Grief, Chronic Illness & Generational Healing With Natasha Trujillo, PH.D

Speaker 1:
0:02

Welcome to EndoBattery, where I share my journey with endometriosis and chronic illness, while learning and growing along the way. This podcast is not a substitute for medical advice, but a supportive space to provide community and valuable information so you never have to face this journey alone. We embrace a range of perspectives that may not always align with our own. Believing that open dialogue helps us grow and gain new tools always align with our own. Believing that open dialogue helps us grow and gain new tools. Join me as I share stories of strength, resilience and hope, from personal experiences to expert insights. I'm your host, alana, and this is EndoBattery charging our lives when endometriosis drains us. Welcome to EndoBattery. Grab your cup of coffee or your cup of tea and join me at the table. Today, we're joined at the table by our incredible guest, a powerhouse in the world of mental health, athletics and advocacy Dr Natasha Trujillo.

Speaker 1:
0:56

Dr Trujillo is a licensed counseling and sports psychologist whose work is transforming the way we understand mental health in high-performance spaces. With a doctorate from Purdue University and years of hands-on experience supporting collegiate athletes, she has dedicated her career to breaking down barriers, increasing access to care and destigmatizing mental health struggles in sports. Dr Trujillo has worked across multiple levels of care, from university counseling centers to intensive outpatient programs, helping athletes navigate everything from performance pressures to eating disorders. She's also a passionate advocate for equity and inclusion, ensuring mental health care is accessible to all. And, beyond her work in athletics, she specializes in grief, loss and self-injury, areas that deeply impact so many lives.

Speaker 1:
1:47

But Dr Trujillo isn't just a clinician she's also an author. Her book and she Was Never the Same Again takes readers on a journey through trauma, healing and transformation. It's a powerful exploration of resilience and I can't wait to dive into it with her today. So grab that cup of coffee or tea and let's welcome Dr Natasha Trujillo to the table. Thank you so much, dr Trujillo, for joining me today and sitting at the table with me. I am honored to have you here as my guest and boy. We have a lot to talk about. So thank you so much for joining me today. Thanks so much for having me.

Speaker 2:
2:22

Glad to be here.

Speaker 1:
2:25

Yeah, there's a lot of what you wrote in your book that I resonated with deeply and I think that your expertise and what you've gone through and what you've detailed in your book have really allowed me to see things differently. I started as I was listening to your book. I was starting to process a lot of what you were saying in my own life and I think it correlates a lot to those who live with chronic illness and grief and everything else that we go through. Can you explain a little bit about your book and who you are and what got you to this point in your career?

Speaker 2:
2:58

Yeah, I'll start with a little background. So I'm a counseling and sports psychologist. I have been, I'm currently in private practice. I've been in private practice for the last couple of years. I was lucky enough to get to train in a variety of settings. So I started out in residential treatment facilities without risk youth and then I kind of bounced around. I did a lot in university counseling centers. I worked in college athletics for several years, community mental health centers, inpatient, outpatient, worked at an eating disorder facility, so I've kind of been all over. And then of course I specialize working with athletes. I'm also a sports psychologist and so that has been incredible to really start to build my private practice around the passions and the interests that I have. It makes it feel a lot less like work.

Speaker 2:
3:40

And then on the clinical side of things, I specialize in grief and loss, eating disorders, trauma, perfectionism, anxiety and depressive disorders and then all things performance psych.

Speaker 2:
3:51

So that combination of things I think keeps me very busy and that a lot of that was what made me want to write the book.

Speaker 2:
4:00

So I guess a few years ago now I was experiencing my own grief, to be completely honest with you, and I was struggling and I don't feel like I was dealing with it very well, and that came with a lot of shame and a lot of guilt, because I'm a psychologist and I specialize in that, and so I just started to write, and the more I wrote, the more I was like you know.

Speaker 2:
4:27

I think this can actually be helpful for more than just me, and the way that you described what the book has done for you and how you've been able to kind of dig in and use my stories as a catalyst to look at your own life is exactly what I wanted readers to be able to take away to make some of these things that are more untalkable or feel untalkable and hard to look at in your own life and kind of start to process and work with it and have some different ideas and stepping stones to do your own work and integrate the losses in your own life a little bit more fully. It's kind of what got me here.

Speaker 1:
5:02

The thing that I loved about your book is that it wasn't just like a self-help book.

Speaker 1:
5:07

It was digging into your family history, it was digging into your past. It was digging into who you are and processing the things that you've gone through and what your family has gone through. And something that I really resonated with was the generational grief and coping, how it affected us generations down, and I didn't really put a lot of that together and, as someone who has experienced grief and loss very closely and seeing how that grief and loss has affected the way that I cope with my own grief and loss, is something that I felt like we need to talk about this more, because generational coping and generational grieving is still very much a thing, and I think that translates in how we deal with our chronic illnesses and our fight to find recognition in who we are as people who struggle with chronic illnesses and trauma and all that life throws at you. Can you just explain what that is a little bit, what that generational grief and coping looks like and what it is? Yeah, of course.

Speaker 2:
6:17

So my book is a little interesting in that it doesn't really fit nicely into any particular genre or box. Yeah, so I appreciate you saying that it definitely extends beyond a self-help book, because I yeah, I would actually say it is not a self-help book. Of course there's a lot of components that deeply make you think, but one of my biggest talking points with grief is that there is no how-to, and so self-help to me or how-to with grief, I think really undermines the complexity of it and the individuality of it, and so self-help to me or how to with grief, I think really undermines the complexity of it and the individuality of it, and so I felt like that was too narrow. But then the book really is not a memoir because there are entire chapters that are dedicated to people who have impacted me deeply, but I don't have anything to do with those stories. I wasn't even alive for some of those stories.

Speaker 2:
7:02

So I penned the book as a multi-generational memoir and, to be honest with you, I made that up because I've never heard or seen another book that's called a multi-generational memoir.

Speaker 2:
7:13

But I felt like that was so important because, again, when I was looking at you know why am I struggling with my grief so much, and how do I see the world and where does that come from?

Speaker 2:
7:22

I couldn't help but think about the people who have been the most impactful to me, and that is my family right, that is, close family members, close friends and how have they dealt with grief and how has our family collectively made sense of, or not made sense of, talked about or not talked about, some of the most difficult parts of life? And so I had to kind of go back and hash that out and pay attention to those things, because, even if I wasn't alive, the way that some of those events impacted you know, my parents, for example, vicariously impact me too, and so it gave me a lot more understanding and context, not just of my family members but also of me, and that's really important when we're trying to figure out what is important to us and why are we the way that we are and how do we cope right, what's going to be helpful for us to create a life that we can say we're satisfied with and proud of.

Speaker 1:
8:14

Well, and that's the thing is like looking back at that and looking at your story, how it translated to your own physical challenges, was like, oh okay, I see myself in this.

Speaker 1:
8:28

You, at a very young age, got very sick and you almost died and because of all the trauma from your parents past and how they dealt with that kind of put pressures on you moving forward in your own life, and so, if you guys haven't, I'm going to encourage everyone to go read this book and it's called and she was never the same again because I really truly made you look at how you deal with your own losses, and that could mean your physical losses, that could mean your loss of ability to do something you really want to do.

Speaker 1:
9:03

And this is especially prevalent with those of us in the chronic illness community, because there's many times that we have goals, dreams, ambitions and even a dream job that we can't do anymore because of our chronic illness. And the way that you coped with it which I thought many of us do is we tend to ignore it or we push it away until we can't anymore and then we find other coping mechanisms to not address what's really at the core of our grief, and that was something that hit me really hard as someone who tends to be a little bit more on the perfectionism state, who will always tell you when you ask how are you doing today, I'm great, you know, like that automatic response when you're not okay, and ignoring the pain, both psychologically, mentally, emotionally and physically, to just continue with what I think society tells us we need to continue with.

Speaker 1:
10:01

Do you want to tell us a little bit more about that and how that has impacted you and how others can help find healthy coping mechanisms for that?

Speaker 2:
10:11

Certainly. Yeah, I love that you just used the word grief and associated it with chronic illness, because I feel like oftentimes that doesn't happen, right. People only think that we grieve if somebody has died, right, and that is just simply not true. We grieve so many different types of things throughout life, and so I think it's incredibly important just to name that, and I've noticed in my clinical work, you know, when I help people understand that they are grieving non-death losses, it's incredible to see some light bulbs come on and to be able to give them different language and different perspectives, to really dig into what that loss looks like and to help them see both the gains and the losses and the different life experiences that we go through has been incredible.

Speaker 2:
10:54

So, of course, yeah to your point with my own experience with chronic illness and I detail this in the book but I had a flight for life when I was about two and a half and almost died, and from that point it was respiratory failure and I've had respiratory problems ever since.

Speaker 2:
11:09

So my whole life I've had some flavor of some sort of flare up right, just something kind of going on with my respiratory system or it's affected other systems, etc.

Speaker 2:
11:19

And so I think that is incredibly important, because even though I'm very stubborn and very perfectionistic and it's never stopped me from doing anything I still look at my life very differently.

Speaker 2:
11:29

And for a young person to have a chronic illness, I think that is also something quite unique, in that none of my friends you know they knew that I had issues breathing and they were very supportive, but they also didn't really get it. And so I think when you're exposed to chronic illness, you are experienced with the more existential things in life right, morality and you are forced to face them, maybe a little sooner than others might, and that changes your perspective. And there is both beautiful things in that, but there is also a lot of loss and a lot of grief in that too, and so one of my intentions is just to kind of draw light to that and make sure that people are able to kind of look at both and hold both at the same time, because that's what you'll find is typically these are both and situations, rather than either or, and that's why it was very important to me to have my book start with the word and right, and she was never the same.

Speaker 1:
12:26

I love that title, by the way. When we are thrown obstacles in life, we aren't the same, but to say, and she was never the same is. I don't know something about that title. I was like, yes, you get it. I was like it resonates with you when you've gone through experiences like this.

Speaker 1:
12:45

You know and for someone like me. I've gone through grief and losing someone, um a lot of people, and it, and this season particularly, is very hard for me to do that and what I noticed in these seasons is the way that I have grieved and carried and coped with those losses translates into how I grieve and cope and process my own personal chronic illness grief and it is not linear. It is very like up and down. It is very circular and times. You know, I was just talking to my husband about this the other day. I was like I love Christmas time, I love having my trees, but I decorating them is a trigger for me and then I start and right, Right.

Speaker 2:
13:29

Exactly, yeah, I love it. And, man, this is painful now. Exactly.

Speaker 1:
13:34

Absolutely, and then I also noticed the breakdown in my physical body and grieving that as well, and I think that a lot of us who deal with chronic illnesses, when we are dealing with grief beyond our chronic illness, our bodies respond and I don't know if you've seen this in your own practice or if you can expand on that with athletes even, or with the people that you've worked with. That tends to be for me, a trigger is like not dealing with or walking through grief Because, like I said, sometimes we don't deal with it well and sometimes we're just walking through it, but our bodies and other things respond to that.

Speaker 2:
14:12

In my opinion and what I've experienced, yeah, well, and that's a bi-directional relationship too, right? I definitely had people come to me who are grieving and they're like, oh my gosh, it feels like I'm having a heart attack, or you know. They'll describe these physical symptoms. It's, it can manifest physically and grief can intensify pre-existing, you know, physical or chronic conditions that you already have. So that's definitely a bi-directional relationship and, again, I don't think that gets talked about enough. So then you have a lot of people who feel very isolated and crazy, frankly, right, like something is really wrong with them, and all of these are components of grief. I love that.

Speaker 2:
14:51

Thank you for what you said about the title, the only two things that I knew when I decided to write the book.

Speaker 2:
14:56

I knew immediately what the title was going to be and what the last sentence of the book was going to be. Those were the two things that I was like, yes, I have those things down, but that was so intentional for me, partially because of the both and that I just mentioned. But again, I often have people come to me and they say I'm still and still is kind of a bad word in the grief world, if you will right I'm still grieving or I still don't feel back to normal or I'm still not myself, and I burst their bubble a lot of the time because I'm like, yeah, that's not a goal, that's not an expectation, this thing that is so significant being diagnosed with a chronic illness, for example, it is so significant You're not going to return to who you were before. And so I don't want to set people up to have those sorts of expectations or to feel like they're doing it wrong or they're behind or they're fundamentally flawed in some way because they haven't returned to this previous version. Well, that's expected.

Speaker 1:
15:59

Right, and for me, there's moments where I'm like I feel broken and I'm like I might be broken in some senses, but it's beautifully broken in the sense that I can still carry on most of the time. But that's not true for everyone, and that sense of brokenness and that sense of loss of who we thought we would be is so profound in this and in the other part of this too, and and you can even touch on this if you want but for me it's the constant next diagnosis, because for a lot of us within the endometriosis community and chronic illness community, we don't have just one chronic illness, we typically have multiple, and so it's like seeking out this pain, oh here's another pain I have to go chase, and here's. And so that grief behind and that anger and that frustration and just will I, that hopelessness at times, will I ever?

Speaker 1:
16:54

get out of this, will I ever not feel like I'm chasing the next thing? How do you help people cope with things like that?

Speaker 2:
17:02

Yes, absolutely Okay. So you've mentioned this a little bit, but if we draw this out a little bit more, I think one of the biggest reasons why people struggle so much with certain diagnoses or certain fixed things in their life is because of the avoidance and the resistance and the hesitation to accept that it is. And I want to be very careful in saying that working on acceptance doesn't mean that you have to like it or agree with it or prefer it. But there are certain things that are outside of our control and it is our job as people who have to cope, to figure out what is within our control and what is not. And so sometimes I think working on that relationship to minimize how much you avoid or, you know, reject, I think that can be really, really helpful in dealing with the ups and downs that come with chronic illness. So I can even use myself as an example.

Speaker 2:
17:55

When I was younger, I think I struggled so much because I was very avoidant, you know people would say, and I played sports right, and since I'd be struggling, you know having an asthma attack on the side, basically blue and my coaches were like, can you stop, get out of this drill? And I was like? Absolutely not. And looking back on that, some of that stubbornness and that refusal to accept ended up making things worse for me, right? Because I pushed when I shouldn't and I was not letting anyone help me. So I was isolating myself more and, you know, I had more shame because I was trying to control things that I couldn't. And so now you know, doing all this work of course my training has helped immensely with this.

Speaker 2:
18:37

But I think now I'm at this place where I history, you know I will always kind of be associated my nickname was Wheezy, like that will always kind of be part of who I am now, and the less I avoid that, the less that I resist that notion, the easier it is for me to cope too. So, on the acceptance front, you know it allows you to live more intentional and I think it allows you to be more present, focused, because I don't always know day to day how are my lungs going to be today? Am I going to have a hard day? Is something going to hurt? I don't always know that. I know how to deal with those days when I don't feel great and I know how to really embrace those days when I feel incredible, right. So I think that too just kind of allows you to not feel quite as chained down and certainly not as anxious and trying to anticipate and predict the future, because it doesn't. It doesn't actually help anything. You can worry all you want. It doesn't actually prevent or make anything better.

Speaker 1:
19:39

But as hard as we try to make it better and we do that, and I see that in myself. You know something you said in your book, and I'm probably paraphrasing this. You talked about hating your body for what it couldn't do often lied about the pain you were in and finding ways to punish your body without showing others that you were human.

Speaker 1:
19:59

And I, as someone who does that, still sometimes I have to catch myself, and something that is the hardest thing to do when you live with chronic illnesses and I think it's just being human, honestly, and because we're in the society that we are, we push things aside because we aren't expected to have grace for ourselves. Sometimes We'll say it, but then we don't follow through with having grace for ourselves and treating ourselves like human beings. And something that I've had to work on is, if I wouldn't expect others to work and fight through their extreme pain, why would I do that to myself? Why would I not treat myself with integrity? And that is something I have struggled with so much. But that part of the book I was like oh gosh, well, like that just hit me like a brick, because I still do that to this day sometimes.

Speaker 2:
20:49

Yes, one. You had mentioned perfectionism earlier, and I mean there's an entire chapter in the book about perfectionism, because I feel like there's so much grief and loss inherent in perfectionism and that's not often a connection that people make. But I think that adds to this too, because, as people who struggle with perfectionism, it's like OK, but I'm. That adds to this too, because as people who struggle with perfectionism, it's like okay, but I'm the exception. So, yeah, I can say all these things and everyone else should do this, but I have to figure out a different way, or I have to, you know, be successful without doing a, b, c and d, because that makes me more perfect, or I don't need x, y and z. So I think that can make it very, very complicated. And then again, that sense of what are we in control over and what are we not in control over, that can make the relationship that we have with ourselves very, very complex and very complicated.

Speaker 1:
21:36

And of course, grief is interwoven with all of that and anger, like I feel like there's a lot of anger sometimes towards myself, and it's how we process and cope with that anger that can make a difference too, because whether you acknowledge it or you walk through anger knowing that it's okay to be angry at your body at times or at the situation that you're in.

Speaker 1:
22:01

How do we get out of that? What is a healthy way for those of us who have that anger towards our body or towards the trauma that we've experienced because of what's going on in our body? How do we process and cope with that? What are some healthy ways to do that?

Speaker 2:
22:14

Yes, it is. Yes, it is Well. And I will also say I don't think we need to give anger a bad rap either. I think that's a very appropriate and adaptive emotion in this situation. Right, you have a chronic illness, you have something that takes you away from something that you really wanted to pursue, or shoot, you know you just have a bad day and your plans get changed. It's okay. It's okay to be angry. That is appropriate, that makes sense in that situation.

Speaker 2:
22:41

I often encourage people to go a little bit deeper too, just in terms of what is underneath some of that anger. The anger iceberg is one of my very favorite things to use in therapy. So, basically, you know, if you picture an iceberg, you have what you see. If you're standing on a boat and you're looking at the tip of the iceberg, that's what you see, and so oftentimes that is anger. And in our society, anger is often a more acceptable emotion than other more vulnerable emotions maybe, and so that's the tip, that's what you see. But we know that when you go under the surface and you really look at what's underneath, it's huge, right, yeah, and there's so many emotions in there.

Speaker 2:
23:19

So I often ask people what's under the tip of your iceberg, and when we think about anger, you know, in this situation, you wake up and all your plans get changed because you just don't feel well.

Speaker 2:
23:30

That's sadness, that is great, yeah, that is great. That is loss, that is fear, that is, you know, there's guilt possibly, even if it's not appropriate guilt necessarily, you still might feel it because you have to change plans A, b and C, and so I think that's another strategy that I really want people to consider is what is underneath some of that anger? I think some self-reflection too. Are you handling that anger in a way that you feel is adaptive and healthy for you? There's so many different outlets, and who am I or anyone else to say what's right and what's wrong, but just being able to self-reflect and figure out, am I handling this in a way that works for me? And if I'm not, what do I want to do with that? So, I think, being willing to ask yourself hard questions and if you're recognizing that you need to do some work and figure something out, take those risks?

Speaker 1:
24:25

How do people I mean, we've all walked through trauma and a lot of us have dealt with medical trauma what are some signs of on dealt with medical trauma? Because I know that for me I didn't realize I was walking through medical trauma until years later. But I look back and I see those those little inklings of like that was medical trauma. That was me not realizing that because of this past experience in healthcare I responded this way or I avoided going to the doctor this time when I should have gone because of past experiences. That's how I dealt with it and that's how I noticed it. But what are things that you see? Maybe some patients that come in that have maybe some medical trauma ways that they kind of avoid and that they need to maybe address it.

Speaker 2:
25:16

Totally. Yeah. It's so funny too, because so earlier I said I like that we're using this word grief being associated with things that are not just death, right, Right, we do. We have to give people language and context and allow them to think about these ideas through different perspectives and vantage points, and what you just said reminded me. So I was getting my master's degree and I had an incredible supervisor. She was so wonderful and we were talking a little bit about my medical history and I had never called it trauma. I didn't see it that way. It was just like, yeah, this is just something I went through and something I continue to go through and it is what it is Right. And she used the word trauma and I was honestly offended. I was like, no, I've never been through any trauma. What? No, no, and I will never forget that reaction. I was kind of angry with her and she was like, ok, so tell me how. This isn't trauma. It's like okay. So again, for giving me that language and giving me that perspective and that vantage point was amazing, and so part of how I would answer this question is give yourself permission to explore and to kind of consider it From a trauma lens.

Speaker 2:
26:30

I often think about avoidance.

Speaker 2:
26:32

How much does an experience that you have had in your life make you hesitate or make you push things aside or make you fearful of things in a way where you know you'll take a route that's a little longer, yeah, or you'll do something to truly not have to confront something.

Speaker 2:
26:49

And I think that awareness is oftentimes something where it's like, yeah, there's something here. I also think another huge sign is just intrusive thoughts. You know, how often do you as much as you want to push it aside does it always seem to find its way back. So I'll see this a lot, with people who will tell me I just think about a flare up happening all the time and I can't stop thinking about. You know what this doctor said to me, or what this doctor didn't say to me, or you know this experience in the lab or when I was getting imaging, or whatever it may be. So I think that those intrusive thoughts that come up when you're not expecting it, when they aren't wanted, and if you have a really hard time pushing some of that away, we're working through it. Let's say, probably not pushing things away, but working through it. That is also a huge indication.

Speaker 1:
27:38

I push it away. Sometimes that's future Alana problems, and then it gets to future. Alana and I'm like, I don't like pastelana right now.

Speaker 2:
27:46

Yes, yes, one. It's interesting Again, this is a both and for me, because there are times where we do we do have to push it aside, right, like we have our responsibility or we have something where it's like this is just not the time. So I do think there's a time and a place for some compartmentalization and knowing when we can turn that volume up and deal with it or when we need to turn it down. But I think chronic avoidance, chronic pushing away, certainly leads to more distress over time.

Speaker 1:
28:16

Absolutely. Yeah, it does, and I've experienced that. Something that you talk a lot about in your book is your family and the experiences that you've had. They've had, therefore, you've had. We've kind of talked about this a little bit.

Speaker 1:
28:30

But when those of us in the chronic illness community are walking through some real challenges and we have family members that don't understand it or they deal with it differently, how can that affect us? Because that to me, you know, we talk about grief and we talk about how different generations handle things. For instance, a lot of generations before ours didn't talk about their periods. They didn't talk about their hysterectomies or their pain, so we didn't even have some of that family history. But then when we had it, it was normalized to have painful periods. It was normalized to just push through, or you're being lazy, get up, push through. I think there's a lot of this that we deal with and you talk a lot about this in your book. Can you kind of walk us through that a little bit, because I mean, gosh, that one was huge for me to acknowledge that because of my parents' generation and grandparents' generation and what their grief and how they've processed is how they kind of treated me in mine.

Speaker 2:
29:34

Yes, yeah, so there's a few different chapters throughout the book that address these kinds of things, and I just felt like this was so important to point out because, yes, I have my experience with respiratory issues, but I also thought it was important to look at some of the family members who I've been closest to, who have struggled with their own chronic illnesses some still alive and some who have died and so being able to look at. I have a huge family. There's a lot of moving pieces, so I'm going to look at some of the family members who have, and because of that and because of my experiences with loss throughout my life, that was always something that drew me truly, that drew me to my field and drew me to my study. You know, it kind of makes sense that I've fallen into these things, because everyone does breathe differently. Again, similarly, that's why I wanted to write a book that was not a how-to Right, because what works for you is probably not going to work for me, is probably probably not going to work for any of the people listening to this, and there might be similarities, of course, but it's definitely not a one-size-fits-all and that can be really challenging, and I speak to this, for example, in the chapters where I talk about my grandma dying, there were even times where I have this knowledge and I have this insight, but in my head my grandpa wasn't handling her death the way that I wanted him to, and first of all, that's not my call, right, but he seemingly was just so okay and that bothered me.

Speaker 2:
30:59

I wanted to see more, and I don't really know why, but that was not my place, and so I really had to figure out.

Speaker 2:
31:05

You know, what he's doing is do, even if I don't agree with it or don't get it. You know, again, how can I accept that, even if it's not what I would prefer? And so I think, anytime you're dealing with some sort of loss and it's affecting more than just one person, those are really things to consider. And so I try to document that and I try to kind of send a message and give you different perspectives, to see how do individual needs start to compete with other people's individual needs, and then what are collective needs? And again, this is so complex and so messy, but that's kind of exactly the point of addressing it and talking about it is, yes, there is no straight answer, but being self-aware and being other aware and being able to communicate and have discussions about some of these things that are really challenging and, quote unquote, untalkable. I think that is what allows us to figure out how to hang on and move through the choppy waters.

Speaker 1:
32:16

You know, one of the biggest fears that I have as someone that has kids and I have a chronic illness and they see me walk through the pain. I mean I'm even hearing my daughters recently cause I've had so many pain flares with my jaw and everything and they're like mom, your jaw is always hurting. I'm like I know, I don't, I don't, I can't fix it. I was like I I'm going to try to continue showing up and I'm going to, you know, but one of my biggest fears is the impact that this is having on them and I think, as someone with chronic illnesses, it's like so many of us have this fear and a lot of people choose not to have kids because they don't want to put their kids through this.

Speaker 1:
32:57

And that's valid and that is reasonable and and I understand that because it is hard to be cognizant of am I doing something to affect my child negatively in remembering the way that I have coped with this disease and how do we address this? Like I feel like this is something that we don't hardly ever talk about.

Speaker 2:
33:19

Yes, I mean my gut instinct. Hearing you say that is to make sure that you're not putting misplaced pressure on yourself. You don't have all the answers right, that's okay. I also think about using, I guess, extreme words in the language. So, for example, you know, you said, mom, your jaw is always hurting.

Speaker 2:
33:39

There are moments where it isn't, and I think that those sorts of ideas or messages are really important to pick up on and to spread my grandma again. This is covered heavily in the book, but my grandma pride and she was so good about, you know, like today the pain's only a two and usually it's a set like she was just so good at holding that both in the end and seeing both the gains and the losses at the same time in a way that I don't think I'll ever be that good at it. She was just amazing, absolutely incredible at that. So I think that's important too is just to kind of pull yourself back from that Never, always, or just sort of those extreme ends of any spectrum and try to find your way in the gray.

Speaker 2:
34:33

And I also think too, sometimes I'll chat with parents who want to shield their kids from everything or they don't want to express certain emotions around their kids, and I'm a firm believer that you still have to teach them how to deal with pain. You still have to teach them how to deal with grief and with loss. And that's one thing I commend my parents over and over and over for is they never shield? They were developmentally appropriate with me, right, but they never shielded me and they tried to teach me Right. So when I was at my first funeral, you know they tried to help me understand to the best of my ability as a 10 year old what was going on, and that was critical, because I want to know, you know, how do you deal with sadness, how do you deal with anger, because if I can see that done adaptively when I'm a child for people around me, that helps me figure out how I'm going to self-regulate too.

Speaker 1:
35:25

That's something that, you know, my husband and I have been very intentional about with our girls, and something that I think we need to reflect on ourselves sometimes. Better is that it's okay to talk through your grieving. It's okay to express your grieving in different ways. I lost my brother when I was 10 years old and he was 15. He died suddenly, and so for me, I've had to see my parents grieve and I've had to walk through grief as a young child, and I think when you have both perspectives of that, it really highlights the need to not stay in a space of loathing grief but accepting that it's okay to walk through it and that it's going to be hard sometimes, and sometimes you won't even know you're grieving. Sometimes it's just kind of it's there you know and.

Speaker 1:
36:19

I've experienced that in both you know, losing someone and in my chronic illnesses, because they kind of mirror each other in a lot of ways walking through and being okay with, okay, my body is not serving me well right now, but tomorrow is another day. Like the sun is going to come out tomorrow Annie said it best, like you know, but I've, I've really experienced that and I do think that there is and I'm not perfect at it and I always am still working at this but like I think there's moments of myself being like I'm accepting of this and then moments where I'm not and I can tell a difference in the way that I process life and how I manage walking through life.

Speaker 2:
37:00

Oh, yes, yeah, and again, I think that is okay. This stuff is really hard. So you know I said earlier, take some of that pressure off of yourself. I'd also encourage the same thing Show yourself a little bit of compassion If there's moments where you are just really angry or really sad or feel really powerless. That all sounds like very appropriate and normal reactions to some of what people who chronic illness live with and go through.

Speaker 1:
37:25

Yeah.

Speaker 2:
37:26

So please practice, you know, some kindness and some compassion along the way Again. Even being able to demonstrate that to your kids, that's huge.

Speaker 1:
37:35

Yeah, and it's hard, you know, there are moments where they're driving me nuts and I'm in pain and I'm like I want to have outbursts, Like I have to remind myself that this is not their fault, Like this is no one's fault and and they deserve the same amount of grace and I deserve the same amount of grace, you know, and and that's really hard, Although I did find the other day there's this place in Greeley here in Colorado, that they have rage rooms and I'm like this is amazing for chronic illness communities. We need they have rage rooms and I'm like this is amazing for chronic illness communities. We need to have rage rooms everywhere. We just break things, we just rip paintings, you know, because wouldn't that that's like a good, healthy way of letting it all out sometimes. So if you have a rage room near you, I highly encourage you to seek it out.

Speaker 2:
38:22

Yes, yes, and again, I you know I love that because we don't want to demonize anger. I think that anger oftentimes serves a very important function and of course, too much of any emotion can be problematic. So you know you want to check that too. But it doesn't need to be demonized. And neither does grief right, neither does grief.

Speaker 2:
38:43

Grief and this is a huge part of my book that I refer to in so many different areas, but this concept of gains and losses is just huge to me and I think about grief in many ways as a companion, right like it is. It is unwanted, it is not a companion that I would actively invite into my home, but once it is there, it is there and yes, it it. That connection or that companionship changes shape, it looks different over time, but it is there. And I think when you can just kind of integrate that into your life and know that it is there, sometimes it will be more present than others. I do. I think that allows you just to kind of see both sides.

Speaker 2:
39:19

I think about the death of my grandma and I will never, I have accepted that. I understand, right that she is dead. I don't like that. I'm never going to like that. I'm never going to prefer or want that. But I also recognize that that relationship that I have with grief now and how intensely I feel that at times, that's also really beautiful, as painful as it is to say, because it speaks to how deep my relationship was with her.

Speaker 2:
39:45

Yeah, and how much meant to me. Yeah, I wouldn't feel that deeply right, I would not feel so broken at times, had I not loved her to the extent that I did and do, and so, similarly with chronic illness right, even when you're kind of functionality of your body or missed opportunities. Part of that is also beautiful, because it's like wow, look at these aspirations, look at these goals, and then your task is how can I still have some of that? You know, how do I? What are my accommodations? What can I still do with that too, even if I have to change course a little bit to still live as close to the life that I can or that I would?

Speaker 1:
40:26

Right, yeah, I mean, I feel like that's something that we oftentimes face, and I mean there's so many other elements of especially endometriosis that we could always go into, but I think that's a huge part of it. What are some practical ways people can balance the need for self-compassion with the responsibilities they feel they can't escape, because they sometimes don't align?

Speaker 2:
40:51

Yeah, yeah, definitely, I mean really the first thing that comes. I guess a couple of things that come to mind. One is the accepted piece that we've been talking about. I think that's a big theme.

Speaker 2:
41:00

I also think too about mindfulness and the temporary nature or kind of the fleeting nature of all of our emotions, good ones and bad ones.

Speaker 2:
41:10

So I think kind of pulling yourself again away from that extreme and I think about this too, when I have a really challenging grief day, for whatever reason, I know this logically, you know, even in a few hours I might feel differently, even in a tomorrow I might feel differently. Even in a tomorrow I might feel differently. So I think kind of recognizing that a lot of that is leading and then to kind of zoom out and see big picture. Because, again, when we're in those moments it's it can be really hard to have self compassion because it just feels like we're in this endless abyss, right, and so I think kind of zooming out and seeing big picture as well can be really helpful. What parts of the story are you not telling yourself or not paying attention to? What details are you maybe getting too fixated on in a way that doesn't paint the full picture? I think some of those cognitive strategies can be quite helpful too.

Speaker 1:
42:00

Yeah, absolutely. I'm like this is making me think through it, so it's fine, I'll deal with this in just a minute. How can we redefine success and accomplishment in a way that honors our limitations of physical and our emotional selves?

Speaker 2:
42:26

and I speak to this at several points in the book but giving myself permission and working to be a more flexible person. As an incredibly high achiever and a perfectionist, I would say I was pretty high in the rigidity scale Growing up. I wanted things to be done just one way and there was only one right way and all of that good stuff. And so I think, flexibility, giving yourself permission to change your own mind, giving yourself permission to reshape your goals I talk about this a lot with athletes. I have worked with several athletes who have career-ending injuries and it's like nope, my sport is my life. What do I do after this? So the more ability you have to be flexible and to kind of redefine things and give yourself permission to redefine things, redefine your values, redefine concepts, like I think about mental toughness and what do we do if we can look at that a little differently and redefine it? You know how does that open up new opportunities for us. So I think those are those are the things that are top of mind for me.

Speaker 1:
43:19

Yeah, yeah, Grace, and I do. I have to say for me one thing I'll and I say this in almost every episode loss of myself at times is finding people who can help bring me back and encourage me and help me and grieve with me. That's been really key too.

Speaker 2:
43:55

Just to be, yeah, just to be right. Oftentimes people don't need to do anything and with grief, oftentimes they can't do anything that's really going to make you feel better. But just being alongside because loss is just so lonely and so isolating and, yeah, I couldn't agree more when you have a couple of people who can be with you in it, even if they're not doing anything, that is in and of itself an intervention. They are doing something just like being alongside you. Yeah, that's huge. Yeah, that's huge. White, making the untalkable things more talkable again. That's one of the huge reasons why I wrote this book is to kind of shed some light on some of the things that people do shy away from and just help them understand. You know, there's really, there's really some some game. There's a lot of games to be taken from addressing some of these things. That doesn't mean it's not hard, but it's certainly worth it.

Speaker 1:
44:48

Absolutely. Thank you so much, dr Trujillo, for sharing your insights and your expertise. Your book and she Was Never the Same Again is a powerful reminder that the interconnectedness of grief and trauma and resilience, and how much we can stand to gain by exploring these deeply human experiences, are impactful, and so thank you for, first of all, writing the book, but secondly, for joining me today at the table and just sharing your vulnerability with us and your insights, because I'm going to need more of those probably Absolutely.

Speaker 2:
45:21

I appreciate you having me here and letting me join your community and, yeah, this has been wonderful.

Speaker 1:
45:28

So, thank you and until next time. Everyone continue advocating for you and for those that you love.