Mental Wellness Check In

I'm going to dive right in with the first question, and it is a heavy one. But based on our previous chats and just getting to know one another, you've mentioned an event that you went through 5 years ago that really shook your world. Are you able to share a bit about what happened on that fateful day?

Yeah, definitely. We'll start from that moment. And as we move on, you'll see that here we are 5 years later with a very different version of who we are. So on January 1st, 2017, my brother, who was 28 years, um, at the time, took his life. And my son, who was 18 at the time, found him in the morning. And that took us on quite the journey we were not expecting. My brother had struggled with mental health for 5 years. He had been through many of the systems that Ontario has to offer and They just did not match his needs at the time. They didn't— he wasn't able to get the help he needed. For whatever reasons, this was a decision he decided was best for him. And although it hurt us all horribly, we decided that as we processed the grief, that we were going to value life and find a way to move on as a family, because something like that can tear your family apart in moments.

Right. Well, I just want to say, like, first of all, I want to commend you on your bravery for sharing such an experience. And hopefully your story can inspire others who are struggling through the same thing right now. I know, you know, among many of the things that we experience in a global pandemic, mental health, I think, is one of the biggest struggles that people are facing right now and dealing with loss this profound. So thank you so much. And that kind of brings me to my next questions. I mean, when this happened, you know, what What emotions were you going through? How were you able to manage them?

Oh, it's amazing. As you say that, the trigger hits and you start to cry right away.

Yeah.

Because that level of emotion that started then was, what the— like, what do you do? How helpless are you? Why did this happen? Guilt. I could have saved him. You know, you go through every thought process of what I could do and the pain and then the struggling and you feel it. And then you can look at your family members. I have 2 other sisters who are younger than me, and they— and my parents, and my own children who were 17 and 18 at the time. You know, everyone has their own perception and their own story.

Right.

And then there's all the pieces that go with that of what could I have done and what do I do now, and how we all grieve differently too. You know, who knew that you needed space versus needed somebody, needed a support group, needed grief counseling. Everybody needs something different, and you don't know that. So even supporting each other to find the different pieces, I think it was a really confusing time.

Yeah.

I think it was one— when looking back, it was who does what first? How do you support each other and not get mad at each other? How do you function as a family without a member? And, you know, loss from— of any sort, not just suicide, but loss in general causes that type of grief and all those questions. Suicide, I think, just adds that extra layer. And becomes that story of trauma too. I was okay talking about it because I'm a sharer. And I always believed in therapy and letting things out. My daughter also was very open to talking about it. My son did not, nor did my parents. So it's respecting each other's needs as well. It definitely— we're at the 5-year mark now, and it's been such an incredible journey of learning and figuring out and doing. But we came to that place of— we turned over the, the whole experience into another place over the last 5 years.

So, wow, wow, that's incredible. And, and how, how would you say this changed you as a person? I know that's a very loaded question.

Well, in short, I left a job that I no longer felt fulfilled by, something I love doing, but the job itself— I was a teacher, and the system we're in doesn't support mental health, and that was really a struggle for me. seeing high school students not being able to find the support or have anyone really to go to, to support their mental health needs as they're making the biggest transitions of their lives.

Right.

You know, the younger kids coming to school with very abusive homes, neglectful homes, homes that are busy where they don't have a place, coming into a classroom where they're meant to conform to a system Where you sit in a chair and you follow curriculum and you play the game and the bullies bother you. And I just, my heart ached.

No, and I guess like going through something like that yourself, it really makes you see the world so much more differently and all the gaps, you know, that other people may be experiencing in their mental health journey. And like all the things that, I mean, I'm sure as a teacher firsthand, seeing like all the gaps and all the resources that people lacked. To get through something like this. I'm sure you see it firsthand when you're going through the pain yourself, I would imagine.

Yeah, it's really true. I walk into the classroom and I'd see the teacher struggling and no one there to support her, you know. I'd see each of the kids struggling and not enough resources. I mean, there are some really caring people in our school system, but you have to have all the pieces. You have to have the professionals, the money, the time, and the space. And mental health has come up here and the education system stayed here. So I knew before my brother's death, I had done a lot of reading and learning about mental health. I'd been in therapy my, my entire life as an adult. So I knew there was a whole bunch of pieces, and I decided if I can't be productive as a teacher and meet the needs of families and students and other teachers, What if I did it from another place? And I decided that from my brother's death would come my initiative to become a therapist, to be able to support the other side and give solutions and maybe help people through the journey that I've been struggling with. And that, you know, all that I had learned in the 5 years prior to his suicide. So So for me, I'm a learner and a person of knowledge. I love to learn and know things. So I dive deep when something comes up. So at the point where my brother's mental health was getting in the way of our family, I had already dove into reading the books, the self-help, what programs were out there, what you needed to heal to do. Might as well take it to the next level, I figured. Yeah.

And, you know, pain has this like transformative ability. And I think, I think you're a perfect example of like taking pain and grief and channeling it in a way that's like transformative and, and can help others. So that's really inspiring because I'm sure, I'm sure grief just like knocks you off your feet and it's so difficult. You feel so powerless and helpless and it's so difficult to act or know how to act. And the fact that you took this pain and you're like, okay, this clearly is a sign that something needs to change and you use it in a transformative way. is really, really incredible.

That sounds really good. I'm going to use that line. Looking back on the last 5 years, it feels like it was a constant struggle to keep standing up and reach the next milestone. And COVID definitely got in the way of that. It was difficult to make decisions when your whole life is off balance again. All that helplessness comes back in again. Grief of life from the pandemic. I was a big person. I was out and about and doing. All of a sudden I'm home, right? My own— an extrovert being an introvert. So that was a big spot, a big learning for me, and realizing what it could be like to be alone and loneliness, how lucky I was that I had the foundation of support along the way. I've built incredible friendships and community and networking throughout my life because I am an empath and I care and I ask questions. Now it's just helping people find solutions to make their life a little easier. And because I— that was my journey, that I learned how to use grief and move it forward. It's so easy to choose negativity every single day and sleep.

Yeah.

It is. And ignore and to not do. It's so easy. And every day I woke up, I'm like, I can't feel like this again. I need to feel better. What will make me feel better? And I just kept moving forward. And then looking back, I'm like, wow, that's awesome. I did it. So I ended up leaving teaching. I finally retired, which was really hard. But again, in the pandemic and what's going on, I couldn't have shown up in those schools and, and been as— The teachers that are still there are my heroes. How they do that every day is just incredible. It wasn't for me. It's— that's not how I could be my hero. I wanted to grow my practice, and COVID was a really good time for that, thank goodness.

And then also, because, you know, when, when you're a mom going through this type of transformative grief, you know, I feel— correct me if I'm wrong— but I feel like you're also kind of indebted to the emotional well-being of your kids, and, um, you still have to kind of be present and raise them. So how did you balance being a mom and personally dealing with such a tragedy and any advice you can give to parents going through the same thing, having to kind of balance grief and, but also being responsible for their children's wellbeing and their children's changing emotions, you know?

That's a really good question. First, I don't think I did the best job I could have done, but I was also in a place I had never been before.

Right.

So we— our family had just come through a divorce as well, so we were already off balance from that.

Right.

And the beginning of the pandemic was difficult as well because both my children have cochlear implants. They're deaf. So listening and hearing with masks on changed their whole perspective of the world as well. So there's a couple of layers. The biggest thing that I think I will stand on now is I was always open to my children's opinions, and if you want, criticisms of what I was doing and what they needed from me. I invited them to tell me what I was doing that didn't meet their needs and what I could do to meet their needs. So that dialogue was always open. I was very open to say, I had no idea what I was doing. Please forgive me. Please be patient with me.

Wow.

And I think that gave them the opportunity to understand that I'm human, that I'm on the same level of them. It wasn't like they were young and I was old. I was grieving my brother. They're grieving their uncle. We're all in the same place of rebuilding. I was rebuilding my whole life. I couldn't be the best parent. I really couldn't. I didn't try to be either. I didn't put that sense of responsibility on myself. I didn't do the guilt game at all. I did— I'm gonna do what I need to do. I'm gonna tell them what I'm gonna do. Hopefully we can keep the communication open, open. And here we are now, 5 years later, and I have an incredible relationship with my adult children who respect everything I've done to get where I am. And are working hard on their lives to build their own purpose.

Wow.

So I think we got lucky, really, that we knew we had all been to therapy quite a lot in our past based on their disabilities and all the feelings you have as an individual. And, you know, going through divorce and all those pieces. So I think we all had the communication skill foundation. that let us get to the good place of where we are. And then when Omicron— say the word— Omicron.

Yeah, yeah.

When that came in, Montreal really shut down and we saw Ethan start to decline right away because we know the signs. We know when mental health and loneliness take over your logic brain.

Yeah.

So we encouraged him to come back to Toronto and spend the holidays with us. And he knows now that when we invite him there and when we see that piece of him moving down, it's important that he comes back, right? So that he doesn't go down and we don't worry about him. He doesn't want to hurt us any more than we want to watch him go down that rabbit hole of loneliness and sadness. It's a dark month for us, December, but this year we managed to really keep, keep the positive dialogue going. We did a little check-in, you know, how are we all feeling? Where do we sit now with our grief?

Mm-hmm.

My brother's— my brother's choice not to stay on this earth was a good one for him. He didn't— he wasn't happy here. It wasn't a good life for him. And we recognize that, and it's okay. We're all good with the choice he made. There's no anger or animosity, you know, it just is what it is. And there's going to be tears and sadness and grief. It's going to pop up consistently, but Give it moments in time, 10 minutes, half an hour, an hour, cry, let it out, and then choose life again, right? We're here in the moment. Everything is valuable. Every moment is valuable.

That's beautiful. Because I just feel like— and what specifically struck me about what you said is just being able to not feel the anger. It's true compassion that even though a person you really love made a choice that hurt you deeply, still understand that that's the choice that he made that he thought was best for him and still, like, so many years on, you know, like, respect that. And yeah, I guess, like, my follow-up question to that is, like, how do you deal, I guess, with the anger? Because I would imagine when someone I love makes that choice and it hurts me so much, like, the feeling that I think I would feel first is anger. Like, how, how could you do this? Like, how did you get over that?

Anger is one of those words that are so easy to attach to and we flare up so quickly. Anger is one of those feelings you catch really quickly and go with.

Yes.

So, okay, play it out. I'm angry at him. I can't yell at him. He's not here. I can't change it. He's not here. If I choose anger, the anger sits with me.

Yes.

Every interaction with mental health, with other people who have suicidal tendencies, or have conversations, or if it happens to them, that anger trigger will keep coming up on me. So where does the anger serve? I'm sad that we couldn't help him the way he needed help. I'm angry that we live in a world that not all services that you need are accessible when you need them.

Yeah.

So I'm using that anger. I've turned that into advocacy. I advocate. I have practicum students that offer free therapy for people who can't afford it. I open up the door to conversations when, when they're needed. I give myself out to the community, I volunteer. So if I continue to put myself out there in advocacy, then I don't have the anger because maybe I can take away the negativity for other families.

That's very hard.

If you give— thank you— if you give to get, And you keep putting yourself out there, then I feel, and my experience is, that good keeps coming back. I can walk this world in tons of anger. I can wake up every morning angry at the snow, angry at the pandemic, angry at people, at systems. It's so easy.

So easy.

But if we all worked in anger, we'd be a whole collective angry buzzing. We already have that.

Yeah, I was gonna say.

So I like to create my community of positivity, of contentment, of I'm okay. If you're okay and I'm okay, we're all okay together. We don't have to be up here happy and high. We also don't need to be down here. If you really think about New Year's, for me, New Year's Eve when it turns midnight was the worst morning of my life.

Yeah.

So Do I want to start every new year thinking that this is the worst moment of my life? We kind of end it on New Year's Eve saying, it was so wonderful when we had my brother up until this moment. We're sorry we couldn't go forward with him. And that might sound like hokey-pokey. It might not feel authentic for some. But it is a mindset that if you attach yourself to that kind of mindset, I think you can move forward in a better way than in anger. I could still be angry 5 years later. My children have recognized that life is really difficult and it's so easy to give up.

Mm-hmm.

And every time you wanna give up, you gotta find one thread, one cord, one person, one community, one piece of your community to pull you back. We all need help being pulled back. This— you can't do this stuff alone.

You need—

like, the minute you choose to be alone, you close off love, community, everything. Open up, share your shit out there, bring in the love. You know, you can mentor and build capacity for community through anger— through— not through anger, through healing anger.

I love that, healing anger. I'm literally gonna— I'm gonna like infuse that into my consciousness now. Every time I get angry, I'm gonna remember those words.

Yeah, yeah. I turn angry to disappointment too. When I'm angry, it's because someone didn't deliver something I had hoped. Yeah, it could be a friendship, could be work, it could be a family member, it could be the world. But anger is when we're frustrated that we didn't get what we wanted, and And realistically, we don't get what we want very often. Oh, where I— that's where my helplessness is. I can't come out of my, my blues in the winter. January and February were very rough months for me, and I still struggle with that. So I just make sure that I go to sunshine because that fills my soul, and I do what's good for me. I think that's important. That's a big piece that we'll talk about in future recordings as well, is Self-care, self-serving. It's not about being selfish, it's about taking care of yourself. Self-care, self-serving. If I'm healthy, those around me are healthy too.

Yeah, it starts with you. It starts with the decision to make— take care of yourself first, and then it pours into every aspect of your life. That's right.

It's true. If we go back to that parenting piece, if I look back on it, I'm okay because I took that time for myself, even though I maybe in the back of my mind, I'd be like, I should give this to my kids. But if I gave them everything, and I didn't keep anything for me, where would I be now? Wow.

It's true. It's true. Yeah.

And it's hard to be— it's hard to be that word, self— selfish, right? We feel guilty when we do things for ourselves. But realistically, no one goes to bed thinking, look at all the things I did for everyone else all day. Right? You're like, oh my God, I didn't do this, I didn't do this, I didn't do this. When you go to bed at night, you might be grateful for some things, but at the end of the day, you're down on yourself for the things you didn't do.

It's true.

So if you go to, go to bed thinking about the things you did do for your own mental wellness, then we can get here, you know. So death and grief and sadness are always right there at your fingertips. It can happen any moment. I'm not sure we as a population sit back and think, what would I be like in grief? Am I good at a regular— how upset do you get on a regular day when, like you said, when you get angry? Well, if something happens to a loved one, and you weren't expecting it, there's going to be a lot of anger. How do you access your grief and anger? Imagine if we actually practice that and put skills into place so when something bad happened, we were ready. Yeah, you know. Yeah, I would love to see that.

It's true. And I feel like a lot of these topics like grief, loss, and death are so taboo still, and it's so difficult to talk about them that, yeah, people almost don't know how to deal with it at all when it, when it strikes them.

Well, who wants to spend time talking about anything negative?

Yeah.

Right? And then you're like, I don't want to talk about that. It hasn't happened. We don't need to talk about that.

Exactly.

I have, um, quite a few of my friends now have parents in their 80s, and their parents are getting to the point where they have to make— they're getting dementia. They have to make decisions, and they never wanted to talk about the what-ifs. What happens when this happens? Our parents are going to go at one point or another. It's, it's right. It's— that's how the world works. You can enjoy every moment with them. But imagine if you were ready to celebrate their life when they leave this earth, instead of grieve for months and stop your own life and give up on things. It can go two ways so quickly before you even have a chance to Understand what is going on.

It's true. Wow. Well, that's very, very powerful. Thank you for sharing that.

Thanks for the questions.

Yeah, of course. Now, I know you went through another loss recently, actually. This is Bowie, who was your brother's dog. So I think it was just kind of the last connection that you had to your brother. Did Bowie's loss dredge up any of these old feelings again? How have you been managing that?

Well, interesting. It was actually— So when my brother passed, my parents had watched Bowie for the last 3 years, 4 years. And in May, I rented a house with a backyard, and I was able to take Bowie to my house. He had seizures. He had been witness to my brother, and that had traumatized him and given him seizures. So he was on meds. So he was a wonderful addition to this house, and we really enjoyed for the 6 months having him. He was a therapy dog. joy and a lot of hair. And it was really interesting because at 5, the 5-year mark, um, this New Year's, my kids celebrated New Year's with their friends, their community they have built in the house where my brother took his life. So my kids revisited the scenes in that, that morning, and they turned it around.

That's amazing.

It really was. They, they put a lot of process into the healing part in that moment to heal the house, their night, their view on the new year. At the same time, my parents are building their life as snowbirds. And I'm in the best place that I have been in the last 5 years, probably in 10 years. So we all were able to really focus on that piece of celebration and who we all are now and where we have come. And I'd been away for 3 weeks. I got home and Bowie had no seizures. He was absolutely amazing for the family he was staying with. I came home on Tuesday night, and Wednesday he was like a puppy all over me, playing, having fun. And Wednesday night he had a seizure and just never came out of it.

Wow.

And again, there's where that anger, right? Like, I just love— started loving this dog. Why would he leave me? I— this was the last piece of my brother. How dare you? It was really easy to go there and instead kind of looked and like, wait a second. He waited for me to come home. He waited for our family to be okay. For all the pieces to be okay. That was the last link to Jay.

Yeah.

And I think that was the biggest meaning is if you look at it from that perspective of, holy wow, this is, this is messages from a place that one step out of our existence. I believe in that stuff, some might not. But to me, those kind of coincidences is my brother knew that we were okay. He kept Bowie here attached to us until he knew we were all okay. And as soon as we were all okay, his last piece is gone. I like to look at it as a step into the future and letting go of the past. There's no need to stay there anymore. Nothing is going to be gained from looking back on the what-ifs, the anger, the helplessness, The mental health.

I feel like Bowie, yeah, like what you said, like Bowie was kind of that last piece to the puzzle. Almost like that last bit of healing that you guys have to go on before, okay, we finally have that, like, that blessing from your brother almost that things are okay. I love that. An important lesson for, I think, any aspect of life. Always trying to turn it around and that we have a choice. We can't control what happens to us, but we have a choice into how we respond to it.

I love that. How we move forward.

For sure.

For sure.

So, you know, I leave you with this last question. You're obviously, you know, living, breathing proof that there is life and transformation after suicide loss. So what advice can you give to those who are currently struggling?

That's a really big question and a really good one. Um, I'd say first, don't do it alone. The more you stay in your own head, the more the stories in your head make more sense. And they might not be the perspective you want to hang on to. 2, there are grief counselors, grief support groups. Toronto Distress Centre is one of the most wonderful ones. There are people and places you can go reach out, even if There's tons of support groups on Facebook. Just be part of a community where other people feel the same way as you. But go into that looking for the people who are healing, not the ones who are complaining. If you choose to stay in that complaining space, in that woe is me, that anger, it's going to be a really long process to get anywhere else. It just is. You can't stay in one place and move to a better place. It's just impossible. The journey might be really slow, and every 5 steps forward will be— might be 10 steps back. But if you don't take the 5 forward, you're never going to move forward. You're always just going to keep going backwards. I would say, if you can't afford therapy, then find something you can. Find somebody, find someone, something Talk into your phone, give yourself journals, watch YouTube videos, whatever it is. If you stay in it with nothing, you end up staying in it with nothing, right? So I think just finding, finding where you need support and really— and the other part of it is figuring out what you need for support. Do you need words of encouragement? Do you need sad things to cry to? Do you need food to help you through it? So if you want— you need food and you don't want to gain weight, think about the food portions, right? Don't limit yourself, but moderate. If you need dancing, make sure you have that. You need conversation, whatever it is you need. If you need to smoke weed, if you need to drink a little bit, again, give yourself time and space to do your bad things to make yourself feel good. But limit it, you know, put it in a ball. I'm going to spend half an hour being absolutely miserable and binge drinking, then I'm going to go to bed, and tomorrow will be a new day and we'll start again. Sometimes we need to do some bad things to get back to our good selves. We need to go through that anger stage. You can't just suck it up and swallow it, right? That's unhealthy. We need to process it. So it might take you— some people can process in 3 months, 3 years. But if we keep our thought process going forward, looking to do better, be better, try something new, then it's healthier for us and the people around us as well.

I love that, and I love how honest you were there, you know, saying, hey, like, of course you'll have your moments where you want to indulge in your vices, where you want to do bad things, and it's okay, you know, because then you're putting that added pressure of, oh no, what I'm doing, you know, the drinking or the smoking weed what I'm doing right now is so bad for me. And like, that just adds to the negativity, you know? But being honest with yourself and saying, listen, I need this right now in moderation to feel okay, and tomorrow's a new day. I think that's— it's almost like cathartic, you know?

Yeah, I agree. I couldn't give up my vices along the way. And sometimes, you know, people, my friends would check in and say, are you sure you're okay? I'm like, I need 2 or 3 more days in this state. Check in with me on Tuesday and pull me out, right? Sometimes you just had to. I've had lots of trauma in my life. I need to process it. Sometimes it just overtakes me, comes through, and I'm like, oh my God, I need a cry day, right? And I take a cry day.

I lie in bed.

I feel bad for myself. You know, my hair is in the bun. You don't wash it. You don't shower.

Yeah.

Just have one of those days. It's okay. The next day it's done. No feeling guilty. You know, I always, I always look at it like this. I love Big Macs. They're like my favorite guilty pleasure. I know I can't eat one every week and stay this weight. Those 2 scientific things just don't work unless I want to exercise a lot more, which I don't. So I have one a month and I sit and I enjoy it for all that it is. And I enjoy every bite of it. And I don't feel bad that I eat it because I worked for it. And emotions are the same. I don't feel bad for having a bad day. I have a lot of really good days. Of course I'm going to have a bad day. And the bad day is the day where you stop and you reflect that, oh my God, I only had one bad day this year. So for me, since January 1st of this year, we are now on the 24th. I have only had one good day after the other. With my own life and my children and my parents. We are moving. Even Bowie, you know, his passing was still— I realized that I have a really good partner now that will show up for me whenever and solid in an emergency. Like, that was the first time I needed something and I was willing to ask and he showed up.

Like, right.

You know, a new relationship, you want to know that person is there.

Yeah, that's the ultimate test, I think. The ultimate.

Yeah, it really is. And he was— he exceeded my expectations of what someone would do for me. So I look at that. My mom is so grateful for me taking the dog that, you know, that was a really good bond for the two of us. My children, we all realize we really want another pet. So now we're gonna have a— we're each gonna get a rescue. So there's 3 dogs that are going to get more love now because Bowie came into our lives and left. So there's so many good parts of it. So looking forward, I think, is, is, and actually putting things into action. And if you don't do it in the week, okay, so I didn't do the applications for the dog this week.

Next week.

There's no guilt in things I'm not doing. They just go on the list. Eventually everything gets done. Because I'm alive and I'm grateful.

Wow, I love that. Well, Shawna, let's hope that there's, you know, even more good days going forward and very, very few bad ones. Thank you so, so much for sharing your story with us. I'm sure it's going to inspire many. Um, and, uh, yeah, in honor of Bell Let's Talk, I really, really appreciate your time. I think this is going to help a lot of people.

Thank you for taking the time and those questions. Yeah, I'm happy to share my journey and know that there are some positive pieces along the way. And if, if there are others out there that need the support or need a check-in, I can be found at Karma Cares.