The Emotional Toll of Suicide Loss: What No One Talks About
The Survivors PodcastJuly 23, 2025x
6
00:28:0426.13 MB

The Emotional Toll of Suicide Loss: What No One Talks About

In this powerful episode of The Survivors, Lisa and Gretchen unpack the complex, emotional aftermath of losing someone to suicide. They speak from personal experience—offering raw insight, practical support, and the crucial reminder that healing begins with conversation.

 

 

Watch the Video Podcast on YouTube:
A video version of this episode is available here: https://www.youtube.com/@TheSurvivorsPodcastChannel

 

 

This episode is proudly brought to you by Schoser Talent and Wellness Solutions
Struggling with employee burnout, high turnover, or clunky onboarding processes? Feeling overwhelmed by change or unsure how to support your team’s mental health in the workplace? You’re not alone. Welcome to Schoser Talent and Wellness Solutions—your all-in-one partner for building healthier, more resilient organizations.


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You don’t have to figure it all out alone—we’ve got you.
💙Because your mental well-being matters. 💙

 

Episode Summary

Lisa and Gretchen dive deep into the emotional toll of suicide loss—a grief experience unlike any other. They share their personal stories, explore common reactions like guilt, anger, isolation, and PTSD, and talk about how societal stigma compounds the pain. Together, they break down what to say, what not to say, and how to truly show up for survivors of suicide loss. If you've ever lost someone this way or are supporting someone who has, this episode is a lifeline.

 

Lessons Learned
  • Suicide loss grief carries unique emotions—shame, blame, anger, and stigma.
  • Survivors often don’t recognize they’re trauma survivors, but therapy can reframe the experience.
  • People often don’t know how to support a suicide loss survivor, making the grief even more isolating.
  • Simple, direct support like saying the person’s name or offering to walk the dog can make a huge difference.
  • Avoid harmful clichés; instead, listen without judgment and hold space for real emotion.

 

Episode Chapters

00:00 – Trigger Warning & Welcome
01:00 – Why Suicide Grief Is Different
04:00 – Guilt, Anger, and the Blame Game
07:00 – The Stigma of Silence
09:00 – Recognizing Trauma and PTSD
12:00 – Social Withdrawal After Suicide Loss
16:00 – Supporting Survivors in Their Grief
19:00 – What to Say (and Not to Say)
22:00 – Four Ways to Show Up for Someone in Grief
26:00 – Resources, Support, and Final Reflections
28:00 – Closing Words of Hope

 

Resources for Mental Health & Support

🔹 The Survivors Podcast Website – https://thesurvivors.net/
🔹 The HelpHUB™ – Mental health resources, tools, and support networks – https://www.thehelphub.co/
🔹 Schoser Talent and Wellness Solutions – Mental wellness coaching & support – https://schosersolutions.com/
🔹 Sh!t That Goes On In Our Heads – A raw, award-winning mental health podcast – https://goesoninourheads.net/

🔹 Safe Place Virtual Support Group for Survivors of Suicide Loss facilitated by Samaritans Southcoast https://www.samaritanssoco.org/i-lost-someone-to-suicide

 

Follow & Connect With Us

📷 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_survivors_podcast
🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-survivors-podcast
🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheSurvivorsPodcastChannel

 

A Shameless Plug for Our Sister Podcast!

Our incredible sister podcast, Sh!t That Goes On In Our Heads, has been nominated for two People's Choice Podcast Awards—the Adam Curry Award and the Health Award! 🏆
Let’s help them bring it home!
👉 Vote here: https://www.podcastawards.com
👉 Register with a valid email address (they do verify emails)
👉 Vote for Sh!t That Goes On In Our Heads in both categories
🗓️ Deadline to vote is July 31st, 2025
Thank you for supporting their powerful mission to normalize mental health conversations through raw, real, and relatable storytelling!

 


#TheSurvivorsPodcast #EndTheStigma #MentalHealthMatters #SuicidePrevention #YouAreNotAlone #BreakTheSilence #GriefSupport #988Lifeline #SurvivorStories #HealingTogether #PodMatch #MentalHealth #SuicideAwareness #Podcast #Community #Hope #Grief #Stigma #MentalIllness #Support #LisaSugarman #GretchenSchoser #SchoserTalentandWellnessSolutions #TheHelpHUB

 

 

See You Next Week!
Stay strong, keep going, and remember: You are enough. 💜


00:00:01
The Survivors is brought to you by our friends at Schoser Talent and Wellness

00:00:05
Solutions. This podcast mentions suicide, mental illness,

00:00:08
grief, and loss and may be triggering for some listeners. So

00:00:12
please take care of your mental well being by pausing or skipping any

00:00:15
sections that feel uncomfortable to you. And if you or someone you know is struggling,

00:00:19
please call 988 for support. Well,

00:00:23
isn't that a pleasure to have you do an actual, real, live,

00:00:26
professional countdown. Nobody heard it. I was the only one that heard it and saw

00:00:30
it. But that was a pretty professional countdown that you did. That was exciting

00:00:33
because. Well, you don't want me to have it on the screen anymore. Yeah, that's

00:00:37
okay. So we're here again. I love that we just keep coming back

00:00:40
and keep coming back because there is a lifetime's worth of stuff to talk

00:00:44
about. Oh, wow. My pink lipstick is looking. That is a pink

00:00:48
lip gloss. It's pink. Yeah, yeah. You

00:00:52
can't. You can't see it if this is the audio version. It's glossy. It's very

00:00:55
glossy. Yeah. I feel very bougie right now, so.

00:00:59
Hey, G. Hey, girl. So this

00:01:02
week we're gonna go deep in a different way and

00:01:06
talk about the emotional toll

00:01:10
on suicide loss survivors. And

00:01:14
as someone who has lost three people that I

00:01:18
love to suicide over the course of my life,

00:01:22
so it's been a constant thing, constant type of grief.

00:01:26
I can promise you that it's not like

00:01:30
all the other kinds of grief. I'm not saying anything is better or

00:01:34
worse, because grief is grief, and there's nothing good about grief except

00:01:38
that it means we loved our person. But

00:01:41
it's hard. Grieving is incredibly draining,

00:01:46
and especially suicide grief, which I'm glad that we're having this

00:01:49
conversation to talk about. What makes it so

00:01:53
unique? I know you have lost people

00:01:57
that you love to suicide as well, so you know that

00:02:01
kind of grief personally firsthand.

00:02:04
And I just think it's important that we explore

00:02:08
that emotional and psychological aftermath. Because it's an aftermath. Because

00:02:12
you are blown to bits. I know I was.

00:02:16
And it takes a lot to pick. Up those pieces

00:02:20
and, like, a lot of it. For me, it was. The blame game

00:02:23
is like, why didn't I see the signs?

00:02:27
Why didn't they open up? Why. Why

00:02:31
are we just finding out about this now?

00:02:34
For me, that was the hardest part. Yeah. Yeah. That's a big part of it.

00:02:38
And when you kind of isolate

00:02:41
grief, generalized grief, like someone has

00:02:45
lost a grandparent because they were 94 years old and they drifted away,

00:02:49
or someone, God forbid, had Cancer or someone was killed

00:02:53
in an accident. Those are all deep, tragic,

00:02:57
sad losses. We grieve them, we mourn

00:03:00
them. They don't have some of the things

00:03:05
attached to them though that suicide has.

00:03:08
And I think it's important to name those. Like, as we move into

00:03:12
this conversation, I think it's important that we just like call those things out

00:03:16
right now. So when I say that

00:03:20
suicide is very nuanced. It's

00:03:23
nuanced because there is guilt that can

00:03:27
often be attached. What, what didn't

00:03:30
I see? What signs did I miss? Why didn't I

00:03:34
help sooner? Those, those things are

00:03:38
not generally present when someone dies of

00:03:42
a heart attack or someone dies of natural causes in another way.

00:03:46
There's, there's anger. Deep, deep

00:03:50
anger. In a lot of cases for the people who are left

00:03:54
behind, like, why did you leave me behind? Like, my mother could have been furious.

00:03:58
My father took his life when My mother

00:04:01
was 40 years old with a 10 year old child. My mom worked part time

00:04:06
and he was literally there one day, took his life and was

00:04:10
gone and left my mother with

00:04:14
a whole life to manage. She was the

00:04:18
breadwinner, she was my support system. She was raising a child alones.

00:04:22
It would not have been unusual for my mother

00:04:26
to have been furious. In my mom's case, she never was. But a

00:04:30
lot of people are. There is crazy confusion.

00:04:34
I know when we, we found out one of our closest friends took his life

00:04:38
just a little over four years ago. He was one of the people who. You'd

00:04:42
never see the sign. It's like you never had any idea. Like my dad, you

00:04:45
didn't know anything was wrong. And you're. I had a friend, one of my

00:04:48
best friends in the world called me up and said, is it

00:04:52
true that our friend took his life? I'm like, what are you talking about? Who,

00:04:55
which friend? Like, I, I wasn't, I didn't even know what he was talking about.

00:04:58
It's. Your brain is just. Nothing computes

00:05:03
then like you already talked about. There's shame. It

00:05:07
can be so shameful and, and the stigma too.

00:05:11
Because when you, when you go to try and tell people

00:05:14
that your father, your mother, your brother, your sister or friend,

00:05:20
that how they died. Like people just clam

00:05:24
up. They don't know how to talk about suicide.

00:05:28
Yes, I lost my father to suicide. Yes, I lost my

00:05:31
mother to suicide. In my case, I lost a cousin to

00:05:35
suicide. I also lost a classmate to suicide.

00:05:39
I lost a co worker to suicide. But talking about

00:05:43
it, there's still stigma around it. People don't want you

00:05:46
to talk about it. Listen, people, people take

00:05:50
their lives every day. Every

00:05:54
day. We've talked about this statistic. You know how I feel about this one particular

00:05:58
statistic that I've mentioned in at least one episode, maybe more,

00:06:02
but if you haven't heard me say it, I'll say it again.

00:06:06
Over 700 people a year take their life in this

00:06:10
world. And for every one human

00:06:13
who takes their own life, it's been determined

00:06:18
through all of the major organizations, all statistically,

00:06:22
that for every one person who dies by suicide,

00:06:24
135 people are affected by

00:06:28
that loss. And those people may include spouse,

00:06:32
partner, family, children, co workers,

00:06:35
friends, and that's the average. So, you know, the number goes up and

00:06:39
down, but it's 135 people on

00:06:43
average are impacted for every one suicide.

00:06:47
And yet, like you said, suicide is one of those

00:06:50
things. Nobody wants to talk about it, nobody

00:06:54
wants to confront it, nobody wants

00:06:58
to be affected by it. And yet, if you add those

00:07:01
two numbers together of how many people die by suicide and how many people are

00:07:05
affected, that's like 94 million people a year

00:07:08
are stuck in a place of

00:07:12
feeling all these feelings about something that happened and no one's talking

00:07:15
about it. And society

00:07:19
is not doing us any favors. Every time we don't talk about

00:07:23
adds to the stigma, it adds to the pain. And

00:07:27
we need to keep talking about it and we need to realize that there is

00:07:31
a true emotional toll for the

00:07:35
survivor. And as you said, it's different than somebody that

00:07:38
gets killed in a car accident, somebody that dies by cancer, somebody that

00:07:42
d natural causes. It is different. You are left

00:07:46
with so many questions in your head

00:07:50
that sometimes you don't, don't know how to articulate or

00:07:53
you're afraid to articulate because of how

00:07:57
somebody might perceive that. Because I'm telling you, the minute you,

00:08:01
you say the word suicide, people are like, oh, I can't talk about that. Gotta

00:08:04
go. And look, we

00:08:08
live in a culture that has created that

00:08:11
stereotype. It unfairly stigmatizes

00:08:14
the act of someone dying by suicide.

00:08:18
So this is how we're all hardwired. It's not because we've all

00:08:22
chosen to feel this way. It's because society made us feel this way.

00:08:26
It's because only recently the mental health community as a whole was

00:08:30
talking about it being okay to not be okay and that

00:08:33
we have resources and things are in the mainstream now, but for the better part

00:08:37
of history, it's never been that way. And you want to know something?

00:08:41
Interesting. And I'm not sure I ever mentioned this last

00:08:44
season. I know I haven't mentioned it this season so far.

00:08:48
So I started back into therapy. I was in therapy when I was

00:08:52
probably 21, 22. It was at that time

00:08:56
I took a gap year. I didn't know what I wanted to do with my

00:08:58
life. So I, to a therapist, I talked about my dad, but not in the

00:09:02
context of suicide. Because if you've never heard my story, I

00:09:06
didn't know that my father took his life for 35 years. So when I was

00:09:09
in therapy back in the day, it was just because I didn't know what I

00:09:12
wanted to do with my life. So I'm back in therapy as of a few

00:09:15
years ago, mainly to talk about my dad and, and all the

00:09:18
baggage there with his suicide. Do you know

00:09:22
that? And this may seem so dumb for people listening, I never

00:09:26
realized that I was a trauma survivor

00:09:30
until my therapist reminded me that I was a trauma

00:09:34
survivor. And I can tell you

00:09:38
that it took me by such

00:09:41
surprise. I just. Don't ask me why she said, you're a trauma survivor just

00:09:45
because you lost your dad as a child. Which of course

00:09:49
I never, I never saw that. I never knew that. And then she said

00:09:53
when you found out your dad took his life, you are a full

00:09:56
on trauma survivor. I didn't know that. That's what

00:10:00
suicide makes us when we are a survivor

00:10:04
of that kind of loss. It also

00:10:07
leads to ptsd. I don't know about you, but it leads to ptsd, it leads

00:10:10
to anxiety, it leads to depression, people withdraw, leads to

00:10:14
isolation. There is a big

00:10:17
psychological impact to this subject that

00:10:21
you and I talk about every week. And

00:10:24
that's why it's so important that we talk about it every week.

00:10:29
And I think of husband and wife teams where either

00:10:32
the husband has taken his life or the wife,

00:10:37
their whole social circle was built around

00:10:41
that marriage. And then having people asking,

00:10:44
you know, the spouse that survived. How did you not see the

00:10:48
signs? Like, don't ask those questions

00:10:53
like we're already grieving. Why couldn't you get them into therapy?

00:10:56
Okay, if you are anybody, like I was, we, we

00:11:00
mask up. We don't let on that anything is going on.

00:11:05
Be kind. It's a, it's a, it's a grief that

00:11:10
you can't get over because you're already beating yourself up. And then

00:11:14
you have your social group beating you up. You may

00:11:17
not realize that you're doing it, but you're beating them up. Yeah, that's a good

00:11:21
point. That's, that's a very important point. I remember

00:11:25
being a little kid, you know, I was raised by a, a single mom

00:11:29
from the time I was 10 years old. And I remember when my mom

00:11:33
was encouraged to go to this group. God, the funny things that you remember.

00:11:37
There was this group at the local community center and it was called Alone

00:11:41
by Choice or Chance. So it was people who were widowed or people who were

00:11:44
divorced and I don't know, my mom's friends encouraged her

00:11:48
to go and she was trying to just meet people

00:11:51
and, and I remember just

00:11:56
that being like the only thing that she was doing socially was going to that

00:11:59
group because people just,

00:12:03
they treat you differently even when they don't mean to treat you differently. You don't

00:12:07
get the invitations to do the things that you maybe did with your couple

00:12:10
friends and your life and your circle get very,

00:12:14
very small. And my mother has always been incredibly

00:12:18
outgoing, very social. Everything was always at our house,

00:12:21
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00:13:38
But I do remember that they had their couple

00:13:42
friends that they socialized with and that just, it's sad.

00:13:46
It just kind of faded away. And I, I think a lot of it's

00:13:50
because people just don't know how to handle it. And I,

00:13:54
my take on that is like handle the

00:13:58
death of someone by suicide the same way you would handle

00:14:02
any other type of death. Don't exclude them from your

00:14:05
social group because they still need connection.

00:14:10
Don't be whispering behind their back.

00:14:15
Be present there for them.

00:14:18
And it's not a, it's not a grief that just goes away. It

00:14:22
will stick with you for the rest of your life. I still have questions

00:14:26
like, why didn't I see the signs? Like, why?

00:14:30
Why didn't they come to. Why didn't they speak up? I know now from my

00:14:34
own personal experience why,

00:14:37
But I don't know. Just don't be a dick, okay? Because

00:14:42
that's a good one. I'm sorry, but like, that, that's how it is.

00:14:46
Like, just don't be a dick to them. Like, they are grieving,

00:14:50
they've lost their person. And

00:14:54
when you lose your person, a part of you

00:14:58
goes away, too. And we're, you know, we're trying to

00:15:02
regroup and find the things that we can trust and

00:15:06
deal with our own emotions. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. And

00:15:10
I. I'm thinking of something that you just said, made me think about

00:15:14
the position that a lot of people who have survived

00:15:17
suicide loss, especially with a partner, especially with a spouse,

00:15:21
where you were a unit, you went and did all these things together.

00:15:26
I think the thing that people who are

00:15:30
engaging with those survivors are thinking is

00:15:35
let's get them out. I mean, a lot of cases, you know, some people back

00:15:38
away, other people are like, no, no, no, let's get them out and make them

00:15:42
social and introduce them and fill

00:15:46
their calendar. And while that's

00:15:49
incredibly kind and thoughtful in a lot of ways,

00:15:54
there's a big component of

00:15:57
isolation that really kind of in some ways needs to happen when someone

00:16:01
loses their partner because they have now got to

00:16:05
redefine themselves. They have an entirely new

00:16:08
identity. And you gotta give people

00:16:11
grace to. Because if they don't want to

00:16:15
go to the event, don't force them to go to the

00:16:19
event. Don't put them in a position of having to give you

00:16:23
an excuse or a reason or to fight with

00:16:27
you. Let them do what they need

00:16:30
to do at their own pace. Because let me tell

00:16:34
you something, if you're talking about grief

00:16:39
from the suicide loss perspective,

00:16:43
friends, that is a marathon and not a sprint.

00:16:47
Imagine a race that never, ever ends, okay? The

00:16:51
terrain just changes. That's what grief is,

00:16:54
especially grief attached to suicide loss.

00:16:58
Because let me tell you something. There are always things in

00:17:02
this world that you're going to see that you're going to hear, that you're going

00:17:05
to experience, that are going to trigger you. It could be five years out, it

00:17:09
could be 50 years out, and

00:17:12
you're in a pool of your own tears on the bathroom floor.

00:17:16
So the key here is be

00:17:21
gentle with the people. You've said it. You. You've already said it today.

00:17:25
Be gentle with the people who have lost someone and let them set

00:17:29
the pace. And that doesn't just go for people

00:17:32
that were partners. So that goes for people that were friends,

00:17:37
people that were co workers. Be kind, because

00:17:41
they're already dealing with it on their own terms

00:17:46
and they may not know how to, how to

00:17:50
handle it. And if they isolate for a little

00:17:54
bit, let them isolate. Maybe that is their way of dealing.

00:17:57
But if they do call, offer an ear

00:18:02
and don't judge. There's no room for

00:18:06
judging in the world of suicide. You

00:18:09
absolutely have zero idea what's going through somebody's head

00:18:13
when they get to that point. Yeah, that's such

00:18:17
an important point to make in any conversation

00:18:21
about suicide loss. Because people are very

00:18:25
quick to judge in life in general, not just with

00:18:28
this particular subject, but people

00:18:32
judge us for what we drive and where we live and

00:18:37
what we wear. And those things are bad enough.

00:18:41
When you start throwing your judgment around about

00:18:45
someone who has ended their life,

00:18:48
well, that is next level douchiness

00:18:52
that you just do not want to put out

00:18:56
into the world. Because there

00:19:00
is almost always a reason

00:19:04
that does not have anything to do with I

00:19:08
wanted to leave my people or I wanted to leave my life. There is a

00:19:11
deeper, darker reason. Suicide is the

00:19:15
byproduct of depression, which is a byproduct of

00:19:18
mental illness. So. So anybody who's going to make an

00:19:22
idiotic comment about someone

00:19:26
taking their life, having it be selfish, or why couldn't it be stopped?

00:19:30
You don't know unless you know what you're

00:19:33
talking about. So don't even make the comments.

00:19:38
So I have five things that are going to be helpful to say

00:19:42
and five things that you should avoid saying. Did you get that

00:19:46
off the help hub? No, I got it from another place.

00:19:50
Oh, good. But I'm just going to go ahead and say these and then we

00:19:54
can move on. If you're okay with that. I'm okay with anything you do.

00:19:57
Okay, so here's some helpful things you can say. I don't know what

00:20:01
to say, but I'm here for you. I can't imagine

00:20:05
what you're going through, but I care deeply. You don't have

00:20:08
to talk if you don't want to. I'm just here to sit with

00:20:12
you. Fourth is it's okay to

00:20:16
feel angry, confused, numb, or all of it.

00:20:20
And you're not alone. So those are like five

00:20:24
things you can say. All right, now these are the

00:20:27
ones that you shouldn't say because it's total dick move

00:20:31
on your part. There's they're in

00:20:35
a better place. Okay, that can really invalidate somebody's feelings.

00:20:39
Don't say that. That's. That one hurts. At least they're not

00:20:42
suffering anymore.

00:20:46
Everything happens for a reason. Oh, oh.

00:20:50
Did you see it coming? Were there signs? Okay, I'm going to tell

00:20:54
you, in my case, no and no.

00:20:58
And like, why would you even say that? But people do. But

00:21:01
people do. You've got to be strong, okay?

00:21:06
Grievers should not feel pressured just to perform strength,

00:21:10
okay? They went through something very, very, very difficult.

00:21:14
Be kind, be compassionate,

00:21:19
be understanding, be non

00:21:22
judgmental. That's what is helpful. Those

00:21:26
were. Those were incredibly helpful.

00:21:30
I live all these things. I. This is. This is my world. This is your

00:21:34
world. I couldn't have said it any better than you just said it. And that

00:21:37
was, I think, such a powerful takeaway that people can actually have. It's

00:21:41
so important. This is one of the things you and I try so hard to

00:21:44
do in every episode. We try to have the conversation. We try to put

00:21:48
the topic out there in the mainstream, but we're also trying really

00:21:52
hard to give you takeaways.

00:21:55
So if you're now in a situation where someone you know has lost

00:21:59
someone, maybe you'll rewind your brain a little bit

00:22:03
back to this conversation and remember a couple of the things G said to

00:22:06
say and not to say. And that will be helpful. So

00:22:11
yay for you doing that, because that was just so powerful.

00:22:14
Okay, can I give four ways that you can just show up for people?

00:22:18
Yes. Okay, so there's four ways you can just show

00:22:22
up. Just be there. You know, grief needs a witness, not

00:22:26
fixes. Just be there. Offer

00:22:29
specific help. Don't say, hey, if you need anything, let me know.

00:22:33
Instead, try. I'm headed to the store. Can I grab you some

00:22:36
groceries? Would it help if I walk your dog this week?

00:22:40
Do things like that. Respect their grief.

00:22:44
Not everybody wants to talk about it right away. Let

00:22:47
them guide that pace and remember the person

00:22:51
they lost. Say their name. You can say things like,

00:22:55
hey, I saw some sunflowers today and I thought of her smile.

00:22:59
Or I remember the time he made us all laugh until we cried.

00:23:04
Say their name. Just because they took their life

00:23:08
by suicide doesn't mean you can't still say their name.

00:23:12
It doesn't invalidate that life. Yes.

00:23:16
It's like how we shouldn't judge people by their worst

00:23:19
mistake. We also shouldn't judge people

00:23:24
by how their life ended

00:23:28
in the same way, you know.

00:23:32
And just stay curious, but not intrusive. Find out what

00:23:36
they need. Offer love. Don't pressure them to answer

00:23:39
questions that they may not be prepared or ever want to answer.

00:23:43
And listen more than you speak. Hold space.

00:23:47
You know, it's a very, very

00:23:51
gracious thing to just come right out and

00:23:54
ask someone who's lost someone, whether, whether it's to

00:23:58
suicide or to anything. Ask that person,

00:24:03
hey, would it help or would it hurt to talk about your

00:24:06
person right now? Yes, just that simple.

00:24:11
And I know in my case, and we talked about this in the last episode

00:24:14
where you and I were bawling our eyes out about how a friend of

00:24:18
mine on Father's Day shouted out a post to my father

00:24:22
specifically. And not many people in the world are left who knew my father

00:24:25
personally. And he is someone who did. And that was the

00:24:29
greatest gift in the world to have my

00:24:33
father be recognized in that way. And I know a lot of people feel that

00:24:35
way. So it's always gonna be a no harm, no foul situation

00:24:39
when you just ask if that's cool or not cool.

00:24:44
Yeah. And, you know, just be present and be human. Yeah.

00:24:48
Yeah. And, and one, one last thing before,

00:24:51
before we kind of wrap this conversation is that

00:24:55
we've talked a lot about ways in which we can have the

00:24:59
hard conversations, how to show up for your people.

00:25:03
If you don't have someone in your life,

00:25:07
if you don't have a community or a partner or a family or a

00:25:11
support system, you're still. You're still never alone.

00:25:15
There are always hotlines. The

00:25:19
one that comes to mind that we talk about in every episode that we record

00:25:22
is of course, the 988 crisis suicide hotline. That

00:25:25
is not just for people who are feeling suicidal. That is for

00:25:29
anyone who is experiencing any kind of

00:25:32
mental stress, strain, anxiety,

00:25:36
homelessness, abuse, loneliness, you

00:25:40
name it. Anything goes to call 988.

00:25:44
You do not have to be suicidal. But there, there are support

00:25:47
groups. If you don't have your own personal support group,

00:25:51
they're virtual. I know I personally moderate a

00:25:55
group the first and the third Wednesday of every month

00:25:59
through Samaritan south coast here in Boston called Safe Place Place.

00:26:03
And we can put that in the show notes. It is a very specific kind

00:26:06
of group. It's for survivors of suicide loss and I moderate that.

00:26:10
And that's a virtual group. There are plenty of in person groups.

00:26:14
Seek out a trauma informed therapist. That is a big

00:26:18
deal. When you're talking about a therapist who understands trauma

00:26:21
versus one who doesn't. That is a game changer in terms of the kind

00:26:25
of conversations you're going to have and, and, and also

00:26:28
storytelling, just the act of being in places where you

00:26:32
can share your story. Maybe it's over social media, maybe

00:26:36
it's in a group, maybe it's over the phone, maybe it's

00:26:40
journaling. There are a million different ways that you can do that to help you

00:26:43
process your loss. Do that, seek those things out or

00:26:47
seek out a friend that you know has lost someone. If, if you have

00:26:51
someone like that in your life to have that kind of a connection with. Because

00:26:54
it's a next level conversation when you know that you're talking to somebody who has

00:26:58
experienced the same thing that you've experienced. And

00:27:02
I think the bottom line to all of this is that

00:27:06
connection helps us feel less alone

00:27:10
and it helps us to heal. It's

00:27:14
as simple as that. You know, grieving,

00:27:17
grieving at all sucks. Grieving after suicide

00:27:21
sucks. It's messy, it's traumatic,

00:27:25
but we can still heal from it. And

00:27:28
we do that when we stop healing by ourselves. And we,

00:27:32
we reach out to the, to the places and the people around. Us who are

00:27:36
there, you know, and life is short.

00:27:41
So make those conversations matter. Not just for you,

00:27:45
but for the person who's truly grieving. Approach it with kindness

00:27:50
and hold space. That's all we've got

00:27:54
and I hope it's enough. But we'll be back.

00:27:58
I guarantee it. We'll be back next week to do it all over again. We

00:28:01
sure will. I love you, boo. Love you. Bye bye.

00:28:08
Thanks for joining us on the Survivors. Remember, no matter how tough things

00:28:12
feel, you are enough and the world needs you just the way you are.

00:28:16
You're not alone in this journey. There's a community here and every step forward

00:28:19
counts. We're so grateful you took the time to listen and we hope you'll

00:28:23
take one day at a time. Just know there's always more light ahead.

00:28:28
Thanks for being here, friends. Just remember, help is out there

00:28:32
in so many different places. So if you or someone you know is struggling,

00:28:36
please call 988 and a. Trained crisis counselor like me will be

00:28:40
there to help. You can also find an inclusive and. Comprehensive directory of

00:28:43
mental health resources, tools and content at

00:28:46
thehelphub.co. Just remember that help is always

00:28:50
just. A call or a click away. We'll catch you next week. In the

00:28:53
meantime, keep surviving.