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

We went into a lot of details, went into a few of the different stories. And for today's episode, since Marshall knows quite a bit more about suicide.

I'm going to ask and pose a few questions to him and let him go ahead and give us his response back on some of these and this time we kind of wanted to focus more around the issues of some of the other suicide survivor families and what some of them are doing, what they've experienced, um, kind of give a different flavor or a different story from what we've concentrated on before.

So with that Marshall, I think for the first topic, we'll start out with, I know I mentioned that my dad is a suicide survivor because my grandfather that I was named after committed suicide. And that was before he and my mom met and he wouldn't talk to me about it. And I think I told the story where his grave was at a different location in the cemetery.

The question that I wanted to ask is through all the hundreds of people that you've spoken with in the last two years, suicide has that stigma of being an embarrassment, or I should have known, or we should be able to stop it. Do people try and hide the fact of what the death was caused by how many are open and up front with it?

So for, for better, for worse, probably for the rest of my life, I'm going to be the suicide guy. When there's a question that somebody has and they know me, they're probably going to reach out to me. So I talked to hundreds and hundreds of hundreds of people. And let me just backtrack for a second.

I know when we had Matt's funeral, we talked to our Rabbi before the service, and we told him that we think Matt would have want us to be advocates for suicide survivors, the rest of our lives, and to do so, we had to be totally transparent and upfront about the issues of suicide and suicide survivors. So the rabbi could not have been better and applauded us for being so open and was incredibly helpful throughout the service. and obviously with grieving after.

So my personal philosophy and the philosophy of our family has always been transparency, honesty and that is the way to, I think, get the grieving process in a position where you're helping yourself, you're helping others. But, every person is different, but to tell you some stories and all these stories are actual people that I've dealt with throughout the two plus years of talking to suicide survivors.

I know there was one family that decided to list the obituary of their loved ones who died by suicide as a cardiac arrest.

So it is a cardiac a cardiac event and they were sort of humorous about it, but obviously the point that they were making was that they had, I think, progressed from the shock not knowing what to do to realizing if we had to do it over, we'd probably be more transparent and more honest with what the picture we should have said. And I will tell you, I, I do I always have, just because I'm a news hound. I like reading newspapers.

I've always read obituaries and I have gotten to the point where I can read between the lines. Sometimes you'll see some family being very open and we'll just say it. Somebody had a mental health battle that they lost the battle and died by suicide, but they won the war because they had a wonderful life.

And then they'll have donations made to the suicide prevention hotline or the American Foundation for Prevention of Suicide or NAMI, the National Alliance of Mental Illness, different charitable organizations that deal with mental health and suicide. And I applaud those people for doing that. Others people, you can see that they're saying it, but they're not saying it. I will tell you in Matt's obituary and in Matt's eulogy that I wrote both of them, obviously I didn't mention the word suicide.

It was not pertinent to the issue so although I'm saying we were very transparent. I totally would defer and respect the actions of the family members they feel is appropriate. And we told everybody Matt died by suicide, but the eulogy and the obituary there wasn't a point of it. It wasn't how he died per se.

Like I've said many, many times that nobody chooses suicide, suicide chooses them. And there is cutting edge medical research that shows that they've done brain scans of people with suicidal ideation and they see anatomical differences versus the brain scans of people that do not have suicidal ideation, which shows obviously that this is a brain disease.

And, you know, I mentioned before that, Senator John McCain, Senator Ted Kennedy, both dive in Glioblastoma brain tumors that are brain diseases that can be found on the MRI. And my belief is that medical science will reach a point that they will say this finding on an MRI for a suicide, whatever that artifact is ,is no different than finding a glioblastoma brain tumor or other indicative, you know, you can see, uh, doing what I do as a worker's comp lawyer.

I deal with a lot of medical issues and there's cases that I've had, where they've had brain scans and some of my clients they have what's called white matter. White matter can be traumatically induced, but it could also be something like MS. It could be something like ALS it can be,

The best testimony that we can give and best tribute we can give to Matt because he spent his whole life helping people when he was here. And because he's not here, we have to continue the work to do that. And by hiding it by not being upfront, you're not helping. I don't think you're helping society, but I don't think you're helping yourself either. I think.....

And the reason they're saying murder, it's like their own thought process needs to rationalize the loss in a way that's just not truthful. And I think it's almost like putting a bandaid on a raging infection. You can say, well, I'm doing something here. I got a bandaid on this raging infection, your doing something it's not helping. If you've got a raging infection, you better culture that see where the bacteria is and get a antibiotic specific for that infection to treat it.

Otherwise that could kill you. A bandaid is not going to help that. So I think with people doing things that they think might be helpful to them in the short term or helpful to them trying to figure out why this happened. I do think it's almost like a bandaid on a raging infection because the underlying issues that affect the family are not going to be resolved by calling it a murder. You know, you could call a giraffe a elephant. It's not an elephant. It's a giraffe.

You can call it something different than it is, but it is what it is.

These are all things that still could pop up, even if it wasn't death by suicide, so that he doesn't even answer the question that you think they're trying to get answered by making it socially more palatable for them to explain what happened.

Yes. I talked to a family that their loved one was the person answering the phone on the suicide prevention hotline to help people comtemplating suicide. And that person died by suicide. So it's almost like a cancer researcher, contracting cancer. They may know all about it. They may know well, we've got to do to treat it what you can do to prevent it. It doesn't mean they won't get cancer.

Like we, you know, growing up in Buffalo, you've heard me say this many times we went to, um, Buffalo Bills games with my father and my father's friends for years and years. And one of my parent's good friends was a cancer researcher and he Roswell Power Memorial Institute is one of the top cancer research institutes in the country in Buffalo and back in the sixties. I think it was 1964 when the surgeon general came out and said, smoking is bad for you.

And that's when they started saying, Hey, don't smoke and cause cancer, lung disease, heart disease, hypertension, all these things. So he was the guy on a cutting edge research. Every time we went to a Buffalo Bill's game. We'd pick him up and drive together. And we had to open up all the windows in the car. Why? Cause he was, he would smoke a pack of cigarettes on the way to the game. He was the guy telling people don't smoke. He knew it was really bad.

He knew it would take your risk factors for cancer through the roof, but he smoked. So, what I'm saying is I think with the medical technology that I hope we'll find the diagnostic tools to diagnose the brain disease cancer, and then find either therapeutics to treat it or a cure for it. That will absolutely change society's view of it saying, yeah, this is no different than any other type of anatomical brain disease.

You know, I know that there's a lot of, um, football players now that have CTE, Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. They can only find those post-mortem if somebody dies and there was a very famous football player, ironically, who was from San Diego, named Junior Seau, he was from San Diego, played with the Chargers, huge hero in San Diego where Matt died, and he died by suicide. And after his death, my understanding was they sort of figured out it probably was CTE.

So I think for people listening to this that have had a loss of a suicide in their family, friends, acquaintances, hopefully you will realize that you were chosen now to be an advocate for your loved one for your friend, for whoever took lost their lives in the suicide battle because they can't do it. And you have to, because you don't know, the next one is people listening to this podcast now will be saying always in that horrible isn't that terrible? I'm so glad that that hasn't touched me.

I wish I could give you a guarantee and give you the secret sauce or secret handshake to make sure that will never happen to you, but I'll give you a news flash. It doesn't exist. I've had people come up to me who never knew Matt and they just were crying in my arms. And I knew they weren't crying about Matt. They never knew Matt. They were crying about somebody in their life that they were concerned could be a potential person who will die by suicide. And you don't know. No, we don't know.

I had another story that I had read some information on it. Didn't have all the details, but one member of the family had attempted suicide and the family tried to protect them by engaging the Baker Act and having them, I think it's 72 hours. They take them in and in the meantime, another family member actually ended up committing suicide while they're trying to save the other one,

And this person was take charge type of person was able to do the necessary things in a very tight timeline to get the appropriate medical care, to deal with a suicide attempt when the family was dealing with that situation the person that had taken control to make sure that everything was done properly attempted, and unfortunately took their life, which shows you how you never see it coming.

I've I've let me say this of all the people that I've talked to, which again are hundreds of people that have lost loved ones. The suicides. If they're willing to talk to me and I feel they want to keep on talking. I always ask the same question and I've universally gotten the same answer. And the question that I asked is, did you see this coming?

And I've had people that lost loved ones to suicide, where their loved ones had attempted multiple times and obviously not succeeded because they were still alive. And in spite of that history, they still didn't see it because they would be told by their loved ones. I'm so thankful that I didn't succeed and taking my life. I've got such an appreciation of every single day now. I love the support. I love all the outreach. I love smelling the flowers. I love seeing the blue sky.

I want to see the sun rise. I want to go see the ocean. I will never get that place again. And then they take their life. So everything that they were saying where this looked like a situation that would never occur did in fact occur. And then other times it's completely out of the blue. I've had people where you just could not see any type of warning signs, any type of issues. Yeah. Any type of red flags and completely blindsided.

So, you know, I've said this a million times that for all suicide survivors, you have to realize that if he could have stopped it, you would have you didn't because you can't. And that is just something that I think is a difficult thing for people to realize, because we all want to think, well, we're Americans, we're exceptional. We can do anything we want.

That might sound good in a, in a, in a TV commercial, but in reality, uh, you know, I just, I saw today that the Air Force is having a huge spike in suicides this year. Veterans die by suicide in about one an hour. That's every single day, every single week, every single month, this podcast, this episode will be about an hour. So the statistical odds are, as we're doing this podcast, there's a veteran taking their life by suicide.

So all the power of the United States, government of the veterans administration of the finest medical care system in the world, it ain't working. And so to think that a family or any person could change that it's just not objectively correct. It doesn't mean you try, you don't try, but you gotta realize this is like a Glioblastoma brain tumor. Where you're saying, well, my luck is a Glioblastoma brain tumor.

We're just going to say, we're not going to fall victim to this and we're going to beat it and we're going to do this. That's all great. It's all wonderful. But the odds are, it's going to be fatal.

And you might have different dynamics, different things. So you never, ever, ever want to ignore the opportunity to try to help some body by getting them to a resource that's available. But I've also talked to many suicide survivors who were unfortunately present when their loved one was gonna take their life by suicide. And I know of one story where the loved one was trying to tell this person, you do not have to do this. You don't understand, you don't have to do this.

And the person that took their life responded that you don't understand, I do have to do this. And which to me would, would show that whatever the brain disease process that causes suicide to happen and overtaken this person, if that person called the Suicide Prevention Hotline would that made any difference, because it wasn't a loved one versus somebody else.

I can't speculate on that, but this was a loved one that was talking to this person right there and they could not prevent it from happening. So, what would it be? The odds of a total stranger on a phone line preventing it? You tell me,

Well, you can't be on suicide watch for your whole life, right? You just, nobody can be there that much to,

And I remember talking to this person and I asked, you know, how devastating was that? And what they told me was that he was just tired. The fight of again, if in fact this is a brain disease, That is going to be progressive and relentless day after day after day after day. And these people that have that brain disease have to go out into society, act like functioning, productive human beings on the outside when they are fighting this demon brain disease on the inside. It has to be exhausting.

And what this family member told me about the loss of her child is that when she saw that video, which was the last moments that her son was on this planet, you just said he was tired. And in some ways I think that. Gave her solace that she knew this was a progressive brain disease, just like a Glioblastoma brain tumor that was going to be fatal and there was nothing that medical science or the family could have done to stop it.

I don't know that, you know, I've said before that anybody lose a loved one to suicide .is Like having a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle thrown on your dining room table. If the rest of the rest of your life, you're going to try to put the piece together. And I feel like we put in, we put together about a hundred of those files and pieces with Matt' passing, which means there's 900 pieces left that we haven't been able to figure out yet.

How many will we be able to figure out over the course of my lifetime is to be determined. So how do you figure that one out? Why did that person decide to take that action when they were in the process of passing by suicide? It's one of those questions that may never be answered. And yes, that would be a issue for the family in their journey of grief. No two ways about it.

Did you kind of give us your thoughts on, on what we've talked about today and just do a wrap up for today's episode. Thank you,

So with suicide survivors and prevention I'm constantly looking at the medical aspect of medical technology, cutting edge diagnostic therapeutics and prevent prevention. But also I know medical science does not have all the answers. There are suicidal biologists that make their professional careers dealing with suicide prevention. I thank God for those people, but they obviously have not been able to prevent it because suicide rates are going up.

So talking to people that have their own personal opinions concerning the loss of their loved one to me is a another important factor to be studied. And for me, it's another important factor on my journey to try to do as much as I can to help suicide survivors. And to help suicide prevention. So other people will not have to endure the loss that our family has.

So I hope Steve, at this episode today has given our listeners some insight into my family's journey in general and my journey in particular, again, I've talked to hundreds of suicide survivors and hopefully I'll live long enough to come up with some type of answer that could help society prevent this, or treat this in a way that we don't have now.

So again, I want to thank all the listeners today for listening to our episode, Steve, I want to thank you for being a great cohost and be willing to discuss this issue. Cause you know, it's very important to me. So again, I want to thank our listeners for listening so much, and we hope that today's episode was informative and helpful. And we'll talk to you next time. Thank you very much.

And please, if you've got any questions for us, please send them in through the website, HopeThru Grief.com and we'll try and get your questions up and provide answers in the next couple of upcoming shows. Thank you for listening and everyone have a great week. Thank you for joining us on Hope Thru Grief with your cohots Marshall Adler and Steve Smelski.