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On this episode, we feature a conversation with Kristin Meekhof, loss survivor of her veteran husband's terminal cancer illness and wellness expert who uses her own experience to help others overcome grief and loss.
Because fewer than 7% of Americans have served in uniform, most Americans are unfamiliar with military service and culture. As a result, members of the military and Veteran community are at greater risk for disconnection and lack of belonging with the civilian community. PsychArmor’s mission is to bridge the military-civilian divide by educating and training a Nation. Each week, Duane France, a combat Veteran and Clinical Mental Health Counselor, will dig deep into the stories “Behind The Mission” - and create a conversation with organizations and leaders on how they are utilizing their expertise and networks to support the military-connected community.
Welcome to Episode 64 of Behind The Mission, a show that sparks conversations with PsychArmor trusted partners and educational experts.
My name is Duane France, and each week I'll be having conversations with podcast guests that will equip you with tools and resources to effectively engage with and support military service members, Veterans and their families. Find the show on all the podcast players by going to www.psycharmor.org/podcast.
Thanks again for joining us on Behind The Mission. Our work and mission are supported by generous partnerships and sponsors, who also believe that education changes lives. This episode is brought to you by PsychArmor, the premier education and learning ecosystem, specializing in military cultural content. PsychArmor offers an online e-learning laboratory that's free to individual learners as well as custom training options for organizations. You can find more PsychArmor at www.psycharmor.org.
On today's episode, I'm having a conversation with Kristin Meekhof, an author, life coach, and expert in helping others overcome grief and loss. Kristen obtained her MSW from the University of Michigan and has more than 20 years of clinical experience. A nationally recognized expert on resiliency and gratitude, her best-selling book A Widow's Guide To Healing was inspired by her own personal experience with widowhood, grief and healing. As a confidential advisor she privately works with some of the most influential people in media and politics. You can find out more about Kristin by checking out her bio in our show notes. Let's get into my conversation with her and come back afterwards talk about some of the key points.
DUANE: Kristen, you're a mindset and a wellness practitioner, as well as a caregiver of a Veteran who passed away from cancer. I'd like to hear your story from your time as a Veteran spouse, to your decision to share your experience with others who are experiencing similar situations.
KRISTIN: Thank you Duane for having me and to PsychArmor. I'm really honored to be here. And my journey actually started in 2007. It was labor day weekend and my husband had a cough at the time. And long story short is it was misdiagnosed. Initially it was we would tell bronchitis. And in fact it was advanced adrenal cancer.
So when the cough didn't clear up, I brought everything to the University of Michigan Cancer Center and it was, as I said, diagnosed, unfortunately, as advanced adrenal cancer. And it was not at all related to any time that he spent in the service. I just want to make that very clear.
It was not found to be related to his military service. And in that respect, however, after he died, what I did is I read everything I could about grief and loss. This was in 2007. Social media was not as robust as it is today. There were search engines and I noticed that there weren't a lot of narratives of women unless you actually read a biography and autobiography.
And I did as much reading as I could. And what I found in doing that is that I've started to connecting with the stories of people who were resilient and hopeful. However, as I stated, there weren't those of women. And so what I did is I decided I was going to go around and this is three years after he died that I wanted to learn from other women.
And one of the first women that I interviewed for my book was Kristi Combs. She lost a husband and 9/11. I met her in person in Boston. Her story is just one of tremendous courageous, bravery, and resilience. And she told me that while she had three young children at home that afternoon, 9/11, she made the decision that she was going to give back to military families.
And so she organized a yard sale with her children. Again, before 9/11, all the needs were ascertained as to how to help families. And at that point she wanted to be an example to her children, although they had lost their father that was yet possible to give to others who did not have as much resources financially.
And I was really curious about how military families have a union perspective about loss and grief and how their needs were unlike other families who suffered painful loss, whether it was through a situation in my own, whether it was advanced cancer or there's a car crash or workplace accident. And so that's really how I started on my journey to collect as many stories as I could from the book.
And as I said, it really began with Christie Koons in Boston meeting her. And lead me into people like Lee Woodruff, who's husband's started the Bob Woodruff Foundation and she shares so much. I know I spoke with her on Sunday about caregiving and the unique needs that caregivers have as well.
DUANE: No. It's interesting. You talk about the unique needs that military family members have, especially related to grief and loss. I'd like to hear more about that. As in the type of loss is often unique. Sometimes it is, as you said, typically, like your husband, a terminal illness, but so, many other times, like Christie's, it was something that was very sudden.
KRISTIN: What I think is unique about military families is that oftentimes whether the loss was created by a trauma. Traumas often in the enrollment, into the unique experiences that military families have had. So whether the person has experienced trauma firsthand or secondhand, they're faced with, at some point during their journey as a military family, confronting PTSD and other types of trauma and learning how to care for one who's been traumatized, whether it's firsthand witnessing something or it's secondary trauma is something that's not often talked about enough and that there's a lot of long term effects, psychologically, emotionally, mentally in experiencing trauma. And we're understanding it now. It's one of the reasons why PTSD diagnosis was first brought to, for example, the mental health community, but we're really understanding how we're hard wired for resilience and how we're hardwired really too only sustain certain types of things. And trauma's not one of the things that is a natural life event. Just because it happened over and over again in military families does not mean it's easy to sustain. And so I think in particular, what I have learned from my experience is that for example, suicide, unfortunately, a very common thing in many families in the military or not, it's often spoken about in hushed tones and it's often spoken about in a very painful and embarrassing way.
And when families are unable to share the true story of what has happened to them and be honest and forthright and have acceptance about it, there's shame. And there's also impacts healing as those substances abuse. One of the really great things about AA. I'm not a member of AA, but I was first introduced to it in 98 when I was in graduate school at the University of Michigan.
Is that in AA, what's so incredibly powerful is that anyone can share their story and they can share really vulnerable things. Like for example, how they may have stolen from a company, how they may have lied to the children and how they may have cheated on somebody and no one in that circle in that community criticizes them or judges them. Instead, they're embraced for the honesty and the openness and they actually are looked at as individuals who have courage to not only to share this story, but it's how it leads really to healing. And so I really think that model of being able to share one story, whether you're in the military or whether you've sustained particular trauma, such as grief and loss is really a key component to healing.
DUANE: I really appreciate that. The idea of non-judgmentalness being a key factor to not just healing. Like you said, developing resilience, really what you're talking about as post traumatic growth. We never want to go through the trauma but there is the ability to grow, and grow in grief. Absolutely. But still to
like Christie did, continue to serve those who had these unique.
KRISTIN: I think that's really one of the reasons why AA is so successful because it's about being able to be completely honest and share your story. Sharing the stories, very powerful and healing we know. And also it's very powerful and listening. And if you have the opportunity to listen to somebody's story, I encourage you to do so without judgment and without, really the impulse to interrupt because being able to do that listening well to somebody really does provide that other person the opportunity for post-traumatic growth.
DUANE: And I think the other, distinction that you made things as if it were someone who was experiencing substance abuse, or addiction, or someone who died by suicide. We hear stories of, for example, a Retired Major General Mark Graham. He lost one son in combat, and lost another son to suicide.They were like a year apart, but the reactions were so clearly different in that the one son who died in combat was lauded as a hero. But the son who died by suicide was shrouded in secrecy and shame. And he and his wife Carol said that they both loved their sons equally. And that's going to that not just the, how the caregiver loses the service member. But the manner in which they lose the service member and their circle's reaction to it can really cause more stress and trauma on top of the grief they're trying to deal with.
KRISTIN: Absolutely. One of the, actually the first interview that I did in my home state of Michigan and Metro Detroit was with a woman, her spouse was not apart of a military community. However, he hang himself. And she found him. And what she said is that they had children, young children at the time. And of course, children's parents are curious,what happened to your spouse, your partner, the father, what can we do?
And she started to change his story when she said that he had died by his own hand and she changed it to, he died of a broken heart. I shared it in a book, but what really was happening? It's true. He did die of a broken heart, but having to change your narrative to fit more of a comfort level of other people did impact the way that she was able to heal.
And it also then therefore impacted the way that she was able to support her children as well, because she wasn't able to provide to them. I think at the same level of compassion, not for her children, but for herself that compassionate care that she needed in healing her own grief and loss, and also from the trauma of finding him.
So I would say too, and I told her one-on-one, there are times in which, in my understanding of depression, the point that one feels that suicide is the only out. That depression, I believe is so large, it's created a blind spot and the person actually isn't thinking clearly. And they may actually, I also think be disillusioned and think that the family is better off without them.
They've become a burden to that's a mountain to health conditions that become burdensome to the family. And they may actually feel that they are providing some relief to their family, to the community that they remove themselves permanently from the situation. And certainly that's not correct, but when you have a blind spot that large created by either trauma and or depression or another type of mental illness that you're not in touch with reality, it's very difficult to see anything else.
DUANE: Absolutely. I think of that idea of, there are many things that are common amongst caregivers, supporting in, for example, if we talk about service members and Veterans, there's many things that are common among caregivers, but then there's unique situations. Again, your husband. Terminal illness versus someone that's supporting someone that has a chronic illness, but maybe isn't terminal versus another caregiver who is supporting someone who has again, struggling with some psychological concerns. Those unique aspects of the caregivers, really need to be understood, as well as the common aspects of all kinds.
KRISTIN: Absolutely. I think that's why it's difficult to meet the needs of caregivers in certain communities because there are very different needs. And for example, someone who is taking care of somebody has alzheimer's and dementia. It may be a term situation in which the diagnosis with 18-24 months ago. And they're feeling the burnout because it's a progressive decline in memory versus somebody who has just received a diagnosis as a sudden onset.
And the diagnosis is days, not months, not years, and versus somebody who, as we were talking about who has taken their own life. And I think that the caregiving journey has been one in which is extremely unique and therefore not everybody needs the same thing. There are common things that people need.
For example, they need a compassionate listener. They need empathic and open communication, but then the medical needs are so different for each one that it can provide different stresses within the family. For example, sometimes pain medication is not used for dementia patients, but pain medication may be used in, somebody who has a chronic illness like advanced cancer and even managing that and understanding that's definitely becoming a medical advocate as sometimes different in certain caregiving situation.
And so that provides unique stressors. As does if you have children at home that are young versus no children at home. If you've been moved around a lot and you don't know the community and the resources, that's also very stressful.
DUANE: Yeah, it definitely can be. And I think that, as you said, we're now having these conversations as we're ending the global war on terror. Obviously, we still have service members and Veterans deployed, current family members of service members dealing with that separation. You have specifically, as you'd mentioned, addressed your own grief and loss. But you've mentioned your book a couple of times that's a very specific effort to be able to share your experiences with others.
KRISTIN: So I know that science tells us that we are hardwired for storytelling. From the very beginning, we connect with stories best is how we remember things. We're not wired for all types of facts. Statistics, that's not our brains and our bodies are meant to receive and connect with other people.
So I think, for example, one of the shows that we're all familiar with is Shark Tank. After somebody presents an invention or a product, the sharks would many times ask them what's the story behind it. And they want to know the story behind it because it's how we connect with other people. For example, how we decide the other, we know absolutely nothing about a family we may see something on television and we'd go ahead and we donate. We don't know who these people are, but we've connected with a story in some capacity. It's one of the great strengths of military families is you're connecting with their story. Whether the deployment is a small amount of time, a larger, or perhaps absolutely no communication with their loved ones, a very spotty communication or the physical needs are different than the mental health needs of someone. They know it's that connection of support and community and their stories are unique, but as important in one of the ways in which we feel bonded and committed to care to one another, versus just a number of individuals who are deployed, for example, who are returning to our home.
DUANE: I completely agree. And I think that commonality, especially within that community of other service members and Veterans understand those stories because they can understand those common aspects.
KRISTIN: Absolutely. One of the first stories that my husband told me when we first met and I was actually shocked by this is, He was Korea and he returned to the room that he was sharing with this other individual. And he found that the individual has taken his own life.
And my husband didn't know anything about this person. All of a sudden, this is what he had returned to. And it didn't happen again in the sense that my husband found somebody who had taken their own life, but that memory had stayed with them for decades.
And I think in a way traumatized and experience because there was absolutely no, I said, what do they do? They're so like, oh, well they did an investigation and interviewed me, but I was like eating dinner. There was no debriefing. There was no talking about it. There was no, do you know who the people in the family might be, and there was nothing. It was just like, oh, moving right along. And I think that's an example of the way in which, it goes against what we're hardwired to do. We are hardwared to connect. And when that's interrupted in some way, by a trauma, it does dysregulate our system. And he tells me, you know, he didn't sleep for weeks after that, those types of things.
And I absolutely think that does impact the decision that people make at all types of different levels when you've experienced something like that. And there's not the care and the support that's needed to provide individuals. We make decisions based on our heart and our mind. And I think that's one example of how it's important to look at the vulnerabilities of individuals, not just within a big organization, like the military, but an individual level as well.
DUANE: No, I absolutely agree. I think that your unique experience both as a caregiver and as a loss survivor, but also as someone who is sharing this with other family members, it's really critically important. If listeners want to find out more about the work that you're doing, maybe see if they can find the book. How could they do that?
KRISTIN: My book is available wherever books are sold and in websites, as well as the big ones like Amazon. My website is https://www.kristinmeekhof.com/.
DUANE: That's great. We'll make sure that all those links are in the show notes. Thanks for coming on the show today.
KRISTIN: Thank you, Duane. It's been an honor.
Once again, we would like to thank this week's sponsor, PsychArmor. PsychArmor is the premier education and learning ecosystem specializing in military culture content. PsychArmor offers an online e-learning laboratory that's free to individual learners as well as custom training options for organizations. And you can find more about www.psycharmor.org.
I'm glad that we were able to host Kristen and share her story as well as her expertise in supporting those who are experiencing grief and loss after the death of a loved one. As always, there are a couple of points that come up for me in this conversation. The first one is something that Kristin mentioned several times, the importance of non-judgmentalness and acceptance and healing from grief and loss. Consider how it feels for you to share something with someone.
Whether it's a family member, a close friend, a coworker. Well, you have to share maybe something innocuous, like an opinion you have about something going on in the news or some thoughts about a place you'd like to visit. You might have some trepidation because of what you think they might think about what you have to say. You're anticipating their judgment about what you have to share. Ramp that anticipation up to something more important. Your decision to change careers or purchase a house or change something in a romantic relationship. The concern about what they may think they're judgmentalness goes even higher. Then when you experienced trauma, which again, as Kristen said, is not something that's frequently experienced and not something that we're often taught how to prepare for. The judgment that we have for ourselves about how we're handling it is often compounded by the judgment that we anticipate or experience from others.
And mental health counseling we're taught that there's such a thing as unconditional positive regard. Popularized by psychologist Carl Rogers, this involves showing complete support and acceptance of a person, no matter what that person says or does. It's not easy and it takes effort. And it may be easier with those who are not as close to you like a partner or a family member, but that's a key component to supporting those who have experienced grief and loss. No matter what they say or do showing unconditional positive regard, not expressing judgment about what they should or shouldn't be feeling, not telling them the wrong or bad or crazy or stupid. These are all judgment values that we place on top of facts. If we're talking to someone who experienced grief and loss, one of the worst things we can do is express judgment. Because not only is that person working through their own feelings, they now have to contend with the feelings that your judgment generated in them. Judgmentalness is an additional burden that isn't just additive to distress that someone is experiencing it can increase that stress exponentially.
Another point that I'd like to highlight is something that Kristin said towards the end of our conversation, when she was telling the story of the aftermath of her husband finding his roommate after they had died by suicide. There were two types of trauma that he experienced, and this is something similar to many survivors of trauma. There is the initial trauma that happens, which is a shock. And then that shock is compounded by a lack of care and support provided in the aftermath of that trauma. That care support can come in a number of different ways. Listening non-judgmentally as Kristen identified but also connecting someone with the resources available to help them process that trauma. She described her husband experiencing traumatic stress reaction, not being able to sleep for weeks afterwards, likely having intrusive thoughts about coming into the room and finding them there.
But also having long-term impacts many years later. That combination is huge. The experience of the traumatic event and the care and support provided afterwards. The presence or lack of care and support after traumatic event has long-term impacts and can make a difference in the grief and loss journey.
Her husband's experience a quick set of questions and then thanks that's all we need. And he heads off to the chow hall for dinner is not unique. I've experienced similar things throughout my military career. And I know that service members, Veterans and their families can relate to that lack of support after a traumatic event.
It's not as if the responders have the expectation that what just happened is no big deal. Although that is the message that's being sent. This huge traumatic thing that you've just experienced is not as big as you're making it out to be. The lack of care and support after traumatic event can be a barrier to emotional and psychological healing. Just like not going to the doctor after a physical injury immediately can be a barrier to physical healing.
If I broke my arm, I wouldn't expect someone to say, yep, that's a fracture. And then send me along to the rest of my day. They would ensure that I get the care and support so there are no longterm ill effects after the injury. We can and should recognize that trauma in whatever form has longterm ill effects and requires care and support in a nonjudgmental and effective way to assist in recovery.
So I hope this conversation with Kristin was beneficial to you. If it was, we'd like to hear about it. I actually had a great conversation with the listener the other day. She works in suicide prevention for the VA and does a lot of community engagement in her new role. She said that it helps her understand the military affiliated community better. And she appreciates the guests from her perspective as a non-Veteran who really wants to better understand military culture in order to do her work more effectively. I was so appreciative of the feedback that I forgot to ask her permission to use name and location on the show, but you know who you are, and I know that you're listening and I appreciate it.
If you feel the same way, or if you have other feedback, let us know. You can leave a review of the podcast player you're listening to this on allows you to do that.
You can drop us a line at info@psycharmor.org or you can reach out over social media. Linked to all of that is in the show notes, of course. But if you drop us an email and mention the podcast, they'll get that routed over to me.
For this week PsychArmor resource of the week, I'd like to share the PsychArmor course, Good Grief. This is a course that can help those experiencing grief and loss. Grief is not only experienced with death. It can also occur with job loss or severe changes to physical wellbeing. The purpose of this course is to recognize loss and identify what is learned as a result of that loss. You can find the link to this course in our show notes.