Beyond Introspection: A Podcast About Neurodivergence & Identity

INTROSPECTION: Death & Grief

• BeyondPodcast • Season 2 • Episode 4

Share episode

In this episode, Pen & Harvey discuss death, dying, grief, and how we might think about it differently.
NOTE: This episode contains discussion about suicide, both our own experiences and more conceptually. If this may be triggering for you, listen with caution. Your mental health comes first.

Featuring: Being death positive isn't as depressing as it sounds; a'thunking about death; Mourning a stranger, mourning the living; Harvey's dead grandma & flower petals; My friend, the skeleton; Pen's communication theory corner, aka "Oops, no rituals!"

Suicide Hotline & Resources for Trans People: 

https://translifeline.org/

USA Suicide Prevention: 

https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

International Suicide Hotlines: 

https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines

Suicide Hotline & Resources for LGBTQ+ Young People: 

https://www.thetrevorproject.org/


Ways to support Black Lives Matter and find anti-racism resources:

https://linktr.ee/blacklivesmatte

Resources to support AAPI (Asian-American & Pacific Islander) communities:

https://www.advancingjustice-aajc.org/

https://stopaapihate.org/


Resources for US Immigrants:

https://www.informedimmigrant.com/

Resources to Support Undocumented Immigrants in the US:

https://immigrationjustice.us/

Pen:

Hello, and welcome to Beyond Introspection: a podcast about mental health, neurodivergence, and how it impacts literally every aspect of our lives.

Harvey:

All of them.

Pen:

I'm Pen.

Harvey:

And I'm Harvey.

Pen:

And this week we're going to talk about death.

Harvey:

Yeah. And this was brought on by a conversation that me and Pen had in my car. I forget, we were in, like, a--like, a suburb of Chicago.

Pen:

Yeah. Because I was--you were driving me to pick up a book.

Harvey:

Right. I couldn't-

Pen:

And we got Girl Scout cookies.

Harvey:

That's the thing. I was trying to be like, okay, why were we there? And the only part I could remember was Girl Scout cookies, which was not why we were there.

Pen:

No, but like, it could have been.

Harvey:

It really could have been. But yeah, we ended up having, like, a long-ish discussion about death and dying, and we were like, huh, this would be a good podcast episode.

Pen:

Yeah. Which, I imagine is a surprise to no one who's listened to this and knows me personally, that I was, like, let's talk about death because that's sort of--that is something that I do bring up. Not in a goth way, though, like, not that that's a bad thing. It is legitimately just, like, me.

Harvey:

You're at least a little bit goth.

Pen:

I am. It's just, that's not why I talk about death.

Harvey:

No, sure, sure.

Pen:

That's--that's organic. Much like how we should be treating death, as a society. As, like, a literal part of the process of our lives, and not as something separate and scary. Particularly in terms of, you know, putting things back into nature, and not embalming bodies for literally no reason, and then tossing them into a casket, and then putting the casket into a big plastic vault, and just taking up space.

Harvey:

They're gonna decompose anyway. But we'll--we'll get into that. It might surprise folks a little--I know it surprised you--when I mentioned that I've--I've actually--I've had an interest in death and dying probably since I was five, for really no reason in particular. It's not like a close family member died, and then I just got fixated. It was just, like, apparently, when I was five, like, I started asking a bunch of questions about like,"What happens when we die? And where do we go when we die?" And I was also the Grim Reaper for Halloween when I was five years old.

Pen:

God, that's so cool. It's not--like it's--it's neat that you had that interest at a young age and I kind of can't believe, still, that you had an interest in that before I did, because that just--like, with our personalities, and just like the way we present ourselves to the world, I think that--that, like, no one would guess that. Though, I did definitely have an interest in death, at least by the time I was seven. But I wasn't nearly as cool in my Halloween costumes when I was young. Though, my mom was pretty cool. inwhat she did.

Harvey:

To be fair, the three years prior, I was a ladybug.

Pen:

I love that. I think what it was five It was a tooth fairy, and my mom made a--she took, like, I think cardboard, and wrapped little, like, teeth shaped things in, like, tin foil. So it did have, like, some details to it, not that I--I was just there and I think in pink, which, like, yeah, that face.

Harvey:

You're wearing pretty much all black right now, so the--the idea of that is strange.

Pen:

You know, Trevon and I went for a walk in a graveyard recently, because they're nice. Cemeteries are great places to walk most of the time.

Harvey:

They are pretty.

Pen:

And often they have walking paths and things. It's a thing that people do. He didn't know that. He had no context for why I wanted to take a walk in a cemetery. But we--he went with me anyway, 'cause he's like that.

Harvey:

He's a good sport.

Pen:

Because he's great. But I was, you know, wearing all black like I do most days. And he was like, "Is the all black, like, because of the cemetery?" And I was like, "Trevon, when was the last time you saw me and I wasn't wearing all black? And he was like, "You know what? That's a good point."

Harvey:

I'm just imagining Trevon's, like, surprised little"Oh," like--like, you know, the one that he does?

Pen:

Yeah.

Harvey:

I'm imagining that one. But before we keep talking about death, which probably won't be that depressing, because we are both relatively on the death positive end of the spectrum--

Pen:

Though, we will be bringing up suicide, at least in terms of being suicidal. Because, well--

Harvey:

Well, there's no way that won't affect our relationship with death.

Pen:

But I don't think that this is going to be--I suppose it depends on your perspective, but we're not going into this expecting it to be super depressing.

Harvey:

Mm-mm. So, Pen.

Pen:

Yes.

Harvey:

Tell me...

Pen:

Yeah.

Harvey:

...about your Wahoo! Moment of the Week.

Pen:

Thank you!

Harvey:

You're welcome.

Pen:

Ah, well, it's--it's, um--I elistened to the last--last half of Catching Fire, and then--and Mocking--I listened to all of Mockingjay in the Hunger Games trilogy.

Harvey:

Oh, okay.

Pen:

Which was, if nothing else, it was interesting. Like, I really love that trilogy. I love Suzanne Collins as a writer. I got into her middle school series, Gregor the Overlander, when I was, you know, about that age, and so it was nice to revisit that and, like, I had come across some meta posts about it. And so I got kind of into that, which, you know, isn't necessarily like a Wahoo! moment, but it is, like, it's always nice to go back and engage with things that I've cared about for a while.

Harvey:

No, for sure.

Pen:

And sometimes, you know, it can be difficult to reread those books because they are wicked depressing, but in ways that I think are very important.

Harvey:

For sure. I have to come up with something that isn't,"Oh, I saw my boyfriend, and that was nice." Because I do that most of the time on the weekends that we record, which really just seems like poor planning on my part, but I did see my boyfriend, which is always nice. I'm trying to think if there was anything notable that happened in the past week.

Pen:

I got the first shot of my vaccine, I forgot about that. I'm half Moderna'd.

Harvey:

And I'm going to get Pfizer--Pfizer tomorrow. I've been--I've been playing a lot of Project DIVA, which is a--is--which is a--

Pen:

Yes, yes, yes!

Harvey:

Which is a rhythm game based on Vocaloid. I could infodump about Vocaloid, but I'm not going to.

Pen:

On this episode.

Harvey:

Not on this episode. But yeah, I'll call that my Wahoo! Moment of the Week. I just--I enjoy playing that game. It has brought me joy.

Pen:

That's great. That's--I do want to clarify, this is like when Harvey talks about Sonic the Hedgehog. I don't know anything about Vocaloids. I learned a lot about them recently.

Harvey:

You know who Hatsune Miku is.

Pen:

I actually--it turns out I didn't know who Hatsuna Miku was. I could recognize Hatsune Miku.

Harvey:

Well, that's what I mean.

Pen:

Yeah, yeah, I--but whenever I see Harvey playing Project DIVA, or frankly, any video game, I'm like, woo! Yes.

Harvey:

Typically, because the games I play are very colorful, and that makes Pen happy.

Pen:

It's also because I'm supportive.

Harvey:

That--that, too. But you--

Pen:

A lot of them are, like, visual stims.

Harvey:

So you're like, ohh, like ,you like watching me play Overwatch.

Pen:

Colors! They move!

Harvey:

They move so much.

Pen:

Who would have thunk?

Harvey:

Who'd'a thunk it? But let's a-thunk about death.[Laughter] That was nothing.

Pen:

No, I liked it! I liked it. That's going in the "featuring." Oh, great. Yeah, let's talk about death.

Harvey:

I--so I mentioned, as we were introducing this episode, that, like, we both--we both--like, I consider myself death positive. I don't know if you do.

Pen:

Oh, totally.

Harvey:

So it might be useful to explain what that means.

Pen:

Please do.

Harvey:

Hum, for me, like, I do want to say, like, that doesn't necessarily mean that I don't have a complicated relationship with death. My relationship with death is rough. On my--like, on my dad's side of the family, for example, there's pretty much nobody left except my dad, and, like, a distant uncle who I never talk to. But he and my dad are close, so that's good. But for me, like, I don't have a dad's side of the family. Like, I have my dad, and that's it. And I love the guy dearly, but it's definitely complicated that, like, I, you know, people talk about sides of their families, and it's like, well, I have my mom's extended family, and then I have my dad. So--so that's troubling. I've also lost several of my friends to suicide over the years, because we are all mentally ill, and I am deeply afraid of death, as somebody with anxiety. So all this to say, my relationship with death personally actually kind of sucks. But all of that to say, like, I think there is--when I say I'm death positive, I mean that there is beauty in death. I don't think that it is something that we should avoid talking about. I think that it's important, you know, all of those things. And I'm also just--I'm really fascinated by the rituals of death, particularly culturally.

Pen:

Yes.

Harvey:

So that's what I mean when I say I'm death positive, not that I just go through life, and I'm like, "Ha, nothing matters. I'm gonna die someday, and that's fine." No, I'm very afraid of dying. But I think that death is neat.

Pen:

Yeah.

Harvey:

Really.

Pen:

Not death positive as in, like, looking forward to it ,or recommending it as a fun activity, but death positive as in, the concept of death is not a negative thing.

Harvey:

Right.

Pen:

It is something to be conceptually, I think, embraced in terms of, like, willingness to understand it and to recognize it as a part of our lives.

Harvey:

Yeah.

Pen:

Fundamentally, because, you know, life: is stops.

Harvey:

It does. There's a--unless you're like--like a F'ed-up, like, bottom sea creature, some of those who--that legitimately don't die. But that is--they don't count.

Pen:

That's none of my business.

Harvey:

No, the ocean can stay where it is, and I don't need to know anything about it.

Pen:

We are going--we--this is death in terms of humanity, which is so much messier.

Harvey:

Yes.

Pen:

Yeah, yeah, I--let's see, when did I start thinking about death? Well, I got really into, and I'm still not sure why, I got interested in ancient Egypt and mythology when I was about seven. I think it might have been that Egyptology book, which I didn't realize at the time was wicked fake, but it was one of those like, guidebook, whatever, things.

Harvey:

I mean, you were a kid.

Pen:

Yeah, no, totally. And I found the mythology really interesting, because, well, I mean, mythology, is--it's stories, and who doesn't like stories as a kid? Especially someone who was obsessive in reading?

Harvey:

Yeah, mythology is super cool.

Pen:

Yeah. And I also got into Greek mythology, which doesn't count, because that's--

Harvey:

Because you're gay.

Pen:

No--well, because it's such a common interest. But yeah, I am queer, which means I was--

Harvey:

Sorry, yes, you're queer.

Pen:

Uh-huh. No, it's all good, it's good. Yes. So that was when I started, you know, having some kind of relationship with death and thoughts, because a lot of ancient Egyptian mythology and culture revolved around death, which--and it was in a very death positive kind of way.Death wasn't something that they, like, shied away from as a concept, in part because life was pretty good. Thank you, the Nile River. And so it was, like, a continuation of that, and all of the rituals surrounding it. It's very compelling and detailed enough to be interesting, even--even as a kid. So that was, I think, where it started, but where it really, like, crystallized in terms of an existential thing for me was when I was--the summer, that I turned 15.

Harvey:

Would've been, what, 2013?

Pen:

I think so, yeah. I believe it was then that I had an existential crisis for essentially the entire summer.

Harvey:

Right. You mention this to me often.

Pen:

It was like--a lot of it was rooted in being wicked depressed.

Harvey:

That'll do it.

Pen:

But sometimes I would talk about death with my therapist, Charlie. And--

Harvey:

Tummy man!

Pen:

Yes! He gave me two books. He gave me Man's Search for Meaning, and he gave me On Death and Dying, and I never actually read On Death and Dying, which is kind of a shame. But Man's Search for Meaning included, like, a lot on on death and things. And so that was something I started thinking about. I think I read Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin...

Harvey:

Doughty.

Pen:

Doughty Thank you. I never remember.

Harvey:

We both love Caitlin Doughty. If--I don't think she ever will, but if Caitlin

Pen:

We do, we do. We both rea Smoke Gets in Your Eyes. Doughty ever listens to this podcast, and particularly this episode, I think I might die on the spot, just from being starstruck. That's funny.

Harvey:

Oh! I just noticed the irony of me that.

Pen:

No, I loved it, and it was a great introduction into, you know, thinking about death more philosophically, particularly in terms of, like, culture surrounding it. And yeah, it was--oh, no, I think it was the summer I turned 16. Anyway, that's not the important part. Fifteen? Nope, no brains. No brains. Yeah, it was--it wasn't an inherently positive experience, but it was also, like, sitting in existential things is something that I am very able to do, and I think that's--that is part of where it started, or where it, like, just became a thing for me. And it was when I started thinking about, like, death in society, and how much we talked about it, which is to say, how much we don't talk about it. And a lot of that is just, you know, the thesis of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.

Harvey:

Right.

Pen:

But--and then I started thinking about it kind of a lot in terms of being at least passively suicidal for at least two years. But I was also depressed, so whether or not it was--like, that was when I was consistent, and every day.

Harvey:

Right.

Pen:

Eh, yeah. So you know, you think about it.

Harvey:

And you know, I know that I've been--like, we were talking before the podcast. I don't know what brought this on, because again, I don't remember my childhood, but I've been interested in death, probably since I was five or so. I was literally the Grim Reaper for Halloween when I was five, and then the three years before that, I was a ladybug. But all of that to say, like, I--the--like, death has been a long standing interest of mine. And definitely, some of that is influenced by the fact that I have been, in one way or another, suicidal since I was 12. I describe myself nowadays as sort of functionally suicidal. Typically something will bring on suicidal ideation. Like, if I'm inconvenienced, or if something really upsetting happens, I'm like, "I should just kill myself." But, you know, it's--it's--it feels--a very different place than I was when I was a teen, because I would think about it, and there was a point at which I actually attempted suicide, and failed, because thankfully, I didn't know the dosage of what I took.

Pen:

That's good.

Harvey:

Yeah, that's for--that's for the best. And it's like, I'm not going to get into specifics about what I took, or how much, but I'm gonna say it was a reasonable amount to take for a headache.

Pen:

Oh, I'm so glad that you didn't know.

Harvey:

I'm so glad that I was a stupid 12 year old. But all of that to say, death has been more or less a constant in my brain since I was 12, just because I've been so consistently suicidal to varying degrees. Like, I'm sitting here right now, and I don't feel like killing myself. But--

Pen:

Nice!

Harvey:

There's that--thank you. There is that knowledge that, in the back of my head, it's there. And there's a part of me that's thinking about it sometimes. So that has meant that I've thought about it and my feelings on it. And well, would I really want to die? And thinking about well, what's going to happen when I die? What--like, you know, the--like, because I'm not I'm not particularly religious. I was--I was raised religious, but I'm--I don't really believe in anything, at least right now. So as it stands, I don't believe that anything happens when we die. And trying to wrap my head around that is literally impossible. I can't just imagine nothing.

Pen:

Like, yes, you're right. Literally, the human brain can't.

Harvey:

It's just antithetical, like--so, I think that's probably where it started my philosophical thinking on death, where I just was suicidal for so long that when I started getting better, it was like, well, I'm still thinking about death, because I've been thinking about it for you know, at this point, five years, you know, I was 17, probably when I started thinking about it philosophically. So I was like, huh. And then I stumbled across Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and Caitlin Doughty's YouTube channel, and, well, here I am now.

Pen:

It's a great, great book--

Harvey:

Oh, yes. Very good.

Pen:

--Smoke Gets in Your Eyes. It is heavy. There are a lot of heavy parts of it because she speaks so frankly about it. I think it's very important, and it's a very good read. It's not a great read for if you are currently very depressed.

Harvey:

If you're currently suicidal, don't read it. Just, I'm just going to be straightforward.

Pen:

Like, a heavy preoccupation on death is not a great thing to introduce if you are already heavily preoccupied with death.

Harvey:

Yes.

Pen:

Especially because she also speaks about her own experiences with, like, mental illness, and--and things related to death, which are fascinating and can be great. Not if you're there.

Harvey:

No.

Pen:

Probably.

Harvey:

No.

Pen:

Like, y'all know yourselves best. Just be aware.

Harvey:

You know, this wasn't something that we talked about discussing on the episode, but this is actually reminding me, probably about a month ago, I got interested in the idea of assisted suicide for terminally ill folks.

Pen:

Oh, I didn't know.

Harvey:

Yeah, it was--it was something that I very much on my own. I was--I got really interested in assisted suicide, and also palliative care.

Pen:

I remember you bringing up being interested in palliative care.

Harvey:

And--and for those of you who don't know, Palliative care is the kind of medical care we offer to folks who are terminally ill. It's--it's about making them comfortable. It's end of life, hospice, that sort of thing. Really just trying to ensure quality of life at the end of life. And I remember coming across this documentary--or not--like--like a short, yeah, I will say a documentary, like, a short, 20-minute documentary about a woman, I think, from Belgium. Belgium, possibly? One of those Western, like, Germanic European countries, who had really severe depression, who had been depressed for years, and years, and years, and it was severe, and it wasn't letting up. And she lived in one of the very few countries that did offer assisted suicide for mental health.

Pen:

I've never heard of that before.

Harvey:

It's extraordinarily rare, but the philosophy was fascinating, because, you know, they needed, like, three clinicians to sign off on this because it's such a--just a touchy and, you know, like, kind of messy subject. And the philosophy that the--like, I don't know how I feel about this necessarily, but I do think it's at least an intriguing idea to engage with, and the philosophy of one of the doctors was, well, much like physical suffering, you know, this woman is in an unimaginable amount of just unrelenting pain, and her depression is resistant to any kind of treatment. She isn't getting better. So much like physical illness, I don't know why we should force her to keep living if she's in a same level of pain. And even with me being mentally ill, and recognizing that mental illness affects me in a very similar way that some of my physical illnesses do, that was still, like, kind of a shock to my system. And it's like, well--well, how could you say that? Surely there's something they could do. But maybe there isn't. Which was just--what you said reminded me of that. So it was just sort of intriguing to consider like, huh. And she did go through with it. She initially, like, when it was her day to end her life, she backed out. And then two years later, she decided to go through with it.

Pen:

I think that is a particularly telling aspect. Because that doesn't surprise me, that there would be the backing out in the moment, and I think that's what people tend to expect--

Harvey:

Yeah.

Pen:

--when it comes to suicide in particular, like, that moment, right before. But it's--I had never heard of that, and I do think that that's very interesting. And typically, I am against things where you need to have, like, multiple letters and things from clinicians, because it's just hoops to jump through.

Harvey:

But I think in the case of assisted suicide for depression--

Pen:

I think that's very different. Exactly. Like, I'm currently starting the process of jumping through some hoops, because I'm trans and insurance companies won't let me be trans. That's very, very different than, like, this decision is genuinely so hugely impactful, and something that--like, one of the requirements for getting top surgery, which is what I'm trying to jump through hoops to do--

Harvey:

Which I'm also trying to do. Going through the same surgeon.

Pen:

--which is essentially like being of sound mind.

Harvey:

Yeah.

Pen:

Which, like, that is inherently what is being questioned in this. And I think that that's very interesting, and I do think that there is something to be said there in terms of, like, why are we forcing people to continue when they are in incredible pain? And also, I think, like, is that our right to do? Like, who--who holds the right over someone's life? Is it them? And if it isn't, or if it is, when do those circumstances change?

Harvey:

Yeah. And it's--it's a real conundrum to think through, I think.

Pen:

Oh, yeah. I don't think that there are any simple answers to those questions.

Harvey:

No, it is deeply, deeply complicated. But, y'know, I've been--pretty much ever since I watched that documentary, I've been thinking about it just sort of in the back of my head, like, what do I think about this? Not that it's really my place to make a decision, but it's still like, it's--it's, like, an interesting philosophical...

Pen:

Yeah. If nothing else, like, it's, I think it's worth thinking about. Worth--worth chewing on. It's--

Harvey:

And, you know, like, despite having never known this woman, and you know, like, she died back in, I think, 2018, I found myself grieving her, actually, for reasons that I can't explain. My nearest guess is that, like, I think I felt some level of connection.

Pen:

Yeah.

Harvey:

Like, clearly, my--my depression is not that severe, considering like, I my--my depression is manageable enough to where I actively want to continue to live.

Pen:

Yeah.

Harvey:

And she was in pretty much the exact opposite position where it's like, "I actively want to die because I'm in so much pain."

Pen:

Yeah.

Harvey:

But I think there was that level of kinship of just sort of the experience of depression.

Pen:

Yeah.

Harvey:

So, like, even though, like, at the end of the day, I'm glad that she's at peace, like, there's a part of me that's like, man. That's--it's just--it's just such a strange thing to think through.

Pen:

And I think that that relates to one of the things that we were going to talk about, which is the complexities of grief, and you had some very interesting thoughts, I think, on that,

Harvey:

When I was talking with Pen in the car, I mentioned that, for one reason or another--that I still haven't been able to pin down--but the kind of grief that I experience when someone close to me dies is very similar to the kind of grief that I experience when someone I loved is just out of my life. And the way that I explained it is, you know, when somebody dies, and I grieve that person, it's not that I grieve the fact that they are dead. Cognitively, I'm, like, you've lived your life. You were likely in pain before the end, so I'm glad that you at rest, I'm glad that you were able to enjoy your life, ostensibly. And--but it's--it's the fact that they're gone. Like my grandmother, she passed away in the--eh--she died in the beginning of 2020. I think it was January 3rd of January 4th, so she never knew COVID-19, which is something else.

Pen:

Yeah, oh, God. Wow.

Harvey:

Yeah. But in any case, like, I still grieve her, and I still miss her. But it's--it's not the fact that she passed. I sobbed when I saw her dead body.

Pen:

That makes sense.

Harvey:

But it was--it was not so much the fact that I was seeing a dead body and knowing that, like, this is the--my grandmother was cremated, that was the last time I would ever see her. The last interaction I had with her was the last interaction I was ever going to have. The last thing she ever heard me say, and she's never going to be in my life anymore. And that is the tricky part. And similarly, I don't think he uses--I don't think he listens to this podcast, so I'll use his name. There was a--there was a guy I fell in love with very quickly, at the end of 2019, beginning of 2020, named Louis. We dated for a very short period of time, it was like a month and a half. But the problem with me is that I'm a hopeless romantic, and I fall in love easily. I love easily romantically, platonically, what have you. And without getting into specifics, because I don't think that's really my thing to share on such a public forum, the way that--that relationship ended was messy with, you know, like, some--some, I still think, like, some pretty significant mistakes on my part. But, you know, the opinion of my friends differs. In any case--

Pen:

If nothing else, is a very complex situation.

Harvey:

Yeah. And in any case, I grieve him in much the same way that I grieve my grandmother. Of course, it feels different because he was a romantic partner, and I also know that he's still alive. But like, I do have that acute awareness that he will almost certainly never be in my life again. And that hurts. And it is painful, because I thought that he was a wonderful person. And the last interaction I have--I had with him, which was pretty bad, I know, is probably going to be my last. And yeah, so that's the thing. Like, in my mind, it seems that folks separate the grief that--like, first of all, it seems like the folks separate--sorry. It seems like folks don't recognize that, like, just not having someone in your life anymore if they haven't died can be a source of grief.

Pen:

Yes.

Harvey:

And when they do, they--I think they posit that grief as something inherently separate from death, but I don't think that's true.

Pen:

And I think, often, as inherently lesser.

Harvey:

Yes.

Pen:

That there is like, Grief, capital G, and it's the one related to death, and it's the big one. And then there is like grief in all other aspects just isn't as severe because "it's not like they're dead."

Harvey:

"It's not like they're dead. Like, they could come back," and it's like, okay, butare they gonna?

Pen:

Yeah, and it's--I think the way you were talking about it, I think, speaks a lot to, like, the distinction between being sad because someone is dead versus being sad--that's because someone is gone. And also, like, let's stop--here's--here's my take, let's stop with the euphemisms for death because like saying "Gone" when you mean"Dead," also, like, I think contributes to that, like, lessening of the perception of grief for people who are literally just, like, genuinely gone from your life. Not dead, just gone.

Harvey:

Like Louis, as far as I know, unless something catastrophic happened, like, he's still alive, but he's gone. Like, I'm probably never going to talk to him again.

Pen:

But the distinction between being sad because someone is dead versus being sad, because someone is gone, I think, speaks to, like, being able to be death positive, while still, you know, having a painful and complex relationship with death itself. Like, it's not that someone has died that is scary and sad. That part is just true. And that part is, sure, like, there's--there are emotions attached to it, but that versus the person themself being gone. These are separate things. They are connected, inherently, they are intertwined. But I think that there is a lot there.

Harvey:

Yeah.

Pen:

Yeah, it's, gosh, there are so many things that we could go into, and that perhaps we will--we will in the future, certain ones, I know, I brought up the idea of possibly doing an episode that's more historically based for things like how--one of the reasons that mentally ill people, and neurodivergent people generally, but I specify mentally ill In this episode, because my ADHD does not make me suicidal.

Harvey:

Right. And neither does my autism.

Pen:

Yeah, like, these are--these are distinct. Like, mental illness in terms of things that cause us to suffer. That's why people get suicidal. This is a symptom of a larger problem.

Harvey:

It's often not really a matter of, like, actively wanting to die, and more a matter of not wanting to be in pain.

Pen:

Yes. Which is a very, very important distinction to draw that not everyone does. But it's something that, you know, we think about regularly because we are mentally ill, and we think about suicide because we're in pain. And then it's also something that has been done to us. Asylums and institutions where neurodivergent people, more broadly, because in any way that you were divergent from what was expected, you could be in an asylum. Also, just for being AFAB. You could just be in an asylum.

Harvey:

Like, God forbid if you had desire.

Pen:

Yeah, like literally just sometimes, like having sexual desire, and also a vagina was like, lock them up. And that's not a joke.

Harvey:

That's what hysteria is.

Pen:

Yeah. It's--mm.

Harvey:

It's based on Freudian psychology. Anyway...

Pen:

And Freud was a--was a--

Harvey:

Bite, bite, violence.

Pen:

Bite, bite, violence. But, like, the "treatments" administered killed patients. Electroshock therapy, for one. And the way that patients were treated, even in death, like I brought up potters'--potters fields or paupers' grave, depending on, I think, like, the region you're from, which are graves that are--th--the gravestones aren't u marked, exactly, it's just that they're only numbers. And one o the reasons, like, they're cal ed paupers' graves beca se sometimes it was just, if you were poor, and no one c uld afford a better burial spot for you, you would be burie in these fields. But sometime it was also, like, an asylum would just bury their patie ts in these graves that did no mark their names or anything r lated to that, because they w ren't really being treated entir ly as human b

Harvey:

And here's the thing, I don't necessarily believe that the modern way that we bury our dead, or really take care of our dead, is good.

Pen:

No.

Harvey:

The way that we bury people is not great. And even cremation is complex.

Pen:

Particularly, I think, in the United States is where we reach a lot of these issues.

Harvey:

And yeah, something to keep in mind through every episode that you listen is that we're talking from the positionality of the United States.

Pen:

Yes.

Harvey:

But all of that to say, given that--regardless of my feelings on how burial and the funeral industry is--given the cultural significance of burial, and having a marked grave and being remembered, to be denied that is a problem.

Pen:

That is--like, that is the piece of it. Our ritual surrounding death as a country are functionally nonexistent.

Harvey:

They're bad.

Pen:

We're--it breaks us. It removes us from our own lives in some ways. I think part of the reason that seeing the bodies of our loved ones, which--I have--I've never been to--I've been to a wake only a couple times, one for a relative who, I'm going to be real, I don't remember who it was. It was part of my mom's extended family and meant nothing to me. But I did sure have to be there, which is an unfortunate situation to be in, where everyone's, like, really sad, and you have no idea, like...

Harvey:

Who this person is.

Pen:

You're like, "Okay..." And then, um...

Harvey:

Well, I am sorry, but--

Pen:

Yeah, like, ooh, and I was also, like, a kid, so I was like okay, what do I do? That was actually around the time The Hunger Games came out, because I talked to one of my cousins about the movie.

Harvey:

Good lord.

Pen:

So that's sort of funny. Um, but yeah. And then there was a wake for a girl who I'd been very close friends with when I was very, very young, when I was, like, five. She was my next door neighbor. And then she moved, and we were less close. She was in the grade above me. And when we were in high school, she got leukemia...

Harvey:

Oh, wow.

Pen:

...which eventually killed her. And I was at her wake. I did not see the body. We did not stay long, because we hadn't been close in quite some time. And so I have never--I've never had the experience of seeing a loved one's body. But from what I've heard from pretty much everyone I've talked to who is--particularly bodies that have been embalmed and, whenever they have touched the body, because that's the thing that people do at the wake sometimes, they'll like, you know, one last time seeing them or touching them. Their responses, pretty universally, "It was horrible. I wish I hadn't done it that was--that wasn't them," is what I've heard a lot.

Harvey:

You know, my experience was actually quite different.

Pen:

Hmm.

Harvey:

My--my grandmother, who is, as far as I can remember, like, I think I've seen other dead bodies, but her dead body is the only body that I remember seeing, and she was cremated, so I saw her before anything happened. I actually--I still remember the morning. I had gotten up, probably around 9 or 10, and I was going to the bathroom and I heard my dad on the phone, and just through context clues, I could figure out what he was saying, that she had passed--or that she had died. So after I finished using the restroom, we drove about half an hour to the--to the hospice center that she was staying at. And they were preparing her body, just so that, like, you know, it didn't--like, I think they wiped away, like, some fluids, because that happens when people die. And we walked into the room, and she had died probably two hours before. So likely--I don't know if rigor mortis would have set in at that point. I didn't touch her. But we walked in the blinds were open, the lights were off, and she was laying on her back with her head up, eyes closed, mouth slightly agape, her hands crossed across her chest. And there were flower petals that the nurses--that the nurses placed on her sheets.

Pen:

Oh.

Harvey:

And when I think about that gesture, it still gets me really emotional because my--more or less, my grandmother died of cancer. She developed stage four oral cancer. She had her entire lower jaw removed. And she lived for years after that. She lived for three years after that. But the cancer came back. She was in remission for a few years, the cancer came back. She had already been through the surgery, and she was too weak to do more. There was nothing that could be done. And it was the most at peace that I had ever seen her in years. And that's, for me, that's where the beauty in death lies.

Pen:

Yeah. That's--

Harvey:

Even though I'm, like, literally crying, I think for the first time on this podcast, she was still.

Pen:

Yeah.

Harvey:

And she was--and she was at peace. And her surroundings were just beautiful and serene. And I think--I think that was the--I think that was the day that I started to stop being afraid to die.

Pen:

That's--that's a really--I'm glad that you had that experience. And I think that that also speaks pretty directly to, like--the times that I've--I've heard people talk about being upset with--with what they saw have been times where they were at a wake, and the body was embalmbed, and the way that bodies look when they've been embalmed and prepared by the funeral industry is, frankly, they just look unnatural because they are.

Harvey:

Yeah, I mean, you've--you've pumped that body with chemicals so that they look some more alive.

Pen:

And then the preparations done to a body in those scenarios are very different than the preparations that were taken by the, I assume, nurses...

Harvey:

Nurses, yes.

Pen:

...at the at the hospice, which honestly like that sounds rather lovely in, like--flower petals. That's just a--it's a very nice--I like that.

Harvey:

It was a--it was a gorgeous gesture. And it was, I think, the most--like my friends who killed themselves, they were all long distance, so I never got to go to their funerals. I never really got to properly grieve. That was a particularly salient experience for me, because it was me and my dad alone in this hospice room with my dead grandmother, just there. And I'm like sobbing and my dad's just kind of hugging me to his side. And I think that was the most directly I was ever able to grieve someone. You know?

Pen:

I'm glad that you had that.

Harvey:

Yeah. Anyway, I don't mean to take up this podcast with stories about my dead grandma.

Pen:

That's a very important thing. And I think that--that--that is one of the things that I wanted to talk about in this, is like, our relationship with death, and how we grieve, and if we get to grieve, truly. And--there's a quote, and I'm going to probably misquote it a little bit, because I don't have the book in front of me, so I can't, like, post it, but...

Harvey:

You'll get the essence, I'm sure.

Pen:

Yes. From Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty. Doughty?

Harvey:

Doughty, yes.

Pen:

Yeah, of--one of the important parts of the book is her talking about her traumatic experience in her childhood that led to her preoccupation with death. And she talked about how And when we are, it's in this very, like, somewhat contrived, things might have been--thinking on how things might have been different if she had been introduced to death as a child, which we don't do. And we should do. As she also says, in the book, like, 100 years ago, woul be unheard of for a child t have never seen a dead body. An that's--that's part of why it' so scary for us is because we'r never around death and, like, controlled setting. So we really just don't see the reality of death. Exactly. And--but she said something to the effect of,"thinking about how it might have been different if I had been introduced to death as a child, and been made to shake his hand, and know that he was going to be a part of--was going to be there throughout all of my life, waiting." Something to that effect. And it was the sort of impossibly connected thing.

Harvey:

Yeah.

Pen:

I heard that, and it took me back to a time when I must have been, like, I don't know, maybe eight, fairly young.

Harvey:

I remember you telling me this.

Pen:

Yes. My mom is a teacher. She's a science teacher. And so her classroom is--she's,like, biology based. So in her classroom, growing up was--oftentimes, there was a skeleton, because, you know, she taught anatomy and physiology. So there was a skeleton, and there was a real one. And, you know, I was fairly young and not--not around death much. And so I saw the skeleton, and at first, I was kind of scared of it. I was especially a very anxious child. And so, if the skeleton was gonna keep being around, I needed to figure out a way to deal with that. And I decided the best way to stop being scared of the skeleton would be to make friends. And so one day, and regularly for little while, so I could ge used to it, I went to th skeleton, and I picked up th arm, and I shook its hand. And think that is where some of m ability to be more comfortabl and less afraid of death and the remains of death started in my mother's classroom. Not just shaking the hands with a skeleton, but there were skulls there as well. She had some jars of preserved animals. She would regularly be cleaning pans fro dissections. That was som thing that I was introduced to s just--not only a part of li e, but a part of the world as a hole, like, sometimes you just c me across the remains of dead f lks, and it's fine.

Harvey:

Yeah, like it doesn't necessarily have to be this traumatic and spooky thing. It's okay if it is, especially if you experienced a disaster, much like, you know, Caitlin Doughty did.

Pen:

Yes.

Harvey:

It's a lot of the time, I think, trauma comes less from death itself and more from the circumstances.

Pen:

Yes.

Harvey:

So, yeah, no, I was hoping you would bring that up.

Pen:

Yeah. It's--and I think that that is--that is a real thing is trying to find comfort, and being able to find comfort in, like, I shook hands with a skeleton, and--

Harvey:

Who used to inhabit a body.

Pen:

Yeah.

Harvey:

That was a person.

Pen:

And then I was less scared. And that was such a rare thing for me, too, when I was young, particularly. To be less scared, to be able to find a way to be comfortable in something. Like, I was anxious--anxiety-ridden. And so to find some more comfort in this thing, and to like, also, like, part of the reason that I like taking walks in cemeteries is because my mom has always done that. And, like, being able to be around death, and the remnants of death, and places where people grieve, and where people are buried, and to find peace in that, is something I'm very grateful that I have learned how to do. And sometimes, when I'm not doing well on my own, and I'm in a pretty rough or depressive spot, which I've been in recently, and was definitely in when I went for that walk with Trevon, being around these things, these-- eing around graves and things can bring me so much peace, because it is something that is inherently sort of bigger than me, but not impossible. Like, there is--like, I feel very serious, and also, in some ways, very calm around things like that. And there's a lot of--of wonder and beauty and walking around a graveyard, and reading the names, and giving a sense of remembrance. You know what it is? It's a ritual. There's a ritual feeling to it, and that is where the peace comes from, because rituals are so important for us as human beings, and we lack them so much, not just in death, in the US today. And--

Harvey:

The US has practically, like, no cohesive culture. There are certain things that I think are hallmarks of the United States. Think right-leaning politics, no matter what party you're in, and--

Pen:

Baseball.

Harvey:

Ba--John Madden, John Madden, John Madden, Football!

Pen:

That's Football!

Harvey:

I know, but, I mean, as someone living in the United States, like, I don't feel connected to an American culture.

Pen:

And that's--that is usually problematic for us as--as just human beings, not problematic, like, cancel culture. Problematic, like, our function.

Harvey:

Like human beings rely on group dynamics, on culture, on a sense of identity. And I think there is a crisis that we're experiencing in the United States where we... like, that's not happening.

Pen:

And I think particularly white people in the United States have just a complete lack of cultural identity for the most part, unless there is a another facet of life, or of culture, or ethnicity, that someone can connect to that, like--you know, when you are native-born to a country, there's often established rituals based there. And that gets very, very complicated in terms of colonialism, and how that erases native culture and ritual.

Harvey:

Of course.

Pen:

And this is not me saying,"Oh, poor white people," but legitimately, we lack a cohesive culture. And culture is very, very good for human beings. This is something I actually have an ability to speak on as a communication studies major. In terms of, like, ritual communication, which is essentially communication that we are doing not to transmit or receive new information. Like, ritual versus transmission theories of communication, or just, like, types. Transmission, as you know, like a newspaper. We're receiving news, we are learning something, or sending out information. Ritual communication, we're talking about things we already understand. Church is a good example. You're not learning anything new. It's the same--they've had the book for a very, very long time,

Harvey:

The bread of God is bread, bread is God is bread.

Pen:

Or talking to your friends after school about things that happened at school. You're not learning new information. Memes, as a whole. But you are sharing, still, a communication with each other. You are reinforcing your bond and mutual understanding. And that is so important, and so good for us. And a lot of that can come from understood cultural rituals. And if we're going to understand something as complex as death, cultural rituals surrounding it are a huge aspect of how to find peace in it, and we have not had that for a very long time, since about the Civil War. And even then, it was lacking in a lot of the rich culture and established, meaningful rituals.

Harvey:

Right. We should start wrapping up.

Pen:

We should start wrapping up. Clearly, I have things on that.

Harvey:

Yes. So Pen, any closing thoughts about death, or dying, or both?

Pen:

It's hard, and that's okay. Thinking about it as hard. And that's all right. And if this episode has been uncomfortable, for you, as a person just listening to it, that's okay, and that's natural. And I think that there's a lot to learn, and a lot of opportunities to grow, and to feel more comfortable in yourself when you consider it from a perspective that is not just frightening and alien. One of the ways that I've been able to ground myself and to feel better during depressive episodes is thinking on death and the reality of it. And that often leads me to thinking about my life, and that I'm living it, and that that is a choice that I'm making, too. And maybe this episode hasn't been our most coherent, but...

Harvey:

Certainly not.

Pen:

No, but there is--we do not need to be afraid and our feelings get to be our feelings. Your grief is real, regardless of the context of it, and it's okay to let yourself just feel.

Harvey:

Yeah.

Pen:

Harvey, do you have anything that you would like to say?

Harvey:

To--to Amy, and Aidyn, and Jonas, and Grandma Carol. You're gone. But are you, really? There's a part of you that's going to stick with me for the rest of my life. And I'm grateful for that. So anyway, stick around for just a few more minutes, we'll tell you a little bit more about how this podcast is run and our Patreon. Beyond Introspection is an independently-run podcast by Pen Novus and Harvey LaFord. Music by Girl Lloyd. You can find us on Twitter and Instagram at ByndPodcast or you can email us at beyonddotpodcast@gmail.com. That's beyond d-o-t podcast, no spaces. We publish on Buzzsprout, iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You can find the links to our social media and email in the podcast description.

Pen:

We also have a Patreon. You can find us at patreon.com/beyondintrospection. That's all one word. We also have links to it on our site and on our social media. Our podcast is entirely independent, so we pay for hosting fees and transcript service subscriptions out of pocket. This is a passion project that we're really happy to do, and any support you're able to give us would really make a difference. On our

Patreon there are four tiers:

$2, which gives you access to test audio and other bloopers;$5 which will give you access to bonus episodes that will make in the future, on topics like how angry we are Freud, our frustrations with our respective fields of studies and even guest episodes; $10 will get you a direct line and priority access to request episode topics and new bonus content; and $15, which will give you access to monthly AMAs--that's ask me anything for those who don't know--where we can answer questions ranging from the podcast process and we figure out what to record, more in depth questions about our neurodivergences, and more. All of those tiers will include benefits from lower tiers of course. And also just to note, unlike our regular episodes, Patreon bonus content is likely to include swearing, so if that's not your vibe, please know that ahead of time. We'd also love it if you're able to share this podcast with people you know. Our only advertising is word of mouth and we want to reach as many people as possible.

Harvey:

Got feedback for us? Want to request an episode topic? Just feel like saying hello? Feel free to reach out on social media, or via email. We'd love to hear from everyone. Take care of yourselves.