When You Can’t Afford to Fall Apart: Grief, Fatherhood & Starting Over with Lee Ehlers
2026-09-03 · 34 min · episode 90 · 12 entities
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When You Can’t Afford to Fall Apart: Grief, Fatherhood & Starting Over with Lee Ehlers
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Feed author/publisher: Lisa Lacy
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Feed category: Personal Journals
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Feed author/publisher: Gamut Podcast Network
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Link in episode "When You Can’t Afford to Fall Apart: Grief, Fatherhood & Starting Over with Lee Ehlers": https://lisalacy.com/
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When You Can’t Afford to Fall Apart: Grief, Fatherhood & Starting Over with Lee Ehlers
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Feed author/publisher: Gamut Podcast Network
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Feed author/publisher: Gamut Podcast Network
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Link in episode "When You Can’t Afford to Fall Apart: Grief, Fatherhood & Starting Over with Lee Ehlers": https://lisalacy.com/
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Link in episode "When You Can’t Afford to Fall Apart: Grief, Fatherhood & Starting Over with Lee Ehlers": https://lisalacy.com/
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When You Can’t Afford to Fall Apart: Grief, Fatherhood & Starting Over with Lee Ehlers
Episode description as stored
What happens when everyone needs you to be okay, but you’re barely surviving yourself?
Hollywood screenwriter and producer Lee Ehlers spent years learning how to survive rejection, but nothing prepared him for the loss of his wife, Erin, or for discovering that sometimes the strongest thing you can do is stop pretending you’re okay.
Lee’s professional breakthrough and personal devastation collided when his feature film EXES was finally being made as his high school sweetheart and wife of twenty years was dying from breast cancer. Suddenly widowed with children who were just 10, 7, and 5, Lee found himself trying to grieve while becoming the person they still needed every day. We talk about the private cost of performing the “strong dad,” the period when alcohol became the only way he could sleep through overwhelming grief, and the moment he
finally admitted, “I’m not okay. I’m struggling.”
In this episode:
Grief after the death of a spouse
Widowed fatherhood and raising children through loss
Performing strength when you’re falling apart
Depression, isolation, and asking for help
Self-medication and coping with acute grief
Why grief doesn’t follow a predictable process
Supporting someone who is grieving without prescribing how they should heal
The strange collision of happy memories and devastating loss
Starting over after losing the person you built your life with
Identity after loss
Persistence through rejection and uncertainty
Nearly two decades of pursuing a Hollywood career
Screenwriting, creativity, and finding your own writing process
What repeated rejection can teach us about survival
The making of EXES
Why saying “I’m not okay” can be the beginning of getting help
Watch Lee Ehlers’ film EXES on Amazon:
EXES on Amazon
Lisa Lacy | Notes From the Edge:
https://www.lisalacy.com
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