Putting Readers First

I haven't been doing it. But I'd like to start now.

I have not been writing with my readers in mind here on Substack. I’m sorry. I want to get better at this.

I still have only a hazy idea of who my readers are here.

My initial subscriber base was a chunk of people from my old life who signed up for my website when it launched back in the early days of COVID. They got schlepped over here because I stopped updating my website when my life imploded. The readers who stayed have been with me here for more than two years and with me in spirit for several years before that.

THANK YOU.

I have steadfastly refused to look at analytics until now for fear I might get too easily hooked. I need to determine how many of my current subscribers are from this initial crew. My gut tells me it’s about a third, but I could be way off. It’s extraordinarily encouraging to have you reading along. I am grateful. I’m sorry for the weeks I miss and thank you for your patience. It is an honor to have people read my words, and you help me keep writing.

Sixty-six of my current subscribers came to me from the Substack app, suggesting they are strangers to me. I don’t have any idea how people find their way to me on Substack, especially since I have avoided marketing as much as I’ve avoided analytics. I know I need to improve in each of these areas, but doing so will make me grow faster, and I haven’t been ready for that before now.

I have needed to take a very slow approach to growth because visibility freaks my nervous system out. When I grow too fast, I risk shutting down and needing to disappear. I have to walk a tightrope, balancing my deep desire that people read my words with my extreme, debilitating distress when too many people read my words at once. I want attention—but too much, too fast, too soon is the definition of trauma. I’m trying to heal my trauma, not take on more. So my growth has to be slow and plodding, like a turtle’s. My logo is a turtle for this reason.

My follower count has grown more than anything. I’m not sure what it means to be a follower or how it’s different from being a subscriber, but 589 people have felt inclined to follow me, compared to 274 subscribers. I’m grateful to every single one of you. The ones I’ve known for decades and the ones I’ve never met. If you are a stranger to me—or even if not—I would love to hear from you about how you found me or how we know each other or what we have in common. It will help me better customize what I write to my audience—to you. I need to know you better to do this.

Presumably most people have interest in or experience with grief. Given the newsletter is called Good Grief. I invite any and all to join me, regardless of personal experience with grief. Personally, I think we’ve all experienced grief. Too few of us have processed it adequately, myself included.

Which is why I show up here in my grief to talk about hard things. Because my grief brings others’ grief to the surface. Where it can more easily be released. So we don’t all have to walk around carrying crushing burdens of grief that slow us down and damage our brains and bodies.

To heal, we have to feel. So I show up and feel my grief here on Wednesdays hoping my grief will trigger other people’s grief. Hoping that collectively, by feeling our grief instead of keeping it locked inside, we all heal a little more each week while normalizing having and expressing our full range of feelings—not just the societally favored ones.

Grief doesn’t feel good. I know that’s why some people get mad at me for talking about my grief and potentially triggering theirs. Sorry, not sorry.

Grief doesn’t feel good but when you carry it around inside you unprocessed, it causes lifelong depression and can metastasize into cancer. Unexpressed rage does a number on the heart, resulting in cardiomyopathy and eventual heart failure.

I want to feel my full range of feelings and preserve my organs. The more I feel my feelings, the more I make choices that preserve my organs. It is not feeling our feelings that puts our organs at risk.

So I talk about grief and why I think it’s important to feel it regularly, which is why I put myself on the hook to write about it weekly. I’ve experienced a lot of grief, which helps me connect to others who have experienced similar grief. I have lost my mom, dad, marriage, home, job, car, custody of my kids half the time, dog, career, identity, brain function, and more money than I want to face. I have also lost friends, lovers, partners, family, potential babies, many pets, safety, and innocence.

I grew up in poverty, which is its own form of grief. Throughout it all, I have remained physically healthy and able-bodied, which I am profoundly grateful for. And still, I am now 50. My still able body is much less able that it was at 25. I grow to understand the grief of aging more each day. While feeling grateful for this privilege.

I write about grief because I feel better when I let mine out and suspect I’m not alone.

In fact, each time I let myself feel grief, it brings me to gratitude. Every. Single. Time. It’s this magic reward on the other side of facing the admittedly unpleasant feelings that come with grief. When you actually feel your grief, instead of repressing it, it brings you to gratitude.

This is why I write about gratitude on Thursdays after writing about grief on Wednesdays. It’s just the way my brain naturally works. I know my brain isn’t like everyone’s—but I think it’s more alike than different. I don’t think I’m the only one who finds myself feeling gratitude after facing grief.

Which is why I don’t actually feel terrible about potentially triggering people into grief. If I’m successful in triggering others into feeling grief by sharing mine, their grief will lead them to gratitude. They may lash out at me in the process, but that means the process has begun. I have done my job. People who lash out at me for expressing grief are triggered by my grief and would rather blame me than get curious about themselves. Which is fine. We are all on different grief journeys.

Believe me, we are all on grief journeys. Those in denial just have a longer road ahead.

Thank you for coming along with me on mine. Your presence is welcome and deeply appreciated. And if you want to share a little about who you are so I can write to you more directly in subsequent posts, please feel warmly encouraged! I will leave comments open for this purpose.

Why do you want to read about grief once a week? What specifically about grief do you want to read? What is grief to you? What grief do you know deepest? How did avoiding and denying grief work out for you? When did you stop avoiding and start feeling grief? What helps you make it through? Does grief bring you to gratitude, too?