Black Girl, Brown Girl...Squirrel! A Podcast for Neurodivergent Women of Color

S2E1 - Where you been friend?

• The Squirrels • Season 2 • Episode 1

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***Trigger Warning***
Discussion about grief and mental health

In this heartfelt episode, hosts Shai and Lex share their personal stories of health challenges, grief, and resilience. They discuss the impact of illness, loss, and mental health, emphasizing the importance of community, self-awareness, and seeking support during tough times.


CHAPTERS AND TIME STAMPS

0:00 Welcome Back to the Squirrel Tribe

1:48 Health Challenges and Personal Stories

17:02 Navigating Health Issues and Family Support

22:56 Navigating Sudden Grief

26:53 The Impact of Loss on Family Dynamics

30:45 Coping Mechanisms and Support Systems

36:16 The Journey Through Grief

42:28 Self-Awareness and Healing

49:31 Building a Community of Support


RESOURCES

ADDitude Magazine: https://www.additudemag.com/

Therapist and Mental Health Resources


CONNECT WITH US

Join our fan page at Fanlist.com/BGBGSquirrel and share your thoughts on this episode, ask questions, or share your story. 

IG: https://www.instagram.com/bgbgsquirrel/

Threads: https://www.threads.com/@bgbgsquirrel

Email: BGBGSquirrel@Gmail.com



RESOURCES

Mental Health Resources

Neurodivergent Resources

CONNECT WITH US

Fan Page: Fanlist.com/BGBGSquirrel 

IG: @BGBGSquirrel

Threads: @BGBGSquirrel

Email: BGBGSquirrel@Gmail.com



Welcome Back to the Squirrel Tribe

Speaker 1

Welcome back to Black Girl, Brown Girl, Squirrel, a podcast for neurodivergent women of color. It's time for season two, and it's going to be an interesting ride. So sit back, relax, and get ready to squirrel with us.

Speaker 3

How are you doing?

Speaker 1

I'm I'm I'm doing all right. Uh, you know, we've got a lot to catch up on. We had to take a break for a minute longer than we planned in our seasons. Cause life was life and sometimes good and in a lot of not so good ways, too. Uh-huh.

Speaker 3

Sometimes it was straight up terrible.

Speaker 1

Yes. Yes. So definitely want to say that. So to all of our our sister squirrels out there, hello. We are back for season two of Black Girl, Brown Girl, Squirrel. I'm one of your hosts, Shai. And I'm Lex. And we are excited to be back. If you are just

Health Challenges and Personal Stories

Speaker 1

joining us for the first time, welcome to the Squirrel Tribe. Um, if you are coming back after season one, thank you for your patience and we welcome you all back. Um, we are really excited. So, um, yeah, let's go ahead and get into it because one of my goals is to make sure that I stay within our 30-minute time frame and y'all know how a sister can get.

Speaker 3

Yeah, we got a slap on the hand.

Speaker 1

So yes, yes, we did. Our podcast editor was like, ma'am. So I'm gonna do better, y'all. I'm gonna do better. It's one of my new habits to help me to rein in the ADHD. Um, but but let's get started, first of all. Um, we really do appreciate all of you and your patience um over the last several months. Um, when we talk about our stories, because you know we keep it real here. So when we talk about our stories and what we've been through, um, you'll certainly understand because it's been, like I said, there were some good times and there was also some challenging times to our health, to our mental health in a number of different ways. And so let's start. Let's Lex put me up to the task of going first. So I will do that. If you listen to the last part of season one, you probably noticed that I was sick, like for a while. And between this podcast and my other one, and I was I was going back and listening to some of them, and I was like, you know, I started getting sick in like October. I thought it was like sinus infections or whatever. Um, still could have been. Honestly, the doctors weren't sure, but I stayed sick from October through about the end of February. That's a long time.

Speaker 3

I feel like your sinuses had a personal vendetta against you because why on earth? Who's who does this happen to? I was like, do I have to throw hands with your own insides? Like, that's crazy. That's it was really bad. I was actually worried. I was like, what we gonna do?

Speaker 1

Uh you know what? I have first of all, I hadn't been that kind of sick in years, like where I was, and and the wild part was it wasn't like um a consistent thing. It was like I started off sick, I would start feeling better, then I would get sick again, then I would feel better, then I would get sick again. In between all of that, um, squirrel friends in December, I had the privilege of going to um Jakarta, Indonesia. Got to take my mom, my husband, and the show Bestie Jasmine. Um, we all went to Indonesia for a very special event, and um that was my mom's first time out of the country. So it was a really amazing event. We ended up going to we had a layover in Paris. So my mom got to see Paris and the Eiffel Tower, um, which she had never seen. Like I said, she had never been out the country, but that was one of her dreams, so that was awesome. We had a layover in Singapore, which my dream was to go to the Chongi Airport. And let me tell you, if you can get a layover anywhere, you want to lay over at the Chongi Airport in Singapore. It is stunning, stunning. And then we went to Jakarta on the way home. We um had a brief stop in Kuala Lumpur, but we didn't get to really see anything but the airport, and then we stopped in Holland um for like 10 hours, but didn't get to see anything because the weather was bad, and it turns out they got hit with the blizzard the very next day after we left. So we got home um by the skin of our teeth. But it was an amazing trip. But the crazy part was I was feeling good and doing okay, and it was probably the stress of everything that started making me get sick again. Um, because I was doing okay get to Indonesia December like 17th, and within a week, I was down flat for the count. We went out shopping on 25th because they don't really celebrate Christmas and stuff over there like they do here, so the stores are open and everything. So we went out, we were like, okay, this will be our shopping day. So we went out, went shopping. Mom didn't feel so good, but hers was heat exhaustion, so she wasn't feeling so good. And I was like, my body feels kind of weird, but I'm okay. It was not the food because the food was absolutely amazing. Girl, they got oxtail stew over there. Whoa, it was boss.

Speaker 3

Every picture I saw of y'all's food looked fantastic. I was like, I want some now. So yeah.

Speaker 1

Let me tell you, it was so good that my husband, who does not really stretch his palate, he is steak, potatoes, fried chicken, spaghetti, mac and cheese. And maybe he'll eat a green leaf. He will eat my greens, but anyway, I'm trying to keep this. We're trying to keep the show to 30 minutes. So let me stop. But my point is, he even was like, When we get home, can you try to fix some Indonesian food? Because I do pretty well cooking food from other cultures when I really put my mind to it. If I find a recipe, I will follow that recipe, and especially if I know what it's supposed to taste like, then I'm like, bet. And after that, I'm on the go. So when I was there in Indonesia, I had tried the they it's they call it oxtail stew. It's actually kind of like it would be more like of a soup for us because stews are kind of thick for us. So this would have been more like a soup. Think of pho. It would have been more like a pho. So um they said you could have your oxtails braised, fried, or grilled. I should have got the fried oxtails, I didn't, but I was I was I got the braised oxtails, and it comes so the oxtails are sitting on top of all the vegetables in your bowl. Your broth is separate and piping hot. And the oxtails are basically seared, and then you pour the water over it and just like pha, it cooks the rest of it, right? Then it had a big huge plate side of uh jasmine rice, and then they had some sauce. I'm gonna have to ask Jazzy what that sauce was. I can't remember the name of it, but it's like a chimichuri sauce, but it's an Indonesian green sauce, it had a little kick and spice to it. Girl, girl, oh, put all that up in there anyway. So, where was I going with this? Oh, yeah. So we had gone shopping, so I came home, we came back to the hotel, I had the stew. I had everybody hooked on that stew by the time we left. I ordered that stew like almost every day because it was super cheap. Money was super cheap over there, but anyway, as you said, ordering every day. I I literally ordered it almost every day. The stew, the fresh fruit, and some cheese. The bottled water they had, which they do not sell here, was delicious. You know how you get some bottled water? I know people be like, I don't like aqua fina, I don't like Desani, I don't like smart water. Whatever that bottle water, we was tearing that water up every day. It got to a point like every time they read tearing up the water is crazy. I am telling you, Indonesia was recruiting us, like rent was due that day. Like for real, for real. So every day, like they put forward like four to six bottles of water in the room. At one point, we had like 10 bottles of water in our room, like they were just stacking up the water. The water was boss.

Speaker 3

Anyway, you went shopping and mama wasn't feeling good.

Speaker 1

Yes. I was just gonna say the sodas didn't taste that great, but that's a whole nother story. Fresh fruit juice stuff. But so we were shopping, so mom didn't feel good, and I was feeling a little achy. Woke up the next day, and I was like, I was in chills, I was in fever, I was coughing. I really think I probably had gotten COVID and just didn't know it. And so my husband was like, Do you want me to stay? I was like, No, you, you know, go on out and go hang out. And I went and hung out with mom, and I was like, no, the cough hadn't really come on. I was thinking, well, maybe let me go get a sinus pill, took a sinus pill, slept in the room all day. And the next day, everybody went out but me. I was still in the it was so bad. Now you really gonna laugh. I was so sick and crazy and delusional for whatever reasons, take because the medicine makes me super sleepy anyway, that I um at some point I lost my glasses. My only pair of prescription glasses. Y'all hear me? I mean, I had other glasses at home that were my old prescription, so I could use them to drive and such. But y'all know it's sisters over 50. I got progressive lenses, which means bifocals for you young people. I got bifocals, progressive lenses, which means the top lets me see far, the bottom lets me see up close to read. I lost my only pair of those. I don't know if I threw them out in the trash with whatever. I don't know if I placed them on the room service cart. Room service was looking for them, the hotel concierge was looking for them, the the housekeeping department was looking for them, nobody could find my glasses. So then I was blind for the rest of the trip.

Speaker 3

I'm sorry, that's not funny. It was it would be such a disaster as a person who also cannot see for free, as a person who also wears glasses, that would be terrible. But like, I'm just trying to figure out how this happened, and I just it's really bad.

Speaker 1

I'm pretty sure that I was so here's the thing, and this is one thing that I learned. So, how does this tie into ADHD, right? So here's the thing. One thing I have learned, like, I'm people will always say like they could drink like um a double espresso shot and be up. They could drink coffee and be up. That doesn't happen with me. That's a stimulant, so what it does is it slows me down. So I took the medication and it was going, I knew it was gonna knock me out. So I just ordered all my food, had it in the room, so I could just sleep all day, get up and eat when I want to and go back to sleep. Between the fever, because I was constantly turning the thermostat up and down. So between the fever and taking the medicine, which made me loopy and sleepy and so forth, I'm pretty sure that I have my glasses somewhere on the bed, and when I just picked up a bunch of tissues, I must have picked the glasses up and just threw them out. That's what I think happened. That's what I'm praying happened. But I don't recollect because that means I don't recall. Uh, because so anywho, uh I was down for the count for about three days. I managed to finish out the rest of the trip and go go sightseeing as blind as I was. Um didn't see that man's sight.

Speaker 3

That's so funny. You ain't seen no sights, you couldn't see at all.

Speaker 1

I could see stuff that was a little close to me. I just can't see far away. So I can't see. It starts getting it's not really blurry, it gets really hazy. It's not blurry like I can't see anything. It's think of it like a fog. Like I can see.

Speaker 3

We're gonna act like hazy and blurry or different enough. Okay. I believe they are different enough for some people, ma'am.

Speaker 1

For some people, blurry means I can't make out a shape, I can't make out a color, I can't tell you if you're a tree or a human. That's not me. I can tell you I could recognize you from a distance.

Speaker 5

Okay, you couldn't recognize them glasses.

Speaker 3

What? You couldn't recognize them glasses, you couldn't find them nowhere, so they must have been blurry where everything else was hazy. Okay. All right. So you did say C. See how your own people do you, y'all? Because she tried to do me on some semantics. Girl, you couldn't see, okay? It's okay.

Speaker 1

I couldn't see, but I didn't say I was blind blind. Anyway, so I come home and I had already booked out a week to just rest when I got back from the trip. So we get home, our rest of the week. I was feeling better. And literally within 48 hours, I was like, I'm not feeling so good. So I go to urgent care and they're they tested me for everything. They was like, You don't have COVID, you don't have the flu, you don't have strep, you don't have this, you don't have that. You got some kind of virus, we don't want to know what it is. Here go some antibiotics, here goes some steroids or whatever. Did she give me, yeah? And then she gave me something else. Oh, a cough medicine in a pill form, which I appreciate. So that stopped the coughing for the most part. And of course, then I was asleep for a few more days. I was literally in the bed all the month in January. Like nobody saw me anywhere. I wasn't online, I wasn't in my congregation meetings, nothing. And then I was feeling then I started feeling better. So when I ended that medicine, I was like, okay, literally 48 hours later, I was down again. And this time my throat was hurting bad. And I'm like, what's going on? So I go to the doctor, my doctor, and she's like, Okay, so when did you finish the last antibiotics? I finished it a couple of days ago. She's like, okay, well, here's the thing you have a middle ear infection, which I hardly ever get ear infections. So I had a middle ear infection in my problem ear, which is my left ear. That's where I have a lot of my sinus problems, by the way. So left side of my face. And she said, and you have tonsillitis, your throat is as white as it can get.

unknown

Huh?

Speaker 1

So then it was another round of antibiotics. She's like, and if your antibiotics and your steroids don't work for you this time, come back. We may have to do more. I said, like what? Tonsil surgery? She's like, Well, she goes, you know, it gets harder the older we get. And I'm like, So I took that and I was feeling better and I started doing better, thankfully. But yes, I was pretty much down for the count all of January and half of February. And then the pollen season hits here in Atlanta. So it is what it is. But I will say my trip was absolutely amazing. It was a trip of a lifetime, despite those few days, despite losing my glasses. My mother absolutely loved

Navigating Health Issues and Family Support

Speaker 1

it. So those were the nice highlights of that trip. And I got to do it with people that I loved. Um and we all had a blast. And it was, it was just memorable. And I was I had prayed so hard that we would be able to do that trip with my mom. And I was glad that it came to fruition. So I can't complain about any of the, you know, you complain about being sick. I was in a fibro flare, my I was in a rheumatoid arthritis flair, and all those things. I can complain about all of that. My body was just not happy with me at all. None of my medications were like trying to kick in and work. So my medicine was mad at me, and my body was mad at me, and I was like, whatever. But I would do it all again just so I could see the joy on my mom's face. Because it was even now when she talks about it, she almost comes to tears. And you know, my mom isn't really that kind of an emotional person like that, but she was very much so. But the downside to that was that while we were gone, right before we left, Lex had some health issues and had to have surgery. And then some other things happened in her life. And so we'll talk about that and then we'll talk about the impact each of our situations had on our mental health and you know what we did to work through it. So why don't you tell your story, Lex?

Speaker 3

Yeah. So um, in some of the like latter episodes of season one, I mentioned that I was dealing with some different health problems. In short, I had fibroids, and I needed to have surgery to have them removed. Um, I also deal with PCOS, certain type of endometriosis, the whole thing. Um, the surgery was in December. The surgery went fantastic. Now, crazy thing is weird to wake up and find out you thought you had three fibroids. You had six. That's crazy. Wasn't anticipating to find out that, but um, my surgeon was fantastic, everything was laparoscopic. I didn't really have a lot of pain during the time. My mom came here. Wonderful. Yes, I was really happy about that. My mom came here and she took care of me like for like the first week.

Speaker 1

Shout out to Mama Kim.

Speaker 3

Yeah, shout out to my mama. She listens. Um took care of me for like the first week, and then she drove me back home. And by home, I mean to her house. And I didn't do nothing for a whole month. I slept so much, I slept so hard one time that she came up the stairs just calling my name. And I woke up. You know how you wake up like scared? Because you're like, who, what, what? Because you were sleeping so hard. Grandma, what's going on? What day is it? Literally. And she was like, I had to come up here and make sure you was okay. Look, your mouth is white. I was like, I'm probably just thirsty, mama. I'm just thirsty. She's like, Well, drink some water. I said, Well, was I not snoring? She said, No, it was so quiet up here, I got concerned. What I was just sleeping that hard. Now, later on, when I went for like a like my six-week follow-up appointment, the surgeon was like, Oh, yeah, it's hard to prepare people for how fatigued they're going to be for a while post-surgery. Even though the surgery was like minimally invasive, it is still surgery. And the way she put it, your body is putting everything in the healing, and you get the little poop poop that's left over.

Speaker 1

And yeah, that's how I felt.

Speaker 3

Yep.

Speaker 1

Um, it was how long did it take for the gas to expel out your body from the laparoscopy?

Speaker 5

I burped so much. That to me was like the worst.

Speaker 3

I burped for like a month. I was sitting there like, this is absolutely ridiculous. It was so bad. I would get up, burp, sit down, burp.

Speaker 1

I had pain in my back so bad one time after when my mom was like rubbing my back. I was literally in tears because it hurt so bad. Like that to me, that was the worst part of that surgery. The laparoscopy, you're like, straight, I'm good. But that that gas, because it'll settle anywhere.

Speaker 3

And that's what I heard. So I was prepared for that. But every every burp, but every time that gas went out the other direction, um mama was like, But you know what? I'm glad because that means it's not otherwise, it'd be sitting in you and you'll be in pain. And I don't want my baby to be in pain. I said, That's right, your baby don't want to be in pain either, mama. So all of that went fantastic, and I would say it was a success. Like, I'm feeling so much better after so many things I was dealing with are like a non-factor. My stomach immediately went down because I was no longer holding this thing that was so big and heavy. I'm trying to tell you, I was a good five months pregnant. Now, that's not pregnant with a fibroid. Get out of here.

Speaker 1

Um what's the larger size of your fibroid he gave you said?

Speaker 3

Uh, one of them was the l the biggest one, was nine centimeters. Okay. Yeah. Um, but then I had other ones that was hiding in places that even on the MRI they didn't see. They didn't see it until they got in there and said, Oh, look at that. Wow. Whatever. It's it's uh it's a genetic thing. The women in my family get it real bad. So it's one of those things that I already knew was coming.

Speaker

Yeah.

Speaker 3

So when I got to a certain age and started having certain symptoms, I was like, hey, I think this might be what's going on. Um, did the first doctor think that what it was? No, but that's a whole story for another day. Yeah. Anyway, um, so yeah, surgery went fine. I spent a whole month and a half with my mama. I haven't spent that much time with my mom since I was a kid because I left home at 18 and I literally never went back. So I was like, dang, I'm gonna be back in my mama's house for this long. How's that gonna go? It was fine. That's my mommy. We've we got all we got past the crazy stages of life, so now we just besties, so it's fine. My mama took care of me. I didn't have to make a single plate myself.

Navigating Sudden Grief

Speaker 3

It was fantastic. Oh, I had them take me back to Atlanta. I went back to my house. I said that y'all, I want to go home. I love y'all, but please take me home. I want to go home now. I'm gonna go back in my bed. I just want to do something a little regular. I want to get back in my car. I was like, I'm able to drive now, you guys. They said I couldn't drive for like four weeks. We are at week six. I promise you I can drive now. Um, so I get back. I have like a week to kind of get myself repaired. I go back to work. It was like the uh the week of MLK holiday. So that Monday we were off. That Tuesday I went to work. My boss actually gave me a hug. I said, Wow, they like me here. That's crazy.

Speaker 1

I love it.

Speaker 3

That Wednesday, I worked from home that day, and that Wednesday night, I got a phone call from my dad that my uncle had passed away. And the story seems that erupted. That's how abrupt it felt for me.

Speaker 4

Yeah.

Speaker 3

This is my mom's brother. Um, anyone who really knows my family knows that my mom is best friends with her siblings. So everyone has raised each other's kids. These are like that, is my other dad. So it put me like in a panic. I've never, that's my first time having that sort of grief that close. Um, it's something we all face, but you're never prepared for it until it happens to you. Um, my week was supposed to be so regular, everything's supposed to be so regular. I remember I had I had to text you the next morning and be like, so I know we're supposed to record for this show this weekend, but my uncle passed away suddenly, and I gotta go back home. And I I'm also trying to beat a snowstorm because we're supposed to have a snowstorm to roll through.

Speaker 1

Right, I forgot about that. Yep.

Speaker 3

So I'm like, I j and then I'm like, I just went back to work. I've been gone for six whole weeks, and now I have to call my boss in the morning and say, I will not be here tomorrow. I have to go and I have to go now. I have to leave in the morning, I have to try to beat a snowstorm that is definitely coming. Now, thankfully, it was not a bad one after what happened to this city in 2014. We refuse to ever be embarrassed like that again. But yeah, so I went from having a month and a half of like pure, just so much relaxation to the total opposite feeling. I had to go back to my hometown, and now I gotta take care of my mom. She took care of me for a month, and I had to go take care of her and my grandmother. And you know, like I won't go into too much detail, but like my uncle has many, he has like seven kids.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 3

And they all range from like elementary school age up to my age in like in the 30s. So it's it's rough, right? And my uncle is one of those dads that's like he is at every recital, every parent teacher conference, every game. He is very present. Yes. So it was it was a huge, tragic loss for my family. And so that made like not only is it emotionally taxing, but it is also plain inconvenient. People dying is very inconvenient. It's like, yo, this is not, you don't even know how hard things are going to be on a very basic level. The paperwork that my mom and my aunt are having to do even now for stuff, and they're like, Yo, what you mean you asked if you're not ever gonna get this? He did. And how does all this not? It's just yeah, it's a lot. Detail out of like respect for my cousins and all that, but it's a lot and it's exhausting. And for like a good two months, I I think I said it to you. I feel like I had an emotional limp. Like I was doing my best, but I feel like I was dragging.

The Impact of Loss on Family Dynamics

Speaker 3

And it's I mean, obviously, it's not gotten like it's not going away. It's been it's been a little over two months now. So I cry about this man every day. So it's rough. But that is one of the several things that have happened. If you hear our stories about the last couple of months, and while we were just like, yeah, this high aid is was not supposed to be this long. Nope, it wasn't.

Speaker 1

It was. It wasn't. We we literally had planned, we were so excited because we had planned things out. We're like we got through our first season, you know. We um had gotten featured in um uh black podcast a day um newsletter. Um we had gotten featured in um women who podcast, you know, so we were we were picking up momentum, um, and we're doing this because we're trying to build a community here, right? Um, so that women of color have a place to come and to not just hear their stories and and their voices, but to have a safe space to say, here's some of the things that I'm concerned about and stuff. And so it was just one of those things of life was life. It's just two of us and our podcast editor running this whole show. Um, we are not monetized or anything like that. So all of this is coming out of our pockets, and it's because we wanted to create this community because it was a community we needed. So when life happens, life happens, and we have to step back and go, okay, we need to evaluate some things during that time. I know um that I had to do constant checks on my mental health because, like I said, I was literally in bed for a month. I couldn't complete client projects, and every time I would start, I'd be too in too much physical pain to try to do something. Um, I didn't have a desire to do anything, but just all I did was lay there. I slept, I played games on my iPad because it was easy. That was the only thing I could really hold that wasn't causing me a lot of extra pain. And I don't really watch regular TV, but I was like, I do not feel like trying to watch, and y'all know I love me some K dramas, but I was like, I can't even watch a K drama because now that means I gotta try to pay attention to the subtitles, and I'm gonna pick up every few, you know, you know, every few words. So I've literally watched The Gilded Age on HBO Max like a bazillion times and researched so much stuff. Um but honestly, it was just like Lex got the rest she needed at the start of all this, that might have been a way of being prepared to deal with this. Because if this had happened, not that I wish any of this on anybody, but if it had happened during the time she was having her surgery or her recovery, she wouldn't have been able to fully handle it. And I'm speaking from personal experience in that regard, because my father-in-law passed when I had to have two major surgeries and my husband couldn't be there with me. So it's a challenging time. And when you're talking about being neurodivergent and you're processing all of this, and I felt bad for you, Lex, because you hadn't experienced anything like that before. I was glad you hadn't experienced anything like that before, but then I was also devastated because I know what that's like the first time something like that hits, and it's somebody close, very close to you. I always describe it as, you know, in those movie scenes, when your world stops, but everything keeps going around you in warp speed. And you're sitting there. I mean, I know when I was in one of my deepest pits of grief, I felt like I wasn't physically

Coping Mechanisms and Support Systems

Speaker 1

doing it, but I was constantly screaming out in my head, don't you know that so-and-so died? Like, why why are you continuing, you know? So my heart broke for you. Um in that, what did you do to manage through that time? I'm sorry, I she's she's starting to cry, so give her a moment.

Speaker 3

Yeah, yeah. It's one of those things.

Speaker 1

Because the pain is raw.

Speaker 3

It was gonna come, yeah. Um, I think first and foremost, um, our belief system that we both have was probably the ultimate thing to help me to stay with any sort of hope and calm. Also, um, I was thankful for my family being as close as it is, because we were able to lean on each other. Um and we didn't have a situation where anyone is like they've got regrets because they're like in a bad place with each other. Like we were all just like, all right, we're here for each other. Let's do this. And that also meant we could feel whatever we needed to feel in the moment we had to feel it. So if in one moment I'm holding the hand of someone else who's falling apart, it's fine because in about 20 minutes we're gonna switch places, and it just kind of is what it is.

Speaker 1

Um that's one of the things I love I admire about your family, and I think it's so beautiful how close you guys really are. That's a compliment to how you all were raised.

Speaker 3

Yeah, it's and it's weird too because it's thank you. It's weird because um you're kind of faced with realizing that everyone around you didn't have that. Um, like I know my mom has been faced with people not fully understanding how close she was with her brother. Like, I'm like, no, y'all don't understand. My mama, her still because they talk every day. If it ain't a phone call, it's a text measure, it's a group chat, and it's they communicate all the time. And they are like they really enjoy each other's company, and there's nothing that anyone could do to make them like cut each other off or like be like, oh, they're not that close. They're like, they can't even imagine that, right? And then also for me, um, everyone doesn't necessarily understand the closeness.

Speaker 5

Yeah, my uncle is not just like some dude that was in my family. Yeah.

Speaker 3

So yeah, it's um it's hard in some ways for people to not really understand that. Um, but in other ways, I'm like very thankful for the closeness that we do have.

Speaker 5

Um it's been really important for me and really big for me. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1

You have an amazing support system. Sorry, I can't let people cry alone. Um, you have an amazing support system. Um, and I get it. My I was talking to my mom the other day. I forgot. Oh, we were up at one of the local parks, and we were just observing all the parents that were there with their kids, and we saw um a dad with his four boys, and we saw grandma with her granddaughter. It was around Easter time, and the granddaughter was just flouncing around looking all cute in her little dress, and she was and the grandmother was like, I get her like every Friday, and we always go to the Chattahoochee Nature Center, that's our thing, and um, and she said, and it was Good Friday, I think it was, and so she was like, and she's off today, and so I really get to have her all day to myself, and it was just beautiful. And I told my mom, I said, I know that my grandmother and I, my dad's mom, um, my she was a walker, and I know that we we walked, like in when I would go visit her in LA, or if she came up to see me in Oakland, we would go on walk the neighborhood and stuff. I don't remember a whole lot about our walks, but I remember that we had those moments, but I definitely remember the moments with my uncle, because my uncle was also like my other dad. And my uncle and I would walk our neighborhood because we lived with him for a little while. So um we would walk the neighborhood in the Oakland Hills where he lived, and we were when we were done and get back to the house, he would act like we had to go to the store and then he'd go take me to get some ice cream and tell me to eat ice cream in the car. Um, you know, and things like that. People don't understand how special those relationships are. And you were fortunate enough to grow up with your dad being president at home in your life. And my dad, he's not gonna mind me saying this, wasn't always um present in my life. Well, there was a time when he wasn't as present in my life while he was pursuing his law degree

The Journey Through Grief

Speaker 1

and his career and so forth. Um, because my dad and I were really close when I was younger, and I will to protect um the sanctity of our relationship, I won't go into a whole lot, but there was a time when things changed. Um, but my uncle was there and my uncle passed away. My mom told me just the other day, she was like, Yeah, it's been two years since Fred passed. And I was like, wow. And you were on the call with me when his wife passed suddenly. Oh, we were driving back from somewhere, that's what it was. We were driving back from our friend's house when I got the call that his wife had passed after he had been put into the hospital. So my uncle had Parkinson's disease. Um, and he ended up dying almost a year to the day that his wife died, which was wild. But um it just it it your world just like cracks and fractures, and people and you're trying to figure out why didn't the rest of the world hear the crack and the shift in the universe and the atmosphere. So if any of you are out there struggling with grief, whether it's grief behind the loss of a job, the loss of a child, whether they were still in your womb or they were, you know, out here in this world. Um, if you're dealing with the loss of a relationship, um, especially if you're going through a divorce, a lot of people say that's like a death. Divorce is super complicated. Um, no matter what it is, I'm going to encourage you to seek out therapy. If you've already gone to therapy, go back to your therapist. If they were one that you connected with, they will take you back. And if they won't, there's plenty of others out there that you can go to, but go to therapy because that helps to unlock the grief. It helps you to learn how to walk with your grief rather than sitting and wallowing in it. You have to sit and wallow in it for a minute. That's just a given. You have to, because you gotta go through all the stages. And then at some point you gotta learn to walk with it because as my husband has always said, it's just the hole in your your soul that's not going to be filled again for a while. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3

Um, it I said to my mom, I was like, I'm not gonna be the same person I was that that Tuesday. Because that Wednesday, everything changed. Yeah, I am never going to be the person I was before my uncle passed away. Yeah, I will be okay. I'll say most days I am at best okay. I had one week, I was like, this week is pretty good. The next week was not that good, but um, I can I can be okay, I can even be good, but I won't be the same. No, it's gonna take something else to make the same, yeah.

Speaker 1

Yeah, it's like your childhood innocence getting lost or or getting taken, right? You're never the same after the first time you fall in love, after a lot of firsts, you're never the same. You will never you can't ever be the same. Um, so yeah, and I I just like I said, my heart really broke in grief for you because I was just like, it's powerful, and then um, you know, with all due respect, we have friends that were also going through some things, and that wasn't good times for them. So it you know, it was just it was it was a rough period of time for both of us in a variety of ways, in a variety of ways, and both of us suffered with our mental health, and we had to do what we could to manage that. Um, our physical health had to manage that. Relationships, you know, the people we're interacting with, our family members. I know what it's like to watch a parent grieve and you are there to comfort them in your while you're also grieving. That's hard. That is the hardest thing. Um you might have seen your parents in pain from a variety of things. You haven't seen your parents in pain until you've seen them grieve. And it's one of the most helpless feelings in the world because there's nothing you can do. I remember my mom went to pick up the phone one day. Yes, back when we had telephones in our houses and you still pick them up. And mind you, that was the late 1900s. Um but she went to pick up the phone, she stopped and caught herself, and she put the phone down, and she just stood there for a second, like staring in his face. And I said, Mom, what's wrong? And she said, I went to go call mama, but I can't call her. And then she just walked into her room and I was broke. What do I do to comfort my mom? She cannot call her mother. I don't know what that's like, but I can't call my mother. What what I just let her go in her room and have her space and cry because there was nothing else. And I'm dumbfounded because I'm like, yeah, I miss my grandma too. I'm not, I have siblings, but I was raised an only child. I have a half brother, half-sister. If you see us all together, you would never know we were not raised in the same. You would think we were thick as thieves. Um, and we've hardly seen each other throughout our lives. My brother and I have seen each other way more times than I've actually seen my little sister. Um, I was almost an adult when my little sister was born. But um, so I don't know what that connection is like. I can imagine what it must feel like. My husband had a very tight-knit family when he lost his sister.

Speaker 5

Yeah.

Speaker 1

You know, and all

Self-Awareness and Healing

Speaker 1

three of them, his older sister, he's the middle. So his older sister and younger sister, him, they all talked every day, every single day. And they all talk to their mom every day, and they all talk to their dad every day. So now there's three members of their five-member family that's no longer there. I don't know what that's like. And it was painful, but I had a knot of grief in my throat. I could not breathe. And it took therapy to help me not be choked anymore, and to work through all of that. So um, we're gonna start wrapping up, but I just wanted to really strongly encourage that because it can help so much, especially when we, if you're you know, ADHD like me and your mind is all over the place, if you have high anxiety and uh prone to panic attacks, that's all kicking in and kicking off and spiraling. Um, if you're autistic, you might be feeling emotions you hadn't really felt before or didn't know that you could understand, or that you've now seen on other people, but now it's connected to you. That'll give you a little bit more empathy in that sense, but even still, the processing of it, you can't compartmentalize it. It's something you're you're in the thick of it and have to deal with it. Other things you might be able to compartmentalize death and grief isn't one of those things.

Speaker 3

Dealt with it that you didn't know you would. Like, I because I definitely did go back to therapy for a couple of sessions afterwards to be like, yo, this is what I got going on. I just need to get all this off my chest. Um, and I remember saying that at some points when I went to my family's house and everything, dealing with this, I felt like I was watching a movie. Like I was over there. Like there were many times I'd be like, This isn't real. Like, what is going on? I didn't know I was gonna disassociate when going through grief, but I've learned that that's what I do. I said, Nope, this is too much, so I'm over there. Yeah. Or I would there would be many times where I would zone out to a point that I knew I had to be zoned out pretty bad because the only thing that bring me back is somebody feeling being like, Lex, Lex. And I'd be like, huh? They're like, You okay? Well, no, but I think I just I would like to start staring off into space kind of for a while. Because it felt like overwhelming. And like big feelings are too much for me anyway. Like, even I said this before, I don't want to feel joy. Like, big happy feelings are also too much. Because I I feel them very intensely. So it was like so much that my bodies were protected me from it. Was just like, well, let's just not be here. How about that? Um, and it felt so weird that I was just like, Am I am I crazy? Like, did I make this up? This was and good old Dr. Eddie, she's like, Oh, this and this happened. I said, Oh wow, I've never done that before. That was different.

Speaker 1

You saying that because I have disassociated many times, uh, especially when telling my trauma story. Yeah. Um, that's what happened with my youngest, when my younger sister-in-law died. I had disassociated for a long time. I was like existing in two different um time warps at the same time.

Speaker 3

I felt very disconnected from myself in those moments. It was very, it was very odd. And I said, wow, this this hurt real bad. Also, in the intense moments of grief, I said, Whoa, my depression actually was real bad. Cause that felt like this. My depression was so bad that the days of bat, it felt like someone died. That's crazy. So I said, Well, if I ever thought that my depression was not as intense as it was before I got help and got medicated, ooh we. I know now, because that should not feel the same. I should not feel like someone died every day for no reason. Um, so it was it was a weird time of understanding some things, um, seeing my family in certain ways. Yeah, have feelings I never had before. So, uh but also knowing, well, since this feels like that, I got through depression before. So I can get I can get through this.

Speaker 1

Yes.

Speaker 3

And this I actually know the reason why. And and I actually have different coping skills now. And I got medicine, and I got I have better even ways of identifying and dealing with the emotions that I am having, whereas before I didn't know how to do that at all. So whatever help you do need to have if you are facing something like this, go get it so you can be okay.

Speaker 1

Yes. Can I just tell you, I've been meaning to say this for a while. You are one of the most self-aware people I have ever met. And it has helped me tremendously to become even more self-aware for myself because I'm listening to you and I'm watching you, and I'm like, let me follow Lex's example. I do hear your voice in my head sometimes. Or even if I find myself trying to get clarity when I'm in a state of 50, 11 million tabs open and I need and it and it's starting to confuse me. There's some things that you'll say that'll come to me, or there's things that I'll go, like when we're, you know, on the background of working on um, you know, our show, and I'm like, you know what? Lex can handle that. She's gonna make sense of that. And then she'll be able to help me to make sense of that. Because I know when you have it clear, you're gonna come to me and make it so straightforward and clear to me that I'll be like, bet. And if I have a question like I did earlier and I asked about it, you explained it in a way that was like, okay, cool. But yeah, you you're very, very self-aware, and it's helped me a great deal. And the one thing I thought about was I felt bad that you were going through this and you were feeling all these things. It did not dawn on me that you were gonna feel it even more intensely because I remember you said if I smell something, if I like it, I like it a lot. And if I don't, I don't like it at all. There's like no in-between. There's no chance of me gonna be liking it. Don't try it. It's either black or white. So it didn't occur to me that when it came to the grief, it was gonna be this or that. I will say, um, I had invited uh actually, my mom had invited you and Jazz to come over. One, because she missed seeing you guys, and then two, Jazz had said something um one day when we were together, and she was like, you know what? She goes, you know, this is just a rough time. There's just so much sadness in our house. And I'm not gonna reveal other things that were around that, but I'm just saying she was like,

Building a Community of Support

Speaker 1

There's just so much sadness in our house. And then I was like, dang, yup. So I was talking to my mom, and my mom was like, Tell my babies to come over just to come hang out. And I'm glad we did. So we have a support system. I tell everybody I have the best support system in the world. You guys have literally saved my life, and you know, we've helped each other through some bonkers situations that should have broken us, and it isn't. So, ladies out there, fellow squirrels, know you have a support system here. Um, we're building a community towards that. Um, and it's taking a little time for us to get there, but we're gonna get there, community where we can support each other. So, with that, you can like, follow, subscribe on any platform where you're listening to us. Um, we're on all platforms all around the world. So hi to all of our friends over in Europe and Africa and other places. Um, also, too, you can also email us. So bgbg squirrel at gmail.com. We also have famless.com forward slash BGBG Squirrel. So you can also go there and leave comments. You can leave voice notes if you'd like to share your story and you're okay with us sharing it on the air, whether anonymously or sharing your name, or if you'd like to be interviewed and talk with us, or if you want some, you know, some advice and things like that, please don't hesitate to reach out to us. When I tell you, I know that there's a lot of people out there talking about authenticity and all this kind of stuff. Let me tell you something. Lex would not be doing this if she genuinely didn't want to do this because Lex does not do anything she doesn't want to do, first and foremost. We won't. Um, and the reason why I reached out to her is because honestly, I said I can't do this with anybody else. I it if it's not Lex, there's nobody else. We both had a passion for saying we need to reach out to our community because on series, no, we need this on a regular basis. So that's why we're coming to you raw. You'll hear in the next couple of episodes, you'll hear about our history of our friendship. You're gonna hear about what it's like for us to podcast together as friends. Some of these are gonna be polished and edited nicely, some of them are going to be the rough cut edits because we also want to make sure you're getting the real raw and honest, like this episode is going to be. And we're also going to be doing other things, which we'll talk about in the future episodes. But this is real. And thank you for being here. And we'll see you or talk to you, I should say, next week. Thank you for being so honest, Lex. Appreciate it very much. Thank you.

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Lex

Host
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Shai

Host
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Payton

Editor

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