When Your Loved One Chooses Death with Alexandra Wyman

You know you need something, you're just not sure what. You've been listening, you're doing the work, but there's still this feeling that you're circling the same place, like you're waiting for the thing that finally moves you. Now maybe you've thought about working with me one-on-one. Maybe something's held you back, the timing, the money, or you're just not sure you're ready yet. I get that. And I want you to know there's still a place for you. I built a resource for exactly this moment, guided meditations for when the waves hit and you just need to breathe. Workbooks to help you get out of your head and onto the page, ebooks on what near-death experiences tell us about the people we've lost, and whether they're really gone, a full course for widows and widowers who are ready to find their way back to living, and a full course for the evidence of the afterlife. And all of it is available for pay what you want. Nobody gets turned away because of money. I think these resources are valuable, but I don't want to hold them back because you don't have the money to pay for them. You don't have to wait until you're ready for coaching. The next step might be a lot smaller than you think. To find out, go to grief2growth.com/store. That's grief, the numeral 2, growth.com/store. And check out the resources I've made for you. Hey everybody, this is Brian. Welcome back to the Grief 2 Growth Podcast. I want to extend a warm welcome to all of our new listeners who are joining us for the first time. This podcast is a safe space where we explore many of the facets of grief, personal growth, and belief in the afterlife. We share stories, insights, and techniques to help you navigate life's most challenging moments. Today's episode is particularly special as we have the privilege of hosting Alexandra Wyman. Alexandra is not only an advocate and a public speaker, but she's also a very courageous individual. She's experienced the profound impact of loss in her own life. She tragically lost her husband to suicide in August of 2020. And after that, she felt compelled to change the conversation around suicide. Her memoir is entitled The Suicide Club: What to Do When Someone You Love Chooses Death. And it touched the hearts of many, has become an Amazon bestseller. She's taken her advocacy to various conferences, including the Bridging the Divide Suicide Prevention and Awareness Summit in 2022, the 2023 Northwest Conference on Childhood Grief, the 2023 Military Social Work and Behavioral Health Conference. She's also been selected to present at the International Association of Suicide Prevention Conference in 2023 in Slovenia. Not only is she an inspiring speaker and author, but she's also shared her insights on numerous podcasts such as The Unlocked Moment, She Persisted, and My Wake Up Call. Additionally, she hosts her own podcast, which is called The Widows Club. Her dedication to raising awareness about suicide and offering support to those who are affected aligns perfectly with what we do here at Grief 2 Growth. And together, Alexandra and I will delve into her journey, into the challenges she's faced and the strength she's found through her experiences. So whether you've personally experienced loss, if you're passionate about mental health advocacy, or you just want to seek inspiration for your personal grief or growth journey, this episode is for you. And before we get started, I just want to tell Alexandra, I really admire your your courage and your dedication helping other people to be doing this so soon after the passing of your husband. And I want to give you my condolences.

Oh, well, thank you so much, Brian. And thank you for having me on your show and giving me the opportunity to speak a little bit more about my experience.

Well, I'm really excited about this interview today. And the way this is a subject that people struggle to even speak about. And it's hard to find people to talk and help other people feel, you know, comfort and company as they go through the journey. So we were talking earlier, I know your husband's name is Sean. So tell me about Sean, first of all.

Oh my gosh. So Sean was the classic life of the party. Such a big jokester. He was a very, very bright storyteller. I— he would— he was a mechanic, and I never really understood the logistics, or I don't— I don't have that kind of mindset. My brain doesn't work that way. So he was just very mechanically minded and he would tell these really long stories about stuff happening at work and I would just be enraptured. I'd have no idea really what he was talking about, but I just had to hear the whole story. He was a great dad, just a lot of fun, very musically inclined. He could hear, you know, even if a car was backing up and beeping, he could turn that into a song and love to create new songs for our son and just really handy, very creative. He'd tell me, I have, I've got this idea for a painting and go into our basement and then come back out with a painting like 2 hours later. So just, just someone who had a lot of talent. He never really felt that he was talented or really saw his own talent, but definitely was someone that people looked up to. And he was very loyal and such a good friend. And yeah, just a very fun person to be around.

And how long were you guys together?

So we, um, were married just under 2 years and then together for about 3 years.

Okay. And I— in terms of his passing, his suicide, did you have any indication that this was coming, or how was that like for you?

Yeah, no indication at all. It was, it was a complete shock, and Through the whole process and looking, you know, in hindsight, we kind of go back, look for signs, look for something that would have given us a clue that something like this was coming down. And the truth is, I didn't have any of that. I did know, you know, Sean did experience some childhood trauma. And I will say that I was privileged enough that he felt that he could share that with me. I found out posthumously that he was not as open about a lot of his experiences with other people who are close in his life. But he was open with me about those things, and I didn't really understand the level of impact. And I think that is something I've learned since he's passed. And really, there's no, no prediction, which is really hard. Someone could have the same experiences Sean had had and still be alive today. So it was definitely very much a shock. And I knew that there are a lot of stressors. We had family stressors going on. It was in the midst of COVID still trying to figure that out. Our son had just turned 1. That in and of itself can be a challenge. And then being married and trying to navigate a relationship and a house and manage all of these things definitely created some additional stress. And I think that's essentially where things came down to, is just not knowing how to manage or handle all of the stress that was kind of compounding on him. And just a couple of days before he passed, we had been talking about vacations we wanted to take after COVID had lifted. We talked about expanding our family. There were all sorts of things that were future plans that we were discussing and doing. So there wasn't anything— the classic idea of giving things away or expressing that you want to end your life. These were not things that even were a part of what was happening before he died.

Yeah, I think when it comes to suicide, we often want to try to understand it. We want to be able to say that we could have predicted it, or we can predict it. And from my understanding, and I'm sure you know a lot better than I do, that there's no one classical way that people present before they make that decision.

That has been my experience. Um, very early on after Sean died, I joined a suicide-specific support group.. And I've met lots of people who've come through that group. Um, and I still participate in it to this day. Mm-hmm. And I found that seems to be the thing. There's, there's nothing— there could be certain characteristics that might be similar, but there's nothing to the effect of you could say, here's the magic, here's the magic thing that we're finding is in every person who dies this way. Mm-hmm. Um, one of the things I will say, cuz I'm often asked like, is there something you wish you'd known? Is there something You know, honestly, after— right before Sean died, and then I continued after, I started trying to do my own reading about understanding trauma, how it impacts the brain. I've always been fascinated with the brain. That was something that was already an interest prior to Sean's death, and looking at like, okay, how does trauma actually impact the brain? What lights up differently for individuals who've had this kind of, you know, um, sustained trauma in childhood? And Again, there's no predictability to it, but that is something I wish I had understood a little bit more about what happens between survival brain and then coming out of that, you know, in order to find like better coping skills to help individuals who've experienced trauma. But they're really, you know, there aren't any two people I know that have the exact same story for how their people die or what was happening before. Their loved ones died.

Yeah, that's been my, my limited experience as well. And I think that question, you know, is there anything you wish you'd known differently? It comes from the sense that we want to have a sense of control of our lives. And we want to be able to say, I can look at this. And I can predict this, but that also can lead to guilt. I know there's a lot of emotions around suicide. So what were some of the emotions that you went through after Sean's passing?

Oh, well, guilt, guilt was very big, uh, and I still have my moments with guilt. Shame, definitely. Uh, there was a lot of self-blame. What did I do? And in my situation was a little complicated. I did have other individuals who actually did openly blame me for John's death, and so I had to work, work through that. Um, there's so much sorrow. I mean, that's gonna— I think sometimes we'd say like maybe that's a given. I don't know. Initially my anger was less towards him because there was almost an understanding of you have to be in a lot of pain to get to a point where you're going to end your life, because that's not an easy act to go through. Um, and so I, I had this understanding about that, even though, um, I, I wish the outcome had been different. But definitely the three that were the most, uh, the largest, and, um, were the guilt, shame, and, and that self-blame. And it took a while for me to actually start to unravel those and and be able to come to a place of— I wouldn't say that they're gone. Like I said, I still have my moments of maybe I could have done this differently, or I do feel guilty about how I handled this situation or that one. And I think that's just part of my healing process. But those were definitely the ones that were the largest initially.

I would imagine that one that you might have would be a sense of maybe abandonment. That maybe, you know, uh, you know, wasn't I, you know, and I hate to even say this, but good enough to keep him here or make him, make, make them want to stay. And this is not just for a wife, this would be for if you lost a child or anybody else. I, I've heard people say, like, if I could have been better, that they would have chosen to stay.

Stay with us, we'll be right back.

You know, one of the hardest things about grief? Most of the people in your life just don't get it. They want you to be further along than you are. They get uncomfortable when you bring it up, so you stop bringing it up. And that's why I started writing. My Substack is where I go deeper. Thoughts I don't always get to on the podcast. Essays on consciousness, on continuing bonds, on what it actually means to carry loss and still build a life. The stuff that used to keep me up at night, written out in a way that I hope meets you in the morning. But here's what I didn't expect when I started it: the community that showed up. People who are doing exactly what you're doing— listening, learning, trying to find their footing. Readers who comment, who share their own stories, who remind each other that none of us are as alone in this as we feel. And that's what the Substack has become— a place to go deeper with me and to find your people. It's feel free to subscribe. Find me at grief2growth.com/substack. That's grief, the numeral 2, growth.com/substack. Or just go to Substack and search for Grief to Growth. I hope to see you there.

You know, what's interesting is I actually haven't gone that route of, you know, why wasn't I enough for you to stay? I have gone the route of though, this was not part of our deal. That's one that my therapist hears quite a bit. This was not our agreement. This is not how we planned things to go. And you're right with that idea of sense of control, as you mentioned earlier, is control and predictability create a feeling of safety. And that's just how we want to— I think as human beings, we're constantly looking for that feeling of safety and security. And, but I definitely was like, this, this was not part of our, this was not part of our plan. Uh, you know, we were expanding. Like I said, we were planning, we were expanding. And then what, like for me, there's like, what just happened? And there's no way of knowing. I'm like, what happened between this time and this time? Because clearly something shifted and changed. And then this is the end result.

Yeah. And I think that, again, that, that feeling of wanting to have control, but then that can also lead, I think, to the feelings of guilt that we have. Because if it's true that I should have been able to see this coming, well, then somehow, at least a little bit of it is my fault. So what do you say to people that are, that have had someone who's taken their life? And they're like, they're turning the blame to themselves?

Yeah, it's so complicated. And those feelings are, are just so common, real and huge. We, I I'll say culturally we have this idea almost, and I think with the way that suicide prevention, and I'm all for suicide prevention, I'm for the hope and help and getting to people and getting that message across and having that connection. I think though, it also creates this sense of we're superheroes and can save people. And if someone ends up dying by suicide, that somehow we have failed because we weren't able to save them. And that to me is just a very slippery slope. And that can definitely have a snowball effect to continue that idea of self-blame. And then what it does is it takes kind of the responsibility off of the individual. And it took— again, took me a while to get to a point of saying, ultimately, this was Sean's choice. That's painful. It's painful to say that. It's painful to go, oh my gosh, out of everything that was available that we talked about or could have talked about, this this is what ended up happening. And I do think that for someone to get to a point that they want to end their life, the pain is just that severe. And we don't see it, right? We don't see it like we do something like cancer. We don't see it like we do other forms of death. We're like, well, obviously you would want your pain to end because we can see how much pain you're in. But often with emotional pain, we don't see it. And so I think that there's that piece of it is really coming to terms with the fact that someone made a choice that they would have rather died than lived. But also, we tend to project our ideas of the state we're in in making that decision. If I'm healthy and I'm feeling great, then of course it wouldn't cross my mind to end my life. But we project that onto someone who's in that much pain, and I think that makes it more difficult. And I think when we can shift our mindset from we— it was like, for me, it was my job to save him— to this was his ultimate choice to end his pain. I think it creates an opportunity to have a little bit more compassion, because instead of focusing on the death, let's focus on how much someone was hurting. And I feel like that gives us a little bit more space to have that compassion and then relieve us of the responsibility. And again, there are things within my own situation that I wonder, could I have done this differently? Could I have done that differently? And the truth is, I could have, and the outcome could have still been the same.

Right.

And having to kind of separate myself from that, and it's hard, it's painful, because I still wonder and have a little bit of that, you know, if he had just picked up the phone, if he had just texted me back, you know, those things that we say. And, and, and I can spend so much time and energy focusing on that, or I can make a decision and say, I need to start focusing on how I start putting one foot in front of the other and start my healing journey. Yeah.

Well, those what-ifs, I want to say to someone who lost a child, but not by suicide, and who has talked to hundreds, if not thousands of parents who've lost children at this point, we all go through those what-ifs. What if I had taken her to a different doctor? What if I called her that morning? You know, what if we all go through all those what-ifs. I think with suicide, it's particularly, um, maybe we go through particularly so much because it is a choice, at least ostensibly it's a choice, right? You know, I know that they're— that these people are in such pain that they feel that they have to end it, but we see from the outside, it's like it's a choice. They chose to do this. And then that— then, then it comes down to that, that human question, okay, whose fault is it? Because it's got to be somebody's fault. And so we have to either blame them or blame ourselves or blame both of us. And that, that's why I love what you said about like, just accepting the fact that this was their choice is, I think, a long way to go to relieving your own guilt. That's not going to do you any good anyway.

Absolutely. And I, you know, the thing with suicide is you're always going to be left with that question of why. I can sit here and say, I speculate that the compounding stress, you know, continued to impact. And with, with that, with the history of trauma and not great coping skills, this all compounded on Sean, and this is what led to the decision. I can hypothesize that, but I have no idea, right? And that's what's so hard about this type of death is you don't get— you don't get the answer. And in fact, my sister, one time we had been talking about it, and I was like, you know, when I see him again, I'm gonna ask him. I'm gonna look and be like, dude, why did you do this? And she, she was like, and by the time it's your time, you might not even care anymore. And I was like, oh, that's a good point, good point. But it's true, like, you just are left with this. And it— and it— and again, we as, as the survivors get to have that choice. Are we going to sit here and run through, be on that hamster wheel of trying to answer a question we we don't get that answer to while we're here on Earth? Or are we going to say— and I— and what I like to say is find an anchor, find that thing that you can attach to that's still here on this Earth and living. That's going to be the thing that when you're getting on that hamster wheel, when you're having that harder day, is going to help you just to even put one foot in front of the other by a half inch, because that's where the movement is. And then, and then it'll lead you to to more growth.

I love that. So what's the anchor point for you?

Oh, totally my son. I say if I, if I didn't have my son— very early on I knew, I, I had said, I know that this situation is going to impact both of us. And I'll be honest, I still have tantrums. That's right, I'm in my 40s and I still say I have tantrums over my grief process and how much it still impacts me. Um, but what I didn't want was this to dictate our lives to a point that it would just be— and he was just over 1, um, and so that's been my thing is how can I heal to teach my son lessons of how to have healthier coping skills, excuse me, how to be able to embrace the emotions and the feelings that he has and to be allowed to feel those and to work through them in a healthy manner. And I knew that I couldn't do that unless I started putting one— it took me a while, to be honest. Yeah.

Yeah.

But to put one foot in front of the other.

Well, I want to say this again, because I know, having lost someone and knowing what the process is like, for you, it's just over 3 years for you. And I want people to understand that this is still very, very raw. 3 years is very early in this process. So again, my hat's off to you for doing these interviews and doing the podcast and writing the book and, and being so open, helping people step through, you know, these, these early days of this because they're very difficult. And, you know, we can, we can sit here and talk and rationalize about like, I shouldn't have anger, I shouldn't have guilt, but we're human. And you're, you're left in a very, you know, difficult situation having to deal with all these emotions and all the, all the things. I know you, you talk about, um, even just the, the little— not the little things, but the, the things we have to go through, like planning funerals and all that kind of stuff. I would imagine you weren't even thinking about that at your age, and, you know, with your husband.

Oh, not at all, not at all. And he didn't have a will, so that complicated things even more. Uh, that— no, this was absolutely not a situation I would ever, ever thought that I would find myself. I I was someone who bought into the conditioning of what a successful life looked like. You, you go to school, you meet someone, you buy your house, you have your kids, your white picket fence, your animals, and you retire. And, and I was literally— I was in my 30s when I met Sean, and I was so excited. Once I was like, oh, check, check, check, now I have this successful life. I'm legit. I've made it, right? And then just short of 2 years of our of our second wedding anniversary was just like, oh, okay, that is not— and that's, that's been my biggest lesson, I would say, is that so often it's we're looking for life to be predictable. What's predictable externally? What is it that externally is going to help us feel better rather than turning inward and figuring out, no, what's predictable is how we respond to things. What's predictable is me trusting myself that I can handle whatever life throws me. And this is all growth that I've done since Sean died. I did not feel this way at all before he died. And, uh, and being able to understand— and I, I've even said multiple times, like, haven't I— have— isn't this loss enough for life? Like, have I not just checked off now the list of, like, I've had enough happen? Like, can I just coast the rest of the way?

Yeah.

And the truth is, no. Nope, I don't get to coast. And things are still going to happen, but it's through this healing process I can again, as I said, learn to trust myself so that I know that even if I don't have the answers for how to handle something, I can learn to. And I'm able to look to people like you to be able to get tips and tricks on how to handle things.

Yeah, what you just said is so, so— I understand because you feel like when you go through something like this, losing someone so close to you, it's like, okay, that's That's enough. That's enough for a lifetime. But life continues to throw challenges at us. And that's, you know, that's part of the process. But what did you learn about yourself after, after Sean's passing? What, what, what did you find in yourself?

Oh, well, the trust was a big one. I wasn't necessarily raised to actually trust myself or know that I could make solid decisions and follow through with them. And know that it's okay to make mistakes and fail. And it's all learning. It's all learning and growing. So that was a big one because initially, I mean, a big thing for me was how am I going to do this? Am I going to keep my house? How am I supposed to raise a child on my own? You know, there— I still work through this. Oh my goodness. Am I going to end up destitute on the street with my child? Which, no, I have enough support and family that I know that that wouldn't happen. These are all those things that come running through your head. Am I going to be able to financially take care of us? You know, there's so many different aspects of that. And I'll say that even now I'm still learning that I can do it. I mean, I often— my therapist is amazing and he's specifically a grief therapist, which I do recommend for people if they're going to find one, to find someone who actually is trained either in trauma or in grief. And he'll reflect back to me. He'll be like, but look what you've already done. Look how you've been able to handle these situations already. Because when you're tunnel vision and in the moment and you're just surviving, you're just trying to get through day by day and minute by minute, you don't always have that opportunity to take a step back and look at it. So trusting myself is definitely a big one. And another— I mean, there's been a lot that I've had to heal over the type of person I was before Sean died and now who I am after. Um, I do miss my sense of humor. I'm hoping one day it'll come back a little bit more. Um, that kind of, that kind of is gone for a little bit. Um, but even things of just recognizing how insecure I was and how that impacted the relationship Sean and I had. And we had, we, I mean, he was one of the first people I ever felt like I could 100% be myself. All the good, bad, ugly, everything about it. We could talk about anything and everything. And I still recognized the insecurities. I still recognized how much I was trying to control certain situations in order to feel that predictability and safety. And so letting go of some of that and surrendering, I guess surrender would be another, another big lesson of not only trusting myself and surrendering that I have to almost let things play out in front of me first.

Yeah, yeah. Well, you talked about your sense of humor. And hopefully that'll come back one day, and it will. Again, I want to say to you that this is still very early in the process. But when people go through this, and we're so profoundly changed, and we lose some of those aspects of ourselves that we feel like it's going to be this way forever. So I know it's, it's only been a short time for you, you know, 3 years. But what changes— and I asked you what, you know, what you've seen as far as growth, but have you seen yourself heal? Do you find those moments of joy now? I know maybe not all the time, but— and what was that like when you first like caught yourself having a moment of joy?

Yeah, such a good question. And I'll say, I absolutely have those moments of joy. And I love that we're having this conversation now with it being just over 3 years, because I actually recently just had a whole nother layer of grief become more apparent to me. And, and I don't know if you've ever— if you've had that in your own process or, or journey. And it kind of hit me a little bit because I was like, I'm doing well, I'm doing really well. I've like got my career, I'm handling stuff, figuring stuff out and parenting. And then this whole other layer of grief just hit me and I went, oh nope, okay, got a little bit more to do. Which of course is where my frustration may come up Uh, because I'm like, great, you know, this is something that I have that's going to be with me for the rest of my life, and it will morph and change and shift. But I was a little, a little frustrated on that one. But my point in that, yeah, was that I started to notice that there was a little decrease, and I was having a few more harder days, and then trying to find those moments of joy. And I'll say, in the immediacy after Sean died, um, one of the first things that came through to me where it took me a moment was I realized my son's been in swim lessons since he was about 7 months old, and I realized I was looking forward to taking him to swimming. And it was the first time I was looking forward to something, because you're right, I— it feels impossible. It feels like this grief is just impossible. There's no way to move through it. There's that it is permanent, that I won't get any of myself back. And that first moment of going, wait a second, I'm actually feeling a little excited about doing something. And that was— and, and to me, it was after that moment. I think there were moments of joy that were happening all around me the whole time, but I just wasn't able to see them because of how heavy that grief was. And once I saw that one moment, I started to see more and more, and then I started to feel a shift of my harder days were becoming less. My good days were becoming more. And like I said, it's still very much a roller coaster and up and down. And those moments of joy still exist now, even just hearing my son giggle, like the really heavy belly giggles are good too.

Yeah, well, you just described it very well. I think grief, grief is, it's a roller coaster. And I've heard described as like, it's like being in the ocean with waves are coming. And the thing about the waves, at first they're totally unpredictable, they're huge, they just totally wipe you out. Then they become more predictable and they get farther apart. But there's also, as you said, we work at it at different layers and different levels. And a lot of times anniversaries will trigger us to reflect on where we are. So we, we'll be going along, we think we're okay, and then a birthday will come up or an anniversary will come up and it's like boom, you feel like You're right back where you were, where you started. You're not, but it kind of feels that way.

Oh yes. And I then— so Mother's Day and Father's Day, I didn't think those would be the days. Um, but Mother's Day and Father's Day are the ones I'm like, I just don't want to celebrate these at all. Um, and it is interesting how in that moment, um, I can feel like I am at day zero and it's almost like just a flood of those emotions are right there with me and I'm just experiencing everything all over again. And I have had times where I've been frustrated with myself of, shouldn't I be far— like the shoulds. Shouldn't I be farther than this? Shouldn't I have healed more than this? Why am I reliving this so closely again? But the truth is, that's just kind of how it works after it, after this kind of trauma. And I completely agree with you about the oceans. Like sometimes it's a squall, sometimes you're in a nice Reef. Yeah, never know. But I do like the sense of— I— and with that analogy, um, I had someone recently say the more we heal and start trusting ourselves, the more we're prepared and have an understanding of how to handle when those waves come. And I thought that was really good too, because again, I forget sometimes how far I have come, and then I go, oh, that's right, I can Oh, that's right. I can take a step back. You know, if I need to let my boss know I need to take a day or go do some self-care that I might need a little bit more to work through this.

Yeah, well, you know, there's always this— to me, it's like figure out which is true. Does the grief get easier? Or do we get stronger? And maybe it's both, but I think we get stronger.

So I like that. I haven't thought of it that way. But I like it.

Yeah, I think, I think we do. I think we get stronger. We, I mean, because there are those times when it's just like, you know, you're just like, I'm done. I don't want to go, I don't want to go through this again. Or you feel like you're right back to where you were before, but you bounce out of it more quickly is what I've noticed.

Yes. Yep, absolutely. I've had that experience too, where it could be, you know, instead of weeks and weeks and, and months of reliving everything, to maybe it's just a couple days. And then I'm right back. And I could notice that. That's a really good point though, of getting stronger, because I haven't really, really thought of it. I just was like, well, with time maybe grief just dissipates a little bit. But I do like that idea of as we're healing— and I, and I did have actually someone else ask me one time very point-blank, are you healing or are you just coping? Well, that's, that's a fair point too. Sometimes I might feel like I'm healing and I'm actually just coping. And no matter which one it is, it's what I need in the moment. And then as long as I continue to work through— and that's a big one for me, is you have to work through it. And it's awful, but to ignore the feelings is worse. And that's where I feel like people get stuck, is when you ignore the feelings or ignore what's happening versus— I call it sludge, you know, work through the sludge, because those moments of joy are there. Just have to be able to see them.

Yeah, healing is one of those words when it comes to grief that I'm still undecided on, because I use the word sometimes. But it implies that grief is a disease, and grief is something to be gotten over. It's, it's a, it's a very medical type of model. And I think grief is a challenge. I think it's something that— and I have a client, I love what she said about— she said, my grief is a companion, I'm going to carry it with me for the rest of my life. And my grief has taught me a lot. It's caused me a lot of pain, but it's also taught me a lot. And it's, and it's caused her to grow. And this is a person who lost her fiancé. So it's, grief is a very interesting thing that we go through. But that, because then we get into healing, then people are like, well, shouldn't I be over it by now? And we get into like, should I be further, you know, shouldn't I be further along? And Sometimes people get really upset if you said, well, you're going to have the grief with you for the, you know, for the rest of your life, because then it sounds like it's almost a terminal thing or a permanent thing. But it's not. We just— it changes us in various ways. And just having this conversation with you, I can see how it's, how it's changed you. And it helped us to— we look at the world differently. So it's a, it's a mixed bag, I think.

Oh yes. And I think it's so unpredictable. And I think that's what's so hard is we like things to fit into boxes and be linear. If I just do this, then this is how I'm gonna feel. If I just, you know, it doesn't work that way. I like the idea of the companion. Um, recently I was telling someone that I want to, I'm horrible with social media or like being able to put anything together. Um, but I wanted, I wanna make my own little poster meme that's, you know, has a budding rose or really nice flower. So this is how I wish my grief looked. And then next to it would be Gollum from Lord of the Rings and be like, but this is actually what it's like. Because it is so hard. I mean, in the companion thing, I think it's just about learning. It's almost like a dance in a way, I think of it. You're just learning how to find rhythm. With this thing that you have and being able to understand that it is with you. And it is— some days it's going to make you a better person, and some days you might feel like you've gone backwards. And all of that is part of the process. And now you do have a relationship, especially I think with such a close loss or such a big loss, that you just have a different relationship with the grief. And it's— and I do agree that you are changed and it does change how you, how you look at life and how you approach life. And that's something that's been really hard for me for my acceptance piece is that I am around people where I can tell they're still trying to connect with me. They're still trying to relate with me in ways that worked before and it just doesn't work now. And I can see the kind of reaction they want. I can see what they're trying to do. And yet I feel So stuck because I can't give them that because that's just not who I am anymore. And so trying to kind of figure out, well, who am I and how can I relate differently? And, and that is still very much a process that I'm in now of how do I connect with people now, especially people who knew me before?

Yeah, that's a really good point. Because one thing that people— a lot of times we go through a profound loss, it's surprising people, we will, we will lose friends, sometimes even family members. We'll lose people because we're different. They feel uncomfortable around us for whatever reason. But on the other hand, I always find we always pick people up too, people that we might not have expected. So you kind of touched on a little bit earlier, you don't have to go into any detail if you don't want to. But you said, I know you said you felt some guilt, you know, after Sean's passing. But you said other people were putting guilt on you also, which is just unbelievable that someone would do that.

Well, I agree. I mean, a big part of this and what I'm doing now is how can we shift from that blame and judgment and anger and turn to compassion? And I like to say, like, how do we link arms and come together as a community to mourn the loss of a loved one and say, you know, Sean is way more than his death. And I so appreciate at the beginning of this conversation you wanted to know about him rather than just his death. Right. Um, but it was definitely shocking because I was so— I naively apparently was ready to link arms and really come together with some of the people who are in our lives. And then to quickly find out that that was not the case. Um, Sean had been married before. There was speculation that if he had stayed with his ex-wife, he never would have died this way, that it must have been something in our marriage. I must have said something. Um, I must have pushed him over the edge, you know, all of these things. And I think, you know, from, from my experience— and again, this is just off of my own experience— I feel like for whatever reason, death by suicide, it almost like cracks open your life to be under a microscope. And that's what happened. It was everything about me was, uh, was open season. My personality, my parenting, my marriage. I mean, I had people— I had someone come to me and say, I know all about your marriage. I know all about how you were with on. Like, really? Because we saw you maybe once every 3 months. But if you, if you can tell me you know the ins and outs of my marriage that way, okay. Um, but these types of things where people— and, and now I can rec— it doesn't change the hurt. Let me say this, it doesn't change the hurt. I can recognize that these things that were being said or speculated were out of the grief that these individuals were feeling. Doesn't take away my hurt but I can intellectualize it a little bit more. And then I can work on the forgiveness— not there yet— but the forgiveness and working through the hurt that I feel.

Yeah, that's— I think this is a really, really important point. If you don't mind, like, stay on it for a little bit, because, you know, I wrote a book about grief. And one of the things about it is people will say the most inappropriate things to you. And it's, it's not with the intention of hurting you. But again, and I think in the case of suicide, especially, I have to find somebody to blame, right? And I'm not going to blame Sean because he's my buddy, or my son or my whatever. So I'm going to, I'm going to blame Alexandra, and I'm going to find a way to put this on her. And as the grieving person, it's unfair. But a lot of times, we have to learn how to— whether you want to call it give them grace or forgiveness, or just whatever, we've got to find a way not to, not to accept that. And then if we get angry with them, now we have another emotion that we have to deal with, right? So now I have to deal with my grief and being angry at this other person. But it comes from that human— again, that human thing of wanting to control and wanting to be able to say, well, this had been different, then we wouldn't have had this outcome.

Right. And I had to get to a point where— and I love that you do a lot of the you know, post-death exploring and curiosity. Because I, I definitely believe that Shawn is in a better place. I don't like to say necessarily a better place, a healed place, healed place, because I would say, you know, I think where his soul is, is definitely, he's not feeling what he was feeling here.

Right.

And so I do think we will be reconnected. But one of the things that I— there was one day, and I call them pings, where you get those little messages,. And, and I like to say that, you know, you get these little messages or it says, you know, maybe this friendship isn't really good for you, or maybe you need to move on. And then if you're not paying attention, then you kind of get bigger nudges.

Yeah.

Um, and I, I got a ping at one point that said, for me, that was like, if Sean's not feeling that way anymore towards, towards the people, why am I still holding onto the anger? Yeah. Why am I still holding onto the frustration? Because it's eating me alive. He is not here to do anything about it. He's good where he is. And that really helped me start to release some of the anger and the frustration. And like I said, still working on that forgiveness piece, but at least it allowed me to start setting boundaries to say, I don't have to adhere to this. I don't— you can feel that way, put it all over social media, do what you need to. I just don't have to be a part of your process. I don't have to acknowledge your validity. I think that was a big thing for me is it felt like all of these individuals were trying to get me to admit to something, like I did do it, right, in order to validate their feelings. I was like, you can feel that way. I just don't need to be a part of it. Like, stop trying to get me to acknowledge or validate it. I'm not going to.

Right. Yeah, they want you to engage in their drama. And that's— yeah. And sometimes we just have to, you know, let that go. And, you know, you said something about better place. And I want to— I think that's— I hate and I love that because It's not— we are here where we're, where we're supposed to be for right now. You know, and we are here, I say, I say we're here on a mission. So, but our loved ones are in a place of whether, whether healed, where there's no judgment, where they don't, we don't have the, the burdens that we have here. So you talked about Sean being in a better place. So what are you, what were your beliefs before his passing on the afterlife? And what are your thoughts now?

Yeah, and I agree with the better place. Like, as soon as I saw that, I was like, well, that's not really— because one of those things that people say is, oh, they must be— it must be in a better— like, no, no, I don't want speculation about that. Although at the same time, I'm like, I agree with you on the heal, you know, being healed. Like, how do you describe—

yeah, yeah.

Um, so I was raised in, um, a Christian household, and, um, my spirituality definitely pushed because there are just these ideas, oh, when someone dies, you go to heaven and we want to be mindful of our sins and we confess our sins. And I wasn't Catholic. I was raised Eastern Orthodox. So, you know, be mindful of your sins and try and be the best version of yourself and all of this. And the theology really is based in finding love. You know, how can you find purity of love? Which, of course, in practice is always different because as you've been saying, you add this human component and it's really easy to take take something and make it into something that's not necessarily looking for that purity of love, because that's sometimes what religion does. Um, and so I'm still on a spiritual journey of trying to figure out what I truly believe. But honestly, um, I believe in something that Shawn is in some place that maybe could be like heaven. I, I mean, we talk about heaven, and so that's a word I can use to describe where I, where I believe he is. Um, because I honestly feel that it is really difficult for our earthly minds to really understand and conceptualize where our souls are, where they go.

Right.

And so, um, to put words to it, I just don't feel like we do it justice. Um, but what I found is I do feel, you know, Sean is around us. I've had some interesting things happen around the house, or I joke that, um, right, it's been more than 3 years. I've had lots of pictures taken on my phone, and there are 2 pictures of Sean and me that pop up on my phone the most often. And, um, so I usually think that there's some— he was just trying to send me a message. But I definitely feel that there's connection, uh, between the afterlife and those of us who are still here on Earth. And, um, I mean, I could go down the rabbit hole of of how and looking at physics and all of that. I won't, I won't go into all of that in the exchange of energy, um, but I definitely have felt, um, that, you know, I believe in God, Source, Universe. I, I will change that. And one of the things I'll say that I was met with that challenged me probably the most in my spirituality is this idea, and I still to this day have people say this to me, about, oh, if you die by suicide, you go directly to hell. And that one is a big struggle for me because number one, who are we to judge? Um, and number two, it, it creates the sense of, oh awesome, well God, Source, Universe is with you until you do something like this. And I just don't, I don't believe that. I believe that God, Source, Universe is with us always. And, um, I don't think Shawn was any less worthy of being able to go to a place where his soul can learn the lessons it needs to learn and be able to continue on that learning path. I know that's not very direct.

No, that's, that's, that's, that's so hard to explain. Not an easy, it's not an easy question or an easy answer. My, my feelings and thoughts are still all over the place, you know, as well. But I think it's really important. This idea that, you know, the ultimate sin is to take your own life. And to me, that's the ultimate level of control that the church people want to have over you, right? If you, if you do this one thing, then God will never forgive you. Well, once you start to understand what God is, who God is, and I mean, you have a child— I remember when I, when I had my first daughter, that's when I first— that's when got a glimpse of what God's love might be like. And would you torment your child because they couldn't handle the torment that they were going through? And I think people that take their own lives, if anything, if anything's different about the afterlife is they get more love, they get more treatment, they get more healing, because maybe they needed more because this life was, was so rough. But I find it to be one of the most important teachings that people try to put on you. And for someone to say that to someone who's lost someone to suicide is— it's despicable. I'm sorry, I can't think of a better word.

It's, it's definitely— I've had to learn again, how to respond because I do wear— my facial expressions can be very active. And so sometimes it definitely shows when I'm shocked or I'm like, what are you, what are you saying? And I couldn't agree more. I think that's one of the things, and I don't know if this type of loss is what has, has guided me to getting to there, but I think that the purity of God's love is more than any of us can actually conceptualize. And to feel that, to experience it, it makes it really hard for me to believe that that many souls could say no to that. So Um, I've had to kind of work through and still do work through some of the conditioning of how I was raised in that organized religion and looking at those types of things and really almost like taking my spirituality, uh, I call it like upleveling, almost like upleveling that spirituality to trying to find more of that connection because I think religion sometimes can be dividing, divisive versus really, you know, it's a constant, um, I learned recently the term is othering, so constantly trying to find that space of why Yes, something is going to happen to someone else, but won't happen to me because I'm okay. Like, I'm saved.

Exactly. Yeah. It's, it's interesting, because the worst sin is always the one that you don't have. Whether it's, whether it's being gay, or whether it's gossiping, or whether it's drinking, or whether it's taking your life, whatever it is, that's always the worst sin. It's not the one that I do.

That's such a good way of putting it too. Oh, that's so fantastic. It's true. Yeah. And so, and, and I'm one of those where I'm like, if you're spending that much time on what someone else is going through or paying attention that much to someone else's life, you're not paying attention to what's going on for you. And, and really that's a good opportunity to kind of turn inward is, is what I say, turn inward and look at you and start healing your past experiences because we all, yes, I've had a major loss in my life. Every person— not everyone's going to have a major loss, but every person is going to experience something that negatively impacts them. And what that response is going to look like is going to be a level of grief. And so I believe that you have to heal those past experiences to truly be able to step forward with our present experiences and be able to learn how to trust ourselves and, and keep moving forward.

I know you work with helping people to understand suicide better. One of the misconceptions about suicide, I believe, is that people that take their lives are weak somehow. They're somehow— they're not— they just weren't strong enough. What are your thoughts on that?

Totally bogus. Because to take any life is not an easy thing to do, and especially to get to a point where you've decided to take your own. And, you know, if you think about what it takes— and again, I'm not, I'm not promoting that people actually break down the different methods to take your own life. That's just something with my own process and, and being in my own moments, actually thought through what it would take. It's not an easy thing to do. And a common thing— and this is something— and I'm not a psychologist, but this is something I've been told pretty frequently is that a common theme is not being a burden to other people. I have this pain I'm carrying around and I don't want to be a burden to anyone that I love. Um, and to feel that so deeply and so heavily to me is anything but weak, anything but weak. And you're right, it gives a sense of control. I get to have the final say. It's— I mean, again, I don't, I don't agree with it. And I, um, and while I understand, sort of understand Sean's decision, I mean, I, I still wish he made a different decision.

Sure. Well, you know, what you just said was really important, and that's, that's something that I've thought about, um, as I've learned about this. Um, not that I'm an expert, but, you know, people— some people, because everybody's different— but some people, when they make that decision they have convinced themselves, or their brain has convinced them, however you want to put it, that people would be better off without them. Now, we look at that from the outside, and we say, well, that's crazy. That doesn't make any sense. But you get to the point where it's like, I don't want to, I don't want to be a burden to someone. So that, that, that taking of your own life might actually be in their mind, an act of compassion to the world around them, because the world's gonna be better off without me. Not understanding your value in the world.

I—

it's not weak. I don't see it as weak at all. It's just, it's, to me, it's tragic that people can't feel the love that we have for them and the worth that they have. I think it's, I think it's maybe, if anything, it's like not understanding your own worth.

Absolutely. And I think I can say that what I, again, what I speculate for Sean is that the message he got when he was younger. And again, this is just Sean's situation because people have different backgrounds in different ways. Um, but was— I think at some point throughout his childhood, or maybe even in his adulthood, there was some sort of message to him that he wasn't worth it, that he was broken. And I'd— he and I had had conversations where I would say, I, I'm not sure where your past trauma ends and then where our relationship starts. And, and the truth is there is no end and start. But I would say, I— for me, I want to be responsible for what I'm doing in our relationship, in our marriage, and I want to, you know, work through this. But I can't tell what might be residual and how do we work through that. And essentially, you know, he had tried certain things. He had tried going to therapy, tried exercise, we tried all these things, and he would say, well, what's the point? I'm, I'm broken. None of this is going to work. And so that's a, that's an area and a theme that I'm hoping that we can start, you know, as, as a community that is looking at prevention or looking at the, you know, the resources for the aftermath is how do we start being able to break through for people who at a cellular level truly feel and believe that nothing is going to help them. That it— like, they are just— yes, they are just a burden. They are just going to be an issue for other people, which is not— as you said, it's totally not true. And, and I completely agree of how do you, how do you show someone that they still matter when somewhere to their core they feel that they don't?

Yeah. And you, you touched on this earlier, but it was a question I wanted to ask you about. And it's— and again, everything, everything I've asked you has been really difficult, but it's, it's— to me, it's really to even bring up, and that's the idea of suicide prevention. Um, because I see Suicide Prevention Hotline, I see we, you know, as Prevent Suicide, and I think it's a noble thing, but the flip side of that is, well, then if, if someone takes their own life, then I didn't do enough to prevent it. So what are your thoughts on, on suicide prevention?

Yeah, I think there's different stages of prevention, and so I think a lot of what is discussed now is kind of that someone is expressing ideation, someone has made an attempt, and then it's almost like a reaction of, how do we blast you with some help and hope and know that you're worth it? And I, and I agree with you. I think having resources for that moment is very important. Um, I think for me, when I look at prevention, I I think we could start earlier. And that is just not necessarily in identifying people who might have ideation, but how about just being kinder humans to each other? How about just connecting? How about just really caring about how people are doing? You know, and I can say for myself, I have to work on this. It's so easy to get caught up in wash, rinse, repeat. This is what I, you know, I'm going to work, I'm taking care of my son, go to bed, wake up, do the same thing. And some how miss those nuances of really checking in on each other. And healing and helping kids learn here. It's okay to have all these emotions. They're okay. Even the ones that make you feel crummy, they're still part of it, and you can work through them and keep going. You don't have to be stuck with those. Um, so I think I tend to think more of that— what, what is commonly referred to as upstream— of how do we, you know, start creating better mental and emotional— because I don't think it's just mental health. I think emotional health part of it. Nutrition can be part of it. Having physical health as well, um, to start to create really good habits when we're feeling good so that when we're not feeling so great, we can still access— hopefully still access some of those habits, um, that can help us through those harder times.

Yeah, yeah, beautiful. I love what— I love what you just said because I, you know, I tell my clients who have lost some of the suicide, because it's like, there's nothing that you could have done, you did what you could do. And I truly believe that. Because as you said, a lot of this stuff is the latter stages. And at that point, we, you know, maybe we can keep them around for a day or two longer. But how do you convince somebody that life, which is hard, is worth living if they don't feel like they're, you know, they're contributing? It's, we have to help people understand you know, that you, you are valued, that you do make a difference. And that, you know, I don't know, it's— I like, I like what you said about that. Because I think, again, that suicide prevention thing, while a very great, noble thing, people might say, well, I should have, I should have, you know, if I just called that, I could have found out what the signs were, and I could have given them the thing that fixed them.

Yes. And also, I think we do have some work to do, because I have seen how very recognized organizations will say, here are the signs. And, and it's, in, in my opinion, it's incorrectly informing people for what you're saying. And it creates that, like I was saying earlier, kind of that superhero effect. Well, if I see the signs and, okay, so I'm told these are the signs to predict suicide, okay, but I had a loved one who lost, or who I lost by suicide, but they didn't— I didn't see these signs. So where did I go wrong? You know, because because I'm being told that this is what exists. And, and so I think if we could get to a point of understanding that suicide doesn't discriminate as much as— like, if there could be that one magic thing that we could pinpoint, and then I've heard researchers talk about, well, maybe it's socioeconomic status, maybe there's something racially there. Is there something, you know, for a level— I'm not sure, I'm guessing because of the work you do that you're familiar with ACEs. Well, maybe if we look at the ACEs, you know, the adverse childhood events, that was the ACEs, adverse childhood, um, for your listeners. But anyway, the whole point is we're trying to find that magic thing that we could say, well, there it is, we've cracked open suicide versus saying like, it, it's emotional. It's feeling like you're a burden. It's feeling like you don't have self-worth. And we're trying to quantify something that's not necessarily quantifiable.

Yeah, well, there's— there could be a whole lot of causes. I was listening to someone this morning who had a near-death experience as a child. And she was talking about the research of PMH Atwater has done on that. And some of those children, they just want to go home because they've had a glimpse of what it's like. And they're like, they don't think of it as taking their lives. They think of it as going home. And I know we don't want to hear that because we want everybody to stay here. But I think for some people it's just like, I'm ready to go home.

And again, how can we take that away from someone? Because when we have an issue with it is when we're projecting our own discomfort with it.

Right.

And I think that's the difference. And I definitely, I mean, after Shonda, I was reading books by mediums. I was watching all these shows on near-death experience. I was fascinated. I was like, This is amazing, and how cool. And again, to shift that mindset, there's so much fear around death and this idea of finality. And, um, and I think I can say in my situation, I think that's what made it the hardest for individuals who maybe weren't sure what their spirituality was or didn't have much, I'd say, as much of a spiritual journey. You know, this was this was finite. Sean was gone, period. There's no relationship with him. There is no— there's nothing. And so I found that those individuals wanted his tangible things. They wanted things from me in order to keep him alive with them, rather than understanding that you can shift the relationship and, and still chat with him or still talk to him or still have a relationship. It just looks different.

Yeah. So we're coming to the end of our time, but I did want to ask you about your son and, and his relationship with Sean? I'm assuming he doesn't remember Sean from when he was alive. So when he was on the planet, I should say, because he's still alive. But so how does— how do you keep Sean alive for him?

Yeah, so he was just over 1. We have pictures up. He's— he looks like his dad. He thinks like his dad. It's so uncanny. And even extended family members from Sean's family have looked at him and they'll go, oh, you have your dad's eyes, bright brown eyes. Um, so, you know, it's— I'm still trying to navigate that. Um, recently I was able to get him some play therapy that really helps him grieve. Play therapy, um, because— and I always think that I have a little bit longer with my son before we're coming to a certain stage. So for instance, I had another 6 months he'd stay in his crib and then he'd start, you know, he was a little, little early on crawling out of his crib. Okay, so I thought I had a little extra time before he'd start asking questions about his dad, and then dropped that bomb one day, and I went, oh, okay, here it is. Um, and I thought I was, I was doing a great job, and it turns out I wasn't. I was really ambiguous, and kids, you need to be really concrete. And so through some play therapy, it gave him an opportunity to be a little bit more expressive and to learn words for how to describe what's happened. So I'm proud of him. He'll actually say, my dad died. His name is Sean. He died. And even through play therapy, simple verbiage but concrete of Daddy's body doesn't work anymore and he's not breathing. And that has been a huge game changer. But we talk about him and I'll tell him if he does something that I think Sean would like, I'll tell him. Or if there's, um, something I think, uh, reminds me of Sean, I'll, I'll say it to my son, um, and just try and keep it alive that way. Um, I like to go to the cemetery. Um, we have a military cemetery which is where some of, um, Sean's ashes are buried, and I like to go there and I call them my coffee dates. And I'll tell them like, I'm going to go to the cemetery, do you want to with me, or you can come another time and just try and keep the communication open with him so that he can— yeah, so that when he's ready, or if he's ever ready, he has that opportunity.

Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. I know that's a— that was another deeply personal question. Well, Alexandra, I want to— again, I want to express my admiration to you, first of all, for what you're doing. Please remind people of the name of your book, where people can reach you, um, that type of information.

Yeah, absolutely. And thank you so much for the conversation today. I really enjoyed it. Um, so I— the book is The Suicide Club: What to Do When Someone You Love Chooses Death. Um, it's mostly available on Amazon, but honestly, there are different sites that you can find it. And then I do have a website which is forward2joy.com. So all spelled out, forward2joy.com. And then you can also find me on Instagram at @forward2joy.

Okay. For some reason, right as you said that, your, your audio dropped out. So the web, the website, you know, I could hear you, but it just dropped really low as you said the website.

Forward2joy.com, all spelled out. Yeah.

Okay. Forward to joy. And you have a podcast.

I do, The Widows Club. It's a podcast, so you can find me there as well.

All right. Well, again, thank you so much for being here today. It's been a pleasure getting to know you and have a good rest of your day.

Thank you. You too.

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