Grief That Lingers For Years

Some people carry grief quietly for years. Not just the grief of losing someone but the grief of what they lived through before the loss and the grief of what came after. Today's conversation is for anyone who has ever loved someone through an impossible season and wondered quietly whether they were allowed to fall apart too.

Meeting Julie Barth And The Stakes

Welcome back to Healthy Mind, Healthy Life. I'm your host, Yusuf, and today we are having one of those conversations that matters. My guest today is Julie Barth, a writer, mother of sex, trauma survivor, and the founder of the Colin James Barth Outreach, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting women-led households in times of crisis. She is also the author of the memoir Notes from a Blackberry, which chronicles her journey as a special needs parent through love, loss, and the hard work of rebuilding. Today, we are talking about survivors' guilt, caregiving, emotional abuse, grief, and what it really takes to come back to yourself after all of it. Julie, I welcome you to the show and I'm so glad that you are here. Thanks for having me. I'm happy to be here. Perfect.

The Words Caregivers Need To Hear

So Julie, before we go into the deeper layers of your story, I want to start somewhere very human. When you look back at the version of yourself who was in the middle of all this, the caregiving, the loss, the years that followed, what do you wish someone had said to her that nobody did? I think that I wish people would have said that it's okay for me not to always put up this brave front. And I'm not sure that people knew that it was a brave front, but you know, when you're in these situations, you you don't want to bring your misery everywhere, you know. So I think you have one face that you uh keep behind the scenes, and then you have another face that you show to the world. And I can't imagine that some people in my life didn't know that a lot of it was pretend that I really was not okay. So I think just someone giving me license, like, go ahead and fall apart, you know. I'm here, I'll hold you up, fall apart if you need to. Because it just was always this heavy keep it together feeling where I never felt like I could truly tell anyone what was going on inside. And when you keep it, it almost feels like a secret. So I think just being able to share, because it's such a heavy emotion that you keep to yourself. So I think being able to, you know, disperse some of those emotions around would have been very helpful at the time.

The Hidden Cost Of Selflessness

So there's a belief that many caregivers and survival carry. Yeah. Like if they're struggling emotionally, something is wrong with them. That they should be stronger, more grateful, more focused on others. From everything you have lived and everything you have observed in the woman you now serve, what does that belief cost you? I think it costs you the ability to really live in your own world. You know, as a caregiver, sometimes you just feel like you're invisible. I think for many years, probably still to some degree, I caregivers put their own needs and wants aside as if feeling, you know, wanting something or requiring something somehow feels selfish. And I think that's well, that was one of the hardest parts was just recognizing that I'm human being. And even now, I can honestly say doing stuff just for me, taking time just for me, feels wrong. And I don't know what the answer is. When you're a caregiver and I'm I'm an empath, and you know, I I I love helping my my happiness really revolves around seeing other people happy. But unfortunately, that's almost a road to ruin because no one is ever, you're never going to be able to make everyone happy. The only person you can make happy is yourself. But that's a very foreign concept to people who are caregivers, but they're important too. So yeah, what you are describing sounds like a kind of emotional permission propsy. So many people are waiting for someone to tell them that it is okay to hurt. And sometimes that permission never comes from the outside. I would say that even if someone had given me permission, I don't know that I would have taken it. I it just it felt against everything that kind of I value, which shouldn't. But for some reason I had this identity of, you know, being selfless, putting everyone else front. And when I did resent somebody or resent the position I was in, that made me feel very guilty. Like, how dare, you know, you're watching someone suffer. And the thought of, gosh, I can't believe I have to do this one more day, it makes you feel like a horrible human. Like, how can I even be complaining? I'm not in their shoes. You know, my life is great. I'm healthy. I shouldn't be feeling this way, especially when you're watching someone else. But unfortunately, you know, when you're caregiving someone, you hurt with them, whether you want to acknowledge it or not. But you're caring for the other person, not for the hurt part of you. Survivor's

What Survivor's Guilt Feels Like

guilt is something that does not get talked about enough, especially in the context of caregiving and loss. So for someone who does not have any experience, and it can be hard to understand. So what does it actually feel like from the inside? And why does it tend to stay so quietly lost in a person? Um, it's just such a complex, you know, set of emotions. I before I went through the situations I have, I always assumed that survivor's guilt was, you know, if you were on a life road with two people and you somehow survived and they didn't. That was what survivor's guilt was, that you were both almost in a position where you could die. I didn't recognize that one person could be completely healthy and the other person is not. And so I think I spent a lot of years not really understanding all of the emotions that I was dealing with inside. You know, and when there's a long drawn-out illness and you're someone's caregiver, you know, you you say things and you think things, you know, when they're suffering, you wish they were not here. But after they go, you beat yourself up. Like, how could I possibly wish someone wasn't here? And you feel, even though no one else heard the things that you were thinking, you knew them. So there is a day of recognizing and kind of balancing out, yes, I did wish them gone, but I didn't wish them gone. I wish their suffering gone. But you can't really separate it when you're already feeling, you know, as if you didn't, there's never enough time in the world to spend with somebody if they're dying. You when you can't alleviate their suffering, you feel like you should have gone to a different doctor, got them a different medication. You you feel invincibles in some way, but you're not. But somehow you have this illusion that you can control things because if if you can't control things, that's an even worse feeling. So I think you do have this illusion that if you were just better, if if I had just devoted more time, if I had just been stronger, you know, you you have all these if I adjust. And I think you push them away because they're so in the heat of everything, you're just so wounded and hurt and trying to push those feelings away that even to acknowledge how you're feeling about yourself, a little less how you're feeling about the loss, is is very it all comes crashing at once. And you can only kind of focus on one thing or another. But if you don't kind of work through all those things, they get very tangled up into your self-identity and who you are and whether you're a good person. And you I did anyway. I tended to see myself in a negative light because all the things that I wanted to do, I couldn't do and I felt less than. But I didn't really acknowledge that I was feeling that way. And I think, you know, that's what led into the second situation I got into with a very unhealthy relationship because I almost felt when he was saying, you know, you're everybody hates you, you're a bad person. It felt as if he was seeing the real me and that he knew what I had done and that I didn't do enough. So I was very willing to accept what he was saying to me because I was feeling that way myself. I think what is so important about naming survivors guilt is that it often masculates at something else. It can look like overworking, overgiving, or simply not allowing yourself any joy. And people don't always connect those behaviors to the grief underneath them. Yeah. Or they they assume that whatever your exterior, whatever you're portraying on the outside is is how you're actually feeling on the inside. And

Performing Strength For The Kids

I had little children. So as my husband Colin was dying, I had four children ages 10 to 2, or I'm sorry, 10 to six months. And I was so determined to make sure that their lives didn't revolve around misery, that I did so much hiding and bouncing and smiling and pretending everything's fine. Don't look over there, don't look over there. And I didn't even know I was doing it. But after he passed, I kept on with that because it became a way of life, hiding how I was feeling, putting on a brave face, you know, picking everybody else up. But I think on the outside of every past, people misunderstood, misread that as they didn't care or didn't miss him. It was almost like, how can she be smiling? Why doesn't why isn't she crying? Why isn't she a mess? Why is it? And I was, but it was inside. And I was completely disingenuous with my feelings and who I was and what was going on because I didn't want people, I was almost ashamed of how badly I was falling apart. And I knew if I even let a little bit of that go, it was almost like the whole charade was up and my life was going to fall apart and I would be forced to deal with all of my feelings, which I didn't want to. So I was just as happy being in this masquerade as everybody else was with me. But I do think that it made me feel bad that I didn't feel bad, which is like a whole new set of, oh my gosh, you know, that's like someone telling you not to worry, but you're worried because you're worrying. So it just keeps compounding.

Emotional And Financial Abuse Patterns

And Julie, you've spoken openly about emotional and financial abuse in your second marriage. I want to handle this carefully and with respect for your experience. For someone listening who may recognize their own situation in what you have described, but has not been able to name it yet. What does that kind of abuse look like in everyday life? Not in dramatic ways, but in quiet, ordinary modes. And it is very quiet and it is very subtle. And the problem with any form of financial, economic, emotional abuse is that, you know, you gaslight yourself because you don't want to you don't want to admit to yourself that someone you love or someone that you've partnered with could do that to you because your brain doesn't work that way. But if these type of relationships, nothing makes sense, you know, like money's disappearing, but if I ask about it, I'm gonna get yelled at. But yet I don't have enough to live. So even if I wanted to do something on my own, let's say, you know, my worst fear was if I left that relationship, I was going to lose everything. I was going to lose my home. You know, I it it keeps you stuck because they put in you in the situation where they control you through not giving you the resources you need to leave outside of it. And then on top of it, they're emotionally telling you you're stupid and you can't do anything. So you think, well, I really can't do this on my own. I can't go out and get a job, I can't support. So not only are they making sure that you you can't make it because they're giving you very little, you know, help, if at any, but they're also telling you if if you weren't with me, you couldn't survive. And because you are failing so miserably in your own mind, you do believe them. And all of a sudden, everything that you know you're capable of, or everything you know to be true about yourself no longer seems to remain. So you you you learn distrust in yourself that you can't trust what you're feeling, you can't trust what you see. Because the minute you question them, they make it so difficult for you to call them out to question. They shut you down, they get very violent, very angry, very confrontational. So you just learn to keep your mouth shut and figure things out without almost poking the bail. But no matter what you do, anyway you twist or turn, you end up in the exact same position. And if that's happening, that's by design. It's not you. And I spent many years, you know, going to therapy and and doing everything I could to fix me because I figured if I just fix me, this will all work out. But unfortunately, you're not the problem. And no matter how hard you fit try to fix yourself, when someone is exerting control over you or treating you in such a manner to degrade you or convincing you that what you know is not to be true, it's all by design. And that's terrible to think about that someone that you marry, that you love, that you're in a relationship with, that you've promised to support one another, could be doing something that malicious. So, you like I said, you just convince yourself it's not real. I mean, I can't tell so many times I was like, Julie, you've watched too many dateline shows. Like, he can't possibly be, he didn't steal your ring. He didn't, you know, all the things that I found out later, I was questioning, but if I questioned, he would get very angry. And there was also that part of me that was like, he's not doing that, you know, that's crazy. No one would do that, but they do. So yeah. Yeah, and that internal barrier is real, and I want listeners to hear that. And it is not weakness that keeps people in these situations, it is a very human response to a very complex set of circumstances, and the way you name that honestly, and uh plainly, it is one of the most important things we can do on a show like this. So thank you so much for that, Julie. You're welcome. Yeah, I think just in interjecting this part too, I think that people are when you're outside of a situation, you're under the assumption that the reason that a woman stays or anyone stays in an abusive relationship is their own mind limitations. You know, you think that it's because they they can't come to terms with something, but what you don't see is there's always something else driving it behind the scenes that whether it's money, whether it's fear of losing your children, there is always a reason. And sometimes you yourself don't even know why you. I mean, I stayed in the relationship for a decade. And when I got out of it, you know, and the fog cleared, I thought, what what was I doing? Why, why would I ever allow someone to treat me that way? And it wasn't until, you know, years later that I recognized that you watch this person destroy other people in front of you. You there's a reason why you're staying. And when you're ready to leave, you will know. But unfortunately, sometimes you stay too long and you don't see a way out. But it's very hard to see when you're in it. It's so easy from the outside, but people don't understand that you're so hyper-focused on just trying to manage that you can't even listen to the outside noise of what's real around you.

Finding Help And Reaching Julie

Julie, for listeners who want to connect with you or want to learn from you, where can you do that? I have a website. It's Julie Bark, B-A-R-T-H, author, A-U-T-H-O-R dot com. So it's JulieBarth Author.com. That's my personal, my professional page. On there also is information about the charity that I started, which is the C the Colin James Barth Outreach. It's cjb.org. But there's a tab on on my Julie Barth Author website. And then also my special needs daughter uh sells her art, which goes to fund our charity as well, but it's all in one place on that website. And I man it. So if you need help, if you want to get involved, if you even just want to comment it when you reach out, I'm the one manning the email. So I I'm the one that you will be getting, not some chatbot or it's a real life person in me. So perfect. And to everyone listening, all these links are in the show notes. So just go and check them out.

The Signal That Starts A Way Out

Judy, is there any last message that you want to leave us with? I think it's just really important for anyone out there who's feeling like they're alone. It does feel that way because in these relationships you become very isolated, but there is always somebody out there that cares. They're probably not saying it. They're probably not saying, yeah, that's right. They're probably not saying it because when when somebody pushes you too far, you start defending that person who's actually abusing you. So they've learned how far they can go. So don't think that people have abandoned you. They're still there. And once you give the signal, you know, and I think once you commit, and that means telling someone I'm ready to leave, they will take you seriously and they will help you. But you have to say it out loud and you have to commit it to somebody else to keep yourself responsible to find a better life because you deserve better. Thank you, Didi, for your honesty, for your courage, and the way you have tuned so much pain into something that genuinely helps people. Thank you. Thank you for having me on. You're most welcome. And to everyone listening. If this episode touched something in you, please don't scroll past that feeling. Sit with it. And if you know someone who is quietly carrying what we talked about today, share this episode with them. Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do for someone is let them know they are not alone. We'll be back soon on Healthy Mind, Healthy Life. Until then, be gentle with yourself. You are doing better than you think.