The Invisible Threads of Sibling Loss and Surviving Siblings: Dr. Dawn DiRaimondo / Michael

Episode Transcript
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Dr. Dean (00:12):
Hello and welcome to the Broken Pack, a podcast
focused on giving adultsurvivors of sibling loss, a
platform to share their storiesand to be heard.
Something that many sibling losssurvivors state that they never
have had.
Sibling loss is misunderstood.
The Broken Pack exists to changethat and to support survivors.

(00:32):
I'm your host, Dr.
Angela Dean.
Did you ever wonder what it waslike to hear two psychologists
talk about sibling loss andpsychology and grief and grief
therapy?
Well, if you have, this is yourepisode.
I had the pleasure of speakingwith another psychologist and
sibling loss survivor, Dr.
Dawn DiRaimondo.
Dr.
DiRaimondo is a clinicalpsychologist in private practice

(00:55):
in California.
She's also the author of"Surviving Sibling Loss, the
Invisible Thread that Connectsus Through Life and Death,"
which was published in 2020.
We discussed not only herheartbreaking loss of her
brother Michael, which promptedthe writing of the book.
We also discuss questions andanswer questions submitted to us
on social media.
We discuss therapy, grief,demystify, and normalize the

(01:18):
process of grief and gettinghelp in therapy.
Here's the episode.
Thank you so much for joining ustoday.
I was wondering if you wanted tointroduce yourself?

Dr. DiRaimondo (01:33):
Sure, and thanks for having me.
My name is Dr.
Dawn DiRaimondo.
I'm a Clinical Psychologist inSacramento, California.
I've been in private practicesince 2003, and I specialize in
grief and loss, depression andanxiety.
I work with a lot of teenagers,young adults and adults.
I also have two kids of my ownthat will be 13 and 16 this

(01:56):
summer.
So just a pretty, busy mamatrying to balance, the home work
life balance as best I can.

Dr. Dean (02:04):
Thank you and you're also a sibling loss survivor.

Yes, I am.
I lost my brother Michael in2004.
And he was a flight medic in thearmy.
I'm sure we'll probably maybeget into more detail on that.
It obviously changed my lifesignificantly.
I eventually started doing moregrief and loss work in my
practice, and so I ended upworking with, parents who've

(02:31):
lost children, individualswho've lost siblings.
And, and it wasn't until 2019that I learned that there still
was not a lot written on siblingloss.
That was absolutely myexperience in 2004, when I found
only one book on the topic.
And when I learned from a clientthat there was still not much,

(02:53):
there was a handful of books, Idecided it was probably time
that I shared my story, and itdid a combination of my own
personal experience and myprofessional insights into grief
and loss.
Interviewed 14 people who lostsiblings to get an idea of what
should be in here, what dopeople want, what don't they
want?

(03:13):
And then was really moved bytheir stories and experiences.
So I ended up including a lot ofquotes from them on what helped
them grieve, what the, what washelpful, what wasn't helpful.
And so that came out in 2020.
I wrote it pretty quickly andit's, helped me now connect with
a lot of surviving siblings, ina way that I didn't, when I lost

(03:36):
my brother.
I have a sister who's youngerthan me, so luckily I had her to
help me, but at the time Ididn't know anybody who had lost
a sibling, which is prettycommon when people lose siblings
young.
I was 28.
Michael was 22, and, nobodycould relate to that kind of
loss.
And so I.
It's been helpful more recentlyto connect with, a lot of

(03:58):
people.
And now unfortunately I have anumber of friends who've lost
siblings, but that occurred, asI got older.
it's been an interestingexperience, a very meaningful
experience writing this book andconnecting with people.

Dr. Dean (04:11):
Mm-hmm.

I'm glad to be to talk about it.

Dr. Dean (04:14):
yeah.
Thank you.
I'm so glad to talk to you too.
I also had the similarexperience, which is why I'm
doing what I'm doing.
And then I found your book, Ithink it was late last year,
and, There was so much I couldrelate to both as a grieving
sibling, but as a psychologistin your book.
So, glad that we were able tohave this conversation cuz I
think, a lot of people werelooking for us to have a chat

(04:37):
and demystify some things abouttherapy and grief therapy
specifically.

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Dean (04:43):
I was recently at a conference for Thanatology,
which was the study of death,dying and bereavement, and there
was so little even mentionedthere about sibling loss, which
was validating, but alsoextremely sad.

It's really unbelievable, to be honest with
you, because of how profound ofa loss and an impact it is.
It's really mind blowing to methat so little is written.
It's not researched well.
It's, it's like really thisunrecognized, loss.
That's mind blowing.
So I'm glad that we are a partof changing that.

(05:20):
I really believe that by writingbooks, doing podcasts, we're a
part of changing that so at somepoint when people lose a
sibling, and I hope they alreadyfeel differently than, than
maybe we did.
There wasn't, Facebook the wayit is now.
There, there weren't groups forme to plug into on social media.
There still aren't groups inthis area for just sibling loss

(05:41):
that I know of.
There are, are, I know in otherareas specifically to siblings,
but again, there really, therereally isn't enough.

Dr. Dean (05:48):
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, that's true here in

we change it.

Dr. Dean (05:51):
as well.
Mm-hmm.
Oh, I'm glad that we are workingon that.
Do you wanna talk a little bitmore about what your loss was
like?

So Michael was in Iraq and he had been there
for almost a year.
He was supposed to be home sixweeks before we lost him.
That was January 8th, 2004.
And it was like a phone call,right?
I was at work.
My sister called me thinkingthat my dad had already reached

(06:22):
me and he hadn't, she had totell me.
And I just literally froze.
Like I couldn't even talk.
and my sister's did you hear me?
You need to come home.
And I was just like, okay.
I, I was like in this frozenstate

Dr. Dean (06:35):
Mm-hmm.

then, it just shattered her family.
he was the youngest of three,the only boy.
It was just absolutely crushing,obviously to my parents, to my
mom, to us.
And it took years and years torecover from that.
It was shocking.
You know, it's so sudden.

(06:56):
Loss is so different if you losesomeone more slowly to an
illness.
It's still devastating, but in adifferent way.
You have some time to wrap yourmind around the idea that this
person won't always be here.
and you don't get that when it'san accident or, a phone call.
You don't get any time.
And so that was challenging.

(07:17):
A lot of support went to my mom,which is, I think, pretty common
with siblings.
And that's what's really hard isthat, not only do siblings
typically not get a lot ofsupport because people don't
understand what you're goingthrough.
But, and in my case especially,I was very geared towards trying
to support my mom as much as Icould.
I lived in northern California.
They were in SouthernCalifornia.
I think I went home every twoweeks or every three weeks for

(07:40):
at least a year.
I was talking to her daily.
I think she cried for five yearsstraight, like every day.
Like it was, it was a lot and.
So that was challenging.
I did my own therapy, whichhelped a lot.
I always encourage people to dotherapy because a lot of times,
people don't all grieve the samein a family.

(08:03):
I was in my twenties, my sister,was 26 at the time we were
building our lives and careersand, we didn't wanna always talk
about the loss of our brother.
We sometimes needed breaks.
And

Dr. Dean (08:17):
Mm-hmm.

My mom didn't really want as many breaks.
it was always devastating.
And so it was trying tonegotiate how do we do this?
How do we grieve in our way andstill support her and what she
needs.
And that isn't an easy pathsometimes.
it, it took a long time to haveit.
I don't even know.

(08:38):
Feel okay is the right word,because you learn to live with
it.
I'm, preaching to the choirhere.
And we learned to integrate mybrother into our family and
still include him in differentways.
Talk about him.
My husband and obviouslychildren, never got to meet him,
but he's referenced UncleMichael as a part of their

(08:59):
family story.
I feel proud of how we've donethat, and I think we did the
best we could with a really,crushing experience,

Dr. Dean (09:11):
I think in the book too, you mentioned that, your
mom felt comforted when you hadyour daughter, that this was
this new life that couldsomewhat be a healthy
distraction and somebody else tolove, but not in a replacement

Right.
I think it became, she couldhold her and cuddle her and buy
clothes for her.
And, she had a lot of fun doingthat.
when she would feel sad, shewould go, shopping for baby
clothes.
And they would come up and visita lot.
And she loved being a big partof helping me with her.
And it just gave her a lot ofreason to smile again and laugh

(09:48):
and, and even Christmas, shereally, she didn't want anything
to do with Christmas for a longtime until she really wanted to
bring that back, the decorationsand lights for Michaela, for my
daughter, to see and enjoy.
And so she was a really, and,and even for all of us, she
became a, a really healthyhealing experience to, to get,

(10:10):
to love her and take care ofher.
And, and that helped definitely

Dr. Dean (10:15):
I'm curious too, were you already working with grief
in your professional work atthat time?

I don't think so.
I was working at an agency thatreally served, children and
families in Sacramento and thenwas invited to join this private
practice and ended up doingthat.
It was pretty soon after losingmy brother and I don't think I
had a lot of grief and lossclients.
I, and I didn't even talk aboutmy brother for at least two

(10:45):
years.
absolutely could not talk about,I needed a lot of time with it
before I could share it withclients.
And, and I think what ended uphappening is I, in private
practice, you, you begin to getknown in the community for who
you work with, and everyone knewI worked with teenagers, but
then it became, I actually dogrief and loss too.

(11:05):
And it's like, oh, that's goodto know.
And so I think

Dr. Dean (11:08):
Mm-hmm.

people knew what I'd gone through.
So I started getting more andmore referrals.
And that really has become ahuge part of my practice.
I talk about death every day,probably, which I know most
people don't do.
I've become really comfortablewith the topics of, death and
dying and what do people believehappens, like topics that are
really pretty taboo, peopledon't wanna talk about, talk

(11:31):
about a lot.
And it's, it's also anotherreally meaningful way, I
believe, to honor my brother.

Dr. Dean (11:39):
Mm-hmm.

use this experience to help other people.
And that feels really importantto me, that if he only had 22
years here, he's gonna have thebiggest impact possible if I
could have anything to do withit.
That's, that's felt really goodto me to be able to do that.
And it's very soulful work.
I actually really, to helppeople through the, some of the

(12:01):
darkest, hardest times of theirlife feels incredibly
meaningful.

Dr. Dean (12:06):
And I think right, as psychologists, a lot of times
our patients are curious aboutus and there's boundaries around
what we do and don't share andhow much that is or isn't
accepted by certain people.
So I'm wondering, cause thisbook that you wrote is very
personal, but you also includethe professional in there, but

(12:27):
what was that like for you ifthis landed in hands of
patients?

I know well, and it has.
Before I did it, I talked tofriends of mine or colleagues
that have written books.
What, what do we do?
Like people are gonna learn alot about me.
And I said, like everythingelse, you manage it, you talk
about it, And I have, so I'vetold people, and I don't mention
it to everyone to be totallyhonest with you, because I don't

(12:52):
think it's appropriate or Idon't think it'll be helpful for
everybody.
If I work with clients that arevery clear that they don't
believe in any kind ofafterlife, I don't, I don't
bring the book up.
If I think it'll be helpful tosomeone, I will.
If I don't, I don't.
And I am more open, I shouldsay, about losing my brother.
I find that I disclose a littlebit more with grief and loss

(13:13):
clients than I would with otherclients because, obviously as
therapists we're always verythoughtful.
If we're gonna share something,why are we sharing it?
What's the intention behind it?
And I found that it feels reallyhelpful to them.
I'm pretty open.
This is the place I'm comingfrom.
I have not lost a child.
I cannot relate to that.
I've experienced my parentslosing a child and I've lost a

(13:34):
brother.
But this is where some of mysuggestions or ideas or thoughts
are coming from, when I'mworking with you.
So I'll, I'll say that topeople.
But I found with the book that Iguess they like knowing more
about you.
I think they feel a little bitcloser.
I become a more of a real personand I'll always offer, if
there's anything, you're gonnalearn a lot about me in the book
that you wouldn't have otherwiseknown.

(13:54):
If you wanna talk about it, ifyou have questions, please feel
free to bring that up and let'stalk about it.
Overall, it's been a positiveexperience.
It hasn't so far beenproblematic or that anyone's
told me that they've learnedsomething that they can't you
know,

Dr. Dean (14:11):
Right.

or it's too uncomfortable for them.
that hasn't come up at all.
So I think a lot of them thinkit's cool, oh my God, you wrote
a book.
That's amazing.
They think it's a kind of a cooladdition.
So

Dr. Dean (14:23):
Yeah, I went through that a little bit with the
podcast last season cuz I triedto manage, what do I say?
What don't I say?
How am I not being apsychologist in these
interviews?
But then I had a couple patientsfind it or listen to my episode
and I was, wasn't like I toldthem all, so I was like, oh,
that's interesting.
yeah.

Again, And I will say I wouldn't have been in
a place to do this, I think muchyounger in my twenties or
thirties, I would've been muchmore concerned about even
colleagues reading the book andlearning different things or,
obviously getting into some ofthe medium stuff I've mentioned
in the book.
I didn't tell anybody about thatfor a long time because I was

(15:05):
worried it would impact thecredibility I had with people
that they wouldn't wanna referto me.
And I think I've gotten to aplace in my life, I think, to be
honest, that is the beauty ofthe forties.
Aging gets such a bad rap, and Iget why, but at the same time,
there's a confidence that cancome from, your forties, that
this is me, this is my truth,this is my story.

(15:27):
I'm not the right therapist foryou.
That's okay.
I'm at a place where I'm okay ifnot everybody agrees or likes
it.
It's still what I need to share.
I don't think I would've beenable to do that a decade ago,
for sure.

Dr. Dean (15:39):
Mm-hmm.
I think also, as yourdevelopment as a psychologist,
it's not just age, but it's alsoyour experience that adds to
that comfort that you have.

Right.

Dr. Dean (15:49):
You've mentioned the medium a few times, and I know
we had planned to talk aboutthat.
Why don't we transition intothat and, I'll leave that open.
What do you wanna say

for anyone who doesn't know, a medium is
someone who can see peoplewho've passed.
So they could see spirits, theycan hear them, they could see
them.
I guess they can feel in theirbody.
So if someone died from a headtrauma, they'll, they'll feel
pain in their head and, and theyoften will feel the, oh, I feel
something, and they'll describeit.

(16:20):
Or if there was like a lungcancer, they'll feel, I feel
heaviness in my chest, that's myunderstanding.
And so part of what we did as afamily is we did go to a medium
a number of times because we hadto know my brother was okay
somewhere that he still existedin some dimension, that we would
see him again someday.

(16:41):
That felt like we had to do thatto continue grieving and living.
And, it was very helpful.
We did get that validation.
Not everybody is that talented.
So I always tell people, youneed to get a referral from
someone who's seen a mediumbecause they're not all good.
I went to mediums that were notvery skilled, that were not
helpful, that can make it feelworse.

(17:03):
It's like a therapist, honestly,like it reminds me of that
continuum.
There's some therapists that arenot that skilled, that make
people feel worse, and there'stherapists that are much more
natural or they've done a lot oftraining.
They're better, they're a betterfit for somebody.
When we finally found someonethat was really good, we went a
number of times and hevalidated, what my brother

(17:23):
looked like, his personality,how he died, his name, like all
kinds of information.
And he would look at him, whichwas cool.
Even though they do phoneappointments, we were in person
and we could watch him watchingmy brother and other people.
Cause anybody you've lost cancome through.
They can't decide who comesthrough.
They just say, this is, and thenlook over your shoulder and nod
and then look at us, and thenlook at him or them.

(17:45):
And, and it was reallyinteresting.
He'd laugh and it, it's like wesaw him interacting and it just
felt comforting.
And, he'd mention differentthings about our current life.
And so it was big validating tobelieve, that my brother still
knew what was going on, knewthat we got married and we had
kids, or we went on a particularvacation.

(18:05):
I mean, he would just referencethis stuff.
And again, this was way before,social media.
it wasn't like he could justGoogle and I go, oh yeah, you
were just in Hawaii.
I think I'll talk about that.
that was not, that, that was nota thing then.
So it, it felt really validatingand, I have mentioned it to
clients, but not always.

(18:26):
Again, I don't think it'sappropriate for everybody.
I don't think everybody needsthat or wants that, but there
are some people that are so,stuck in their grief and or even
contemplating.
I don't know if I can be alive.
I don't know if I could do this.
I, I don't think I can, And soI'll say, there is this other
thing that you could do.

(18:47):
if you could get some kind ofvalidation or reassurance that
you know, your child is stillaware of what's going on with
you and do you think that wouldhelp?
Maybe you should do that.
And it has been helpful.
there have been a couple ofpeople that, that ended up doing
that and other people that justthought about it.
I think they liked knowing itwas an option.

(19:09):
They read the book, but theydidn't necessarily choose to do
it for themselves.

Dr. Dean (19:14):
Mm-hmm.
Did you always believe in thisconnection with mediums and
their, their

Mm.
So it's interesting.
So my aunt, Linda, who I talkedabout in the book, she really
used to watch the John Edwardsshow used to be on tv.
I don't remember what it wascalled, he'd have a TV show and
she'd watch it and talk abouthim.
And so I know when we lost mybrother, one of the first things
I did was ask her, what was thatshow you were watching, that
medium guy?

(19:42):
And I went out and I bought thebook, and then I thought, I
wanna do this.
And so it's amazing to me, I gotmy family to do this.
I got them to go to Miamibecause he was doing this huge
convention.
And I was like, I really thinkwe need to do this and this will
be good.
And so we all went from like LAto Miami and we didn't get a

(20:03):
reading because it's likethousands of people.
But I think it felt like weneeded to do something with our
grief energy.
And I'm glad we did it.
We eventually got connected to,the medium we ended up seeing,
which is a one-on-oneexperience, which is way better
than going to a conference.
and so after I lost Michael, Ijust threw myself into, I wanna
learn everything about whathappened.

(20:24):
I wanna know what he wentthrough.
So I read about near-deathexperiences and different
theories about afterlife.
I wanted to know about the worldhe was in.
It was like a seconddissertation to me.
I wanted to know it all.
And I did, I did a lot ofreading.
I went to a lot of trainings,went to a lot of mediums.
I learned a lot.
I guess to me that felt helpfulthan not knowing.

Dr. Dean (20:42):
Mm-hmm.
So it almost sounds like it wasan adjunct to the other things
that you were doing.
It wasn't in place of,

Oh, no.
I don't, yeah.
I, I think it is for anybody.
I, I think it's, you still haveto, you still live with the
missing and it doesn't changethat.
And so I think, and it's still,you know, most people, their
family dynamics, it's like abomb goes off in your family and
so you're in recovery mode foryears and, doing therapy,
learning to live with the griefand deal with holidays without

(21:13):
him, all of that still happensfor sure.
There's so much grieving, You'vejust figured you'd always have
them in your life and thatthey'd get married and have
children and that, you lose thisfuture you thought you were
gonna have.
And so you have to sort ofgrieve not only the present, but
the future that is gonna bedifferent than you expected it

(21:34):
to be.

Dr. Dean (21:34):
Yeah.
And even the past to someextent, right?
Because our memories, not thatthey change, but.
The impact or the meaning ofthem can

right, and then I will, I guess I'll put a voice
to a dynamic that happens too,that I know other people have
talked to me about.
So the parents can sometimes, Idon't know if it's idealized the
child that passed, but, but alittle bit like they're an
angel.
And so then the reality is thatit wasn't all angelic, right?
My brother was a normal humanbeing who had his, normal

(22:04):
teenage stuff or young adultstuff.
And so sometimes it can feellike, are you always gonna be
compared to the one that waslost in a way that you can't
possibly.
And I think siblings go throughthat as well

Dr. Dean (22:18):
sometimes.
Mm-hmm.

Or all kinds of things.
Or parents don't wanna talkabout the sibling and you do or
vice versa.
They wanna talk about them allthe time and you need a break.
There's so much that can comeup.

Dr. Dean (22:30):
I think family dynamics and perceptions on that
are so varied.
It's interesting that youmentioned that in respect to
siblings.
Cause as you were saying that, Iwas thinking, I think that's
true about a lot of grief andloss in general, that we somehow
culturally don't wanna saysomething bad about somebody
that has passed.

Yeah.
And, I get that.
And I also think sometimesparents wanna remember only the
good, right?
They don't wanna, they don'twanna talk about the, the
fights.
They wanna remember the goodand, and I get that but I think
sometimes that can also bechallenging for, remaining
surviving siblings that arelike, okay,

Dr. Dean (23:09):
Mm-hmm.

It wasn't all good and it's not all bad now.
Can we still find happiness orcan we celebrate other stuff?
Is there room for other stuff?
And I think for a while,sometimes for parents, there
really isn't.
And so then the sibling's okay,I've lost my sibling and now
I've lost my parent in a way fora while.
Or you've changed in a waythat's, hard to be around for a

(23:33):
while.
In the book I called it like thedouble trauma because you're not
just dealing with the grief ofyour sibling, you're dealing
with the change of your parentstoo.
And your family.

Dr. Dean (23:42):
Mm-hmm.
The whole family dynamic forsure, at which feels isolating
because you've lost all of thosesecondary losses and they are
harder to talk about.

I'm again grateful that I have my sister.
We talk about that a lot, but alot of people don't have another
sibling or they're not closewith their other siblings, And
again, if you lose someoneyoung, your friends can't relate
at all to significant loss.
I hear that over and over.
They feel really alone with it,wishing that their partners
understood.
And they often don't, or theysay the wrong things.

(24:16):
And I think what's so hard withgrief is everybody wants
different things.
So one person maybe wants you toask, how are you doing?
How are you doing with yourgrief?
And then somebody else doesn'twant you to ask.
So it's hard to know, how tosupport people.
So I say to people, you can asksomeone, how can I best support
you?
What would be helpful to you?
Do you want me to do this?
Do you want me to do that?
Because people are different inwhat they want.

Dr. Dean (24:38):
Mm-hmm.
For sure.
And I think that's oftentimesthe questions that I get are
what can I say or what shouldn'tI say?
And, I joke about some thingsthat maybe you shouldn't say
that are blanket, but somepeople might welcome those
statements and it's a validpoint that, just asking
specifically how to supportsomeone makes more sense.

I would say overall, what I've heard that
people don't wanna hear is youshould be grateful for the time
you had and things like that.
That usually rubs most people, Ithink, the wrong way.

Dr. Dean (25:09):
I think because people grieve differently, and I'm
curious to see what you thinkabout this, but, I've been
working with grief and loss insome capacity ever since I was a
doctoral student.
I feel like as every loss isdifferent, that there's not one
fit of therapy, not just thetherapist, but one modality of
therapy for the grieving person.

(25:31):
So there's the questions about,oh, what should I do about,
should I have EMDR?
Should I have ACT therapy or CBTor narrative therapy?
And I think for me it's one,what am I competent in doing and
what does the person in front ofme need and how can does that
fit, if it does fit?
But I don't think there's a onefit cookie cutter approach.

(25:53):
And I was wondering what youthought about that.

Absolutely.
I think, it's why referrals aretypically best.
if somebody knows the person andknows a number of different
therapists with differentpersonalities and specialties,
that's always great cause it'sthe better chance that it'll be
a good fit.
However, I will say somethinglike EMDR, which is like a
trauma modality.

(26:16):
Not everybody needs EMDR, right?
So if there anyone's listeningwho's not as familiar, and I'm
not an expert, I'm actually nottrained in EMDR because it's
above and beyond regulargraduate training.
It's stands for eye movementdesensitization reprocessing is
what it stands for, right?
And it's this left, right brainthing where, I get something
with the finger and you lookleft and right, and it helps

(26:37):
your brain process traumadifferently than just talking
about it.
And so what I've done withclients that sometimes I
recommend that they actually dosomething like EMDR there's
something called CRM,Comprehensive Resource Model,
which is another traumamodality.
If they continue to be stuck ingrief, meaning we've been

(26:59):
working together for months andthey're still feeling like
they're completely overwhelmedemotionally, still having what,
whether it be a lot of panicattacks or crying a lot, or
nightmares, flashbacks, likereal, pretty significant trauma
symptoms or avoiding a lotbecause they can't handle it,
right?
These are numbing that these areall trauma symptoms.

(27:21):
And if I'm not seeing.
That there is movement or evenbaby steps of that symptoms are
easing and less haunting.
I'll use the word hauntingsometimes that people still seem
very haunted and that I'llrecommend that they do that.
And I have colleagues thatspecifically do that.
And so I'll still see the personfor like, how is work and how

(27:43):
are things going with your mom?
Or like the everyday step andthey'll specifically do the
trauma piece, which is differentand it does help reduce the
trauma symptoms.
And so I think it could behelpful, but not everybody comes
in with that.
So I feel like not everybodyneeds that.
So again, like you said, itdepends on what does somebody
need.

Dr. Dean (28:02):
For sure.
And there are differentmodalities even for trauma,
right?
and I think that our listenersmay not understand that a lot of
times we know that we need, oh,it would be helpful, I see on
the internet X, Y, or Z, and soI should go find an e EMDR
therapist.
But again, that may or may notbe what you need or the

Right.

Dr. Dean (28:21):
modality, and sure, it might very well be the right
one.

And I think so at least seeing a therapist that
specializes in grief and loss isa great place to start.
So whether they get a referralfrom a friend or a doctor, or go
to psychology today.com and putin their zip code and their
specialties, you could pick,that's a good place because not
every therapist is trained indoing grief and loss, and not

(28:45):
every therapist is actuallyexperienced significant loss
depending on their age.

Dr. Dean (28:50):
Mm-hmm.

I think that matters too.

Dr. Dean (28:54):
Yeah.

If someone's referred to me, my guess is
they're not coping well, right?
it's not just that they'rehaving a hard time, but this is
significantly impacting theirability to work or to be present
in their lives.
That they're maybe having a hardtime even taking care of
themselves, getting themselvesto shower or eat, or, and my
intake is actually the same.
If someone comes in with adepression or grief and loss, I

(29:19):
still have them fill out thesame paperwork and I assess
their levels of depression,anxiety, how much distress are
they in so that I can makeappropriate referrals.
Whether I think someonesuicidal, do they maybe need
medication to help reduce somesymptoms?
Can we just do therapy?
So I feel like I assessdiagnostically, where are they?

(29:41):
And I think what's differentwhen it is grief and loss is
I'll ask them obviously allabout their story of who they
lost, how they're impacted, butalso what are their spiritual
beliefs?
Where do they think their lovedone is now?
And we talk more about that thanI normally bring up in regular
therapy, that's for sure.
And then I help them have aplace to talk about all of their

(30:06):
fears and feelings because Ithink family and friends don't
know what to say.
I think they feel people startavoiding them.
And in therapy they don't haveto take care of me.
They don't have to worry about,I'm not gonna stop seeing them.
And they can cry every time ifthey want, or talk about it over
and over, go again if they needto.

(30:26):
And it's helping them, I think,manage their feelings or, a lot
of people are worried they'regonna feel less connected.
And I think in some ways, andthis is why I also share with
people my experience of I'm 19years in.
I'm an example of what livingwith loss looks like, feels
like, and sounds like.
And let's talk about whetherit's, Mother's Day is coming up,

(30:51):
what are you feeling about that?
There's a lot of commercials nowabout Mother's Day.
What's that like for you?
Or, change of season, holidaysare around the corner.
What's coming up for you aroundthat?
And I'm a step ahead and maybethey've thought about it and
maybe they haven't.
The anniversary of your lovedones passing- do you wanna do
anything for that?

(31:11):
Have you thought about that?
so I help them with how do Imanage these events that they
have to go through and come upwith.
Maybe we talk about ideas ofwhat they wanna do.
A lot of what I do isnormalizing symptoms.
It gets normal to feel a lot ofanticipation, anxiety before,
actually, sometimes people saythe actual day is not as hard as

(31:34):
the weeks before, because I wasanticipating it to be terrible,
but really every day isterrible.
It wasn't any, it wasn't anymore terrible.
And so helping them with thingslike that is what I, which is
what I do.

Dr. Dean (31:44):
I do the same thing with my patients, and oftentimes
I will name for them or withthem if they can't have the
words for what these feelingsare, or also how many times do
we hear, oh, I hadn't thought ofthat.
And I think that helps them inthat anticipation, like you
said.
Robert Neimeyer, who is amazing,Jane Millman, and Lauren Breen

(32:06):
define three types of grief andbereavement care as grief
support, grief counseling andgrief therapy.
And so the differences are thatgrief support can be informal,
right?
It can be the friends, thefamily, untrained or trained
volunteers, might be the chatgroups or support groups.
Those types of things fall intogrief support and then

(32:28):
professionals.
They are identifying twoseparate categories.
So specialized training, forgrief counseling is professional
care for the bereaved, and thenit goes into everything else
that we do, psychoeducation,reinforcement of care, coping
skills, et cetera.
and then by contrast they'resaying grief therapy is provided
only by trained mental healthprofessionals, and that's

(32:50):
typically what you and I areprobably doing more of.
Whereas grief counseling can bedone by other trained
professionals that it may not beas prolonged.
Not that everything, everyone wesee, sometimes we see people in
that acute grief and it's notpathological.
but like you said, you'regetting referrals for,
specifically for people thatneed a little bit more care.

Mm-hmm.
and I'm so used to working withpeople with major depression,
which I was gonna say it's wayharder.
People could struggle for yearsand years with that.
And so what I do find is thatinitially, grief can look like

depression (33:24):
wanting to sleep all the time or crying a lot, not
having energy, not able tofocus.
The symptoms are almostidentical.
But actually people with griefand loss, especially if they're
getting the professional helpwhere they're regularly meeting
with someone talking about theirfeelings and they get better
faster.
So sometimes they're betterwithin months and they go back

(33:47):
to work and I don't see, youknow, or they come in less
often, they stop coming in.
Whereas like someone with majordepression, again, their
symptoms look almost identical.
Unfortunately, those peopledon't typically get better in
just a few months.
Like it's more involved thanthat and takes longer.
And, they often in general don'thave enough support.

(34:08):
There's a lot that goes intothat, where sometimes with grief
and loss, sometimes there's alack of support, but, not
always.
Maybe the people in their lifedon't understand their loss, but
they're very close friends.
They get together with them off,they can plug back into that.
So yeah.

Dr. Dean (34:25):
Yeah, for sure.
There's so many different grieftheories and grief therapies,
right?
And so I think if we think aboutprolonged grief, that's when we
start to think that it's evenmaybe something that should
require attention.
But that doesn't necessarilymean that that's even abnormal.

mm-hmm.
I, I don't know.
I think it's, it's mostly like aspace where you get to talk and
someone listens to you in a veryuninterrupted way.
And I say this, the therapyoffice is like the last place
probably in the world whereyou're not sharing your.
attention with a phone, right?
we're not on our phones, we'renot checking texts or messages

(35:05):
like where else, anywhere.
Even if you go to lunch with afriend, the phones are on the
table typically, right?
People are like, oh, let me, letme text my child real quick, or
my husband or whatever it is.
and so to have 50 minutes orhowever long the session is of
someone totally focused on you,what you need, even if it's, you
need some pauses or some spaceto feel or talk, that's rare.

(35:29):
And I think we are trained toknow.
That we don't tell you should bedoing this, you shouldn't be
thinking that.
Which is sometimes I think whatpeople hear from people not
professionally, but friends meanwell by saying at least you had
time with, I don't know, atleast you had 25 years with them
and you need to focus on whatyou had.
That doesn't help people, thatusually makes'em feel worse.

(35:51):
so I think we have a bettersense of what's gonna not
further trigger somebody.
And there's a term, name it totame it.
There's something reallypowerful about naming a feeling,
which of course we help peoplewith.
and so then I think what happensis the raw feelings that people
initially come in with start toget more settled and processed.

(36:14):
And so they're not triggered asmuch by talking about their
feelings or even feeling them.
They don't necessarily startcrying, right?
They feel more of a sense ofcontrol over their emotions
eventually.

Dr. Dean (36:29):
Exactly.
Yeah.
what would you want people toknow about grief therapy if they
were considering it?

I think if somebody feels like it's just
too hard, and I'll say, this istoo hard to do alone.
This is way too hard to doalone, and you don't need to do
it alone.
It's so worth finding somebodybecause you could talk about
whatever you want.
you could talk about just yourgrief if you want, but chances
are right, life is complicatedand there are other things also

(37:00):
happening that you might wannatalk about, whether it's
situations at work or family, orwith your partner or with your
friends, or you're wondering nowabout your career.
The one thing I think that canhappen is that when we lose
someone, it shakes our wholecore and foundation.
And I talk about this in thebook, that isn't all bad, right?

(37:21):
People don't wanna hear thatinitially, that something
positive can come from this.
But what happens is we get muchmore clear about life and I feel
way more clear about not takingtime and relationships for
granted and make choices, Ithink, differently than some
people who have not gone throughsignificant loss.

(37:41):
Cuz then you could stay in thesort of bubble that all of us
were in before we lost someonethat there's plenty of time.
We'll get to this eventually, orwe'll spend time with someone
eventually.
And I think we lose that, thebubbles burst, it never gets put
back together again.
And so we're more intentionaland I see that with my clients.
Big time too.
They're more clear.

(38:02):
Even some friendships that maybeweren't great for you, but you
tolerated for a while.
There's no room after.
I think after you lose someone,there's no room for the stuff
that really, it doesn't make itto the next chapter of your
life.
And maybe it shouldn't.
Maybe you kept people aroundlonger than you really should
have.
And again, it makes it moreclear, I'm not doing this like
you're, whether it's they're tooselfish or it's all about them.

(38:24):
I can't take care of you.
If you're not healthy, you don'tget to the next chapter.
And that can be actually ahelpful lesson if that's the
right word for it.
And I found that with theinterviews when I interviewed
the people for the book, peoplesaid that over and over again,
you don't sweat the small stuffas much.

Dr. Dean (38:42):
Mm-hmm.

And so I talk about that with clients too,
when they're ready.
Certainly not in the beginning.
Nobody wants to hear that.
You can't hear that.
But I do mention that as this issomething that people eventually
feel.
And actually sometimes it cantake three to five years to even
feel it because it's so intenseand it takes a long time, I

(39:03):
think, to get to the point whereyou're like, you know what?
This change I've made in my lifeas a result of losing my brother
or sister, this change actuallyis better for me.
Whether you have betterboundaries with people or you
change careers to do somethingthat makes you happy, cause
you're like, you know what?
Life's too short to be unhappy.
I, I get that now.
And I always say, we all have atimeline, we just don't know
what it is.

(39:24):
And so I think we have to becareful with what we do with our
lives and use time wisely,

Dr. Dean (39:30):
Mm-hmm.
It's a hard lesson to learn thisway, but I think

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Dean (39:35):
it's so true that I see this with a lot of my
patients and clients as well.
There's such change thathappens, and a lot of times you
don't even realize that you madethose changes until you can look
back and say, oh, I'm no longerin X relationship or doing X, Y,
and Z

Mm-hmm.
Yeah.

Dr. Dean (39:55):
of this loss.
I just, spoke with someone,actually one of the other
interviews and, she started justwalking and running because she
just needed to cope that way,but she also found such beauty
and change in her health, andit's a good metaphor for what
happens for a lot of us.

Mm-hmm.
I was never a big runner and Iran a lot after losing Michael.
I felt like I just had to listento music that kind of helped me
feel connected to him and run.
You've got all this energy inyour body.
It doesn't know what to do.
It's like grief, sadness, anger,despair, right?
Like all these feelings.
And I think that's how exercisecan help so much because it lets

(40:33):
your body do something with thatenergy that's really, really
helpful.
And then of course you get allthe neurotransmitters, dopamines
and the endorphins that justgive you a natural sense of
feeling more at peace and moregrounded.
And that's really helpful.
But you're right, there'sactually, with my clients,
sometimes I'll point out tothem, this shift that I'm seeing

(40:54):
that you're saying this, thisreally feels different.
I don't know if you would'vesaid this a year ago and they'd
say, no, there's no way Iwould've said that or felt that
a year ago.

Dr. Dean (41:04):
Or changing your work schedule or doing, there's so
many ways that people thenprioritize relationships, as a
result of the loss loss

Absolutely.
So if someone's listening andeither hasn't done therapy or
isn't loving their therapyexperience, I would say like
it's worth trying to meetsomeone new, and sometimes you
have to meet two or threepeople.
Nowadays I'll just, I don't knowabout your area, but here,
everybody's full.
It's really hard to get in withsomebody.
I think that, I guess one of thepositives of Covid is it helps

(41:36):
normalize therapy and people aremuch more open to it.
It seems like the stigma's lessso sometimes it's hard to find
someone.
So I always recommend if peopleleave messages to give a little
bit of detail.
I'm calling because I lost, mybrother or sister.
if you have to use an insurance,A) don't assume that everyone
takes it.
A lot of people don't takeinsurance, so I'd leave that in

(41:58):
the message, or that if it'sprivate pay, say I could pay
privately, I'm happy to go onyour waiting list.
Those are the types of thingsthat are helpful to get in and,
but to meet a couple differentpeople.
Everyone has a different style.
You might connect with onebetter than the other, and it's
important to be with someone youfeel comfortable with.
You're talking about the mostintimate personal topics of your

(42:18):
life.
It's important that you feelcomfortable with who's sitting
in front of you.

Dr. Dean (42:22):
Yeah, I think that's great advice.
I will put in the show notes aswell, some of the things you
mentioned, like Psychology Todayand, other links to find
therapists.
So one of the questions thatcame up a lot and when I posted
what do you want us to talkabout, was could we discuss
sibling loss from differentperspectives?
And there was even a question onhow would this be different for

(42:45):
estrangement, or being theperson that has to manage
emotions in difficultrelationships.
So you hinted a little bit atthis, I know I've talked about
this before as well, butsometimes we end up being as the
sibling, the person that's inbetween a little bit of
triangulation, if you will, theperson that's getting in between
the relationships.

(43:07):
I was wondering what yourthoughts are on that.

Well, the first thing I'd say that comes to
mind, and it's probablysomething I should have talked
more about, in the book, butbecause it wasn't my experience,
I was less in touch with it,that it should be in the book, I
think, is that if you had adifficult relationship with your
brother or sister, let's say youwere estranged and you haven't
talked in years, or it wasabusive or toxic, or what

(43:29):
happens when they die is thatyou lose the opportunity for
that to ever get repaired.
And that can be the hardestpart.
But the reality is that theywere difficult, but that it now,
it can never really get better.
I think that's where some of thegrief comes up for people

Dr. Dean (43:47):
Mm-hmm.

and, and there's still work around.
Maybe as a therapist, what Iwould be doing is grieving what
was it ever better?
Was it ever a positiverelationship?
What do you miss?
What do you wish you could stillsay to that person?
If they were here, what wouldyou say to them?
You could write to them, eventhough they're not here.
I still think writing to peoplethat we've lost is, is still
helpful to us.

(44:08):
And so I think there's thatpiece, or if they lost their
sibling to suicide, sometimespeople are angry with their
sibling, and that's hard forthem to admit.
They don't wanna feel angrysometimes, but sometimes they
are.
So again, some people feelcomfortable feeling angry,
others don't, but givingeverybody the room to flush out

(44:32):
and put a voice to all thosefeelings that come up around all
of that

Dr. Dean (44:37):
Yeah, I do a lot of that narrative work too.
And writing is, I think, sohelpful and healing.
And depending on what theirbeliefs are about the afterlife,
can you write a response or howcan you heal this relationship?
If it's possible, if theybelieve it's possible through
that work that we're doing intherapy, but also that writing.

And I don't know, when you're talking about
the triangulation, if thesurviving sibling feels like
they're having to manage, maybethe relationship between the
parents.
Parents really, a lot of parentsseparate after losing a child.
It's just detrimental to themarriage or maybe they're
already divorced or maybethere's a lot of issue between
the other siblings and theparents.
and I think it's important thatsiblings get to set boundaries.

(45:18):
You don't have to play familytherapist to your family just
because they need it.
You are allowed to say, you knowwhat, I'm not the person who you
should be talking to about yourmarital problems with this is
my, whatever it is, my father,or this is my brother or sister
you're talking about.
you need to do that with atherapist or friend, but not me

Dr. Dean (45:38):
Mm-hmm.

and feeling like that's okay, that you have a
right to take care of yourself,even though the poll might be to
take care of whoever's wantingsomething from you.

Dr. Dean (45:47):
Yeah, for sure.
And I was nonspecific in thattriangulation cause I think it
can happen in so many of those

right.

Dr. Dean (45:54):
you for addressing that.
But I do think boundary settingthere is important.

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Dean (46:00):
needed, also for ourselves.
We don't just set boundaries forthe other people.
And I think it's important torealize that, for people
listening, that these boundariesaren't just to stop, whatever's
happening there, but also tokeep yourself healthy.

Yeah, and I think that's what therapy can
help with too, is if people arefeeling like, gosh, I don't
know, is, is this okay that mymom or dad wants me to do this
or says this or that?
We can be, someone says, No,I'm, that doesn't sound very
healthy or what's that like foryou?
And you have a right to not beyour parents' confidant all the
time.
You don't have to do that to bea good daughter or son.

(46:37):
And so I think that's validatingfor people.
What is healthier, what theirrights are, what's gonna be good
for them.
We are their advocate, right?
We're our client's

Dr. Dean (46:46):
Yeah.

And I think that can be really helpful and
empowering to the people we workwith.

Dr. Dean (46:54):
Yeah.
Thank you.

Yeah.

Dr. Dean (46:56):
One question that people asked was, could you
discuss the experience ofsibling loss from the
perspectives of losing an onlysibling like me versus losing
one sibling when you have

Do you have any other siblings?

Dr. Dean (47:09):
I do not.

Okay, so you're in the experience of you lost
your only sibling and I'm in theexperience of I still have
another sibling.
I think what, what comes up forme around that, and you could
maybe answer your experiencewith it, is that when the people
I interviewed talked aboutlosing their only sibling,
they're alone with taking careof their parents.
not only literally around thegrieving time, but now aging

(47:32):
parents is all on them.
Like they assumed that theywould have a life and another
sibling to share that stuff withand they don't.
And so people talked a lot aboutthat, but then I feel like
there's other people that getangry if someone implies, you
still have other siblings, soit's not so bad.
almost like you could afford tolose one, and that's totally not

(47:53):
true.
I'm glad I have my sister thatmade it so much easier, but it's
still there's nothing easy aboutlosing a sibling.

Dr. Dean (48:01):
Exactly.
Yeah.

know,

Dr. Dean (48:04):
I talked about this with my father who lost, his
brother the year before theycame to this country.
There were four of them, and helost a sister.
I think she was 52.
And so my dad and I have hadthis conversation, like with
the.
That's been like, and he, hecalled me his only child one
time recently.

Um.

Dr. Dean (48:23):
And I was like, you can't just erase Tony.

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Dean (48:27):
and he's supposed to be here as they are aging and
figuring that out and cleaningup their house and doing all of
those things, which hopefullyisn't for a while.
But yeah, that's been myexperience.
But you can't replace siblings.
And I think that this questionis also something I wanna share
is there's so much comparisonthat happens in grief.

(48:50):
It's if I compare this, like atleast I didn't have this
experience, or maybe myexperience is worse, is like the
attitudes that I think peopleare trying to solve the problem
that way.
But there's no sense incomparing

It is so interesting that you say that
because I only, I actually thinkit might be human nature to do
it.
Almost all of my clients and myown experience with my family
have done the, it would've beenworse if this had happened, or
at least it wasn't.
I don't know.
Like this or that or, and it'slike, why do we, I don't know

(49:28):
why we do that.
I don't know, but people do itall the time.

Dr. Dean (49:32):
And I think if we can normalize that it's all hard,

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Dean (49:37):
then we don't build up these walls and we can support
each other versus trying tocompare it.
Cause I don't know what it'slike to have more than one
sibling, so how could I couldcompare that to losing,

So.

Dr. Dean (49:50):
right?

Yes, when I think what also people don't
like with comparison that I heara lot is people say, don't tell
me you understand because youlost your friend or your best
friend.
Or I think peoplewell-intentioned say I know what
you mean.
I understand.
I lost my friend years ago orrecently or what.
And I think siblings end upfeeling you don't understand

(50:13):
because losing your frienddidn't ruin your family though
likely, And so the difference islike not only did you lose your
sibling and the person you grewup with and you thought you'd
have this future with, but youalso then have to deal with how
that's completely shattered yourfamily in a lot of cases.
And your parents like that'sdifferent.
I feel like that's, commentslike that are often triggering

(50:35):
to people,

Dr. Dean (50:37):
Mm-hmm.

know, when they're told, I understand
because I don't know.
And they give an example.
Grief is hard.
It's like super messy.
And I think that's why peopleavoid it.
They avoid talking about it.
They don't wanna say somethingwrong, but we can avoid it.
Literally, loss is a part oflife, right?
And everyone's gonna go throughloss and I think we need and can
do a better job with it.

Dr. Dean (50:59):
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
It's my dad will not listen tothis podcast cuz he is not a
podcast kind of guy.
He will say, I was born dying.
Like his, his thought is thesecond you're born, you are one
step closer to death and this ishis way of trying to cope with
his grief.

(51:19):
And there's some honesty in thatthat we don't want to hear.
That goes back to your or yourstatements around life's too
short

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Dean (51:28):
miss out or waste our time with toxic relationships or
whatnot.
Mm-hmm.

I'd think I'd have a positive spin to that.
Like Yeah, you're right.
but so if this is a limitedopportunity, this human
experience a window of time,then what are we gonna do with
it?
What do you wanna do with it?
Like you have an

Dr. Dean (51:46):
How can we make it a life worth living?

Absolutely.
I've read different theories andone theory of, what happens
after you die is that youliterally review your life
almost like a movie.
And now it's do you wanna enjoythat movie you're gonna watch?
are you gonna like to look backand look at the different
memories you did andrelationships you cultivated and
create a life that you not onlyenjoy now, but you're gonna be

(52:09):
proud of?

Dr. Dean (52:09):
Mm-hmm.

Even though you go through super challenging
things, you still have anopportunity.
And I, I think we're meant to behere and we're, I don't know
what the reason is, but we'rehere, so what are we gonna do
with it?
And it doesn't mean leaving oursiblings behind, it means
honoring them along the way.
Mm-hmm.

(52:31):
So hopefully

Dr. Dean (52:31):
And possibly carrying them with us forward.

absolutely, absolutely right.
Even if nobody else can talkabout them, wants to talk about
them.
We do.
They live in our hearts and, wesay their names and we share it.

Dr. Dean (52:49):
Yeah, Are there other things that you wanted to talk
about today related to eithersibling loss or grief therapy,

I certainly hope my book is helpful to people.
I hope that it feels validatingand they get ideas.
I put different ideas, in thebook of what to do with your
grief energy cause literallypeople are what is grieving?
It's making room for yourfeelings, letting yourself feel
things and I think whether it bewriting to your sibling or
exercising more or listening tomusic, that reminds you of your

(53:18):
sibling or planting a garden.
People talked about that.
there's all these differentthings that we can do to
remember and honor our siblings.
And, I like to believe thatthere is a way we can continue
having a relationship.
Like they're physically nothere, but we still emotionally
feel connected to them.
They're still always a part ofour family story.
Typically our upbringings, oursense of self.

(53:41):
and, and that we get to havethat.
And that, that there isn't this,you have to move on.
You have to almost like, in away, leave them behind.
And I don't think that's true.
I don't think that's true.
And I think we learn to livewith it.
And, my hope is that my bookhelps people see that, of what
that can look like in a way to,to continue honoring, our

(54:01):
siblings.
And, it's not in a way whereyou're stuck in grief.
It's actually more fluid thanthat.

Dr. Dean (54:07):
Mm-hmm.

I think it's great that there are more
Facebook groups or social mediahas really allowed so much more
possibilities.
And I think that's great.
And even posting about yoursibling, I think what I do like
about social media is people ingeneral are totally
uncomfortable talking aboutgrief.
not totally, but a lot grief andloss and, and all of this.

(54:30):
But they are willing to like orheart a post.
Or they're willing to say, Imiss your brother too or sending
love.
People are, they do seem likethat is still in their comfort
zone and I think that reallyfeels helpful.
So I do, I encourage people ifthey're comfortable with it, do
a post on somebody's birthday orthe anniversary of their
passing.

(54:50):
Let yourself get messages fromother people, because I think
that feels helpful, right?
It feels like love and lovefeels helpful,

Dr. Dean (54:57):
Yeah, for sure.

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Dean (55:00):
Thank you for that.
Are there those ways that youstay connected with Michael?

Yeah, definitely.
I definitely do posts for hisbirthday, January 8th, the
anniversary of his passing, andhe was in the military.
So Memorial Day I'll do a postand, I think the book was a
labor of love and a supermeaningful endeavor.
And, so me staying connected toanything I can that helps

(55:25):
promote awareness about siblingloss.
I'm now on a dissertationcommittee around research around
sibling loss.
I hope to do more of that.
I really wanna be a part ofchanging this and helping this
type of loss be betterunderstood, better recognized,
so that siblings don't continueto be vastly under supported
during one of the hardest thingsthat'll happen to them.

Dr. Dean (55:47):
Mm-hmm.

That feels really meaningful.
And to help other people honortheir sibling feels really
wonderful as, as well becauseit's, it's so hard.
What we haven't talked about ishow American culture doesn't
help.
There aren't a lot of rituals ortraditions to plug into beyond
typically a funeral, which youknow, often happens, the first

(56:10):
week or first month orsomething.
And then after that for a lot ofpeople there's nothing, right?
Whereas when I.
Looked into this for the book.
Yeah.
Buddhism, they have it, theyhave it down.
I mean there's, the funeral andthen 49 days later and a hundred
days later and everyone comesout for the memorial.
It's just what you do.

(56:31):
A year later, three years later,or even annually, they have a
lot of annual, that is amazing.
And that actually is so helpfulto the grief process because
then the community keeps comingback for you.
You're not grieving alone,you're grieving as a community,
as a family.
I wish we had more of that.
It would be so much more helpfulto do that.

Dr. Dean (56:52):
I think you also mentioned the Jewish cultural
traditions of the candle thatthey light every year.

Uhhuh, right?
Absolutely.

Dr. Dean (57:00):
And.
In our family, theItalian-American traditions,
were very different than theAmerican ones.
But still, even then, it's verymuch you're expected to move on
after a certain amount of days.
So I wonder if we have the powerto start to change that and
normalize that days was not

Oh no, not at all.
I, I wish we could even comingup with more words.
I say this all the time, thereis not a big enough vocabulary
around grief, so it makes ithard to even talk about an
experience.
We don't even have enough wordsto use.
so I don't know how you make upnew words, but we need

Dr. Dean (57:35):
Yeah.
I talk about that too.
There's What's your grief?
I think they have a whole, theysurveyed people.
What types of, words do youneed?
And they have a, like a list.
I think it's 63 or 64.
for grief that people came upwith.
one day I kept typing siblingand it kept autocorrecting to

(57:56):
sobling, and I was like, is thatwhat we are?
Sobling?
But then apparently that hassome other meaning on the
internet, so I don't proposethat one.
But

Hmm.

Dr. Dean (58:06):
not even a word for this.

No, it, this does remind me of what some
people talked about doing that Ithink is helpful if you lose
someone to a health condition oreven suicide.
They have a lot of the walks,the fundraising.
And I do think participating inthat so that you're around
again, people who understand it,get it and are part of raising
awareness, raising money, all ofthose things people say feel

(58:30):
helpful, right?
So again, it's doing somethingwith your grief, having a place,
an outlet to channel it, I thinkcan be really helpful.
And I'd encourage people to lookinto different things in their
areas that they can do.
Again, there's more community init then that way you're not
alone with it as much.

Dr. Dean (58:48):
Yeah.
Thank you.
Are there other things that youthink about culture or grieving
from different cultures?

I love the Day of the Dead again, that annual,
making, the Latin cultures dothat every

Dr. Dean (59:01):
Mm-hmm.

October 31st to November 2nd.
I might be having that wrong,but that time period, and I
haven't done that.

Dr. Dean (59:10):
Mm-hmm.

but I wish that I did, cuz I think that would
be, again, a neat thing to pluginto, like having, the pictures
and the food and candles and,it's just so helpful to have
traditions Yeah, I think it's agood one.
Any other questions people askthat they wanted us to talk

Dr. Dean (59:30):
about?
There was this question, I thinkwe've touched on it.
It says, what about how societydisregards the depth of sibling
grief and they expect thesurviving sibling to move on?

Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I hope that changes intime, but I think that like
everything, things take time tochange, and so that's why it's
important that people try toconnect with other surviving
siblings, so that, whether thatbe a support group, listening to
podcasts, participating in,groups, social media groups,
that's where you're gonnaprobably get a lot of your
validation because other peopletalk about it so vividly, so

(01:00:04):
profoundly that you're, wow,talk about validating that other
people really feel a lot of whatyou're experiencing and feeling
and the anger that other peopledon't get it really want you to
move on.
Like, why are you still talkingabout this after three months?
Like I talk about grief time, isdifferent than regular time
because it feels like time cango by fast, but also slow at the

(01:00:25):
same time, right?
Which should be a totalcontradiction, but yet in the
grief world, that's just how itfeels sometimes.
Wow, how for me, how can it be19 years?
It's just so weird.

Dr. Dean (01:00:38):
Right.

Dr. DiRaimondo (01:00:38):
Don't even know how to wrap my head around that.

Dr. Dean (01:00:41):
I wonder if it feels like for you sometimes that 19
years is a day versus like the19 years, and sometimes it feels
like 19 years,

I guess, yeah.
I don't know, because thensometimes, it's been a while
since I've had a dream, but ifI've had a dream with him, it
feels like I've spent time withhim.
And so then, which was cool whenI would have dreams.
And that's the other thing Iencourage clients to talk about
is, oh, tell me about yourdreams and, what did they say
and what did you say?
And, I think, I'd like to thinkthat sometimes those are visits.

(01:01:13):
I know not everybody sees itlike that, but I, I like the
idea that it's an altered stateof consciousness and sometimes
it's a way to connect.

Dr. Dean (01:01:21):
And I think the importance of dreams too is
realizing that all grief dreamsdoesn't mean that there is
someone present in the dream,but there can be other types of
grief dreams, which is arehelpful to talk about.
I would say that the mostcomfortable, I'm talking about
dreams with my patients isaround grief and loss, whether
it's death loss or non deathloss.

(01:01:42):
and people are afraid to bringthat up in therapy sometimes.
So I would say bring it up.

You mean they're

Dr. Dean (01:01:50):
therapist asks yeah.
yeah.

Mm,

Dr. Dean (01:01:55):
They're asked.
A lot of times people will belike, oh yeah.

Right?
I think people are worried thatthey're crazy or something, or
that they're something reallywrong with them because of their
experiences.
Or grief experiences, orthoughts or, and so again, I
feel like a lot of normalizing,you're not crazy, you're
grieving, your brain's notworking correctly.
You're not able to focus.
Your memory's not as good.

(01:02:19):
You're tired a lot.
Your body hurts.
That's all part of grief.
And that will eventually, intime get better, especially if
you're in therapy or talkingabout it or working out or not
trying to avoid everything.
Cause if you avoid, I thinkgrief will wait a long time.
And so sometimes then it willcome up more in, in a form of a

(01:02:40):
nightmare sometimes.
Or if people are drinking, thentheir defenses are down and then
they'll, like they'll, thenit'll come up more.
So all the more reason to try tobe with it consciously and not
just avoid, but sometimesthinking about grief all the
time is also not helpful becauseit's too much, it's too intense.
And I'll tell people you needbreaks too.
Sometimes going to work'shelpful cause it gives you a

(01:03:01):
break from thinking that'sreally important.
It's hard to be with us all thetime.
You do need breaks.
and normalizing that.
And people feel guilty if theystop thinking about their
sibling.
And I talk about.
You do need, you need to paceyourself, And

Dr. Dean (01:03:18):
Mm-hmm.

yeah.
So I think just helping throughthe whole thing.

Dr. Dean (01:03:21):
And I think also identifying that feelings around
grief aren't always sadness,right?
There can be other feelings,like even joy has its place in
grief.
I think normalizing that forpeople that are like, oh, I felt
happy today.
What's wrong?
Am I, am I done?

Definitely.
No, it's yeah, you should havejoy and happiness in life and
you will A as you should like,you don't wanna be sad all the
time.
It's not good.
It's not healthy.
And the other thing is,sometimes there is a relief if
they've watched a sibling sufferfor a long time, there is a
relief in their passing thatthey're not suffering.
And sometimes people feel guiltyabout that, but that's, That's

(01:04:04):
real.
Not that you wanted them to die,obviously, but you didn't want
them suffering anymore,

Dr. Dean (01:04:09):
Mm-hmm.

absolutely.
I just encourage people to pluginto whatever feels right for
them.
There are a lot of differentoptions and even with my book,
there's audio, there's Kindle,there's the physical book.
I wanted it in all formats sothat it could serve all
different kinds of people inwhatever format they preferred
or needed.
I know it's cliche, it's, yougotta take it one day at a time.

(01:04:32):
Like it's too, like don't think,don't think too much about the
future, especially in thebeginning.
It's way too overwhelming.
Just.
Don't do it, just one day at atime.

Dr. Dean (01:04:43):
Thanks.
And the question that I like toask everyone is, would you like
to share a memory or two orthree favorite memories that you
had of your brother?
Mm.

I, I talked about this one in the book, but
one of my favorite things we didtogether was I took him
skydiving when he turned 18 andit was my second time skydiving.
And we of course didn't tell mymom who had, she worried a lot.
And we went skydiving and Iremember the first time I went I
was 20 and at 20 it neveroccurred to me that maybe the

(01:05:17):
shoot wouldn't open.
Like it just never crossed my,cause at 20 you don't think
about stuff like that.
But by 24, All I could thinkabout is maybe she, what, if
something goes badly here, whyam I doing this?
Why can't I be a boring personwho doesn't need anything like
this in their life?
And so I worried and I literallyhyperventilated the whole way
down.
I was like, oh my God.
please have this go.

(01:05:38):
and, and he loved it.
And we called my mom and we gotto the ground safely and we're
like, guess what?
We just did.
We jumped out of an airplane.
And, she's like, what?
so that was one of the funnestkind of memories I think that we
had.
And, but he came to visit mealso.
He'd come to visit me in SantaCruz and he'd come to visit me

(01:06:00):
in San Francisco when I livedthere.
And we went out and visited himin Colorado.
And so e even though there was asix and a half year age
difference, I tried to stillhave him, be a part of my life
and come visit me and, and stufflike that.
I wish I had more, more timesthat we, it would've been, I
didn't get to know him as anadult and I wish I could have.

(01:06:22):
but I

Dr. Dean (01:06:23):
Mm-hmm.

think of those memories fondly.

Dr. Dean (01:06:26):
Thank you.
Do you still visit the medium?

Let's see, I did a phone appointment I think a
couple of years ago and it wasactually really good, because
he's in Southern California andso I didn't wanna make a trip
down there.
And the phone appointment wasgood, although for someone who's
never gone, it's really cool tosee him because you see him
interacting or a medium, whoeverinteracting with them.
And I think that part is reallyvaluable too.

(01:06:52):
But because I've seen him somuch, I could just imagine him
doing that.
but it's been a little while.
I'm sure I'll go again at somepoint.

Dr. Dean (01:07:01):
Mm-hmm.

No plans to do it again and again, other people
come through also.
And as I've, as I've lost otherpeople, I've wanted to connect
with them as well.
So

Dr. Dean (01:07:14):
Mm-hmm.

I don't know.
Can I ask if you've ever done itor if you think you would?

Dr. Dean (01:07:19):
You can, I I was always a little bit skeptical
then last summer...
Right actually at the same placethat I developed this idea for
The Broken Pack™I.
I was introduced to someone whowas a medium and learned more
about it, and I'm still somewhatskeptical.
but hearing your experience andhearing hers and a couple other

(01:07:40):
people starting to open my mindto it, I think.

Yeah, it's interesting.
you'll have to tell me if youever do it.
I would love to hear what youthink about it in your

Dr. Dean (01:07:50):
yeah, I will.
Well, thanks for having thisconversation.

Yeah.
Thank you so much for having meon and for having this podcast.
It's great.

Dr. Dean (01:08:00):
Yeah, you're welcome.
And thanks for the book.
It was one of the first booksthat I was able to connect with.
So thank you.

Oh, thank you.
I'm so glad.
That's always, of course, theintention and you never know
where it's gonna land withpeople, so it's always nice to
hear when it's okay, that's whatI wanted, and that happened for
at least a few people, right?
so I, I hope that this inspiresactually people listening to
this.
I really do.

Dr. Dean (01:08:23):
I hope so too.
Thanks again.

thank you for having me

Dr. Dean (01:08:27):
You're welcome.
Thank you so much for listening.
Our theme song was written byJoe Mylwood and Brian Dean, and
was performed by Joe Mylwood.
If you would like moreinformation on the broken pack,
go to our website, the brokenpack.com.
Be sure to sign up for ournewsletter, Wild Grief, to learn
about opportunities and receiveexclusive information and
grieving tips for subscribers.

(01:08:49):
Information on that, our socialmedia and on our guests can be
found in the show notes whereveryou get your podcasts.
Please follow, subscribe, andshare.
Thanks again.

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