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Death Doula Randi

Asking for help

Asking for help is hard.

We are told to reach out for help, but that can be incredibly difficult to do and cause anxiety. 

There has been a pattern over the course of my life. It started as a child. 

My first real memory of needing help was in grade one. I had to go to the washroom. I was wearing a jean skirt, and in grade one my brain didn’t think about just lifting up the skirt, so when I couldn’t get that button undone at the top I ran out of the bathroom to ask my teacher for help. I remember tapping her on the shoulder and saying excuse me, but she was too busy. She kept telling me to just wait, just wait, and eventually I ended up peeing on the floor in front of the entire grade one classroom.

The memory of being laughed at, judged, my humiliation, my embarrassment, I never wanted to feel that way again. I could hear them calling me stupid and why did I need help with my skirt.

There are other memories that follow from that, hearing a peer call me stupid because I didn’t understand something from a teacher, having my parents respond to me in a sarcastic tone when I didn’t know how to do something or had a question that they thought was silly, and etc. 

We are taught from a young age that all of our questions are stupid even though we are told no question is a stupid question. 

By the time I hit adulthood I learned pretty quickly that if I didn’t want to feel embarrassed or humiliated, or put on the spot, I should just do something myself and probably do it alone before anyone could see me. Now when I do that I get called stubborn. When in reality I would love help, but I can’t bring myself to ask for it.

I in turn moved into relationships in my teen years and adulthood where I never fully relied on or trusted in someone else. I chose to keep most parts of my life separate, so that I could deal with that myself and not need help. That moved fully into me overwhelming and exhausting myself physically and mentally because I was running around trying to do life alone, while looking like I wasn’t. What?! Lol

I still do this. I have not overcome the impact of those experiences. I watch other others in life be treated the same way when they need help, which instills in me further that doing things myself offers more overwhelm yes, but less stress from others, so what is the less of the two evils? It is being overwhelmed for me. Because if I am the only person who knows I am overwhelmed, then I can’t be made to feel stupid by anybody.

When my sister died I watched everyone seem to be able to take care of themselves. They didn’t seem to be struggling or needing help, so I kept all of my struggles inside - At least I thought I did - I numbed them with drugs so I didn’t feel overwhelmed, and I carried on with my life with no one reaching out to see if I was OK or if they did reach out they would ask and then quickly change the subject.That experience taught me a lot, that as long as I was quiet, and kept my problems to myself, I wasn’t a burden on anybody. Even though it was killing me too numb my feelings and not ask for the help I needed.

I now have an incredible relationship. My fiancé could not be more patient or wanting to help me. However I still very much have my old habits and ways of being. I will lift items that are far too heavy for me to lift, and hurt myself before I ask him to do it for me. I will carry emotional and psychological upsets that are far too heavy for me to carry alone, and will overwhelm and burn myself out before I bring my troubles to him.

At first he thought maybe I didn’t think he could do it (keeping in mind he’s 6’4 and incredibly strong lol so yes I know he could do  the heavy lifting) a lot of the times he still doesn’t understand why I choose to do things without asking. A lot of the times I still don’t understand why I am falling into these old patterns and habits, I still don’t understand why after so many attempts at healing this specific area, do I still struggle with it. Most of the time I don’t even recognize it happening until I am in the midst of it.

The one thing I do know is that conversation heals, and that is exactly how we have to continue working at healing things. I know that we have to give others a lot of patience and understanding and not take it personally when they don’t want us to help them. I also know that we go through things for a reason, and for whatever reason I still need to move through these experiences.

When somebody offers to help me, the first thing I feel is that they think I can’t do something. Then I get a rush of emotions, suddenly I can hear them calling me stupid, dumb, weak, less of a person, and etc. I can hear that even if their mouth doesn’t actually move. I can hear it even if they don’t actually say it, or even think it. That is how my brain has rewired that trauma. 

Healing is not easy and it is not understood by everyone. The biggest thing that I can say is if you do not understand why people seem so “stubborn“ or don’t want to ask for help, try taking a step back and not calling them names, try not responding with sarcasm, try being more gentle, and eventually, just maybe, they will let you in.

• Death Doula Randi

Turning Points

Death Doula Randi

Turning Points. We hear these words and perhaps we go back to a time where we accomplished something, or did something enjoyable. The person we were before that moment is gone, and the person we have become after that moment is entirely different. - That, is a turning point. 
We will all go through many turning points in our lives. Some good, some difficult, and in the end, each one of them will help to sculpt us into something different. 
Just last night I was warming my dinner up, scrolling through a streaming site looking for something to watch, when I saw a documentary pop up about the Tsunami in 2004. I remember this Tsunami like it was yesterday. It rocked the entire globe. Multiple countries were hit, multiple coast lines, thousands killed, hundreds of thousands displaced, it was quite unlike anything I had ever witnessed before. 
I pressed play on the show and started watching it. Suddenly, about ten minutes in, it occurred to me that my sister died two years before the Tsunami. Wow. I couldn’t believe it. I also couldn’t believe how I easily remembered the details of this catastrophic event, when I know, in 2004, I was heavily numbing with drugs and alcohol to try to avoid the pain of my sisters death. My brain started whirling. She died a year before American Idol first aired, and what a shame that was, she was an incredible singer. She died before IPhones. She died before Facebook. 
In fact the more I sat and thought about it, the more I realized how different the world is now, compared to before her death. Almost everything that is popular right now, or has been for the last 20 years, she never even knew about. 
6 months before she died, the attack on 9/11 happened. That was the last significant world event, that took place.
I do this often. Think about things in terms of Pre-Shaunas-Death, and Post-Shaunas-Death. Think about things before I was grief stricken, and after I was grief stricken. The biggest turning point of my life. One that I wish I could erase, but also understand that it led me to be motivated to stand strong in my career path, to advocate for others, and to love hard. 
Who we are before a loss is not who we will be after a loss. How we think about things, how we see things, how we feel, how we move in the world, how we behave, all of it will change. 
A piece of us truly does die when we lose someone, and it’s sad to think that they will never be here in the physical to know the person we become, the accomplishments we achieve, the paths we talk, and the journey we walk. 
I know my sister is with me, and I know that she knows the above, and to have that confirmation in the physical would be everything, but of course… if I had that in the physical, I wouldn’t be who I am now.

  • Death Doula Randi