Complex Sadness

Hey Cadre, it's me, Brittany Hagan. I always like to give my credentials, which is silly, right? I am a veteran. I was in both Kuwait and Iraq. I was a combat veteran attached to an infantry unit. And I am 15 years sober, which I feel like is my, one of my favorite accomplishments in this whole dang world. And then on top of it, I have a kiddo and I'm a mom and I'm navigating all this. So veteran, alcoholic, that's usually like my go to little title which is like a fast track usually when somebody say that and somebody relates to one of those two.

Feels like you can make fast friends Today. I want to talk about something that I'm dealing with currently, which is complex sadness. We're so lucky in times of our lives where something is just one emotion. It's so rare, it's so dang rare that all we have one thought, one feeling. I'm angry, I'm sad. Like it's just one thing. It almost never happens. I watch my 3 year old navigate this world and there was a time where it felt like she did have at one point just like these simplistic. I'm mad because of this, I'm sad because of this.

And I'm like, man, talk about a luxury that I don't think as you get older and things get more complex in general, a luxury we don't normally have. Now I'm going to tell you something that happened to me this week. I got the call that my dad, me and my dad are not close. Me and my dad. Me and my father only started kind of reconnecting about five years ago. My dad, My dad had his battles and I had mine and they never, they didn't seem to align or they. We. I didn't do a lot of the work to figure out how to know that my dad loves me until about five or six years ago.

So about five years ago we reconnected and we've been talking ever since. Having my kid, we've bonded over that quite a bit. But my dad and I never spoke the same language. Our love language, or that's so stupid because it sounds like that stupid book. We don't speak the same language. We, I mean, we do because we both speak English. But the way he communicates and the way I communicate is I. I can't tell you how different. I can never express to you how different it is. And I've struggled with that.

I'm a very emotional person. I'm a very like, if I love you I need to tell you if I feel things, I need to tell you. And my snot was not, was not. That was not my dad. My dad till the end was not like that. So I used to have to seek ways to figure out the way he loves me. And I worked a lot on like, you know, he loves me through these little things. And it kind of carried on in different ways. But the point is I got the call last this week that he had entered hospice. So I flew down to Montana and I had to say goodbye to my dad, which is very complex because I didn't even tell a lot of people because I don't, I know that everybody, when you tell them something about your own dad, they automatically put their own relationship because that's the lens they know.

And that's unlike, that doesn't apply often with me and my dad. So I, I, I have to say, like a big part of me sat sitting with a lot of different emotions and how complex and confusing that can be. You know, I'm sad, of course. I'm also mad because that door is now shut. For us to ever be anything close to what I like would daydream about as a relationship with a father. I'm confused. I'm also weirdly fine because my dad's not in my day to day life. My dad would call me maybe like once every one or two months and we talk for about two minutes.

There's just a lot there, which makes it so confusing for anybody I know. So many people can relate, you know, maybe not to exactly this, but to the idea of like, I don't want to call them secondary emotions, but those emotions that are there as well and how there's not a lot of place in society where that's embraced and acknowledged. You know, if somebody casually now says, oh, I'm so sorry your dad passed, I'm like, thank you so much. Yes, I'm sad. You know, I, you just give him the glaze over because it's not like not going to go well.

We weren't that close because, I mean that's not even expresses my relationship with him anyways. Like, it's just, it's so complex and I know how confusing that can be to navigate and how important it is to navigate as well, to touch on all those, to be in a safe space to acknowledge those feelings. There's not like a wrong feeling to have. And that's what's wild too, right? Because like I had the thought of like relief in the way that like I was thankful, of course that he's not sick anymore. My dad got really sick at the end.

And then like, something as absolutely savage and insane as well, like, that's. That's done. I don't have to navigate that anymore. Isn't that. I mean, that's awful. And of course, then there's like, the, oh, my God. Guilt for even having that thought. And then there's the wait, but you wanted to fix this. So then there's anger. There's whatever. There's resentment. There's. It's so much. And as a veteran and an alcoholic, the things that I want people to really think about in these moments, when you're bringing a lot of complexity, a hurricane of emotions and all the things is that.

How. How are you. Who are you talking to about this? Because you need to talk to somebody about this and somebody who's a safe space, right? Like, somebody that you can say, yeah, I also have this. Other feelings, and. And that those are all valid. And I think there's a part of us that go, well, I can't bring that up because it's. It's not. There's no card for that. Like, there's no Hallmark card that says, like, I'm also kind of relieved that I don't have to work on this relationship anymore. Like, it's not accepted in your everyday life.

So, like, first off, talking to somebody about all the complex feelings that come along with it, I think is super important. I think the second thing as an alcoholic, and I know a lot of veterans that also deal with this concept, is how are you coping? What coping mechanisms are you falling back on? Now, there's a term in alcoholism that's called dry drunk, and it's a confusing one because, of course, your family members go to a place of, like, well, do you feel the urge to drink? Or maybe they will say that, maybe they won't.

Maybe you even have that thought and you feel like, because I'm not drinking, I'm doing okay. And the reality of it is there's a lot of both habits and routines and things that you can tap into that is considered dry drunk. It's the idea of the negative. Not the negative is not the right word, but the. The behaviors and actions and thoughts that don't serve you in a positive light. I'll tell you, my dry drunk go to is isolation. I like to isolate because I don't want to deal with it. And, I mean, I'm sure many alcoholics can.

I mean, that's why we're alcoholics. We don't we didn't want to really deal with the things. And so I like to isolate. But it's like a really funny way because I'll isolate from the people that know me well. Like, I would. I love a distraction. So I'd love somebody who doesn't know me at all to pop in and we can talk about something else. And they don't even know I'm going through this. I don't want to answer phone calls from my loved ones at all. And I force myself to, because I know that that serves me and it's better.

And I know people worry, and I know that it's just important for me to keep in the loop and not avoid. Avoid, because I just want to avoid. Oh, my God. I'm like organizing things like crazy. But I. That's. Isolation's one for me. The other one is buying stuff. I love to buy stuff. I love to fill the void with things I don't need and spend money I shouldn't. And like, so the isolation one, I. I forced myself to interact. I also give myself breaks. Like, I've been around people 24, 7, and the rest of today, I'm like, I'm.

I'm chilling out. I'm gonna chill out. And. And. And it's a very intentional alone time. And by that I mean my kids upstairs. So it's like, I'm never really alone, but, like, you know, I don't. I don't want to go to my sisters today. I was with my family for the last, like, 72 hours. And so today I have a lot of, like, all right, today I get a little bit of a pause and beyond. And that's an intentional thing, not like elongated or we're avoiding the world. We are putting a pause. We are putting in the old planner, organize and relax and watch a show and read a book.

So isolation is a big one for me. And the way I solve that is I do intentional times that where I get to be alone. And then I do intentional times where I am talking to people, especially people that know me well and know my situation. And then the other one is the buying of spending. It's so bad. Oh, my God. I just want to buy full on things. And I don't need, like, I want to buy. I want to go to Nordstrom's. I want to not even go to Nordstrom's. I want to buy everything online and just have it delivered to me.

And like, so I set a budget. This is how much you can spend. And that's helpful. And I also tell on myself. Now, that's the big one, too. I mean, isn't it so true? Telling on myself. I like to tell myself I'm telling by myself here. I'm telling myself to my mom. I was like, I just spent. I'm not gonna say a buddy at a place. So, you know. And she's like, okay, well, she. Do you need that? I go, well, let me try it on, and I'll decide. She's like, yeah, it's a good call. So telling on ourselves. I hope in your life you get to a place where.

And I will say this about my dad and what I'm going through is that things would have been more complex and more confusing and more insane had we not gotten to a good place together. Or a better place, at least. Good is such a stupid word sometimes. Don't tell my kid I said stupid. We're working on that. But I'm very thankful that I'm mostly sad because, you know, me, my dad. Well, me, I don't know, maybe my dad did work on himself and that's why things got better, too. But I do know that I'm very thankful that most.

I'm just mostly sad that I mostly miss my dad, and I wish he was still here, and I wish he didn't get sick. And I. How thankful? How amazing, because I think 10 years ago, I mean, of course I'd be a little sad, but I would be other A lot more things or not enough things, you know? And you got to start thinking about if there's ways for relationships to be less complex, because, tell you what, like, this is not going to. I don't want to say take me down because, like, I'm not, you know, it's not where I'm at in life, but, like, it's.

It's gonna be okay. I'm okay, and it's gonna be okay. And sometimes I'm a little less okay, and it's still gonna be okay. I'm so thankful for Cadre. I'm so thankful to talk to you guys. I just appreciate that I get to come on here and maybe even just kind of make sure that, you know, I'm that accountability piece. So I hope that your relationships become less and less complex, or at least you know how to navigate that. And remember, just be as nice. Be nice to yourself. That's one I'm working on, is being a little more nice to myself.

So with that, I passed. Just kidding. That's an AA thing. Thanks again for hanging out with me. I. I'M gonna go eat Halloween candy. Like, a lot.