It Can't Just Be Me - 7: Finding joy after loss? With Sarah Keyworth

Episode Date: June 7, 2023

When comedian Sarah Keyworth lost their good friend Paul, they were floored by the strength of their grief. In the end, the only way to process it was to talk about the friendship in their stand-up routines, and relive the joyful, and sometimes silly, moments they enjoyed together. In this episode, Sarah reflects on their experience as they join Anna to unpack a dilemma from a listener who is grieving two important people in his life, and is struggling to move on.This episode touches on the subject of suicide, so do bear this in mind when you’re deciding if and when to listen. If you’re struggling, or you’re worried about someone else, you can get 24/7 support from The Samaritans at samaritans.org or on 116 123. You can also call CALM at 0800 58 58 58. Lines are open between 5pm and midnight. Sarah Keyworth has appeared on TV shows including Live at the Apollo and 8 out of 10 Cats, and presented their own BBC Radio 4 series Are You a Girl or a Boy?. You can also listen to their podcast Thank F*ck For That here.Anna and Sarah are supported in the studio by the wonderful psychotherapist Louiza Davies, who specialises in bereavement, anxiety and stress at The London Practice. …Have questions about sex? Divorce? Motherhood? Menopause? Mental health? With no topic off limits, Anna’s here to prove that whatever you’re going through, it’s not just you.If you have a dilemma you’d like unpacked, visit itcantjustbeme.co.uk and record a voice note. Or tell Anna all about it in an email to [e-mail] podcast contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children. Listener caution is advised. Please note that advice given on this podcast is not intended to replace the input of a trained professional. If you’ve been affected by anything raised in this episode and want extra support, we encourage you to reach out to your general practitioner or an accredited professional. From Podimo & Mags CreativeProducer: Alice Homewood with support from Laura WilliamsEditor: Kit MilsomTheme music: Kit MilsomExecutive producers for Podimo: Jake Chudnow and Matt WhiteFollow @annarichardso and @podimo_uk on Instagram for weekly updates Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We get it. Life gets busy. Luckily, with Peloton Tread, you can still get the challenging workouts you crave. Only have 10 minutes? Take a quick Peloton workout. Want to go all out? Chase down your goals with 20 to 45-minute Tread workouts. No matter your goals or time, Peloton has everything you need to become everything you want. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit One onepeloton.ca. share our thoughts and experiences. We're also joined by one of our resident experts who can give their professional opinion and share their expertise with us all. So today we're talking about something that on first hearing sounds contradictory,

finding joy after loss. Grief can affect us in really surprising ways. Sometimes we just shut down. Sometimes we can barely bring ourselves to think about the person who's gone because it's just too painful. And sometimes we feel guilty for actually kind of being okay and getting on with our lives. So what I want to find out today is, is there a normal when it comes to grief? And how can we open up and allow ourselves to feel that grief while still being able to see the joy in life. Let's find out. This is It Can't Just Be Me. Hi Anna.

Hey Anna. Hey Anna. Hi Anna. Hey Anna. Hi Anna. Hi Anna. Hi Anna. It can't just be me who's really struggling with staying faithful.

I definitely got menopause brain. I really want children and he doesn't. I had feelings of jealousy. It's just all around the middle. I feel like a Teletubby. And then I hated myself for feeling that way. If you've got any advice. I would really appreciate any advice. It can't just be me. It can't just be me, right? Now my guest today is the comedian Sarah Keyworth. Sarah is a regular on TV, on Live at the Apollo and Mock the Week. Their stand-up often focuses on the topics of gender and relationships, but they've also

explored the topic of grief after losing a close friend. And more specifically, the fact that while it might feel like the world has stopped, it does keep turning. And at some point, we have to find a way to live our own lives too. I want to give you all a quick heads up here because today's episode does touch on the subject of suicide. So please bear that in mind when you're deciding when and how to listen. We'll leave some useful resources in the show notes. Sarah Keyworth, welcome to It Can't Just Be Me. How are you? I'm very well, thank you. It's very nice to be here. It's very nice to have you here. Are you enjoying my plush sofas? I'm loving it. It's very, very plush. In fact, I might take a cushion home with me.

I know, right? You move in whenever you like. Now listen, as you know, I'm going to share a listener's dilemma with you shortly. And I know you're going to have a lot to say about it, so I'm looking forward to this one. But before we get into the meat of that, I ask every guest that comes in to bring their own, it can't just be me dilemma. So what have you got for us? Okay. So I think I slightly worried that you're going to turn around and say, no, that is just you with this one. But it can't just be me that is furious when I see a teenager with a good haircut. Really? When I was a teenager, I had terrible hair and I thought that was the done thing. I thought that's how you had to be. When you're a teenager, you have to be awkward and gawky and look like you have a mop on your head. And I looked like I lived in a swamp

till I was about 27. Like I saw a girl the other day and she looked like she'd had a full blow dry. She probably had. I mean, you know, they look better than we do. and you and i've discussed off mic that we are actually from the same exactly the same area we live in the same area so we've been seeing the same haircut the same the same tweens with the same haircuts why do they look why is their hair so good and it makes me mad because they're not suffering in the ways that i used to suffer do you feel rage i feel rage i'm furious about i'm with you listen it's not just you. I'm furious. I just think everyone should have the decency to have an awkward teenage phase. And look like your mum. Yeah. When I was a teenager, I would go to the same salon as my mother. We'd sit in matching gowns. It would be a two for one deal. And I

dealt with that for five years. Do you know what you could do though, Sarah? I reckon this could be a rebellion right here, is that we revert back to having our childhood haircuts and we'll show them. In protest. In protest. I just think the only people that will lose in that situation is you and I, Anna. Okay, singledom, here we come.

Okay. Well, Sarah, we do actually have a more serious job for you to do today because one of our listeners has reached out to us with a dilemma around grief. And I'm keen to get your take on it because I know that you've spoken publicly about your own experience with loss. I've also invited psychotherapist Louisa Davis in to join us from the London practice. Hello, great to be here.

Thank you for coming in, Louisa. Now, you are an expert on grief management, amongst many other things, and she's here today to give us some professional advice. So we appreciate that very much indeed. We really, really do. Clearly, Sarah and I are going to be bothering you for many hours about our own issues. Tell me if I'm gripping your hand too hard. It's okay, and the box of tissues is right here.

She's already sliding it across to you, Sarah. Well, shall we hear, it is a serious dilemma, our voice note from Tom, who's looking for some guidance on how to manage loss. Hi, Anna. So in the past couple of years, I have lost a couple of people that I was very close with. A very close friend of mine who unfortunately took their own life.

And my godmother who died of cancer. Losing both of them was very difficult individually, but I think losing the two of them in quite close succession really took a lot out of me. And I kind of feel like one of the reasons that it's difficult to let go of this stuff is because I feel like they're both taken before their time just taken too soon it feels very unfair that they're not alive today although most of the time I'm fine I still have very intense moments of grief that make getting on with my regular life quite difficult. I want to be able to remember all of my positive memories with them, but I find that it's just quite painful.

Are there any practical steps or things that I can do when I'm having a moment of serious grief to just kind of get on with my day a little better. Okay. I mean, this is just, it's awful, isn't it? And just listening to that as well. I mean, you know, you can sort of hear in his voice that he's still so affected by this, but to lose two people you love in quick succession and one to suicide, which is tragic in itself and still holds, I think, some stigma for some people. What's your initial reaction to this, Sarah? Yeah, it's really, really difficult that because it is the just massive double whammy of losing two people in quick succession. And also there's so many complicated emotions when somebody dies and you feel like it's too soon because there's so much

wrapped up in it and there can be feelings of guilt and like you could have done more. Tom has kind of taken the best first step, which is just like talking about it. I find that if I am given permission to talk about it, whenever I feel those intense periods of grief, it's easier to get through the pain and then start remembering the positive signs. This is interesting because I know that you've explored this topic in your stand-up before in relation to the loss of your friend Paul. So I can only imagine that you empathise hugely here, but do you want to tell us a little bit about Paul, that he was your friend and what happened and how it affected you. Yeah, so Paul was, we worked together. So he was a comedy director and he was working on

some of my friend's shows and things like that. And I was writing my debut hour, which is stand-up hour that I took to Edinburgh. And I was kind of struggling with finishing it. And somebody said, oh, why don't you ask Paul? And I did and we met and he was possibly one of the least professional men I've ever met in my life and that it was impossible to to work with him and not become friends with him he had so many close friends which was just such a lovely thing especially when we were now that we're all sort of collectively grieving. But it was, you couldn't know him and not completely adore him. He was so funny and so interested. You know, he'd be sat in the corner of the room at a comedy party with these big names and he'd be talking to somebody's cousin's

wife's son and he'd be talking to him for hours. And I try and take that on a little bit now. I try and be a bit more like Paul. Can I ask old he was when when he died he was 44 gosh yeah and they said when they put it a news article about it they said he was 45 and I think he would have been offended by that but he still is yeah and the beyond young but he was 44 I think he was almost 45 so he was young he was too young and he had liver failure he various different illnesses, but in the end it was liver failure. And then he got COVID and that just kind of all took him down. In an ideal world, he would have had a new liver. And had we not been in a health crisis, he might have been able to access a transplant. Wow. Okay. So while this was happening, what was your involvement with this? I was just in touch with him a lot through the pandemic because he'd kind of withdrawn

a little bit from other friends. And I was sort of just messaging him every other day, checking in with him and seeing how he was, which was why I was hearing a lot about what was going on. I see. So it almost sounds like you had a sense of my friend is struggling and I need to try and get involved as much as I can, whatever that is. He and I both had breakups during the pandemic as well. So I think maybe we were like sort of emotionally supporting each other and I was just checking in with him.

But yeah, I knew he wasn't well. I didn't really think he was going to die. I popped over to see him and it was quite brief because I think I was a bit late. And then I was meeting my girlfriend because we were looking at flats. So I didn't stay very long and I think he was a bit disappointed. And then he was lying on the sofa with a big blanket over him. And I said something like, I love you and I'll see you soon. And he said swan dive onto me.

And I did. And I threw myself onto him and we had a big cuddle. And that was the last time that I saw him. And I'd never really experienced anything like it. I remember just saying to my girlfriend, almost childlike, like, I just don't want this to happen. I just don't want this to be happening. I think this is probably a good moment to bring Louisa in.

Absolutely. Yeah. Let's get a psychotherapist in here. She's got the tissues. But Louisa, can you just explain, first of all, I was sort of struck listening to Sarah as well, what I could see is confusion, just confusion about what happened. And a bit of anger as well, I would assume. Oh, shit loads of anger. Yeah, yeah and a bit of anger as well I would assume oh

shit loads yeah yeah yeah a lot of anger sometimes you think about it and you think if one small thing had been different that we could have had a different outcome and that's a very that's hard difficult way to think about it I want to ask Louisa as well that we're talking about three quite different kinds of loss here if I just refer back to Tom as well. So Sarah, you've lost Paul through illness. Tom has lost a friend through suicide and a godmother through illness. Do you think that the circumstances surrounding death affects the way that people process that death? Oh, absolutely.

As Tom was kind of talking, what I was thinking, I thought you must have so many questions because suicide has those questions that you will never get answered. And that's what makes it kind of difficult. I think where there is an illness, I think your case is maybe a bit different because it was so quick. But when you know someone is quite ill and it becomes terminal, when you know you're going to lose them, there's time there to process it.

Although once you lose them, the impact is the same. Just because you were aware, it doesn't mean you'll feel any less. But when it's suicide, it's taken from you and you could be left with a lot of guilt. You could be left with anger as well. You could be quite angry. An interesting note is that with Tom, he probably isn't eligible to take compassionate leave from work and usually you only have paid leave if you lose a dependent. It's true, yeah. I mean, you know, and yet our friends can sometimes be closer to us

than family members, can't they? So again, I think it's often not recognised that when you say to people, my really good friend has just died, you know, I'm in pieces. You can't even take time off from work. I think there it's about speaking to a line manager of areas and just to make it clear that this is where I'm at. I'm struggling with this and being very transparent because otherwise they would just expect you to get on with it. So I think with Tom, for yourself and to preserve yourself, to communicate with how you're feeling to people at work,

there'll be somebody there who can kind of support you. Have you heard of the ball in a box analogy when it comes to grief and grieving? No. So the idea is that grief is like a box with a big ball inside it and there's a pain button on one side of the box. And in the early stages of grief, that ball is so big that it just keeps constantly hitting that pain button and it just hurts all the time. So you can't move the box without that that pain going off constantly so it rattles around in there on its own it's just hitting this button again and again but over time that ball gets a little bit smaller still there

gets a little bit smaller a little bit smaller but then when the box gets rattled it will occasionally yeah yeah will hit the pain but it still hurts as much, but it's just less frequent. So I'm just thinking of Tom here, that he's saying that he's going through some sort of later stages of grief where he's getting surprised by that ball still hitting the pain button, really. Have you found that to be true? Well, poor Tom's got two balls in his box as well. Yes, of course. I didn't think about that.

That's the difficult thing with his situation, I suppose, is that it must be very difficult to separate those two losses, even though they are separate people and separate incidents. It's probably once you start thinking about one, suddenly you start thinking about the other and then it snowballs. So I don't know. I'm looking at you, Louisa. Is there any possible way of separating those griefs?

Also, it's historical grief, because any current grief will definitely trigger anything from the past. So it's not so clear cut. Gosh, that's interesting. So, you know, if you're talking about a loss today, but that they could have had another bigger loss six years before that. And it would trigger all of those emotions. All that trauma will be surfaced again for them. So are you saying that as we get older, basically our life is just going to be one long, massive grief button? It's going to be extreme balls. Not if you deal with it with a fantastic therapist. But yeah, it does, it triggers it and we actually

call it complicated grief. That's when it becomes quite complex. But you will remember, yes, I did feel like that, but I know how I got through it. So I'll get through it again. And this is a bit of an odd one, but Sarah, I'm going to ask you, can grief ever be funny? This is a bit of an odd one, but Sarah, I'm going to ask you, can grief ever be funny? Yes. I mean, the grieving process I found incredibly funny. There's no dignity in grief, which can be very, very amusing. I mean, I'm still trying to find, there's a photograph that exists in the world somewhere of myself and Larry Dean, who's another comedian. And we had met at Euston Station with two other comedians,ians two of our friends just because we didn't know what else to do and this was the week that Paul was dying so we were

sat in this pub all of us just crying and crying and crying and uh a woman came over and tapped me on the shoulder and said I'm a big fan of live at the Apollo can I have a picture with you and Larry sort of whirled around like he was going to shout at her, tears pouring down his face. And she went, oh, you too. And Larry and I posed for this photo with us because we were just too polite. We posed this horrible, grimacing, snot-crying picture. And she obviously, she was so distracted by what she was doing, she took the photo between us.

And I think she must have walked away, looked at it and gone, oh my God, what have I done here? The tears of a clown. Because it never appeared online. I would love to see that photo. Now, listen, how have you worked through that, Sarah? Are you still feeling it? No, I'm not feeling that anymore. And I think that was a time thing that, you know, it was just so all encompassing at that point. And also, I think maybe talking about Paul made me feel close to Paul. And so being around people that didn't know him or didn't want to talk about him or weren't able to talk about him made me feel further away from him than anything else. And I think finding ways of explaining it to the people who aren't grieving,

I think it's just trying to put that into words, saying, you know, I'm so sorry that I'm talking about this so much, but it's what I need to do. I've got a bit in my show that I wish I could take credit for, but I can't. It's my friend Ruby who made this observation. And she said that when you're grieving and you're around people that aren't grieving,

it's like you're on a night out and you've lost your phone and you're trying to explain that to all your friends, but they're on ecstasy. And they just can't be on that level that you're at. And good, it's a good thing you can't access that grief feeling when you're not in it. That's a positive thing. But it's so hard to explain to people that unhappiness you're feeling

when they're on this completely different level. And did you find that you lashed out at all and became quite unreasonable with people around you? I think my girlfriend and I had a very difficult time. I think she did really well just to kind of be very patient during that time because I really did my best, but I just didn't want anything to do with anything that wasn't the grief that I was feeling. And we tried to do sort of normal things. And Paul died on the 11th of February and we tried to go out for Valentine's Day because I think she was like, let's just keep

doing normal stuff. And it looked like we were having the world's most horrendous breakup on Valentine's Day because I just sobbed through this meal. And I think the waiter in that tapas restaurant was looking at us like, just end it. I don't know why you're ordering more food like it was just unbelievable it's very difficult as well though for the partner of the person that's lost somebody else I'm thinking in my relationship with with Sue when we were together um over our time together she lost three people in her life and it was so hard for her, so painful for her. And I tried my best. I tried my best.

But as you say, Sarah, if you are not in that overwhelming well of grief, it's very difficult for the other person to join you there. And you try as hard as you can, but it's a lonely thing, isn't it, grief? Now listen, Sarah and Louisa, I want to leave Tom with some concrete advice because this is his grief that we're talking about and how he's struggling to manage some of those emotions. So what can he do, some practical advice, in those moments of serious grief? Are there any practical techniques that we can suggest maybe?

I think my biggest piece of advice would be to just not beat yourself up about not feeling better. Two major people have been lost and that sounds like it's awful and will take quite a long time to feel any kind of sense of peace about it. So I guess it's just about going, you know, I'm not meant to be feeling okay about those things. I would also recommend for Tom some hypnotherapy actually as well, because I think certainly when you're trying to get on with your normal life, that when you get hit by those sudden waves of emotion, that I think hypnotherapy could certainly help him to manage those feelings in certain situations. And

if nothing else, just relax him and try and remove some of that anxiety. Yeah, that could help with a morning check-in as well. And I think generally we don't do this enough. We just sit there for five minutes and just think, right, where am I at? How am I feeling? And kind of get in touch emotionally with yourself. What is going on? How am I feeling about the loss today? How am I feeling about going to work? So there's no shocks. There's no, you know, throughout the day, nothing shocks you.

And if you know, just by checking in, oh, feeling's a bit vulnerable today. I can feel anxiety's a bit high. Yeah. How am I feeling today? How am I feeling today? Because then we just get on with life. It just gets so busy and crazy. So that's a brilliant short-term technique that he can do every day, just check in with himself. What about longer term and managing his feelings at work where you suddenly get hit by that wave? Psychotherapy helps, doesn't it?

Yeah. It's nice to just know that there's somebody specific that I can go and talk to about it. And we'll have a sort of designated cry at one point of the week. Scheduled cry. Yeah. So, Tom, if you are listening, I hope that that has been useful for you. And I think the three of us here really feel for your grief and your bereavement. And Sarah, I hope that has that been useful to you having a therapist in room as well? I love talking about grief, me. I'm mad for it. Can't get enough of it. I do think it's one of the most helpful things. And I find it very, very useful to just hearing them explain it and think, yeah, no, that is okay.

Thank God I'm not the only person who feels that way. This grief is very, very painful, but it's not completely unusual. No, it's normal. Louisa, thank you so much for being here today. You're a reassuring presence, I think, for both me and Sarah. So thank you. Great to be here. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for sharing. Right Sarah before we end the show I'm gonna share a couple of short

dilemmas with you and this time I'm looking for quick fire advice. Okay. Are you ready for this? I might not have good advice. The first one is from Katie. Okay hi Katie Katie hey Anna it can't just be me who's struggling with a friendship breakup and the weird feeling that comes with the lack of closure when you grow apart from a friend and just the weird vibes of not really having any end to it like you would in a romantic relationship oh I mean this feels like it's a whole show, doesn't it? I think we should cover this in a futureette. But you absolutely should. I've been talking about this a lot. My friend, one of my really good friends is writing a show about friendships and in particular, friendship breakups. And she's done a ton of research about it. But I think the biggest

thing that it comes down to is that we don't treat similar thing with this grief situation we don't give platonic love the same kind of reverence as we do romantic love and some people live their entire lives only having platonic love and that's how they receive love so I don't know why we don't give it the same kind of attention and care and we were talking about this the other night saying that if somebody came to you and said, oh, I've broken up with my boyfriend, you'd immediately know what to do. You'd be like, right, I'm getting a bottle of wine, you're coming over and we're going to talk, we're going to get you through this. Or if somebody said, I've broken up with my best friend, you don't necessarily respond in that same

way. And it's just as painful. In fact, some ways it can be equally as painful because you don't make friends thinking you're going to break up with them whereas you get into a romantic relationship and think this might not be forever something could happen you know exactly we think we think of our friends don't we for for life potentially and so when it doesn't when it doesn't work out it's such a shock and it's a rejection isn't it of of fundamentally of you that she used to like me she doesn't anymore and I think the advice here is is grieve it like a like a relationship and remember that just like in romantic relationships people change and they grow apart and everybody goes through that that is not a unique experience everybody experiences it it's just some we don't talk about it as much

thank you for that sarah i think you're right that sort of universality if we all lose friends okay here's the next one this is from lee hi anna it can't just be me who hates their job i like the people i work with but the work itself i find really boring and unfulfilling and I just don't really know what to do if you've got any advice I'd love to hear it I mean I think this must be incredibly common and I'm very sorry to hear it's Lee it's tricky isn't it because you don't know the circumstances of why they're doing that job and whether or not it's a sort of a means to an end or whether it's like a step on a ladder but um I've been talking to my friends a lot about

this because everybody, I think, especially the generation that I'm in, everybody's very frustrated because we are living in a time when we have fewer options. And sometimes if you're just in a job and it pays well and you're not completely miserable, you won't make a shift because you're like, well, where do I go? And we're in a cost of living crisis and it's very hard to go, do you know what? I'm just going to take a risk and try something else. So I hear you, right? It's a cost of living crisis. So maybe Lee needs to stay in their job for now, just until they're financially stable as best as possible. But do you know what? Hating your job, my advice, Lee, is hating your job, that is a slow death. If you hate your job, get out and either retrain or go to another company,

or at the very least, what you can do is go to your manager and say, I'm finding this really difficult and frustrating. I want to either step up or have more responsibility or diversify in some way. Because if that doesn't happen, it really is just death by degrees. There is always an exit and always a choice. Run, Lee. Run. Sarah, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you. I had a great time. And thank you for being so open about losing Paul and your grief. It's been a privilege to hear about him and how much you miss him and

celebrate him, actually. And huge thanks again to Louisa Davis from the London Practice. Thank you. We'll be back next time with another episode. But in the meantime, if you want to be part of the podcast, then please go to itcan'tjustbeme.co.uk and leave me a voice note with your dilemma, can'tjustbeme.co.uk and leave me a voice note with your dilemma or you can email it can'tjustbeme at podimo.com. Whether it's about love, sex, ageing, family, grief, motherhood, kinks, it doesn't matter. Nothing's off limits and remember, whatever you're dealing with, it really isn't just you. From Podimo and Mags, this has been It Can't Just Be Me, hosted by me, Anna Richardson. The producer is Alice Homewood, with support from Laura Williams. The executive producer for Mags Creative is James Norman Fyfe. The executive producers for Podimo are Jake Chudnow and Matt

White. Don't forget to follow the show or to listen ad-free. Subscribe to Podomo UK on Apple Podcasts. you can still get the challenging workouts you crave. Only have 10 minutes? Take a quick Peloton workout. Want to go all out? Chase down your goals with 20 to 45-minute tread workouts. No matter your goals or time, Peloton has everything you need to become everything you want. Find your push. Find your power.

Peloton. Visit onepeloton.ca.