Author: AnneMoss Rogers

AnneMoss Rogers is a mental health speaker and suicide education trainer and consultant. She is author of the Book, Diary of a Broken Mind and co-author of Emotionally Naked: A Teacher's Guide to Preventing Suicide and Recognizing Students at Risk with Kim O'Brien PhD, LICSW. She raised two boys, and lost her younger son, Charles, to addiction and suicide on June 5, 2015. She combines lessons learned from her experience with proven strategies to help organizations build a wellness culture that drives results and saves lives. She speaks at conferences as a keynote, at workplaces,and at K-12 schools and universities.

Happy Birthday to My Ten Year Old Blog & Newsletter

Nine months after my son Charles’ death by suicide, I was still struggling to get out of bed every day. My limbs felt so heavy, it was hard to walk, and even harder to run. But I did.

I had written an article for the newspaper that had taken six months to complete, totaling 1,200 words. It took me so long to write it because I was still processing the loss and I had told myself I wouldn’t send it to the editor until I could end it with a message of hope.

At the first of February 2016, it … Read more...

Eating Disorders in the Asian American Population

by Madison

Four years ago, a feeding tube was carefully threaded through my nose, esophagus, and stomach to deliver 26 vital nutrients. At the same time, my mind wrestled with feelings of betrayal from the attending physicians.

Seen as a last-resort medical intervention, this feeding tube was an attempt to sustain my failing body. My stomach rumbled.

For 25 years, my eating disorder (ED) symptoms raged, leading to this first inpatient stay. I was battling a psychological disorder that had taken over my mind and body, manifesting in an obsession with food, weight, and body image—disrupting my daily life and … Read more...

Is checking your phone first thing in the morning bad for you?

Why checking your phone first thing in the morning might not be the best for your mental health

I can tell you it wasn’t good for me. Something had to change and I had to do the steps to make it happen.

Emotionally it was making me feel sluggish and anxious. I was always feeling like time had slipped away from me.

For my new year’s resolution in January of 2024, I made the pledge that I would not reach for my phone first thing in the morning because it was adding up to be a time suck and I … Read more...

I’m Sorry I Missed Your Last Phone Call

I wrote a post on LinkedIn about my last phone call with my son–the one I didn’t know was my last phone call before his death by suicide. A lovely woman named Catriona Nicholls from Dublin, Ireland wrote this poem below.

She wrote it out right then on my post like my son Charles did when lyrics came to him. No real editing or overthinking it, just writing it out. It reminded me of him and how he operated.

Poem by Catriona Nicholls

I’m sorry I didn’t pick up that day,
I would have if I knew it would turn … Read more...

I Didn’t Ask for Suicidal Thoughts

by Jenny

I wish I didn’t feel this way. It’s an endless mind suck, full of chaos and pain. But, I do. I feel so ashamed that all I wish for is death.

When I speak up, I feel safe for a short while, but like a yo-yo, it snaps right back

I know all the right things to say, and there are times when it’s just easier to say those “right” things so as not to stress or upset someone, even the therapist.

I instinctively back down, afraid I am draining them, afraid I will somehow be punished (to … Read more...

The Power of Kindness

by Michael L. Renner

The power of kindness can not be truly measured. We do not always know how we impact others around us and we would be surprised if we knew how much kindness helps others grow.

It was not my plan it was not my thought
But when the time came it was not for not
I spoke a kind word to a student not mine
I spoke of future and good day wishes divine

She looked at me but could not grin
She looked scared and shattered from thoughts within.
She spent all night not trying to … Read more...

Making peace with regrets

Charles thought we’d given up on him.

There is no putting lipstick on that thought to make it pretty. And denying it won’t make it not true. I drowned in guilt over this for years. And it has resurfaced after a dream in which the phone rang incessantly and I woke up in a cold sweat that something awful had happened.

It had of course. In 2015, my son had taken his life. Why was this coming up now?

Right after he died, I was obsessed about that last phone call.

But it wasn’t the last phone call. There was … Read more...

The Ten Psychiatric Ward Stays in Fourteen Years

shared by guest author, Kevin Hines

An excerpt from CHAPTER 6 of Kevin Hines’ NEW book:

THE ART OF BEING BROKEN, HOW STORYTELLING SAVES LIVES

My first three psychiatric hospital stays were involuntary.

I was forced in against my will. However, the last seven stays up until 2019 were voluntary. I walked into the emergency rooms, head held high, turned to the intake nurse (with a loved one present) and said, “I need to be here, or I won’t be here. I am thinking of suicide.” Each stay was vastly different while simultaneously feeling the same. The difference festered … Read more...

Best of the Emotionally Naked Blog: Find what you need

This website is part of MentalHealthAwarenessEducation.com and was started in 2016 as a blog of over 2k blog posts of my grief journey after losing my son, Charles, to suicide.

This page is a guide for those who want to find specific information for themselves, a friend, or a loved one since there is so much here and hard to find.

Free eBooks are here.

Use this menu to jump to the right section:

Suicide | Grief | Addiction | Mental Health | Charles

Suicide

For those who want to help:

… 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 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 we

… 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...