With Therapists: Agnieszka Rdesinska and Jodika McKinley

Back Story

My grief began shortly after Valentines Day 2023 with a breakup of a friend so dear that I had fallen in love with her. At the same time, I found I was in need of an Implantable Cardiac Device (ICD) changeout. That subsequently led to two cardiac ablations and a cardioversion. A mere two months after the last heart procedure, I was diagnosed with cancer. Consequently, I was subjected to further testing and procedures before facing radiation therapy, that concluded just days before Christmas at years end.

Now, twenty some months post friendship loss, nearly as long since the last cardiac scare, and two months shy of the second anniversary of the cancer diagnosis, I wanted to write about ‘healing,’ as grief had recently crept its’ way back in.

Healing

While the trauma and pain from the medical procedures have long since dissipated, I’ve never fully recovered from the loss of her friendship.

Most days had become bearable. Others livable. But some sent me to the bottom of the barrel due to the grief. Few know, until now, I’ve recently had to climb my way from the pits of that barrel, to save my sanity once more

The Pickle Barrel

While living with the fond memories we had created, I believed I was at peace. But things had changed as my thoughts began to dill and the taste lingered much too long. For nearly three full days my stomach curled. Flashbacks of unknown inadequacies, the possibility of not being good enough, to ever loving like that again, grew like the botanical description of the plants associated with dills definition.

At its worse, the peacefulness, began feeling more like an ulcer eating at my nervous system with every breathe I took. Tears were randomly shed at the most inopportune times and lost sleep at night became common again. My feelings and emotions were much worse than the original pain of being left behind without as much as a goodbye or reason as to why we couldn’t still be friends request I had repeatedly asked. I was a mess.

The Climb Out

It began this past March, on the 16th, a reference date she used (3/16) in early 2023 to which I felt was ‘The End of the World‘ as I knew it.

Three-sixteen bothers me. It’s something I haven’t shaken or been given an actual meaning to from her, although I’ve asked, without a response, like the friendship request.

For a few moments on that day, it got worse, as my best friend, someone I trust everything with, happened to be visiting the hometown of the person, as well as the city where she now lives and works during the same week.

Viewing what appeared as the same photos that she had once shared hurt like hell. Then I realized it was my besties face attached to them. Not the other and her children’s. That realization is what finally ‘jarred‘ that grief and brought the smiles back, along with a sense of ease.

“I made it through the pain,” I wrote my bestie, with her not knowing yet what I was talking about. “Do you believe in synchronicities? Two years this past Valentines, two years heart and cancer problems, two therapists, two years no contact and what made me smile most was seeing the three of you visiting (censored) her hometown, and (censored) where she works. Karma, I suppose if she seen you and thought. huh.”

I don’t believe in ‘karma’ as a form of retribution. I don’t like ‘karma’ as it’s wrong to wish anyone pain. No one deserves to suffer in grief, but it happens. Yet, it is more understandable as opposed to that 3/16 reference, which seems to me has been taken from The Book of John, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son” and used directly toward me.

Did she have such a profound ‘caring‘ for me, that by using it, she found her own solace in giving me up without a single word, because she couldn’t find it within herself to hurt me with the truth? I wonder that daily, as there are signs and facts, I’ll keep private, that would make it plausible.

Or did she absolutely loathe me, meaning I meant nothing to her at all? But that would mean all the good things she’d done were meaningless and her way of getting what she wanted. I simply can’t believe that. Or was it a sheer coincidence? I doubt that too, as she’s always had a purpose for anything she does.

No matter how I look at it, it hurts. While the love I feel for her hasn’t changed. Nor will it, regardless of anything she had ever done in her past or who she could be portraying to have been, if it wasn’t herself. I would fully understand her struggles in telling me, if this were the scenario. But not knowing has a way of festering emotions and feelings that seem uncontrollable and painful, to this day.

The Aftermath

Through my own struggles, I’ve wondered where I went wrong in my healing process. Surely it shouldn’t hurt this bad so long after, even if the saying of ‘healing is not linear‘ is true. Deep inside, I know it’s true and is the sole conclusion for that rekindled grief.

Enter my two therapists (each have long sense become good friends as well), Agnieszka Rdesinska and Jodika McKinley. To which I simply asked, “I want to talk to you about doing an article on when those bad days pop back into one’s life. I went through a couple of them that seemed more miserable than those that I’ve lived through already. Would you be willing to help?”

Each agreed and now you’ll be hearing from them here. Am I brave for seeking solace in two profession opinions and combining them to a single piece in an attempt to gather my own peace once again? We shall see, but I’ve nothing to lose and everything to gain. To me it’s worth the risk and hopefully a learning experience for those in need.

Below are their responses.

Agnes

I’m so sorry you’ve felt this way again. I know how deep that kind of pain can go — how it can suddenly flood back, even years later, like it never left. And I want you to know that it’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with you for still feeling it. In fact, it’s a sign that what you experienced was real, and meaningful, and deeply human.

To know love is a little like taking a debt from the Universe — one we pay back with our tears, our ache, our longing when it’s gone. It’s not a punishment, but the cost of having tasted something so powerful. The pain you’re feeling now… it’s the echo of love’s presence, and that means you’ve lived something beautiful, even if it ended.

There’s no shortcut through this kind of sadness. No tactic to erase it or tidy it up. You can distract yourself for a while, sure — and sometimes that helps you catch your breath — but the grief will wait for you. It’s patient. It will keep knocking until you let it in, feel it, and give it the space it needs to move through you.

The only way out is through.

That doesn’t mean drowning in it — it means allowing it. Honoring it. Sitting with it long enough to let it soften into something you can carry, not something that crushes you. ‘Grief and healing aren’t linear’ — sometimes they come back around not to break us again, but to offer us another layer of release.

And when you do that — when you truly feel it, and stop fighting the reality of what was — something shifts. You begin to make peace with what is, and gently, slowly, your heart clears space for what could be.

You don’t have to rush. You don’t have to be okay today. Just know that you’re not broken. You’re healing. And you’re not alone.

There was a lot to ‘feel’ in Agnes’s words and although it didn’t fully resonate after a single reading, they gained momentum as I re-read it. In her words, she showed me love and remorse with encouragement. With that, more tears began to flow as I realized I had help getting through this portion of healing.

She had told me long before, ‘the only way out was through’. But perhaps, I had taken it too lightly and not fully grasped what to expect. I reminded myself this is the first time in my life I’d ever felt this type of love and pain, so it is all new. Sure enough, the grief was waiting for me, just as she said it would be. However, from now on, I’ll be looking for it instead,

Jodika

If I were to be by your side as an angel on your shoulder—offering advice to counter the demon on the other shoulder, the one whispering that you should be sad, upset, angry, defeated, and filling your mind with skewed thoughts about that past relationship—I would say this:

Yes, it’s 3/16. It’s been two years since the friendship ended; two years since the possibility of love was crushed before it ever had the chance to properly take flight. But let’s really look at things for a moment. This was someone who never fully communicated her intentions for the relationship, so we’ll never truly know where she hoped it would—or wouldn’t—go.

What we do know is that you two became close during a time when you were deeply vulnerable. She played a significant role in your life as a close friend, and when she left, she played another role—that of someone who wasn’t fully showing up for herself. She couldn’t be honest with you about her intentions, whether platonic or romantic. She didn’t have that capacity. She didn’t show up for the connection, and that was, and still is, deeply painful.

But now, two years later, here we are. Here’s your chance to truly reflect on whether—or how much—you’ve been able to let her go. When will that time come? Because pain only lingers when you keep holding onto the rope that’s cutting into your hand.

When will you find the strength within to believe that it can be good again? That you can have something better—something real, long-lasting, and with someone you can fully rely on because you’re both leading with intention.

When will it be time to look in the mirror and make new choices—choices that align you with your next soulmate? Because we do have more than one soulmate. Perhaps she was one of them, and maybe that’s why it’s been so hard to let her go. But can you trust that by fully releasing her, another will come—at the right time.

Of course, it’s going to take work. It’s going to require you to shed the layers that no longer serve you in every area of your life. It will call you to face parts of yourself you’ve buried, to release lack mentality, and to step into a sovereign state of being—one rooted in total self-awareness.

Nothing good comes easy, and nothing easy is truly good.

Jodika made me think. Question things. Had me looking inside myself for strength. But most importantly had said something neither therapist had said to me before. Yet it was something that I needed to hear from someone other than my own mind.

It wasn’t all my fault. She had not done the things she needed to do that would’ve eased my grief and possibly hers as well. Even after I asked, “what can we do to fix this” early on, I was left without a word. She never showed up when she should have.

For two years I’ve wanted to say it. To yell it. To type it. But I couldn’t. i was still protecting her from the pain I felt. Soulmate or not, as I’m looking in the mirror, I see the reflection was backwards. And it’s those backward visions that caused my renewed grief.

I feel good realizing it. Better knowing it. And relieved I’m finally typing it.

It was not all my fault. It was hers too.

“I Know I’m Who I Am Today Because I Knew You.” – From Wicked

I hope you do too. – From Me

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