Speaker: 00:03
YNA is a podcast that focuses on mental health and other aspects relating to what goes on inside a person's head. We are by no means professionals in this field and only aim to make these conversations about mental health easier for the listener. Nothing we say or talk about is professional advice unless explicitly mentioned. If you seek professional advice or experience symptoms of an actual mental health disorder, please contact a professional or visit your closest center for behavioral health. You are not alone.
Speaker 2: 00:30
Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to You Are Not Alone. Episode 2, Grief. Hey Cheyenne, how are you today? Doing pretty good.
Speaker: 00:40
How about yourself?
Speaker 2: 00:41
I'm doing pretty good. So today's episode has a special place in my heart because I have dealt with a lot of grief in my life. I've dealt with a lot of losing people, and a lot of people have passed away in my life. And Cheyenne, um how do you feel about that?
Speaker 1: 01:00
Um, well, me personally, I haven't had too many experiences with that. So if if you would please go through like what you've gone through in terms of grief. Yeah, of course.
Speaker 2: 01:16
I think the hardest thing about grief is understanding that the other person that has passed away, you can't ever get that person back. No matter how hard you try, no matter like you could sell your soul to the devil, I think, and you just there's no getting that person back. And that's what was so hard for me to understand because I lost my brother about 11 years ago, uh, and he was at the age of 25 when he passed. So I was about 12 years old, and my god, I just the emotions, the level of anger, the lost, confused, alone, not sure how to feel, not sure what to feel, feel everything at the same time. Like all of those three emotions were just happening at the same time. And all I wanted to I kept telling myself, all I want is my brother back. I don't want anything else. I was ready to walk away from everything and just be like, hey, I need to I just need to end this and just go to where he's at. But you need to understand that as much as you feel those emotions, like you're you need to feel those emotions. You need to you need to really focus more on the day-to-day and how you're gonna get your day-to-day going. Because when you lose somebody, you can take like weeks, months, years until you feel better. There's no time on grief, there's no time on feeling better for grief. There's just you, your emotions, you dealing with them, and everybody else around you. And so when you do lose somebody very close to you, you need to take the time for yourself because I even have statistics here for you, Cheyenne. People who lose someone in less than 12 months, 71% of those people are grieving more than a year, 11%, still intensely grieving at 17% after the year. So I mean, if you look at it, like it drops a lot, like 71% to 17%. But for me, 11 years now have gone by and I'm still grieving. Every single year, I I mean, I don't think I'll ever stop grieving. However, I've gotten to the point now where I've distracted myself enough and known myself enough and love myself enough that I tell myself, like, your brother is gone, and as much as you want him back, and you know you have your birthdays that you've been missing, and graduations and weddings and other things in your life that are such like celebratory things that once you lose that, you just there's no gaining it back. But what you need to do is love the people that are still alive today and appreciating those people that are still alive today. So, like Shine I really appreciate you as like one of my best friends since like I was really young. Like, I'd rather appreciate you than my dead brother because of you're alive, you're breathing, you're my best friend. I see you every day, and I don't know when the last the last time I'm ever gonna see you again is. This could be the last time, you never know. That's the scariest thing about life is you never know when you're about to lose somebody.
Speaker 1: 05:14
Like it makes you really appreciate kind of what you're surrounded with, but as well at the same time, I know that you take time to observe and to in a way remember uh your brother for who he was. I always see you posting uh about him, like whenever the time comes. But for you, what you're saying is that in order to deal with the grief, sometimes you gotta set it aside and not let it distract you from what's in front of you, but at the same time remember those you love.
Speaker 2: 05:54
You will never forget about those you love because those memories will always be with you. I think the thing I always forget, the thing I always lose tracks. I don't remember his voice, but like subconsciously, I would think I remember his voice and everything. Like, if you were to come up and talk to me, I would be like, Yeah, I remember your voice now, but like the memories don't fade as the years go by, they don't fade, they just seem to hide themselves, and they come out when you really feel these intense emotions, anniversary of his passing. It hits me really hard. It hits me for like about two or three days. His birthday hits me harder. My birthday hits me pretty hard too because it's I wish he was there, you know. He never saw me graduate from college, he never saw me graduate, he never saw me turn 21. I never got to even have a drink with him. And that that's that's what kills me, you know. I never even got to get drunk with him. And like, I'm not saying like, oh yeah, go get drunk, like yeah, no, you I just I never got to enjoy life with him. And it's not that you should not be feeling those things, but you only get one life, you only get one chance. So take the time you need to make yourself feel better and whatever things you do that help you distract yourself from those kind of thoughts and memories so that you can love yourself every day. But once you get into a loop and you're stuck in this circle, there's no it's very difficult to pull yourself out of the circle because all you think about, all that goes through your head in a rotating door is those thoughts, those memories, those wishes, the I if only, what if he was still, what if I could have done this? And then you start blaming yourself. The worst thing to do is to blame yourself. Never blame yourself.
Speaker 1: 07:54
So for you, like what really brings you closer to being at peace?
Speaker 2: 08:02
My friends. I think my friends have been a huge part of my life. One of my one of my friends, when I when he passed away, that like two days later he came and picked me up and took me mini-golfing. Like, no one wants to go mini golfing after someone passes away. However, when when he reached out, when he when his family took me in and was like, it it's okay, we understand that you lost this person, but it's not okay for you to feel it's not okay for you to sit here, cry, be sad, mourn. It's better if we find different ways to give you enjoyment in life, and give you that sense of happiness. Exactly. I think another one has to be exercising. I love to work out, I think that's one of the biggest things that's helped me. I put all of my anger, my sadness, my my grieving into my workouts, and they come out like my exercises are 10 times better. It's because of that creative emotion, yeah.
Speaker 1: 08:59
So, so definitely feeding that energy into another form of activity or mental exercise or physical exercise is the is the way to go.
Speaker 2: 09:13
And your friend and the people you surround yourself, you surround yourself with. Because if you surround yourself with people who are all are gonna keep you down and don't like Shine, you know when I'm sad, you know when I'm down, you know when I'm having a heart, like you know when my depression is on me, and you do things that are like, hey, let's go and take do a photo shoot, let's go and do something else to get your mind off of it. Other things are like traveling, reading, spending time on creative things, art, painting, writing, whatever you like to do. This is a form of art.
Speaker 1: 09:49
What for you would be like the worst things that you could do in those situations? Like, let's say this is affecting you daily, like uh basically you just have this kind of shadow that's overlooking your shoulder at all times. Uh, could be any situation that has happened to anybody. What would be the worst possible thing to do for your own self, for your own mental health?
Speaker 2: 10:16
The worst possible thing you could do is overthink and sit alone and be alone with your thoughts. Because I mean I remember saying this that your thoughts are are scary place. And actually, grief runs a havoc on your mental health. It just it's it's like a whole other, I would have to say a whole other demon that just has its way with your mental health because you feel so many different emotions, anger, sadness, depression, suicide, PTSD, all of these things attack you at once, and they don't let up. There's it's just like you're in a ring with Mike Tyson and you've never boxed in your life, and you're just getting punched in the face over and over and over again. But until you say, hey, I want to stop getting punched in the face, I want to live my life, I'm not gonna allow these things to affect me every day. I'm not gonna allow these things to ruin my days, ruin my good times. Because I've had times where I've thought of my brother when I was with my friends, and those memories came in, ruined me, made me have a bad time. And then it made everybody around me have a worse time because they could see my emotions are painted on my face. There's no hiding my emotions. I've tried to hide my emotions. My friends all look at me and you're like, What are you what are you doing? Stop stop it. Like, if you need to talk to us, talk to us. Stop trying to hold it in. Holding it in was the one thing that made it all 10 times worse was holding it in. And then that projects itself into anger, and then you'll do something that you wish you never did, or you'll do something that's it becomes a cycle. You start punching holes in walls, you start doing things that are just not gonna help you succeed. They're not gonna push you further. They're just gonna keep you like you can't try to punch Mike Tyson because you're not gonna win. If you try to fight PTSD, depression, anxiety, all of those, you need to do those with different things, such as reading, exercising, traveling, hanging out with friends, and even taking it a further step and getting the help you needed by talking to a professional or a counselor or a therapist, someone that can look at it from an unbiased view and is professionally knows what they're doing.
Speaker 1: 12:49
I would like to know, um, like sort of as a closing thought from you, in regards to people who surround you in your daily life, what are things that they can do to kind of help, or maybe as somebody who is in the same position as you uh but hasn't been reached out to or has tried to reach out to others? Like what what is something that they can do and that other people surrounding them can do to kind of help?
Speaker 2: 13:25
You know, a hug, like as weird as this sounds, sometimes just getting a hug is one of the best things. Or allowing that person to talk about how they're feeling without trying to again fix them or trying to do anything like that. And another thing is help them distract themselves. Do you you like to do things with me like we like to go to the movies or we like to do go and like uh go to the park or whatever. If you see your friends kind of down lately and you saw a pattern, don't try to like fix them. Just be like, hey, let's go and draw, like let's go paint, or let's go take a walk. I think taking a walk is awesome. I love taking a walk now, it really helps me clear my mind. If if you ever in a place where you just you're you just you just need to get out, taking a walk can really just help you clear all of that. And even taking a walk with a friend. I've taken tons of walks with friends where I've just we just conversate about the funniest things or about the dumbest things or just about things that help me get my mind off of it. Relax. Like live the last thing I want to tell everybody is you have one shot, live your life to the fullest. Don't ever look back. And I want to let you know, please, please, please, please, remember this. You are not alone. I got you. We'll do this together, huh? How does that sound, Shane?
Speaker 1: 14:58
That sounds great. Uh thanks to everybody who's listening, and thank you, Cena, for giving us this side of grief and how to deal with it and what others can do to help you. Got you guys.