Invisible Loss
Invisible Loss is a space for the grief that doesn't always have a name. Hosted by a thanatologist and therapist, this podcast shines light on non-death losses and offers understanding, language, and compassion for what you're carrying.
Invisible Loss
When the Flood Water Recedes: Loss During Natural Disasters
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When the waters recede, the real story often begins. In this special edition of Invisible Loss, Barbara and Jenn sit with the emotional aftermath of flooding and natural disasters—exploring the quiet, often unseen losses that linger long after the crisis passes. From the disruption of identity and routine to the grief of damaged spaces, displaced memories, and shaken sense of safety, this conversation makes space for what doesn’t always get named. Together, they unpack how non-death loss shows up in these moments and what it means to begin making sense of life after the waters pull back.
Welcome to the Invisible Loss Podcast, where your hosts Jen and Barbara. If you've ever found yourself grieving something that doesn't seem to count in the eyes of the world, if you've ever wondered why a loss that isn't about death can still hurt so deeply, you're in the right place. We're really glad you're here.
SPEAKER_01This podcast is for the grief that doesn't always come with funerals, casseroles, or clear permission to mourn. The kind of grief that's quiet, confusing, and even often carried alone.
SPEAKER_00Invisible loss exists because not all grief looks the same, and not all losses are recognized, named, or supported. Yet they still shape us.
SPEAKER_01Our discussion is educational and reflective. It is not a substitute for therapy. Please honor your own well-being while listening.
SPEAKER_00Today we're talking about what happens after a natural disaster, after the waters recede, because that's the part we don't talk about as much. And Barbara and I thought we'd do this a little differently today. We're going to kind of interview each other from our own lenses, therapy and thanatology, because both show up here in really different ways. So, Barbara, what do you feel shows up for people once the adrenaline of survival wears off?
SPEAKER_01You know, that's a very interesting question because, you know, with the floods that we've had just recently in our area here, uh in my practice, what I've noticed is like some of my clients have experienced like exhaustion, mood swings, irritability, and even anxiety.
SPEAKER_00That's fascinating. What do you tend to see emotionally when things are supposed to be getting back to normal then?
SPEAKER_01So you're gonna have like a complex mix of emotions from like exhaustion is like running on that autopilot, even like irritability, anidonia, the loss of interest. That's what an anidonia means. So you're gonna see some people used to like enjoy diamond painting, and then all of a sudden they're like, eh, I don't want to do that anymore. Yeah. And they're gonna have difficulty concentrating. You'll you'll see that too. And guilt. That's a that's a big one that I've noticed, and anxiety.
SPEAKER_00Do we know why that loss of interest happens by chance? Is it just like a trauma response?
SPEAKER_01It could be, yeah, it can be a trauma response for sure. It's a trauma response for individuals that experience a traumatic event.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So the things that they once were really passionate or very interested in, it's just it's lost it because they've been through this really incredible experience that has been traumatic. And that just doesn't even seem important anymore. Is that correct? If I'm understanding it. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you're understanding it right. Yeah. It's just not, it's not enjoyable anymore. It's it's, you know, they're like, uh, this doesn't feel because they're they're in that heightened, heightened awareness. And when you're in that heightened awareness, you just you're going off the find your flight.
SPEAKER_00What was interesting. So I was in New London, Wisconsin this morning, actually. Um I ran to the grocery store because it was finally open again. And and we're talking about it, it was almost two weeks ago that these floods happened, but they've had an impact for the last almost two weeks of the water taking its sweet time for a while there to recede. And it was quite empty at the grocery store. Now, granted, it's Sunday morning, it's early, but people were also those that were there were very much in their own world, like not really noticing other people around them and not trying to be specifically difficult, but just being like zombies almost.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, I could see that. I could see that happening where they're still just trying to find their normal.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And I thankfully we're we're about 15 to 20 minutes north of New London and did not have to experience any water um other than a little bit in our basement um from the rains and flooding. But all I could think about was I would be so annoyed not to have my routine.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And the level of people who were annoyed by the fact that there were so many streets closed.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, there was.
SPEAKER_00And you couldn't get around easily. And you know, the jokes about you gotta go out into upper Michigan and through Chicago back down through, you know, over the Mackinac Bridge through Chicago to get back to the other side of New London. It's really what it did feel like.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I had clients that are all over in your area, in the New London, Clintonville, Manoa, you know, all those little towns that are above there. And it it took me a lot longer to get around.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it it but then if we when we stop and we look at what actually happened, it's it devastated a lot of people.
SPEAKER_00It did.
SPEAKER_01It really did. The devastation in the fifth ward was that was just so devastating.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And one of the unfortunate things is, you know, unless you were specifically in a floodplain, which most of those houses were kind of, but not truly, you know, insurance wasn't requiring a lot of those people to have flood insurance.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00So when you don't have flood insurance and you get flooded, your homeowner's insurance is not covering it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's very true. Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00So, you know, my other side of my my career is working in a financial um institution. And a lot of us have in the financial world gone out of our way to try and find ways to help um offer like zero percent loans or things for people to get their basic necessities, stuff like that. But that it's a drop in the bucket for a lot of people.
SPEAKER_01Right. That's true.
SPEAKER_00So, you know, we're talking about not just obviously the non-death loss of items, but the financial loss and also the sense of normalcy.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes. And from a theatology perspective, Jen, how do you understand what people are going through when nothing technically died, but everything feels different?
SPEAKER_00So, kind of like I said, we we look at grief from both a death perspective, but also a non-death perspective. Grief isn't just specific to death. So when we talk about loss in a non-death way, we're talking about disruption and disruption of what? So, disruption of your attachment to things or routine, we're also talking about disruption of your identity because there's a lot of things you've lost. Yeah, and you know, and even that loss of time because people weren't able to go to work, there were workplaces that were shut down, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Schools, right?
SPEAKER_00So it's loss of time, loss of routine, loss of wages, um, if you're not working, but also loss of meaning, which can be a it's a really big one for us in Thanatology because what we look at with non-death losses when we try to help people work through them is how to make meaning out of what happened. In terms of meaning-making with this flood, what we're looking at is how to reframe your grief response in a way that helps life continue to move on. So, yes, you just lost a tremendous amount of time and potentially possessions and uh sense of normalcy and maybe even a sense of safety, honestly. But when we look at meaning making, what we're looking at then is what did you learn? What would you do differently? What how can you use this going forward with what you've come to understand to either help others or prepare yourself? So it's not trying to diminish the grief, it's acknowledging the grief, allowing the grief to exist, but then also asking you, okay, where do we go from here? How do we allow this to be something that doesn't just stick us in a grieving moment and turn it into something that can be powerful and meaningful in your life?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that makes sense.
SPEAKER_00So now that I've given you kind of my half of why this grief exists, Barbara, I want to know why does this kind of loss seem to hit people later instead of right away?
SPEAKER_01You know, often our brain enters like survival mode where the physical needs and safety take absolute priority over emotional processing. So people are often energized and hyper-focused on rescue efforts and community support. This adrenaline-induced activity can temporarily mask deeper feelings of like sadness and loss.
SPEAKER_00So basically, if I'm understanding it correctly, we get so caught up in the adrenaline of just handling the situation, making sure we're okay, making sure our neighbor's okay, that we're not actually processing the loss that's going on exactly.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. That's it. Yeah, you nailed it right on the head.
SPEAKER_00So is that connected to like how the nervous system would process trauma?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So when like a flood that we've experienced or a disaster that happens, our nervous system shifts into like a high arousal state and it affects our sympathetic nervous system. Oh. So some of the things that can happen is it's called the lockbach effect. So it's like a disassociation. So you disassociate and you'll just be like how you explained at the grocery store.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01You know, those kind of things. And trauma does push you out of that window of tolerance. So the zone that you can effectively like manage your emotions. So the window of tolerance is where you, if you're not in that window of tolerance, you're not processing.
SPEAKER_00Wow.
SPEAKER_01So when it pushes you out of the window of tolerance, you're either like in hyper arousal, that's a fight or flight, and you're focusing on fixing like the house, filing the insurance, and you know, doing cleaning and doing those kind of things. Otherwise, hypo arousal, you're like shut down and you're feeling numb. So you only begin to process those loss when your nervous system returns to the window of tolerance, which usually doesn't happen until the physical environment starts to look normal again.
SPEAKER_00Okay, that makes more sense. So once you've got that feeling of safety and normalcy, that's when it hits. So if I'm understanding correctly, for a lot of people in our area, that's hitting right now.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it is happening right now, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Wow.
SPEAKER_01So, Jen, I have a question for you. Yeah. When you talk a lot about the identity of your work, how does something like a flood impact that?
SPEAKER_00Great question. So, your home is a big part of your identity. If you think about what you put into your home and the time and effort that you have in decorating, and you know, it shows what's important to you and it shows your style, but it also contains like your most precious valuables. So when a flood happens, that's coming in without your permission and completely trying to destroy a portion of your identity. And we might think it's just things, right? But these things are connected to who we are. So people they feel upset that you know these things are bothering them. Like, I shouldn't be so concerned about losing things. At least we're okay. And it is okay to, you know, to say, yes, physically, you, your family members, everybody is safe. But it's also okay to miss those things because they're part of who you are.
SPEAKER_01So it's not and all those memories, too, right? Those memories that you created at the house for sure.
SPEAKER_00Right. I specifically wanted to talk about this because in the Midwest, we have kind of this state of mind where we try very hard to not put a lot of um importance on things, right? I like to say we'd rather put importance on our work ethic and who we are as human beings than we do on our things. So when something like this happens, we are almost embarrassed that it bothers us so much. But it's okay because those things are are important to you. They're part of who you are.
SPEAKER_01So, what is actually being lost beyond the physical space?
SPEAKER_00So outside of just, you know, losing that that space temporarily or have to take a building down because it's permanently damaged, um, you're also, we kind of talked about this before. You've lost your routine, you've lost your sense of safety. And one of the big things that oftentimes we don't think about, if you're not in what's traditionally known as a flood area or an area where a natural disaster would happen, you've now lost the predictability of that.
SPEAKER_01Good point.
SPEAKER_00You now become scared. And I would not be surprised if, you know, we have another storm coming up um tomorrow, Monday evening. I would not be surprised that people are scared every time they hear it's gonna rain of any significance. I would not be surprised, you know, just like um not terribly far from our area, there was an E3 tornado that hit and decimated a small town. Yeah. Um, right around the same time as the floods. So I would not be surprised that those people are scared anytime that they hear any sort of storm is coming. Yeah. Because you've now lost that predictability that the weather is gonna come and it's gonna go, and it's not gonna claim your life or your home.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's very true.
SPEAKER_00You're also losing some memory anchors, and we we talked about that, but I want to just reinforce it again. Memory anchors, those items that are important to you, that represent people that you love, um, maybe people who have passed that you love, those things, if they've gotten destroyed, that's huge.
SPEAKER_01That is very huge, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Because, you know, you talked about, and I love this, you talked about the fact that it takes for things to go back to normal for you to process um that grief and what's what's going on and all that trauma. And we see that after a death loss, right? Where people are trying to get, you know, all the funeral arrangements done, everything like that. And then once all that is done and everything gets quiet, that's actually when the grieving takes place.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_00It's the same for non-death losses.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00It's after all of the busyness and the trying to figure out how to make things work or whatever you're doing. Once that comes back to normal, the problem is it's not normal because something's been lost.
SPEAKER_01Right, right. A piece of them is missing.
SPEAKER_00Right. So I have a question for you, Barbara. Yeah. Why do you think people struggle so much to validate this kind of loss that we're talking about?
SPEAKER_01That is a great, great question. So people often struggle with validating this kind of loss because it falls into a category called disenfranchised grief, right? Yep. And this grief isn't openly acknowledged or even socially supported. So you're not gonna get like a greeting card that says, sorry for the flood that you experienced, or nobody's gonna come over with a casserole, you know? Wow. So some may even suppress their emotions. So when you suppress emotions, it eventually leaks through the cracks and it forms some somatic symptoms. So that could be like unexplained headaches, digestive issues, back pain. You can even have some hyper reactivity, like what we talked about, where you know, there's a the thunder that goes and rains are coming, those are hyper-reactivity. And some people can even like explode over something small, like somebody drops a spoon, and then all of a sudden they're like, ah, they're ready to just jump at it. So because the reservoir is suppressed, grief is already at capacity. So brain fog can happen. So you're like difficulty making simple decisions, and this is because so much mental energy is already being used up to keep that emotional lid closed. So I always go with the spoon theory. So, with the spoon theory, what I've been taught is if I have five spoons available for that day, and if I use up one to take a shower, two to make my dinner, and three to do whatever I need to do around the house, I only have two more spoons left for that day.
SPEAKER_00Yep.
SPEAKER_01And if I have, and if I'm already in that heightened reactivity, man, that could that can really upset the balance of my house.
SPEAKER_00That's a great way to look at it. I feel like I'm learning a lot today, honestly. You've given me new words too. I can't remember what the word was, but I remember it's a new word, and it starts with an A.
unknownAnatonia.
SPEAKER_00That's the word. You got it. You read my mind. So, my other question for you is and we talked about this, you know, as Midwesterners, we have this feeling of, okay, well, at least I'm safe. But what actually happens when somebody just keeps hearing, at least you're safe?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, people say that a lot is at least you're safe. And while it's true, it's unintentionally signals that grieving for your home, your belongings, for your, you know, the memories that you have is like inappropriate or even ungrateful.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And like you said, the home is an extension of yourself.
SPEAKER_00And you know, disenfranchised grief is something that you and I share in our languages between therapy and thanatology, because that disenfranchisement just meaning that people are not recognizing it as grief, that's why they're saying those things, you know. Why, yeah, well, at least you're safe. Yeah, it is. But guess what? I just lost, you know, picture books of photos that I had, and you can tell how old I am when I'm talking about like photo albums, right? Um, all those kinds of things that meant something to me. And I know I shouldn't be worried about them, but I am.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I think we just need those who are listening who haven't had to go through a natural disaster to understand that you know your identity is linked to more than just your physical self.
SPEAKER_01It's linked to so much. Mm-hmm. Very true. So, Jen, how important is it to actually name this as grief?
SPEAKER_00Honestly, it is incredibly important because when we can give a name to something, we allow ourselves to experience it. When we don't know what we're naming, we don't understand what's going on. So it's okay to name this as grief because honestly, it provides validation. And without it, like I said, people minimize what they're going through. So common phrases like, we just said, at least we're safe, or it could have been worse. Oh, I want to hit somebody for saying that one, honestly. Like, yeah, you were not in my shoes, you do not know what happened here, right? They're true. Yes, it could have been worse, number one. And yes, like you said, they were safe, but those phrases silence people. And when we yeah, and when we allow grief to be silenced, it then becomes complicated grief. It becomes a grief that we feel bad about and that we don't know how to manage and we don't know what's going on. And you see how our two areas just like to feed into each other?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Cause like when you're not managing your grief, your emotions start taking over. And then you're not managing your emotions appropriately because you don't know what this is. So naming it gives it permission to feel it.
SPEAKER_01That's a great, great way to say that. Yeah. So what changes for someone when they have that language for what they're feeling?
SPEAKER_00It allows them to shift from something's wrong with me, with how I'm feeling, to, ah, this makes sense. Yeah. Cause language sort of becomes this. Container for understanding. It becomes the holder of like it becomes your casserole dish for your green bean casserole of grief.
SPEAKER_01Ah, I love that analogy. That's a great analogy.
SPEAKER_00Because it holds it there for you, right? It contains it. And it says, you've got language. Now you're given permission to feel it. So it reduces confusion about what's going on. It reduces the shame. It helps you start to process and regulate your emotional response. It's it's great for that. So, you know, if you get anything out of this, allow yourself to have your green bean casserole held in a casserole dish of, you know, your grief, green bean casserole, I guess you could say. So, Barbara, as we look at healing and rebuilding from the damaging losses of flood and natural disaster, what does emotional rebuilding actually look like after something that happens?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's that's a great question too. You get some really good questions today. Um, emotional rebuilding isn't a like return to who we were, but it's like a slow recalibration of our nervous system. So it's like moving from reacting to the environment to existing in it again. So moving from like a crisis brain to like the executive brain. And like during a disaster, your prefrontal cortex, like the logic center of the brain, goes offline. So the amygdala of the brain, it's like the fear center. Yep. That's that old thing. It's like in like save for your life. We're gonna save your life. And when rebuilding, it can look like you stop experiencing the brain fog and the decision fatigue. Oh yeah. So yeah, and so it's like that really you can finally see through the clouds. And from a some somatic stance, when it rains, your heart can still go like into like that racing. So that's where we just have to like slow down and just process things slowly.
SPEAKER_00And every time we talk about somatic, we're talking about like the feelings, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, like with what you're feeling in bot in your body.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so the the actual physical feelings we're talking about with somatic. Okay. I guess the big question then becomes how do people even begin to process when there's like no clear ending point? And that you know, we have that issue in non-death losses. There's not really an endpoint. Wow. How do you how do you process then?
SPEAKER_01Since that trauma is still ongoing, your body, the somatic feelings, is still producing that fight or flight energy. And that has nowhere to go. So, what I do with my clients who experience like those kind of somatic feelings, I have them do like wall push-ups. Um, I even play the song Shake It Off because my granddaughter loves Taylor Swift. So I'll play Shake It Off with them and then I'll make the clients like do some shaking off moves with me. Another great one that I would encourage people is brain dumping. Like on a piece of paper, you're just writing all of your emotions right on there. And you can even set a timer for this, just so then you have that timer. You're writing all the brain dumps that you're writing. It could be like, I need to call the insurance people, I need to make a checklist. You could even write your grocery list on there if you need to. One other thing that I have done with clients is set a timer, and it's called the disaster off clock. So, what I mean by that is yeah, so you set a timer, and let's say from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m., you cannot think about the disaster at all. At this time, you just be in your normal routine. You go and have dinner with your family like you normally do, you watch your favorite TV show, you do your crossword puzzles, your diamond painting, whatever your thing that you enjoy doing and spending time with your family, that's what I would encourage you to do. And that's the disaster awful.
SPEAKER_00How hard is it for clients to do that?
SPEAKER_01Some of them do struggle with that. So we we don't do a full hour in the beginning because an hour is a long time. So even if you did like 10, 15 minutes of that, I think that's a good start. And always, always, always, if you're still struggling with any of this, please seek support from a counselor, a therapist, any of the individuals that are at the counties can help with you too.
SPEAKER_00Right. Because you know, we see the help and bless them for it, but we see the help come out when the disaster's happening. Yeah. But this whole podcast is about the fact that the lingering effects and the grief that takes place, where now that things are getting back to normal, new normal, I should say, and um, you know, the roads are open again and businesses are open again. We don't see that same level of help coming out.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00But the the effects of it are still there with you. So yeah.
SPEAKER_01And you just have to try to re-establish that safety in your body and in your home and reestablish those things, and that's where that disaster clock off, you know, where you could be like, Hey, I just need a sense of normalcy just for 15 minutes.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, agreed.
SPEAKER_01That's a start.
SPEAKER_00That's a great idea. I I should use that for other things too when I'm fixating on something.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes. So in Thanatology, you talk a lot about like the meaning making.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01How does that apply here without forcing positivity?
SPEAKER_00Great question because we don't want toxic posity, right? We don't want to pretend like everything's fine when it's not. So we're not talking about looking at a silver lining. We're not even talking about everything happens for a reason. Okay. What we're trying to do is we're trying to integrate into the new normal and we're trying to adapt. So the question now becomes how do I live with this? So we look at it in terms of reconstruction, not replacement. What does that even mean, though? Reconstruction is all part of the meaning-making process. So, what does that mean with reconstruction? It means this you may have to try on a new identity. Rather than being the host who gathered people in your home or the caretaker of a beautiful space, or even the stable one in the family. You may have to become the survivor, the rebuilder, or the advocate. So the question that happens with reconstruction is who am I now that this part of my life is gone? It's not about replacing your old identity, it's about integrating what happened into a new sense of self. You may also then want to be looking for finding purpose or direction. This is often where people feel pressure to find the lesson, but healthy reconstruction and meaning-making is more grounded. So, what does that look like with purpose? It might look like helping neighbors rebuild or becoming more involved in your community preparedness, or setting new boundaries around what truly matters, or even just choosing a slower, simpler life. Not everyone finds a big purpose, and that's okay. Sometimes meaning is simply I got through something I didn't think I could. Here's another idea for you in terms of reconstruction and making meaning, and it's creating small rituals. And this is not something we often think about when it comes to non-death losses, yet we do it with death losses. So light a candle on the anniversary of the flood or take a before and after photo. So the before photo before your rebuilding begins, and then the after photo. So you don't have to just pick up and go on as though nothing happened. It's all right to mark the time, and in doing so, you will start to reclaim a sense of control and safety because your meaning making will involve, you know, redesigning a home differently, most likely, learning new preparedness skills, and making choices that restore your sense of agency or your sense of control. It's so much more about I can respond even if I can't prevent everything. All right, Barbara. So if we've got someone listening to this podcast that's in this space right now where everything looks okay, but it doesn't feel okay, what would you want them to know?
SPEAKER_01I would say your nervous system doesn't have an off switch. It has a dimmer switch. Even if your physical house looks back to normal, your internal house is still scanning for the next threat. It takes much longer for the body to feel safe than it does for the drywall to dry. The fact that you don't feel okay yet is actually a sign that your body is still trying to protect you. Instead of trying to feel okay, try just to be okay with not being okay. And from your perspective, Jen, what do you want people to understand about this kind of loss?
SPEAKER_00So just because it's not visible doesn't mean it's not real. Yeah. You don't need a recognized loss to grieve. You have permission to grieve right now, and feeling off or changed is valid because you are. You are changed. And there is legitimacy in not being back to normal. You do not have to be back to normal yet because there isn't a normal, it is changed and it is different, and it's okay to have to grieve that. There is a big difference between surviving something and integrating it. And right now, that grief is helping you try to figure out how to integrate it, and it doesn't wait for permission. So grief is there whether you you give it permission or not. So allow yourself to feel the grief right now. We can rebuild things, like Barbara said, you can rebuild you can your drywall can dry a whole lot faster, then you can rebuild your sense of self.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, I wanted to thank all of you today for listening. Hopefully, if you've had to experience this level of loss recently or even in the past, hopefully you feel a sense that your feelings are valid and your grief is valid. As we close today, we want to leave you with this reminder. Contrary to what has often been taught, grief does not happen in stages. It ebbs and flows like a tide. When you are grieving, you may find yourself capable of handling daily tasks and re-entering life, only to be suddenly halted by waves of pain that take your breath away. If this is where you are, nothing's wrong with you. Your grief is not a failure to move on, it is a reflection of love, meaning, and the losses that often go unseen. Thank you for joining us today on the Invisible Loss Podcast.
SPEAKER_01Where the losses that are often unseen are finally given a voice. May you offer yourself the same gentleness you so freely give to others, especially where your loss goes unseen.