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Mercy was my support dog for recovery and two losses by suicide

by Andrea Giannini

My name is Andrea and I am an addict in recovery. My addictions were speed, narcotics, and alcohol. Because of my addictions, I’ve lost friends, significant others, housing, and my dignity. But since getting clean and sober, I have gained family, home, companions, and Mercy.

Andrea and Mercy

My mother gave me this rescue pitbull puppy which was named Angel. After realizing that the rescue dog rescued me, I renamed her Mercy.

Mercy came to me just 2 days after I became free from addiction

My clean/sober date is January 29, 2014, and I received Mercy on … Read more...

Charles’s 28th Birthday, April 26, 2023. Year 8 since his death.

Late last year, I spoke to a class of high school students locally. The teacher said she had been a friend of Charles’s which shocked me. How did she get to be the teacher? Wasn’t she too young? I couldn’t speak for a few seconds. The teacher even shared old pictures I had not seen.

You see I have Charles frozen at age 20.

All those who went to school with him are kind of frozen in my mind, too. I do see his friends, I get that they’ve graduated from college, some have married and his best friend had … Read more...

The day my naïveté left me stranded

Almost everyone can mark the day their innocence walked out the door and harsh reality took its place. It’s that day when your vision of what the world is, where it’s going, and how you are moving through it changes course. Can you remember yours?

Awareness had been stalking me for weeks but had successfully been shoved out of the spotlight by denial, leaving it panting at the periphery of my conscience, anxious to break in and give me news I didn’t want to hear.

My naive mind didn’t want the pieces of the puzzle to fall into place but … Read more...

A perfect life is made up of imperfect days

And success is made up of a bunch of lessons learned from failures.

The screw-ups, break-ups, surgeries, traumas, illnesses, natural disasters, losses, and accidents, are all woven into the tapestry called life. They are not events we want to happen but they do. And the best way to come back after any one of them is to learn and grow from it, not to bury the feelings that go with these experiences. Because if your feelings are covered up and buried, you get stuck in a really raw place for a lot longer than you need to.

This is where … Read more...

Podcast: You’re Living to Prevent Suicide, What Now?” with Anne Moss Rogers

preventing suicide podcast

In this episode, Marci Nettles and Anne Moss Rogers have a conversation about Suicide, losing a loved one to suicide, and HOW to travel through the grief with the pain.

Anne Moss shares her personal story of losing her younger son, Charles, to suicide and the aftermath for herself and her family… How she turned this Tragedy into a Triumphant Purpose in Living to Prevent Suicide. Other mental health podcasts Anne Moss has been on for grief, addiction, mental health, coping are here.

Find this podcast on:

From where I do I draw my
… Read more...

My child has been suicidal. What do I do now?

A what to do, what to say guide for caregivers.

20 pages

Click here for the eBook: My Child Has Been Suicidal. What do I do Now?

These bonus eBooks are included in your email!

This free 20-page eBook is for a parent, guardian, foster parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, etc. It focuses on how you manage the conversations and turmoil of emotions you are experiencing after a child you love has confessed he is suicidal, has attempted suicide, or is coming home after an inpatient hospital stay for suicide risk or attempt. How you react and support does help. Find … Read more...

Trigger or red flag?

A trigger is an event, sound, sight, smell, or touch, that elicits an emotional response or prompts the memory of a trauma or unpleasant event.

A red flag is a warning sign of danger ahead.

A friend of mine, Alissa says that whenever she burns something on the stove it reminds her of a time when her mother cooked crack cocaine on the stove, a period in her life when she and her sisters went hungry, felt unloved, and neglected. While it has taken years, she has learned to appreciate that she endured this journey, is no longer in this … Read more...

Talk About Suicide with Your Family to Save Lives

Explore Two Important Questions for Suicide Prevention

This article is Published in Richmond Family Magazine

Let’s face it, when it comes to communicating with your kids, you’d probably rather talk about sex than suicide. But as a mom who lost a son to suicide in 2015, it’s a conversation you need to have with a young person – even if everything looks okay on the outside. 

My son Charles was the funniest, most popular kid in school and the last person you’d ever expect to take his life. When I looked back later after learning more, I saw obvious signs … Read more...

Must be nice

must be nice

Whether are chatting with friends or scrolling through social media, we’ve all paused and had that thought, “must be nice” in response to something someone else has or has posted. Maybe we have that same stab of jealousy when someone has a swanky car or an enviable handbag.

We tend to dive into this mindset when we are feeling low and have a hard time seeing anything great in our lives due to our current situation. (Which, by the way, is the worst time to be scrolling through social media.)

“Comparison is the thief of joy,” is the saying that … Read more...

I Quit! I’m done….

There are many times I feel insignificant. Like I just don’t matter or no one hears me or sees me. Have you felt that way?

I’ve recognized that the digital world seems to foster that feeling more often so I’ve learned how to manage it and what to do.

This YouTube short is all of 39 seconds. My YouTube #shorts channel.

Let me know what you think. 🙂

I am done! The refueling comment
… Read more...

Don’t let your brain talk you out of what you know in your gut

You get a feeling and then you “logic” your way out of believing your gut. Either from fear, denial, disbelief, or something else.

You don’t want to trust something so kumbaya.

So many times in my life, I allowed my brain to talk me out of what I knew to be true. At times the universe had to present hard and fast evidence for me to believe what was happening right under my nose while my gut had been telling me for days or months.

The most difficult episode was when I didn’t answer my son’s last phone call one … Read more...

Happy Valentine’s Day grieving hearts. My favorite #griefhearts

Valentine’s heart— #griefheart number 217

Valentine’s heart— #griefheart number 217

Several years ago, the pain in my heart from losing my son Charles to suicide was so intense, I needed a way to manage the pain and lessen the suffering. This is a creative exploration of my grieving heart through pictures.

While it didn’t make the pain go away, it helped to have something to scan for daily. From this idea, the #griefheart project was born. That task alone really did give me purpose and meaning.

Here’s what I didn’t expect

Unexpected was the outpouring and sharing of hearts across … Read more...

Depression has many faces. What are the signs?

My son rarely looked sad

We are often conditioned to look for the sad person when we think of depression. The above picture is what I saw, a happy-go-lucky kid with a revolving door of friends. When we finally got a depression diagnosis for Charles after a psychological evaluation I was shocked. I had thought about it but he did not seem to fit the criteria I had been reading. People rarely do.

Charles would live with untreated depression, become addicted to heroin and die by suicide.

Men who live with depression are often irritable and angry during a depressive … Read more...

From suicide loss survivor to post traumatic thriver

They call it post-traumatic growth. I say that with a cringe. Because I didn’t accept this descriptor without denying it and pushing it away because I worried it sounded braggy.

Over the last two years, many have pointed out that I was more than a survivor at this point in my journey.

Post-traumatic growth (PTG) is a theory that explains transformation following trauma

This theory, developed in the mid-1990s by psychologists Richard Tedeschi, PhD, and Lawrence Calhoun, PhD, posits that people who endure psychological struggle following adversity can often see positive growth afterward.

This evolution from survivor to thriver does … Read more...

Lisa’s story. You really can stop suicide with your ears.

youth feel they are not being heard

I told the story about Leo. Now it’s Lisa’s turn.

This one has a whole different outcome, one that still has me in deep reflection months later. It wasn’t without twists and turns. It would be my stomach and my heart that took that journey.

Lisa: “Hey, im a 16 year old girl, im done living it’s too hard, and I don’t just want the pain to end i wanna die im so tired of being here. im planning on doing it this week. before you tell something ive already heard like ” it will get better ”

… Read more...