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As a result, you feel dismissed, ignored, unsupported. How could they do this to you when you need them the most?
Let’s say your child is struggling with substance use disorder and every time you bring up the subject it dies like embers in a fire in a thunderstorm. It could be after you’ve lost someone to suicide or lost a child to any cause of death, everyone seems to disappear. It could be you are simply having a very difficult time and no one has noticed or reached out despite your current state of mind which is very uncharacteristic … Read more...
In 2015, my son Charles took his own life at age twenty during an episode of major depression and withdrawal from heroin. By 2017, I had sold my business and invested myself in suicide prevention which included a focus on postvention, the period following a death by suicide.
To better understand this kind of tragedy and its aftermath from an educator’s point of view, I interviewed several educators, including a Colorado public school teacher who had lost a student to suicide. This teacher offered a chilling account of how her students opened … Read more...
I know there are some people who wonder how I can put one step in front of another after my son Charles’s suicide. I’m not sure how I have managed that either.
Others (I’ve heard second hand) think I just need to quit harping on the “depressing” subjects I speak about and my life would greatly improve. They think if I’d just leave all that behind I’d be skipping through a meadow singing show tunes with daisies and muffins in a basket.
Some think sadness is the stinker I need to lose. But I know denying it would only make … Read more...
We all make them. Judgments and assumptions. And then we make those judgments and react emotionally to them. Once it swirls around in our heads marinating, we can get really angry or sad over these thoughts.
So for example, “Jane” recently shared that she was struggling with her grief after the loss of a close buddy to suicide because she thought her friends thought she should “be over it by now.” She had not known this person but for a few months, not long enough to be so torn up about it so why was she letting it still bother … Read more...
by Lynda Harrison Hatcher
At 2:37pm on a Friday in February, an unknown number lit my mobile screen. “Are you kidding? I’m not answering that,” I said melodically, as I weeded through a storage bin stuffed with an assortment of photos, many of them stuck together from years of moisture. Most would be hurled into the dumpster I’d reserved for the next three days. Early spring cleaning.
Seconds later, a text from the same area code – “That’s weird,” I said, then scanned the words: “Lynda, it’s Lissie. Sam’s friend. Could you please … Read more...
by Kerry Rhodes
So if you know me, you know how much I disliked Taylor having tattoos. When he turned 18, he begged to get a cross on his chest with Frank Woolwine’s name on it. Frankie was his good friend who was killed in a car accident the year before.
I knew better than to think I would stop Taylor once he was 18, so I said let’s go with something small. He agreed and I paid for it for his birthday. If you give Taylor an inch, he could sometimes take a mile. So that one tattoo turned … Read more...
by Elaine Alpert, M.Ed
It was on our younger son’s ninth birthday. You likely know exactly what I mean when I say, “It was the worst day of my life … followed by many more worst days of my life.” Add to that the sleepless nights full of flashbacks … finding Rand with barely a pulse in our backyard, the police accusing us of foul play, and our hospital vigil, praying, begging for him to survive, only to be told it was too late, there was nothing they could do to save our boy.
We’ve all heard the opposite … Read more...
by Kiernan Gallagher, 15 years old
Published with her mother’s permission
Strong emotional content and suicide method referenced. If you are in crisis, text “help” to 741-741 or call 988
One I never wanted to imagine. But instead, I now live it.
They say it gets easier.
It doesn’t. And I knew that from day one.
It’s been over a year and I still remember everything. I still feel everything.
On September 26, 2019, I didn’t go to bed until four in the morning. I woke up four hours later just to get smacked in the face — … Read more...
Link to the podcast website, links to other podcast platforms, and show notes.
Second Act Stories is a podcast that shares the stories of people who have made major career changes to pursue more rewarding lives in a second act. Each episode examines the “before” and “after” phases of a life/career change and offers lessons learned.
I’m thinking about having a memory quilt made which required a visit to the box of my son’s last belongings. Two boxes actually. It’s still hard to believe a whole 20-year life is reduced to two boxes.
My plan is to look through all the clothing to determine which shirts and pants might make good quilt pieces. I smother my face in his little blankie, his scent long gone but the softness of him still wrapped in its essence.
Or it can feel like a link to my youngest … Read more...
Well-meaning and sometimes insensitive people often want you to stop talking about the death of your child, sibling, spouse. Usually, because it makes them uncomfortable.
Maybe your brother is tired of you talking about your child who died ten years after the death? He feels it’s time for you to “move on” and leave all that grief stuff behind you.
A cousin might suggest that you’ve gone to your support group or grief therapist after a spouse’s suicide for too long and isn’t that stalling your sprint back to “normal”? Your sister might even be annoyed that visit your child’s … Read more...
This was a question from one of my talks at a high school from a student. So I thought I would answer it here. The young lady meant that after losing my son to suicide, how did I go on?
At first, it was so brutal I couldn’t fathom living through the pain. I would curl up in the bottom of the shower crying and banging on the walls. But I told myself that as bad as it was right then, it would never be as bad as getting the news of my son’s suicide. That part was over and … Read more...
What’s normal? Is it a prescribed amount for loss of a child the same as the amount of time you’d need for the loss of a spouse? Is it lame to grieve an ex-spouse or a boyfriend to which you had not known long?
If you didn’t grieve as a teen when your sibling died and two years later in college you find yourself drowning in that pain of loss, does it mean you are weak? Are you awful if you don’t shed a waterfall of tears over the loss of your 90-year-old dad who had Alzheimer’s? Are you a … Read more...
Adults don’t know how to grieve, you can bet teens don’t either. Most are completely baffled what it’s all about. And most think “being strong” means denying or pushing away one’s feelings.
The Dougy Center, a foundation for grieving children, has many resources for youth of all ages including teenagers.
Here are links to resources on that website and this one:
Grief Resources for 12-18 year olds (Dougy.org)
Your friend is grieving. How to support them (Dougy.org)
Tips for grieving teens (Dougy.org)
Children, Teens & Suicide Loss eBook from AFSP and Dougy.org. Best book for parents ever!
One really good … Read more...
