Beyond Fandom: Exploring the Depth of Grief

Have you felt an overwhelming sadness when a favorite character or celebrity has died? It's OK to mourn the loss, even over a fictional character or someone you've never met. Natalie Harryman, licensed marriage and family therapist with the Counseling Center, is our guest for this episode. She explains why we feel this loss, what we can do for friends and family who are grieving and when it’s time to seek professional help. 

Transcript

Melissa Whitfield  0:10 
Hello and welcome back to Texas Tech Health Check from Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. I'm your host, Melissa Whitfield. We want you to get healthy and stay healthy with help from evidence based advice from our physicians, health care providers and researchers. I don't know about our listeners, but watching or reading that a favorite character dies has become heartbreaking. Perhaps it's because I grew up on soap operas where characters always came back from the dead. So when the character dies now, or even a celebrity, many of us are devastated. Why do we feel like that over someone we never met or will meet? Natalie Harriman, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with our counseling center, is our guest for this episode. She explains why we feel this loss, what we can do for friends and family who are grieving and when it's time to seek professional help. Here's a spoiler. It's okay to feel sad.

Melissa Whitfield  1:28 
Welcome back to our podcast. Natalie Harriman, how are you?

Natalie Harriman  1:31 
I am doing well, I'm a little cold. It's a cold day today.

Melissa Whitfield  1:35 
Yes, it is.

Natalie Harriman  1:35 
I'm doing pretty well. Thank you.

Melissa Whitfield  1:38 
Well, welcome back to our podcast. Thanks so much for agreeing to come back so soon and talking to us about what I hope is a fun topic, but just again, for our listeners who may not remember, tell us a little bit about yourself, your expertise and what you do here at the Health Sciences Center.

Natalie Harriman  1:54 
Yes. So my name is Natalie Harriman. I am one of the therapists over at the counseling center at the TTUHSC counseling center the EAP there, I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, so I do a lot of work with couples, not so much with families, but that's definitely something that I can do. But that does not exclude me from working with individuals as well. And in fact, a lot of the individual work I do, I end up working with individuals who are grieving, who have experienced some trauma in their lives, so giving them a space to process through that, and, of course, doing some relational work from time to time.

Melissa Whitfield  2:17 
Again, thank you for coming back and agreeing to talk to us about this little I guess it's not a typical topic, but, I mean, I I'm gonna give away my age here, but I was a huge David Lynch fan, so when he passed away, I kind of really felt that. So I started wondering about grief and pop culture. So to start off with, can you tell us? Why do some of us become attached to fictional characters or to celebrities?

Natalie Harriman  3:00 
I think to have this conversation, it's important to think about the fact that we are made to be in relationship. Just biologically, we're hardwired to be in relationship with people, and as a part of that, we empathize with others, right? So whether we know people or not, if we hear of situations just on a human level, we feel that stuff, right? And so especially if it's fictional characters, whether it be through a book or a TV show or a movie or whatever the case may be, we're watching these individuals and, in a way, building relationships with them, or through pop celebrities like we know way too much about their lives, right? And so there is a certain amount of connection there. And so I think that's part of how we develop these relationships, or we become attached to these characters, is we're humans. That's how we're made. That's what's gonna happen if we didn't get attached, then all this stuff wouldn't be fun. Would it?

Melissa Whitfield  4:02 
Well so then we become attached to them. But then why do some of us feel a loss when either celebrity or fictional character dies, even if we've never met the person or the creator, the creator of the characters or characters? How is this loss described? Is it grief? Bereavement? Mourning? Sadness?

Natalie Harriman  4:23 
I say the answer is yes, right? I don't really know the specific definitions of each and every one of those words, but when I think of grief, I describe that as a response to loss, no matter what we're talking about, right? It's just how we respond. And so that could be emotionally, that could be physically, can even be intellectually. Grief is a holistic experience. So again, whenever we find ourselves connected or attached to these characters or these pop culture representatives, again, because we're humans and we have the ability to empathize with others. Maybe we relate to some of the stories that we've read, but again, just on a basic human level, we know these people as I'm thinking of this topic and thinking back to the morning I found out that Kobe Bryant had died in that helicopter crash, and I never paid attention to basketball or anything like that. But man, that hurt. And I even found myself being like, why am I so upset about this? But again, where I'm a human and that was a tragic incident, and just on a human level, I felt that. But even if it's if I'm reading a book and the book is over. I was connected. I was engaged in that process, and then something that took up time is no longer there, and I'm having to adjust and change. And there's there is a sense of loss there, and that's normal. So depending on the degree of the experience, it could be maybe just felt sadness, or maybe it is grief and bereavement, and I need a time of mourning to transition from this moment in time.

Melissa Whitfield  6:10 
Why do some people feel deeply affected while others don't react as strongly?

Natalie Harriman  6:16 
I think some of it could be your lived experiences, right again, the different types of relationships we have in this life, in real life, kind of inform how we take in information about others. Maybe we're reading a story or hearing a story, and it just happens to parallel something that we've experienced in our life. And so maybe it's pouring salt in a wound that hadn't quite healed. And so we might react more strongly in that situation compared to someone else, who this is the first time hearing of something like that, and it just feels like it's that must feel. And so there's really not, it's not as easy to connect in that regard, or again, it just depending on lived life experience, there are going to be different reactions and responses.

Melissa Whitfield  7:10 
I think you have a point about that, because I can't watch The Bear anymore. That's a little too much. Yeah, so how can we be supportive of our friends and loved ones when they're going through this type of loss?

Natalie Harriman  7:23 
A popular phrase nowadays is that, hold space for that, right? I would recommend not telling someone what to feel, or I would encourage you to refrain from saying, well, that person really didn't exist, or like you're freaking out about nothing, just those very dismissive comments. Let's try to refrain from that, because to that person, then you're experiencing real emotions, and it's very real to them, and so hold space for that. Say, yeah, but that's really hard. Let me know if you want to talk about that, just offer that up. You don't have to necessarily sit there and say, pour out your heart and soul to this, but acknowledge, hey, I see that's hard for you. How can I support you and this? And just ask the person, maybe even ask questions of, what was your favorite part about this experience, or what do you miss the most? Just have conversation about it. We don't have to walk on egg shells around the conversation.

Melissa Whitfield  8:20 
Are there coping strategies that can help with closure?

Natalie Harriman  8:24 
Absolutely, and that's going to differ from person to person, right? That's going to be the the official answer of our story today, right? Is it depends. The first thing that just comes to my mind. I've never thought about this before, but maybe even something like writing a book report, honestly, just to kind of retell the story again, what happened and how it ended, and how we're feeling, how we're processing just kind of having something like that, having conversation about it. For some people, it might be doing a historical deep dive on maybe, if it's a celebrity learning more about their life, or finding a way to donate to the cause, it's really gonna differ from person to person. I know some people, they talk about after they finish a series that they were really invested in, they have to do something light hearted before they maybe dive into another deeper, serious series. That's their way of coping with really, we could say a loss at that point in time. Yeah, it just depends. It depends on the person. And to that, I'll say each person is the expert of his or herself, and so they know what they need. You know what you need. I know what I need. And so we can lean into that, and we can trust ourselves in that process.

Melissa Whitfield  9:35 
Absolutely, after I read a very heavy book, I definitely need to read something light hearted.

Natalie Harriman  9:40 
Absolutely, absolutely.

Melissa Whitfield  9:42 
When is the time to seek professional help?

Natalie Harriman  9:47 
If you find yourself having a hard time functioning in your day to day life, if it's impacting not only your ability to take care of yourself, but it's affecting your ability to show up to work. Perform your expected job duties, having a hard time maintaining your relationships, and what's maybe typical for you for an extended period of time and again, that's going to be maybe subjective to each person's experience. Those might be indicators that it's time to maybe go talk with someone and see about getting some professional help in that in that regard.

Melissa Whitfield  10:21 
Is there anything else you'd like to add?

Natalie Harriman  10:23 
You're normal, right? If you find yourself feeling lost in these experiences, that's normal. And I just thought about this term. This might be considered disenfranchised grief. I think that would be a term for this type of experience of other people may not recognize it, other people may not acknowledge it, or even think that it's valid, but you're feeling it, therefore you're normal. And we could say it's it's a good thing that you experience those things, because it shows that you care. You're a loving person, and you definitely have a heart for others. So if you're experiencing this, you're normal, just take care of you and do what you need to do.

Melissa Whitfield  11:05 
Well, great. Thank you so much for coming on our podcast and sharing, sharing all these tips and this information with us. It's you know, as I said, I felt a little bit silly me be asking about it, but you just validated my question.

Natalie Harriman  11:17 
Well, there you go. Absolutely thank you for having me.

Melissa Whitfield  11:20 
Thank you. And I also like to give a thank you to Louis, who is sitting on our board.

Natalie Harriman  11:25 
Yes.

Melissa Whitfield  11:26 
Thank you, Louis.

Natalie Harriman  11:27 
Round of applause.

Melissa Whitfield  11:30 
And so we hope to have you back sometime soon.

Natalie Harriman  11:32 
Thank you so much.

Melissa Whitfield  11:33 
All right, thank you.

Melissa Whitfield  11:37 
Thanks for listening to Texas Tech Health Check. Make sure to subscribe or follow wherever you listen to podcasts. This information is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice. Always seek immediate medical advice from your physician or your health care provider for questions regarding your health or medical condition. Texas Tech Health Check is brought to you by Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center and produced by TR Castillo, Suzanna Cisneros, Mark Hendricks, Kay Williams and me, Melissa Whitfield.