The Legal Zone (Season 1, Episode 8): Grief and How to Deal with it this Holiday Season and Beyond

Transcript

Host: Regina M. Campbell, Esq., The Campbell Law Group (TCLG)

Guest: Dr. Teddy Tarr, psychologist specializing in bereavement

Introduction

Regina Campbell: We want to welcome you back for Episode 8, Season 1 of The Legal Zone. I have the pleasure of introducing to you today Dr. Teddy Tarr.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: Thank you.

Regina Campbell: Thank you for being with us, Dr. Tarr. Today we're going to talk about grief and how to handle it during the holiday season and beyond. I think it will be very instructive. Dr. Tarr, could you give us a little background on your experience, your education and what you do?

Dr. Teddy Tarr: Well, I always say I wish I had done just the lectures, but unfortunately I got to do all the workshops. And I got to have all the losses, which was just awful. That was why I went to school to become a psychologist, to work with bereavement. And I'm only going to tell you that, like anything else, you can become OCD and just know everything, learn everything and absorb yourself. It's very, very enticing, just like anything else. If you happen to be interested in thanatology, then take a bereavement course.

Regina Campbell: Oh, okay. So that is your specialty, bereavement.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: It is my specialty. Please call me Teddy.

Regina Campbell: Thank you, Teddy. I didn't want to presume, so thank you, Teddy.

Grief, trauma and the court record

Regina Campbell: So I want to talk to you, because it's very important. As you know, I'm a lawyer, and I handle civil and family law cases. Very often, of course, there's the element, particularly if there's any element of damages for mental health, or the damages actually result in mental health issues, whether it's trauma from a rape, from an injury, from a car accident, or issues going on with children and family. So often, psychologists are a very big part of that. And of course we are also in the holiday season, and we're coming out of two years of COVID. I thought this was a very important topic to discuss, particularly during the holidays and after the difficult times we've all had. So could you talk to me a little bit about what you say to a client on the first visit? What types of things do you ask them to figure out where to start?

Dr. Teddy Tarr: Well, thank you, first of all, for inviting me. Because unlike a lot of other topics, bereavement is not necessarily real popular among anybody, because none of us want to be in that particular place. And all it takes is one phone call, and there you are. So in general, when someone comes to see me, I know nothing. I rarely talk to anyone over the phone, other than they might say, "I lost somebody." I just don't get into a discussion about bereavement over the phone. It's not appropriate. So what I usually start with is: I introduce myself, and "What brought you here?" That is the first thing. And I'm looking for just a small narrative telling me what's happened.

If it looks to me like it could possibly be a court case, I always ask, "Are you involved in a court case?" That's very, very important for me to know, because I'm going to have to set up a record that's absolutely unbelievably good. Not only am I expected to do therapy that's good, I also have to have a record that's good. And I try to do what we call a TSI, a Trauma Symptom Inventory, something to show where this person is. It happens to be one of the best trauma tests there is.

By the way, if it's your person that's dying, it's traumatic. I don't care how. It's traumatic. If someone aged, or someone died of an illness, no matter how old or how young, we're in a different place. But if it's a court case, it's important for me to know. I'm going to have to keep a better record. I'm going to have to do some objective testing. And I'm going to have to try to explain to the client: it's not what happened to you that gives you a court case on mental health at all. It's: here you were before. This is what happened to you. Here you are now. This is who you are now. You can't work. You can't do anything. You have no life. You have post-traumatic stress disorder, whatever it is. My job is to show those changes.

Regina Campbell: I imagine the causation too, that it happened as a result of this accident, because it's important to show a course of timelines in any kind of litigation.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: That's correct.

Regina Campbell: As a professional, as you were indicating earlier, you have to have your tests. You're already anticipating potentially being deposed and being called.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: Usually not. I would rather have anybody but me.

Regina Campbell: Why is that?

Dr. Teddy Tarr: One deposition is usually enough for them to say, "I think we'll settle."

Regina Campbell: That's good.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: Because if you come with a record, that's one thing, but if you really know the client and you know what's going on, you can answer any question. The only thing I do face, I have to admit, is I didn't graduate from Cornell. My claim to fame is I went to a Puerto Rican college, which I just loved. My whole thought about that was, "I know what I know, but they don't know what I know." But on more than one occasion, they've asked the client to go and find someone from Cornell. And the client comes back to me and says, "I want to find another attorney." So what I say is, no psychologist ever won a court case. Only the attorney wins the court case. So you stay with the attorney and let me work with them.

Regina Campbell: Well, I can tell you from experience, because I have worked with you and sent people to you in the past. I think it's very important, but also for the court case, you know yourself...

Dr. Teddy Tarr: I've been in it since 1992. I wrote my dissertation on complicated mourning, and I have a track record in education. I put myself out as absolutely nothing else but a person who works with losses and grief. That's it.

Regina Campbell: And it's absolutely... You do an amazing job, and you're very personal. You're one on one with people. You understand their specific needs and how that particular person has had issues, how that particular person has had trauma. You can articulate that very well and objectify it in exams.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: Thank you.

Regina Campbell: So I would take you any day over somebody else.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: Thank you. Even if I went to a Puerto Rican school?

Regina Campbell: I love that. Particularly because I'm Puerto Rican. So I definitely don't have a problem with that. And I never see that as an indication of someone's ability or intelligence at all. I really don't. But I can understand how people feel that Ivy League schools and really good schools produce really good people. I think very good people get a very good education at any school and can do what they need to do.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: Well, that's it. It's about you: how much you read, how much you're into it.

Regina Campbell: Yes. How dedicated you are.

Keeping your sense of humor

Dr. Teddy Tarr: And I took a lot of it. I took a tremendous amount of ribbing. They called me the D lady, because of death. By the way, even through bereavement, don't lose your sense of humor.

Regina Campbell: That's right.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: You're going to have to pull in all your resources, and one of your best resources is your sense of humor.

Regina Campbell: And you need that. That's one of the tools you can use, right? To be lighthearted at times.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: That was my thought.

Grief during the holidays

Regina Campbell: So I went sideways a little bit, until we were talking about general grief, because this is about the holiday season, but also beyond the holiday season. Because, as you've told me, grief doesn't turn on and off.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: No.

Regina Campbell: You can't turn it on and off. It goes with you everywhere in life, particularly if you've been through a traumatic incident or circumstances. So talk to us a little bit about the holiday season. How do you recognize grief? Grief is not always just sadness, correct?

Dr. Teddy Tarr: No, and it can be other losses as well. I'd like to start with human loss, and then I'll answer any questions you have, because pet loss is really important. But in general, people who are not pet lovers do not see it as a big loss. Now, you and I both love pets, so we see it a little differently. We feel we're pet parents.

Regina Campbell: Yes.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: And we've lost one of our children. But you want to be very careful with others. And that brings me to this: there's no cure here. I'm very clear. I call it a journey. I can't cure this. If I could cure it, I'd say, "Pull out your checkbook. Ten grand. I'll take it away. You won't have to go through this." I would have done that for myself, forget for them. There's only management. Grief is managed, and it's managed over time. At any time, with children or with adults, it can hit you when you least expect it. Even after years, during the holidays, it can hit you. So I want you to remember that. You need to manage yourself.

During the holidays, intrusive memories are probably the biggest problem.

Regina Campbell: Yes.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: Because you remember every holiday you ever had with that person. And the fact is, you're all alone. I don't care what you do or where you go. That's going to hit you in the face.

Regina Campbell: Right. So even sometimes when you're surrounded by family and friends, that person may still be gone, if they passed away or you lost them. It may be a fight between each other, not an accident or something of that nature. But in general, that person is lost. So even if you're surrounded by people, you're still suffering, and you feel lonely if you've had the loss of a particular person or companion or child. You're still lost.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: May I mention something? You mentioned the pandemic.

Regina Campbell: Yeah.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: Please: if you have a relative or friend who hasn't been vaccinated, and one of their family members who isn't vaccinated dies, don't anybody ever put on the web, "They deserved it. They should have been vaccinated." There are a lot of people who love that person. And I think it's very important to be kind. If you can't be kind, you shouldn't be using social media at all.

Regina Campbell: I agree. I agree.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: Okay.

Regina Campbell: And I just want to mention, because you said something: I think sometimes people don't realize there are different reasons people have decided not to get vaccinated. And I can't imagine that the person who may have passed would think they actually deserved to die because of that.

What to say, and what not to say

Dr. Teddy Tarr: They actually put on there that they'd killed themselves. Can you believe that? I've had kids in here who have had to deal with that. So one of the things that happens is, we dream big. And when we lose someone we love, that dream with that person is smashed. It's shattered. So what happens is, no matter where we go or who we're with... And a lot of times people think, "Well, if you had four children and you lose one, you still have the other three." Worst thing in the world to say.

Regina Campbell: Absolutely.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: And people actually make that mistake and say that.

Regina Campbell: Wow.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: So one of the things is recognizing what to say: very little. If you're trying to help someone through bereavement, say very little. If you're the one going through the bereavement, then what you have to do is say to yourself, "You know what? People love me. They're trying to give me advice, horrible advice, but they love me." So the best thing is, don't get into a battleground. Just say, "Thank you, Carol. Thank you, June. I thank you. I know you care about me," and move on. If you start cutting off people who are normally there for you, you'll have no one at the end of bereavement.

So no matter how many family and friends you have, no matter how many parties you go to, it won't matter. It's not going to take it away, if you don't realize that. Don't expect someone else to support your bereavement. Pick out someone you can talk to, someone you can say this to: "Look, I don't need you to fix this. I just need you to help me with it, to be there."

Regina Campbell: To just listen. Just be there, and just listen. Because sometimes I think friends almost want to get in there and cradle you, or take it away for you, or help you somehow fix it. And like you said before, it is a journey that will be with you, through the good times and the bad times. And you created a "grief on the holidays" checklist here, which is a handout I'm going to post also, that gives people ideas on how to deal with it.

Grief as a battlefield

Dr. Teddy Tarr: That is the typical list. I pulled that from my files. Actually, personally, it's kaka. That's Grief 101. If you're in Grief 101 and somebody just died in the last 20 minutes, it's probably going to help you. But in general, I want to tell you what I found. I didn't go into this because of reading and doing workshops. I went to the reading and workshops because I had a lot of losses.

So you're on a battlefield. You'd better have a lot of guts. You'd better be capable of fighting this thing. You need to say to yourself, "I'm going to surrender to the fact that this is what I've got. I've got a battle going on. I have lost this person." And you identify what they meant to you. You have to know what they meant in order to know what you've lost, and you have to work from there. Does that make sense?

Regina Campbell: Absolutely.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: Okay. So number one is, "I'm on a battlefield." Number two is, "I'm a thriver. I've never given up on myself. I'm not going to give up on myself now. That isn't going to help the person I've lost." The problem is we keep going back to those last four or five slides of when they died. So one of the things I try to do is help people move from there. And you can do that yourself. You can use your music. You can use your reading materials, your self-help. I'm a big self-help person. I believe in self-help. You can use your art. You can use your friendships and your family. You can do a lot of things.

Keeping the holidays low key

Dr. Teddy Tarr: I'm only suggesting that during the holidays, you keep it low key. Don't spread yourself so thin. Don't think money is going to make it work.

Regina Campbell: No. And stress yourself out more.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: Yeah. If you normally go to four people's houses, maybe you stay home and have people come visit you. Just manage.

Regina Campbell: Don't feel you have the responsibility to put on the dog, so to speak, if you're still going through it.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: I agree. And you can also give a limit. You can say, "Look, I can have coffee with you, but not for more than a half hour. I start getting so tired." Say that. They'll understand. If you cut them off, and you don't take the phone, and you ghost them, they won't understand that.

"I need to learn how to live with this. I need to learn how to manage it." That was what I said to myself. I'm a thriver, but I'm going to hurt just as much as somebody who is in the trauma. A victim, a survivor, a thriver, an inspirer: someone who's gone through all this is the person you want to talk to.

Regina Campbell: Yes. They know that you can't take it away overnight. It's a process.

Anger and displacement

Regina Campbell: So we were talking a little bit before about people being angry: "They didn't get vaccinated. They deserved it," or "They killed themselves." That also can be anger, because not usually, not many people want to see somebody hurt. But sometimes it's an anger where you're like, "Why did that person do that, and here we have a death?"

Dr. Teddy Tarr: Maybe wanting vengeance.

Regina Campbell: Well, that can be too.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: With a doctor?

Regina Campbell: Yes, correct. Or with someone who might have given them this advice, and they get mad. But doesn't that also precede surrender, right? Maybe anger, maybe lashing out. Isn't that also another form of the way people express grief, although it looks more like something else?

Dr. Teddy Tarr: I think in general, it's an opportunity not to grieve.

Regina Campbell: Okay.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: It takes the place of the loss. "Okay, now I can go ahead and just be angry, or I can be depressed. I can curl up. I can go to my room." But that's not going to do anything for you. You can stay there 24 years. Nobody's going to come looking for you. My favorite expression, which I created for myself, is: you know what? Death will look for you. Life isn't going to find you. Death will go into the closet and look for you.

Regina Campbell: Yeah, it's true.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: Life will never look for you. So you can give up your life, or you have to chase after life. You have to chase it.

Regina Campbell: And it just seems like anger might be a form of displacement of grief.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: Absolutely. It's a good word. Displacement is a good word. Also vengeance, feeling so angry at people: not uncommon. That needs to be worked through. Anger at God.

Regina Campbell: Anger at God. Anger at the person who maybe drove the car.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: Anger at somebody who shot.

Regina Campbell: Or who allowed them to keep drinking, and they drank themselves to death, or something.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: The problem with anger is this: anger that's resolved today goes away. Anger unresolved will stay, and it will keep coming back. So you've got to deal with it. Anger is something that says to us, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Look at this. I need to do something about it." Anger is not the emotion. The emotion is sadness.

Regina Campbell: That makes sense.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: Yeah, anger is the thought. Anger is a cognitive thought: "I'm angry." Whereas sadness is the emotion.

Regina Campbell: Anger is something that comes from a lack of a better understanding. You're like, "Okay, this happened to me. You can't do anything about it." The person may have been lost, or the friendship, or whatever may have happened. Or trauma happened to somebody, because maybe it's not always death. It can be something else that occurred, a rape or something. Anger is sort of...

Dr. Teddy Tarr: It also distracts you. It keeps you from being healthy. But we can turn it into something healthy. We can be angry and decide to give a scholarship, or help find perpetrators to put them in prison, or something.

Regina Campbell: So it can be converted to positive things also. A lot of people, when they think of grief, just think of sadness and depression. It has many faces to it. More than anything, from what I'm hearing from you, it's a journey. It doesn't go away. So you have to learn to...

Dr. Teddy Tarr: All loss is change. All change is loss.

Trauma survivors in court

Dr. Teddy Tarr: You mentioned the word rape. I did a podcast on rape, and that is not an area I venture into all the time. But oftentimes clients will talk about former times when something happened to them. In general, the more wounded you are with the rape, the more injuries you have, the more hospitalization, the more people will believe you. That is, you'll get more sympathy. If you have nothing showing on you, you will get no sympathy. They'll say you should have fought. They'll say, "I don't believe you." I hate to say that, but it's really true. Does that make sense?

Regina Campbell: Absolutely. I have a lot of domestic violence victims, and some of them say they don't have the evidence. Or the judge is going to say... especially when you are very good at recovering, or putting on a show. Not a show, but there are some people who could be dying inside, and they just keep trying to put their best face forward. They have to make themselves happy, to lift themselves up, when they're dying inside.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: Well, unfortunately, to a judge, you look fine. Or to somebody else.

Regina Campbell: And you're obviously right. Some people are like, "Well, you have a bruise."

Dr. Teddy Tarr: You'll feel raped again. Okay, so let's say you're kidnapped and raped and sodomized, and everything happens to you. But you've come to me now for five years. I've been seeing you, and every time you come to me, there's a session. Five years later, the court case comes to order. But in the meantime, you've gotten a promotion.

Regina Campbell: Right.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: You've found a guy and you've married. You now have a child. You have this gorgeous house. The jury is going to hear all of that, and they are not going to focus on that rape five years ago.

Regina Campbell: And it's unfortunate. And it's not fair.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: It's absolutely unfair. This person is no longer the person they were. They're fearful. They have major trust issues. That child's going to be helicoptered. That mother is always going to be over that child. And that is because of what happened.

Regina Campbell: But you're almost penalized for trying to recover from the trauma, and doing well, and trying to understand it.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: You're doing reasonably well. But my job is not to keep somebody unhealthy.

Regina Campbell: Right. You're not going to be like, "Well, see, stay. Don't get better."

Dr. Teddy Tarr: "Don't get better, so you can win the court case."

Regina Campbell: No.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: What I always say to people is the same thing: if you want to reclaim your life, you have to work really, really hard. The money is never as significant as reclaiming your time and your life. Am I correct?

Regina Campbell: No, it's 100%. You can have money, but you can still sit there in sadness, because you didn't know how, right?

Dr. Teddy Tarr: Exactly. You didn't actually help yourself.

Children and grief

Regina Campbell: So I think that's why it's so important. Grief has so many different faces to it. And one of the areas I'm really concerned with nowadays is children. They are coming out of COVID. None of us have ever really experienced anything like this, and I'm seeing a lot of mental health issues with children. And of course, some children are quiet, and that's dangerous for them. You don't really know what they're thinking. You think they're fine, and they're not fine. They're harboring thoughts of loneliness, desperation, insignificance, or just feeling like this is never ending, or "I've lost my friends." This happens also when they've been bullied in any way, in normal circumstances. But I think COVID might have made a disaster of the situation. They've had losses in their families. There are a lot of money difficulties going on with parents right now too. So how can grief or loss be different in a child? Does it show itself in different behaviors, and, like you're saying, cognitive sorts of behaviors?

Dr. Teddy Tarr: First of all, kids are resilient, very resilient, and very smart. And, I hate to say it, they're eavesdroppers. They listen at the door. They know everything. If you want to know something, you just go to their room. They can tell you the whole story of what's going on in the house.

So I think, in a way, we prepare our children with short-term pets.

Regina Campbell: Yes.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: Pets that die. We teach them about death all the way along. We build resilience. Even if there's a divorce, it's not about the divorce. It's about the two families and how they deal with the kids. It's the same thing. There was a lot of research done on World War II kids, kids who came out of England. A lot of research on England and on those kids. Families that stayed intact, or that worked really hard (and that isn't just the biological family, but they studied them too sometimes), made a big difference in how those kids grew up and in the loss they'd had.

COVID isn't going away. I think we think we're going to cure COVID. We're not going to cure COVID. We've probably got 500 years of this, in different ways, in different manners. And it's like anything else: you accept this is what you've got, and you don't let it interfere with your life 100%, but you play it safe.

Regina Campbell: Yes.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: You just do the things to take care of yourself, whatever the choices are.

Regina Campbell: Okay. And I think maybe sometimes parents were lost in so much going on, with the extra stress and this and that. And in general, like you're saying, it could be okay. It's just the way they deal with it.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: Teach them to do what they do. They like to talk to their friends. That's one of the things: when kids come in, I usually ask them, "Do you have a friend you talk to about this?" Sometimes yes, and sometimes no. Kids are resilient. We have to work with the resiliency. And I think the little books that are out there, and there are many little books, help a lot. Sometimes it's better to find a book than to try to talk to a child about something, especially a young child.

Regina Campbell: Yes, yes, yes.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: I have my favorite book. Can I just grab my favorite book?

Regina Campbell: Yes, absolutely.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: It is my very favorite. Oh, wait, wait. I'm not going that far.

Regina Campbell: Okay. I just don't want you to fall.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: You know what it is? She's afraid I'll escape. So this is my very favorite book. I'm sorry I didn't grab it earlier. It's called The Next Place, and I think it's a fabulous book. Oops, sorry.

Regina Campbell: And what's it about?

Dr. Teddy Tarr: It's about grief, and it's about where we go. But it's not religious. It's more of a spiritual kind of undertaking, about feeling safe. That's why I like it. You can see the pictures are beautiful.

Regina Campbell: Yes. Well, so far, the cover is beautiful.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: I think the question you asked was about children and bereavement. Children and bereavement: sometimes they'll cry more for a while. It's hard to say. I always suggest, and I sometimes get calls about this, that they be part of the funeral, part of everything that's going on, so that the pictures there include them. Even if you have a baby, give the baby to somebody who's able to handle the grief.

Regina Campbell: That's a good point too, because the parents themselves might be going through a lot of grief, and the children might be better off with an aunt or an uncle, someone, depending on the circumstances, who can be a little bit more...

Dr. Teddy Tarr: A little bit of a comfort.

Regina Campbell: Yes, yes, correct. Because a lot of times I hear from parents... Of course, teenagers are teenagers, right? They act out anyway. They don't want to talk.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: No, no.

Regina Campbell: They don't want to talk to anybody about anything, and they certainly don't want to talk to you at all.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: No, no.

Regina Campbell: It's like they would want the help, but, "No, I can't even accept it from you, because it's you. I can't be seen accepting it from you," you know what I mean? There's a battleground, so to speak, to some extent. But as teenagers get older, they're introduced to a lot of other environments and other kids, and unfortunately drugs a lot of times. So it becomes more confusing to unwrap anger, grief and all these things in children, particularly teenagers, I find.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: Maybe drawing out the trees, the ancestral trees, where we've come from. The children should know that: what kind of generations came before, and what they did to bring us to where we are today. And putting themselves in there, and how important they are in the lineage. And that even though this person has passed away, they're still carrying those genes, and that the ancestors went through this too. And that it's part of life. It's part of what you go through.

Well-being beyond the holidays

Regina Campbell: Okay. Well, this has been very, very instructive. I love it.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: Thank you.

Regina Campbell: You also have another handout that I'm going to post, on well-being. It overall helps people beyond the holidays: types of things that would be a support, starting in January.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: Yes. I would also recommend walking. Gym, whatever. Spinning, if you happen to be more athletic. Some of these things help you get your body back. There's a lot of body work done today. I'm not particularly a body work person. I don't look like a body work person. I'm a person who likes to go to the refrigerator. Well, anyway, I'm not going to get into that. But I am suggesting that exercise, a good diet, not isolating yourself and socialization would be the important things.

Regina Campbell: Well, it also gives you the strength to deal with the mental difficulties, the lethargy, the depression. It just makes it easier. It's biological as well.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: Right. The body talks to the brain, and the brain talks to the body. We don't have two separate entities.

Regina Campbell: No. Correct. So I'll list a couple of these that you suggest: optimistic mindset. Stay focused. Stay in control. Know what needs are important. Strong motivation, holistic, upward progress. These are all very important things. You also have feeling like you belong.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: Yeah. A strong support network. All of a sudden you're part of a group of five going to dinner. You have friends, two couples you used to go out with. Rather than seeing it as three couples where you don't have a partner, you want to see it as five separate individuals sitting at a table, because no one is feeling coupled when they're eating dinner.

Regina Campbell: That's true too. Absolutely.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: But we have these crazy ideas in our minds.

Regina Campbell: Well, and I think sometimes we also might feel embarrassed because we're single and there are two other couples. Or, "Can I go out to dinner by myself?"

Dr. Teddy Tarr: Yes. Correct.

Regina Campbell: I'm always in awe and very inspired when I see some people do it. It takes a lot of courage, but if you stop and think about it, sometimes what better company is there than being by yourself, being there with yourself and your thoughts, and enjoying the moment? Sometimes that is a good way to do it as well.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: Excellent.

Regina Campbell: You are good company, you know. And ironically, there have been some artists... I believe Keanu Reeves is one of them. He doesn't always have to have a girlfriend, doesn't always have to have someone next to him, and he's never embarrassed by it. He just said, "Why not? Better to be in my own company than in bad company."

Dr. Teddy Tarr: That's really true. And it's very healthy mentally. Time: a lot of people will tell you, "It's just going to take time." No. Time gives us time, but it doesn't do it in itself. People can have a bereavement for 25 years, go to a group and find somebody in there who has never given it up.

Regina Campbell: No, it's true.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: You have to decide that you're going to learn how to manage it and work with it, and that you're not going to take on those intrusive bad feelings about yourself, and the loneliness that comes from not working on it and managing it.

Regina Campbell: I agree. It's like you're saying: death will find you anywhere you're at, but life will not. I see people who have lost a loved one and hide away for 10 years, and then something woke them up and they continue. They might get remarried again. They live for something, something in them.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: You know what I tell people when they tell me, "I'm going to be all alone on New Year's"? Now, that doesn't have to be someone who's lost a partner. That could be someone who has never found a partner.

Regina Campbell: That's true.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: And I always say to them the same thing I've always said: "Well, obviously maybe you can't do anything about that. Except you can decide how you're going to spend New Year's."

Regina Campbell: Yeah, it's true.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: And you know what? If you're already in bereavement, you're already sad and you can't get rid of those feelings, this is a great time to take out the wedding album, to take out all the various things and go through them. Am I correct?

Regina Campbell: Yes. And you can start over.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: Yes, in a different way.

Regina Campbell: Start over in a healthy way.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: Yes, because you might have to do your bereavement anyway. And if it's already starting to seep in: "Let me take it in its fullness. It's a battleground. Let me show you I can do this battle." And you know something? It's amazing, once you decide not to fight it, and you decide to surrender and work with it.

Regina Campbell: Yes. There's a difference between fighting it and avoiding it.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: Yes. Eating too much, doing things that aren't healthy, drinking too much. I want to mention that those things are horrible.

Regina Campbell: Yes, and they actually worsen your ability to get out of it. It clouds your judgment. Now you feel worse about other things.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: Yes.

Regina Campbell: And it tints the reality of what you're facing and makes it look different. So I think it might be hard, but maybe you're taking out the wedding books, you're cleaning out something. You're taking a step forward.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: That's right. And it's a step.

Regina Campbell: And then, "Okay, I did this step. Wow, I can do this." And before you know it, you have another idea and another step.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: That's exactly right. And before you know it, you're walking, you're moving forward.

Regina Campbell: But like you said, even moving forward, it's not that the grief turns off or is never there. It's just that you learn how to manage it.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: You learn how to manage it.

Closing

Regina Campbell: So this has been wonderful.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: Yes, thank you. I so enjoyed it. Thank you for inviting me.

Regina Campbell: No, thank you, because you have such knowledge and experience. This is what you do. So what better than for you to impart this advice to us and to help a lot of people going through this? That's why I thought it would be so helpful. I know you are wonderful and so brilliant, so I said, "She's going to be helpful for everyone."

Dr. Teddy Tarr: Thank you so much.

Regina Campbell: Yes, absolutely. Anytime. So we want to thank Dr. Tarr, who's also called Teddy...

Dr. Teddy Tarr: Please.

Regina Campbell: ...for joining us this morning and helping us get through this, and teaching us what grief is and how to deal with it, particularly during the holidays. Hopefully this has been really instructive and helpful for everybody. This is the type of podcast that we'd like to bring to you on The Legal Zone, and we want to ask you to stay tuned. If you haven't seen our prior podcasts, please come join us on YouTube and on Buzzsprout, and also become a subscriber of our channel, so you can see our future podcasts and get information on them. We also want to thank you for tuning in again, and ask everyone to follow us on our social media accounts. We look forward to seeing you soon, and happy holidays to everybody. Stay safe, stay happy, stay well. Thank you.

Dr. Teddy Tarr: Thank you.