Relatable podcast 

Stephanie Sarazin:
How do you detach? How do you peel yourself away from your parents, from your child, from your partner? When you've built so much time with them, when they help to wire who you are, when you're inextricably linked? And I wonder if our attachment style formed in early childhood also informs our detachment style.

 

Dr. Liz:
Sounds like you're looking for a partnership that I'm all in on stuff, so we'll have to talk after for sure. This is relatable. Relationships unfiltered. Hey, welcome to Relatable. Relationships Unfiltered. Sometimes the decisions that are best friends are also the hardest to make, and that includes deciding it's time for a relationship to end. Today, I'm hanging out with Stephanie Sarazen, author of Soul Broken. We're sharing all about our own journeys of grief over relationships that we've lost. So, Steph, so many of my clients talk about, you know, whether they're going through a breakup or divorce, the separation that there's this grief that comes along with it, which I think is even more confusing when the choice was theirs, which I can relate to in my divorce, the choice, you know, I really prompted that. But I still to this day have a lot of grief that goes along with it. And that's a lot of the conversations, though, just that confusion around how do I grieve the loss of somebody who is still around, who is still living, still present, sometimes still in my home, all of those things. And that is a huge part of what you've been researching. That's a huge part of what you've been doing. Can you tell us about that?

 

Stephanie Sarazin:
Yes, absolutely. And thank you for sharing that, Liz, because, you know, so often our societal norms dictate that we don't talk about it. You know, there are no funerals, there are no ceremonies or any kind of public acknowledgment of the end of a relationship in the same way that there is the beginning of a relationship with engagement, toasts and gender reveals and weddings and on and on and on. But when a relationship ends and whether it is, you know, your choice to end the relationship or not, there's grief that's involved. And without those societal norms to engage, that grief often most often goes unwitnessed and therefore invalidated. And, you know, I think the more we can talk about the grief that we have when our relationships end and when we're grieving somebody who is still alive, the the more others will feel empowered to talk about their losses in that way, too.

 

Dr. Liz:
Yeah, I absolutely agree. And I think like what you're describing there, the isolation that comes along with grief is one of the most difficult things. And I know for me personally, so whether it was grieving the divorce that I feel maybe even insecure to talk to people about because they're like, well, why did you divorce? You guys are still best friends. You could have made it work, you know, or the grief that I experienced in not having a relationship with either one of my parents and the societal expectation there is we'll just work it out, just figure it out. And even I have friends who say, you know, isn't that something? You can just let go, You can just move past. And for people to really not understand that sometimes we make choices that are really hard for us and we're allowed to grieve them. We're allowed to be sad and we're allowed to experience the loss.

 

Stephanie Sarazin:
Absolutely. And I think your emphasis on the word and is so important because we can grieve somebody that didn't treat us well and also miss them. Right. We can make a difficult decision in our best interest and also cry about the decision we made for ourselves. And I think the more that we can, like I have an ampersand over my shoulder as a reminder that we live in an and and for whatever reason, so often in our culture today it's it's this or it's that. It's black or it's white, when in reality we know that we live in the middle. And the middle can be really hard to get through when we put ourselves there. And, you know, talking about other people from the outside in, you know, looking at it saying, well, you know, but you chose this, so why why do I need to comfort you? You know, get over it, kind of thing. You know, I mean, first of all, you know, they have some work to do, if that's their response. But secondly, it's it's such a layered decision. You know, for example, you know, with you in whatever relationships you're experiencing, ambiguous grief, it didn't come I'm going to guess it didn't come in a singular stroke of thought and you did it, you know, an instant later. If a relationship has ended and if you're grieving a relationship that has ended and that person is still alive. So that was an important relationship to you. Right. And like, when and if you're not sure if you might be experiencing an ambiguous grieving experience. Right. And an ambiguous grieving process, think about think about your neighborhood barista or your postal carrier or kind of an everyday person in your life who you may not be crying about if they were to change their route or be transferred. Right. There's a lot of people in our lives on a daily basis, but that doesn't mean that that's an intimate relationship. And so the more intimate that relationship parent, child, child parent partner, the the more grief will be experienced.

 

Dr. Liz:
And the harder it is. And I can completely relate to that, because even as you're talking, I can make that distinction between I haven't had a relationship with my father for multiple years. And while that was, I mean, of course, a hard decision in general, I could come to terms with that more because I never felt the closeness to him. I never felt an emotional intimacy with him. I never felt safe with him. And so to make that decision was kind of like, you know, and I did that with my therapist. We talked through it a lot. We talked through how I would feel when phone calls or text messages would come through and what that would do to my body. And, you know, there was a lot of things that led to that decision. But my decision to not be in relationship with my mom and I haven't lost anyone to death that is very close to me. And so I had no direct comparison. But the mental state that it sent me into was just I mean, it was just that it was the most severe grief that I had experienced that impacted my daily functioning, my mood states and all of that. And so, yes, there was a distinction between how closely somebody is to you, how intimate your relationship is and how you feel from that. But I and then that was the other piece of just feeling so alone in I, you know, also worked with a therapist through that. But that those discussions of this feels like my insides are being torn out. But the alternative is to stay in a relationship where my insides are being torn out. So you know where making that distinction and that is the ambiguous grief that like I made that choice and I have to live with the consequences and it still fucking sucks.

 

Stephanie Sarazin:
Absolutely. And why wouldn't it? Right. Because that because there was a relationship at one time. And regardless of the closeness of the relationship of the relationship, your particularly is a parent child relationship. So there's there's the expectation. You know, you only have one father, right? And at least one biological father. And so if we're going to, you know, find a father figure outside of our bio dad, that's that's probably on us, you know, and and you bring up that you know, you bring up some memories for me in sharing that because so for me, I came to discover this ambiguous grieving process out of desperation for my own healing. Because, you know, to your point, you're either in a relationship where you feel like shit or you're out of a relationship and you feel like shit. So what's what's the where do you go? What do you do for me? I, I came about this not by choice, really. I call myself a, you know, an accidental grief researcher. I have a master's in public policy, so this was nowhere on my radar until I discovered that my marriage wasn't what I thought it was. And that, you know, after 18 years of marriage and 20 years with this person was devastating to me. It was traumatic to me. And, you know, it is it took me a long time to understand why my grief felt different. I had experienced the loss of people close to me through death, and I knew that what I was experiencing felt different, but I didn't know why. And gosh, I got myself into therapy right away. I was doing individual therapy. I was desperate for group therapy. I wanted to talk to somebody who knew what I was going through. Yeah, and I couldn't find anybody to talk about it. And I had told a few friends, just a few friends, and they didn't know anybody. So you kind of referred me to. Right. And it was kind of done in the vein of like, Hey, Les, I just want to tell you, this is what's going on. I don't know if I'm divorcing him or not, but my therapist is calling this betrayal trauma. And I need to talk to somebody who's been through it. And they'd be like, my God, I don't know anybody. And I was so isolating, right? Because I felt so alone. I didn't tell anybody for almost three months outside, off, you know, had he died on that terrible Tuesday morning, I would have notified everybody immediately. But I didn't you know, he didn't die a physical death. And so I, I still I felt like a widow. I was grieving. And you know, quickly did move toward divorce and that process. And I just felt isolated and alone. And what I what I learned was that there's so much shame and embarrassment that a lot of ambiguous, grievous experience. Yes. Because and I didn't know this then. And when I felt like I was in a lifeboat on my own in the middle of the ocean, people weren't talking about it because people don't want to be talked about. Because what brings about the activating event of ambiguous grief is oftentimes rooted in in experiences that might cause people to internalize shame and embarrassment. Yeah, And, you know, I didn't understand this right away, but being desperate to feel better, being desperate to be able to intellectualize what was it that was making this grief different. And I I'm not a clinician. I'm not a practitioner. I was a woman devastated by betrayal, trauma and trying to heal, trying to feel better. And I leaned on so many therapists, I was reading everything I could find, but it still wasn't what I was looking for, which was how to heal when your loved one is still alive. But they're not who they used to be.

 

Dr. Liz:
So and I can relate to that from the shame piece of really trying to identify with my therapist what was mine in that, you know, in this decision and in our ongoing dynamic, what was mine to own in this versus really what was hers? That is her responsibility and that I could no longer own or take responsibility for. And so I know with your own story, you can relate to that a lot. When you referenced that Tuesday morning when everything changed. Tell us about that. You know, what what took place on that Tuesday morning.

 

Stephanie Sarazin:
Yeah, you know, I made a discovery that my marriage wasn't what I thought it had been. And, you know, a discovery is one of the activating events that can bring about ambiguous grief. Some others are, as you mentioned, estrangement. That's a big one. The decision to estranged to make that decision is is incredibly common and so often under-discussed. Right. Addiction is another one. Alzheimer's or dementia, you know, a traumatic brain injury, something that's impacting the person's cognition. And they're not who they once were to you. Maybe their personality is changing because of it and they're losing, you know, recognition of who you are and that's still your, you know, your friend or your uncle. But they're not who they once were. Right. Right. Also, a diagnosis, incarceration is another one. I found gender identity, divorce. You know, in so many ways, there are activities and actions that happen within our relationships that cause the relationship to end or to change dramatically. And, you know, whatever the activating event might be. What I found was that those people, again, whether you've made the decision to end the marriage or end the relationship or the decision was made for you, there is the grieving process that begins and and the Elizabeth Kubler-Ross model that talks about the stages of grief, where there's anger, denial, bargaining, depression, acceptance and meaning was recently added, by the way, which I think is terrific. You know what I found in interviewing other people who could anonymously talk about their ambiguous grief. Right. Because I couldn't get anybody to talk about it with me right away. But eventually I found I put together a survey and I was able to get just great data in. And what I learned from that data is that the ambiguous drivers were going through all of these emotions as well. But there was one other emotion that kept presenting throughout the process, and I could I could see it in their answers, but nobody was really naming it and I was feeling it in myself, but I couldn't name it. And I got more specific with my question and discovered that what that is is hope. And so. Right. Because, you know, when somebody dies a physical death, we're not hoping that they're going to ring the doorbell. We're not hoping that they're going to call and say, I am so sorry. I see the error of my ways. You know, I'm healing. I'm working to make amends. You know, we're not hoping for that. But when we're grieving somebody who we've lost to any one of those events, I just named this hope is like a Whac-A-Mole that pops up at any given time and wants to dance. You know, it's just like you start hoping in the direction of that person's healing and and in doing some deeper work into dissecting hope. I could hear it in what you said that, you know, you came to a point where you had to decide for yourself. And so when Hope presents for an ambiguous griever, I kind of look at it like, think about it as like a double agent. And this is not the way we typically think about hope, because in our culture, hope is the homecoming queen. It is. She's a champion. We all need hope. And I'm not dismissing that or minimizing it. Yes, we do need hope in our human condition, period. However, we can be discerning, especially when we're grieving. Hope can present as external hope or internal hope for an ambiguous griever, and if it's external, help, it feels really good because you're projecting out to the person that you're grieving and you're thinking, okay, maybe today is the day that they're going to call and say, I'm sorry, ma'am, could we reconcile, you know, and you're putting all your eggs in kind of that external hope basket, not doing the work on yourself that maybe might be a good idea, right? You're looking outward at the other person and trying to figure out why they're behaving this way, why they're not, why they made that decision. They're probably talking to their friends and whoever will listen about why their daughter isn't speaking to them anymore. If they're talking about it, they may still be in shame and isolation and not telling anybody. Right. But if you're an ex, if you're an internal hope, then an internal hope, you've turned the focus inward on yourself. And that's what I heard you say without saying it is that you came to a point where you knew that this was not your shame to carry and that you were going to do the inner work on yourself, to heal yourself and and learn to live with that grief. And that's the thing. We never as you know, we don't heal grief. And then, you know, we're we're done like we finished, but we learn to integrate and move forward with it. And the quicker we can learn to move forward and internal hope, love them, bless them, let them go, and then move toward internal hope the more quickly we'll build momentum toward healing.

 

Dr. Liz:
Absolutely. I, I can completely relate to what you're saying because I have definitely held out external hope for for quite some time that especially after my conversations with my therapist, where in historically in my relations ship in that particular relationship, it would be me making amends, me repairing me. A lot of that rooted in the codependency of my childhood and how I was programed by both of them. Right? That it is my responsibility to fix things, to hold their emotions. And so I kept week after week going to my therapist, being like, maybe I'm making it too big of a deal about this. Maybe I need to just reach out and maybe, maybe it wasn't as bad as I thought. And she was like, and she would walk me through it again and again that like, okay, let's, let's walk through this situation again. Okay? What part of that was actually your responsibility? Like, okay, I hear you like, so I did I mean, that external help and that is so insightful that you're saying that because I can completely relate to that being probably one of the most devastating parts of this grief. Is that why why can't I just be important enough to you for you to take ownership like I know you can do it, I know you can do it, and it didn't happen. And so I like what you're saying. It rings so true for me, and I wonder how that really came up for you. Like in your. Because the intimacy of being with someone for 20 years, I mean, that's even that's so deep. How did that come up for you?

 

Stephanie Sarazin:
Right. Thanks for asking. It's a great question. You know, it is it was a reflection. I finally found my people as I found and I went away to do a week's workshop, Healing Intimate Treason. And it was terrific. And there I was able to meet individuals just like me who had either a disclosure or a discovery and were in process of trying to make sense of it all. And when I when I say I could not believe, I was stunned to see the diversity in this group from people in their thirties to seventies, mid seventies and and, you know, from every walk of life, we're learning that our marriages weren't or our partnerships weren't what we thought they were and in the way that other people in observing other people respond and plan and you know kind of work through it in a group setting, which I'd never done group work before. And it was just so insightful all to be able to see what I didn't want to do and what I did want to do, you know, kind of thing. But, you know, having that mirrored back to me, I understood I could see the people who were living an external hope. And I'd say even even when I didn't know what it was, I could say, gosh, this I think that she is like she's flip, she's in quicksand. She is. This is the same story every day. This is the same story every time we're in session. I know what she's going to say because it's on repeat. And then I learned about prolonged grief disorder. Right. Or a complicated grief where you are defined by your loss. You are so attached to it. And I did not want to be in that quicksand. And what I saw was the the more time we're spending kind of spiraling in how we're going to fix that person, you know, I'm sure you're tap dancing for your parents. You know, whatever you can do to be wanted to get their approval. I mean, how we're wired as kids informs everything, right? And and it's not our fault. And it's nor is it our ours to claim, as you know, we're so great because of it. I mean, it's the luck of the draw, I think in a lot of ways. And I hope we get to talk about attachment theory, too. But, you know, the idea that I didn't want to be an external grief and I didn't want to slide down to be talking about this five years later, ten years later, trying to figure out how to fix the other. My my former partner. Yeah. My other option was to fix me to look inward and see where I was wounded and what my part was, if anything, in this behavior and how I wanted to reimagine my life going forward. Because in the end it's my life. And I made the decision to end my marriage and I missed my marriage. Still today, seven years later. And it was the right decision for me to do.

 

Dr. Liz:
Yeah, that's just so beautiful, so insightful. And what you're talking about is what I call the circle of control. And I'm hearing you holding that external hope is that's often we give our power away to other people. We're trying to control these things that really we have no control over. Somebody's calling to apologize or take ownership or fix their behaviors, Like we have zero power over that. And so when you're talking about these people in session with you, you know, telling the same story on loop, I know. I know how that goes. Like, I obviously sit with those clients as well, and I have those same conversations. And what we often go back to is you're putting so much focus and energy on all of this stuff outside of your circle that you have zero power over. And so when we can start to look inside of our circle at the things we can't control, and for you to say, you know, even looking to see what your role was in the situation, maybe you didn't have a role in the betrayal, but what is your role today? What do you have power over today and what are you able to start changing? And it sounds like that's a lot of what you started to do. And I guess that would be the internal hope then of identifying what is mine to own today.

 

Stephanie Sarazin:
Yes, absolutely. And I call that sort and file. So I would like sort through all of these complicated emotions, all these mixed you feelings, and try to see what I owned and was in my control and what wasn't, and sorting and failing in my own mind to okay, this is this is what's in my control. And that that gave me my power. That gave me. Okay well I didn't choose this in I wouldn't have chosen this to happen, but it has happened and I'm going to make the next great choice after the next right choice after the next right choice for me, not for anybody else. And trusting that in that in trusting in myself and trusting that one decision at a time, I would find my way is is what happened and you know, is a is a way I live now and looking backward I can see how I would not have ever had this lesson without that terrible Tuesday. Right. Which brought forward all of these other lessons. You know, that we're not fixers for anybody but ourselves. Yeah, nor should we want to be.

 

Dr. Liz:
Nor can we be.

 

Stephanie Sarazin:
Nor can we be.

 

Dr. Liz:
So I know that people are just dying to know from a broad sense, you know, what was that Tuesday morning? What is your ambiguous grief that just your comfort level, obviously. And I know you talk about it in your book, that's a big part of it. So people can definitely check out your book, which we'll talk about at the end. But can you just share with because I know just from the little bit that I do know that you have shared, I know that a lot of my clients, I know that a lot of people in my life could really relate to that experience.

 

Stephanie Sarazin:
Yeah. So I, I discovered that my marriage wasn't what I thought it was, and that after 20 years, the partnership, my best friend, my husband, the father of my three kids, was on dating apps and had been for many, many years with many, many women. And you know, when I when I when I share that with people, it's so interesting how we're so desensitized to it, I think, because we see, you know, we're familiar with infidelity. We know infidelity happens. We all know somebody who we likely know somebody who's had infidelity happen to them. Right. And in some cases, maybe for some people that was their ticket out. I actually had one woman say to me, lucky, lucky what? You know, I I'm looking for a way out of my marriage. Wow. Well, that wasn't my experience. Yeah, I loved my marriage. And, you know, in that discovery, I lost my best friend, I lost my husband, I lost the future. I thought I had. But the biggest, most, like, mind numbing thing I lost that day was the reality of my past, because now I didn't know what was true and what wasn't true about the life we built together. I don't know. Right? And we know we don't know the future. We get like none of it. We all know that. But to not know your past, that is a fresh hell. And anybody listening who's experienced betrayal trauma will know just what I'm talking about. And I don't wish it on anybody. It's really destabilizing.

 

Dr. Liz:
I mean, the ultimate mind Fuck, because you are living in a world that you think you're living in, but that is not really what you thought it to be. So. So really, you're grieving like you're saying. I mean, it's what you said. You're grieving this person, but you're also grieving so many years of your life of what you thought it was versus what you're coming to realize it was. And I just want to just take a second to acknowledge and really validate. I mean, I feel for you that you use the word desensitize, that the even that you feel the need to have to say that that when you're sharing your story and knowing that you know, so many people are desensitized to it and my heart breaks for you for that because to share your story of trauma, of the ultimate trauma, betrayal, and to get a response that somebody's being desensitized or not, not really feeling it to the depths that you do, I imagine that would be the most just dismissive experience. Insult to injury, for sure.

 

Stephanie Sarazin:
Exactly. And, you know, I think that's just a lack of empathy. You know, it's this desensitization plus a lack of empathy. And also it's something that I've come to call like the grief cooties. People don't want to people don't want to feel how this feels and they don't want to have to imagine that their partner is betraying them, you know, emotionally, physically, spiritually, intellectually anyway. And, and you can all, you can kind of tell if, if somebody is thinking that way by their response, if and typically what I have found is that if they start with I couldn't imagine if they make it about themselves right away, I mean, not because they're awful people and I'm sure I've done it in the past, too, before I learned better and learned through grief education. That's a really shitty way to respond to somebody is to make it about you right away. But if someone says, I couldn't imagine and they make it about them, they're not thinking about you anymore. They're not. They're now imagining their partner doing that and they're putting up the block saying, I don't want that. And so, you know, grief isn't contagious, but it isn't something people, not all people are comfortable empathizing with. Right. And and then, you know, what do you do? I mean, it's people kind of weed themselves out, I guess from from the Graeber's perspective, you're like, well, okay, not getting a whole lot of comfort over there and that's fine. Yeah.

 

Dr. Liz:
Yeah. Well, and I encourage the graeber's to do just that, right? When you are identifying the people who you are not getting the empathy from that, you're not getting the support, you're not getting what you need. Those are not your people to grieve with, then that that's where boundaries become so important because that often just exacerbates all of those emotions and the isolation and even the grief, because now you're having to hold it yourself and trying to explain it and you're feeling invalidated like those are. Those are not your grieving people.

 

Stephanie Sarazin:
No. And minimizes are either. And so, you know, and I guess I share this just to say we can do better, you know, so just the hot tip is, you know, we want to help somebody in grief. And so we might say, well, at least he doesn't have another family or well, at least, you know, it's only one parent you're estranged from, or at least you're not estranged from both siblings. At least it's not heroin and it's some other drug, you know, and we we minimize to try to help somebody else feel better. But that doesn't happen. That doesn't help. It doesn't help.

 

Dr. Liz:
That that, you know, just amplifies the shit feeling. So.

 

Stephanie Sarazin:
Right, right. So, you know, without God, I was just going to say, don't ask for scoop, you know, don't ask for more salacious details. Don't minimize and don't make it about you. Is are three great takeaways for people wondering, like, how do you be there for somebody in grief? You know, don't do those things, but things that you can do is say, wow, that sounds so hard. I'm so sorry for your pain. I'm here for you. Yeah, valid when you're right.

 

Dr. Liz:
And I like how you mentioned that. Not asking for more details because that is something I have clients share frequently that they share this horrific story and it becomes almost now people are just interested in the gossip aspect of it they're interested in, which I'm sure you can relate to. And you and I even briefly talked about that of like instead of just people validating they and I can relate to with my own story, like, well, why wouldn't you talk to your parents? Like, well, well, what happened? What, what did they do? What was it? You know, And it's like you are missing if people start asking me those type of questions, I'm like, You're missing the whole point. And so you are not like, there's no safety to even go forward.

 

Stephanie Sarazin:
No. And clearly, there's no trauma informed here. Right. Because if you if a person has made the decision to end a relationship and they're grieving about it, it must have been pretty significant. And so let's just, you know, try to honor that and not get excited about the details and something else. And I'd love to get your get you to weigh in on this, because, you know, something else that I found in my research was that so often I would hear somebody say, well, you just have to let it go. Just you know, what you need to do. You have to let it go a year later. You need to let it go two years later. Listen, we're really worried about you. You need to let it go. And that is such a pet peeve of mine, because how how and who are you to judge my grief timeline, Right. Number one. And letting go of a relationship, even if you're the one who ended the relationship, it doesn't make it any necessarily any easier. But I suspect that there must be some relationship to the way that our the way that we let go in action. Like what does that mean to let go? And for me, it became about detaching. How do you detach? How do you peel yourself away from your parents, from your child, from your partner when you've built so much time with them, when they've helped to wire who you are, when you're inextricable, linked? And I wonder if our attachment style formed in early childhood. Also informs our detachment style. And when I was writing my book, I was really looking for some research that would, you know, just provide some data or insight. And I wrote the book in 2021. It was published fall of 2022. At the time of research, I couldn't find anything that was talking about. The way we grieve is informed by the way we detach, which is informed by the way we attach. And so I'm leaving that to you professionals in the field to hopefully go do some of that diagnostic. But what? Well, so about that.

 

Dr. Liz:
Have you I guess just a quick question. Have you identified different detachments styles then? Like is that part of the research that you're currently doing or is more like a revelation that you had like, shit, there might be a connection here.

 

Stephanie Sarazin:
I've done no research on it except for my own little armchair analysis, like with my own little notes. And what I think is like, I would start here, like if I were you say, and wanting to do some research and write a nice white paper on it. I might start with the attachment styles, right? Because what I would find is I listen to somebody talk about their grief, talk about their loss, and I could hear like somebody who's like, it's my fault. there's something wrong with me. But anxious attached, right? I'd be like, okay, she's not letting go because she's anxious. And then I've got the person in group who is like, I hate him and he better never leave me. And I'm like,

 

Dr. Liz:
The disorganized.

 

Stephanie Sarazin:
Disorganized, disorganized. You never remember the name. I can never name and like, disorganized. She's anxious and avoidant, right? And then the person who's like, like, so somebody who's having trouble detaching, who's avoidant might say something like, I didn't need them anyway, I got this. I don't I don't need therapy. I don't need to talk to anybody about it. I'm just going to go ahead and handle it. Yeah, I've always handled it right. And so I, I would think then if I don't know that, then I don't know that there's additional attachment styles. I think the kind of four that's already. Yeah. You know, I think they apply right, I think they apply. And then so the question becomes, well then how can we help people become more securely attached? How can we help people securely detach and move towards secure attachment? Yeah, I don't have the answer on listening, but what do you think?

 

Dr. Liz:
Sounds like you're looking for a partnership that I'm all in on stuff, so we'll have to talk after for sure. I think you're absolutely right. And I think that what you're describing is very true, and it's how I see people work through their trauma and how they because especially with the ambiguous grief and the relationship still existing, but not and I guess even if we were to boil this down further, I could see these same responses happening. If the loss was a death or something less ambiguous, the response would still likely be the same. It's because it's how we've learned to keep ourselves safe from pain and from trauma and from really the pain of the trauma, I guess, would you take that a step further? And so are adaptive child traits. What we learn early on are the ways to stay safe, are the ways to cope, then inevitably are what we carry into our relationships. But what you're saying is actually very profound, that it also would be the way we would deal with with loss and with rejection. And actually, actually now you got my wheels going because really attachment styles are all about the avoidance. We're doing everything we can to avoid rejection and abandonment, right? So when everybody well, I guess maybe it doesn't have to be inevitably for everybody, but when we do experience that type of rejection or abandonment, we most certainly are going to respond according to those adaptive child traits that that we believe keep us safe. So, yeah, no, I think that's incredibly insightful. And even as you're talking, I can most certainly see how my disorganized responses have come up because I do vacillate between, like I was saying earlier, like, how can I fix this? How can I fix this to like, No, you did this, You figure it out. Not my problem. And I'm getting to that middle ground of like, okay, acceptance that it is what it is. But I yeah, I think that's a beautiful insight.

 

Stephanie Sarazin:
Yeah. Thank you. Really appreciate that. And I so appreciate you sharing your disorganized attachment style and how that presents for you because it's it's so it's relatable, no pun intended. It's so relatable to people, you know? And I you know, when you hear somebody who's who's saying something that mirrors the way you are thinking or feeling, my gosh, it's a lifeline. You know, it just feels like somebody has thrown a lifeline, is going to help you come to shore. And that's how it felt for me anyway. And and you know, what I found is the more that we can normalize loss and and recognize that without societal norms, that, you know, give us a funeral that tell us this is what we do to honor our loss. We're we're out on our own not knowing what to do. Right. And and often not knowing how to let go and what that even means. Elsa and your song don't like Tell Me More. So I think the more relatable, the more we talk about it, the more relatable it is for others, and the more hopefully it can be a normalized conversation. And and if if some if you're feeling different about a relationship that's ended in your life, whether it's a lifelong friend or just a close work friend or whatever the relationship might be, and you haven't felt like yourself since the end of that relationship, I would encourage, you know, your listeners to to tune into that a little bit and go back and look at how the end of that relationship impacted you. And, you know, it might have been a relationship that ended in the sixth grade. It might be you know, it doesn't mean it happened this month or last year. It could have happened years ago, but it was never acknowledged or recognized. And again, isolating and often shame riddled. You know, we internalize it and stuff it down. So thanks so much for talking about it so that hopefully we can normalize it.

 

Dr. Liz:
Yes. And I was going to ask, you know, just if you have any away from so if anyone is listening and is just like, you know, where should I start my journey and and obviously find a therapist is a great place to start your journey. But really, what could they be doing to nurture their own heart as they're starting this process of even realizing, this, this is actually this is what I'm dealing with. And. Right. You know, and now what just? Maybe even just with that. Now what?

 

Stephanie Sarazin:
You know, the first step, it sounds so overly simplistic, but it's not easy is to acknowledge it is to write it down, is to say it out loud, is to really give life to it and think about, you know, how you want how you want to move forward. Right? You can't move forward with your grief if you're not acknowledging that you're grieving and there's no shame in saying I'm grieving the loss of my child to a life of drugs and I don't know where he is, which is a an all too common experience that people have today. You know, But again, we don't talk about it because we don't want to be talked about. And so I think the first thing to do is just to be able to speak it, to talk about it and it. And if you don't if you can't say it out loud to yourself, if you can't write it down and say it, put it in a sentence, you're probably not ready to start any work. So once you can, in working with a therapist, know that healing is possible and there are many ways forward in healing and I would say start to tune in to what soothes your soul. You know that part of you deep inside you that's been you your whole life that you tune in to that get quiet, turn off all of the external noise, get quiet a few minutes a day and listen to that still small voice inside of you. It will never guide in the wrong direction. And and as you listen more to yourself, I think we become more aware of what soothes us and whether that's writing or crocheting or exercise or, you know, there are so many different healthy outlets. Pay attention to what soothes you and pay attention to if what soothes you is, you know, drugs or alcohol or sex or gambling or something that isn't as healthy and don't be ashamed about it. Talk to your therapist about it. So together you can help chart a course toward healing. Healthy healing.

 

Dr. Liz:
Yes, I love that. Yeah. Such good ideas. And I think that that, you know, just to add to that, find your support system, find your safe support system, not people who are after the details and yeah, just really be able to provide things that the comfort the inner child work is so important even in these situations. You know what what would your inner child need to feel safe and try to provide that for them. So such good information stuff. I've enjoyed this conversation so much. It is so incredibly relatable for me and it's so validating for me to have these conversations with people who really get it. So I genuinely I appreciate your time and even more than that, I appreciate your emotional energy in this and really just being so safe and vulnerable to talk with so well, so much for that.

 

Stephanie Sarazin:
You are welcome so much and thank you for the platform that you're creating and allowing space for such relatable conversations to happen.

 

Dr. Liz:
Truly. Thank you. So tell before we wrap up, tell people where they can get your book and where they can find you online. I mean, the the title of your book even is just so on point. It is It it is what we experience in these situations. So where can they find you?

 

Stephanie Sarazin:
Thank you. So my book is Soul Broken. One word like heartbroken, but Soul broken one word. And you can find it at Barnes Noble, Amazon, your favorite independent bookseller anywhere you get your your favorite books and you can find me online. My website is my name, Stephanie Amazon.com. And that's spelled S.A. a Z zine. And on Instagram, I'm not on all of the social media sites, but I am getting comfortable with the Insta and you can find me there under my name Steph or Stephanie Sarazen. And my handle is stepping through the air.

 

Dr. Liz:
Good. Yes. Go check it out. Such good information. Thank you, Steph. I really appreciate it.

 

Stephanie Sarazin:
Thanks, Dr. Liz. I appreciate you two.

 

Dr. Liz:
Such great takeaways. Thank you so much stuff for hanging out with me today and for sharing about your story and. Thank you all for hanging out on relatable relationships, Unfiltered. Make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel, Sign up for my newsletter and find me on Instagram at Dr. Elizabeth Fedrick.