Episode 37 - Saying Goodbye To The Life Before

Episode 37 - Saying Goodbye To The Life Before

There's a part of recovery nobody really talks about. For me, it looked a lot like grief — but nobody had died.

This week I talk about saying goodbye to the life I had before the heart attack. Not just the man I was on the inside, but the shape of my days. The pace I kept. The quiet assumptions about how it was all going to go.

There's even a name for it — ambiguous loss. Grief without a death. Mourning something that's gone in a way nobody quite sees, sometimes including yourself.

If you're missing who you were, missing the way life used to be, and not yet sure who you're becoming — you're not on your own with it. I think there's a lot of us in that space.

🔗 Free 7-Day Mind Reset Plan — for that in-between place when you're not quite sure who you're becoming yet: 

👉 https://strongerafterthestorm.com/the-7-day-mind-reset-plan/

💻 Visit StrongerAfterTheStorm.com — the home of the podcast and weekly Reflection Letters.  
📩 Each week I write an honest letter for men rebuilding life after a heart attack. You can sign up on the site.  
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Transcript

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There's a part of recovery no one talks about. For me it looked a lot like grief, but here's the strange thing Nobody had died. Nobody died but something changed and it changed for good. And I think for a lot of men that's the part that never gets named. So let me have a go at naming it today. A while back I talked about letting go of the old you, the man you were on the inside. This is a wee bit different. This is about the life that man lived. The way your days were, the ordinary things you did, that pace you kept, because that goes to the old you doesn't come back, and the life that the old you had doesn't either. And in some ways that's the harder one to say goodbye to. You see, there was a version of your life before the heart attack. You had your pace, you moved through the day without thinking too hard about any of it, you had a rough idea of how things were going to go. And after something like this, that version just didn't come back the same. For me, it showed up in the small things. I remember loading tools into the back of the van one morning, same as I'd done a thousand times, and I noticed I was doing it slower, calmer, not because my body couldn't go faster, I was back doing physical work by then, but because something in me had started paying attention that hadn't been paying attention before. It was like driving a road you've driven for years and suddenly seeing all the bends you used to take without thinking. And honestly, I miss the old way. I miss not noticing the bends. Life used to be simple, it was just normal, and I missed that version of normal more than I expected to. But here's what I've had to come round to. You can't go back to not knowing what you know now. You can't unfeel what that night felt like. The man who hadn't been through it, he's not coming back because I'm not him anymore, and my life now is different to the life I had before. And it took me a while, but I started to understand that I was grieving, grieving the loss of who I used to be. I found out later there's actually a name for this kind of thing. They call it ambiguous loss grief without a death, mourning something that's gone, but in a way that nobody quite sees, including sometimes yourself. And just knowing it had a name helped. It meant I wasn't imagining it. And I know I'm not the only one sitting with this. See, a man I've known a long time got in touch after a recent episode, different circumstances to mine, but the same feeling underneath it, that quiet grief for the person he used to be, mixed in with something he didn't quite expect, a bit of hope about who he was turning into. So if you recognise yourself like this, you're not alone. I think there's a lot of us going through this. I'm not going to sit here and tell you it's been easy because it wasn't for me, and I'm not going to tell you just be grateful and get on with it. That's not what this is. This is me saying to you it's alright to miss the life you had. You can sit with that for a while. You don't need to rush past it. I really don't think you should, because on the other side of it there's a different life worth building, one you could never have built living the way you did before. If you're in that headspace right now, missing who you were, missing the way your life used to be, not yet sure of who you're becoming, that's exactly where the 7 Day Mind Reset Plan came from. It's free, links in the description below if you want it. It's not a fix, it's just a handful of things that I put together when I looked back and wished I'd known in those early days. I'm just a little further down that same road as you. It might just help you a little. And if you're somewhere in that headspace right now, drop something in the comments. Even just something like, Yep, I get ya, I'm like that. Because you don't have to be sitting with this on your own. This is stronger after the storm. I'm Dougie, take it easy and I'll catch you next time.