traumatic grief response, but about thirty percent of
Speaker 2: the population will experience it. And that percentage increases when
Speaker 2: the death is sudden, in particular, when it's violent, when
Speaker 2: the grief is disenfranchised, maybe not acknowledged by the society.
Speaker 2: These are all things that can increase the likelihood that
Speaker 2: you're going to have a traumatic grief response.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for sharing that. Are there other
Speaker 1: things that kind of would indicate a response that is
Speaker 1: considered traumatic grief?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 2: In addition to the flashbacks, nightmares, thoughts of not wanting
Speaker 2: to be here, self harm, gastrointestinal issues, really heightened sense
Speaker 2: of hypervigilance, increased sense of worry. So where your baseline
Speaker 2: is this varies person to person, but thinking about your
Speaker 2: baseline of worry and your baseline of vigilance, that that
Speaker 2: is significantly increase, a substantial increase in clingingness, behaviors, wrong
Speaker 2: impulse to discuss the loss in an indiscriminate way. So
Speaker 2: just I'm at the car wash and I'm talking about
Speaker 2: the loss with people I don't know, and also conversely
Speaker 2: a really strong urge to avoid discussion of the loss,
Speaker 2: or some additional indicators that someone might be experiencing traumatic grief.
Speaker 2: But really what I would look for are those physiological
Speaker 2: and those perceptual disturbances such as flashbacks and the ideas
Speaker 2: of maybe like feeling dissociated from your body, like the
Speaker 2: world is a fantasy kind of world, or like you're
Speaker 2: detached and floating above yourself. And then the physiological symptoms
Speaker 2: such as nightmares, disturbances, those are some of the key
Speaker 2: things that I'm looking for.
Speaker 1: And you mentioned that your practice is primarily with black
Speaker 1: women who are experiencing traumatic grief in your work or
Speaker 1: in the research. Is there anything that you can share
Speaker 1: about how traumatic grief either looks different differently for Black
Speaker 1: women or how we might be disproportionately impacted by traumatic grief.
Speaker 2: Ah, that's a really good question. I don't know if
Speaker 2: we're disproportionately impacted by traumatic grief, but I could hypothesize
Speaker 2: that we might be because our exposure to trauma within
Speaker 2: the general population tends to be high along the lines
Speaker 2: of race. Some of the ways that I think intersects
Speaker 2: with Black women's experience uniquely is that we're carrying this
Speaker 2: superwoman complex of really being long suffering and holding things together.
Speaker 2: And the idea that we could be impacted by traumatic grief,
Speaker 2: I think is one that can be difficult for us
Speaker 2: to accept and then related to that, difficult for us
Speaker 2: to consider as an experience where we should reach out
Speaker 2: for help.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because that definitely is where my mind when you know,
Speaker 1: I think Black women, because of this superwoman's syndrome and
Speaker 1: lots of other reasons, I think, we often have a
Speaker 1: time stopping to acknowledge anything difficult, and so we know
Speaker 1: even typical grief can be hard I think for us
Speaker 1: to access. So I'm thinking traumatic grief, like, Okay, what
Speaker 1: does this even look like in black women? And it
Speaker 1: sounds like it's some of the same kinds of concerns. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: So what would you say are some of the most
Speaker 1: common misconceptions about grief and grieving?
Speaker 2: Probably most popular is the idea that there are five
Speaker 2: stages of grief that gets brought up as a myth
Speaker 2: that Koobler Ross developed the five stages through naturalistic observation
Speaker 2: of people who were dying from a terminal illness, and
Speaker 2: her theory was really designed to capture that phenomenological experience
Speaker 2: of dying. I think related to that, another misperception about
Speaker 2: grief is that Koobler Ross's stages have no validity. So
Speaker 2: those experiences that she captures, they are real, it's just
Speaker 2: that they don't emerge in a linear, stage wise fashion.
Speaker 2: They may come up all at the same time, there
Speaker 2: may be a regression, you may not experience some of
Speaker 2: those symptoms. So I think that in our effort to
Speaker 2: bust the myth that grief follows a linear stage, we've
Speaker 2: thrown out the good with kind of like the perfect,
Speaker 2: and that there is utility and thinking about these different
Speaker 2: types of experiences. I do think that most of the
Speaker 2: people I work with have experiences of denial and experiences
Speaker 2: of shock and bargaining and some kind of acceptance and
Speaker 2: integration at some point. They just I don't think they
Speaker 2: follow into a neat stage pattern.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think, you know, especially when people are grieving,
Speaker 1: Like I think why those stages have become so popular
Speaker 1: is that it offers a little bit of structure to
Speaker 1: what feels like chaos, right and absolutely, but I wonder
Speaker 1: what it's then like talking with it's about the phases
Speaker 1: they'll go through and this idea that eventually grief will
Speaker 1: go away, because I think people think, like once you
Speaker 1: hit stage five, like okay, I'm kind of in the clear,
Speaker 1: but you're saying that it is much more kind of
Speaker 1: in and out and it abbs and flows.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: An activity that I typically do with clients is the
Speaker 2: Big Knot of Grief activity. And if you google this,
Speaker 2: you'll find it like a ball of grief and it
Speaker 2: looks like a ball of rubber bands and it has
Speaker 2: all of those so called stages that google rolls talks
Speaker 2: about in addition to other experiences that are common with grief,
Speaker 2: and it shows that they're all tangled together, and so
Speaker 2: I might ask a client to identify which of these
Speaker 2: experiences they're having now and do that at different points
Speaker 2: in time during our work together, so that they have
Speaker 2: a visual representation of the ways in which their symptoms
Speaker 2: and their experience have been flow, and appreciation for the
Speaker 2: messiness of grief and that that is normalized, and that
Speaker 2: they shouldn't feel that they do need to follow these
Speaker 2: steps in that there is a right way to do grief.
Speaker 3: They are either on the right track or on the
Speaker 3: wrong track.
Speaker 1: Are there any other activities that you find yourself doing
Speaker 1: pretty often with clients, Oh.
Speaker 3: Sure, plenty.
Speaker 2: Another is that I have a card deck that I
Speaker 2: created of scripture broken down into scriptures focusing on hope
Speaker 2: and scriptures that focus on limitation. A lot of the
Speaker 2: women that I work with are practicing Christians and their
Speaker 2: women of faith, and I think one of the liabilities
Speaker 2: in our experience this actually maps on to your question
Speaker 2: about the ways in which the experience of grief can
Speaker 2: be unique for black women. The majority of us still
Speaker 2: in this country identify as Christian and identify as religious,
Speaker 2: and I think that within our religious community there can
Speaker 2: be a lot of pressure to focus on and optimism
Speaker 2: and everything happens for a reason, and kind of things
Speaker 2: that people in a cliche way say map onto a
Speaker 2: spiritual bypass approach. And it is valuable to introduce or
Speaker 2: reintroduce or reinforce for clients that a lot of our
Speaker 2: sacred writings actually speak to suffering within the human condition.
Speaker 2: So an activity that I might do with a client
Speaker 2: is have them go through the card deck and separate
Speaker 2: the deck into scriptures related to hope, scriptures related to limitation,
Speaker 2: especially at the beginning of our work together, when stress
Speaker 2: tends to be most acute, ask a client to draw
Speaker 2: a card from the lamentation deck, or I may ask
Speaker 2: them to split the deck into familiar scripture and unfamiliar scripture,
Speaker 2: because another thing that happens is that some of the
Speaker 2: scriptures become so wrote in terms of our memory, we're
Speaker 2: not really taking it in, We're not really sitting with
Speaker 2: that word, and so it can be helpful to focus
Speaker 2: on a fresh word that is less familiar. And so
Speaker 2: that's another way that I might use a card deck,
Speaker 2: and that's something that I typically do.
Speaker 1: Thank you for that, so you. Mention and traumetic grief
Speaker 1: can often happen as it relates to like a sudden
Speaker 1: death or a death that has been violent. And I
Speaker 1: know we want to talk today a little bit about
Speaker 1: losing a child, which I think is often sudden, one
Speaker 1: of the most unimaginable things I think we experience as parents.
Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit about what that process
Speaker 1: looks like when you're working with a client who has
Speaker 1: lost a child.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So first I'll share that I'm coming to that
Speaker 2: work both as a trained clinician and also as a
Speaker 2: bereaved mother. I myself lost an infant after three weeks,
Speaker 2: and I won't tell the whole story of that, but
Speaker 2: just want your listeners to know that. So, in my experience,
Speaker 2: the first thing that we're working on together is calming
Speaker 2: the sympathetic nervous system that in my experience, the black
Speaker 2: women who come to see me are highly distressed, highly
Speaker 2: emotion we disregulated, and are exhibiting a number of the
Speaker 2: symptoms that I described as being symptoms of traumatic stress.
Speaker 3: So sleep disturbances, nightmares.
Speaker 2: Flashbacks, very high levels of anxiety, feelings of being outside
Speaker 2: of the body. And so the first concern is regulation
Speaker 2: and trying to help clients to ground and then that sense,
Speaker 2: we're doing what most best practices for trauma treatment would recommend.
Speaker 2: We are working on breath work and paste breathing and
Speaker 2: alternate nostril breathing, and I'm teaching clients those different activities
Speaker 2: in the session and then asking them to practice it
Speaker 2: outside of the session. In an effort to regulate the system,
Speaker 2: I'm likely to recommend a number of nature therapeutic interventions.
Speaker 2: I also have a nature journal that I give to
Speaker 2: all of my clients, and they have different exercises to
Speaker 2: do in nature that facilitate mindfulness and a sense of grounding,
Speaker 2: and we might introduce that in the session as well.
Speaker 2: So I may be working with the client virtually. My
Speaker 2: practice is completely virtual, and I may be here in
Speaker 2: this office as I am with you now and have
Speaker 2: an assigned outdoor space for the client to go to
Speaker 2: for the session. The entire session may take place at
Speaker 2: that location. So, for example, I'm physically located in the
Speaker 2: Baltimore metropolitan area, we have a place called Lake Roland
Speaker 2: that might be familiar to my clients, or depending where
Speaker 2: they are in the state, I'm going to identify outdoor
Speaker 2: spaces that are within the vicinity of where they live.
Speaker 2: Or work, and I may assign them to go to
Speaker 2: that space for the session, and we might select one
Speaker 2: of the activities, a mindfulness activity relating to noticing all
Speaker 2: of one primary color that you see in nature and
Speaker 2: count the number of times that you see it, just
Speaker 2: to kind of focus that monkey mind that can emerge
Speaker 2: when you're highly distressed. So it's a concentration exercise. You're
Speaker 2: getting into the fresh air, which can be energizing. It's
Speaker 2: known to reduce anxiety and symptoms of depression. So that's
Speaker 2: what we're working on first, and then thinking about the
Speaker 2: different types of symptoms that come up with traumatic grief.
Speaker 2: We're working our way down what I would consider kind
Speaker 2: of like a scale. So at the top of that
Speaker 2: would be the physiological symptoms, and we're concentrating on that.
Speaker 2: Then we're concentrating on the perceptual symptoms, the emotional and
Speaker 2: cognitive symptoms, and then also the social symptoms. But when
Speaker 2: a client is coming in and sleep disturbance and nightmares
Speaker 2: is part of their presentation, that's going to take priority,
Speaker 2: and so things like the nature therapy interventions, the breath
Speaker 2: work interventions, those are all actually designed to work to
Speaker 2: facilitate stabilizing sleep hygiene.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because we know you can't do very many of
Speaker 1: the other things that you're talking about if you're too
Speaker 1: exhausted or not sleeping will exactly you know, And I
Speaker 1: would imagine that one of the things that will often
Speaker 1: come up with clients, especially if a child has died
Speaker 1: in like an accident or like a sid's death, or
Speaker 1: is the experience of feeling guilty. Can you talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about how you might work with a client
Speaker 1: to manage some of those symptoms.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I think one thing that's unique about the
Speaker 2: loss of an infant or a child. It will bring
Speaker 2: up the same reactions as any sudden loss. But I
Speaker 2: think with the loss of a child, what becomes unique
Speaker 2: and nuanced, especially for a parent, is the idea that
Speaker 2: somehow you failed in your role, your primary role of
Speaker 2: protecting the child. Thinking about Maslow's hierarchy needs, the very
Speaker 2: lowest level is the idea of safety and security and
Speaker 2: meeting someone's physiological needs. Well, if your child dies, you
Speaker 2: can internalize a sense of failure to have met that
Speaker 2: basic need, and so that becomes I think long term work,
Speaker 2: and while I offer short term experience about eighteen sessions
Speaker 2: that are designed to stabilize the nervous system. That identity
Speaker 2: work really ends up being a long term project, possibly
Speaker 2: multi years.
Speaker 3: It could go on and on.
Speaker 2: It's open ended because you're really then talking about a
Speaker 2: renegotiation of an identity and a processing of an important
Speaker 2: role that you feel you did not live up to.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you shanting that. It sounds like it's much
Speaker 1: more long term work. That's nothing you're really gonna address
Speaker 1: in successions, so to speak, more from our conversation after
Speaker 1: the break. So, something else that I think can complicate
Speaker 1: this picture is if there are other siblings in the home, right,
Speaker 1: so then you may be grieving as a parent, but
Speaker 1: also tending to your other kids who may also be grieving.
Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit about any advice or
Speaker 1: suggestions you'd have for parents who might be navigating that
Speaker 1: kind of a dynamic.
Speaker 3: Yes. Absolutely.
Speaker 2: I think it's important to remember that the surviving children
Speaker 2: will process grief in different ways at different stages of development,
Speaker 2: and so you should not think of this as a
Speaker 2: one and done kind of experience, even for a child.
Speaker 2: So in the same way that successions probably aren't going
Speaker 2: to do it for someone experiencing traumatic grief and reno
Speaker 2: goo ciating an identity. In that sense, the same is
Speaker 2: true for a child, but my recommendation would be to
Speaker 2: look for resources that are specifically targeting children. There are
Speaker 2: a number of counseling centers that specifically offer grief camps
Speaker 2: for children, and that may be a one day grief
Speaker 2: camp experience, some have overnight camps, some may have programs
Speaker 2: that exist over multiple months. And so looking at developmental
Speaker 2: supports that you can marshal together for your child I
Speaker 2: think is really important as you continue to navigate your
Speaker 2: own grief, and that may be in an individual kind
Speaker 2: of capacity with a therapist. There are family therapists who
Speaker 2: can work with the whole family and have that expertise
Speaker 2: where everybody is navigating grief together as a unit. A
Speaker 2: family may prefer to separate out or may prefer to
Speaker 2: do a combination of both. That I I think it's
Speaker 2: really important to keep in mind that again, what your
Speaker 2: child needs is going to vary at different stages, and
Speaker 2: the way that they process and metabolize their experiences of
Speaker 2: grief are going to be different at different stages, and
Speaker 2: so one thing I would recommend is not as a
Speaker 2: parent not overreacting to any one way the grief is
Speaker 2: man sifesting in the child, but reinforcing the normalization of
Speaker 2: the experience, and then also having them get support with
Speaker 2: peers and professionals who are specifically trained to work with
Speaker 2: children and grief. I am not one, but I would
Speaker 2: recommend connecting with.
Speaker 3: One doctor Greeman.
Speaker 1: You mentioned normalizing that grief can look lots of different ways,
Speaker 1: and I think we hear that often. But is there
Speaker 1: anything that would be more of a concern, either as
Speaker 1: a parent of other siblings or for your own experience
Speaker 1: right as a person who's grieving, Any symptoms or things
Speaker 1: that might be a heightened in terms of a grief reaction.
Speaker 2: I think again those trauma reactions for an adult, for sure.
Speaker 2: With a child, I would think about increased manifestations of anxiety,
Speaker 2: some of the same reactions nightmares would be concerning. Talk
Speaker 2: of not wanting to be here anymore. Talk of suicide
Speaker 2: obviously is always concerning both for the child and for
Speaker 2: the parents. And at the same time, my approach is
Speaker 2: minimal institutionalization, and I think a lot of therapists as
Speaker 2: soon as they catch wind of any sense or thought
Speaker 2: of self harm or not wanting to be here, their
Speaker 2: own anxiety kicks in, and there can be kind of
Speaker 2: a heightened like the highest level of intervention that I
Speaker 2: see you, intervention which may not be necessary, but again
Speaker 2: that is dependent on the therapists and dependent on the
Speaker 2: families comfort level. But I would recommend finding therapists who
Speaker 2: have some comfort and experience and training in working with
Speaker 2: people who are having thoughts of not wanting to be
Speaker 2: here or self harm and not necessarily jump immediately to institutionalization.
Speaker 1: You know something else I didn't answer you, doctor agreement
Speaker 1: that I'm curious about you because this is your focus.
Speaker 1: I would imagine that you are likely seeing clients on
Speaker 1: a cadence that is not just week to week, right,
Speaker 1: if you're kind of managing some of this distress. Can
Speaker 1: you talk a little bit about how your practice might
Speaker 1: look different than somebody who's not focused on traumatic grief.
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely so, again, thinking about kind of those three
Speaker 2: levels of intervention that icee you in patient and outpatient,
Speaker 2: I consider my practice the entry point is that I
Speaker 2: see you most intensive.
Speaker 3: So when I'm.
Speaker 2: First working with clients, we're working together every day during
Speaker 2: the week, five days, and that again is in service
Speaker 2: of trying to regulate that nervous system which has really
Speaker 2: gone hey why, And so we're spending a lot of
Speaker 2: intensive time together. And then we tie trait down to
Speaker 2: four days a week and then three days a week,
Speaker 2: and around the three days a week mark, we check
Speaker 2: in and see if the client wants to stay at
Speaker 2: three days a week, which some.
Speaker 3: May for a little while, or if they.
Speaker 2: Feel ready to even go down to two days a
Speaker 2: week and then to traditional once a week therapy. But
Speaker 2: I would say, in my experience, best practices of working
Speaker 2: with someone who is experiencing a cute stress such as
Speaker 2: that would be a more intense and more frequent kind
Speaker 2: of relationship.
Speaker 1: So is there a way that the grief looks different
Speaker 1: if you lose a child as an infant versus losing
Speaker 1: a thirteen year old child?
Speaker 2: There is, I mean, grief reactions are as unique as
Speaker 2: a fingerprint, and so what that looks like. I don't
Speaker 2: think I could even generalize around differences of an infant
Speaker 2: versus thirteen versus your twenty year old son who died
Speaker 2: by suicide. They're all sudden and traumatic deaths, and in
Speaker 2: some sense, they're all disenfranchised deaths, deaths that kind of
Speaker 2: put you outside the social expectations of our communities. And
Speaker 2: so at every stage it's a death that can increase
Speaker 2: sense of isolation, which makes everything more difficult. And they
Speaker 2: all also share that they're considered off time deaths, so
Speaker 2: off time in terms of the natural life cycle. And
Speaker 2: then beyond that, I think it's very unique. So the
Speaker 2: idea of is it more difficult to experience the death
Speaker 2: of a child who was never actually birthed into the world,
Speaker 2: So a death of a child in uteral, the death
Speaker 2: of a child who's born still, death to sids, death
Speaker 2: to fatal illness, a cancer, a car accident at sixteen,
Speaker 2: death by suicide. I don't think we can say, but
Speaker 2: they're all off time, they're all sudden, and they all
Speaker 2: tend to lead to a sense of disenfranchisement and a
Speaker 2: heightened sense of isolation in the experience.
Speaker 1: So something else we know that often happens after the
Speaker 1: death of a chow is that this puts a significant
Speaker 1: strain on the relationship between the parents. Can you talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about how you work with clients in
Speaker 1: your practice around navigating this as a couple or as
Speaker 1: a family.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I work exclusively with Black women and individual therapy.
Speaker 2: I do not work with couples. I don't work with
Speaker 2: the partners, and I don't work with whole families. But
Speaker 2: that doesn't mean that the whole family does not end
Speaker 2: up being part of the treatment and the experience when
Speaker 2: individual is a part of an entire family system, and
Speaker 2: so that comes in. I think that my approach going
Speaker 2: into my work with an individual who's part of a
Speaker 2: couple is that this is going to be hard, and
Speaker 2: I am going to help you to navigate this with
Speaker 2: your partner. I definitely do not have separation of the
Speaker 2: couple in mind at all, even as I know what
Speaker 2: the literature says about how this kind of loss can
Speaker 2: devastate a couple. I do not go in with that mindset.
Speaker 2: But we're talking about what the woman in the partnership needs,
Speaker 2: and we're focusing on getting her needs met and not
Speaker 2: being responsible for getting her partners needs met. We do
Speaker 2: talk about resources that may be useful to the partner. Again,
Speaker 2: if they want couple's therapy, I can recommend a couple's therapists,
Speaker 2: but very clear that I only work with the individual,
Speaker 2: and so we're talking about ways to communicate with each
Speaker 2: other to continue to try and spend quality time with
Speaker 2: each other during what we would call like a grief break,
Speaker 2: that we need to take breaks sometimes during this process,
Speaker 2: and how they can do that together as a couple,
Speaker 2: thinking of different ways. I'm a big proponent of psycho
Speaker 2: education through podcasts such as Therapy for Black Girls along
Speaker 2: with others. I may give that to a client to
Speaker 2: share with their partner as a homework assignment and have
Speaker 2: them have a discussion about that and see how they
Speaker 2: receive that information. Some education if we're talking about cis
Speaker 2: hetero couple, some psycho education about stereotypical ways in which
Speaker 2: men may express their grief differently, which again stereotypically tends
Speaker 2: to on to more action oriented, more doing less of
Speaker 2: the talk, therapy, emotional processing, and when that does happen,
Speaker 2: it tends to happen more. Through doing so, there is
Speaker 2: a minimization of blaming each other and kind of like
Speaker 2: a reality checking of expectations of the way someone should
Speaker 2: and should not show up in the relationship.
Speaker 3: Thank you for that.
Speaker 1: So we know that one of the hard parts of
Speaker 1: I think processing grief is the special moments, right, so
Speaker 1: holidays and birthdays that come up after the loved one
Speaker 1: is no longer there. Can you talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about navigating that about the child's, Dick's birthday or the
Speaker 1: next holiday season.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I take that on a case by case basis
Speaker 2: that I approach that individually because everyone has a different reaction. Oftentimes,
Speaker 2: the anticipation leading up to the actual day is more
Speaker 2: anxiety provoking than the actual day, is what clients report back.
Speaker 2: So you know, when we know that something is coming up,
Speaker 2: we will bring that up and start to explore how
Speaker 2: you're feeling about it. Are there any special things you
Speaker 2: want to do, ways that you want to engage in
Speaker 2: ritual remembrance. I do talk about the value of ritual
Speaker 2: that it's a way to make meaning, it's a way
Speaker 2: to focus our attention. It serves as a container for
Speaker 2: a therapeutic process. But maybe the client is not interested
Speaker 2: in that, and that's okay.
Speaker 3: As well.
Speaker 2: A parallel goal of traumatic grief therapy or grief therapy
Speaker 2: that's not traumatic, is this reinvestigation and reconsolidation of who
Speaker 2: you are in the world and how you are going
Speaker 2: to move through the world. There's also always like a
Speaker 2: parallel existential project that's happening with the therapy. So, how
Speaker 2: do you feel about holidays now? Maybe that's changed altogether.
Speaker 2: Maybe you want to do something completely different, create a
Speaker 2: new type of holiday, do something special at the holiday,
Speaker 2: have an empty chair. If a client is looking for ideas,
Speaker 2: I have plenty of ideas of things that they could try,
Speaker 2: and may ask if any of them feel like they
Speaker 2: resonate with you, they feel like something you would do
Speaker 2: organically or feel true to you. Do you want to
Speaker 2: just go in the room that day and hide under
Speaker 2: the covers.
Speaker 3: That's okay too.
Speaker 2: Just letting people know that there's no one right way
Speaker 2: to do this. We can explore different ways that people
Speaker 2: have done it and have said that it's been helpful,
Speaker 2: and ultimately you are the driver. You're in charge of
Speaker 2: this journey. I may recommend if people are going to
Speaker 2: someone else's home, take separate cars so that if you
Speaker 2: feel like you want to leave early, you can leave
Speaker 2: and not feel like you're trapped at the home. If
Speaker 2: you're talking about going with your partner, have a signal
Speaker 2: you guys have come up with that they know, okay,
Speaker 2: it's time for us to go. But just thinking about
Speaker 2: different ways to take care of yourself and what that
Speaker 2: could look like, because one artifact of grief is that
Speaker 2: we have a lot of cognitive fog. So some of
Speaker 2: these things seem very obvious to us even as we're talking,
Speaker 2: and they may seem obvious to listeners who are not
Speaker 2: in the.
Speaker 3: Throes of acute grief.
Speaker 2: But when you're in the throes of it, things that
Speaker 2: are very obvious when your mind is clear, are completely
Speaker 2: not on your radar. So it can be as simple
Speaker 2: as just bringing up possibilities that someone is just not
Speaker 2: able to generate on their own in that particular moment
Speaker 2: in time.
Speaker 1: You know, you mentioned the word disenfranchised several times act agreement,
Speaker 1: and I'm wondering what suggestions you would have for support
Speaker 1: people outside of the family who has lost a loved
Speaker 1: one to make a less disenfranchised. Right, So, how can
Speaker 1: we kind of remove some of the shame or stigma
Speaker 1: related to like the loss of a child and really
Speaker 1: support a family that's struggling.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we've come such a long way from
Speaker 2: when I went through my own traumatic loss experience, and
Speaker 2: social media has been a saving grace in this sense.
Speaker 2: So on Instagram, there are a number of accounts that
Speaker 2: are specifically dedicated to all manners of laws and grief,
Speaker 2: and those are ways that you can feel less isolated
Speaker 2: following those accounts. This didn't exist when I was going
Speaker 2: through my experience, but now we have help texts, which
Speaker 2: started out as grief texts, and that is incredibly valuable.
Speaker 2: I buy that for all of my own loved ones
Speaker 2: in my community who are experiencing a loss, and I
Speaker 2: also recommend it for my clients because one benefit of
Speaker 2: the help text subscription is that you can send the
Speaker 2: link to two to four people within your network and
Speaker 2: help text will give them recommendations on how to support you,
Speaker 2: which is amazing because one thing that people always say
Speaker 2: when they are witnessing a loved one going through the
Speaker 2: stress of grief is I don't know what to say,
Speaker 2: I don't know what to do, and that can be
Speaker 2: true for someone who even.
Speaker 3: Does his work. This is true for myself.
Speaker 2: When the person is close to to you, it is
Speaker 2: a different situation from when you're working with someone who
Speaker 2: has one.
Speaker 3: Degree of separation.
Speaker 2: So I use that for myself as well as a
Speaker 2: reminder of ways to show up for my loved ones,
Speaker 2: and that is incredibly helpful. Every single person I have
Speaker 2: given that to or recommended that too said they loved
Speaker 2: help text, so I highly highly recommend that we have Reimagined,
Speaker 2: which is an online series that offers webinars and different
Speaker 2: kinds of virtual gatherings. RTZ Hope Return to Zero Hope
Speaker 2: is another organization that focus specifically on perinatal loss. They
Speaker 2: offer a number of free support groups for individuals and
Speaker 2: for couples and for families. Another fantastic resource. There really
Speaker 2: is a lot out there now. It's not that difficult
Speaker 2: to find, you know, maybe a one or two day
Speaker 2: conference or a retreat that is a gathering of parents
Speaker 2: who have lost children at different stages. We have a
Speaker 2: lot of options, and those are absolutely things that I
Speaker 2: share with clients as well. In addition to online forums
Speaker 2: support groups, you can have in person groups. But some
Speaker 2: people may be in a position actually where maybe their
Speaker 2: career or just the nature of their particular circumstances, they're
Speaker 2: unable to go to a support group in person, and
Speaker 2: so these other things that are both virtual and sometimes anonymous,
Speaker 2: can be additional sources of support.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for then. I was not aware
Speaker 1: of many of those resources, so I appreciate you sharing
Speaker 1: that with us. So you already mentioned how one of
Speaker 1: the primary symptoms related to grief is cognitive foul. Right,
Speaker 1: And I'm curious to hear your thoughts around bereavement leave
Speaker 1: at work. I feel like I've seen at most you
Speaker 1: get a whole week off depending on like your relationship
Speaker 1: to the lost loved one. Can you say a little
Speaker 1: bit more about, like how workplaces can be more supportive
Speaker 1: in terms of bereavement.
Speaker 2: Yes, well, actually there is an organization I believe it's
Speaker 2: called Evermore and they are lobbying for a minimum twenty
Speaker 2: day bereavement leave at the workplace, So anyone who is
Speaker 2: interested in that should follow Evermore. You can follow them
Speaker 2: on Instagram and get more information on that. But with
Speaker 2: respect to workplace, I think that the more flexible that
Speaker 2: a supervisor can be, the better, and flexible with respect
Speaker 2: to scheduling. Scheduling so that the person can go see
Speaker 2: a therapist during the week and not necessarily have to
Speaker 2: see someone at night or on the weekend. When I
Speaker 2: experienced my own traumatic loss, I had amazingly supportive colleagues.
Speaker 2: I'm also a professor of psychology and a department and
Speaker 2: the thing that they gave me that was so helpful
Speaker 2: were grocery cards, because again with that brain fog, the
Speaker 2: idea of meal prep and grocery shopping, everything that we
Speaker 2: do day to day and take for granted is a
Speaker 2: big act of labor. So if you have that kind
Speaker 2: of collegial relationship at your workplace, those kind of instrumental
Speaker 2: supports can be really helpful.
Speaker 3: And I think in addition to.
Speaker 2: Providing structural leave, those are the kind of supports I
Speaker 2: would probably most recommend for a workplace which is a
Speaker 2: structured organizational institutional system. And so when I think about
Speaker 2: supports at a workplace, I'm not necessarily looking for advocating
Speaker 2: for my workplace to become a group therapy place or
Speaker 2: you know, a place for emotional processing. But the workplace
Speaker 2: can provide some of those instrumental supports that could make
Speaker 2: my life easier and kind of soften this journey. And
Speaker 2: it could be things like gift cards, it could be
Speaker 2: liberal relieve, a flex schedule, maybe a hybrid schedule. I
Speaker 2: would look and recommend that workplaces think in terms of
Speaker 2: structural things that they can do for clients who are
Speaker 2: experiencing berief, and especially if their official policy is the
Speaker 2: prototypical three days off.
Speaker 1: I'm wondering. You have other suggestions that you've heard from
Speaker 1: your own experience or even from clients, of ways that
Speaker 1: friends and family can offer, maybe some of those instrumental
Speaker 1: supports that you don't even think that you might need,
Speaker 1: but that actually become really helpful.
Speaker 2: Sure people often talk about the uselessness of the I'm
Speaker 2: here if you need me, girl, that does not work
Speaker 2: during that time. I mean you're really again, think in
Speaker 2: terms of intensive care, someone in intensive care cannot actually
Speaker 2: tell you what they need. You need to show up
Speaker 2: and meet the need. So the very basic needs of
Speaker 2: coming by or you know, calling and saying I am
Speaker 2: coming by and I am dropping off food, I am
Speaker 2: coming by and I am picking up the kids and
Speaker 2: taking them to a movie. I'm coming by and I
Speaker 2: am cleaning. If you can't do that, so many of
Speaker 2: our families are separated and dispersed across the country, in
Speaker 2: different states and in different countries. You can call services
Speaker 2: that can do that. I'm going to research a cleaning
Speaker 2: service to have someone come in and clean. I'm going
Speaker 2: to research a nanny service to have someone come, or
Speaker 2: duel a service to have someone come and take care
Speaker 2: of you for a little while. Something to give you
Speaker 2: a break so that you can step out and get
Speaker 2: some fresh air thinking about processing your own grief. That
Speaker 2: could be so you can step out, go in your
Speaker 2: car and park in an undisclosed location and scream your
Speaker 2: lungs out without having the children witness. But taking initiative
Speaker 2: is really what people who are acutely distressed need. They
Speaker 2: don't have the wherewith all necessarily to express to you
Speaker 2: what they need.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I appreciate you offering that because I think, like
Speaker 1: you mentioned earlier, people are offering like I don't know
Speaker 1: what to say, I don't know what to do, and
Speaker 1: some of those very tangible things I think can be
Speaker 1: really helpful to people. More from our conversation after the break,
Speaker 1: So can you say a little bit about how you
Speaker 1: work with clients around honoring their child after their death,
Speaker 1: Like what kinds of things could be helpful for them
Speaker 1: to think about about how to honor the child's life.
Speaker 2: We do do a lot of work around legacy, leaving
Speaker 2: and remembrance. Again, it becomes personalized. I'll offer a lot
Speaker 2: of different selections. People who are nature lovers may want
Speaker 2: to plant a tree or dedicate a tree in honor
Speaker 2: of the loved one who is deceased. If you're talking
Speaker 2: about an infant or a baby, or a child, oftentimes
Speaker 2: like a children's museum will allow you to purchase a
Speaker 2: brick at the museum and the memory of the child,
Speaker 2: or a space within the museum that you can dedicate
Speaker 2: to the child. The ritual of as I was saying
Speaker 2: at a holiday of leaving an open chair for the
Speaker 2: person who has departed, I do incorporate a lot of
Speaker 2: expressive art, and so we may engage in painting. There's
Speaker 2: so many resources again out there. I was introduced to
Speaker 2: a virtual perinatal loss painting session that people could sign
Speaker 2: up for and paint something that is remembrance of the child.
Speaker 2: Jewelry making, making a craft's book, a scrap book. There
Speaker 2: are so many ways, a scholarship, a donation in honor
Speaker 2: of someone participating in March of times, many many ways,
Speaker 2: and again my job as a therapist is to introduce
Speaker 2: you to the world of those ways and see if
Speaker 2: any of them feel like something that you would want
Speaker 2: to do. It could be as seemingly simple as special walk,
Speaker 2: a quiet walk you've taken us in a special location
Speaker 2: that that's your place where you go and remember your
Speaker 2: loved one.
Speaker 1: You know, we know that there is no timeline for grief,
Speaker 1: and I think that is a part of it that
Speaker 1: people often struggle with, is like always been two years,
Speaker 1: Like why don't I feel better? Can you offer any
Speaker 1: suggestions for anybody who might be enjoying our conversation and
Speaker 1: kind of feeling themselves still in the depths of grief,
Speaker 1: like what kinds of things might they be able to
Speaker 1: do to kind of wade through that wave so to speak.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, I mean I have to say, as a therapist,
Speaker 2: do not be afraid to reach out for therapy and
Speaker 2: consider investing in therapy. It can be really helpful to
Speaker 2: have someone who is connected but not in mesh, companion
Speaker 2: alongside you what you're experiencing, and even maybe to check
Speaker 2: in with a therapist to ask if they feel that
Speaker 2: what they're experiencing rises to the need or the benefit
Speaker 2: of therapy, because again going back to black women, I
Speaker 2: think that we're socialized to deny our needs and that
Speaker 2: that's an expectation both within our families and the largest society,
Speaker 2: and so we may have a little bit of a
Speaker 2: blind spot there around that. But also again, if you
Speaker 2: are really autonomous and really introverted in terms of your
Speaker 2: processing and private I think an app like help text
Speaker 2: is really helpful. If you are a year in, two
Speaker 2: years in please please please know that that is well
Speaker 2: within normal range of experiencing greed. If most grief therapists
Speaker 2: grief counselors will say minimum two years. I have heard
Speaker 2: someone who survived the death of a child by murder
Speaker 2: that it took five years before they even started to
Speaker 2: feel a little bit like themselves. And so give yourself
Speaker 2: a lot of grace and reach out to people who
Speaker 2: have been there and people who work with people who
Speaker 2: have been there to kind of give yourself a reality
Speaker 2: check on what you're experiencing. It's probably all within a
Speaker 2: normal range.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, doctor Greeman. I really appreciate all
Speaker 1: the insights that you've shared as well as the resources.
Speaker 1: Can you share with us how we can stay connected
Speaker 1: with you. What is your website as well as any
Speaker 1: social media channels you'd like to share?
Speaker 2: Sure, so, I am on Instagram at Baltimore Grief and
Speaker 2: my website is Wisdom Counseling, Baltimore, LLC. And if you're
Speaker 2: looking for a pair natal loss therapists, you can find
Speaker 2: me of course or in Therapy for Black Girls directory
Speaker 2: and also Postpartum Support International their therapist directory, which not
Speaker 2: only includes therapists who specialize in postpartum depression or anxiety
Speaker 2: or psychosis, but also clinicians who specialize in peri natal loss.
Speaker 2: So if you are yourself looking for a therapist who
Speaker 2: specializes in perynatal loss, I would recommend that site.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. We'll be shure to include all
Speaker 1: of that in the show notes. We appreciate you, I
Speaker 1: appreciate you, and I appreciate your work. Thank you. I'm
Speaker 1: so glad doctor Graymond was able to join us today
Speaker 1: for this episode. To learn more about her and the
Speaker 1: work she's doing, visit the show notes at Therapy for
Speaker 1: Blackgirls dot Com slash Session three four eight, and don't
Speaker 1: forget to text two of your girls right now and
Speaker 1: tell them to check out the episode. If you're looking
Speaker 1: for a therapist in your area, visit our therapist directory
Speaker 1: at Therapy for Blackgirls dot Com slash directory. And if
Speaker 1: you want to continue digging into this topic or just
Speaker 1: be in community with other sisters, come on over and
Speaker 1: join us in the Sister Circle. It's our cozy corner
Speaker 1: of the Internet. Designed just for black women. You can
Speaker 1: join us at Community dot Therapy for blackgirls dot com.
Speaker 1: This episode was produced by Frida Lucas, Elise Ellis, and
Speaker 1: Zaria Taylor. Editing was done by Dennison Bradford. Thank y'all
Speaker 1: so much for joining me again this week. I look
Speaker 1: forward to continuing this conversation.
Speaker 3: With you all real soon. Take good care. What's