With sufficient support, you can find your way through the most difficult of times.
When I was in graduate school to become a clinical psychologist, I had the privilege to be mentored by an amazingly skilled social worker with her MSW (Master of Social Work).
<<Details in the stories that follow have been altered to protect privacy.>>
Mary Kay had an emergency triple bypass during my third year of graduate school.
Six months later her husband, Jack, died from a massive coronary when he was home alone.
Mary Kay disappeared for three weeks before sharing the news with the world.
What made things doubly difficult for Mary Kay after Jack died was that Jack had gambled away their life’s savings.
Jack had gambled at the local casinos during the period leading up to his death. He had been hospitalized for two months in a psychiatric unit the previous year with Bipolar Disorder.
As Mary Kay slowly climbed on top of her financial situation as a new widow, she discovered that Jack had emptied all of the retirement savings accounts. He had held no money back to pay federal and state taxes in Arizona, which left Mary Kay responsible to pay the $200,000 in taxes left owing.
Jack had also forged Mary Kay’s signature and opened six credit cards in her name. There was a net balance owing on these of about $25,000.
Jack was 65 years old when he died on the living room couch. Mary Kay was 62 years old.
Mary Kay didn’t want to have to sell their second house. There wasn’t enough principal in either of their houses to make the sale worthwhile given current economic conditions. She said she preferred to hold onto the second house so that their handicapped adult son could continue to live there independently.
Mary Kay stopped answering the phone when debt collectors started calling.
Mary Kay took a second job on Saturdays and Sundays so she could make minimum payments to the government for the taxes owing.
She changed her primary job to one that was less demanding so that she would have enough energy to go to work Monday through Friday, and then switch gears and go to work every weekend.
Mary Kay’s grief over the death of her husband of 40 years was complicated by her anger and hurt that he had left such a mess to clean up.
John had been struggling with a major mental illness and was presumably manic when he decimated their finances.
Mary Kay was remarkable in her ability to meet her own emotional needs. But how does a woman who is 62 years old and who has always been responsible and who should have been planning for her retirement move forward without any savings and with a mountain of debt to pay off vis-à-vis her available income?
How does she create a plan to dig herself out of this mess when there’s no obvious path?
How does Mary Kay prioritize addressing her own health issues following open heart surgery when her husband has just died?
How does she grieve after she’s discovered that her husband of 40 years has been lying to her?
How does she reconcile her image of the man that she loved with the man who has left her destitute in her old age?
Mary Kay told me that Jack had gambled away all of the money that he withdrew. There was none left.
Mary Kay had known Jack was making withdrawals from their 401K accounts because paperwork was reaching her in the mail. She had said she wasn’t prepared to legally separate from him, even though doing so would have frozen their accounts and left their savings inaccessible to him, because she couldn’t do this to him.
I share this story with clients when they feel overwhelmed by their own life’s events because it’s easier to have empathy for another’s story than for our own.
I shared the story with a client who moved out of her marital home and into an apartment, and informed her husband that she was leaving him, three months before he died.
Sometimes life’s events are not straightforward to process. Sometimes they are embarrassing to share with others. If your husband dies, close friends will offer you empathy and will hold you in their arms while you cry. But how do share that your husband who has just died has also wiped you out financially at the age of 63?
Mary Kay soldiered on, working seven days a week. She found a way to make it work. She loved her weekend job, working at a psychiatric hospital with teenagers struggling with drug addiction, where she knocked it out of the park. She said she loved working with challenging clients, and that they didn’t come any more challenging than in this setting. She also said she had such hope for these kids and their ability to turn their lives around.
Mary Kay was diabetic. For a time, she worked successfully with a physician who helped her stabilize her blood glucose levels and reduce her reliance on medications. But then she said she couldn’t eat one more serving of chicken and broccoli and returned to ordering ice cream cones at the local MacDonald’s drive through.
I talk about Mary Kay with clients who are overwhelmed by the situations they find themselves in.
Most often, the conditions re so embarrassing that reaching out for support from family and friends can’t happen.
What’s the path through in these situations? I tell clients that I don’t work with people to address problems that are easy. They can do this on their own. I work with clients whose problems do not have obvious solutions.
I offer my clients support and have their backs when we are together. I help them to think their way through the thorny issues that arise and I help them to not feel so alone. Bit by bit, we make progress, until they can find themselves on the other side, whatever form and shape the other side may take.
My client who was divorcing her husband when he died? After a couple years of heavy lifting, she’s happier and feels more centred that she’s ever been.
These situations are not easy and they do not resolve quickly.
But if we soldier on and create a social support system where we do not feel alone, we can manage whatever life throws at us.
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Dr Patricia Turner, PhD, Registered Psychologist in private practice in Calgary, Alberta.