What Grief Really Looks Like and Why We Don't Talk About It

Grief can feel incredibly isolating, and it's something our society still struggles to talk about openly. The full range of emotions, the unexpected reactions, the weight of it all. In this episode of Grieving Out Loud, we're leaning into the conversations that too often go unspoken.

Stephanie Peirolo’s story is one of both loss and resilience. After losing her father as a teenager, she battled substance use disorder. Years later, after finding recovery, she faced another unimaginable loss, her 19-year-old son.

For months, Stephanie kept her story to herself. But over time, she found that sharing it became part of her healing. Today, she is a board-certified executive coach and writer, with a new book sharing her journey.

In this episode, Peirolo opens up about her story, the parts of grief people rarely talk about, and how, after profound heartbreak, she’s found a way to laugh and live fully again.

Learn more and purchase Stephanie's book here.

Listen to Stephanie’s story on The Moth here. 

Related episodes:

• Growing Up with Grief: Emily’s Siblings Open Up
• Broken Heart Syndrome: 4 Ways We Grieve
• Coping With Grief and Choosing Life After Tragedy

Behind every number is a story of a life cut short, a family shattered, and a community devastated.

They were...

• daughters
• sons
• mothers
• fathers
• friends
• wives
• husbands
• cousins
• boyfriends
• girlfriends.

They were More Than Just A Number. 

Transcript

0:07

Grief can feel incredibly isolating, and it's something our society still struggles to talk about openly. The full range of emotions, the unexpected reactions, the weight of it all. In this episode of Grieving Out Loud, we're having those conversations, the ones that too often go unspoken. I quickly found that people got tired of me talking about my grief. And a friend of mine told me this. He had lost his daughter in a, a car accident. She was killed instantly. Um, a few months before my son died, and he told me about the car cry. He said, people are gonna get tired of you crying and they're not gonna wanna hear about your grief. He said, so I cry in the car. Stephanie Pirollo battled substance use disorder after losing her dad as a teen. Once she found recovery, she faced another unimaginable loss, her 19-year-old son. One of the things that I think people don't talk about after a bereavement is the anxiety that comes with it. Oh. I am now constantly afraid that the people I love are gonna die. I see that you're nodding. Do you, do you, does that resonate with you? yes, I am. I could, because. I think we have a false sense that we are somehow protected or insulated from loss before it knocks on your door, Right, death knocks on your door. And when that happens, you realize it can happen to you and it did happen to you, and therefore it can happen again. After months of keeping her story to herself, Stephanie found part of her healing in publicly sharing it. Today, she's a board-certified executive coach and writer out with a brand-new book. I will grieve RJ as deeply as I loved him. Yeah. And, and there's something comforting about that. Like, I really loved my son. I really liked him. And so that. Is gonna live on in me. And in that way it makes me feel better about it, you know, and, and sort of accepting like, I'm never gonna be done with this grief because I'm never gonna be done loving him. My guest today has lived many lives, journalist, single mother, sales executive, executive coach, and now an author. But perhaps the most defining chapters of of her story are the ones that she didn't choose losing her son at age 19 and finding her way to sobriety more than three decades ago. Stephanie Peirolo spent years helping executives and leaders make better decisions, not just smarter ones, but more intentional value driven ones. That work led her to write the book, the Saint and The Drunk, A Guide to Making the Big Decisions in Your Life, which draws on the spiritual trolls of St. Ignatius of Loyola, and the 12 step concept of a higher power to help anyone find their own inner compass. She's been through the kind of grief that breaks people and the kind of transformation that rebuilds them, and she brings all of that into this conversation. Stephanie, I wanna welcome you to Grieving Out Loud. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to talk to you. Just the title of your book is so intriguing, but I would like to start. With your original story, probably the the oldest story that we have here to talk about, and that is your battle with substance use disorder. Can you tell me what age you were and what happened? Yeah, absolutely. I, I recognized that I had a problem with alcohol when I was a teenager. Um, I was in a church youth group. I grew up Catholic, and somebody came in and said, okay, we're gonna ask you these questions. If you answer yes to most of them, you're an alcoholic. And in my mind, I was like. Yes. To binge drinking. Yes to yes, yes, yes, yes. But nobody said what to do if you answered yes, and I wasn't gonna volunteer. Just asked you the questions and said you might have a problem, and I was like 17. And Oh, me, I was drinking to manage my kind of emotional ecosystem. My father was terminally ill. He died when I was 19 and he was very sick when I was in high school. And. Drinking was kind of a safety valve for me. I would work really hard. I had a job, I did sports. I was in a very academically rigorous, um, uh, Catholic high school. And on the weekends I would go out and drink with my friends, but I never drank normally. I never had. And, um, when my kids were very little, I didn't drink when I was pregnant. But I started again as soon as I could. Um, I remember the doctor saying to me like, okay, so the baby's born, you can have a beer while you're nursing. And I was like. I'm sorry, a beer. She's like, yes, one beer. And I'm like, one beer. So I realized after, um, I, because I, I got married when I was still in college. I had kids young, and after my second child was born, my daughter, I realized that I was drinking every day and I needed to do something. And I was really motivated by wanting to be a better. Mom. Um, I got sober in February and my son was two and my daughter was one, and it was a couple days before my son's third birthday. And I had this really clear understanding that I will never be the parent I want to be if I am, um, drinking a alcoholically. And so, um, I stopped. You just stopped. Well, I mean, I, I got some help and it is something that I don't, I actually prefer not to talk about it publicly. Um, how I got sober, uh, just because I want the focus to not be so much on me as the individual. Um, but I did use, uh, spiritual practices community and it is something that I've been involved in for 37 years last month. Well, congratulations. That Thank you. time to remain in recovery. And I think about you losing your son, your 19-year-old son in 2005. Mm-hmm. how many years had you been sober at that point? I was like, I think I was like 15 years sober around that time. Yeah. And so I have seen parents who lose a child who struggle with addiction. You know, either either escalated or you know. Relapse and start drinking or using other things after the death of a child. I, I have known people that that's happened to. So let's talk about the loss of your son and how you were able to face that sober. well there were a couple things that happened. One was, I have another child. So what happened with my son is he was in a car accident when he was 16 Um. he was driving to his best friend's house. He had no drugs or alcohol. He had his seatbelt on. It was just a winter night in a rainy kind of back road, and he was hit from the side and had a, um, was severely disabled. He had a severe traumatic brain injury and we weren't sure he was gonna make it through that accident, but he did. And my daughter was 15 at the time, and so he was in and out of hospitals. So I was at hospitals, ICU, I was a single parent. Their father, uh, lives in Europe. So it was, you know, I mean, I have other family, but it was pretty much me. And so my first priority, uh, was. To make sure my son had the care he needed, but also take care of my daughter. You know, one of the things that I realized is that when you have a child who is gravely ill, or in the case of my son disabled, it's very hard to make sure that the other sibling or siblings. Get the attention that they need. Um, fortunately I do have family here and they were very, you know, kind of careful of her. But one of the things that I was really clear about is that I wanted to stay available to her and she had only ever known me sober. Right. And so I, I didn't think that my getting drunk again would help matters in any way. So that was one motivation after my son died. There was people who I knew who were sober, um, were very generous people in my community, and I heard from people who I didn't even really know well who had lost children in sobriety. And what they told me was, you have to keep talking about it. Keep talking about it. Show up. Cry, ugly cry. Don't pretend you're okay with it and don't hide out in a cave and stop engaging with people. Um, because some of the people that shared that with me had gotten drunk and they said, I isolated. I stopped talking to people and I got drunk, and I remember another woman saying, I just, I just kept showing up and talking to people and crying. And I was able to, to stay sober through that. And so that's, that's what I tried to do. It strikes me that you experienced two grave losses. First, the loss of your son as he was, when someone has a traumatic brain injury like that, I mean, that's a huge loss in and of itself. And then. When he dies, it's a second loss, Well, and that's a, it's a good point because one of the things I realized is that a lot of times people will suffer a loss and they will focus on the bereavement. Without understanding that there can be a cascading series of losses. So my son was in a car accident and profoundly disabled. I had an insurance company that didn't wanna pay his bills. And so I was fighting with the insurance company. I was, um, you know, tremendously in debt and the stress of that, on top of the stress of like just trying to get him medical care, um, it, he kept getting kicked out of hospitals because he was too profoundly disabled to show progress. And the insurance companies want you to show progress to continue to pay. Um, so I actually took him home when he was in a coma. Um. And, um, so there, I, I think that a lot of times we as a culture will tend to treat the loss. As an isolated incident without recognizing that for many of us, there were problems before that. Whether it's it's drug addiction or mental health issues, or cancer or you know, that that impacts the whole framework of your existence and you're already tired by the time you get there. I think any parent who's gone through a prolonged illness and has been let down by the system like you're talking about, which happens so often, Right. has dealt with a child with addiction and all of you know, the hope of recovery and then it, uh, the things that don't happen, anybody can, can relate to that weariness. Yeah, and I think that, I mean it, it's funny because a lot of times my daughter who is now grown and I have sort of noticed that since this was our experience, this was our life, we will tend to discount it. We will forget that, like for most people, particularly for my daughter who was a teenager, this is a catastrophic rupture of your life. But to us, it's our, it's just our existence. And so kind of honoring that, honoring that narrative and holding onto it can be, um, sometimes just admitting it to ourself can be really important. Right. Not everybody goes through this. Not everybody has to experience something like this. And it did impact, it certainly shapes our other children when there Yeah, something traumatic that happens within the home and a and um. Unexpected death, a catastrophic loss certainly impacts other children in the home and certainly impacted mine. In fact, we've devoted an entire series on Grieving Out Loud to sibling loss. In one episode, I sat down with two of my own children to talk about how their older sister's sudden death impacted them. Anything could happen at any moment and anyone can die at any moment. So you might as well enjoy life and not like stress out about it. Love the people around you. I also think my perception of. A human being changed a lot. Um, and I think a lot of that happened through volunteering with Emily's Hope and just meeting people who have gone through addiction and seeing a lot more people come out with their stories after, you know, seeing Emily's story. So that helped a lot, like with my grief. And then as far as personal transformation, I think the first. Three, four years. I, I was still kind of immature and still trying to process it all. But I think in the past couple of years after like wrapping up college and moving to a new city and meeting new people, I've kind of realized that my perception on life and and how I carry myself is very different compared to a lot of people my age.'cause a lot of people my age haven't gone through a traumatic event like losing their sibling. So it's made me realize. How much stronger of a person I am and, and I feel like I can pretty much handle anything that really comes in my way, like going forward. Because you know, I went through that at 16, which is a lot to handle at that age, so. So you're talking about resilience? Yeah. That's one of the things you're talking about. Do you think you're more resilient, Abby? For sure. Yeah, I think I am. But also there are some negative effects of going through this trauma and I think, Abby, could you talk about some of the ways that you feel like it impacted you and your emotional mental health? It was sad, sad time. Right. But like, I think what Adam mentioned earlier, like leaving my hometown and like going to a new city and going to college and meeting new people was really nice and refreshing. You got a fresh start where everyone mm-hmm. Label you as Emily's sister or Emily's brother. Mm-hmm. Because. I am in the public eye in our community, and people knew the story, right? You can listen to the full conversation with my kids by visiting the episode show notes. We've put a link there for you. While you're there, we'd really appreciate it if you'd just take a moment to rate and review this podcast, and please share it with someone you know needs to hear it. Have you lost a loved one to overdose or fentanyl poisoning? I'd like to invite you to share their story on our new Emily's Hope Memorial website called More Than Just a Number. They were our children, siblings, cousins, husbands, wives, aunts, uncles, and friends. So much more than just a number. You can submit a memorial today on morethanjustanumber.org. And you went on after your son's death and to write these books and to work with people. And how, how did that, how did the his death change you? Um, I would say fundamentally it broke me and I have come to accept the brokenness and to try to name that for other people. Um, I, I, you know, in my, my book, the Saint and the Drunk, I talk about decision making and the central part of the book is to invite people to look at the different narratives that influence us. Um, what we are told about money. Who gets to have money? Do women get to have money? Who gets to have power? If you leave something that doesn't serve you, are you quitting or are you evolving? So I take these, all of these different narratives and I examine them, and one of the things that I've been trying to do consistently for myself and for others is to highlight the narratives around grief and loss. And invite myself and others to reframe their narratives around loss. In fact, my next book, which I'm working on right now, is about reframing the narratives around loss. Because what I found is that there were all of these narratives about how I was supposed to react as a bereaved parent and. Some of them were helpful, right? You, I mean, my friends, we have sort of a black sense of humor in my friend group, and they would sometimes say to me like, you can totally play the dead kid card here. You can totally play the dead kid card. And we would say that because there is an acknowledgement, I think in our culture generally, that losing a child is the worst thing that can happen to a person. And I don't think we have to be competing with one another, but I think most people understand that a mother who has lost a child has a particular burden to bear. And that that is a helpful, that was a helpful narrative to me. At least. I found challenging narratives to be what other people thought of my grief, right? So I found that there was this. Prevalent idea that you're supposed to have a timeline. And mine was too long. Like, okay. It's, uh, been a year. Are you done yet? It's been five years. It's been 10 years. I mean, this last summer was the 20th anniversary of my son's death, and certainly my grieving process is very different, but it's not done yet. So interesting you say that because I know we have a lot of people listening and watching this podcast who are relatively early in their grief. I'm talking the first two to five years. I think, although society says Right. is maybe too long, I still consider that early grief. Can you talk about, because I think when they hear somebody like you 20 years almost going on 21 years and And you're not done with it, you're not done with it, it doesn't suddenly evaporate and leave. Can you tell me how it changes and how it presents itself? I'm talking about grief Right. later. I mean, I think it's different for every person, and I certainly don't wanna say that mine is a, is some kind of a template. But I remember very much, very distinctly talking to a woman who had lost a child two years earlier. And I asked her, I was like, when did you lose your child? And she said, it was two years ago. And I said, oh, so it just happened and she just had this relief. Like, yes, it did just happen. And I think for me, um, my experience was there was just a level of, of shock where I, I really kind of couldn't take it in and I was very, um, I used to dream about the apocalypse. Because like my world had ended and so I kept dreaming of like planes flying into buildings and you know, I got, I went into therapy, which I found to be very helpful, um, for dealing with that first sort of acute phase, which I would say for me lasted probably for about five years. I really wanted to, I wanted someone to tell me like, this is when it's gonna get better and. wants Right. I read somewhere that somebody said at eight years there's a shift. And I did find that to be true. I remember at about eight years I had this moment and I was like, oh my God, I, I feel happy right now. And I realized like I had not actually felt happy for eight years and then. years. I'm at eight years this May. So Do you feel like there's a, a turning point for you or any sort of shifting? I, I think early on I felt like Emily's death defined me. And now I don't feel that way. I miss her still. I think about her, especially in the spring when it's her birthday and Mother's Day and her death date, as I'm sure you Yeah. Yeah. son and his death date. And I think about her, but I'm not, I'm not so tied to the narrative that losing her is the only thing that my life is about. And, and I wonder how much of that has to do with you doing this podcast because one, there, there's two pivotal things that happened to me in my healing process that were independent of time, but really shifted it for me. Right? So the first one was, there's a storytelling group that's called The Moth. And they got in touch with me and asked me to tell the story of R J's death, and I said, absolutely not. And they encouraged me and invited me because they were trying to, they, they're, it's a big organization and they have these moth main stage performances that are huge, like, you know, Phil, big theaters, and that's what they wanted me to do. Because they were trying to get stories of women who were not famous, who had been through difficult things, and they were wonderful and they worked with me. And I had a, you know, direct. It was, it was a great experience and I, I stood up and I told the story of my son's death, and it was one of the hardest things I've ever done. But it was deeply healing Thank you for watching Grieving Out Loud on KELOLAND Plus. This episode continues now on grievingoutloudpodcast.com/kelo.