Tricky Questions About Grief: Is There A Right Way To Do It? What To Say To People In Grief? And Can You Grieve For Things? | Sloane Crosley

Summary

Podcast Title: 10% Happier with Dan Harris
Episode Title: Tricky Questions About Grief: Is There A Right Way To Do It? What To Say To People In Grief? And Can You Grieve For Things? | Sloane Crosley
Release Date: December 13, 2024
Guest: Sloane Crosley
Co-Interviewer: Dr. Bianca Harris

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Introduction

In this emotionally charged episode of 10% Happier with Dan Harris, host Dan Harris delves deep into the complex topic of grief alongside acclaimed author Sloane Crosley and his wife, Dr. Bianca Harris. The discussion navigates through the nuanced territories of personal loss, societal perceptions of grief, and effective ways to support those who are mourning.

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Sloane Crosley's Journey Through Grief

Timestamp [07:44]
Sloane Crosley opens up about her personal experiences that form the backbone of her memoir, Grief is for People. She recounts two significant events from 2019:

1. The Burglary:
   In her 600-square-foot apartment, Sloane was burglarized, losing all her jewelry. The incident left her feeling violated and struggling with feelings that, culturally, might be dismissed as trivial compared to more conventional forms of grief.

2. Loss of a Best Friend to Suicide:
   A month after the burglary, her close friend Russell Perot died by suicide. This double loss forced Sloane to confront compounded grief, challenging societal norms that often deem grief "appropriate" only for the loss of people.

Notable Quote:
"Luck is a dirty word when you're out of it." – Sloane Crosley
Timestamp [07:44]

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The Concept of Cumulative Grief

Timestamp [15:27]
Sloane introduces the idea of compound grief, where multiple losses intersect, intensifying the emotional impact. She describes experiencing a constant state of anxiety post-burglary and an obsessive hunt to recover her stolen jewelry, magnifying her sense of loss when her friend subsequently died.

Notable Quote:
"There's a kind of madness within grief... it's a lot more than just sending flowers and soup." – Sloane Crosley
Timestamp [15:27]

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Navigating Grief After Suicide

Timestamp [28:08]
The conversation takes a poignant turn as Sloane discusses the unique challenges of grieving a friend who died by suicide. She emphasizes the importance of reshaping societal dialogues around suicide to reduce stigma and foster a more supportive environment.

Notable Quote:
"We're all walking around with a little bit of sadness and a little bit of consciousness of our own mortality." – Sloane Crosley
Timestamp [28:08]

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Challenging Societal Norms Around Grief

Timestamp [22:53]
Sloane critiques the competitive nature of grief, especially in a bustling city like New York, where individuals often vie over whose loss is more significant. She advocates for stripping away this competition to validate all forms of grief equally.

Notable Quote:
"The dichotomy is also false as someone whose cat recently died, you know." – Sloane Crosley
Timestamp [22:53]

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Effective Ways to Support Those in Grief

Timestamp [25:30]
Both Sloane and Dr. Bianca Harris share insights on how to genuinely support someone who is grieving:

• Avoid Clichés: Phrases like "I can't imagine what that must be like" can be triggering.
• Empathetic Engagement: Instead of projecting your own feelings, actively invite the grieving person to share.

Notable Quote:
"The best thing I can say is I'm so glad you told me that." – Sloane Crosley
Timestamp [25:30]

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Bibliotherapy as a Healing Tool

Timestamp [53:03]
The episode explores bibliotherapy, the use of literature to support emotional healing. Sloane cites works like All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews as instrumental in her journey, highlighting how novels and poetry can provide solace and understanding during times of grief.

Notable Quote:
"Sometimes what helps is to even go bigger and wider and understand what we were talking about before." – Sloane Crosley
Timestamp [53:03]

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Redefining Acceptance in Grief

Timestamp [37:37]
Sloane offers a fresh perspective on the traditional five stages of grief, suggesting that they are more applicable to the dying person rather than those left behind. She challenges the notion of "acceptance" as the final stage, advocating instead for embracing the ongoing presence of grief without the pressure to "get over it."

Notable Quote:
"The written word should never be mistaken for the final word. I still wonder about his death. I am still not over it." – Sloane Crosley
Timestamp [39:57]

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Personal Reflections and Coping Mechanisms

Timestamp [48:50]
Dr. Bianca Harris shares her personal journey with grief, emphasizing the importance of feeling everything without suppression. She credits Sloane's insights with helping her navigate the loss of her father, underscoring the universality of grief experiences.

Notable Quote:
"The only thing that I could come to and that worked... is just feel everything, just have your eyes open to it." – Dr. Bianca Harris
Timestamp [48:50]

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Conclusion

This episode of 10% Happier masterfully unpacks the intricate layers of grief, especially when compounded by unexpected and culturally misunderstood losses. Sloane Crosley and Dr. Bianca Harris provide invaluable perspectives on embracing all facets of grief, challenging societal norms, and leveraging literature as a therapeutic tool. Listeners are left with a deeper understanding of the human condition and practical insights into supporting themselves and others through the inevitable pains of life.

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Key Takeaways:

• Grief is Multifaceted: It extends beyond the loss of people to include possessions and experiences.
• Compound Grief Amplifies Pain: Multiple simultaneous losses can intensify the grieving process.
• Support Through Empathy: Genuine, open-ended conversations are more helpful than clichéd expressions of sympathy.
• Bibliotherapy as Healing: Engaging with literature can provide comfort and understanding during times of grief.
• Redefining Acceptance: Moving beyond traditional stages to embrace the persistent nature of grief.

Recommended Reads:

• Grief is for People by Sloane Crosley
• All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews
• The Missing Stage of Grief by Claire Bidwell Smith

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For more insights and episodes, listen to 10% Happier with Dan Harris on the Wondery App or your preferred podcast platform.

Transcript

[Dan Harris]

Wondery subscribers can listen to 10% Happier early and ad free right now. Join Wondery plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. This is the 10% Happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey everybody, how we doing? Grief is a non negotiable and often brutal fact of life in a world where everything is changing all the time. Loss of people, of animals, of possessions is just part of the deal. This may sound like the ultimate buzzkill, but there's a reason why Buddhists talk about this stuff all the time. First, because if you're living in denial about grief and loss, you're setting yourself up for a lot of extra suffering when the inevitable occurs. And second, because staying in touch with this ground truth can wake you up and help you stop taking shit for granted. Today we're going to talk about some of the thornier questions as it relates to the issue of grief. Is there a right way to do it? What do you say to somebody who's actively grieving? What are the complications of grieving for somebody who has died by suicide? Heads up, by the way, that we're going to engage in some rather frank talk on the subject of suicide in this episode. And here's another question we're going to touch on. Can you grieve for lost things or is grief just for people? My guest today is the author Sloan Crossley, who has a recent book called Grief is for People. It's a memoir about a series of losses she endured, including a burglary at her apartment and then the death by suicide of her best friend. I have a co interviewer for this episode, it's my wife, Dr. Bianca Harris. I asked her to join because she read and loved Sloan's book and also because, as you will hear, Bianca has recently endured a pretty serious loss of her own. A little bit more about Sloan Crosley before we dive in here. She's the author of a number of bestselling books. Aside from her new one, which again is called Grief is for People, she's also written how did you get this number? I was told there would be cake, look alive out there, cult classic and the Clasp. She's also a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and she has taught at Columbia University and the Yale Writers Workshop. In this conversation we also cover the concept of cumulative grief, Sloan's version of the five stages of grief, her beef with, except about which she is very funny. Bibliotherapy as a source of healing, which I find really interesting and much more. Just a quick note that this is the third and final episode in our week long series on grief. On Monday we had the journalist Cody delostradi on the search for a cure for grief. On Wednesday, the great podcaster Sam Sanders on how he coped with what he has called a job year, as in the book of Job from the Bible. And of course today it's Sloan Crossley who's coming up right after this. Hey prime members, have you heard you can listen to your favorite podcasts ad free. Good news with Amazon Music you can have access to the largest catalog of ad free top podcasts included with your prime membership. We are regular consumers around my house of Amazon Music. Often we're listening through our Alexa. My son has a very intimate relationship with his Alexa, who he talks to all the time. He learns about amazing new music through Alexa and then shares it with his parents. To start listening to either music or podcasts, download the Amazon Music app for free or go to Amazon.com adfreepodcasts that's Amazon.com ad free podcasts to catch up on the latest episodes without the ads. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. The holidays are upon us. Many of us, myself included, find the holidays pretty comforting. However, I'm aware that many of you may find it stressful or worse. But just speaking personally, I love the holidays. Even with some of the indignities of travel and some of the family stresses that come along with it, I find it pretty comforting to observe traditions old and new. The new tradition we have is hosting Christmas at our house with a large group of people and I think last year we had 12 children in the house. It was fantastic. Therapy is a great way to bring yourself some comfort that really lasts, even when the season changes. In fact, if you're stressed during the holidays, preparing with your therapist can be a really good idea. You can rehearse some big conversations that you may have to have or some boundaries that you may need to draw. I find talking to my therapist is extremely helpful always, but most especially this time of year. If you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Find comfort this December with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com happier today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp. H E L p.com happier hey Dan here. If you want to continue unlocking your potential to live your best life, then I think you should check out Think Fast, Talk Smart. The podcast Whether you're working on a wedding toast or planning a big meeting at work. Strong speaking skills are critical in life. Every Tuesday, host and Stanford lecturer Matt Abrahams sits down with experts to discuss their best advice to hone and develop your communication skills. From making small talk that leaves a big impression to keeping your nerves in check while speaking to groups, he shares tips, tricks, and science based strategies to boost your confidence and clarity. Communication is so incredibly important and yet so few of us are ever taught how to do it. It's a huge and really important subject. Check out think fast, talk smart, listen every Tuesday, wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube and you can find additional content at Fastersmarter IO. Sloan Crossley, welcome to the show.

[Sloan Crossley]

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

[Dan Harris]

Dr. Bianca Harris, welcome back.

[Dr. Bianca Harris]

Thank you.

[Dan Harris]

I just found out that Bianca has a new email [e-mail] and I'm so excited about that.

[Sloan Crossley]

Oh, wow. The jurisdiction is expanding.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah, it's an unhealthy dynamic in a marriage. I do want to say, Sloan, that you could really tell a lot about somebody by having them go through an onerous tech check and you moved your whole setup. What that told me is that you're a wonderful person. So thank you for doing that.

[Sloan Crossley]

Oh, wow. Wonderful person with a 600 square foot apartment. It's like living on a ship, you know, just you. You can't get anything messy or you're in the soup. But I appreciate you sort of ascribing personality quality to my tiny apartment.

[Dan Harris]

I'm ascribing it solely to you and your good nature as we were asking you to do uncomfortable things. So thank you.

[Sloan Crossley]

Thank you.

[Dan Harris]

So you're catching us just at an interesting time. We had planned this a while ago, but then Bianca's dad actually died a few weeks ago, and so we. The issue of grief is fresh for us.

[Sloan Crossley]

Oh, I'm truly sorry to hear that.

[Dr. Bianca Harris]

Thank you.

[Sloan Crossley]

Did you know that this was coming?

[Dr. Bianca Harris]

Yes and no. He had end stage Alzheimer's, so for sure it was time. The details and the sort of events leading right up to the finale are never what you think they're gonna be. In the end, though, he was made comfortable, so that's really what mattered the most.

[Sloan Crossley]

Still, I'm sorry about that.

[Dr. Bianca Harris]

Thank you.

[Dan Harris]

As somebody who's written a memoir, I wince a little bit at having to ask you this question because I wince when people ask me this question. But I'm gonna do it anyway, which is, can you just retell the basics of your story of what happened to you? I believe it was in 2019 with these two consecutive losses that you went through.

[Sloan Crossley]

Oh, absolutely. A good way to start talking about this particular book because it's not a straightforward memoir, so it's sort of helpful to give the overview. So in this very apartment in 2019, I was burglarized. I left the house for an hour to go get a hand X ray, which is only relevant because I took off all my rings that I always wear. You know, and as I say in the book, luck is a dirty word when you're out of it. I took off these rings also, I think, went to buy paper towel. Anyway, I come back, just sort of a very innocuous afternoon, and see that my window is open and someone has come into my apartment through the bedroom window and stolen all of my jewelry. And while you can't tell from audio, I am not Kim Kardashian. I don't have a lot of bait that I'm walking around with at any time. But someone has stolen all of my jewelry, which is obviously very devastating. Had to call the cops, and that was kind of the first loss of the book. And I was very upset by this, obviously, and complaining quite a bit and trying to figure out how this happened to my old boss, whose name was Russell Perot, who I worked with in publishing at Vintage books for about 10 years, and then just became very close to me. People use the phrase work wife, work husband, but it felt more like two heads coming off the same body, which is graphic, but just we were extremely, extremely close. I spent a lot of my free time with him. I adored him. As I say in the book, we sort of rotated roles like they do in experimental theater, where sometimes one person was the parent, one person was the sibling, one person was annoyed by the other. And then exactly one month after the burglary, while I had dinner with him three nights prior, and then he died by suicide at his home in Connecticut. And so the book is really exploring these losses. It is loosely structured around the rather cliche five stages of grief, but it's about these sort of unusual losses that we don't necessarily always give credence to in our culture. The death of a friend. There's still a taboo around suicide, and the burglary is sort of the framing device for that.

[Dan Harris]

The burglary is, I believe, part of the derivation for the title of the book. That you're grief is for people you're not supposed to grieve lost things.

[Sloan Crossley]

Yeah. So basically, it's funny because the book's title sets up this dichotomy right where it comes from a line in the book where I'm having so much trouble figuring out how to grieve the burglary. It feels like a. Should just be stuff. Right. A minor loss, a sort of girlish loss. But there's so much to it. And it really, you know, just. The violation. Yes. But also the missing stuff, you know, I really would like that back. And I'm struggling with it. And Russell also was someone who loved. He also believes in the soul and the meaning of objects as well. So he's really tied to it in this other way. And I couldn't really find anywhere to go. I mean, I didn't really want to go sit in a circle of folding chairs, but I just wanted some sort of forum. And then, of course, when Russell died, well, they were coming out my ears. You know, you have. For suicide, you have the loss of a parent, loss of a friend, God forbid, loss of a child. And it was this sort of realization for the book saying, ah, okay, so grief is for people, not things. But that dichotomy is also false as someone whose cat recently died, you know. But it's really about sort of setting up what we grieve and how we grieve and who has sort of the right or permission to grieve. Which I'm sure if anyone listening told, let's say, their therapist, I don't know if I have a right to grieve or any of those. That language would be quickly dismissed. Right. Cause all of this is experienced. Absolutely. But there is something that is especially lonely making when you're the friend.

[Dan Harris]

So you had these two flavors of grief that you didn't feel. Full permission to feel.

[Sloan Crossley]

Yeah. And so I. But I feel like that struggle is what makes art and what makes, you know, what makes writing. Joan Didion used to always say that she wrote in order to find out what she thought and what she felt. I've never actually really been that kind of writer previous or prior to this. I have two novels, three books of essays, and those are like a little more. Okay, these are really funny stories. What's the meaning I'm going to apply to them? And I kind of know stuff in advance. This is the first one where I was really. I knew enough structurally, but I was feeling my way through the meaning of it as I was going through it.

[Dan Harris]

For whatever it's worth, I really agree with you about this more capacious understanding of grief. I come at it, I guess, through a Buddhist lens, which is that we are living in a universe where change is non negotiable. It's just happening all the time. In Buddhism, the source of suffering is clinging to things that won't last. And in a universe characterized by impermanence. And so that's going to happen with stuff, it's going to happen with people, it's going to happen with cats. And by the way, I'm sorry to hear about the cat. That's.

[Sloan Crossley]

Thank you.

[Dan Harris]

We've gone through that many times over here. So I say all of that just to get your response. Does any of that land for you?

[Sloan Crossley]

Yes. In fact, it would have been very helpful to have a little bit of a Buddhist patina to the book or to the experience. I feel like so much of what you just said is actually part of the exploration and part of my conjecture or my sort of analysis of Russell and what happened. He worked, like I said, for vintage books, which, for those of you who don't know, is the very literary imprint of Knopf, which is part of Random House. So we're dealing with. I mean, I don't know how to say this without being crass. Name a dead author. You know, I mean, he was really in charge of banging the drum for anniversary editions of In Cold Blood, Lolita. He worked with Chimo Achebe on Things Fall Apart, Gore Vidal, you know, all these classics, as well as the Modern Library editions, which is then when you get back to Henry James and debakov and all these things. And so, so much of his life was living in the past and liking things a certain way. And what's funny about that is we tend to put a premium on that when we're just talking. You know, people who are really into, like, cool old black and white movies or movies from the 70s, old music, you know, it feels like they know what they're talking about. You know, it's kind of cool to look back culturally. But then I think it really wound up with him emotionally. And as the publishing world changed as he got older and the world changed around without him being equipped, as you're saying, to roll with a lot of that change, I think it really actually caused him a lot of suffering. I mean, I feel like the more sort of what you're saying, and I don't know if this is a Buddhist principle or common sense, but the more prepared you are for change, the less it hurts you when it happens. And I think that that was really hard for him. And it was hard for me, too, because I was almost, you know, a disciple is a big word. I'm sure he would Love it if he could hear me. But, you know, so much of my literary taste, so much of my. So much of my 20s and my 30s, were fashioned after and around this person who I spent the lion's share of my time with. And so I'm a very nostalgic person as well. But there's this danger when nostalgia bleeds over into sort of an inflexibility, I.

[Dan Harris]

Think, rigidity, brittleness, because at that point, you're gonna break.

[Sloan Crossley]

And his rigidity was a blast. It's fun to be around someone who says, you know, oh, well, they don't make movies like they used to. And let me tell you why that person is fun, you know, and he was a very fun. I mean, the book, for all of its weight and seriousness, is funny in a way that I am more apt to admit this book is funny than I was. To cop to my humor essays being funny because it sounds obnoxious, but half the humor comes from him. He was a very funny person. That's why I miss him.

[Dan Harris]

In some ways, these two losses kind of intertwine in your mind. And I think there's a term for this. I don't know if it applies here, but I know it comes up in the book. Compound grief.

[Sloan Crossley]

Yeah, cumulative or compounded grief, where several things happen at once. I talk to a lot of people. There's a lot that's not in the book that I researched, both in terms of ideas in the book that aren't there, but I just wanted to be familiar with them or familiarize myself with them, from, like, Durkheim to Kant. A lot of philosophy that, you know, there's maybe one line here and there. And similarly, I talked to a couple of psychologists before I started tossing around terms like ptsd. You know, I have respect for my associations, most people's association with it, which to me almost comes from the military, you know, so I'm sort of bowing down to that kind of experience and that kind of life. But after the jewelry was taken, you know, I was like, what is this that's happening to me? Because two things are happening. One is the sort of PTSD of leaving my apartment, having seen footage of the burglar. Burglar makes him sound like a cat. Burglar. Sounds almost adorable. This felon, you know, having seen footage of this man and seeing someone who is the exact demographic opposite of him in every way. You can think of leaning on some scaffolding one day across the street from me a few months after the burglary, and it was a Heat wave. And I remember I got about five blocks thinking, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it. And I ran back to my apartment to check on my apartment. What about all that suspicious leaning I saw? You know, you become crazy. And that form of PTSD is basically. I mean, this is a very mild form of it. But it's not that you're triggered, which is normally the association by an event that reminds you of something else. It's that it never stops. You think that the inciting incident is still happening. Everything is still happening. And that's one form of madness that happened after the burglary. And then when Russell died, I go on this sort of caper, like, very earnest hunt for the jewelry. My joke is always that, you know, even though I'm an author, I'm essentially a freelance writer, and you shouldn't mess with us because we have a lot of unstructured time on our hands, and we will find you. And so Russell was actually trying to help me hunt for the jewelry. And then I became almost at my own personal safety, you know, risking a lot to try to get some back. I became very obsessed with finding it because this is where the other sort of condition, which, again, Didion talked about, which is magical thinking, comes into play, where I thought, if I can just get some of the jewelry back, I can stop the bleed of loss. You know, if I can just get a little bit of it back, things won't be so bad. I didn't actually think that Russell would come back on account of not being insane. But there is a sort of madness within grief. So much of the book is also about focusing on the stuff we don't talk about, because when someone's grieving, obviously you have sympathy for that person. Ideally, you have empathy for that person or grace or whatever you want to apply to it. But in a way, that person is not to be trusted. They're not sane. And especially with a sudden death, whether it's an accident or suicide, there's this feeling, the denial is quite strong in those cases that you could just reach through a bubble and pull them back. And you just feel like in that moment, there were many people who I would have happily, I mean, this is being hyperbolic, but thrown under a bus to get my friend back. And those are the same people who are offering me condolences. So it's just a lot of the book is about giving a sort of wider topography to what we think of as just sending flowers and soup.

[Dan Harris]

I want to make some Space for you. Bianca, any reflections on the foregoing?

[Dr. Bianca Harris]

I mean, so many, to be honest with you. And the first is just that it was an incredible book. I love your writing. I love how it was very clear that you were figuring it out as you wrote, which is something that I'm finding very useful. And the fact that it is funny and not so precious and yet that much more insightful and helpful is just like a. To me.

[Sloan Crossley]

Oh, thank you.

[Dr. Bianca Harris]

And it came about especially from someone.

[Sloan Crossley]

Who is now, I'm quite sorry to say, in this position of very recent authority about loss. It means a lot. So thank you.

[Dr. Bianca Harris]

Well, thank you. Because I, at the time when I was reading it, I had not experienced loss of a direct, you know, immediate family member or best friend, thank goodness. So the way I related to it, I got so much out of it for different reasons, but that all relate back to grief. And now with this bigger sense of loss, it kind of made all of that other stuff make greater sense in my life in a way. But it took thinking about it really along the lines of the way you speak about it and not just sort of wondering, like, what's wrong with me? Why does this thing still bother me? Because it really has been an accumulation of life experiences, some of which require more attention to grieve and heal. But most of them, we don't know that we need to pay attention to them. And so over time, it just builds up and builds up. And then, you know, in this case with my father passing, it's sort of most of my losses did involve him directly or indirectly. And it all sort of was like just one big embrace and send off in a way. It's very hard to find resources that address grief for living people or experiences or things that are not sort of a standard definition of death, and certainly not ones that I felt I could relate to. And so even if your dichotomy that you speak of, some of it, you know, maybe in metaphor, some of it is actual grief or meaningful possessions that have history in your life. And certainly with Russell, as you say, some of it is the grief of the violation. It is very hard to categorize those things, validate them, and know that there's a way to think about them. And when you start intermingling, like real death and how these things relate to each other, it does just all make sense.

[Sloan Crossley]

Yeah, I mean, I feel like the Yogi Berra, wherever you go, there you are. I mean, you're sort of. You're using the same application and system to absorb all these Things that happen to you. And so much of it was just sort of say that to give permission to. Because I think people get a little. Maybe this is a New York thing because we have so many. There are so many people. When something bad happens to us, it's not better or worse than anyone else. I hate the only in New York thing. Like people run into their ex boyfriends in Minneapolis. It happens. But there is something where. Because so many people are affected by our tragedies. And in the book, there is a brief Covid chapter. It is sort of indicative of what I'm about to say that I felt I should warn people about that more than I should give them a warning that there's a suicide in the book because people are so exhausted about. No one wants to hear about hand sanitizer or toilet paper for the rest of their lives. But I just feel like there's this something where in New York people get competitive over who had it worse, who was the closest to the accident. You know, that exploding manhole cover, 9 11, Sandy, the blackout Covid. People get a little. Well, you think you had it bad. You know, I'll give you something to cry about. And in some ways, it's funny, I did it to myself where it's almost like the jewelry was bad and then the world was like, I'll give you something to cry about, you know, and it was Russell. But I feel like part of the book's purpose is stripping the conversation of that questioning and that competition over what's real grief. It's all experienced. Absolutely.

[Dr. Bianca Harris]

Yeah. I felt all of that through your writing. And also, you know, the notion of how to be sad with somebody else and the requisite flowers and people mean well, but it's not really what you need. And I remember an experience I had around the time that I was reading your book where I made a new friend and she told me some challenges that her son had as a baby that. That continued that were quite difficult. And I remember having a moment, especially having just met her, not wanting to say the wrong thing where I thought that saying, I can't imagine what that must be like. I thought it was the right thing. Like, I actually had thought about it for a millisecond and maybe it is for some people, but very quickly she said, actually, you can imagine. And for me, it's triggering when somebody says that because you can imagine. This is why we're having the conversation, because you can imagine how horrible this is.

[Sloan Crossley]

When I tell you the lesson at the end of this hopefully short story. It's so basic that it's a little bit silly. But, you know, sometimes people get flummoxed about grief and how to respond to it, especially if it's to your friend's point. You can imagine, and you just don't want to because it's actually either a sort of spectrum of loss you have within your own mind. And it's like, oh, that's really at the end where I don't even want to look. I'm prepared for some things to change as we were talking about, but not this. People have come up to me a lot because I've gone on tour for this book with their own stories. And again, this has happened in the past, but it's usually something that's a little bit easier to handle. It's someone who says, oh, I enjoyed your funny essay on xyz. You know, I too got fired from my volunteer job. Ha, ha, ha. This. We're dealing with a whole different ballgame of people who have their own experiences, especially people whose friends have died by suicide. And I didn't know what to do at first. Cause I'm sorry for your loss. You are sorry, but you are. It's just hard to know how to respond. And I finally realized, I think it's distancing, I can't imagine. Or I'm sorry. If your loss is good, you should say whatever you want to say. You know, it's. You're. But human. You're expressing your condolences. But for me, I've discovered the best thing I can say is I'm so glad you told me that. Like, I now have it, it's mine. And I'm happy you shared that. So people don't feel like they're out on a limb, like they feel caught. And it seems to work wonders. And I mean it. So that's helpful too.

[Dr. Bianca Harris]

I was just going to say that my sister had an experience recently with a friend who she hadn't seen in years. And unfortunately, he had lost his teenager. I don't know the circumstances, but she was acknowledged that she was very nervous about going up to him in the context of this loss. What do you say? And she just found herself saying to him, you know, what was that like for you? And what do you need from me? And he was stunned and so grateful. And he said, nobody's ever asked me that. And they talked for a little bit. And yeah, I mean, it was illuminating to her as well, because it wasn't really thought out. She just sort of said it because it came From a place of wanting really to be in it with him. I think.

[Sloan Crossley]

I think that's beautiful. And the less this tacit kind of slow head pat, like, oh, yikes, sorry. You know, that's even better than what I said because it's. We can combine these two. Just. Thank you for telling me that. What was that like? It's like, not only are you welcome here with this narrative, but I would like you to go on. I'm not bored. I'm not disgusted. I'm not freaked out. I think that's really nice. I had a lot of people ask me, did you know? Which is a suicide thing, obviously. And I always found that, you know, I don't want to police how people offer their condolences too much because people are just trying their best. And the reason it's horrific is, you know, it's because something real has happened. But I did, you know, every once in a while I would be asked it in a really sincere way, which I heard as, tell me about your friend. What the hell happened? Are you okay? I heard a lot of questions within it, but a lot of times it just seemed like rubber necking because people are so horrified by suicide. Also, there's a long history of glamorizing it. Also, we've established that my friend worked in the literary world, and so do I. You know, from the people who brought you Sylvia Plath and Virginia Woolf comes, did you know, it becomes sort of calcified before it's time, like a story that's already happened.

[Dan Harris]

Just picking up on this issue of suicide, you hug the third rail here and say some pretty challenging things. I want to read you back to you and just get you to respond on the other side. This is from the book. The question everyone should therefore ask is not why otherwise healthy people kill themselves, but why they themselves should go on living. That sentence will surely read as morbid to those who have never identified, as depressed and disconcerting to those who know me personally. But it's no threat to anyone's psychological soundness to think this way. We all have something we're trying to fend off. The question is, how big and with what?

[Sloan Crossley]

You know, it's not meant to sound dismissive of life. It's meant to sound embracing of life. To ignore half the texture of life, which includes grief, which includes death, which includes these thoughts, is to intentionally, I don't know, it's to have a moth problem and shut the closet. Do you know what I mean? And, like, keep it in the dark and just hope it goes away. And instead of festers, I mean, the concept of just embracing the fact that we wake up every day and we go about our business and we do these things and we have these challenges and we keep going, and we have this notion of a future. I'm just saying we should pat ourselves on the back for that a little bit more. That it's not automatic and having these things happen, these sort of fringe experiences of someone dying like this, it's shocking in a lot of ways. Cause you thought. Hold on a second. I thought we all agreed to sort of muddle through this together. What did you do? You know, and I quote after that passage, a line from one of Russell's favorite plays and movies, which is the lion in Winter, where there's a line where, you know, someone is shocked. One character is shocked that another character has a knife on him, and the other character says, of course he has a knife. We all have knives. Like, we're all walking around with a little bit of sadness and a little bit of consciousness of our own mortality. And I think it's less stigmatizing of those who then pay that tax so dearly, you know, going sort of towards this darkness or having very real clinical problems. It's over stigmatizing. If we just keep saying, that's so weird. You know, that's what I'm saying. If we just say. If we keep pushing it away and saying, oh, well, that's not part of me at all. It's probably not part of you where you're not gonna hurt yourself, but it is part of the human condition. And so I just feel like. It feels like more welcoming to those people and healing to those people to say, you're not alone. I, too, have had, you know, maybe not suicidal thoughts, but I'm aware that this exists, and I understand how it could happen.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah, you're not trying to glamorize, Trying to normalize the fact that there's this thing that many of us don't want to look at or that we go through privately, but. But everybody has probably had the thought at one time or another.

[Sloan Crossley]

Well, yeah, but it's also even how we talk to each other. I just feel like people who are not suicidal and not depressed. It's so much work just to put the onus of this on only the segment of the population that's in danger. I feel like we should be aware of it, too, if that makes any sense.

[Dan Harris]

We should be aware that of our.

[Sloan Crossley]

Own mortality, the fears around our own mortality that, you know, 55,000, I think, people died of suicide last year in this country. No one is arguing, certainly I am not to normalize that. But I think part of helping sort of mitigate or minimize those numbers or bring them down is to talk about it openly and not consider it such an insane freak thing. It is, in fact, a public health crisis.

[Dan Harris]

And when I used the word normalize, I meant more like to normalize that even in the happiest of lives, despair will occasionally rear its head and these unspeakable thoughts enter all of our minds. And the fact that they're unspeakable makes it worse.

[Sloan Crossley]

Yes, exactly, exactly. And I feel like instead I think it should be like, well, you sound like a well rounded person who's, you know, conscious of the pain and the preciousness of the world.

[Dr. Bianca Harris]

I really actually found that passage to be illuminating when I read it. Both because of this normalization that if we're going to use that word, the reality that, you know, many of us have probably thought in sort of 360 degree ways about how to look at our lives and how to deal with adversity. But in particular for me, with this passage, it sort of struck me because one key fact in my family is that my mother's father committed suicide. And I can rattle that off as just part of the family tree, like someone had cancer and this, that and the other. And I don't think I really sat with it and thought about the gravity of it, both with regards to the proximity, even if one generation removed or two generations removed, but through the eyes of my mother, who, in fact, and this is not meant to be a criticism, but sort of weaponized it for her own way of dealing with her feelings in the sense that I don't know if she's fully even grieved now, and I don't know that she sees it that way, but suddenly I saw her that way and it wasn't about me.

[Sloan Crossley]

It's also a generational thing. I mean, I think that, you know, with each passing generation, we become more comfortable about talking about all sorts of things that our parents and their parents were not comfortable with. I mean, going back, back, back until, you know, I mention in the book, people from a religious perspective, you were sort of a heretic. You'd be dragged through the streets if you died by suicide or you couldn't be buried in this cemetery or nobody talked about it. We still do this with the obituaries where, I don't know about you, but when I read an obituary of someone who's below a certain age, and it doesn't say the cause of death. I go to certain places, and if it's a celebrity, frankly, maybe I'm guilty of just going to a drug place. I just feel like the more we talk about it, the more I just feel like I wish I wish Russell had told somebody about what he was feeling. You know, as I sort of mention in the book, like, in a way, it's almost like he wasn't built for it because he was so sarcastic and so funny. So my joke in the book is that I say, you know, if Fran Liebowitz came up to you and said, oh, my God, I'd rather kill myself than go to Times Square, would you be like, should you talk to somebody? Do we need to get you somewhere? Not without full body armor. You wouldn't do that. And so he was like that. You know, I talk in the book about skipping the anger phase, but I feel like I wish he had built his life with a little more, I guess, sincerity or something in it or some sort of pocket where he could have had a valve of I need help or this is really bad, you know, and instead it's like, I think there was no place for him to put that except for to implode.

[Dan Harris]

Coming up, Sloane talks about her version of the five stages of grief, her beef with the notion of acceptance, bibliotherapy as a source of healing, and much more. This podcast is sponsored by Greenlight. We all know the old saying, give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, he eats for life. This advice isn't just for folks who fish. It's a lesson for parents who want their kids to learn important skills that will set them up for success. And as we enter the gifting season, now is the perfect time to give your kids money skills that last well beyond the holidays. And that is where Greenlight comes in. Greenlight is a debit card and money app made for families. Parents can send money to their kids and keep an eye on their kids spending and saving while kids and teens build money, confidence, and lifelong financial literacy skills. Now is a great time to get started with Greenlight because it can help your family get set up right before the new year. I also want to say I've been doing a lot of research lately into what makes a habit stick, and there's a ton of evidence behind something called the fresh start effect. So starting Greenlight with your family around the new year might really superpower it. And you can sign up for greenlight [e-mail] Harris that's greenlight.com Harris to try green light today greenlight.com Harris I was doing a public event recently and somebody came up to me and said, do you really wear clothes from quints? And the honest answer is yes, I do. Not only the stuff that they've sent me as a sponsor of this show, but I actually went to Quint myself the other day and bought myself a bunch of those Mongolian cashmere sweaters which start at only 50 bucks. I got myself basically one in almost every color. Quits is great and actually it's perfect if you're doing some holiday shopping. Not only do I recommend their iconic Mongolian cashmere sweaters, but they also have super soft fleece sweatpants. They can be a major upgrade to whatever you're lounging in right now, and their packable puffer jackets are perfect for anybody who's traveling for the holidays. No matter what you're looking for, all Quince items are priced priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. By partnering directly with top factories and cutting out the cost of the middleman, Quintz passes the savings on to you. Gift Luxury this holiday season without the luxury price tag, go to quince.com happier for 365 day returns plus free shipping on your order. That's Q U N C E.com Happier to get free shipping and 365 day returns quick Quince.com Happier over at the Happier Meditation app, they've created something called the Holiday Giving and Receiving Collection. It's a set of guided meditations to help you navigate the holidays, which includes practices such as self compassion, gratitude and fostering deep connections. Download the Happier Meditation app today. Wherever you get your apps, you talk about the anger phase. In fact, as you mentioned earlier, the book is structured around the so called five stages of grief. You may not go through all these stages and it might not be orderly and you may go into anger and then into depression, then back to anger and it doesn't end on your timetable. But what did you learn about these stages of grief?

[Sloan Crossley]

I almost just called them the Myers Briggs stages of grief instead of the Kubler Haas stages of grief. I don't know if you've heard this, but I read somewhere and it just sort of blew my mind and changed everything, which is that they're meant for the dying person. The reason why we struggle with them so much is because they're not for us. I mean, if you read, all you do is then take a quick scan through them and you think, well, that Makes sense. Who has something to bargain with, who has something to be depressed about, to be in denial of, to accept the dying person. It just locks into place to me better than this eternal struggle we have about what we go through as the people left behind. And so I was sort of like nodding or sort of in a tongue in cheek manner by structuring the book like this, to the concept of it, to the self help books that I was sent, which all were well meaning, but I didn't find particularly helpful. And it's also switched around. I think I switched two of them. And then instead of acceptance because it's a book I wrote afterward, I mean, I suppose you could also argue that acceptance is something you work on every day, but afterward felt better to me in the book. But part of the reason it's structured that way is because when you're looking to sort of write a book and think, how am I gonna tell this story? These are two chronologically close but very different losses, let's put that way. One I describe as an elephant and one is the fly. And what happened was during bargaining, quote, unquote, I was trying to get my jewelry back. And I also kind of couldn't believe that Russell was dead. And I thought if I could do certain things, it would make it not so. And so it's very rare, I think, in a book, at least for me, to have this structure and the meaning just fall into place on the first shot. Like, you know, if you ever open a picnic blanket and you don't have to mess with it too much, that's sort of what it felt like. Because then I realized that depression was Covid and anger was publishing. And like all of these things, all these different losses that he was feeling, these old worlds he used to live in matched up really well with these stages. So that's why it's those five stages.

[Dan Harris]

But you say in this part of the book that instead of acceptance in the afterword, it's about being okay with not letting go and allowing yourself not to feel the pressure to, quote, unquote, get over it. And I wonder, to me, that reads as acceptance.

[Sloan Crossley]

I think it is. I mean, at a certain point there are certain bromides or cliches that you can't avoid. So this is sort of. You're writing about grief. And so this. I think that's well observed. It was just sort of a different way of saying when we think of exceptions regularly, I guess when it's applied to things that are not grief, I think we. There's A more of a tinge of the. Get over it, Ness. Ness. I'm a writer. This is what I do for a living. But, you know, there's more of a tinge of that because you think of a breakup, right, or a divorce, we're hanging on to a lot of the facets of what hurt and a lot of that pain or the feeling of being done to. If you're the one being abandoned, any kind of thing like that, we want to be able to digest that, you know, to sort of confront the ghost and release it. Right. You're not supposed to just get over it, but you are supposed to sort of work on it, look at it from a couple of different angles, absorb it, stop looking at it. And I feel like with Russell, what I'm saying is, you know, hopefully the whole book is true, but I feel sometimes the truest line for it, or a couple of lines, is that the written word should never be mistaken for the final word. I still wonder about his death. I am still not over it. I still think about him all the time. And not only in the moony tribute to my friend way. I think it's changed me forever. And so I feel like when we talk about acceptance in other realms, I just don't think that's how it should apply to grief. Even though being broken up with or having a divorce or something like that is a form of grief. I'm also not an expert at this, and I think a lot of people have this, without writing books about it, that panic that your dear friend, this wonderful person, is going to be forgotten. I think I still hold on to that, even having written the book.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah, that's a lot.

[Sloan Crossley]

But in a fun, joyful way.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah, exactly. Just to get back to acceptance, I mean, I refract all this again through my understanding of Buddhism, such as it is. Yes. My understanding of it is, you know, there's this often used, and I think this is a phrase that can be weaponized and it gets used in Buddhist or contemplative or meditative circles. Let it go. But actually, a better set of words would be let it be. So your real acceptance is. Oh, yeah. The rest of my life I'm going to be having these thoughts. The sadness will keep coming. I think of this article I read in the New Yorker a million years ago about a guy who had lost a child, and he said, I have a new organ that just secretes sadness.

[Sloan Crossley]

It might be Alexander Heyman. Yeah, I think I know that line. Yes.

[Dan Harris]

And I didn't even have a Child, when I read this now, it really lands even more powerfully. But I remember being really struck by that. And to me that seems like the most appropriate form of acceptance that I'm not going to instead of Jeanne, accept Rien. I don't accept anything. It's like, yeah, equanimity is throwing the doors open and not struck. Struggling with reality in any way.

[Sloan Crossley]

Yeah, I think that's a really well put. The new organ that just secretes sadness is true. But I think the thing is that there's such an impulse to feel better, you know, to make someone feel better and to. I think what it is a different way that I put it in the book, but also weirdly physiological is part of all of this recognizing that not all of your tissue got damaged in the accident. This will always be a damage, you know, this section of your life. But it's that living your life crowds it out. So that organ that secretes sadness for that author who I think maybe I know who it is, he has other organs, so that will keep him moving forward. But weirdly, my organ is that I don't accept this organ. That's the sort of irony of it. It's a puzzle wrapped in an enigma. But I guess whatever language we use to describe it, I just feel like, I don't know, like I'm happy nursing this thing, this loss and think about it as many people who have also experienced it, probably a lot more than the average bear thinks.

[Dan Harris]

I think about it, I think it's possible, and I'm not in your mind to accept the lack of acceptance. And that's what I'm hearing.

[Sloan Crossley]

Yes, exactly. Maybe that's a very succinct.

[Dan Harris]

Bianca? Yeah. I've been meaning to ask you this question for a couple minutes. Since Sloan referenced all of these self help books that didn't quite land for her. I think I saw a self help book about grief on your desk the other day. Do you have any recommendations? Are there any books that really have worked for you?

[Dr. Bianca Harris]

Not that one. That was an unsolicited, well thought out gift from somebody, but not for me. Mostly I feel like I've learned from other people's experiences and memoirs and beautiful insights and writing. But I think Claire Bidwell Smith does a pretty good job. Pretty good job. She does a really good job with. With her writing on grief. Her experience is extraordinary. But one of her books is called the Missing Stage of Grief. And I found that to be especially helpful because it did sort of apply widely to many different kinds of grief or at Least the things or people you are grieving for. In what ways? And is sort of a way to just understand the things about yourself that you can't understand. You don't have to know exactly why you're anxious, but that it's there. Floating around is possibly, and often and maybe always given that we're human, a reflection of some unmetabolized grief or something along those lines. I truly have learned so much, not just about the grieving process, but just about how other people relate to themselves. And I was gonna bring up. One of my favorite lines from your book was that you said I had stored everything I liked best about myself in Russell. And so that obviously that's bidirectional in a way. And when somebody leave, do they take that with them? Or were you able to sort of hold onto it and bring it back? Or am I being too sort of concrete about the whole thing?

[Sloan Crossley]

No, no, no. I think I've clawed some of it back. I mean, I think that a lot of the book is this incredibly close friendship, right, that has all these different sort of phases and layers to it. A big part of the book is realizing I just wanted to be like him in so many ways, which is a weird sensation for, like, a fully actualized adult to sort of look up to. You know, I feel like I hadn't felt it since I was, like, 13, you know, at summer camp, being like, oh, I really like that girl. I want to listen to the same music she listens to, that kind of thing. And we were different people, but I just felt like we made a really good team. And, I mean, his partner, who I also have showed this book to, also thought so, you know, and he knows how close we were. And I think part of the book is that struggle of realizing. And part of the reason why I feel free of sort of unselfconscious about saying things like maybe we all think this way. Maybe, you know, like, let's explore that. What we were talking about before Dan, is because I feel like the journey of the book, if there's sort of an arc, Emotional arc to it, is realizing that we're not the same. That this person. I thought we were so, like, you know, these, like, sort of twin hearts here. No, we're not the same. And it's really hard for me to admit that just because I valued his opinion so much. I think that actually is not really the answer to your question. But I do think that's sort of what was the lesson of thinking. And it helps mitigate the confusion and the hurt, you know, which of course you should stew in and feel. I accept nothing is the theme. Is there a title for each episode? I accept nothing. But, you know, part of moving on or moving forward rather, or being in your life, is it whatever we want to call it is realizing sort of how that person differs from you. I mean, in some weird way, this is like the basic Freudian thing, right? Isn't there like a stage when you are a baby where I think you're probably the best Buddhist you'll probably ever be, because there's no difference between you and the mother and the crib and the stuffed animal. You just do it naturally. And then you realize that these are different items. And so I almost had to relearn that after he died.

[Dr. Bianca Harris]

I think that's why I love memoirs so much, is because all of that complexity and the fact that it's not tied up neatly, you know, with a bow, is just so real. And certainly there are some wonderful books out there on grief. But at least for me, it feels like something else I could fail at, you know? Well, not to be. That would sound really dark if the implication are these are the things that you can do. The logic in my mind is that at the end of it, there's something to achieve that will better my sense of well being and healing. And I guess to your point, that's not always true, but that's okay.

[Sloan Crossley]

I mean, I think it's a tapas thing, right? Like, if you can find something from those books. I mean, most of those books I didn't particularly. I think also someone sent me some fairly dated ones, which obviously the worst of them will remain nameless, but some of them, occasionally, it's not one size fits all, you know, you fish through, you find the thing that means something to you, that's fine. I happened to find one that encouraged me to think about my needs, print them out on a piece of paper and hand them to people who said, you know, I'm sorry for your loss. And so, I mean, even in the book, I say that it gave me my first laugh after Russell died of the idea of like laminating something like a little card. And people were like, oh, I heard about Russell, and just sort of wordlessly handing them this card. Like, how is this supposed to work exactly? But I think the book that you got sent that also apparently will remain nameless is. I think you even said it. It's like a meaningless algorithm that's sort of showing well meaning mourners how to help their friends and loved Ones, you know, but yeah, I don't feel like I've failed at it. I don't think you can. I mean I think that if you are, I guess you can pick a timeframe and I certainly did with myself. Like if you're dismissing or unable to hear your friends lives and your family's lives and you're unable to connect with other people after a certain point, then yes, maybe, I guess maybe then you're doing it wrong because you're hurting yourself and you're hurting them. But like I don't think that in that period, be it, you know, two months or two years, that there's like a wrong way to do it.

[Dr. Bianca Harris]

You know, it wasn't necessarily failing at grieving, it was failing at the potential to fail at grieving. It was more the idea that there's a set of ways that you can look at it and approach it. And barring the extreme pathology of not being able to sort of be functional years into it, you never quite know if you're doing it right. I sort of tried to figure out through reading books and thinking about the types of losses I was trying to process before my father passed. And some of it was anticipating him. And in Alzheimer's there's a lot of real life death. You keep losing the person and then there's actually the one, the big one. And that funny enough took me all the way back to the pre Alzheimer's human and not at all to that space in between. And so I was struggling so hard with, at various stages to figure out what to feel and what does grief mean and what does forgiveness mean and all of that. And it just. The only thing that I could come to and that worked, that I didn't see anywhere. But it's just simple. It's just feel everything, just have your eyes open to it and feel everything and just don't push it away.

[Sloan Crossley]

I mean the thing that helped me in the end, and again this should come as a shock to no one if they've listened this far, was novels and poetry in the past. Jane Kenyon, things like that, poets like that. Or there's a novel called All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Taos Toews Shoot. It's spelled very difficult for maybe me and me alone, but is the. She's a Canadian author. She wrote Women Talking. But All My Puny Sorrows is a novel about her sister who was suicidal and hospitalized for it. It's unbelievably funny and beautiful, just so beautiful. And her use of humor to create beauty and just sort of these wretched moments was something I really admired. And just. Just go back further. Sometimes I feel like I don't necessarily. It's not that I'm not willing to accept help from my contemporaries or people who are still walking the earth, but sometimes what helps is to even go bigger and wider and understand what we were talking about before. This is part of the human experience that to be humbled by something other than the death that's in front of you and instead, just be humbled by the fact that, like, this is part of the package. You have now entered this room.

[Dan Harris]

We're doing a whole week on grief this week, which sounds super fun.

[Sloan Crossley]

Are you guys doing.

[Dan Harris]

But one of the other experts talks about bibliotherapy, which is a thing.

[Sloan Crossley]

Oh, I didn't even know this. That's good.

[Dan Harris]

And it makes a lot of sense. I mean, that James Baldwin thing about you think your pains and sorrows are unique in the history of the world. And then you read.

[Sloan Crossley]

And then you read.

[Dan Harris]

Let me ask you, as we wing toward the end of our time together, you mentioned this earlier. I'm still not over Russell's death. I kind of be curious, though, on an overall update, did you ever get any of the jewelry back? Where are you vis a vis Russell? Did writing about it help you? You've indicated in a. In an interview with Jay McInerney that maybe not as much as that. Some people might think so. Some wrap up.

[Sloan Crossley]

Yeah, let's. If I can use a cheesy jewelry term, we'll just, you know, like a clasp. We'll just end where we started with the jewelry. Yeah, I did end up getting some of it back. There were three pieces that I got back. Pieces also is such a big word. It makes it sound like a real jewelry collection. There were just a couple of things that I actually didn't know how much they were worth because they were from my not so nice grandmother. So I just had a weird relationship with these items because she was pretty horrible to my mom. And so there's a ring I never had appraised. And boy, do I regret that now. But, yeah, I did end up getting some of it back. But I don't think it's a big spoiler to the book to say that, like, what do you think happens when I get some of the jewelry back? Do you think it makes Russell's death okay? It doesn't. But it does provide a sort of suspense to a story that's not suspenseful normally, you know, when you talk about A grief story or a death story? Like, guess what happens at the end of the Titanic totally sinks. You know what I mean? But why is it a movie? Like there's some sort of suspense story that is real, but that's overlaid. So I won't spoil the whole jewelry thing too much, but, yeah, it's overlaid over his death. There's a lot of stuff that happens with the jewelry up until the end.

[Dan Harris]

In this interview you did with Jay McInerney, which was really interesting. I just read it. Somehow it comes up like, did it make you feel better to write all this? And you did not go for the easy. Yeah, admit it really helped me metabolize everything. It's all good now. You said maybe it made you feel a little bit worse. Although you added, you feel like a little bit more of a whole person. Should be curious to hear your. Hear you expand on that.

[Sloan Crossley]

I mean, it's the question of catharsis. Right? You know, in the book, I mention the Italian author Natalia Ginsburg. I'm gonna butcher the quote, but it's something like, you cannot hope to be soothed for your grief from writing or to be caressed by your profession. You know, And I think that's really what it is. I felt like, you know, Russell worked behind the scenes in the arts. A lot of the book, if it has, like, a D plot, is a sort of tacit tribute to people who work behind the scenes in these sort of old industries, who really believe in it, who really believe in the music, the film, the books. But it's not shiny. You know, you really are sort of invisible because of that. Even though he changed so many people's lives, not just his friends, but so many authors, and really changed some of what you guys have probably read, you know, in the past 20, 30 years. But because he was behind the scenes, he didn't get an obituary. And so the book, I say, really was me getting about 200 something pages worth of pissed that he didn't get an obituary. You know, in the anger section, I'm like, well, I don't really think the anger part's coming. And then only after I've published the book and only, like, honestly around now have I realized, oh, it's like a forest through the trees thing. I can't find the anger. Cause the whole book is angry. That's sort of what gives it. In addition to the humor, in addition to the sadness, what gives it its engine. Sort of this forgotten person. Not under my watch. Not on my watch, you know, and so I feel Better in that way. But I don't feel like something has now been exercised from my body or my brain and onto the page. That's the catharsis of writing. That's to me, if it works for you and you're a professional writer, that's amazing. But for me, it's more of the jurisdiction of journals.

[Dr. Bianca Harris]

Do you journal or were you journaling prior to writing the manuscript?

[Sloan Crossley]

I take notes. I always take notes. Whose is it? The Nora Ephron. Everything is copy, you know, write it down, take notes. And I actually, you know, there is a chronological function to the book in addition to the structure. So some of this was just unfortunately given to me. Was already writing or thinking I was gonna write something shorter about, you know, sort of less expansive about the human condition, about the burglary, because there was also so many funny things that happened with the burglary. I was upset. Someone had broken into my home, crawled over my bed, left muddy boot prints on my bed, destroyed and smashed some drawers and taken everything I have ever been left, collected, bought, you know, any sort of beaded necklace my niece had given me. Everything gone, right? So I am not a happy camper at this moment. But even when I called in my state of let's just panic and called 911, I guess 911 is a workplace like any other. And the operator was in the midst of sharing a joke with her colleague, clearly, when she picked up. And so she picked up the phone and she said, 91 1, what's your emergency? And I'm like, this is crazy. So it didn't change the upset, you know, it didn't like, take the edge off. But I just sort of always was taking notes about stuff like that. But I don't really journal, mostly because my handwriting is very bad. I can't read it. Other people can't read it. It's really inconsistent. Every time I sign a book for someone, I apologize because it looks like I'm threatening them. So I honestly, really. That's most of the reason I just can't even look at it. Is that self hating? Maybe that's for another podcast.

[Dan Harris]

Before we go slow, can you just remind everybody of the name of this book and others that you've written? Just shamelessly plug, if you don't mind.

[Sloan Crossley]

As much as it pains me to shamelessly plug, I'll muddle through. So this book is called Grief is for People, and it's a short but heavy memoir. And then I had a novel that came out just before this called cult classic. About a woman who keeps running into her exes in the Lower east side. And then I won't go through the plots of all of them. And then the other books are I Was Told There Be Cake, which is a collection of essays. Also look alive out There. How did you get this number? And then my first novel, the Clasp.

[Dan Harris]

Truly. Sloane, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Great to meet you.

[Sloan Crossley]

These were wonderful questions. Thank you so much for having me.

[Dan Harris]

Thanks again to Sloane and to Bianca. Appreciate both of them coming on. Don't forget to check out what we're doing [e-mail] would love to have you sign up. Or you can get the paid version for free if you just hit me up@freehand harris.com we're doing lots of cool stuff. Brief frequent emails that are kind of like an IV drip of wisdom in your inbox. Also a live video, guided meditations from me and Q and A afterwards, and the ability to chat via text with both me and also many of the guests from this podcast. Before I go, I just want to thank everybody who worked so hard to make this show a reality. Our producers are Tara Anderson, Caroline Keenan and Eleanor Vasilli are recording and engineering handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our production manager, Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer, DJ Kashmir is our executive producer and Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme if you like 10% happier, and I hope you do, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short [e-mail] survey.

[Narrator]

Hello ladies and germs, boys and girls, the Grinch is back again to ruin your Christmas season with Tis the Grinch Holiday Podcast. After last year, he's learned a thing or two about hosting and he's ready to rant against Christmas cheer and roast his celebrity guest like chestnuts on an open fire. You can listen with the whole family as guest stars like Jon Hamm, Brittany Broski and Danny DeVito try to persuade the mean old Grinch that there's a lot to love about the insufferable holiday season. But that's not all. Somebody stole all the children of Whoville's letters to Santa, and everybody thinks the Grinch is responsible. It's a real Whoville whodunit. Can Cindy Lou and Max help clear the Grinch's name? Grab your hot cocoa and cozy slippers to find out. Follow Tis the Grinch Holiday Podcast on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. Unlock weekly Christmas mystery bonus content and listen to every episode ad free by joining Wondery plus in the Wondery app, Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

[Dr. Bianca Harris]

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[Dan Harris]

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[Dr. Bianca Harris]

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