Offering hope, comfort and support for survivors of suicide loss.
In the past, I wrote this blog post about the Stages of Grief and how guilt impacted our ability to move through each stage successfully. Recent conversation with a family member after the loss of Blackhawk's assistant equipment manager, Clint Reif, motivated me to revisit the topic of guilt after suicide as many questioned, "How did his family not know?"
If you are a survivor, you have likely become very familiar with guilt after suicide. ...
It is amazing to me how much grief changes you. After losing my dad to suicide, I never really thought about how future deaths would impact me. My father's suicide instilled this unequivocal fear that others would die tragically. How could I not have that fear? It happened once before, maybe it will happen again. Much time and energy has been directed to this fear yet little has been directed to how I would cope if tragedy struck again. So ...
The other day, I heard a survivor say their loved one “died from a loss of hope.” This is such a simple, beautifully-articulated statement. How have I not used this myself before?
When explaining how someone died by suicide, most people fixate on the “did he or she commit or complete suicide” argument. Yes, that is certainly a very straightforward and factual way to put it. But, it feels rather cold, like the manner in which they died. I’m ...
A recent conversation with another survivor inspired me to write a post related to mental illness. If you have been a subscriber to our blog since the beginning, you know that I have a strong passion for ending the stigma of mental illness. I think that there are a number of contributing factors related to the increasing suicide rates we see in the world today; the stigma of mental illness is one of them. So what is mental illness?
What do ...
Recently, a friend posted a shocking status update on Facebook… she checked into an airport hotel with a colleague while on a business trip and when the co-worker got to her room, she found a professional cleaning service inside tidying up the bathroom. She jokingly asked, “what, did someone die in here?” And, to her dismay, the cleaner said “yes” and that “it happens about once a month – mostly suicides.” This left me really unsettled.
My dad ...
