The Complex Issues of a Loss Like No Other – Suicide Part I

So today we're going to touch on some of the, uh, some of the facts, just so we all have the correct baseline to start from. And then we're also going to cover a few things from the suicide survivor standpoint. I think the first thing we probably need to do is mention the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. So if you're contemplating or have had thoughts about it, please reach out that number is +1 800-273-8255. Now on the topic.

Marshall is much more knowledgeable about this whole subject and how to deal with this from a grief side. So today we decided that I would go ahead and cover some of the facts up front, and then I'm going to pose some of the questions to him. And we'll just cover some of the items that we've been, um, trying to decide what will go into the first episode. So, I do have to say Marshall, when I first looked these up today, I found them on dosomething.org and they listed the, uh, some suicide facts.

I think we've got 11 to 13 of them as of the year 2017. And I did not know suicide was the 10th leading cause of death. That one really surprised me and I know you've researched as much further than I have.

So that is not good news.

When we're dealing with, with death numbers on a daily basis and rolling number, that's a big number. The next one hit me just as hard. There were twice as many suicides as homicides in the U S in the year 2017. Sometimes that's hard to fathom. It's also the second leading cause of death for 10 to 34 year olds in the US.

And again, I'm always been a voracious reader of news, and I read the obituaries every single day and I can tell you that if you actually do read the obituaries, you'll see these obituaries of young people that have passed away. And many times I would be able to read the obituary and almost come to a conclusion that this could have been a suicide.

And I will tell you that I've had the opportunity to have that confirmed because I've been very involved with the suicide survivor community after Matt's passing. And I've actually had the opportunity to meet family members who lost their loved one and when they tell me their story, tell me their loved one's name. I know that I read about it in the obituary and so...

I'm sure the family knows people are going to assume that, so, I think those family members are very brave and I think those members of those families should be commended for having that in writing. I will tell you that the vast majority of people who have lost loved ones, to suicide, that I personally talked to decided not to list that in the obituary, which obviously is a very personal decision for them to make.

And I can just speak personally that in Matt's obituary, which I wrote, we did not list his cause of death by suicide. But, we have been very transparent, very vocal about the fact that he died by suicide and we wanted to make sure at his funeral, we talked to our rabbi and wanted to use the funeral as a platform to address the issue of death by suicide. And we've done it ever since man's passing.

So again, everybody's got their own decision to make on that and for us personally, we didn't put that in the obituary. But, everything we've done since then has been directed towards addressing the issue of death by suicide, because we want to try to prevented as much as we can and also help survivors who've lost loved ones to suicide because I think Matt would want us to do that.

Also. The next one on the list is 50% of the people in the U S they know someone who has died by suicide. So, it's not like it's a small population that's affected by this. At least half of the population knows somebody who has committed suicide. 10.5% of adults in the U S ages 18 to 25 had serious suicide thoughts in the past year, that's a rather large number. Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and questioning youth are five times more likely to attempt suicide.

Women are three times more likely to attempt suicide, but men are 3.5 times more likely to have a fatal outcome from suicide. 79% of global suicides occur in low and middle income countries. Firearms accounted for almost 24,000 suicides or about half of the total number. In an international study, 40% of transgender adults attempted suicide would 92% of them having attempted suicide before the age of 25. These are just the facts that we came up with off the Dosomething.org site.

And I do want to mention they referred to some different, uh, associations where they arrived at these numbers. They were from the statistics from American Association of Suicidology, , National Institute of Mental Health, from the CDC, the travel report, WHO, and the William Fidelman Journal of Affective Disorders. So, they gathered the data for all of those facts that we've come up with about suicide. So we kind of wanted to start off with a baseline.

So, we're all thinking and talking about the same thing. And from there Marshall, the one thing I've always wondered, and I'm not sure I ever heard a good answer on is everybody at-risk from suicide or thoughts of suicide? Do do everybody contemplate it at least once or twice in their lifetime? Can it touch anybody?

And they're like living in a cave, God Bless Them, let them live in a cave versus ending their life because so much of life is unexpected. You want to see how things turn out and I think my philosophy of that sort of goes back to a book I read in high school, which was Walden Pond by Henry David Thoreau.

And he went to live by himself on Walden Pond, which was very rural rustic area and he wrote about it and it obviously helped with his mental health and I always just wondered why everybody, whoever considered suicide didn't do that.

After Matt's passing by suicide I knew that I would be obsessed with trying to figure out why the suicide happen and I was going to be researching as many different sources from as many different authoritative journals, articles, discussions from scholars that I could possibly have to try to get some insight into it but also try to talk to as many suicide survivors who lost loved ones to discuss what their experience was with the loss of a loved one by suicide.

And the one thing that I would say is the one constant with suicide is there are no constants. By that, I mean, people make assumptions about suicide that, Oh, they must have been so depressed. There's research that shows that people that are severely depressed are actually less likely to attempt suicide then if they're not depressed because they don't have the energy that they would otherwise need to do something like this.

So that has in the academic journals, been attacked is not a hundred percent correct. Then somebody was saying, Oh, he must have had so much difficulties in their lives at that time. Well, I will tell you during the period before Matt 's suicide and Matt's suicide anniversary is next week, it'll be two years coming up next week.

The months before Matt passed away, there was a three day period where Kate Spade who was an incredibly well loved fashion designer, apparently and incredibly loving, funny, nice caring person died by suicide. Within the same three day period, Anthony Bordain, who was one of the top chefs in New York city and became a TV star on CNN. When he did a series where he traveled around the world, ate exotic food and talked about his incredible experiences on CNN.

Which to me sounds like the greatest job anybody could ever have any actually was on a shoot for CNN in France, staying at this beautiful hotel where he just finished a shoot with one of his best friends, another chef, had dinner seemed fine and then went to his hotel room and died by suicide. And after Kate Spade and Anthony Bordain died by suicide.

Matt actually came home because my mother was dying and she was in hospice and I remember talking to Matt about Kate Spade, but really more, more specifically Anthony Bordain, because he liked watching Anthony Bourdain on TV and he just said he didn't understand it at all. How somebody would do that, especially when everything on the outside looks like it's going so well. So the generalization that people make, Oh, well, they must have had difficulties in their lives.

From the outside, looking in it's your look like Kate Spade had a wonderful life. It looked like Anthony Bordain had a wonderful life. And again, we can just go on further down the line. Robin Williams, one of the great comedians of our generation.

Well loved wonderful family, man, he died by suicide and recently, there is a story concerning a fraud line medical doctor in New York City called Dr. Lorna Breen, who was fighting COVID-19 as a hero New York City and was having difficulty dealing with those stressors of being a frontline medical provider fighting this horrific pandemic. And she went home to her family in Charlottesville, Virginia and she unfortunately died by suicide.

So a lot of the generalizations that exist don't really hold up when you are talking to people, who've lost loved ones to suicide. And the one analogy that I've used since Matt's passing, but I think really resonates and sort of explains what we're talking about when you're talking to suicide survivors is what I describe as the iceberg analogy, everybody knows that the Titanic was hit by an iceberg that resulted in horrific loss of life.

If you saw the movie, it was very traumatic the way the lookout saw the tip of the iceberg and try to get the ship to turn quickly to avoid it. And an iceberg is sort of like a ice cube in a glass that we've all seen. The ice cube in the glass, just like the iceberg, only 10% above the water line, which means that 90% is above is below the water line. You could only see that 10% of all the water line. You cannot see the 90% below the waterline.

The Titanic was not sunk by the 10% above the waterline. It was sunk by the 90% of the iceberg they couldn't see below the water line. And that is what I think suicide is all about. As human beings on this planet, we only see the 10% above the water line that people want us to see the 90% below the water line is the part that we can't see because for whatever reason, those people don't want us to see it. Again, I talked to Matt on a daily basis was constantly texting him.

He lived 3000 miles away, but we'd FaceTime him and my last conversation with Matt was like all my conversation with Matt hilarious, funny, everything's going great. My last text with him was everything's wonderful. He was going to have a girl come over and talk to me tomorrow. That was the last text I got from him. Those last conversations were no different than thousands of conversations I had with him or thousands of text messages I had from him, except those were the last one.

So I had nothing to look at, but the 10% of the iceberg above the water line and knew nothing about the 90% below the water line. And that is why to answer your question, suicide doesn't discriminate and it can and it has touched so many different people at different times where their loved ones never saw it coming.

And I've said this many times that to me, this is like somebody took a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle and threw it on my dining room table and said, "okay, you've got the rest of your life to try to figure out how to put these pieces together."

It's been two years now, since Matt's passing and I would give a rust, a rough estimate that other thousand piece jigsaw puzzle, I've been able to put maybe a hundred of those pieces together, which means that there's 900 other pieces that I can't figure out how they fit. And what I knew I had to do is to try to see what I could get from Matt to help me on this journey.

And I was able to get information from Matt on his cell phone, on his computer that I think were breadcrumbs that he left to help me in particular, but as I think his family and friends in general, along this journey. And I think that it's something that I'm going to be spending the rest of my life, trying to figure out. But other people wouldn't want to do that.

I can tell you that Debbie, as a mother does not have the desire or inclination to do the investigation that I have done and doing, and will continue to do the rest of my life. She just doesn't want to do that. I totally understand that. And respect that it's just a different way of dealing with suicide, just as it's a different way of dealing with grief. Again, it's not right. It's not wrong. It's just the individual journey that each suicide survivor has to go on.

It could be what we would consider superstars. Robin Williams is one of the funniest guys I ever, ever watched. And yet,few, we even had any inkling that it was coming. So any suicide attempt should be treated seriously and not lightly, correct?

You think that I would be not surprised because I've experienced it firsthand, but I am, there was a case that really affected me like Alan Krueger served as a chairman of president Obama's council of economic advisor advisors. He was not only an economic professor at Princeton university. He was a key player in developing the economic plan that prevented the great recession of 2008 from turning into a worldwide depression. And I read an article about his suicide.

That if I remember correctly, it was written by somebody that actually interviewed him on TV for his economic expertise. And they said he was the kindest, gentlest, nicest, warmest person that you could ever imagine. And the person ended by basically stating this was the least likely person I would ever imagine they would die by suicide. But I will tell you, I've heard that again and again and again and again, from suicide survivors.

We were actually in New York city shortly after Anthony Bourdain died. And I was able to go to a restaurant where Anthony Bordain knew the owner and I asked the owner about his relationship with Anthony Bordain. They told me the same thing that this person talked about Krueger, Alan Krueger. Anthony Bordain was this incredibly brilliant, funny, kind, generous, wonderful person who on the outside looking in was the least likely person to ever die by suicide. But again, pick your analogy.

It's not the outside looking in, it's the inside looking out. It's not the 10% above the waterline. It's the 90% below the water line that counts. That's why suicide is so insidious. And that is why suicide survivors like me. Who do want to take this journey to try to get as much information as possible. We'll be dealing with this for the rest of our lives, because it's so darn complicated.

So Marshall, obviously as a suicide survivor, you and Debbie have met other people. I read one of the facts, uh, from the, um, the website that we had pulled the statistics Dosomething.Org and it actually caught me off guard because they estimate that each suicide leaves behind six or more suicide survivors.

And when you think about it, that's, it's actually probably quite more than six per, but even at six suicide survivors left behind that's 2.5 million people every year that are affected by this and it very well could go much higher. Cause we're not even counting friends or it's, that's probably just from a family perspective.

The morning of Matt's funeral, I was contacted by some of his friends in California that told me that they were going to have a Memorial servic format in the San Diego area. And the one problem that they had was trying to get a venue big enough, because they had so many people there wanted to give a eulogy about their relationship with Matt.

And we got a videotape of the ceremony and there was people there that I never personally met and never heard Matt talk about who were so touched by Matt's life that it amazed me I and I love when somebody will call me up or contact me or text me and tell me a Matt's story that I never knew about. And it makes you realize, again, it's not the pebble in the pond with the little circles coming out of ripples, how it affects people left behind.

It is a humongous innumerable number of waves that go farther than you could ever imagine.

Is there other things that come with it that aren't always with some of the other losses?

of time of months or the initial shock of a completely unexpected passing. And I couldn't answer that question.

I can just tell you that to this day, intellectually, I know that Matt passed away almost two years ago, but emotionally I still don't feel the finality of it because he lived through a thousand miles away and we'd seen him a few times a year and we'd text and talk every day, but it's not like he was five years old in our house every day where we saw him for breakfast, saw him for lunch, saw him for dinner, would play music at night and have a day filled with contact because

he was an adult, he was 32 years old. So we were empty-nesters. So the way I feel about Matt's passing is sort of the way I feel about my parents passing. My father passed away. September 29th, 2012. It was almost eight years ago. I just feel like I haven't seen my dad for a while. I still think about him every day. He still makes me laugh every day.

So it's just a different sense that I know he's gone also intellectually, but emotionally, I still feel connection with him the same with my mother who passed away two days after Matt did. So, the shock of the suicide is something that I think he will never forget. But you realize that it's not how somebody died that counts. It's how somebody lived. And Matt made the most of his time on this planet. And that is the tribute that he gave to us as those who were lucky enough to know and love him.

And that is the memory of the good work that he did while he was on this planet that I feel is now my duty to continue through my time on this planet.

In fact, I think it's the hardest thing I've ever attempted to do in my life. And I'll say right now, I'm not over it. Jordan, on November, the loss of Jordan, we still have tough days and tough weeks even now. And it's been almost six years. Has. Has been six years, July 2nd was the sixth anniversary of his passing. Is there in this struggle with the loss by suicid, is there anything different in that grief journey that maybe I haven't had to, to try and deal with or understand?

They never saw this on the radar screen. And they know that if they could have done something, they would have, they didn't because they couldn't. And that has been told to me so many times by different survivors, those exact words, and I think as a suicide survivor, I can, everybody's going to be on their own journey and you have to take that journey on your own to protect yourself, but also to live your life as a tribute to a lost loved one. Because again, it's not how they died.

It's how they lived. And so many of the suicide survivors I've talked to have found some peace and contentment understanding the importance of remembering how they lived. And I think that greatly helps them with their journey of grief. But also, hopefully to avoid any issues they might have with PTSD or other issues that could be case specific to suicide survivors, which would not be healthy for them to deal with without some help.

So as we mentioned before, this is a very deep and involved, uh, subject and there's a lot of different things to cover and we're gonna break it into a few different episodes over the next couple months. And I think what we're going to try and do is wrap up this first episode with one last topic.

I've got it here suicide as far as suicide survivors are concerned is that just the subject or the name of suicide often comes with certainly in the past, it has always come with a stigma or shame or resulted in isolation afterwards for the survivors. It's just one way that I think society used to, to consider suicide or look at it. And the family had to live with that after. Do you agree with it?

So suicide is nothing new and I think you have to again, realize that society changes. Again, looking at history. Sometimes you look at what man's inhumanity to man has consisted of with slavery and wars and oppression. And you know, you look through Spanish Inquisition, The Crusades, The Holocaust. It's just a lot of death and destruction. So hopefully as humans, we are progressing where a lot of those atrocities will be less than in the future.

But if you look at current events, there are still atrocities that happen throughout the world, still oppression and still examples of man, man's inhumanity to man. But I do believe optimistically that we are making progress and with that, I think that is hopefully going to happen with suicide because I think people are realizing that, as I said before, it's not how you die. It's how you live.

And I've said this many times to many suicides surviors who told me the exact same thing that their loved ones didn't choose suicide, suicide chose them.

And it's a situation where I believe that Matt suicide was due to a brain disease that is no different than other fatal brain diseases, such as there's something called a Glioblastoma brain tumor that took the life of Senator John McCain , took the life of Senator Ted Kennedy and the medical technology to date does not have an effective cure for Glioblastoma brain tumor. You get that diagnosis, you have a high propensity of death.

And I think suicide is no different than a Gioblastoma brain tumor because it's just another brain disease that medical technology does not have an effective treatment or an answer to cure. I

And, I remember feeling in shock when when they told me and they were like, Oh, you didn't know that? It's like, no, my dad never said a word, but never, my mom never did. But I do remember we used to go to the cemetery all the time to put flowers on my grandfather and grandmother's grave. And we drive 20 miles into the town where their grave site was. And I always remember my grandmother was over next to a lot of these other graves. Yet, my grandfather's grave was not next to hers.

It was across the drive in the cemetery and it was actually off by itself by one of the maintenance buildings and not far beyond, it was a pile of trash where they threw out all the old flowers and trees and bushes. And I always ask how come they never had the two graves together and mom and dad never said, but I found out afterwards that they're not together because suicide back then was actually considered a very bad sin and he wasn't allowed to be buried next to her.

And they actually put his grave on the other side of the drive in the cemetery because he died by suicide. So I actually learned of that part way through my life. I didn't have any idea, but, um, it just shows that so many families can be effected by it.

And she sort of laughed, because she knew that it was just what the family wanted to do to make the obituary less painful or more socially acceptable. But it wasn't the truth because obviously you can say every cause of death is. A heart event, cardiac event. Why? Because when your heart stops for long enough for all gonna pass away.

So I think what your story illustrates is that what I was trying to, the point I was trying to make is that I've been amazed, how people that I've dealt with in the suicide survivor community have been very, um, proactive talking about how their loved one's lived in how their loved ones died. You know, like I've said many times today, it's not how they died, it's how they lived.

But it is important to talk about when somebody does die by suicide, because you can see what has happened with these statistics. We went over the first part of this show. It is an epidemic that is getting worse, and this is not something we can sweep under the rug, not talk about and just hope that it's going to get better. Cause it won't, it's getting worse. And as a suicide survivor, the rest of my life is going to be dealt with trying to do whatever we can do for the good of society.

To prevent this from happening to others. Cause we're losing the best and the brightest to death by suicide. And I know Matt would want me and my family to do everything humanly possible to avoid this epidemic from hitting other people's and other families. And I think that is a societal change for the better that I see happening. So thank you for sharing your family's experience dealing with suicide, and hopefully this will help other families in the future.

Realizing this is something that I think we can, and we should talk about openly to help defeat this epidemic.

Suicide in general and what we're all facing as a society today, we'd like to invite you to check out our webpag at www.Hopethroughgrief.com, hopethrugrief.com and also Hopethrugrief on our Facebook page. You'll find many of our sessions there and a link to, to the podcast that is Hopethrugrief on Facebook. Thank you for joining us today and stay tuned for next week's episode. Thanks for joining us. Hope you have a great.

Thank you for joining us on hope through grief with your cohost Marshall Adler and Steve Smelski.