Toni Lodge shares her experience of losing a parent on It’s A Lot with Abbie Chatfield

This week, Toni Lodge from the Toni and Ryan podcast joined It’s A Lot with Abbie Chatfield to chat about dealing with grief, particularly at a young age.

Toni spoke about how her mother passed away when she was 19, and how – as a teenager – she’d make jokes as a coping mechanism, and how others would tell her that was the wrong thing to be doing.

“I had no idea what to do. I started laughing and talking about it, and people told me not to talk about it. Making a joke about it was my way of saying ‘I need to talk about this thing,’ and no one heard my cry for help,” Toni says.

“I’ve had comments with people saying ‘Well, I’ve lost my mum and I’m really sad, it’s not fair that you’d make jokes.’”

Abby, who spoke about the passing of her grandmother, shared her own experiences, and both agreed that there’s no right thing to say to someone who is grieving.

Toni added that it became difficult for her to interact with others, even with her friends. “I was like ‘treat me like a normal person’. Nobody wanted to talk [to me] about it, but I couldn’t say anything, and they didn’t know what to do about it because they were also 19. Nobody has any emotional intelligence at that point in their life.”

Toni, who revealed it took her five years to see a therapist following her mother’s passing, also shared the guilt and shame she felt while her mum was terminally ill.

“It was emotionally so taxing, that you’re almost like ‘I don’t want her to have to go through this but I’m f***ing sick of going through this as well.’ I think a lot of people don’t want to admit this as well, that you feel really guilty [feeling that],” she said.

“I felt guilty that I felt depressed.”

Listen to the full episode here.