S2, Ep.2 The many facets of grief we don't talk about w/ Bianca

This week, Bianca takes on her first solo episode and opens up about her experience with grief across different chapters of her life.

Losing her mum as a child. Being diagnosed with cancer at 20. And more recently, losing her brother.

This isn’t a neat or tidy conversation. It’s an honest reflection on how grief actually feels, how it lingers, and how it can show up when you least expect it.

If you’ve ever felt like you should be handling things better or moving on faster, this episode is a reminder that you’re not alone.

🎧 Follow the journey on Instagram & TikTok: @bitsandboobs.podcast
✨ Connect with us: @dakotamiddleby & @biancainnes

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hi, I'm Bianca and I'm Dakota. And we're two girls in our 20s that have experienced cancer. We're talking everything you don't find in the brooches. We're all we're broke and we're not afraid to share everything that cancer encompasses. Buckle up because we're really going there. Welcome to Bits and Boobs.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Welcome back to Bits and Boobs and happy Monday. This week you just have me, Bianca, as Dakota is off on a work trip working her little butt off. So we are wishing her all the best on that. So this week, like I said, you just have me. So please bear with me as I navigate my first solo episode. I'm a little bit nervous, but I'm sure I will be fine. To give you a little bit of a painting of what I'm doing right now, I am child free, which is incredible. There is no background noise. There is no one screaming, calling me mum. I'm nobody's snack bitch. And I have a little bit of time to sit down and record this. So take this as kind of my form of therapy for the next little while. I really want this week's episode to be an opportunity for me to open up and share with you all a little bit more about who I am and what makes me me. And while obviously Dakota and I are a duo, while I had some time off a couple months ago, she just so beautifully held down the ship and nailed her solo episodes, and I'm just here like a bit of a blubbering mess. So please bear with me. I really wanted to take the opportunity this week to share an emotion that we visited obviously in Adam and Brett's story, our previous episode, but it's the emotion of grief, and I think it is one that is really underexplored and undervalued as an emotion within us as humans. And I've been reflecting during my own grief journey, which uh my most recent one has been for the last eight months, but it's been an emotion that I have explored in so many different ways, rather than just when you think of grief, you think of it kind of under this umbrella of death of a loved one. But I think there's just so many different forms of it. And I wanted to take today to kind of explain and explore those, and also coincide with that, it will give you guys, the listeners, a bit of an understanding as to who I am and my experience with the emotion of grief. Grief for me first arrived uh when I was seven. And when I was seven years old, uh my mum tragically passed away. Now it was. I mean, how do you articulate it? How do you articulate that as a seven-year-old girl, you can't, and you just try to make sense of it as it happens, as it's happening in real time. And when I lost my mum at seven years old, I had a brother who was 11 years older than me and my dad. So it was just the three of us. And in my little girl brain, I guess I rationalized the grief of being that all it's okay. I still have my dad and my brother. But what I then came to learn later on in life is that that grief arrived in stages and almost chapter markers in my life. I felt its presence when I got my period for the first time because I had, I didn't know what was going on. I only had a dad, a single dad. And I felt like, oh, okay, that's the first marker that I felt that she wasn't there. And obviously, subsequently, subsequent things that happen as you're growing up as a young girl, first boyfriends, friend dramas, formals, all the different things that you longed for. And that's kind of I guess my grief at that age, it was always felt more like a longing of what I was missing out on. You know, Mother's Days at school, Mother's Day's fates, or when I don't know, people got to do those those things with their mum. I I didn't have that, and I felt the grief in those moments. However, it wasn't necessarily something that I carried throughout every day. And then of course, as I've become older and I've become a mother myself, then I really feel the absence of my own biological mother. But that was my first experience of that. And I guess I've just grown up alongside it, and it never really made itself too apparent. It was just something that I always knew existed because I never had my mum there. I think the thing with grief, when you experience it, especially parental loss at such a young age. I think even when you become an adult, and particularly myself when I became a mother, you feel a grief for the little version of you, the little girl that lost her mum. And that's where I think that sadness comes from. I think that it presented itself throughout my life at different chapter markers, like I said. But I think as you get older, you're able to really reflect on that parental loss and you grieve for what you already missed. When you're a little girl and growing up, you kind of look around and think, Oh, I wish my mum was here. But yeah, as I've gotten older, the grief has kind of come from wow, what did I miss out on? But in the same, in the same breath, you know, I've I've had a father and a brother that never ever wavered me. So I never felt that I was missing out too much, but it really is just something that lingers in the background. The thing is, then with that massive emotion, when you have that memory tied to that emotion, you kind of think that that's all it would be, and that's all it could be associated with. However, grief presented itself very differently to me when I was 20. And that was when I received my diagnosis of breast cancer. And it wasn't the sort of grief that necessarily knocks you to your knees. It was the one that when they said the words, Bianca, you have cancer, it's aggressive and it's spreading fast, and you need to start chemotherapy immediately. It's honestly like I was able to see a film roll of all the things that I will be missing out on. And that's where the grief came from. It was the grief of uncertainty, it was the grief of the life that you thought you were going to have, and now it's just been turned on a dime and you had no say in it. And the reason that I really want to talk about that is because, particularly for those who are listening today, that's something that we've all experienced. Is sitting in that doctor's office, whether it was for you or support person, and feeling like everything in front of you was just snatched away in an instant, and you weren't even given the opportunity to fight for it in that second. Instead, you're now now simultaneously grieving the future that you thought you had while putting up the biggest fight of your life to make sure that you get a future. So the duality of those two emotions sometimes can feel too much for us as humans to handle. And I think that's why it is such a difficult emotion for us to articulate, particularly when you are feeling the emotions of grief after a cancer diagnosis. Because those feelings don't necessarily just pop up as you sit down in a doctor's office and receive your diagnosis, or when you're sitting in a chemo chair, or everyone else leaves in the radiation room and you're there for 15 minutes just with your thoughts. Yes, the grief makes itself very well known in those moments, but the grief also appears in the really mundane moments that probably no one else knows about. They show up when you have your best friend's birthday dinner, but you can't put on a single thing in your wardrobe that covers your scars or your uneven chest. That's when the grief shows up. The grief shows up when you have a commitment to go to work, but you feel like the ugliest version of yourself in the mirror. Grief shows up in the moments that you have to cancel on plans because you simply don't feel well that day. It doesn't necessarily have to be this big cataclysmic moment that you feel this overwhelming sadness. Sometimes grief can feel like death by a thousand paper cuts. And the reason why I wanted to explore this today, particularly around a cancer diagnosis, is because we don't give that emotion the value and the weight that it truly deserves. It deserves to be felt and it's unfair. The cards you have been dealt are shitty, and it's okay to kick and scream and cry about it because sometimes it just needs to physically be felt. But you can't let it win in those moments. Because the best combat to grief, I truly think, is proving to yourself that you can push past it. It's still there, but you are able to coexist with it. It's the moment that you let the grief completely override you, your day, your moment, that you've let it win. And sometimes it will win, and that's okay. But I think the strength comes from proving to yourself that you can coexist alongside that feeling. I really wanted to explore particularly that around a diagnosis and while going through treatment, because it's okay to feel angry. And I know I have particularly felt, and especially with seeing recently in the Australian media, we have lost people through cancer diagnosis. And when you are going through treatment or you have come out the other side, hearing things in the media like that really can bring you back to a place of grief. And there's also a duality in that. You can feel sad and scared and all the different emotions within that grief and still be really grateful to be here. So you aren't, it isn't the wrong thing to feel both of those emotions. I just wanted to remind anyone that's listening that may feel that guilt. It's okay to still feel a real grief and sadness around what you are going through, what you have been through, and still feel real gratitude to be alive. So please just remember that. So I have brought you all the way up to 20. And when I was 29, grief reared its ugly head again, but in a completely different way, and in a way that completely has broken me. And I feel really vulnerable coming on here and saying that, but the grief of losing my brother eight months ago has shattered my heart into a million pieces. And honestly, sometimes day-to-day functioning feels unbearable. And what I've found in sibling loss is that a lot of the time the checkups are for the the parental figure and the person that has lost their child. And sometimes sibling grief can kind of be forgotten. My brother was 11 years older than me, and he unexpectedly and tragically passed away eight months ago. And I did briefly touch on this in our episode entitled The Update We Never Expected to Give. I really thought that it would be this like big cataclysmic bomb going off of the loss of your person. And then it would kind of taper off and you'd miss them in the chapter markers, I guess, like I said about when I lost my mum, because that was the only reference that I did have. Um, but it hasn't been like that at all. And that's what's really taken me by surprise. Because although, yes, there was the initial shock of the tragedy itself. Now that we are eight months um down the track, I think the permanence of the loss has really set in. And I've been finding that difficult to navigate, especially while being a mum to two little boys. I have a four-year-old and an 18-month-old boys, as you can imagine, are incredibly high energy and they demand a lot of you. So there isn't really a lot of space to be sad because of course no one wants to feel sad around their children. And what I found myself is that I have just been suppressing, suppressing, suppressing to the point where it has just it all feels like it's bubbling out of me. And I know that I can't be the only person that has ever felt like this. And that's why I'm hoping in my vulnerability of sharing this, it can hopefully make somebody else feel less alone or at least feel as though someone's articulating how they feel inside. Because I know that grief really has a way of just completely scrambling your brain. And so, yeah, I hope that my vulnerability can be received like that. However, it's really hard. It's really, really hard, especially as an adult, because you have so many responsibilities. Whether you have children or you don't, you have a job, you have a household, you have friendships, your own lifestyle, like the just the pressure to exist in this world is already so much. And then you add a devastating loss on top of that, and you really do feel like you're drowning. And I think that's the universal feeling of grief, is that you really don't know which way is up. And especially in this version of grief that I'm experiencing in the loss of my brother, because you're an adult, you notice that everyone has their own lives and their own shit going on. And the world does keep on spinning. And unfortunately, that's the really difficult adjustment to make. So the purpose of my episode today is I wanted one, people to feel less alone and to not feel as scared by this emotion because as scary as it feels, it's just a feeling and it can't actually do anything to you. And I wanted people to know that it's okay to check on your friends who are experiencing grief. It doesn't matter in what form, whether that's parental loss, the grief of the life that they thought they were going to have, a cancer diagnosis, sibling loss, partner loss, anything, anything that forms under falls under the umbrella of grief, don't be scared of it. Because one day you too will experience it and you will hope that people will come for you. So don't be scared to check in on your friends that are having these big feelings because, like I said, they are just feelings and they can't hurt us. From today's episode, whether you are struggling with grief, whether you are just struggling with life, whether you aren't struggling, I have compiled a list of, I guess it's a bad day protocol. And I want to give it to you guys because I want to have it as a marker for you to come back to and just a little reminder of when you are having these really bad days. I hope that you can hear my voice and know these few little points that you could do that really could change the trajectory of that bad moment that you're feeling. So it's really important when you are having these low feelings, whether it's grief, whether it's sadness, depression, anxiety, when you're having those feelings, their best friend is isolation. And that's what we need to circuit break. When you're feeling like this, I would love for you to call someone and just say, I need to talk for five minutes. You're not calling them to bitch about what's going on in your life, not to vent, not for them to fix anything. But what I want you to do is use that as the circuit breaker of those thoughts that you're having. Ask them what they're up to, what they've been doing today, what they're having for dinner, anything to distract your mind from those yucky feelings that you're already having. Now I know that when we are feeling really low, the last thing we want to do is move our body. And I hate to be the person that harps on because it's the last thing that you really want to do, but the best thing is just put on some shoes and just walk to the end of your straightened back. You're not doing this as a workout. You're not doing this to try and get endorphins from a sweat. You're literally doing it to prove to your brain that it can move, that you can actually push past these yucky feelings and get out there and do something. It's super simple, but and I don't want it to come across as a get a fresh air sort of lecture. You're literally just trying to prove to your mind and body that it can do something. Another one that I've actually really been leaning into at the moment is holding something cold. So whether that's an ice pack out of the freezer or just a cold can that's in the fridge, just anything to kind of shock your nervous system and allowing your mind to focus on that cold sensation rather than the really yucky thought that's going on. And it can really give that instant relief because of the aggression of the cold on your body. Now, this next point is very me coded because I do love to write. So whether or not it suits you, I'm not sure. But if I'm having a really awful day or I'm having ruminating thoughts, I like to actually put those down onto paper because by doing that, sometimes it actually allows your brain to see how ridiculous that thought sounds. And even better is to actually say it out loud because it gives the thought a lot less power in your brain. And the last one I want you to do is put on a song that makes you feel something. So it doesn't necessarily have to make you happy, but it has to make you feel something other than what you are feeling in that moment. I'm a massive, massive lover of music in my car if I'm having a bad day. And there's something about just singing and focusing on the lyrics that actually tricks your brain out of that thought. Even if it is for three minutes, you actually, your brain deserves that three minutes just to unwind. Now, that's kind of my bad day protocol. And Dakota has previously mentioned on the podcast that I enjoy. To write. And my love of writing really started when I was diagnosed with breast cancer because back in 2017, there was nothing out there for young women like me. And I thought that if I could just write my thoughts down onto a blog at the time, that maybe it would reach someone that needed it. But also it just was a way for me to get my thoughts down onto paper and out of my head. So in saying that, and after everything that I have shared with you all in this episode today, I've written something about my grief. And I hope it kind of gives you an insight into maybe the way that it feels and makes you feel a little bit less alone in knowing that you can coexist with it and you can live a beautiful life, even though maybe some shitty things have happened or are happening to you. There are griefs that shatter you and griefs that quietly rewrite you. The first time grief found me, I was seven. It did not sit me down, it did not explain, it just removed her and left the world feeling too loud, too bright, too big for a little girl who still needed her mum. I didn't have the language for loss, so I became it. I became the girl who didn't ask for too much, the girl who read the room before she entered it, the girl who learned how to hold her own heart before she ever knew what it felt like to have it held. The second time, grief came closer. This time, though, it didn't take. It threatened. It sat in my chest, in hospital rooms, in quiet pauses between sentences, and whispered You might not get the life you thought you would. And suddenly I was grieving things that hadn't even happened yet. My future, my body, my certainty. I was alive, but I was mourning the version of me who felt safe inside her own skin. And then there is the grief that changes the gravity of your world. Losing him was not quiet. It was impact. It was the kind of loss that makes everything else feel irrelevant. Because a brother is not just someone you love. He is the one who knew you before the world touched you, the one who held your childhood in the same hands. And when he leaves, it's not just him. It's the laughter that no longer has an echo, the memories that no longer have a witness, the version of you that only existed when he was here. Three griefs, three different ways of breaking, and still the same truth the same truth threads through them all. Grief is not what breaks you. Love is what built you big enough to feel it. I'll say it again. Grief is not what breaks you. Love is what built you big enough to feel it. So if your chest aches for a mother you barely got enough time with, if your body still remembers what it felt like to be unsafe inside of itself, if you were missing someone who knew you in a way that no one else ever will, if you were grieving the life you thought you'd have, the version of you you used to be, the safety you once felt without even noticing. If your grief doesn't have a name, but it lives inside your chest like a quiet heaviness that you carry everywhere, you are not weak, you are not stuck, you are not too much. You are someone who is loved so deeply that even absence still feels like presence. And maybe the goal was never to let it go. Maybe the goal is to carry it so gently that it no longer feels like a weight, but a reminder that you lived, that you loved, that it mattered. And that kind of love, whether it belonged to a mother, a body, a brother, a life you were building, or a version of you that you are still learning to say goodbye to, it doesn't end. It just changes shape. That feels crazy to put out into the world. But again, I hope it just allows at least one person to feel seen and understood and a little bit less alone in these really heavy feelings that us as humans carry around a lot of the time without others even noticing. So if you are having a beautiful Monday, I hope that your week continues. If you are having a Monday that you dread, whether you were waiting for results or treatment, or whether you are supporting someone who are going through some really big emotions in life and some big changes, I hope that you're able to be kind to one another and understand that a lot of the time many of us are fighting battles that no one knows about. So if that is you, I see you, I feel you, and I really hope that there are brighter days coming for us. Chat to you soon, guys. I hope you have a beautiful week. Bye.