Arielle Arbushites | Widowed By Suicide at 29 & 3x Not a Mother

SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:

Arielle wasn’t a newcomer to grief and loss by the time her husband decided to take his own life when she was only 29.

She shares the highs, lows, and fears of navigating all of the unknowns and changes that came with losing her beloved, Rick. She wondered if she would ever love again, and because she and Rick couldn’t have children together, she then had to face the possibility that she would never become a mother. Would she meet someone who would want to have children? Would she meet someone while she’s still young enough to begin the chapter of parenthood? So many unknowns and the loss of hopes, dreams, and expectations.

Spoiler alert! Arielle does eventually remarry but wedded bliss doesn’t last long. After three miscarriages, she and her new love wondered if their mutual dreams and desires to be parents would ever come true.

Every miscarriage was different, and she shares exactly how different they were in this episode and how she found her way to wellness. She also shares the one thing that helped her soothe her own soul, not to mention how she found her own way to share with others how she was feeling without the pressure of needing to have what are often uncomfortable conversations.

RESOURCES: 

• Grief Recovery

CONNECT WITH ARIELLE:

• Widow Blog | The Cat Widow
• Current Blog | Adventures Uncensored 
• Instagram
• Facebook

Victoria Volk  00:01
Thank you for tuning in to today’s episode of grieving voices. Today my lovely guest is Arielle Arbrushites, and she is a licensed master social worker specializing in the field of grief and loss. She’s also experienced her own grief and loss. And we will dig into all of that. Thank you for being here.

Arielle Arbrushites  00:25
Thanks for having me.

Victoria Volk  00:27
So, let’s start with how we connected and and the losses that bring you to the podcast.

Arielle Arbrushites  00:35
Sure, sure. Well, we connected on on Instagram, I was checking out your account and I, I believe you are checking out mine and I have started, I guess running with more circles of the grief and loss crowd on Instagram in the last couple of months. Um, I am a widow. And I’ve been widowed for almost seven years, it’ll be seven years this coming May. And I, I’m widowed because of suicide, my husband took his own life. And in addition to that, I’ve also experienced three miscarriages. And then I had that lovely diagnosis of recurrent pregnancy loss or multiple miscarriages, and you know, very grateful to have a baby son now, but it took quite some time for me to have a living child. So, between those two things, I sort of joke around that I’m a good poster child for disenfranchised grief because suicide loss and miscarriage are just types of losses that people don’t talk about, or at least they don’t talk about, in the same way as other losses are talked about. And I just feel as a social worker, that it’s very important to give voice to those losses because it normalizes it for people, it validates their grief and their feelings. And those things are very, very important to me. So, I’m a writer, I think first and foremost. And then second, I’m a social worker. And those two things, they just they melt together pretty well.

Victoria Volk  02:09
Yeah. And actually, I think I reached out to you. In fact, on Instagram, I think there was this immediate connection for both of us. And also, to like you work in the hospice arena.

Arielle Arbrushites  02:21
I do, I do. I started out as a hospice social worker, you know, as we say, in hospice in the field, meaning traveling from home to home, and taking care of hospice patients in their homes, whatever their home might be. So, whether it’s a house, an apartment, whether it’s a skilled nursing facility, and assisted living facility, whatever they would call their residents. I was doing that kind of work in hospice, and then just a little over two years ago, actually became a manager in hospice. So, my title now is manager of support services, which means I oversee all of the hospice, social workers in our hospice agency, all of the spiritual counselors, all of the bereavement counselors and the volunteer coordinator in that program. So that is really cool. And the way I explain it to people who aren’t familiar with Hospice is I’m basically in managing everything non nursing related. So, anything that’s that’s not nursing, it kind of falls under me, which is cool. And I don’t really like to consider myself a boss. I like the term leader a lot more. So, you know, in leadership, and in my job, we talk about that a lot. I really want to be a leader, not a boss, and I don’t micromanage, and I like to work with people not above them. And, you know, the the hierarchy is not important to me at all. And, of course, first and foremost by profession. I’m still a social worker, and I do still see patients in hospice. I just also happen to manage 25 people at the same time, so I don’t see as many patients as I used to.

Victoria Volk  03:49
So how did you get into this work? Was it those losses that you experience?

Arielle Arbrushites  03:55
It’s an interesting question, because I think people ask me that all the time. If they find out about the losses that I’ve had, and I actually my husband died before I was doing hospice work. However, I had interned for hospice, when I was getting my master’s in social work. One of my field placements was in hospice. And that’s how I knew that I was called to do that work, and I really wanted to my husband was still living at that point. And then, you know, of course, my husband dying by suicide, that has has nothing to do with hospice, you know, for the most part, but a loss is a loss and grief is grief and widowhood is widowhood. And, you know, what you experience in the aftermath, there’s so many similarities no matter what the loss or how someone died, so after my husband died, I worked at my previous job for about a year a little over a year before I made the jump, to go to hospice as a full time employee because I felt like in my first year of grief, it pretty probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do just for my own self care, I didn’t want to dive right into helping other people with death and dying and their grief and their losses when I really needed to take care of myself. But as more time went on, I thought, Okay, you know what, I’m still grieving, because I think you grieve forever. That’s, that’s, you know, my belief. I thought, well, I’m still grieving. But I know I really think that I’m healthy and well enough and healed enough that I could help other people. And I think my personal experience was really going to benefit what I could give to a job like that. So, I hopped back into hospice at that point. And I hadn’t had any miscarriages, I hadn’t had any baby losses. At that point, I wasn’t able to have children with my late husband. And that was always a personal struggle to where I really wanted to become a parent, but I couldn’t, and I couldn’t and years passed and I couldn’t and you know, all the trying anybody who’s been through this, you know, you know, you try and you try and years past, and it’s just it becomes so heavy. So then losing my husband, of course, was losing all that, too. So, if I really wanted to be a mom, now I have to find somebody who wants to also be a parent, and how am I ever going to find this perfect person, I have to start all over and you know, wasting more time. And that’s kind of the wheels in my head, were turning with that kind of a thing. But I am remarried, and I’ve been married for, it’ll be four years this summer. So about three and a half years right now that I’ve been married to my current husband, Jeff. And all of the losses that I’ve experienced with the babies were with him. So, we had a lot of struggles trying to become parents as well. And it was just loss after loss after loss with him. And those were really, really difficult in a completely different way. And as far as the hospice work, it was always really cool seems like the wrong word when I’m talking about loss like that. But it was always really cool to be working for a hospice agency, when I was going through those losses, because you can imagine, if you work in the field of death, and dying, and grief and loss, you’re going to be, I think, more compassionate to your colleagues that are going through something like that, even when it’s disenfranchised grief. And if I needed to, you know, obviously be off from work for a few days to recover, and, you know, go through a surgery and recover from that, I felt like everyone was very thoughtful and caring, and it was a really great place to be working when I had to go through something like that. And I know so many people don’t have that privilege. So that was always, you know, a blessing. I don’t think people were apt to talk about it with me so much, because it’s still like that hush hush kind of grief, even in the field of grief and loss, believe it or not, but I did feel a lot of compassion when I worked with with hospice during those time.

Victoria Volk  07:53
I can’t imagine the whispers it’s like, I heard she had a miscarriage. And you know, it’s like the people that feel so uncomfortable with what don’t know what to say, and don’t know how to behave around someone who has had a loss like that. And, you know, I just want for our listeners who may not be really as familiar with the term disenfranchised. It was actually coined by a professor in the 80s, when he had a student that talked about the death of her ex-husband, and how it wasn’t her loss wasn’t even really recognized. And even though they had been together for many, many years, and when in grief recovery, the label doesn’t help us. It doesn’t tell us how to move beyond loss. But I just wanted to explain the definition a little bit. So, when that happened with your first husband, what were some of the things that you experienced and went through in respect to feeling that it was disenfranchised? Like what can you elaborate more on that?

Arielle Arbrushites  09:01
Yeah, absolutely. And again, to your point, I guess I was lucky that I was actually truly married to him, so I was a recognized a widow by society versus if we had been in a partnership for a while or he was just my fiance, or you know, people just they like the society likes the labels, right? You know, it doesn’t help us grieve. But society recognizes that because this disenfranchised grief is grief that’s not recognized or acknowledged by society in the same way as other grief. So, um, you know, things that I experienced, by way of this disenfranchised grief terminology. I think, um, you know, my husband dying by suicide, it makes people uncomfortable, you know, and rightly so, because it is a trauma, you know, it was a traumatic experience for me, but, um, they, they rope you in to the story. So, the way I explain this is You know, people will say things like, you know, did you notice anything? Or what’s what’s the worst version of that question I always say is Didn’t you notice anything and, you know, like, that just kind of gets you. It kind of takes you into the story as though you were the bystander there. And you were you somehow have some responsibility to retell that story for people. People don’t tend to ask those questions when someone is dying of a medical event, a heart attack cancer, even, you know, if somebody is a soldier in the military, it we know, as society, it comes with that, you know, expectation that you might be on a dangerous assignment, you know, or war might be part of the equation, it doesn’t make the loss any easier for anyone who would lose a spouse or a person that way. And that’s not what I’m saying. It’s just that, you know, if you said, you know, my husband died in war, okay, you know, my husband died of cancer, or my husband had a heart attack, nobody asks you to that retail, how the heart attack went? Or what happened, or what was noticed, or what wasn’t noticed. And, you know, I think people sometimes they come from a place of like, morbid curiosity, where they actually want to know what happened with my husband. But for the most part, that’s not even why those questions are asked, people are just so caught up in that story that they pull the, you know, the breathed into it. And I think that was often really hard. And, you know, just the not talking about it, people will talk about folks who have had long battles with cancer, for example, and, you know, have have died in that way. Equally as awful, you know, there’s no hierarchy, again, with the grief, but people don’t necessarily want to talk about the fact that my husband took his own life and killed himself in our house. And I don’t necessarily always want to keep retelling that story over and over either, but it’s all very quiet, you know, not to mention his name, not to say, oh, you know, he was such a great person, or he was this or he was that or let me tell you a funny story. And, you know, that was that was kind of difficult too.

Victoria Volk  12:16
It’s a different honoring, in a way that the people who maybe not even you know, even if you don’t necessarily have a close relationship with someone, you can definitely find something that had some interaction, you can share something a memory, or an interaction or something with that person. But like you said, that’s a very good point you bring across is that maybe the griever just wants to hear something positive the impact that they had on you as a person while they were alive, right?

Arielle Arbrushites  12:50
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I mean, you know, I, I feel like when we’re talking about disenfranchised grief, I have to bring up the point that there are some people thankfully, nobody I was very close to, because I like to think I choose by my friends, well, but there are people out there who will say things, for example, like, Well, you know, he obviously went to hell, or, you know, God will never forgive him. It’s like, that’s that disenfranchised grief, right? Like, the way he quote unquote, chose to die was something that’s that some people will deem totally unacceptable. And then they’re not telling him that because he’s dead, they’re telling me, which then puts so much more sadness and heaviness and anger on me. And, you know, I think I think people who have lost anyone to suicide, it doesn’t matter if it was a spouse, you know, they probably have experienced some element of that.

Victoria Volk  13:46
That’s very isolating.

Arielle Arbrushites  13:48
Absolutely, and being a widow at 29, which is how old I was when it happened was isolating enough so to put that, on top of it was, was tough.

Victoria Volk  13:59
Which brings to mind things those unhelpful things that people can say, too, is like you’re only 29 there, you know, you have so much more opportunity to meet somebody. Did you hear things like that, too?

Arielle Arbrushites  14:11
Oh, my gosh, so my favorite story about this is I’m at Rick’s funeral I in the front of the funeral home, with the urn of ashes standing there and like the receiving line, you know, everyone comes through and gives you a hug or tells you, their story. And someone actually came up to me on the day of his funeral and said, you know, well, you’re still young, you’re cute, you’ll get married again, like he had been dead for three days. And I just thought that was absolutely horrific. Like the worst thing you could say as I’m standing there with tears streaming down my face grieving my husband, that someone could say that it seemed odd and I’ve always thought to myself, you know, even if people are thinking that and that makes them feel better, like she’ll be okay because you know, she’ll find someone again, if they need to think that there’s no need to say it out loud to me, especially that soon in the grieving process. So it makes me laugh. Now you can tell that I’m like chuckling over it. But you know, at the time, I was just kind of it, I was taken aback. And I, I didn’t really have a response that I can recall.

Victoria Volk  15:18
But all of these things that those comments like that they kind of stack up. And it’s like, and that’s why we isolate as Grievers because we’d rather just stay home then go out in public and hear these things, right?

Arielle Arbrushites  15:30
Absolutely, I couldn’t find really anybody at that point to understand exactly how I was feeling or close enough. I mean, I was 29, some of my friends were still, you know, planning their weddings and getting married. And I had had three weddings to go to my first year of widowhood, which was really, really hard as well. And, you know, no fault of anyone they were, they were celebrating a part of their life. And, you know, one, one part of my life had ended, but it was a, it was a very transitionary time. And it was, it was tough for me, because I felt like to find another 29-year-old widow, I would be hard pressed to find that person. And then even if I did to find someone who had been bereaved by suicide and had to grapple with the the trauma and the guilt, and the, you know, circumstances of that, that would be even more rare. And, you know, that was, that was really something.

Victoria Volk  16:24
So where did you find support?

Arielle Arbrushites  16:26
I think I found support, you know, through writing, because I’ve always turned to writing my entire life to help me process. And then my writing kind of became my outward grieving, it was like my morning. And what I did was I had a daily widow blog, where I would write every single night, and I would publish it every single night. And it really gained, you know, quite a readership. And so, this was back in 2014, I started the blog six days after Rick died, and I just one night decided, you know, I think I have something new to write about, and this will help me and if people read it, and it helps them really great, awesome, but it’s, I’m really gonna write it for me. And when I started out doing it, I was writing, not so much to help other people who had been bereaved, but to help everybody in my life and beyond know, what I might need at any given moment, or how to understand me, or how to see what I was going through. So, it was kind of my way of reaching out, like, you don’t even have to reach out to me, but if you read this blog nightly, you know, you’ll know where I’m at. Because I was all over the place for that whole first year plus, and I did write every single day, for over a year, Chronicle my whole grieving process in real time. And what ended up happening was my friends, my family, my acquaintances, my colleagues, everybody was reading this. And in turn, they knew how to support me, which was awesome, because I was asking for what I needed, or I was telling what I, what I needed. And it got bigger than that. And a lot of people that I didn’t even know were ended up reading it. And, you know, I think it’s still fairly widely read, because I do get messages from time to time, even though that blog has kind of stopped in time. And then I’ve started a new blog, where I’m not labeling myself as a widow so much anymore, but it’s, you know, it’s, it’s still there. And I think people find that they’re not as isolated because they have something to go to, and they see, okay, somebody went through something like this, and it’s there. And I know that I’m not I’m not crazy, I’m normal, because I can read these words. And, you know, that’s always been important to me,

Victoria Volk  18:38
You thought about turning that into a book?

Arielle Arbrushites  18:41
I have, I would really like to and it’s definitely, you know, the next thing on my list of things to publish it, um, it needs a little bit of editing because my, what I really dream of doing is kind of taking that blog, turning it into a book. But now you know, almost seven years later and later in retrospect, I can I have insight into all these little pieces and chapters that I can put in there now that wouldn’t have been there before. So I’d like to have you know, all the stuff from that first year, plus the me now giving her insights into things and I think that would be pretty cool. The good news is, you know, it’s basically all written, and it just needs to be tweaked and edited. So, it’s just a matter of getting it out there. But that’s, it’s actually one of my goals for 2021 to have it, have it be out there published.

Victoria Volk  19:36
I would love to support you in that I started my blog in 2014, my first blog to where I was blogging about personal development and growth spirituality when I felt like I was starting my personal growth journey, after loss and grief and all of that and ended up writing a book to self publishing it so I would love to see that come to fruition for you and went from We can definitely have side chats about that my future.

Arielle Arbrushites  20:03
It’s awesome. yeah, I mean, I applaud you for for your book as well. I mean, it’s just an awesome thing giving voice to this kind of grief, it’s so important, I can’t, I really can’t emphasize it enough. It’s not a self-serving thing. You know, and I’m sure you understand that too. You’re not you’re not publishing a book as this self-serving practice. And that’s not why I would choose to do either it’s just, you want to be a voice for these things.

Victoria Volk  20:26
Well, and it was very therapeutic. I mean, that was the one thing I didn’t expect from the experience was that it was very therapeutic.

Arielle Arbrushites  20:33
Absolutely.

Victoria Volk  20:34
So, I want to give you the opportunity, though, to share about Rick in a way that you maybe didn’t get the opportunity to to others during that time, and maybe in your blog, I’m sure you expressed it through your blog, but tell us about Rick.

Arielle Arbrushites  20:49
Rick was a complicated individual, for sure. As you can imagine, for somebody who did take his own life, but he loved the beach he loved to he he loved to look up at the sun and you know, you could find him on a 55 degree day laying out on a towel in the backyard just to catch the rays of the sun even though it would seem to me too cold to be laying in the sun. It was something that he would do and you know that I think about him the most when I see the ocean or the sea and the sun shining on it because I think that’s where he felt most at peace when he was so conflicted and you know, in emotional pain, I guess I would is how I would say it and you know, I really I believe in being real about people you know, so there are a lot of things that I can say that are really wonderful about him and that would be perfectly truthful but you know, I don’t want to talk him up either because you know, he obviously did have some struggles. And you know, I think it’s important for people to know you know, we can still grieve someone who was complicated and complicated grief is the thing to write so, um, you know, but but Rick was very thoughtful, he was a very thoughtful person, he would write me notes all the time I have stacks piles of handwritten notes from him still, it was a kind of a regular thing where I would come home from when I was I was married when I was in grad school, I’m getting my master’s in social work and I was working full time so I would go to school at night from like 630 to 930 I’d be getting home around 10pm and oftentimes he would be asleep already and he would leave me a note on the kitchen table or note on the counter and you know, that was kind of a regular thing and they were very sweet and sometimes they’re very funny. And most of the time he was funny without meaning to be funny. So um, that was very cute. I know that in his mind, he felt like he was doing me a favor by committing suicide because he wanted me to have a better life than what he thought that he could give me and he felt like he was giving me a gift which is just to me so sad and I know this because of a suicide note that he left for me not because I’m you know, creating some kind of story around it but based on what he wrote to me I know that that’s how he felt and I find that very heavy and sad but he also was thanking me in the note so I always like to think that you know, maybe the last emotions he was feeling before he died were of gratitude instead of despair and that’s kind of the story I tell myself so that it doesn’t become too traumatic and too heavy.

Victoria Volk  23:50
for a lot of conflicting feelings in that yeah, here that’s a lot of grief that’s what grief is it’s conflicting feelings.

Arielle Arbrushites  23:58
Yeah.

Victoria Volk  23:59
Thank you for sharing.

Arielle Arbrushites  24:00
Sure.

Victoria Volk  24:01
Moving on to losses you’ve experienced well, and you fall in love again.

Arielle Arbrushites  24:08
I did you did. I was not ready people always say How did you feel that you were finally ready? I was not ready. I did not say let’s go out and date again. No, Jeff just happened as most things in life do just like everything else that’s ever happened to me. He just happened and we became friends and then we became more than friends and now we are married, and you know, we have a beautiful family together. But um, it takes the right person to I think marry someone who has been widowed, especially someone who’s been widowed by suicide. And he happened to be that person and I am so so lucky to have found him early enough in life that I get to have a lot of years with him hopefully.

Victoria Volk  24:49
Beautiful. So, what is one thing that you would share with others who may have experienced a similar loss as you are maybe not either with Rick or the miscarriages?

Arielle Arbrushites  25:02
I think you know it’s important to find your army of support and you know I have to say that as a social worker and especially in the profession I mean you know, support is huge support doesn’t have to look like you know 400 people reading a blog every night it can be just your best friend just your mom or your dad you know, it could be your neighbor that you have a cup of tea with you know it, it can really be anybody that makes you feel a little bit lighter, a little bit less alone and you know, By the same token even though grief can feel so isolating and sometimes be so isolating you’re not alone. I felt alone so much of the time but but really I wasn’t you know, there’s so many other people that sadly have experienced a loss like mine and I feel that way especially when we talk about like the multiple miscarriages you know, it’s it’s not talked about it’s it’s we’re getting better at that I think but it’s not talked about to the level it should be in could be but it’s it’s so prevalent and nobody says anything and if you’re feeling some kind of way, somebody else out there hundreds of other somebodies 1000s of other somebodies are feeling that exact same way so it’s either just a matter of knowing that to make yourself feel supported or finding those people to make yourself feel supported and you know, thankfully we live in the age of technology where you can google things and you can find Facebook groups and Instagram groups and blogs and there’s just so many ways to do things virtually if you are isolated physically that you’re not able to go find things and of course you know we’re in a pandemic so we’re not doing these large group gatherings and clubs and things anyway but there’s so much out there there’s there’s tons of things out there.

Victoria Volk  26:57
Like this podcast.

Arielle Arbrushites  26:58
Exactly like this podcast perfect example.

Victoria Volk  27:03
Would you like to share about the losses of those babies?

Arielle Arbrushites  27:09
I’m sure sure. Um, I I felt a strong connection with all of them. And I think it was shocking to me how little support was given to me by the health system every time I had a loss and you know, that’s one of the things that professionally I’m trying to work on quite a bit in the field of grief and loss and I had some perinatal death and grief training recently so that I can try to help folks in the situation that I was in no matter what gestation and you know, there’s really again there’s no hierarchy with this grief but it was just so hard for people to know what to say or do in the health system in my own life. And you know, my husband Jeff was very very supportive and I used to write little notes to myself because I always go to writing and I used to write little notes to myself during those different losses just saying you know, whenever Jeff is annoying or you’re frustrated with him just remember this moment and how amazing he has been today doing this and this and this and this and I would lift every way that he was able to support me through those because especially when we got to the you know, the third miscarriage um, I was a mess. I mean, it was just so so traumatic. And it was just this roller coaster of happiness and devastation over and over again because unfortunately for us with the last two losses, you know, we had gone in and we had ultrasounds, everything was fine and perfect and healthy. We saw the heartbeat we started the baby moving. And, you know, so you kind of you breathe a sigh of relief, thinking Everything is fine, and then for weeks to pass and then to go in and for them to say that the baby had died, you know, shocking, awful. And then the third time around, you know, you think okay, well it’s, it’s finally it’s finally my tie, like it’s really going to happen this time. You know, this could not possibly happen again, and you hold your breath and you’re just so traumatized and you go in and you go to ultrasound after ultrasound, and they’re all fine, everything’s great, everybody gives you the thumbs up and you just keep breathing a little bit more a little bit more and then to go back and have them tell you you know, the heartbeat slowing down and we think the baby is going to die for the for the the last baby loss that I had. I actually left the doctor’s office knowing that the baby was still alive but going to die and I had to go home and essentially wait for the baby to die which it was totally different from my first miscarriage. Was miscarrying at home very painfully, and very different from my second miscarriage, which was finding out that the heartbeat had stopped, and the baby had already died, and then getting a DNC surgery to remove the baby that had died. So, this third time, it was like, Okay, well, it’s going to die. But we can’t do a surgery yet because it’s still alive. And there’s really nothing we can do. So go home and wait for it to die. So that was gut wrenching. And I think Jeff, and I just didn’t really know what to do or how to react and like, you know, what do you do? Do you go to work and just, like, know that the baby’s in there dying, and you can’t do anything as its mother. And it was, so all my losses were so incredibly different to, which is why I feel like, I can relate to different miscarriage stories, because, you know, they weren’t all the same. So, somebody had the first kind of loss that I had, I get that they had the second kind of loss, I get that the third kind, I get that, um, you know, did they all make me stronger, probably more resilient. Absolutely. But it was a really, really hard time for me and for us, and I really began to think that I was just not going to be a parent. Um, and I, I pretty much did not want to try to become a parent anymore, because the thought of having a fourth loss was almost worse than anything. Um, but like I said, at the beginning of this, you know, I do have a son, he’s 16 months old, and he is amazing. Um, but I was terrified for my entire pregnancy, that something was going to go horribly wrong, as you can understand, and I know, many moms have been in that in that place, too. So, you know, there. There, there is a story unfolding. And you know, we always only see the moment that we’re in, like the page that we’re on, and I was really stuck there on those particular pages of grief for a long time, not really understanding that, you know, the pages would continue to flip. And at some point, I’d be feeling differently, even if it meant that I didn’t have a beautiful son out of it. Because you know, what, let’s face it, you know, that won’t happen for everybody. And that’s really, really tough, too.

Victoria Volk  32:15
If I could hug you. I would give you a hug right now, I just got teary eyed because I can’t imagine what that felt like for you just can’t. So, my mom, my heart goes out to you. I had a conversation too, with another griever about miscarriage early on in my podcast, and she was talking about, you know, you go into the doctor’s office and see all these women with the big bellies and, you know, join on their faces, and it’s like you’re in the same waiting room, and how tortures that must feel your heart and something needs to be done about that.

Arielle Arbrushites  32:55
Absolutely. Oh, that was a bit it was very difficult. I almost think though what was worse was leaving not once, but twice for two of my miscarriages, leaving that room where I had had an ultrasound knowing my baby was either dead or for the other time that you know, was going to die and you leave and they say like, okay, your copay will be $30, like, nobody’s been briefed to that I just had a horrible, devastating conversation, they are making me essentially pay for the bad news that I just received, like, there was just no sense of decorum. And that’s always been, you know, a sticking point, there’s somewhere in a folder in my home office where I have all these notes of what I would like to do to educate people in those professions just because I have this unique background of the grief and loss piece. And, and it’s just it’s not in fertility clinics, and it’s not in, you know, ob gyn offices, to the level that it should be. And I’m sure there are practices that are really building that and boosting that up and are really great at it. The ones that I was part of, we’re not really great at it. And I think it was just a deficit, you know, nobody meant any harm, you know, certainly, but they just hadn’t been ever given education or training or anything like that. And not once was I ever given even a flyer for a support group or anything, even loss after loss after loss. So, I still find that incredibly shocking. It’s incredibly sad. It really is. And I’ve often said to Jeff, that I am the kind of person especially because of my profession where I know how to find resources and I know how to get what I need, if someone’s not giving it to me, and I could do that and I could take it upon myself. But there are so many other women out there who are not able to do that who are not going to do that who are not going to know to do that. And what a disservice we’re doing to those people. So well.

Victoria Volk  35:02
and because grief is cumulative, and as cumulatively negative, it’s very likely, highly likely that someone coming into that situation and having to leave knowing that their baby will die or has already passed. They’ve had grief before that. And so, it’s just more grief on to their lives. And it’s almost like, what can’t they just, like, create this separate unit of the facility that’s specially for holding the hearts of people, mothers, you know, like the families because it’s your husband to like, he, like how did he navigate that, too.

Arielle Arbrushites  35:52
We just we navigated it together as a team for each other, because you didn’t have anybody, you know, to talk to to support him, you know, they don’t support the dads, it just it’s not a thing. And, you know, to your point about, you know, can’t we have a separate unit or waiting room or area or something, you know, I work in healthcare, if that’s not possible, because I know, that’s not always possible. That’s a beautiful dream. And it involves, you know, money and space and all sorts of things. If that’s not possible, at least you let the people who’ve just received bad news said, sit in that room, as long as they need take the time that you need, I’m here for you when you’re ready to go. And then you assign someone to walk them out, you know, whether it’s an arm around them, or you walk them down a different hallway, so they can leave outside of a different door, you don’t have them just check out like everybody else, where everybody’s waiting with their big belly and they get charged a copay by a chipper, cheerful person, and they’re out in the elevator before they know it with no support, you know, there, there are ways to do it, I think, you know, there’s an ideal way, like what you were saying that would be the ideal, but they’re all there’s always ways to think outside of the box. And I think people are either just unwilling to go there, or they have not experienced a loss like that. So they don’t even know that that would feel good or different, or would be important. And I think that’s just where the education and training comes in.

Victoria Volk  37:15
I also seem to believe this is my own belief is that because it’s so common, like miscarriages become so common. That it’s just like, we’ve become desensitized to it. And, you know, when you work in that environment, I imagine, you’re like, probably number 13 that came in that day. And I’m wondering, too, like, who’s supporting the health care workers who are in those positions? And it’s like, almost like, are they just separating themselves? Are they disassociating from the situation? Because if they didn’t, to bring that home with them, and it kind of speaks to the work that you do in hospice, like, how do you separate yourself from that, so you don’t bring it home with you. So, I think, along with education, it’s also to recognizing that there is a problem. But then when you recognize there’s a problem, you have to do something about it.

Arielle Arbrushites  38:19
You’re so right, you’re so right, um, you know, who is supporting those health care workers? And how desensitized are they? And, you know, what do they know and not know about what that feels like? Or, you know, perhaps they’ve experienced their own losses, and then you’re faced with that every day. So they have to compartmentalize they can’t even go there, you know, and, you know, we can assume and, you know, we’ll never completely know everybody’s individual stories, but yeah, I mean, absolutely, there has to be a way to support the people in those professions and positions and your your right to I we tried to do that in, in hospice, because, you know, I have, I’ve sat with many people who have died, I’ve watched people die many, many, many times, there have been weeks where I’ve had multiple patients die. And, you know, it’s, it’s to be expected because I work in hospice and, you know, that’s, we know that’s what’s going to happen. And oftentimes, it’s really very beautiful and positive and as an experience, you know, much like birth it there, there can be a celebration for death, you know, it’s not always that way. But, you know, I really like to de stigmatize the death and dying stuff to because it’s not always this this awful, terrible experience, but um, it can be really heavy, it can be really tough. And certainly, you know, I come home and I think about patients that I’ve had, who have died, you know, and I still do you know, if I have had patients that have died five years ago, I still think about them from time to time and, you know, that’s part of the work to it, it touches you It teaches you things and I’ve learned so much from the people that I’ve met and from their family members. I think you know, it’s gonna sound kind of trite. But self care is really important. And I don’t mean like, you know, so you go home and you take a hot bath and you light the candles, you know, that’s not exactly what I mean. But you kind of have to know when you’re you like reached your, your point of being a little bit too filled with grief to know, okay, maybe I need a day off today. Or maybe I just need to take a weekend to go for a hike to clear my mind or, you know, whatever it is that would really speak to you and be helpful to you, I think we have to be good about tuning into that. And healthcare is the kind of profession where we tend to just go go go, and it’s about the patient and not about us. And it’s about the people that we’re serving and not about us. Because you know, that’s why we are called to those professions, but you’re not any good to anybody else. If you’re not taking care of yourself first, it’s like the whole oxygen mask analogy, you know, you got to put it on yourself, and then you take care of everybody else that you’re supposed to take care of, it’s a lot like being a parent, you know, got to take care of yourself first, to be a good parent, to your child or your children. I feel that way about my patients to feel that way about my team of employees. And, you know, we, we try to encourage things that will fill our cup, so that we have things to give to other people. And whether that’s resilience training, or retreats from time to time, or just, we do like a morning inspiration on our morning conference call every morning in hospice. And sometimes it’s a joke, and it’s funny, and sometimes it’s more inspiring, and reflective. And we try to do things here and there. It’s hard because, you know, again, we’re in a pandemic, and healthcare. very tricky right now and even heavier than usual, especially especially at hospice. But we try and I think the effort speaks volumes to people see that you’re trying to care for them and make sure that they have what they need. So, I think that’s important, too, that the effort.

Victoria Volk  42:02
wonderful points, I mean, this this podcast episode very much be for healthcare community, too.

Arielle Arbrushites  42:08
I’m very worried you have to tell me like, Okay, you’ve, you’ve said enough?

Victoria Volk  42:12
Oh, no, it’s all good. It’s all good. So, what has your grief taught you?

Arielle Arbrushites  42:17
So much, um, I, it’s really been a journey to learn myself, if I’m being honest, um, you know, I will never be the same. Because of Rick dying, I will also never be the same because of all the miscarriages that I’ve had. But they’ve shaped me, and they’ve molded me in ways that are allowing me to be the best version of myself, and I think, offer bits and pieces of that better self to others. And you know, I’m still a work in progress, you know, I would hope that I’m not the best that I can ever be. I want to keep improving until the day that I die. But I’ve just learned so much about myself as a person and what I really need and what I really want and about fear. When I lost Rick, I was very, very afraid. I was afraid of so many things, what life would hold I was afraid of the unknown. I was afraid of moving, I was afraid of staying, I was afraid of not finding somebody again. You know, as afraid of people not understanding I was afraid of financial burden. I mean, I could write you a list of 150 things. And I was afraid of so many other things that had nothing to do with the loss of Rick. But I think it made me so much braver because I thought, well, if the worst thing that could ever happen to me has happened to me, nothing could possibly be as bad as that day. So just live every day. Like it’s the best day that you’re going to have and do whatever it is you want to do. And you know, tell that person exactly what you want to say don’t keep it inside and you know, share this moment with this person because you’re you have that fleeting thought Don’t let it be just a passing thought go ahead and do it and kind of like actions speak louder than words. So, I just started doing all the things that scared me. And that was a very eye-opening experience. And I think it was very positive and it kind of added to my resiliency and I don’t know, you’re probably familiar with like the post traumatic growth. So, I feel like you know, I, I could be a poster child for that too. You have so many bad things happen to you, but I have a really a very happy person. And I think that that makes that weirds people out sometimes but um, it’s because I have learned so much about myself and I’ve tapped into so much resilience over the course of time that it has just served me so well in so many beautiful ways that can’t possibly be ignored. So, it’s really less of like a happy, cheerful, Sunny overly positive personality and more of like, I’ve learned from this, and now I can use it. And it’s made life so much better. And kind of like the, I guess it’s a famous quote, like, you know, shared joy is double joy and shared sorrow is half sorrow. So, you know, that’s, that’s kind of how I think of things, you know, that’s why I write so that I could double the joy and I can have the sorrow too.

Victoria Volk  45:30
I love that. So, I can relate to the post traumatic growth. And I can also relate to, well, let me get your take on this. Because when you’ve experience when you feel like you’ve lived three lifetimes, and you look back on your life, and you’ve recognized where, where you’ve grown, and how far you’ve come and things like that, I have found it really challenging to look at others and see them suffer. And knowing that they don’t have to, like, there, there is more to life than what you’re feeling right now in this moment. But it’s such a challenge for people to get out of that headspace. And, you know, we have to be in it for a time, it’s whatever time that is. But do you agree or disagree? Or what are what is your thoughts on this? Maybe like this idea of, in addicted to the suffering itself?

Arielle Arbrushites  46:35
you’re talking about other people, not you and I right? When you say that, right?

Victoria Volk  46:39
Right, because, you know, like, when you when you’ve come so far, it’s like you, you just want to pull everybody with you, you know, it’s like, Just come with me, just let’s come, you know, not so bad over it’s this, this is amazing over here. And yeah, it doesn’t feel good in the process. But no one ever said I had a post the other day. Healing feels amazing said no one ever. You know, the process sucks, it does. But it’s like getting on the other side of that.

Arielle Arbrushites  47:15
You have to feel everything to feel the good and the joy. And I think that is very hard for some people harder than for you and me. And, you know, we have most likely either been given the tools by others, or we have built and created our own tools and kind of adapted, whether it’s because of privilege, or whether it’s because, you know, we’ve had experiences earlier in life than some other people and that has taught us how to build resilience and, you know, use history as a as an educator. You know, not everybody is as lucky as we are where they feel that they have those tools and that strength and those experiences to build from. So that’s why my thinking is, you know, for you and for me, we have a greater responsibility then to do things like this podcast and be that voice so that we can share the narrative. And we can give guidance, really, I mean, I think really, that’s what this is, it’s your giving voice, but you’re also guiding other people, it can be different, it doesn’t have to be the way it is right now. And like I said earlier, I think we grieve forever, but our grief changes, you know, it morphs, and it changes, and you don’t get over grief, it will always be part of you. But certainly, you can heal and you know, certainly you can be joyful again. And everything can exist in the same space. So, you can feel pain, but you can also feel joy. It’s not one or the other. It isn’t black and white. And that’s something that I talk to people about all the time because there’s so much all or nothing black and white thinking out there. Just because it’s like in our culture, that’s just the way people are taught and they just they grow to believe it’s like well if I feel sad, then I’m just gonna feel sad Well, you can feel sad and you should feel sad because things sad things have happened to you and you have every right to feel sad, but you can also feel joy at the same time. And you know, you can feel other things to anger and comfort and contentment and worry and confusion, you know that everything can all exist in the same space, and we learn to navigate it. So, you know, those are my thoughts. We, you know, you and me we have we have a greater responsibility because we have learned things and we have found things that that work and help. And that’s why we’re doing what we do. That’s why you do what you do. And that’s why I do what I do. And it takes all kinds of people to make this beautiful world work. There are many jobs I would never want to do. Just like people would never want to do my job and they tell me all the time. But there are lots of things they do that I wouldn’t want to do either and that’s why it takes All kinds of people to make the world work, which is great.

Victoria Volk  50:03
Yes. 100% I agree. I just had a post come to me yesterday Actually, I haven’t written about this yet. But someone had reached out to me and asked me to questions along these lines. And, you know, like, someone doesn’t identify themselves as a griever. But I can see that it’s grief and notes past relationship that they haven’t, they’re not recognizing, like, I’m over that, like, I dealt with that. I don’t need to dig that up, right. And my, what came to my mind was that, if you can talk about it today, like you and I, like you talked about your experience, and you’re not laying on the floor, a pile of mess, right. And I can talk about my experiences, and I’m not on the floor, like a pile of mess, that’s when you know, you’ve done a lot of work when you can talk about it. Hear Your experience, when you can help others through story. And, and not like a ruminating in the story. But in a this is what helped me this is what’s possible. I don’t know about you, but for me, I found my potential when I shed all of that when I shed all the stories when I shed the anger when I shed all the resentment, the grief that had kept weighing on me the grief has not gone away I still grieve my father certain relationships that change because of that experience and the trauma that happened to me after those things still happen and that doesn’t change that experience but I can talk about it and it not take me back to that little girl that is scared and fearful and you know all those emotions that you talked about.

Arielle Arbrushites  51:52
You’re absolutely right and you know for we can also be those people that are okay now and thriving and and share that with others, but also say, no, we were on the floor a pile of mess, at one point, and now we’re not and you know, that’s possible for other people too, because we can be we can keep it real. We used to be a mess. And now we’re okay.

Victoria Volk  52:14
Oh, I was a train wreck. I was a train wreck. Yeah. And you know, I could laugh about it. My life was a mess. I was, you know, used alcohol and got myself in some really scary situations.

Arielle Arbrushites  52:29
And look at you now.

Victoria Volk  52:31
Greed was the root of it. And that’s where people don’t connect the dots of what is happening in their lives, these repetitive behaviors, these things that we’re seeking to feel better, don’t connect it to the grief in their lives. And I want to ask you something, because I have a sneaking suspicion, though, that that loss of Rick wasn’t your first grieving experience?

Arielle Arbrushites  52:55
No, it was not my first grieving experience. No, I lost my great aunt when I was a teenager. And she was much closer than a grandmother to me. She was my best friend, truly. We used to sleep over together, and she was very, very special to me. So, when I was 16, she died. I experienced that loss. And I had experienced the loss of both of my grandfather’s two. So, in I would say early adulthood, my very early 20s. So, I am lucky to have a 92 year old grandmother and an 85 year old grandmother still living but I had lost both of my grandfather’s as well. So, it was not my first rodeo with grief. But it was a very different grief and a very traumatic grief when when Rick died.

Victoria Volk  53:41
And that’s why I say grief is cumulative. And it’s cumulatively negative it stacks up, right? Yeah. Well, you kind of talked about ways that others supported you and how writing kind of became your way to express what you needed and how you want it to be supported. What would you suggest to people who aren’t writers? Need? Yeah, what? Oh, my God, I need to, like spit it out Victoria. So writing was a huge outlet for you and expressing on what you needed and how you needed to be supported. And it was for me too, but I don’t know if anybody read it, but I wasn’t very good about vocalizing either. And so I journaled I internalized a lot which was not healthy. It was good for me, but it wasn’t a healthy way to approach I was an isolated grater I that’s I mean I was in a pit me of an isolated graver I don’t need your help. I can do this, you know, because, and here’s the thing, it kind of ties back to when you said resiliency. You know, when you lose a parent, as a child, you don’t choose resiliency, you have to get resilient. So, I hate when people say that children are resilient and bounce back, eat that. Don’t say that people. Please don’t say that. If a child If you recognize a child as resilient, it’s not because they chose to even have a choice. Yeah. Anyway, I digress. What would you suggest to someone who isn’t a writer to how to communicate what they need and how to be supported?

Arielle Arbrushites  55:16
Maybe the easiest thing to do would be to take the pressure off and not think about grief and think about how to explain their huge grief to someone because that is you know, that’s a tall order trying to put that into words for yourself, let alone to other people to tell them what you need. Instead, I would encourage someone to think about what brings them comfort, you know, is it a special warm coffee drink? Is it watching funny movies with a person that you really care about and can laugh with because you feel safe with them? And you know, is it going for a walk in nature whatever the case might be, you know, but think about the things that will really make you feel comfort like is there a special comfort food like do you just love when you feel like crap you want to eat you know homemade macaroni and cheese you know, whatever it is for these these folks? Think about those things take the grief out of it just like what would make you feel better be really literal and then tell those people that that would be something that would be awesome like you know, could you make that mac and cheese that I love so much that we had last year at this picnic and like ask them for that? Or say you know I I’m feeling kind of low today I really want to watch friends on a marathon of friends you know Do you want to come over and hang out with me for a little while now it puts it on them to ask rather than someone offering it to them but you know to answer your questions that’s what I would suggest because that’s not really making them talk about the grief Enos it’s just you know, having them tap into like what do I need what’s going to make me feel better like it won’t cancel my grief out but it’s going to make me feel loved and warm and comforted and some people can give it to themselves like you know, I tend to do that and especially like in the pandemic you know, we’re very handicapped with what we can do but you know, I’ll think about you know, I just really need a cup of coffee and to sit with a blanket over me for 20 minutes by myself and I’ll feel better and rejuvenated like I can do that I don’t need to call a friend to give me that and some people you know, some people might and that’s perfectly fine but there are lots of things you can give to yourself too so I think recognizing what’s going to make you feel better and sometimes I tell people you know if they do journal or they don’t journal it doesn’t matter but maybe just get out a piece of paper and write down all the things that really make you feel good and comforted and happy and like really really small like the cup of coffee like the warm blanket like your mom’s macaroni and cheese whatever um for very random examples here but I think you know that’s that’s what I would encourage people to do, I think it works.

Victoria Volk  57:54
Radical self-love. My newsletter my newsletter, as right now we’re recording it’s February and this probably won’t go live until like may April I’m not sure exactly when but at this time I my monthly series for my newsletter is self love as well it’s February you know, Valentine’s love whatever, the greatest love we can give is to ourselves. so kindly percent highlighting that yeah, it’s like, we don’t necessarily need to get anything from anybody. And really, honestly, that was a message that took me well into my 30s to understand late like probably in the last five years to be honest, like I can give to myself I don’t need to get from other people, and I should give to myself first. I should Fill my cup first I should understand what I need first. Because that’s been an integrity it’s living in integrity with yourselves, and I think we sabotage and and minimize the importance of that in grief and when we tend to be people pleasers or we have no boundaries I mean there’s grief brings up everything that you need to heal within yourself.

Arielle Arbrushites  59:15
That’s what I was saying before lead by example you know, like you know, you’ve learned all these things with the self love and everything else like so there you go, you’re leading by example and I can lead by example if this is what we can do to make ourselves feel better and we’re teaching other people It seems very simple, but you know, we’re, we’re teaching other people we’re really doing it.

Victoria Volk  59:36
And on that note, is there anything else you would like to share?

Arielle Arbrushites  59:40
I don’t know the you know, I always joke with people that I am a an overshare You know, I’m not just to share I’m an oversharer and one of my physician friends once said to me, You know, there’s no such such thing as being an overshare as long as you are only sharing your own stories, you know, if you’re not sharing things about other people There’s really no such thing as over sharing. It’s just sharing. And I always think of that, um, but I’m an overshare. So, there will always be things that I have left to share. But today, I think we had an awesome conversation. And I feel like we shoved a lot into one hour, which was pretty cool. You can tell we’re both writers, like, I get the vibe, you know? So, But no, it’s it’s been a pleasure. I’m just very grateful that you know, you had invited me to be on the podcast, I think you’re doing amazing work. And I’m just so happy to be part of it.

Victoria Volk  1:00:35
Thank you, thank you so much for being here. And there is one final question. I didn’t ask directly that I like to end every podcast episode with sometimes I forget. But so, what brings you the most joy these days?

Arielle Arbrushites  1:00:50
I have to say, you know, besides the, the examples of my family, you know, my husband, my son, my beautiful bonus daughters, Jeff’s two daughters, my animals. Besides those things, it’s really still writing, it’s still writing with the intent to help other people. Because I feel like that is what gives me purpose. And having a purpose is very, very important to me. So, you know, my family, of course, gives me purpose, but writing to share to help to guide is so so very meaningful to me. So that gives me so much joy. You know, something as simple as being on Instagram and sharing different things with people that brings me joy. Blogging still brings me joy. Being on the podcast today, you know, brings me joy, writing books brings me joy. It’s kind of like breathing to me. It’s it’s self soothing. And it helps me connect with other people. You know, I’m a social worker. So, I like to connect with other people. And human connection is very important to me, and writing is how I do that first and foremost.

Victoria Volk  1:01:57
That’s beautiful, I can relate to much of that, I’m sure. Well, thank you so so much for being here. This was a jam-packed conversation. I absolutely loved it. So, thank you.

Arielle Arbrushites  1:02:12
Thank you.

Victoria Volk  1:02:13
All right. When you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.