Navigating spousal loss often exposes deep emotional wounds that require practical tools and a genuine community. Dr. Tina Fornwald connects with licensed clinical social worker, grief specialist, and one of the hosts of GRIEF Ladies, Kelly Daugherty, to discuss traumatic grief recovery and effective healing modalities. Many grieving individuals find themselves stuck on the painful death scene of their loved one, which prevents them from accessing fond memories. Processing trauma first allows you to clear the emotional roadblocks that keep you trapped in survival mode. Kelly shares her personal story of losing her mother at fourteen, navigating life with an alcoholic parent, and finding her calling as a grief therapist. Together, they explore how modalities like EMDR and progressive counting help reframe painful memories so you can move forward with love rather than pain. I am sharing my experience of loving the same man for 32 years, a mother to two adult children, a retired military officer, a breast cancer survivor, and my connections with others. Anyone experiencing suicidal thoughts should reach out to a suicide hotline or local emergency number in their country: Psychology Today Suicide Hotlines and Prevention Resources Around the World. — Watch the episode here Listen to the podcast here Healing Traumatic Loss And Death Scenes With Kelly Daugherty Welcome back to the show. Our conversation with Kelly is going to open your mind to the idea you don’t have to stay stuck at the moment the person you love died. Hear me again. Sometimes your memories, sometimes what you’re thinking has kept you in the place in the moment in which they died. The memories of the love and the experience and everything you have are so hard to reach. This conversation with Kelly is going to empower you to think beyond that moment in what is possible for you. Let’s get into this discussion now.     Kelly, welcome to widowhood. Thank you so much for having me. “Thank you for having me to the widowhood.” What’s the backstory when you think about it deeply? What comes to mind? A lot of my clients. That’s what I think about. I think about what I’ve witnessed with them, what I’ve seen them go through, but also the transformations that I’ve seen with them. The ups and downs of grief are not linear and predictable. It’s a bit of a hot mess. That’s true. Going from there, let’s start with your story and your personal experience as it relates to grief. Overcoming Early Loss and Unspoken Family Struggles My mom died when I was fourteen. She died from breast cancer and I was struggling a great deal after that. My sisters moved out shortly after my mom died, so it was just my dad and I. My dad was an alcoholic at the time, so things were not good at home. My mom did it all and my dad just worked. I didn’t have a relationship with my dad to be completely honest. The good news is, my dad recognized I was having a hard time. He basically forced me to go to a hospice grief group for teens. The way he got me there was, I went to an all-girls Catholic High School and fifteen years old, being a little boy crazy. All it took was him saying there would be boys in the group. That’s what got me to go, but I walked into that room and my life changed. I met an amazing social worker. I knew I wasn’t alone in my grief anymore, and that’s how I had felt up into that point. Doing work with the hospice social worker and then also doing a lot of family with my dad. My dad did get sober. I threatened to run away and told him if he didn’t get sober, that’s what I was going to do. I was very determined to do that and he did. He didn’t get into AA for about two years after that, but he did. My dad died a few years ago. At the time of his death, he had been sober for almost 30 years and in AA for almost 28 years. Because of that, and because of his push, I’m talking to you. If he hadn’t had me go to that group and hadn’t had me meet Renee, the social worker, I would have never even known what to expect, and what to understand about grief. Renee, after a while, asked me to start volunteering with the Children’s Program. Slow down. We need to circle back a little bit. Growing up with a father, your mom passed. Was your dad an alcoholic before your mom died? Yes, for my entire childhood. That’s something to grieve along with everything else. Absolutely. When I talked with my sisters about it, they were 7 and 9 years older. The oldest has the most memories. My mom sheltered me a lot. I was still young enough that I didn’t realize what it was all. There were some memories that I’ve worked on in therapy. I’m grateful I have because they were difficult and hard. Especially the last Christmas with my mom. My dad was drunk. There was a situation with the Christmas tree. It was something that always eat and bothered me. When I got trained to EMDR, I was like, “I’m going to work on this memory,” and I did. I’m grateful I did that work because I was able to have a very different relationship with my dad because of doing that. Thank you. You mentioned EMDR. Can you share a little bit? I don’t want to make an assumption that everyone reading knows different acronyms, modalities and things. I want to always make sure we slow down and unpack. Reprocessing Traumatic Death Scenes With Clinical Modalities EMDR is eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. It’s like the gold standard of trauma therapy. It’s been around since the early 1990s. Francine Shapiro developed it. It uses bilateral