People have a hard enough talking about grief. It’s even harder to talk about what it’s really like, behind closed doors and in the confines of your own mind. That’s the version that not too many people want to admit.
In this conversation, I sit down with Jeannie Ewing, who spent ten years writing and speaking about grief before turning her attention to motherhood and caregiving at I Grow Strong Again and Ghost Mother. Between us, we’ve lived through most of what we talk about here.
We get into why doctors reach for a prescription pad when what you have isn’t depression, it’s a normal reaction to a devastating loss. Why so many people believe grief is for the weak, and what that belief costs them. How to let your kids see your pain without dumping it all over them. What “grief is nonlinear” actually feels like, because the phrase itself tells you nothing.
And we go where the title promises. The thoughts that show up after a devastating loss that you’d never admit to anyone. The relief. The shame. The anger at your own fragility. These thoughts don’t make you a monster. They make you human, and hearing someone else say them first might be the permission you didn’t know you needed.
If you’re not yourself since your loss, or you love a man who isn’t, The Gut Check will show you what’s actually going on.
