Diane Gillen and grief expert David Kessler on Death by Suicide

Hi, everyone. It's David Kessler. Good to be here. Hey, Diane. Nice to see you.

Hey, David. Really nice to see you, too.

All right. People are going to be finding us. So when you find us. And I'm actually going to look for us myself. So when you find us, say hello. I came on a moment early. It makes it a little easier for people to find us sometimes. All right, when you come on, let us know. Hey, Sandra from New York. Welcome. You're the first here. Good to see you.

Hey, Sandra.

Other people will be joining us in a moment. Hey, Kinoko from Hawaii. Good to see you, my friend.

People are coming on here. They'll be finding us. Hey, Shabnam from Toronto. Good to see you.

I love seeing where everyone's from.

Welcome, welcome. Hey, Shirley from Pennsylvania. Hey. Diane from SoCal.

Jennifer is looking forward to this. Well, we're looking forward to having you here.

Absolutely.

Chumki from Houston. Welcome. Jolene from Phoenix. Hey, Libby from Adelaide, Australia. I was going to be there, but I'll be there in 2021. Hey, Pat from Vermont. Betsy from Tallahassee. Good to see you. Hey, Molly from Maine. Kenda from Illinois. Julie from Seattle. Welcome. By the way, if this happens to be your first time tuning in, say hello if you want. You don't have to, but you're welcome to say I'm new, but up to you. Hey, Jim from Ontario, Canada. Jody from San Diego. Regina, New York State. Kitty from Puerto Rico. Joe from New Zealand. Welcome. Brenda, North Carolina. Hi, Ivy from nyc, New York. Welcome, welcome. Glad you're all joining us. Hey, Tracy. Good to see you. Where's Warner Robbins?

That's in Georgia, not far from me.

Georgia. Oh, well, there you go. Hey, Sandra, Tucson. Lori, Colorado. Gina, Manitoba. Keith, New Zealand. Cindy, Milwaukee. Wonderful, wonderful. I'm so glad everyone is showing up tonight. If you're new, I'm David Kessler. I come on in the evenings here with a guest. I also come on during the day. We have a couple of moments of saying hello. This group was set up because of COVID 19, so we could just have some connection with one another. So I say hello and list people. We joke about. I don't know if you're old enough, Diane. There was a thing called Romper Room when I was a kid.

I am definitely old enough. I remember thinking, oh, this is so wonderful. She sees me.

She said my name. I see Catherine in the Bay Area and Sherry in Texas and Debbie in Cincinnati. Terry in Philly. Hey, Teal. Glad you're here. Milwaukee. Wonderful, wonderful. Well, I'm so glad everyone is joining us. So if you're new, you don't have to engage, but some people like to in our sort of world of disconnection, it's a nice connection to have. But you know, I joke about, I go to a lecture, I'm the front row, I'm the raising my hand person. You might be a back row person. So you the same way. There's no right way to do grief. There's no right way to do any online programs. Every night we have a different guest. Diane is our wonderful guest tonight and we're going to have some other incredible guests coming up. And all of these are tapes. So if you ever hear us discussing one, we've done things on grandparents, we've done things. We did one on children last night, we've done one on Alzheimer's, on boundaries. So whatever it is, there's a lot of them that you can go back and review. And if you come in late here and want to go back and see the beginning of one, you can always do that. My 1pm ones during the day are also recorded. Usually during the day I take on a topic. Today we discuss catastrophizing. Anyone a catastrophizer? So we talked about the psychology of that and, and I gave tips. And the evenings are more about strength and experience and hope that people have been through who have had losses or have a talent they want to share with us. So I'm so glad everyone's coming on. I see Ohio's here. Byron, Georgia. Hey, Priscilla. Tennessee, Minnesota, New York, Connecticut. Bangor, Maine. Bay Area. Welcome. Texas. I'm so glad to see everyone.

Good, good, good to see you. So we're all here because someone we love died. So I like to just start with just a moment of silence just in honor of them to connect us and send them love. So if you join me.

Thank you so much. It just always gives me that moment and I hope gives you a moment too, to connect with people.

So tonight we're going to be talking about death by suicide. And Diane, I have a feeling, unfortunately, you know about the subject.

I do, I do.

Would you just tell us a bit about your story and how you got to this world here.

Before I do that, though, I just wanted to thank you publicly for doing this whole presentation that you do every day because I think this is such a challenging, trying time for all of us and to be grieving, especially people who are newly buried. This is a gift, what you are offering people. So thank you. Thank you.

Well, it's only working because people like you are showing up and all of you are showing up. And I always say, like Diane, you and all the guests, and we've got amazing people coming on. Catherine Schwarzenegger, Pratt's coming on.

Going to talk about finance. Will Reeve, whose father was Christopher Reeve. I mean, amazing people like you, Diane, are showing up, not for me, but for everyone here, really. It's all of you who are bereaved that we are showing up for because you matter and your loss matter. So thank you, Diane, and take it away and.

Well, I appreciate. Yeah, exactly. So sorry for the reason you're here. I'm honored to be here. I. I know I joked with you and said when I first opened your email, I immediately closed it and thought, I can't do this. It's outside of my comfort zone. But anytime I'm asked to do something like this, I, if I'm, if I'm able to, I do it just so that I can honor my son. And if there's even one thing that I can share about my story or my experience that someone benefits from tonight, then it's well, well worth my time.

Why didn't you want to open the email? What was your fear? This.

No, when I read the email. No, I opened it. I had no fear of opening the email. I just immediately closed it and thought, I'll think about this later.

Right, right.

That's what it was. That's what it was. So, Anyway, my story.

January 20, 2010. My world changed forever. That is the day that I was told that my son had died by suicide. My son Brendan was living in Orlando, going to college.

Had a full time job, very independent guy.

Really just everything was going great in his life. So I thought. But unbeknownst to me and his dad and stepmom who lived down there, he had stopped taking his medication because he didn't like the side effects. He was under the care of a therapist.

But one night there just. I'll never really know exactly what happened, but I think it just was the perfect storm. Something.

Went wrong for him that night or the darkness got so dark and he went so deep into depression that he ultimately ended his life. Now, this was a total shock for me, even though I say it was a total shock. He had been diagnosed with clinical depression when he was in middle school and I had gone to many therapists with him. He had been also, besides therapy, was taking medication and had tried several different medications. I say that he was, he was such a intelligent guy, had so much potential.

You know, very high functioning and as I said, independent. He was an excellent problem solver. But I say that one problem he just never could solve was how to live with his depression. So.

That was he. I have very. A good number of layers to my loss. I feel like, surprisingly, this was 10 years ago. It was really my first intimate experience with death. I had lost two grandparents before I was even born. The two living grandparents, once they passed, our family was not really close. So I didn't suffer that loss is like most people do. I think maybe I'd gone to three funerals in my whole life. So for my first experience with death to be the loss of my child, that was really devastating.

So that there's that layer. Then there's the layer of losing a child, there's the layer of losing someone to sudden death, and there's the layer of losing someone to a stigmatized loss.

Also. He was my only biological child. And, you know, that's been very difficult for me.

My whole life. I was kind of born knowing two things. One, I was gonna. I wanted to be a mother. The other, that I wanted to be a teacher. And I was a teacher for 34 years. I'm still a teacher because I do education programs for the American foundation for Suicide Prevention. But to lose him.

Really, I.

It's a pain like I don't think anyone can even imagine. Till you live it.

It'S very, very difficult.

I will say, though, that I had several things that really worked in my favor. One, I was still teaching. I was teaching part time at that point because I had retired from education at 30. After teaching for 30 years, they hired me back part time. So that was a blessing. I had something that I needed to get up and do. I had a purpose, and it was a way for me. Since it was part time, it was three days a week, I could go and I could teach, and I could kind of lose myself and the kids and the joy of that. But then I could still go home and.

Deal with my grief because it is so physically and emotionally exhausting. So I had that gift. Another gift I had that helped me was that Brendan had a corgi.

And so that corgi came to live with us. And it just helped me to have something to take care of for my son because he just absolutely adored that corgi. Although his sense of humor. That the corgi's name was Dog.

That's just his sense of humor. But he was just a blessing to have because I felt like I had that connection to my son by taking care of the Dog.

My husband and I decided, and my husband was Brendan's stepfather. But we decided right from the beginning that we were going to be honest about Brendan's death, that it was to suicide. Even with the stigma.

I knew I had just started at a new school and I had left a school that I had been teaching at for 21 years, but they didn't have a part time position. So I moved to a new school. I felt like I wanted to be open and honest with people. So the day before I went back to teach, I had written a letter and I emailed it to the principals and I asked them, please, would they read this to the faculty so that everyone, you know, kind of knew I put it out there for them.

So that there wouldn't be questions when I got back. You know, some of those questions I had had already been answered by me. It was my story to tell. Tell wasn't part of the like gossip or rumor mill. So that helped to do that. Although I did, even though I decided that I was going to be open and honest about it, I did wrestle with some things because I thought, what are parents going to think? Are parents going to feel like they can trust me to teach their kids? I, I, you know, I failed my child. You know, I don't believe that now, but at that time when you're working through all the initial feelings, that was one of the things I thought. But of course a school is a wonderful place to go back to. I had such supportive friends, co workers.

The parent. It really, it was a very safe place to go back to. So I was blessed in that.

Well, thank you so much for sharing that. I have questions.

Sure.

You know, and things I want to highlight for people that I think are important.

I think, you know, you shared how Brendan had had depression so many times someone has depression, mental illness, mentally compromised, bipolar, a million other things that of course.

You know, in those dark, far out moments we go, oh gosh, I hope this never ends badly. But it's not something you really get. And then when someone dies, it is amazing how many parents I've talked to that someone actually says, well, you sort of knew that was a possibility. Right. And I don't know if you had that, but I think what you said that was really important is that you're still shocked. I mean, it isn't like anyone has a death and we go, oh yeah, I knew that was coming. No big deal. I mean it's always, always a big deal. No matter what. You knew ahead of time.

Right. And yes, even though he suffered from depression. It was a shock because I never imagined that he never shared with me that he had thought about taking his life, that he had suicidal ideation after his. He passed and we went down to Orlando. We did get to meet with his psychiatrist. And you know, his psychiatrist said if he had a list of 10 people that were. He was concerned about or thought might and the life by suicide. Brendan was not on this list. You know, he was under the radar. But I think a lot of times, I know for Brendan, and I think a lot of times people with depression, they become masters at masking. You see the commercials on TV for different medications, antidepressants, and they're holding up that little mask with a smiley face. I think they learn how to do that very well. And we talked a little bit earlier about when someone dies by suicide. You've got all the woulda, coulda, shouldas, the guilt and the regret. And I feel like for me.

I have more regret than guilt because I know that I, you know, when Brendan was living with me, I did see that he went to a counselor. I did talk with him. He did have the medication and I knew he was taking it. 24 years old, you know, he's off living on his own independently.

I don't have the guilt as much as regret that. And I define the regret as, look, be being able to look back and think about what you would say or do differently now that you know. Now that you know what you know.

You do better when you know better. And now I know some much more.

And didn't have that information then.

I did not. No.

Many people take that information that they know now and go back in time in their mind, blame themselves for how they handled things with information they didn't have them.

Right? Yes. Like when he would tell me that he was unhappy, you know, he. He and I were like night and day different. I'm always a very positive, upbeat, smiling type person. Brendan was not that way. He was more negative. You talk about the glasses half empty or half full. I remember him saying to me once, it's not that the glass is half empty or half full, the container is the wrong size. That was so. I thought that kind of profound. I don't know. But so, you know, I do now knowing what I know and everything I've learned, and I'm constantly learning because suicide and suicide prevention and mental health, I mean, is an ever growing evolving area.

But I wish when he had said to me one time how I'm just not happy that I had had that conversation with him that I had actually said, well, do you ever think about suicide?

I think, and this to me is a very common belief that you don't want to ask someone if they're thinking about suicide because you think you're going to put that idea in their head. But you are not going to put that idea in their head if they're not already thinking about it. In fact, it is a help to ask them directly about suicide. Part of my journey I became a safetalk trainer and that's one of the things I learned that is very important.

If you are worried about someone that you do ask them directly and they might get upset with you that you're asking. But more times than not they're relieved because you're asking and you give them an opportunity to talk about it. You know, so that's, that's the one thing I regret. I wish I had known that and that I had had that conversation.

And I also want to say, I want to go to the other extreme with this, the other extreme. For any folks out there that are watching this, back to your story about it being a shocked, a shock. There are people who, their loved ones tried suicide 10 times already and they're still shocked when it finally happens, you're still shocked then. And the other thing I just want to say about what you said, I understand why you would say it about I wish I had gone back and said, are you feeling, you know, suicidal? Having thoughts of self harm? I bet there's a lot of people watching who did that all the time. Even when you do, doesn't guarantee that you're going to be able to stop your loved one from doing it someday.

And that's a good point because another thing I've learned and I think that is important for survivors to know. You know, we tend to say everyone is trying to be hopeful and say suicide is preventable but the fact of the matter is it is not 100% all of the time. Some suicides are preventable, maybe most suicides are preventable. They're treated, it's treatable. But yeah, that's a hard thing to hear. Suicide's preventable because it automatically makes you think, well then I failed. I failed my child, my partner, I failed my friend, whatever.

And I think, you know, you mentioned that and it's really true. I don't think about having.

Well, I'll just say it that even now I have friends who have kids and I'm a fixer, I'm an advice giver, I mean, no surprise there, but I'll give them some advice about their kids. And then I stop myself and I go, and, you know, you don't have to take my advice. Clearly things didn't go well in my story. I'm surprised when they still go, oh, no, no, I want your advice. Because there is that sense of, oh, if your child died, obviously you weren't a successful parent. I mean, I think there's, there's an underlying belief that seems to go through anyone who's a parent. I mean, we feel responsible for our kids happiness on a good day.

Right.

You know.

You know, or I'm not a good wife or a good husband or a good brother or whatever it is you may be. I think we all have those feelings. Can we just go through some of the myths that people have, some of the misperceptions, just to give us a chance to clear it up? I'll say some of them and you can comment.

Okay.

A myth is that suicide is a choice, that, oh, I could just choose not to do it and live a happy life.

That's clearly not true.

That is not true.

There's no choice there.

But that is one thing that I kind of thought at first. I remember writing a blog post for the American foundation for Suicide Prevention, and when they edited it, they came back and said, well, you know, he didn't choose to do that. He didn't make a decision. It was, you know, the belief is that it's not a decision that's made. So, yeah, that's true.

From my research, going back and looking at people who have attempted death by suicide and survived it, they across the board say they weren't trying to die, they were trying to manage the pain.

Right. And the pain became unbearable and they felt like there was no way out. Yeah.

There's also.

The old adage about, oh, my goodness, what a selfish thing to do. Death by suicide is not selfish.

It's not. And you know, that's one of the things that I've been fortunate that I had very supportive friends. A lot of times when there's a death like this or just the death of a child or something, that's just uncomfortable for friends to handle. People lose friends. You find who your true friends are. Well, I was very fortunate. My friends were supportive and stuck by me. But I did have several comments made to me. One was that I just think, and this came in context with this particular friend had another friend she was concerned about. And I think that person had actually attempted and she made the comment, whether she remembered or not, that you know, I had just lost my son to suicide. She said, I just think suicide is such a selfish thing. How can they do that? So I said, you know, I probably thought that same thing too before I lost Brendan.

There's nothing personal about it. It wasn't done to you.

It was not cause you, not at all.

I, you know, I think of addiction and I think it's pretty true when it comes to mental illness too, that, you know, there's the three Cs that they always talk about in 12 steps that you can't control it, you didn't cause it, and you can't cure it. And it's challenging because especially as a parent or a wife or a bra. I mean, I really guess it's anyone, I mean that we all feel responsible. I, I tell this story often. I was in college and literally my roommate was out. I answered the phone, it was a friend of his who said, hey, it's Jeff, is he there? And I went, no, he's not here. And he said, okay. And I said, bye. The next day I found out he died by suicide. I didn't even know him except me. I met him once or twice on campus.

Right.

And yet I felt like afterwards I should have gone, so, Jeff, how are you doing? I mean, like, why would I have done that to anyone? But in hindsight you're like, oh, I was kind of curt on that call. Well, my goodness, I'm like an 18 year old kid. What I should have like everyone who called. What are your inner feelings these days? But we do go back and we blame ourselves so much.

So our loved ones are not selfish. Let me think, are there some other myths? And if you have any myths you want to share, the three Cs are, you didn't cure it. I'm sorry, you can't cure it, you can't control it, and you didn't cause it. All right, okay. Cure, cause, Control are the three Cs.

So, you know, so many times.

I tell counselors, because I train a lot of counselors, you actually came to one of my trainings for counseling and I talked to them about, you should not say anything to someone who's had a death by suicide that you would not say those exact words to someone who's had a death by cancer.

So I wouldn't say to someone with cancer who had a death by cancer, what cancer? Wasn't that selfish? Or, you know, why did they do that to you? Or whatever it may be.

Or why did they choose cancer? No one chooses cancer. No one chooses Mental illness. No one chooses addiction. We have a lot of old thoughts about we can, but that's not the reality of it. I'm trying to think of any of the big myths that can't come up, that come up. If anyone has any. Any other myths you can think of, because there's a lot of them.

Well, not really, but maybe going on a little bit of a different tangent. Just I think the fact that we were so open about and shared our story when it was appropriate with whoever know was wanting to listen.

It amazed us how many people had been touched by suicide, how many people had people in their family or close friends that struggled with mental health. So by us being open and honest about it, I think it really, rather than people thinking less of us or that we should feel ashamed or embarrassed, it really was a way to connect with people, and it started conversations and it made them comfortable. I mean, it was interesting. After Brendan passed, a neighbor of mine who I'd known for quite a while, shared that she had lost her brother and her father to suicide. And that's why she had chosen to never have children, because she was afraid that the mental health, it was just pervasive in her family. She never shared that with me until I, you know, had this experience. And I was open about it. Another friend had lost her brother. He had been in the military, and she had lost him like 25 years prior.

And felt relief and like she was finally starting to do some healing because she got involved with us in one of our out of the darkness walks. And so it's been a good thing, I think, to help open the conversation, because I think. And one good thing, I'm trying to look for good things that will come out of this pandemic. And I think one good thing that I'm seeing is the conversation of mental health. It is normalizing having conversations about mental health because so many people, people that struggle normally, but more people also are discovering that, yeah, my mental health is a challenge and it's important and I need to work on it. So that's a good thing. It's normalizing us talking about mental health.

Some of the other things that people are saying is.

That didn't you notice the signs? People will say, like, you sh. You know, there's an implied didn't you notice? Didn't you see that makes you kind of feel like, oh, well, I should have. And didn't you notice he was depressed? All those things come up, right?

And. And there are some signs that are.

Common and that you can look for but then, like I said, sometimes there are not. Unfortunately for me, I was not living with my son at that time and not even in the same city. So we only saw each other a few times a year, if that. Because like I said, he was in school full time, he had a full time job. One gift I got though was that I had talked with him that evening. I had had called him and he texted me back that he was in class, I needed some help learning Photoshop and he was my tech go to guy. And so he called me when he got out of class. We had a great conversation. He was able to help me. And I even. I remember hanging up the phone and telling my husband, you know, he. He seemed like he was in a really good mood. He had decided that he was going to change his major and this and that. And truly, in my heart of hearts, I do not believe that he had any inclination that he was going to die by suicide that night. I really don't. I know sometimes you hear, well, yeah, some. Sometimes people seem to be in a really good mood because they've made the decision. But I. I really don't believe that with him. I just. Something happened after our conversation.

There was also, years ago, a play. And it's a movie. I'm sure you can rent it on. Something called Night Mother.

Night Mother.

And Night Mother was the story. It was Anne Bancroft and Sissy Spacek. And Bancroft found out her daughter was planning on dying by suicide and she was going to stay up all night to make sure it didn't happen. And, you know, it walks you through the horror of knowing it and knowing and struggling with how in some cases, like you said, there are cases where. And I think this is something for everyone to get in some cases. And I mean, I would guess for the people watching in all these cases, that if you're watching, despite your best efforts.

You couldn't save them. That's a hard one. Someone says. Jill says, people always want to know the details of how your loved one died.

I think that's, you know, a challenge for people. And what do people deserve to know? You know, I don't like. I'm not a fan. Fan's not the right word. I don't like to often talk about my son's death. I like to talk more about his life. I see someone said, did your son die by suicide? You know, one of the other things, and I think you and I have talked about it, Addiction, mental illness, a lot of things get raveled up, you know, together. And, you know, I I did not want to sugarcoat Finding Meaning, which is the book I wrote. And when I did write about him in a chapter, I was pretty brutally honest about his dark nights, about his struggles in his own mind. And so, you know, the question comes up, is there any chance it was a death by suicide? Don't know. Don't know. I mean, overdose, addiction, all, you know, death. I mean, a lot of times people are left wondering for sure what it was.

Sure. I think that's a very common thing to happen.

All right, if you have any questions, this is a good time to write them in. Let me just read a few of these. My 14 year old daughter showed zero signs and she was the most vibrant soul. It's excruciating, painful and almost unbelievable. She was perfect and everyone adored her. And I think, you know, we see that whether it's on some personality on tv, we. Robin Williams, I mean, my goodness, he's the guy who made us laugh, right?

Robin Williams, Kate Spade, Anthony Bord, Bourdain. Yeah. And I think, and that's one thing, this again is kind of off the topic we were just on. But one thing for survivors, I think when those high profile celebrity suicides take place, it brings you back. And I remember when after Robin Williams passed, someone that I not talked to in a couple years called me and she was just crying, you know, and she had felt like she had moved beyond that point. She had lost a twin son by suicide. And it just brings up so many feelings and emotions.

And so Lori asks, and I'll be curious, I have an answer. I'm sure you have. How do you answer when someone says, do you have kids?

Yeah, so, okay, so it's been 10 years for me and that is very difficult cult.

I typically say, yes, I, you know, I have one son who's passed away and, and again, it depends. Sometimes if I feel right, I'll say they died by. My son died by suicide. And then I have three stepchildren. And so I'm fortunate in that respect. And I have grandchildren because of those stepchildren. So I do have that in my life. But that's always a very tough one. And I think, you know, I've been involved with Compassionate Friends, which is an organization for people who have lots of children. And that is a common thing you have to deal with and figure out how you want to answer that.

And it's situational for me. There have been years, I mean, it's been close to Mother's Day and Mother's Day is hard for me. I will say that.

I. I still struggle with that. Am I still a mother? Because I don't have a living biological child that I can be mothering and taking care of. I think you take care of your children for as long as, you know, even as they're adult children, you have that need and feel like you want to cook their favorite meal and you want to buy the perfect birthday present and Christmas present. And I did read an article not too long ago written by a mother who had lost a newborn and she had also like a 9 year old. And she said she mothers both of them. And I'm trying to embrace this. I'll be honest. I haven't yet. I know I will always be Brendan's mother, but it just doesn't always feel like that, you know, because he's not alive. But anyway, this person wrote that she mothers her living son one way, and that's a very observable, relatable way with other moms that are at the same, you know, point in life as her. And then she mothers that newborn in the different ways that she honors him by working for an organization that helps families who have lost newborns. And I guess that's how I mother Brendan, with all the volunteer work that I do. That's what has beautiful me so much on my journey. And I just have to embrace that. You know, it's like intellectually I'm trying to understand it. I have to believe it in my heart, right?

And I often talk about, you know, as a grieve specialist, people are like, what's the right answer? And I'll go, every parent has to discover that for themselves, right? And it really is trial by error. I mean, I, I tried a lot of different things on to see what feels right. And there's also what I want to say, but as you mentioned, it's also. And I talk about it this way, I say, what does the situation deserve? You know, my death of my younger son is so precious to me and his life was so precious. If I'm in the grocery store and there's a long line of people who are. Which isn't now during a pandemic.

And there was a checker there that hadn't seen me in a long time and went, oh, how's the boys? It just isn't a moment to tell the story. And so I might say something like, fine, there's more to fill you in, or, oh, there's a lot to fill you in on. I'll just leave it at something vague like that because you know, I don't want to. I don't. I don't usually want to say, fine, but I'll give. Oh, there's more to that story. And they'll go, problems. And I'll go, yeah, maybe.

Pamela said, I view it like a brain stroke when someone suicides, whether it's drugs or not, signs or not, when someone dies of a stroke, there is not the judgment.

Sharon's oh, someone's talking. I love how people are talking to one another. Jennifer says, I couldn't find an obituary in the paper. Funeral home did not want to share it with others. I wanted to protect my son.

Regina says, what would you say to someone who was contemplating suicide?

So you want to take this? You want me to take this?

Or you go ahead and take it and I'll see if I can add.

Some things to it because, so, you know, we've had to deal with this in this group, actually, that people have talked about self harm in this group. So a couple of things just in this group there is something called yearning. And yearning is when you're like, oh my gosh, I want to be with my son so bad I wish I was dead. Now, it is appropriate, not in this group, but if it was your friend who said, I want to be with my son so bad, I wish I'm dead, to go, just like you said, are you thinking of harming yourself? And a lot of people in grief will go, no, I just miss them. So the yearning is that deep, deep longing that you wish you were together. It isn't really self harm, but it's wishing for a unity in death. Omega then we have actual self harming thoughts. And with those, I've been taught to sort of, number one, ask the person, like you said, directly, are you thinking of harming yourself? And to make sure they know you matter. You are important. Here is the number. You can call. Here's the line. You can call. I really want you to get help because you are important to me and important to this world.

Right? And I would say, well, for one thing, I remember early on, I don't. I never had feelings that I was suicidal. But I did think, boy, it would be nice to go to sleep and just not wake up those kinds of thoughts because it was so devastating. But I think, like for myself, I'm not a mental health professional, so if I was talking to someone that was giving me the impression that they were thinking about suicide, I would just have this conversation with them. Be very open, calm, nonjudgmental, so that they know they could talk to me and that also I would be willing to help them find the help they need. Whether it be calling the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline with them or doing the crisis text line or if they already had a relationship with a therapist that would be ideal. And make sure that, you know, I help them get that appointment and go there if they wanted me to take them, whatever, just so they know they're not alone.

Right?

Yeah.

And for anyone who has self harming thoughts, the national Suicide prevention lifeline is 800-273-8255. And you know, the other thing is we want people to get help. So when we've had people actually in this group, we tell them this is not the place. We want you to go to a place where you're going to get effective help because we want people to be helped.

And the crisis text line for many people is also something that they, especially younger people. And that's 741-741. It's the numbers going down on the phone which I didn't realize until recently.

What is it? Would you say that again?

Yes. 741-741.

Let me look at that. I'm going to look 7, 4, 1. Oh, it's like going up on the.

I'm sorry, going up, not down.741. 741. And you would just text, I've seen all the different words. Just text, any word and someone's going, a trained volunteer is going to be there to text back with you.

Wonderful.

And I will say too, and I don't know when this will happen but the suicide prevention lifeline, that's not an easy number to remember but we have passed legislation that they're going to change it to a three digit number. I believe it's 988. We just have to have funding for that to happen. But that's going to be wonderful. Just like 911. But you do 988.

Yeah. I see. Regina says she works with college students and suicide is a scary statistic for this age group.

Yes, it is. Absolutely.

Ann says, I'm having trouble telling my son's story with the COVID He was 22 and died by suicide just before everything shut down. Gathering old friends is odd. It is tough right now. Well, look, it's all tough but I, I, I can see now you're hit with like was it Covid and everything else.

That would be really tough. And I think, you know, but it's also very early for her. So you know, I went back to work pretty early. We probably it was a two week period. And then I just, I just did not want to be at home by myself. So I decided to go back and, you know, everyone's different though. I mean, there are people that need to be at home and grieve and do that work. I, like I said, was fortunate that I was working part time so I could have the best of both worlds, sort of.

Right, of course, yeah.

Yeah. You know, one thing I, I also just think might be interesting to talk about not just loss by suicide, but just loss. I, I feel like time has lost all meaning. Time right now is lost on meaning. I think for many of us it's hard to remember what day it is, but I remember early on I would be able to say how many days and months it had been since my son passed. Then I was at a regional conference for compassionate friends one time and I was sitting at the table with someone during lunch and we were sharing briefly our stories and I said, yes, been so and so months and days since my son passed. And he looked at me and he goes, wow. I remember when I could tell you the months and days and that just struck me as, you know, odd. Like, really, you couldn't tell me now how many months and days, you know, because then you are just measuring it. You're trying to get just through day by day, sometimes hour by hour, but gradually it'll turn into, okay, so now it's, you know, the, the months and years and now just years. How long has it been? It's been 10 years for me.

And I'm not a date person in general. Like, I'm not good with dates. And I'm also.

I don't. I put my energy more on my son's birthday than death day. And I have had experiences where someone will go, you know, oh my gosh, when did he die? And I go. And they're like, like, you don't know. And just because that date isn't where I want to place my energy.

And I do, you know, look, I work with a lot of parents and other people who could literally, like you say, tell me 689 days. I mean, they can tell me down to the day.

And, you know, we all do this differently. Questions? Let's see. How do we get the videos off the Internet that show kids how to kill themselves? Themselves? I think that some of the organizations are doing that and I think we have to let them know that's important.

And I would hope that.

I don't know. Look, you can't. It's really Hard to police the Internet.

Yeah, it is hard to police the Internet. And I would hope that I. I do know of one situation where some. Someone wrote a blog post and somehow used the correct phraseology and words and all that. I don't understand how to raise things up in the Google search or whatever, but she was able to be successful. And so when someone was trying to look up how to die by a certain way, suicide by a certain means, her blog post came up. And really, if they took the time to read that, she shares that several people chose not to take their life at that point. Because the other thing is, a lot of times what I've learned is that those suicidal thoughts can pass in just a few minutes. And that's why it's so important to try to limit access to memes. Lethal means is important.

And I'll tell you, like, I've seen like, you know, an email chain going around that goes, oh, my gosh, look at this, you know, video about how to. And I'm like, we got to stop clicking on it because we're raising the analytics.

You know, we don't always click on it analytics.

So Beth. That was Beth talking about a friend's son who died by suicide three years ago. And now the friend has turned to alcohol. And Christine wants to know how to help them. Christine, I would say how to help them is you going to an Al Anon meeting. And I know that seems counterintuitive, but if you go to a few, you will get why.

You know, it's tough. And I do feel like counseling and support groups and what you're offering virtually is so important. Grieving and getting through that grief is work. It's not going to just, you know, I went to a counselor for a while, and then when it got to the point where I was having to think about, okay, what am I going to talk to her about? Today I realized maybe I. I had enough people that I could share my story with and that were willing to talk to me and support me. But I did find that going to support groups, being in a group of people who.

No suicide, no loss is the same, but at least you have some commonality. For me, I had to be involved with a group where people had lost someone to suicide. But then because I lost a child, I also had to be involved with a group like Compassionate Friends. So I needed both things to heal.

And the next question that someone mentions, Kinoko from Hawaii says, I wonder why people have stigma towards suicide. I think there's religious reasons, number one. But I'LL tell you, Kanoko, what I hope. And I'm not sharing anything that isn't already public.

I worked with Michael Landon, Little House on the Prairie, Michael Landon, and he was dying of cancer. It is hard for us to remember this, but he wanted to go on the Tonight show when we were caring for him and giving him extra IVs and everything to get him feeling good. He wanted to go on the Tonight show because he wanted to talk about cancer with Johnny Carson. And literally before then, no one had talked publicly like a celebrity about cancer. And I remember my father saying to me, oh, when he was growing up, there was shame around cancer. And I would go, there was shame around cancer. My hope is someday a generation from us, people are sitting around going, can you believe there was one stigma around mental health and around death by suicide and addiction? Like those are illnesses of the brain. I hope we see that someday the way cancer has changed, changed.

And I hope so, too. And I do feel like just in the 10 years I've been on this journey, I have seen things get better and we have a smarter culture around mental health. We still have a ways to go, but it's definitely better than it was.

But stigma, you know, because I still some, probably not now, but at the beginning, like I mentioned, compassion of friends, I did not feel any at first like I could go to that support group because I felt like parents, other parents who had lost someone to a car accident or maybe to cancer or whatever would think, well, your child chose to take the, you don't really belong here. And I have to say, I never did get that response from anyone. So that was just something I imposed on myself.

Signe says my son took his life on his birthday. I don't know what to do on that day. So I can tell you, birthdays are triggering for people who deal with mental illness in their own mind. And then for that to happen, Signe, oh, it has to be a brutal day. You know, there's some days I just think about it's just going to suck. I mean, I don't know technical terms to say it. It's just going to be a hideous day. And I think that's challenging. And, you know, my hope is that in time it softens, but you'll know and feel when that's right for you.

Well, and I will say that those days, to me, I say that every day is hard. It is difficult, but some days are harder than others. So, like, my son's birthday is May 1st. So that's coming up at the End of this week, May is a tough month for me because of his birthday and then Mother's Day. But I find that if I maybe plan something like I have a ritual. He loved Mexican food. So typically we, for his birthday we'll go have Mexican food. Of course this year we'll have take out Mexican food or I'll make something at home kind of coming up. And I didn't do this right at the beginning, so I'm not sure how long it's been since this person lost some. But.

Yeah, you know, you know, it.

Takes a few years.

It does take years.

And figuring it out, being a paralyzing day.

Right. Like a Mother's Day, I have a special garden area and so that's the good time of year to replenish and, and do that garden fresh each year. But I also find too that sometimes it's the anticipation of the day. Once the day actually gets here, here it's not as bad to get through. But you know, it may be that you want to just stay at home, stay in your pajamas, watch mindless tv. You know, you, you'll figure it out.

Do whatever is right for you. And you know, I always say what other people think you should do is none of your business.

Karen writes, is there a correlation between adoption and mental health issues?

I will just say I adopted both my sons. I know a bit about adoption. I am not familiar with studies around that, but I do know, you know, if you've either been taken away or put up for a dog, I mean, I just, I do think it's a wound. I experienced it as a wound and a rejection for my kids. So whether or not it corrected correlates to mental illness, I don't know.

Kathleen says, exactly. The more we talk about suicide publicly, the more people will understand about it.

Karen says the Catholic Church has changed its opinion regarding suicide. My son was buried from the church seven and a half years ago.

And I can say that is true. I, I'm Catholic and my, my church, I, that was one thing I worried about immediately too. You know, is he going to be in heaven? Because that's my belief and my desire. And the priest was wonderful and you know, our God forgiving God. So. Yeah.

And there may not even be anything to forgive.

You know, about that. You know, you using the cancer terminology, when a loved one dies of cancer.

I don't know that there's a lot of forgiveness needed there.

Right.

Says we did Japanese food and a balloon release with messages to him. Yeah, it's interesting. I had a Press call about a week ago going, I'm a food critic from the Washington Post. Is there any way you can relate food and grief? And I went, absolutely. On the anniversary of my son's death, or sometimes his birthday, more often his birthday than the anniversary of death, we would go to his favorite restaurant. We would just do that in honor of him.

All right. My son died last October. I'm not sure how to name it. In grief, because I don't know if he died from an overdose of suicide. How do I work this out in my mind? We talked about this, Diane and I talked about this once that, you know, when I get asked about, you know, well, can you be sure it wasn't this or it wasn't that? And I'll go at the end of the day, my son has died. The details of it.

I wanted to know for a while, but there was a limit on what I could know. And so some questions just don't get answered. And, you know, for me, at the end of the day, my son is gone, no matter what all the details were.

Yeah. And eventually you just have to totally let go of that because we aren't going to ever know the answers.

Oh, my gosh, Diane. I just looked at the time. How fast this flies.

Really?

Oh, my goodness. Like, even over. All right, Diane, I love you, and I love you being on, and I hope you know you're helping a lot of people.

Well, I hope so. Thank you.

Would you tell us, is there any organizations, websites, anything we should know about?

Yes, I would say probably. And I don't want to inundate people with a lot of things, so basically, just go to afsp.org that is the American foundation for Suicide Prevention. There you can find so many wonderful resources for survivors, for people you might be concerned about. I mean, it covers the whole gamut. They have a wonderful page, too, right now dealing with mental health and COVID 19, I didn't talk much about it, but one thing that has really helped me find meaning is to volunteer for the cause of suicide prevention and mental health. There's some wonderful opportunities there. When you're ready, please give yourself time.

And not everyone has to do it, but a lot of people do have comfort and find meaning that way.

Absolutely. That is just one way to find meaning. That. Right, right.

Thank you so much for being on, Diane. You're such a joy. I really appreciate it.

Thank you for having me. And I survived it.

You did, you did.

I did. Thanks so much.

Thank you, Diane. And I want to thank all of you for being here, you know, it's so important. Just showing up makes a difference, that you show up for you. And we're going to be here. I'll be here tomorrow at 1pm, then I'll be here tomorrow night with another guest. We've got amazing people coming up. They're all here for you. We want you to know your loved one who died mattered. You matter. They still matter. And you still matter. And the world out there is discussing reopening and moving on. And we know that your world is different. And we are here and you are not forgotten. So I thank you so much. I'm here an hour or so in the day, and then in the evening, the other 22 hours. Everyone on here is supporting one another, peer support, one to one. It's a club none of us want to be in, but I'm so glad you're here. We share our pain. We share our hope. We share the good days, we share the bad days. We share it all. So thank you, thank you, thank you. And I will see you tomorrow. Take care.