Anonymous #44 — What Do You Lose When You Carry Other People's Pain?

Content note: this episode centers on suicide loss, discussed directly. If that's not something you're in a place for today, it's okay to sit this one out.

Our caller found their housemate in the home they shared, staged in a way that made sure they'd be the one to find him. He'd also been their romantic partner at one point, and one of their closest friends. The application that got them on this call was written about a month shy of the one-year mark.

They used to believe in ghosts, built on a childhood theory that energy can't be created or destroyed, so it has to go somewhere. Standing alone in that house afterward, they gave it every chance to prove them right. Nothing came, and that absence is what moved them somewhere new.

In the days after, they became the one holding the certainty for everyone else. Friends kept saying it wasn't sinking in, that they couldn't believe it. And our caller, having seen it themselves, became the person other people leaned on to say it was real. A recurring dream followed: finding him alive again, undone each time by a conspiracy where everyone who loved them had lied to punish them. Even inside the dream, the relief of him being alive outweighed the betrayal. In the years since, part of that dream became true in its own way. Not him coming back, but the blame that landed on them anyway.

In this conversation:

• A childhood theory about ghosts built on thermodynamics and energy
• Losing a friend to suicide in middle school, and an aunt's suicide years later
• Becoming the one holding the certainty for a friend group that couldn't accept what happened
• A PTSD diagnosis and a recurring dream about a faked death
• Losing a shared friend group after the loss, and where the blame landed
• A missing stretch of memory that swallowed a birthday
• Avoidance, discomfort, and getting through a worst-case scenario that actually happened

Book recommendation: The Death of Jane Lawrence by Caitlin Starling (see the full list of Anonymous Book Recommendations here)

Video Episode: If you'd like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube.

About When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.

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Want to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

Transcript

The Worst Case Scenario Arrives

SPEAKER_01 0:00

There were days where I thought, God, one day, what happens if I wake up and he is dead? And that's something that I thought about previously. And that was this kind of worst case scenario. And then it happened. And I've lived through this kind of what was my worst case scenario. And I'm still here. And anytime things get really bad now, I'm like, it could be much worse. It has been much worse. And yet, somehow, some way, I made it through that discomfort and really bad emotional point to this point where it's rough, but it's not so bad.

SPEAKER_02 0:36

It all starts with a single question asked to an anonymous caller. What do you think happens when we die? And from there, the conversation goes in completely unexpected directions. Some speak with certainty, others with doubt, some are still trying to make sense of it all. I'm Zach Ansel, and this is When We Die Talks, a podcast about death, meaning, and how that shapes the way we live. This podcast was born from my own fears around death and the need to talk about. Thank you for being a part of this conversation. I'm glad you're here.

What We Die Talks Is

SPEAKER_02 1:08

Hey, welcome back or welcome here if this is your first time. Our caller this week used to have a recurring dream. They'd be somewhere ordinary, a grocery store, a restaurant, and they'd look up, and the person they'd lost would just be standing there, alive. And every time it turned out everyone lied. Friends, parents, everyone our collar ever trusted, all of it staged to convince them that they were a bad person. And every time, just seeing this person alive again outweighed all of that. That person they lost was their housemate, their partner at one point, and also one of their closest friends. They died in the house that they shared, and our collar was the one that found them. And that dream in a really strange way kind of became a reality. It wasn't just some late night thought of would you rather have everyone you love turn against you or have the person you love never come back. I think most of us would choose to save the person we love, but unfortunately that's not a choice we get, and certainly not one that our collar got either. Just as a bit of a warning, this one deals with suicide loss directly. Take care of yourself with it and skip today if you're not in the right headspace for it. Let's get into the call. I

Meeting The Caller And The Loss

SPEAKER_02 2:09

hope you enjoy. Hello? Hey, how's it going? It's going good. How are you doing? I'm doing okay. I'm dealing with a little bit of a maybe like a chronic injury. Maybe that's the best way of saying it. And so just acting up this morning. So not too pumped about that, but I am excited to be on the phone with you.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

I'm sorry about that. That's that's rough.

SPEAKER_02 2:30

That's life sometimes, right? Yeah. Well, again, thank you so much for being willing to do this, for being willing to jump on the phone and talk to a complete stranger. I was very intrigued by your application and excited for the conversation that we're gonna have. Maybe just briefly you could let me know why you wanted to do this conversation. We'll obviously get into a lot of topics around death and dying and these things, but I like to get just kind of a rough idea. And I think a lot of this is for the listeners to have maybe a little bit of an idea of the application and not saying that you need to remember what you wrote or anything like that, but maybe just to get a little bit of an idea about you, why you wanted to do this, and then we'll go from there.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

Yeah, I I won't lie, I don't remember everything that I put into that application at this point. Totally. But I know that I had applied not too terribly long after a loss that I had completely shook my world. My housemate's recent kind of ex-romantic partner and a really good friend of mine took his life in the house that we shared together and staged something that he wanted me to come across.

SPEAKER_03 3:44

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 3:44

Um, and it really just changed a lot of my thinking about kind of death and the like idea of like being left behind in that way. And it was not like divine intervention, but seeing your podcast at that time and listening to a few of the episodes, I was like, wow, no, I really I love this. Oh, awesome.

SPEAKER_02 4:08

It very much seems like when you applied, it was very topical to what was going on. And usually I don't ask more questions here. Usually we get to know you a little bit and we'll still do that. But I am curious because I did influence your answer a little bit by saying letting the audience know your application a little bit. And so maybe the the other part of that question that I'll ask you, is there anything else that's come up? We don't exactly know when the application happened or whatnot, but is there anything else that's coming up maybe now? Is there anything that's live now around this topic, or is it still just in in that same theme? And like I said, there doesn't need to be more, but I just wanted to check all the bases. Maybe there's some new information that I can ask more questions about later.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

More than anything, I think it's still that. But now it's not as fresh, which I think would not have probably been the best. I would have had very emotionally like wrought kind of answers, and I probably would have regretted things that I said then because emotions are really high at that point. But now having gone through and talked to multiple like mental health professionals and really processing every thought I had about it, it's nice to come into it now with I think a much more stable and a like grounded up idea of it.

SPEAKER_02 5:29

I love that. And I don't know, sometimes this feels so woo-woo to say and stuff, but I don't know. Sometimes it does feel like these just happen when they're supposed to happen, whether it is the random luck of the draw or like sometimes stuff comes up in my life and I have to reschedule and whatnot. And then I get on the phone with someone and it's oh, if we would have had this conversation two months ago, I wouldn't have read that thing a week ago that perfectly applies to what we're talking about. So maybe too woo-woo, but I don't know. We're speaking at the right time and I am excited to chat more about it. I don't want to necessarily say feeling better, but maybe feeling more, maybe more clarity around the situation and not necessarily because yeah, emotions can pull us a lot of different directions. I'm I yeah, I don't want to say I'm glad that you're feeling better because that feels like a the wrong statement. I'm glad that you have more clarity around it. I'm excited for us to talk about it, even though it it always feels a little awkward to say that, that I'm excited to talk to you about this this really difficult thing. But I'm just really excited to hear your story and talk to another human and connect. But before we do that, and I guess we'll still be doing that, but maybe we can get to know you a little bit. Obviously, we're keeping the anonymity and everything so you feel comfortable saying what you want to say. And so the couple questions I like to ask are where do you live now, like state, and where did you grow up state again? Just to get an idea of maybe where your ideas were formed around this topic. And then the second kind of question is what's your favorite book and why?

SPEAKER_01 6:58

So born and raised in and around about the same kind of central Texas area, okay. But a lot of my family is from the Midwest. So I think a lot of that kind of ideals also ties into that a lot. My favorite book, it jumps around, but one that I read last year that I was obsessed with and would tell anybody that would listen was a book called The Death of Jane Lawrence. Okay. Which is very I had a really interesting kind of magic system. It was like a standalone kind of gothic fantasy book. Really cool ideas about how science and math are magic.

SPEAKER_02 7:44

Oh, interesting. That's cool. I'm excited to add yours to the list. And uh yeah, I haven't heard of that one, so I'm excited to look at it a little bit deeper and then probably add it to my reading list, which is a problem. It's there's too many books on there, but you will never be bored. Yeah, and I know, and the other one is I know I'm never gonna get through it. Even though I'm reading quite rapidly, it's like I just cannot keep up with the pace of how many books are coming in versus how many books I'm actually reading. But yeah, thank you for that. I'm excited to check it out. And

Ghosts, Energy, And Changing Beliefs

SPEAKER_02 8:16

now we can get into the heart of the conversation and start with the question of what do you think happens when we die?

SPEAKER_01 8:23

I used to have a different idea. Genuinely, I think before I was very much more on the ghosts train. Okay, there's something that I heard young. I think it applies to like a science, maybe like thermodynamics, that like energy is never created or destroyed in the universe. And I took that and I ran with it. I said, okay, so when people die, their energy makes a ghost. And ghosts have to be real because there's nowhere else for the energy to go. And that was like, I was a whole hard believer, I wanted to see a ghost so so so bad. But I don't know, I don't think that relates as much anymore.

SPEAKER_02 9:14

And when do you feel like that kind of shifted for you?

SPEAKER_01 9:18

I think that was after not immediately, but I think it was in with the weeks following my housemate's death. I think that's a moment I thought about it. I don't know. The there was a lot of strangeness in the house surrounding that and following that because the the landlord of the house was his dad. There was a lot of tumultuous feelings all coming up all at once. And so we had to leave the house really quickly. And so he was like, Listen, I'm not gonna be horrible about it, but you have to get out by this certain time. So I'm rushing around the house and all this kind of stuff. But I'll tell you, I wanted more than anything for there to be like a presence. And when I was alone in the house and I'm packing myself up, I'm waiting and I'm talking, and even like low-key just praying for some kind of sign, some anything, of object moving, some sound, like a feeling, absolutely anything, and I didn't feel anything at all. And so I started to think about it like overnight, and when I was ruminating on everything, I realized it was cool to be wishing and hoping for that. And that's what I think changed a little bit about how I imagine the kind of energy and like wishing and hoping that ghosts were real in the way that I guess the kind of cultural site geist I grew up in made them. I think that I've landed in that camp now that it would be somewhat cruel for ghosts to exist.

SPEAKER_02 11:01

Yeah, just to be stuck here on this plane. Yeah. And to be able to be able to witness and see, but not necessarily interact. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Okay, that makes a lot of sense. And then so where did you end up after? You know, what I don't even I can't remember exactly the slight phrasing that you used, but it was like used to believe or whatever. And so now where did you land on kind of your beliefs on what happened?

SPEAKER_01 11:31

I think I I still hold on to the energy ideas. I think that, and I hope that when we die, that energy goes somewhere else. And I'm choosing now to believe that I think wherever that person maybe most wanted to go, because some people really genuinely believe in reincarnation and they want to just immediately start over with no time in between. So if they want to immediately have their energy rush into a newborn the second that their heart stops, I think they should have that ability. And some people swear by being an animal and like visiting their loved ones like that. I like that. Some people really like that. So we're I think wherever people want it to go, that's where it should.

SPEAKER_02 12:18

I like the idea of there being a choice. And I think that aligns with some other things that I've heard from some people who have called in before and talked about like NDEs and stuff. It very much felt like there was this kind of connective thread of like the kind of state of being that you were in contributed to it. And that was kind of me maybe putting some puzzle pieces together. But I do like this idea of getting some sort of choice and it not just all being I don't know, not not necessarily predetermined or like but yeah, that that you learn something here about what you want and whatnot, and then that you get to apply that and use that on the the next phase of things, I guess.

A Life Marked By Suicide Loss

SPEAKER_02 13:05

And so there's a lot of questions here. I guess maybe just starting in the territory of what have your feelings around death been your entire life? Was it something that is it something that you thought about? Is it something that you've been scared of? Was this kind of loss of and I tried to write them all down because in your application and not like holding people to what they wrote down on a a two-sentence application or whatever? But you said your housemate, but then when you're talking about it, it was like your housemate, but it was a former romantic partner. Like this was there was a deep connection here. Did that kind of send you on thinking about death more? It sounds like you were thinking about death and ghosts as a kid and stuff. So I'm curious about like what your relationship to death has been more of your entire life.

SPEAKER_01 13:55

I think that this loss, I think, was the closest. I don't want to say I haven't been close with other people, but I think that this was the most intimate look I've gotten at it. But I've had a a somewhat close history with it for some time. Um, I've any kid has family pets die, and I know that when like childhood dogs would get old, there was a like kind of anxiety of like just waiting for the shoe to drop. I'm like waiting for the day that I'm sad. Yeah. And then once that day happens, we move on from that. But in middle school, a close friend of mine took his life, and I was on the outskirts of that because I don't think that I was really fully understanding of it until afterwards, like maybe years afterwards, that was a complete cessation of a person.

SPEAKER_02 14:56

Yeah. That's a hard thing to I think that's a hard thing to grasp any time of life, but especially when you're a teenager and or a kid, you know, anytime at that point in life, it's it has to be very strange to just put those two things together and be like, oh yeah, these like we know it, but to actually feel it and see it and all those things, yeah, it's gotta be very strange.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

Right. Like the idea of trying to grasp forever or like infinity as a concept, because for the rest of my life is forever to my brain.

SPEAKER_03 15:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

Because I don't know how long it'll be, but that person won't be there for forever. So it's really hard to it's like fans going through your fingers trying to picture it. Yeah. But you really can't.

SPEAKER_02 15:49

And so then from there, from middle school, where there are other kinds of instances and in general, how are you feeling about death at this point in your life? Is it still that like strangeness of trying to comprehend infinity, eternity, like all these things, nothing? Is there like fear surrounding this, or are you still just trying to understand?

SPEAKER_01 16:10

Not angry. I'm not currently angry, but I associate anger with death a lot because I remember when this friend of mine, when I was a kid, died. I was pretty sad, but I remember my mom was furious. And I didn't understand that when I was young, I was baffled because she was so mad that he would hurt his single mother in that way. And I didn't understand why. How could she be so mad at this person? Yeah, he was really upset. She led to this, but then years later, my aunt, my mother's sister, took her life. I understood that anger.

SPEAKER_03 16:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 16:56

Because seeing how upset my mom was, I went, oh, she was so angry on this person's behalf because they can't feel anything but sadness, but they are angry, I think, deep down.

SPEAKER_02 17:12

Yeah, and the other thing that is really clear as you're talking about your story and your experiences, your exposure to death has been multiple times through people who have taken their own lives. And so that's a different category of things. And I don't say that in a sense of I never want it to sound like I'm comparing uh types of deaths and like where they rank, or it's not it's nothing like that, but it's a different, it's a different kind of thing because it is like in the same category of like sudden death, but it's just it's different. And so you've been exposed to that a lot, which is a whole different animal, and I'm sure a whole different beast dealing with the grief around that and just and the things that you're talking about with your housemate. I think you said this too as we were talking, but this is from your application. It's like they staged a clean. And so you've definitely had a very different exposure to death than I guess one that a lot of people picture death to look like, right? Because we already don't like to talk about death, but we really don't like to talk about suicide. Like that is it's even it's like taboo of the taboo topic. And I think that's why it's important that we do talk about it, because it it gets hidden. And I think that just it isolates it, it makes it more scary in a way. I don't know. I don't exactly know the right words for it, but and I don't know if I've even asked you a real question here, but it is very interesting that this has been your exposure to death.

SPEAKER_01 18:52

Yeah, and that's something that I brought up in in therapy before because every subsequent time I've been seeing the same kind of talk counselor for years, and one of the things that she had mentioned is that she was like, You're you're fairly young. She's like, You're in your twenties. To have seen a lot of deaths isn't uncommon, but the amount of suicide is really uncommon. And she was like, There's a a statistic about people who lose people that are close to them to suicide, and then the kind of comorbidness of their own ideation. She was like, I it's compounding. She's I'm not saying I'm surprised you're still here, but I'm glad.

SPEAKER_03 19:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

And I was talking to her about it, and I was like, now that I've seen it from this other side and felt so, so, so bad, basically being left with the aftermath, that's not something, even in the worst depth of how, oh, everything's really bad in my life, nothing will top that. I don't think I could knowingly inflict that onto a person. Yeah. And I'm not saying that people that do are bad, but with the amount, I it's just not something that I think could override anything.

SPEAKER_02 20:13

Yeah. Using the same, I don't want to say logic, but the kind of what we were talking about when you lost your friend in middle school, and you're like, yeah, it's just really hard to comprehend. And it took me years to figure it out. I'm sure there's a lot of those similarities with finding someone in this situation, right? Where it's seeing someone, like how many, I don't know, like death has become pushed behind behind closed doors, like even in funerals and stuff. I guess we cremate a lot of people now. So you don't even see people when they've died or passed. And so I'm sure that had to be also one of those things where it's like almost like the wires in your brain aren't quite like connected to like the right spots, and it's wait. This can't, this I can't comprehend that there's not a life here anymore.

Finding The Body And Unexpected Clarity

SPEAKER_01 21:07

I'll I'll tell you something really strange though. That's genuinely what I thought. That's how like seeing a body would be up until that point. I was in a forensics class, I'd seen pictures and like crime scenes and stuff, but like being in a place with that, I thought I was gonna just break down and it was all gonna hit me and everything. But the weirdest thing was losing people previously to suicide and not seeing it. My brain would give the worst possible outcome. He had hung himself. So for a while, I was having horrible ideas of the minutiae of what it would have looked like.

SPEAKER_02 21:56

Yeah, your imagination just can run a w run wild with it. Yeah, I get what you're saying.

SPEAKER_01 22:01

Exactly. But being in the house and walking in to check on him and seeing this for some reason it felt like it made it easier for my brain to click that he is gone. It made it way easier. A lot of our mutual friends consistently were having kind of moments where they were saying, I can't believe it. Like I'm it's not sinking in. I keep thinking otherwise. And I have to tell myself. But it was also strange kind of to be the like vector of comfort for that. Because I was saying I was there, I saw it, and remarkably enough, it was somewhat peaceful. That it looked like he just laid down on the floor and gone to sleep. There it wasn't a a big to-do, which I feel lucky for both he and I. But I think that brought a lot of comfort to people that also knew him.

SPEAKER_02 23:07

That's a really interesting point. And it and I think we used this this word earlier, but like that clarity. Like it it provided some clarity because you're like, yeah, there's not any sort of mystery here that this is some really fucked up joke, some really cruel joke, and they're not gone. They just ran away. And I'm not saying that's necessarily what your friends were doing or whatever, but because your imagination can run with it and do whatever it wants, and you're just like, Yep, I am fully clear of what's happened here. I've witnessed it. Yeah.

PTSD Dreams And A Cruel Conspiracy

SPEAKER_01 23:39

The the thing about jokes, though, I will tell you, even having that like clarity and that connection, something strange that I had a recurring dream. Not a lot of flashbacks and stuff that I was expecting to come from the subsequent PTSD diagnosis that I got after this whole thing.

SPEAKER_03 23:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:59

But I had a recurring dream where I would be at the grocery store or at a restaurant or just out and about in my life, and I would see him just alive walking around, and he would be really nervous. And I would go up and would go, Oh my God, you're alive. Holy shit, what happened? How's it going? What's going on? And there was some kind of plot that would unravel this whole secret conspiracy that all of our mutual friends and his parents and my parents who knew him, all of these people in my life had worked with him to fake his death because I was a bad person.

SPEAKER_03 24:37

Oh no.

SPEAKER_01 24:38

And they were trying to get me to be really sad and upset or to take my own life because I was so upset. And every single person in my life was in on this conspiracy. But the really messed up part is the in that dream, the relief that I felt that he was alive was greater than the upset that everyone somehow that I had ever known secretly hated me so bad to do this. I was like, I don't care, everybody can hate me. At least this person is alive. Oh my God, tell you what.

SPEAKER_02 25:15

Rough. I feel like that says something about you, though. When we end the call, I'll read this like little disclosure to you or whatever. But I say it in both places where I'm like, I'm not a therapist. I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm not here to diagnose. I'm just here to hear people's stories, hopefully overcome some of my some of my fear of death, and yeah, hopefully hold space for other people to share maybe their grief or just talk about weird sciencey stuff. So I'm not diagnosing you, or I'm not, but I would say that says a lot about you. And it just makes me feel like you're a good person, you know, or it's like that that willingness, and not saying that it was maybe not willingness, but like, you know, that willingness to take on the burden of all this, I'm just gonna say hate, all these kind of like this anger, hatred, whatever, for this one person to be back. I get what you're saying of like rough, but that also makes me feel like you're just a caring, compassionate person, and you're like, yeah, if I have to, if I have to bear all this and whatever, but this person gets to still be here, that's a pretty powerful statement in itself.

SPEAKER_01 26:22

Yeah. It was a weird time after he died because it just fell in a really bad point. We were friends, we were really good friends, but we just so happened to be somewhat on the outs about the time that his mental health got to this kind of breaking point. And so I don't know anybody that used to know him, which is a little sad now. But it's gotten better in the years, but I don't talk to anybody that knew him really.

SPEAKER_02 26:59

And is that by your choice or by their choice, or just a nature of how things are?

SPEAKER_01 27:05

Mostly by others' choice. We moved in together. I moved into where he lived, and it came with a friend group because he'd known them from high school, and so I suddenly had this huge group of people to talk to in this big social outlet, and then once he was removed from it, very suddenly, there was a lot of grief, and I know why the finger pointing happened. I would have rather it been me than somebody else, genuinely. Yeah, because I understood and I had been through that kind of grief before, and I could say I know where this is coming from. I know you don't actually hate me, I know you don't actually blame me, and I'm still somewhat hopeful maybe one day there will be a breakthrough for people, but it's not something that I need anymore.

SPEAKER_02 28:05

Yeah. And so in in some kind of strange, weird way, the dreams came true in a sense. Yeah. Like there's an aspect of that there. Cause I was gonna say, I'm still hearing that very much like that, like I'm willing to bear this burden. Same thing with the dreams, like I'm willing to be the one that you know the fingers get pointed at.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

I yeah, I was full of a lot of hate for a while, and I don't use hate often, but I had a lot of deep hatred for a good time. But then once I think that kind of stage of grief passed, I was just tired. You know, I think the words it's not fair have never left my mouth so often in my life until this happened. And then over time wounds have started to heal, and I'm not floored with just sheer exhaustion thinking about it anymore, which is a huge step up from two years ago.

Finger Pointing And Losing Community

SPEAKER_02 29:15

And yeah, I'm looking at your application, and that was gonna be my next question is how long ago was this? Because the the first line in your application is I'm about a month away from one year since I found my housemate. And so has it been about two years until the application was about a year ago, and so you because I'm interested about what your journey has been, what your, you know, and you kind of alluded to it there a little bit, but what it's been like since. And so yeah, maybe just even it's been about two years.

SPEAKER_01 29:46

It would have been December of 2024.

SPEAKER_02 29:51

So about a year and a half.

SPEAKER_01 29:53

About a year and a half, yeah. It feels like a billion years ago, but also yesterday. And I I know that a lot of times when people deal with a grief, like even people who have dealt with grief before, but not this particular instance, feel a kind of tendency of, oh, what can I do to distract you? And some people like distractions, but a lot of times genuinely what feels good is just talking about this person the good, the bad, the ugly, everything under the sun. You have all of this I don't want to say energy because it it kind of ties back to that, but a little bit of that energy kind of goes into you, I think.

SPEAKER_03 30:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:38

So like their memories and all of the stuff you're holding on to. Talking about it, I feel like is genuinely really helpful for people who are dealing with grace in the moment or long, long after.

SPEAKER_03 30:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:52

And I don't think that people understand who haven't been so upfront with it in their lives that like it's so much to carry around. And even if you're not like taking on part of the burden, just I don't know, even like good memories is the I think the best thing that was really helping at times.

SPEAKER_02 31:17

And the really sad thing about all of that is, and I don't necessarily know if it's I I can't point to, oh yeah, I remember seeing this commercial as a kid, or I remember seeing this as a kid, or whatever. There's not necessarily a message that's easy to point to. I think it's just a general message of, oh yeah, talking about death is bad, but scary, so don't talk about it. But the worst thing is uh that's the last thing that I think the majority of people think that someone who has been through deep loss, great loss, actually wants to talk about. And so it's it's fine to have distraction. I think that's probably healthy to some capacity, but it seems like the the way that we go about dealing with grief is maximize distraction. Don't talk about the thing, because the thing will just make them sad and this and that. And yeah, exactly what you're saying. I've heard from multiple people. It's like there's some nuance to it. It's not just go up to a probably don't go up to a stranger and be like, tell me about the person that you know you just lost or something like that. That'd be a very random thing to do to someone, but there's some tact to it and knowing or just feeling out in a conversation. But by and large, I think it's just like big flashing red lights of don't ask about the person, don't ask about the person. This is you're just gonna make it worse. Talk about anything, talk about the weather. That'll be way better better. And it's just like, yeah, I don't want to talk about the weather right now.

SPEAKER_01 32:52

Right.

SPEAKER_02 32:52

And

Why We Avoid Talking About Death

SPEAKER_02 32:53

so do you feel like you've had people who have shown up for you in that way? Have you been able to find it? Did you have to cultivate it on your side? I know you said you've lost this big community, but did you have other people in your life that were able to show up? Or was it or is that a big struggle?

SPEAKER_01 33:12

I think I there are a lot of times that I avoid just bringing up with people that didn't know him. Because a lot of times it's oh, uh, my housemate used to do this thing. That reminds me of that. That's a really funny memory I have of him. And they're like, oh, okay, that sounds really fun. And then the questions start, and then it's okay. And I I don't know how much I want to say because then it's it feels like I'm dumping things onto them. And like I don't want to say all of the everything that happened because it's just a lot and not really something that everybody in the world needs to know. But it's good. I think nowadays I'm getting a lot better at when something reminds me of him saying, Oh, that reminds me of this thing. This friend I had, he used to say something like this, or we had a kind of inside joke like this, and it's nice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:04

I'm glad that you have that. And I get that's it's great that you brought up the other side of it too, is I was doing it from the other side, but yeah, there also is that like worry on the griever side, but there is, I'm sure, that kind of fear, and you've mentioned it, that I'm just gonna dump on these people.

SPEAKER_01 34:23

I feel like, and this is a little bit of a kind of out-of-the-box take. I feel like uh a lot of after the pandemic, there's a lot of kind of terminology that gets thrown around like quickly online when it comes to like trauma jumping and like people venting and that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_03 34:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:40

And people have taken that to be anytime a friend of theirs tells them something sad or like they're complaining about their day, when I feel like we're hardwired as people for community. Yeah. And people should be able to set boundaries and say, hey, I'm not really in the mood to hear about how bad your day at work was, or I don't really want to talk about your dead goldfish right now. Can we talk about something else? But completely shutting down any and all thing that could potentially make you at all sad or think about sad things, you're not preparing your brain for God forbid something happens with you. Yeah, for life. All of a sudden, who are you gonna talk to?

SPEAKER_03 35:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:25

Yeah, I I had a conversation and it's kind of it's loosely. I hope this will make sense when I say I feel like it's connected enough here. It was, I think it was actually I was getting interviewed on another podcast, but I often say to people that I haven't had a lot of loss, and I very often I'm 38. I often get told, you're too young to be thinking about death. Like, what why are you doing this? And I'm telling this to this other person, and they looked at me and they had lost, I think their mother 10 years ago, and they were like, what a privilege it is to not have to think about this, because I don't have that option. And so I think that's the same kind of thing that you're talking about. You can try to avoid negative things or like hard conversations, but like that is part of life. Life is hard and death happens. No, yeah, yeah. And like you said, you're gonna there's only one way that you don't deal with this in your life if you're in that situation, and it's you haven't had any loss, and you're the one who dies before everybody else. That's that's the only way that you die young. Yeah, you get out of not having to have these feelings, have these conversations, have these moments, is you die young. And so that's and I think the thing that's really sad for me is hearing that. And again, I'm not trying to like belabor this, like I haven't had a bunch of locks, but I get to talk to a lot of people who have. I get to have, and sometimes it's and it sounds like you have, it sounds like you're very smart. You have some sort of science background or something, you've said a couple of things, and sometimes the conversation just goes there, right? It's let's talk about science and nothing and infinity and all this stuff. But I get to have these really deep, meaningful conversations with people, and whether they're really hard or really scientific or really hard in terms of an emotional, like if they're really deeply emotional, heavy, or they're very, I guess it can be get really heavy into science too in a different way. But I always leave these conversations feeling so connected with another human that you and I, the odds are would never meet. It's probably astronomically small that somehow we would meet outside of this capacity. Like I live in Oregon, you live in Texas. I don't know. That just the odds are so small. And I don't know. I hope that's another aspect of this is showing people that you can have hard conversations and how it can connect to people. I don't know. I went on a little rant there, sorry.

SPEAKER_01 38:04

No, that's perfect. No, I because it it started all of these things in my brain firing, and that's I think what like the the heart of this is just talking to talk, and like what happens is so natural that maybe other people go, I didn't even think that anybody else thought that same thing that I did.

SPEAKER_03 38:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:22

But it it's like so deeper into your brain. But I'm

Surviving By Doing The Minimum

SPEAKER_01 38:26

very avoidant. I will admit that like for most of my life I am so avoidant when it comes to discomfort. If it's gonna start some kind of argument, I would rather hide it. I would rather, you know, that's the kind of thing that I'm really avoidant when it comes to being uncomfortable or feeling any kind of way. So there's a lot of times where, and even as like upsetting as it is, would think that when my housemate's mental health would get really bad, there were days where I thought, God, one day, what happens if I wake up and he is dead? And that's something that I had thought about previously, and that was this kind of worst case scenario.

SPEAKER_03 39:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:06

And then it happened. Yeah. And the world didn't stop turning. And that sucked for a really long time. Because then I had a couple more days off for the Christmas break for work, but then when the new year started, I had to go back to work and I had to go and sit down in the office.

SPEAKER_02 39:28

And everything was normal.

SPEAKER_01 39:30

Just rattling around, and people are like, Hey, how is your Christmas break? I don't have an answer for that. Genuinely. Um it happened with a blur, and I lost memory for most of the following spring into the next year, into 2025. Half of that year, my birthday gone. I couldn't tell you what we did.

SPEAKER_03 39:53

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 39:54

But discomfort is going to happen, and avoiding it forever isn't gonna stop it from happening. It's gonna keep you completely unprepared for it.

SPEAKER_03 40:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:04

And I've lived through this kind of what was my worst case scenario. And I'm still here. And anytime things get really bad now, I'm like, it could be much worse. It has been much worse, and yet somehow, some way, I made it through that discomfort and really bad emotional point to this point where it's rough, but it's not so bad.

SPEAKER_02 40:33

Yeah. Well, it sounds like we both think this way, so I think there's obviously more people that think this way. But I almost think of it almost like a little bit of a philosophy in my head of looking at that worst case scenario and then being like, Leonta, that aren't gonna happen. And so it's like a way for me to walk back. And so I'm sure it's like that really messes with your brain when it's like when the worst thing did happen. But I love how then you were able to reframe that and be like, the worst thing did happen. And it sucked. I lost time. It sucked is not as an understatement of what it was, but I did come out of it knowing that like I got through the worst thing that I could imagine. And so I keep moving forward. I it's another day. There will be there will be bad times ahead, there will be good times ahead. That is just life. And to me, what I'm hearing is it's kind of like beautiful surrender into life, of not a giving up of this is just how life is, but no, this is how life is. And I accept that. And I know I can get through really, really, really hard things and still be here and still keep moving forward. And so I think that's really I don't know if I took that in too much of a motivational poster style direction, but I don't know. I it just I felt like a very, very powerful statement to hear after after hearing what you have been through.

SPEAKER_01 41:58

Yeah, and I'm not qualified in any way, shape, or form to give advice at all. But there are so many times I think looking back, and I was talking to somebody about this recently, that like trying to remember back and put myself back into those moments to try to maybe get some of those just mundane memories back of the time between then and now. And I remember so many times thinking, this is the worst I've ever felt in my life. It's not fair. I'm never going to come back from this. There is no genuine way out of this emotional state. And I can't tell you how I did it, other than I would go to sleep at night and I would wake up in the morning and I would eat and just breathe. And they say stuff like that in like TV shows and books that like all I did was like the bare minimum. I was on like complete just airplane mode, just going through the motions. But sometimes just the motions are enough, yeah, and you're motioning forward, you're just moving forward and then be out of that headspace some point.

SPEAKER_02 43:09

Yeah, make it to another day. Like sometimes that is you know all you can do. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:16

And but you're doing something, exactly not, not nothing.

SPEAKER_02 43:19

Yeah, exactly. And there's and I was gonna say, there's no shame in that, right? And I think there is in the world and the culture that we live in of all this, although I think it's starting to come back about this just like the productivity maximizing and just like brute forcing everything and I'll sleep when I'm dead type of mentality. I think we're coming back from that a little bit, it seems, but yeah, we really need to like embrace the fact that some days it is just I got out of bed and that and fed myself. Like that's enough. And that's okay. Like you don't always have to be doing like the social media life. And appearing like everything's great and this and that, because it's not it's not always that way. And so normalizing the fact that sometimes it's literally just getting out of bed. It's like you said, it's the bare minimums. Sometimes that is like an A plus day, and that's enough. I know I'll probably end up saying this again after. I do want to say just thank you for being so vulnerable and so willing to talk about this. This is it wasn't that long ago still. And and so I just want to say I am very appreciative of you for being willing to talk about this. Like it's it's an and it's an important thing, and I'm glad that you're willing to do it.

SPEAKER_01 44:39

I'm glad I got the opportunity to. It's not something that I talk about at length all that often.

SPEAKER_03 44:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:46

And also this could be somebody else's absolute worst case scenario, and if they ever stumble across this, maybe it will help.

SPEAKER_02 44:55

Fingers crossed. Fingers crossed. So yeah, I do have this last

One Life Goal That Still Matters

SPEAKER_02 44:59

question. Like I said, I have the questions I ask at the front that I ask everybody. I like to have one at the end that kind of is also asked to everybody. And so it's what's one thing you still want to experience in this lifetime?

SPEAKER_01 45:11

I guess we were just talking about productivity and this kind of like hustle culture and hustle culture.

SPEAKER_02 45:17

That's what I was looking for. That was the word I was looking for and couldn't find it. Thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 45:23

I I genuinely know I think writing a book and at least one person reading it is just the one thing. I don't need it to be an international bestseller. I don't even know what kind of book it would be. I just like words and I like the way that books have had an impact on my life in a way that I think. So maybe one day writing a book of some kind and it making people think a little differently about whatever it's about for even five minutes. That's fun.

SPEAKER_02 45:58

I love that so much. And I'll say you can get rid of the second part of that goal. I will, if you write a book, let me know. I will gladly read it. I'll gladly read it. So all you have to do, all there will be one person that will read it, guaranteed. So all you have to do, so you've got half of it done already. So now you do just have to write the book. Like that's it's easy. You got this. But yeah, if you write that book, I will absolutely read it.

SPEAKER_01 46:24

You're gonna have to live 180 to get through your reading list to get to that book. Oh, I believe that you can.

SPEAKER_02 46:31

I'll move it to the top. I'll move it to the top. I can read I can reorganize. I was gonna say if I have to live to 180 until you write it, that's now maybe a harder ask. But but yeah, if you write it, I'll move it to the top of my list. So yeah, now the pressure's on. But but yeah, again, I just want to thank you so much. Again, thank you for being vulnerable for sharing this. Yeah, like you said, I if someone else is going through a similar situation, maybe they come across this, maybe it helps them. And at worst, I hope it was good for you to chat about it with a complete stranger with no, I don't have a horse in the race or anything. Although I do want to see you do well. Like I feel like we're friends and like I want you to have a good life and all that stuff. But but yeah, hopefully it was at least an avenue to talk about it. And uh yeah, I'm I'm really grateful to you for being willing to do it.

SPEAKER_01 47:21

And thank you for putting this project together for people to be part of and just to experience listening to.

SPEAKER_02 47:28

Yeah, I appreciate it. And yeah, let's definitely stay in touch. Keep me up to date on the book whenever you do end up starting it, whether it's tomorrow or 10 years from now, although you should probably start it tomorrow. That's no pressure, no pressure. But yeah, thank you so much, and yeah, I hope you have a good rest of your day. All right, take care.

Host Reflection And Project Updates

SPEAKER_02 47:47

Our caller mentioned they spent a lot of their time avoiding discomfort. And then the worst thing they could picture happening happened. They didn't fix it or figure it out, they just kept waking up, eating something, getting through the day, and doing it again the next day. And sometimes that's all you can do. Put one foot in front of the other, make it to the next day, and the next one. And at some point, who knows how long, things start to get a little easier. Maybe better, maybe not, but you're still here. On my end, right now, it feels like all I'm doing is running from one deadline to the next. Edit the episode, work on the show notes, create the social media posts. Next week, do it again and again. And there's a reason for that, which I've talked about extensively the last couple weeks. Getting closer and closer to these big milestones. But it's also kind of like wanting to know what your birthday presents are a month early. I want to tell you something interesting or funny or profound, and I've got nothing. Most of my energy right now is going into three, four, five calls a week, building out the structure to get the podcast running smoothly in year three, and some pretty boring behind-the-scenes business things to get mimosony more operational. All of the uninteresting stuff you don't really want to know about. And now you do. More soon, I'll see you next week.

Nimosany And How To Get Involved

SPEAKER_02 49:01

When we die talks exist because people have stories worth telling. And most of them never get told in a way that lasts. Mimosony is my attempt to do something about that. It actually started with a guest from the show, and after his interview, he told me how much it meant to have something he could share with the people in his life. So he didn't have to keep repeating himself, and so nothing got lost over time. I couldn't stop thinking about how many people have a version of that. Honestly, all of us do. All of us have a life worth capturing, and people who love us and would give anything to hear it told. Nemostheny is a guided conversation with me where we capture someone's life in their own words, where they come from, what made them who they are, and the stories they want people they love to know. The recording is yours, private, personal, something you can share with anyone you want. If someone came to mind just now, even if it was yourself, that's probably worth paying attention to. You can learn more at Nimosany.com. That's N-E-M-O-S-E-N-E.com. Thanks for listening to this episode of When We Dietalks. These conversations don't offer answers, but they do open space. Space to reflect, to feel less alone, and maybe to see things a little bit differently than before. If you'd like to explore your own beliefs out loud, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at WhenWeDietalks.com. And if a full call feels like too much, the voicemail is always open. Leave a message at 971-328-0864 and share whatever death has stirred in your life. Listener support truly helps keep this project going. If you'd like to support the podcast, you'll find a link in the show notes. And as always, please like, share, and follow. Every bit makes a difference. Until next time, have a good life.