Alexandra Breckenridge Shares her Grief

Summary

---

Before We Go – Alexandra Breckenridge Shares Her Grief

Podcast: Before We Go
Host: Dr. Shoshana Ungerleider
Guest(s): Alexandra Breckenridge, Dr. Wendy Lichtenthal
Date: November 20, 2025

---

Main Theme

This episode centers on the actor Alexandra Breckenridge’s personal experience with intense loss and grief. In an intimate conversation, Dr. Shoshana Ungerleider and Alexandra share honest reflections about living with mortality, the messiness of grief, and how repeated losses can shape a life. Clinical psychologist Dr. Wendy Lichtenthal joins to help contextualize Alexandra’s story, exploring how people coexist with grief and what it means to share vulnerability in the public eye. The candid, compassionate tone invites listeners to confront difficult truths and find meaning within their own pain.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Alexandra's Story: The Near Loss of Her Son

• Early Trauma (01:19 – 03:49):
  Alexandra recounts the harrowing experience of her infant son Jack’s leukemia diagnosis, describing the shock, the isolation, and her instinct to brace for the worst.

  • "Throughout those first days, I thought he was gonna die, and I assumed he was gonna die... I kept asking the doctors, what percentage does he have of living? What do I need to know? How much do I hold on? Or how much do I prepare myself?"
    — Alexandra, 03:06

• Lingering Impact (04:49–04:55):
  Though Jack survived and is now thriving, Alexandra acknowledges a persistent sense of loss and trauma.

  • "My body, it lives in me somehow that there was a death of my child."
    — Alexandra, 03:49

• Challenging Assumptions About Grief (05:00):
  Dr. Ungerleider and Dr. Lichtenthal discuss anticipatory grief, where caregivers begin mourning at the moment of diagnosis, long before any outcome is clear. Wendy frames this as a “dance”—weighing hope against despair.

  • "Grief in the cancer sphere begins for most people at the moment you get that diagnosis..."
    — Dr. Wendy Lichtenthal, 05:10

Losses Layer Upon Losses

• Early Loss, Trauma Bonding (12:34–13:09):
  Alexandra’s first experience with loss was the suicide of her childhood crush, with whom she’d shared bullying and ostracism.

• Young Adulthood (13:23–15:02):
  Her boyfriend died suddenly at age 30 from heart failure; his mother died just two years later from the same condition.

  • “It was like every time you felt like you got your feet on the ground again, somebody else would go. You become really, really aware of your own mortality when you've experienced so much loss and so much death. I started having panic attacks and was really, horribly terrified of dying. It felt like it came every two years.”
    — Alexandra, 14:25

• Parental Loss & Complicated Grief (15:02–20:25):
  Alexandra’s relationship with her mother, Nan, was deeply troubled by her mother’s alcoholism, mental illness, and abuse. After five years of estrangement, her mother’s death triggered ambivalence; Alexandra processed this through self-guided introspection, ultimately finding empathy for her mother's traumas.

  • “I had to see her as an individual person, not just my mother… I realized what I needed to do was just look at her. Who is she? ...How can I understand that and give empathy to who she was as a person?”
    — Alexandra, 17:35-18:30

  • "I’m not a hippie dippy person, but it was very profound..."
    — Alexandra, 20:25 (On reading "Cutting the Ties That Bind")

Living with Grief & Mortality

• Fear of Death (21:15–22:36):
  Repeated losses made Alexandra acutely aware of mortality, leading to panic attacks and a lasting fear of death.

  • "Now you have a new data point that bad things can happen. And people do die. But it doesn't have to be like that forever."
    — Dr. Wendy Lichtenthal, 21:26

• Integration vs. 'Healing' (35:55–42:58):
  Dr. Lichtenthal explains that grief is not something to be "healed" or "resolved" but rather integrated—coexisting with it, finding new meaning as the losses accumulate. She introduces the concept of "bereavement overload"—when new losses occur before a person can adapt to previous ones.

  • “It's not that time itself is doing it. It takes time to have that adaptation process unfold. But if your process gets totally interrupted by yet another loss, that's what we mean by bereavement overload...”
    — Dr. Wendy Lichtenthal, 35:55

  • "Grief doesn't end. Right. It's ongoing. So I stopped using [words like ‘healing’]..."
    — Dr. Wendy Lichtenthal, 42:07

• Rejecting Clichés (06:58):
  Alexandra challenges conventional wisdom:

  • "You know that term, time heals all wounds? ...It’s cute. ...I don't know that it's accurate."
    — Alexandra, 06:58

Grief in Public and Parasocial Relationships

• Grief and Performance (10:26–12:00):
  Starring as Mel Monroe in Virgin River, Alexandra channels her own grief experiences into her acting, which both mirrors her real life and gives her a way to process loss publicly.

  • "I knew what this character was going through because I had lived a lot of it."
    — Alexandra, 11:33

• Sharing Loss on Social Media (26:43–28:33):
  Alexandra describes sharing another devastating loss—the suicide of her close friend—on Instagram, using her platform to break stigma around mental health and invite others to feel less alone.

  • "I really wanted to talk about mental health and talk to the people that are feeling alone and feeling isolated and feeling suicidal... what I really wanted to say was this is something I just experienced and you're not alone."
    — Alexandra, 27:32

Making Meaning & Helping Others

• Grief as Meaning-Making (30:06–33:24):
  Dr. Lichtenthal shares insights from Viktor Frankl about how people strive to create meaning from suffering, choosing their attitude and response, and the necessity of validation.

  • “When all has been taken from you, when your freedom has been taken from you... the last vestige of human freedom and the thing that we always have control over is our ability to choose our attitude in the face of suffering.”
    — Dr. Wendy Lichtenthal, 31:05

• Parasocial Grief Support (33:32–35:02):
  The importance of public figures responsibly modeling honest grief is explored, including its impact on fans and the risk of perpetuating harmful myths.

  • "It's grief education... the idea that we're talking about grief, that is amazing."
    — Dr. Wendy Lichtenthal, 34:26

Responsible Grief Representation

• The Power & Risk of Media (39:10–41:57):
  Honest portrayal of grief in shows like Virgin River provides viewers with validation and models healthy ways to express pain—but there’s a danger when TV or public figures reinforce overly simplistic or harmful concepts (like the “stages of grief”).

  • “We don't stay in an acute, like, state of pain eternally. So when you see someone on TV go to the depths of that pain and then exhale like that. Modeling as well can be really powerful.”
    — Dr. Wendy Lichtenthal, 40:59

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Surviving and Still Grieving:
  "My body, it lives in me somehow that there was a death of my child… and I'm so grateful and lucky and thankful that he stayed, and I get to experience him as a person."
  — Alexandra Breckenridge, 03:49, 04:35

• On the Myth of Time Healing All Wounds:
  "It's cute. It's a great idea. I love it. I don't know that it's accurate."
  — Alexandra Breckenridge, 06:58

• On Empathy for Her Mother:
  “Of course she melted. Of course she was isolated... I just. I felt sad for her.”
  — Alexandra Breckenridge, 18:00

• On 'Self-Therapizing':
  "I do a lot of that and I talk to myself a lot and I try to understand what I'm going through and okay, we've... I just was reactive to this and why was I reactive to this? ...that's sort of a constant thought process that I go through."
  — Alexandra Breckenridge, 20:31

• On the Responsibility of Public Grief:
  "It's all about being careful with the languaging, honoring the individuality and not being prescriptive, but also welcoming things like, you know, pain is pain and that sometimes you don't know what someone's going through. Those kinds of bigger messages that can be liberating."
  — Dr. Wendy Lichtenthal, 38:20

• Alexandra’s Advice on Grief:
  “Your grief is your own and you'll move through it how you move through it.”
  — Alexandra Breckenridge, 43:27

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 01:19: Alexandra describes the night her son was diagnosed with leukemia
• 03:49: Alexandra on anticipatory grief—her sense of impending loss
• 05:10: Dr. Wendy Lichtenthal on when grief truly begins in cancer families
• 10:26-11:41: Playing Mel Monroe and channeling real pain through acting
• 12:34: Alexandra’s first experience of losing a peer to suicide
• 13:23: The loss of her boyfriend and his mother
• 15:02: Complicated grief after her mother’s death
• 17:35: Forgiving her mother by seeing her as a wounded individual
• 20:31: Alexandra on ‘self-therapizing’ instead of formal therapy
• 21:26: Dr. Lichtenthal on how repeated loss can shatter our sense of safety
• 26:43: Public grieving and suicide loss on social media
• 30:06: Dr. Lichtenthal on meaning-making after loss
• 33:32: What are parasocial relationships and why do they matter for grief?
• 34:26: The power of public grief as education
• 35:55: Bereavement overload explained
• 38:20: The importance of nuance and caution when discussing grief publicly
• 40:59: How honest TV portrayals of grief can facilitate healing for viewers
• 43:27: Alexandra’s advice: grief is individual

---

Conclusion & Takeaways

This episode gives an unvarnished look at living with loss, not as a journey with a clear beginning and end, but as an ongoing, evolving part of life. Alexandra Breckenridge’s willingness to share her pain—both on screen and off—offers listeners permission to grieve in their own way, at their own pace. Dr. Wendy Lichtenthal’s insights affirm that finding meaning is possible, but it’s never prescriptive or easy. Together, their conversation destigmatizes emotional suffering, reminds us of the strength in vulnerability, and underscores that even amid overwhelming loss, community and understanding are possible.

---

For those grieving, or simply seeking to better understand big feelings, Alexandra’s story offers empathy, authenticity, and the gentle reminder: you are not alone.

Transcript

[Audible Narrator]

Audible's Romance collection has something to satisfy every side of you when it comes to what kind of romance you're into. You don't have to choose just one fancy a dalliance with a duke or maybe a steamy billionaire. You could find a book boyfriend in the city and another one tearing it up on the hockey field. And if nothing on this earth satisfies, you can always find love in another realm. Discover modern rom coms from authors like Lily Chu and Ali Hazelwood, the latest romantasy series from Sarah J. Maas and Rebecca Yarros, plus Regency favorites like Bridgerton and Outlander, and of course, all the really steamy stuff. Your first great love story is free when you sign up for a free 30 day trial at audible.com wondery that's audible.com wondery why choose a Sleep number Smart bed?

[Wendy Lichtenthal]

Can I make my sight softer?

[Alexandra Breckenridge]

Can I make my site firmer?

[Sleep Number Advertiser]

Can we sleep cooler? Sleep number does that cools up to eight times faster and lets you choose your ideal comfort on either side your Sleep number setting Enjoy personalized comfort for better sleep night after night. It's our Black Friday sale, recharged this season with a bundle of cozy, soothing comfort. Now only $17.99 for our C2 mattress and base plus free premium delivery price is higher in Alaska and Hawaii. Check it out at a Sleep number store or sleepnumber.com today.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

I want to tell you about the first time my friend Alex told me about what happened to her son. I'd known her husband for years, but Alex and I had just met. It was at this fancy restaurant. We were sitting next to each other at the table. I shared that my area of interest was serious illness and end of life. And she immediately kind of paused. Her eyes were welling up with tears. She sort of said, I don't really like to talk about this, but my son, when he was around age one, almost died. I think what stuck with me was sort of her honesty about the situation and just how raw it still was for her, even many years later. Alex told me that story again when we sat down to record this episode.

[Alexandra Breckenridge]

I've talked about the fact that he was sick and he almost died multiple times, but I haven't actually said what happened.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

If that voice is familiar to you, that's because Alex is actor Alexandra Breckenridge. She currently stars in the Netflix hit series Virgin River.

[Alexandra Breckenridge]

So my son was sick. He didn't have typical things like fevers, constant fevers, or different things that you might think for leukemia.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

So by the time doctors figured out what was wrong, Alex's son Jack was already very sick.

[Alexandra Breckenridge]

Finally, this pediatrician ordered a blood test, and at that point, his white cell count was so high, and he was severely anemic. They called us at, you know, 8pm and they said, immediately drive to a emergency room and wouldn't tell us that they had seen what they had seen in the blood test. And when he was admitted, I was told, your son has cancer.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

That first night was very difficult.

[Alexandra Breckenridge]

You can't give the baby a bottle. You can't do anything because he might have to have surgery the next day. We might have to put in a central line because this, that and the other thing, and, you know, it's midnight, and I. Throughout those first days, I thought he was gonna die, and I assumed he was gonna die. I was like, he's not gonna make it. And I kept asking the doctors, what percentage does he have of living? Like, what am I looking at here? What do I need to know? How much do I hold on? Or how much do I prepare myself?

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

Alex had already experienced so much loss in her life that grief almost felt normal. And her mind started to trick itself into believing that her son was definitely going to die.

[Alexandra Breckenridge]

Because it was almost better to prepare myself for the fact that it could happen than saying, it's gonna be okay and he's gonna be okay. So then when he actually was okay, I still. My body, it lives in me somehow that there was a death of my child. I mean, he's very strong. I mean, he's the healthiest one in our family. He rarely ever gets sick. And, I mean, it's shocking the amount of antibiotics that this kid was on and the chemotherapy and the.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

You know, he's now how old?

[Alexandra Breckenridge]

He'll be nine next month.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

And he's amazing and beautiful and, you know, an incredible kid.

[Alexandra Breckenridge]

Very tall, very smart, very creative, very, you know, I mean, he's. He's an exceptional human. And I'm so grateful and lucky and thankful that he stayed, and I get to experience him as a person.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

Do you still feel that loss that didn't happen, like, to this day?

[Alexandra Breckenridge]

I mean, yeah, it hurts.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

This might seem like a strong reaction to grieve a child who lives, but people who study grief say that there's not one right way to do it. And grief around cancer can be especially tricky.

[Wendy Lichtenthal]

We always say grief in the cancer sphere begins for most people at the moment you get that diagnosis.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

That's Wendy Lichtenthal. She's a clinical psychologist who specializes in.

[Wendy Lichtenthal]

Grief so to hear that she was going there makes absolute sense. And it's a dance, so I'm being careful with. I don't want to assume what her dance was with the. I'm going to go there, and then I'm gonna hope. I'm gonna kind of lean into a version of this where it goes differently. People are doing that dance all the time, and it's gonna be based on the last story they heard about another child with leukemia. A movie. They saw what the doctor said, what they're seeing before them, what she was seeing in her son in real time, her beliefs about the universe. And it's like going all the way around. What I hear there is that she knows the pain. She went there. She went to the. I'm getting emotional like the darkest places and, you know, stared at the sun. And it was excruciating in the realest of ways, not going all the way there, but I've been in the darkness, so, I mean, I can't imagine there weren't losses along the way. So it's like an intimacy with grief.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

And this is why I wanted to talk to Alex for this show, because loss isn't distributed evenly in life. Some people carry so much, and Alex is one of those people who teaches the rest of us how to keep going in the midst of it all.

[Alexandra Breckenridge]

I know people that have not experienced loss, and there's a lightness to them that I just wish I had. You know that term time heals all wounds? Is that the term?

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

Yeah, that's what they say.

[Alexandra Breckenridge]

I mean, it's cute. It's cute. It's a great idea. I love it. I don't know that it's accurate.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

I'm Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter, and this is before we go. This season, we're in conversation with people from all walks of life, exploring how we live alongside mortality. Today's episode, Alexandra Breckenridge shares her grief. So I've been traveling a bunch lately and working really hard, and honestly, I just felt like I needed to treat myself. So I grabbed a new everyday wallet from Quince, and I'm so glad I did. It's minimal, but feels luxurious. Made with pebbled calf leather that gives it this durable and chic finish. The structured design means it actually holds its shape, and the zip around keeps everything secure. And inside, there's just enough pockets for my cards and then those little treasures that somehow end up in every wallet. Quinn's has something for everyone on your list. Beautiful pieces that blend effortlessly into your everyday life. From timeless leather goods to cozy sweaters and silk essentials, step into the holiday season with items made to feel good, look polished and last. From Quince, Perfect for gifting or keeping for yourself. Go to quince.com beforewego for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com beforewego to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quint.com beforewego Americans spend an average of 90% of their time indoors, but did you know that indoor air can be up to 100 times more polluted than outdoor air? Breathe easy with Air Doctor, the award winning air purifier that eliminates 99.99% of dangerous contaminants like allergens, viruses, smoke, gases, mold spores and more. Air Doctor was voted best air Purifier by Newsweek. So it's no surprise that 98% of Air Doctor customers agree their home's air feels cleaner, safer and healthier. Unlike other purifiers, AirDoctor captures invisible particles 100 times smaller than standard HEPA filters. Head to airdoctorpro.com and use promo code before we go to get up to $300 off today. Air Doctor comes with a 30 day money back guarantee plus a 3 year warranty. An $84 value free. Get this exclusive podcast only offer now at airdoctorpro.com a I r d o c T-O-R-P-R-O.com using promo code before we go. So I was a Virgin River F like day one. I love schmaltzy television. Sorry Alex. What?

[Alexandra Breckenridge]

Sorry, we don't tend to get a lot of visitors in here. Certainly not as beautiful as you. I'm sorry, does that line really work? You'd be surprised.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

In the show, Alex plays Mel Monroe, a nurse who moves to a small town in Northern California to escape the tragedies in her personal life. And there are a lot of them. Mel lost her mom when she was young, lost her husband in a car crash and gave birth to a stillborn baby after multiple miscarriages and ivf. And grief's a huge theme for the entire show, especially the first season.

[Alexandra Breckenridge]

I lost my baby like was days before I could even sit upright. I was just sad all the time. So when I took this part on, it was about a year after my son had gotten out of the hospital. He was okay and we were broke, we had no money and I had to take this job. And I looked at the script and I thought I could do that because I literally. So just. I'm just going through it right now. So, you know, I made the choice to take on this part that was incredibly emotional, and I just let it all come out. When I'm working and my character is going through things that are about loss or, you know, she's gone through things that are. That mirror things that have happened to myself. So reliving these moments, they don't have to be exact because the similarities are so close that it's. I knew, like, I. I knew what this character was going through because I had lived a lot of it.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

Alex was one of the first people to agree to join me for season two of the podcast, but she's actually the last person to record her interview. Part of that is because she was busy filming season six of Virgin river, but it's also because she knew this conversation would be difficult for her and she wanted to make sure she had enough time to prepare.

[Alexandra Breckenridge]

I choose not to think about it, obviously. I mean, we choose not to sit and dwell in these places for a reason. I think once you do, it becomes sort of overwhelming and it's hard to move through and past.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

Usually in interviews, Alex just says that she's, quote, dealt with a lot of loss in her life. That's easier than giving the details.

[Alexandra Breckenridge]

So it's actually so many people that I almost thought about making a list and then I thought, wow, that's kind of. I had a hard time putting pen to paper to do that.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

The earliest loss that sticks out for Alex was the first time someone her own age died.

[Alexandra Breckenridge]

My first crush hung himself in the school gym. So we went to school together and we were in the sort of like special ed program because I had dyslexia, we rode the short bus to school. So it was me, him and a couple other kids. Couple other kids in wheelchairs. But we all rode to school together and were, of course, subsequently all bullied together. And so, you know, we bonded. Trauma bonded in the third through fifth grade.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

After fifth grade, Alex and her mom moved to California. So she hadn't seen her first crash in years. But a few years later, when she was 24, Alex lost someone who was much closer to her. Her live in boyfriend.

[Alexandra Breckenridge]

He went into the hospital. He was in there for maybe two months. And then they finally determined he needed a heart transplant because he had an enlarged heart. And then a couple days later, he went into cardiac arrest and died. And he was 30.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

And you were there.

[Alexandra Breckenridge]

I was there in the ICU when that happened? Yeah. And so that was very, very traumatic.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

Alex and her boyfriend had a large group of friends, and they really leaned on each other in that moment of deep grief. Alex stayed close to her boyfriend's family and especially his sister, who really struggled.

[Alexandra Breckenridge]

She did talk about suicidal thoughts after her brother died. She said she wouldn't. She wouldn't kill herself because she didn't want to hurt her parents, which is. I mean, you know.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

But heart problems ran in the family. And two years after Alex's boyfriend died, his mother also died of a heart condition.

[Alexandra Breckenridge]

It was like every time you felt like you got your feet on the ground again, somebody else would go. You become really, really aware of your own mortality when you've experienced so much loss and so much death. I started having panic attacks and was really, horribly terrified of dying. It felt like it came every two years. He died in 2006. His mother died in 2008. My mother died in 2010.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

Alex had a difficult relationship with her mother, Nan.

[Alexandra Breckenridge]

I didn't talk to her for five years because she was. I believe she was bipolar and a very heavy drinker. But she was emotionally, verbally abusive. And I got to a point where I had to just say, yeah, I can't. You know, I can't talk to you.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

And it was only after her death that Alex was able to recognize that her mother's behavior might have been caused by a mental illness.

[Alexandra Breckenridge]

It's hard when you're dealing with somebody that is an addict to decipher whether or not mental illness is the cause of it. It's like, well, I didn't know. But then when I looked back as an adult after she passed, I really was like, I think something was really wrong. So she had been an alcoholic since I was, I don't know, maybe eight or nine. I'm not sure. And she was a single parent. She had me at 19. She would go through these bouts of depression. There would be piles of laundry in the house. I wouldn't have clean clothes. There wouldn't be toilet paper. So I'd have to use a sock or underwear and then throw it away because there wasn't anything to wipe with in the bathroom, moldy dishes in the sink. I can't imagine what I smelled like when I went to school. I have no idea.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

Alex and her mom moved to California, but Nan's alcoholism got worse. Alex tried to run away when she was 16. She got on a bus headed towards Connecticut, where her father still lived. But she only made it as far.

[Alexandra Breckenridge]

As Colorado, decided I would never become an actress if I lived in Connecticut, moved back in with my mother, and then moved out at 17 years old because the drinking had gotten worse and worse to the point where I just thought it was alcohol abuse. And, I mean, she was just so nasty when she would drink. It was. Yeah. I won't reiterate the things that she said to me, but it was very verbally abusive.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

And that's when Alex cut off all communication with her mom.

[Alexandra Breckenridge]

A lot of people don't understand that because it's your parent. And so they say, well, how could you possibly not talk to your parent? Which is completely understandable for someone who's never dealt with that kind of trauma and that kind of abuse.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

Alex had a lot of really complicated feelings to sort out after the death of her mom.

[Alexandra Breckenridge]

I resented her and was angry with her for a very long time, since I was a child. Very long time. And when she died, I realized I had to forgive her in order to be able to not just move on, but I. I needed to have that kind of closure and understanding with her. And what I realized was I had to see her as an individual person, not just my mother. Because when you're viewing a parent who has been abusive or they're an addict or they have mental health issues, I think a lot of us that deal with that, we are mad at them because they're your parent and they're supposed to be there for you. And I mean, you know, that is their job. And I realized what I needed to do was just look at her. Who is she? Who was she? Why was she the way that she was? And how can I understand that and give empathy to who she was as a person? And so I was able to detach myself from being her daughter and just look at her as Nan and say, this person had an extraordinarily abusive childhood. She was molested, raped, kicked out. When she got pregnant with me, there was so much for her to deal with that, of course she melted. Of course she was isolated. And, you know, so I just. I felt sad for her.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

Yeah.

[Alexandra Breckenridge]

And I think that that understanding was.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

So helpful for me and I imagine so hard to do, though, given what you'd experienced, right?

[Alexandra Breckenridge]

Yeah. Do you remember the Bodhi Tree Bookstore in Los Angeles? Do you know what that is?

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

No.

[Alexandra Breckenridge]

It's like this super hippie, dippy, like, New Age bookstore. I don't think that's what the kids are calling it these days, but. Or if that's even still a thing, a word in any kind of vocabulary, anybody's vocabulary. But my mother loved New age bookstores. So when we moved to Los Angeles when I was 11, of course she immediately found this bookstore, the Bodhi Tree Bookstore. And when my mom died, I walked into this bookstore and I said, I'm just gonna walk and I'm gonna find something in here that's gonna help me. And I walked directly to this section with these books. One of them was called Cutting the Ties that Bind. And I don't think I read the whole book. I just, I flipped through it and immediately found what I needed. How to help yourself. Disconnect.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

That's how you.

[Alexandra Breckenridge]

I'm not a hippie dippy person, but it was very profound.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

So that's. It wasn't through therapy you just found this book?

[Alexandra Breckenridge]

No, no, no. It was, I was, I was self therapizing. I do a lot of that and I talk to myself a lot and I try to understand what I'm going through and okay, we've. I just was reactive to this and why was I reactive to this? You know, how can we follow this thread back to something? Because I don't think you were reacting because of the thing that just happened. It has to do with something else. I've been a big believer in that theory for a long time. So yeah, that's sort of a constant thought process that I go through. But yeah, so at the time I read some of that and then, yeah, just really talked to myself a lot.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

I told Wendy Lichtenthal about how Alex had developed a fear of death after losing her boyfriend, her boyfriend's mother, and her own mother in quick succession. Wendy wasn't surprised to hear that at all.

[Wendy Lichtenthal]

When I'm working with people and they're surprised by the intensity of what they're feeling or they're surprised by these new fears. I was never someone who thought this before. What is this? I always say most people walking around outside right now are not thinking about this. We operate with defenses so that we can operate with the assumption that the floor is below us and nothing's gonna fall down on our head. Because if we didn't operate with that assumption, we'd crawl up in a corner and not be able to function. So these, we could call them defenses, but they build up and they're data driven. They're driven by another day when I opened the door and the ground was there. So they're data driven. And now you have a new data point. Now you have a new data point that like bad things can happen. And people do die. But it doesn't have to be like that forever, because then we get more data points again, where things are put in quotes. Okay, I'm making air quotes there. When you have multiple losses, it's harder to do that.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

What strikes me with Alex's story is just how much cool courage it takes to live with that much grief and then to talk about it so openly. I think by naming it and then sharing it like she does, Alex gives us all permission to be more honest about our own pain. And for some people, I think that honesty can be a lifeline. It's a way of saying to someone else out there who's grieving, you're not alone. You're listening to before we go. We'll be right back. My dad was one of those people who could light up a room with a story. He was funny, a little larger than life. And somehow, even when I'd heard a story a dozen times, I'd still find myself laughing. But every once in a while, he'd share something new, a story I'd never heard before. And now I look back and it hits me how many of those little stories, those threads of who we are, can slip away if we don't capture them. That's why I love Storyworth memoirs. Each week, Storyworth emails your loved one a question. Something like, what was your most memorable trip? Or what's the best advice you ever got? They just reply by email or record it over the phone for Storyworth to transcribe. No apps, no tech confusion. And this year, they added a bunch of new features to make storytelling even easier. At the end of the year, Storyworth takes all those stories and photos and turns them into a beautiful hardcover book. And photos are printed in vibrant color. And they have some beautiful new book designs. It's the kind of thing you pull off the shelf and say, remember when dad told us that one? And start laughing all over again. They've printed over a million books and preserved 35 million family stories since their founding 13 years ago. They have over 48,000 five star reviews on Trustpilot. Give your loved ones a unique keepsake that you'll all cherish for years. Story worth Memoirs right now save $10 or more during their holiday sale when you go to storyworth.com beforewego that's storyworth.com beforewego to save $10 or more on your order. The holidays are coming fast, and if you're like me, you want to find thoughtful gifts without all the stress. That's why I love Uncommon Goods. They make holiday shopping actually fun with thousands of unique and meaningful gifts that you won't see anywhere else. One of my recent finds is this great water bottle bag. I love taking long walks, but I'm usually trying to balance my phone, the keys, and that huge 32 ounce water bottle. This little bag fixes everything, keeps the bottle secure, has space for the essentials, and you can even get it personalized. It's cute, waterproof, and ideal for anyone who's always on the go. Uncommon Goods is full of gifts like that. They're beautifully made, unexpected, and then often created by independent artists. Plus, every purchase gives back. They donate $1 to a nonprofit of your choice, which I'm all about, so don't wait. Cross those names off your list before the rush. To get 15% off your next gift, go to uncommongoods.com beforewego. That's uncommongoods.com Beforewego for 15% off Uncommon Goods. We're all out of the ordinary. To understand the next part of the story, I need to introduce you to Alex's Instagram page.

[Alexandra Breckenridge]

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you a very high speed video of me making chicken dinner.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

You know, Alex's Instagram is like a window into her actual life. She's not somebody that does this perfect curation of this fake life. It's slices of motherhood. It's her family, her work, her cleaning up her kitchen. She's really funny.

[Alexandra Breckenridge]

So I did a crazy thing over the weekend.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

She loves to, like, fix her hair in the camera and be like, oh, I. I look crazy today. Or, you know, she's out gardening trying to kill the snails that are eating her plants.

[Alexandra Breckenridge]

I just caught a bunch of them trying to escape, so I smashed them.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

And sometimes Alex shares moments of real vulnerability on her feed. Like last May when she decided to share yet another loss.

[Alexandra Breckenridge]

I just found out that I lost one of my closest friends. She was like my sister for a really long time. She was. She was my sister.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

That was the woman Alex mentioned earlier, the sister of the boyfriend who died of heart failure when Alex was 24. Alex had talked to her just a few months before her death.

[Alexandra Breckenridge]

I always sort of thought that she would end up, you know, getting cancer because she was a very heavy smoker. I thought she would get sick and then it would be there would be an illness that I would be helping her with, but she committed suicide.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

Why did you decide to share the loss publicly?

[Alexandra Breckenridge]

Gosh, I don't know. I think what I really wanted to talk about at that time I really wanted to talk about mental health and talk to the people that are feeling alone and feeling isolated and feeling suicidal. I mean, I do get messages from people who experience these feelings and want to share that with me at times. And so I guess, yeah, what I really wanted to say was this is something I just experienced and you're not alone. I don't know. I often want to tell you people that they're not alone in their big feelings in life, because life can be overwhelming and loss is overwhelming.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

And this is why I decided to call Wendy Lichtenthal in the first place, because there's a lot to consider when it comes to Alex's big feelings and how she shares them with her followers and fans. But before we get into all that, I wanted to learn more about Wende and the work that she does. Like a lot of us who work in this field, she had a personal experience that brought her here.

[Wendy Lichtenthal]

I lost my dad when I was 13, going on 14. You know, that's the age we're figuring out who we are. And for me, dealing with and being with grief became part of my identity, but also the drive to do something about it, the search for meaning, all of that became very much a part of my why. And it's in me, right? Because it was like that core shaping who I am. I have a feel like a never ending well to think about it, talk about it, want to do better with it.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

And sometimes that means using her own grief to help her better connect and understand the people she's working with.

[Wendy Lichtenthal]

We just lost our dog not long ago, and I'm like, I'm sorry. Thank you. It's excruciating. And I'm using it and I'm observing it and I'm like, what am I learning? And what is the stuff that I said to that person now sound like bs because that's not what it really feels like, or at least not right now.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

Wende works with people to help them find meaning in grief. So for many, that might be considering the why of a loss. Why did this happen?

[Wendy Lichtenthal]

Whenever we face adversity, trauma, loss, anything like that, we have a drive to understand the why. Because we want the world to be predictable and make sense and feel safe. So it is natural for us to kind of figure out, well, how did we get here? So that's one way of meaning making. And then there's meaning in life, there's the other kind of meaning, and that's more exactly existential meaning. And we know that our sense of selves, what feels meaningful in the world. The way that we share experiences with someone, the way that we know life to be fulfilling, is often in relation to someone who matters. And so when that person is no longer physically here, that sense of mission, purpose, meaning gets disrupted and challenged. And so helping people to figure things out, that part of meaning making out is also something we address.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

How do you talk about that without minimizing the pain that people are in?

[Wendy Lichtenthal]

Oh my goodness, such an important point. That is one of the first things we say as soon as we bring up that word meaning or things like attitude or any words that suggest that there is a should in finding a silver lining in the most profoundly painful experience. Experience. So first, it is never about a directive to find that. So we talk about it in a couple ways. One is we talk about free will and we talk about choice. And a lot of this is derived from Viktor Frankl's work. He writes about man's search for meaning. So, you know, the notion that Frankl talks about is that when all has been taken from you, when your freedom has been taken from you in these out of control circumstances, the last vestige of human freedom and the thing that we always have control over is our ability to choose our attitude in the face of suffering. Attitude, again, gets tricky. But what is meant by that is your response, your stance here, this is before me. How am I going to choose to be with it? And that can be a behavioral response, I'm going to get out of bed. Or it can be a perspective you hold. And it's that part of growth, that meta process of recognizing that when we are trying to do all that meaning making and make sense of it and trying to find that narrative, expressing it to someone, hearing them reflect it back, hearing ourselves, just hearing it out loud, that expressive process with someone else who can hear us and be a witness to it, can facilitate that meaning making. What else? Validation. Validation. Validation. Because grief is so crazy, making it can make you feel like something is wrong with you. To have someone say back, this is that hard. You're not crazy. It's excruciating. Offering that kind of, I hear you and I see it. And so importantly, when it's people who can hear the nuances, when that person can recognize the magnitude of the loss, the nuances of the relationship, that you had to really get that and to feel seen in that way can be so, so gratifying.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

But Wendy's work in meaning making isn't the only reason I called her. Wendy also studies grief and parasocial relationships.

[Wendy Lichtenthal]

So Parasocial relationships, if we just want to define, you know, what those are, we can think of them as one way in some regard. One way relationships, meaning that you have all of this information kind of pulled together from the various ways you've gotten to know this public figure, and they don't likely have that on you. So it's one way in that regard. Their presence and what we learn about them in the public sphere is influential, impactful, and meaningful. And we become attached to it. It's doing something for us. It's meeting a need.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

So when Alex shares her favorite chicken recipe on Instagram, or when she tells her followers about her struggles with the snails in her garden, she's strengthening those parasocial relationships. And when she shares about grief and the losses in her life and all her big feelings, she's doing something really important.

[Wendy Lichtenthal]

It's grief education. Right. So it's this amazing opportunity to build grief literacy. So from my point of view, the idea that this is happening more and more with people who we can connect with, we respect is a wonderful, wonderful thing when the messages are aligned with kind of what contemporary experts think about grief. So there is a little rub here because there are so many myths about grief or socialized beliefs, but by and large, the idea that we're talking about grief, that is amazing. That is amazing.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

Everyone's experience with grief is different, but there's a lot we can learn from Alex's grief story. Partly because she's experienced so many different types of grief. She's felt the grief of suicide loss, grief that's complicated by estrangement and the anticipatory grief she felt when her son was diagnosed with leukemia.

[Wendy Lichtenthal]

So when you've had those kinds of life challenges and you take them on, you integrate them, you make meaning of them, you lean into them, you own them, you take, choose to keep them. Yeah, that's, I think, also what I hear there. And I think, yeah, that is a powerful choice to make.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

Wendy says that people like Alex who have experienced multiple losses sometimes experience something called bereavement overload.

[Wendy Lichtenthal]

How do people learn to coexist with their grief? They find ways to adapt. They find these approaches that are unique to them to learn to coexist with their grief. And it takes time to do that. It's not that time itself is doing it. It takes time to have that adaptation process unfold. But if your process gets totally interrupted by yet another loss, that's what we mean by bereavement overload is I haven't yet figured out how to get my footing. How do I reorient in the world and find space and transform my relationship to whomever was lost or whatever was lost. How do I do all that when now I have another loss? That process getting disrupted, part of it.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

But there's something else going on.

[Wendy Lichtenthal]

Part of meaning making, of making sense of the world. And how does this fit in my understanding of the world that gets shaped by our life experiences? And if your worldview started with life is good, the sky's the limit. Now those beliefs get challenged because it's not fitting. It's not fitting that worldview or it's creating a new worldview. I can't catch a break. What is going on here? Life doesn't feel fair. Those new ways of meaning making can happen with those multiple experience. Not for everyone, but certainly it puts people at risk of that. Now people make meaning a different way. So it could be that the person who has loss after loss develops a view that's like, this is what life's about. We have losses. And I've learned that, you know, you can find your way through anything. That could be a belief that comes from multiple losses as well. But let's also acknowledge that if you ever hear someone landing in a space like that or expressing a sentiment like that, they didn't just land there like that.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

Right.

[Wendy Lichtenthal]

There's a process, right? So always just want to. When someone hears someone kind of landing in this space, that feels helpful and it's working for them. It was a journey to get there. Usually.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

Grief can present in so many different ways. And so when public figures like Alex share their grief responsibly, modeling all the different ways it can present itself and the different ways through time and effort that they've been able to make meaning in their own lives, it can be helpful.

[Wendy Lichtenthal]

It's like you're seeing someone where you see your story in them. And so it can feel validating. It can help you with the your own meaning making. Maybe they say something that helped them get through or coexist with their grief or cope in a certain way. And you like, ooh, that. That works for me. Yeah, but there's always a flip side, right? So we just want to be. It's all about being careful with the languaging, honoring the individuality and not being prescriptive, but also welcoming things like, you know, pain is pain and that sometimes you don't know what someone's going through. Those kinds of bigger messages that can be liberating.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

When we reached out to Wendy, she'd never Watched the show Virgin River. But when she heard that we'd spoken to Alex, she decided to give the show a try.

[Wendy Lichtenthal]

I leaned into Virgin River a little bit myself, and I wept watching it. And I let that do what it needed to do. Because I mentioned before, I'm, you know, going through more acutely. Like, it's right there for me right now, that grief. I have old grief, but the grief that feels more proximal right now. Doing a lot of dancing myself with it. And it opened me. It touched me. That ventilation expression moment, I think can be so helpful when you see it raw. Cause you know it, and you can, like, let it come out, you know, Our adaptation process goes between being with it and then reorienting and reconfiguring in the world without whatever, whomever was physically there. Right. So we're doing both, but we need to kind of go there and touch down. And there are lots of reasons we don't want to do that. And it's really hard. So when you see it on the screen and it touches you and then it comes out, you have a moment to be there, to go there. That. That can be part of your processing part. And then again, it's the messaging of it's okay to express it, it's okay to be with it. I see the trajectory of it, which means what grief does is it surges, and then that intensity remits, it diminishes. We don't stay in an acute, like, state of pain eternally. So when you see someone on TV go to the depths of that pain and then exhale like that. Modeling as well can be really powerful.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

Yeah.

[Wendy Lichtenthal]

Do I ever critique things? Hell, yeah. Like, I mean, if there's messaging that is unhelpful, that is saying things that. Okay, I'll put one out there. The stage model of grief. Right. So this is a highly popularized one way of conceptualizing how grief unfolds in these stages. But it goes against everything we just said because it's not organized, it's messy, it's nonlinear. The danger in publicly promoting ideas like that is that then this griever watching on their couch is like, wait, I don't think I'm doing it like that. Or that's disappearing. I'm doing it wrong. You know, something's wrong with me. And then we get to the feeling badly about feeling badly. I love when we see it well done. And then we want to be responsible about it.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

And this can be difficult because public figures and TV show writers aren't experts in grief. And Even those of us who do consider ourselves experts can make mistakes from time to time.

[Wendy Lichtenthal]

I'll say something you said before, and I was going to comment on it. You said the word healing. A lot of people use the word heal. A lot of grievers use the word heal. I'm not knocking it. I don't use it because it implies being done. And grief doesn't end. Right. It's ongoing. So I stopped using it. And I've stopped using a lot of words that over time, you know, I notice how they're being taken up differently. So I'll find things I wrote a long time ago and be like, you know, because we learn from how something landed with someone often also, right. But words like recovery, grief resolution, healing, anything that implies an end, I've discontinued using.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

Wende doesn't see grief as something that you get over. It's something that you live with every day, and it's always evolving and changing. Talking to me from her office in her home in Georgia, Alex feels that deeply.

[Alexandra Breckenridge]

Sometimes I'm fine. I have a picture of my mom and here, my friend. And sometimes I look and I'm okay. And then sometimes I just want to cry, and that's okay. You know what I think the best advice is? Your grief is your own and you'll move through it how you move through it. I deal with that with my character a lot. They talk about it a lot. And I can't tell you what happens in season seven because we just filmed it, but it was like, at the end of it, I said to them, you know, there was a series of events that happen having to do with babies. And I was like, you guys are putting me in this position where I said, it's triggering for me.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

I mean, Alex, you gotta. Can you just get on, like a comedy show maybe?

[Alexandra Breckenridge]

I want to, yes, Please sign me up. I'm ready.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter]

Before We Go is a production of Podcast Nation and Me. Our production team includes Karen Given, James Brown and Madison Britt. Original music by Edward Ayton. I'm Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter. And that's it for this season of Before We Go, but the conversations will continue. We'd love to hear your story of living alongside mortality. You can reach us on Instagram. Before We Go podcast.