Survived to Thrive Podcast
A podcast designed for survivors of suicide loss. This podcast explores the unique grief experiences that accompany a loved ones death due to suicide, shares insights on how your brain processes this kind of loss, and offers worthwhile and valuable tips you can start today to gain a more joyful and fulfilling life even though your loved one died.
Survived to Thrive Podcast
Episode 95: What we carry, what we let go!
In this episode, we explore the complexities of grief following a loved one's suicide, focusing on what burdens we carry unnecessarily and understanding our responsibilities in the grieving process. We aim to provide clarity, compassion, and hope, discussing the nuances of guilt, the importance of honoring lost loved ones, and the vital need for self-forgiveness to foster healing.
• Exploring the unique nature of grief from suicide loss
• Acknowledging feelings of guilt and blame in the grieving process
• Understanding what we are not responsible for in a loved one’s suicide
• The significance of how we process our grief
• Building awareness around mental health through conversation
• Honoring the beautiful memories of those we lost
• The importance of self-forgiveness in moving forward
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As always, thanks for listening!
We are a community dedicated to empower survivors of suicide loss along their grief journey. We invite you to check out our website to sign up for our weekly newsletter, along with other free materials."
Website: https://www.survived-to-thrive.com/
Email: amy@survived-to-thrive.com
You are listening to the Survived to Thrive Podcast with Amy Miller, a podcast for survivors of suicide loss. In this weekly podcast, you will learn more about your unique experiences and gain insights on your brain and how it processes grief and loss due to a loved one's suicide. While suicide grief comes in all shapes and sizes, Amy shows you that you still can have a life full of joy and fulfillment even though your loved one died. You don't have to just survive anymore. You can thrive.
Speaker 2:You are listening to the Survive to Thrive podcast with Amy Miller, episode number 95, what we Carry, what we Let Go. Hello friends and welcome to the Survive to Thrive podcast. I'm Amy Miller, your host. You know. I really wanted to shed light on the reason why I even developed this podcast, why I decided to produce it and put it out there in the world. I really do feel like that. There's just not a lot of conversations that are happening in regards to suicide loss and the survivors who are left behind, and I really wanted to provide a safe space for people to be able to come to regularly that they can listen to some thoughtful, deep conversations about suicide loss, what it means for them, and to help them, as they're processing their own grief experience, to really understand that there's hope at the end of it, that they're not alone, that this trench of grief they find themselves isn't a permanent place, that there's going to be a time when they're going to start looking forward to things again, that there's a place that they're going to be able to go, that they can have goals, that they can experience joy, that they can experience peace, and then that's all available to them on the other side of the aftermath of suicide loss. So I really wanted to do this. I also wanted to do it because I really wanted to have more dialogue and to have more discussions about suicide loss. I think there's a lack of it. I don't think there's enough. I think that people are shying away from it, and you know there is reasons for it. There's a lot of stigma associated with suicide, and so I can see why this occurs, and so I'm hoping that recording this podcast and talking about discussions and having conversations with other survivors of suicide loss will help to eliminate some of that stigma, but also to help us to gain more awareness and allow more people to actually have honest conversations about suicide loss. So I hope this has been happening for you, as you've been listening, and I want to ask you, if this has been helpful for you, to please share this podcast with someone, or you know maybe some groups that you know that are also going through loss due to suicide, so that they can utilize this as a resource for them. It's absolutely free. I don't charge for this podcast at all. I just want to get it out there for people so that they can have a resource to help them through. So thanks again, if you're willing, and thanks again to all of you who've been listening to me, who've listened to so many of my podcasts. I appreciate your kind words and your messages that you've been sending me, so thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Okay, so in this particular episode, I really wanted to talk about some of the complexities of suicide loss that I feel like we don't really talk about enough. This is a very difficult conversation but, at the same time, a very useful conversation, because I think it's really helpful for us to really understand what it is in our grief experience that we should be taking responsibility for and what it is in our grief experience that we should not be taking responsibility for. I think so many of us are carrying the burden and the weight of things that we shouldn't be, and so I want to really talk about those in depth today, because I think it's important and my goal after this episode is for you to really feel like you have a little more clarity and compassion for yourself, and also that you will find some relief in hopefully allowing you to kind of take away some of that burden you've been carrying, to just lift it off your shoulders, and it will really help you to move forward as you're going through this process. Okay, so you know, the thing I want to talk about before we get into the responsibility we should and the responsibility we shouldn't be taking is, you know, what happens to us when someone we love dies by suicide.
Speaker 2:Well, we go through this grief experience, right, and it feels so layered. We feel a lot of sadness, right, like we feel depression, we feel anxiety, we feel sadness, we feel all these normal. You know, I guess you could call it like television emotions, right? You see it on the television where people will feel a lot of sadness and you'll see the depression that ensues or the anxiety, or just the crying and the mourning process that they're experiencing when someone dies. And you know there's been literature that's been written about it, there's been literature that's been written about it, there's been full-on rituals. When you look at the history of the mourning process, especially like with dignitaries and royalty and all of that, it was a really long, drawn out event, right.
Speaker 2:And in today's world, we don't really give that mourning period and that grief time what it truly deserves, because, as we all know, those of us who have lost a loved one to suicide or just has lost someone period, you know that grief doesn't just go away, right, it takes time to process. Yet you know, most of us who are working in the corporate world or, you know, in jobs or whatever, usually only allow for a few days of mourning right, a few days of bereavement time, and it's just clearly not enough. And we tend to talk about this all the time in. You know my grief groups that I'm involved with for grief educators and you know it's just seems to be one of these things where, especially in the US, we don't we're not really great at allowing time for us to process loss. It's just not something we've culturally fully accepted.
Speaker 2:Yet in our history we know that grief does take time, right, and that there is a lot of things that come up, a lot of feelings and emotions, right, but the truth is is we're not carving out the time to be able to do so. We just want to hurry it through, be done with it, move on and move forward. But the truth is is this is just not happening, okay, I mean, we are all human beings. We've got to experience the grief process when we lose someone we care about. So we do kind of know and anticipate and expect that we've got to experience the grief process when we lose someone we care about. So we do kind of know and anticipate and expect that we're going to feel sad, right, but there also comes confusion and guilt and anger and often an overwhelming sense of what could I have done differently?
Speaker 2:And you know, I like to tell people, when people haven't experienced a loss due to suicide, that this type of loss is super unique, because suicide often feels preventable. Right, we tend to think that when someone dies by suicide it could have been prevented and it makes sense. That's why we have so many organizations that focus on that. That's why we have, you know, suicide prevention groups. That's why we have nonprofit organizations which, by the way, I've been very involved with in my own state of Arizona with what's called La Frontera. Suicide prevention because it is a death that feels like can be prevented. And while suicide isn't fully understood, they're making a lot of progress. They're finding different things that could possibly help and potentially help prevent suicide. But, as we know, all of us should know that suicide is still very prevalent in society around the US and around the world. So it's not something that can be solved overnight.
Speaker 2:But I think that, because suicide does feel preventable, that it's really easy for us to get into these guilt trips I guess you could call them or these thought loops of you. Know what we could have done what if I had only said this or if I only seen how much pain they were in? And the truth is that mental loop that we can get ourselves stuck in is very exhausting and it's part of why grieving suicide can feel so heavy. So I first want to acknowledge that right now, if you're blaming yourself and you're not, you know and you're really replaying a lot of these scenarios in your head and you're wondering what you could have said or done differently, you're not alone.
Speaker 2:Okay, I think that's important to note that this is actually a very natural response that we all have when we're talking about losing someone to suicide, I would say so so common. I think the thing that comes up for many of us is what could I have done differently? Right, and that phrase really has this tendency of really holding us back from moving forward. But again, I just want to reiterate that so many of us are stuck with that because, like I said earlier, suicide feels like it should be preventable right Now. The other part of this is if you're really blaming yourselves. Okay, these thoughts, like I said, are normal, but they're not also the full truth. Okay, grief has this tendency to trick us into believing we had control where we didn't have control. Okay, let me say that again Grief tricks us into believing we had control where we didn't have control, okay.
Speaker 2:So, with all of that said, I'm going to first talk about what we are not responsible for. Okay, I am going to go into what we are responsible for, but I first want to talk about what we are not responsible for. Okay, now, this is hard to hear because so many of us feel this need to assign blame. Okay, this is just natural for us. This is something we want to do, it's what we're trained to do, it's the way we're conditioned. When you think about, for example, scientists and say they prepare and they do all this research and they work really hard, and then they plan and prepare and they do a experiment and the experiment fails. A experiment and the experiment fails the obvious reaction is for the scientists to go back to all of the pieces of the experiment to see what caused the experiment to fail. Right, so this is natural, that all of us want to go assign the blame to ourselves, especially right as a way of making sense of the loss. But here are a few truths to hold on to. If this is the case for you, okay. The first truth is we are not responsible for another person's decision. Okay, let me say that again we are not responsible for another person's decision. Okay, suicide is complex, but it's rarely, if ever, caused by one event or one relationship. It's often the result of a combination of mental health struggles, biological factors, life circumstances and immense inner pain. Okay, so no single person can carry that burden or solve it for someone else can carry that burden or solve it for someone else. I think that a lot of times we get back into ourselves more about our relationship with our loved one that we lost and we tend to blame ourselves for not knowing the person enough, not being there enough, not talking enough, not reaching out enough, not, you know, being close enough or whatever. Right Like, I know that this is something that I dealt with with my sister, because, you know, there were times where I would call her and try to reach out to her and she wouldn't return my calls. And you know, and I remember thinking, you know at the time, oh, she's probably just busy or whatever. But then, after she passed, I started to think about that more, thinking about why she wouldn't return my calls. Did she not trust me? Did she not feel like I was a trustworthy person? I was kind of making it about me in a way, if that makes any sense, because I feel like when we think that if we would have been different or showed up different, that that somehow could control the outcome. Right, and that feels better, but overall it actually makes us feel worse when we get stuck there. So we are not responsible for another person's decision. Okay, number two truth I want to talk about we cannot save someone who is deeply struggling if they're unable or unwilling to reach for help. Okay, we want to believe we can. Of course we do. Right, it feels wrong to admit that there are limits to how much we can intervene, but the truth is is we are not mind readers.
Speaker 2:Okay, you know, I remember having a long conversation with my sister on a car ride, and this car ride was about an hour and a half and I was asking her a lot of questions and finding out more about her thoughts and you know the things that she was thinking about and all of that. And at the time, like looking back, hindsight, right, I think about that conversation and how some of the phrases that she used, some of the sentences she chose to use in that, you know, should have probably raised a red flag a little bit for me. Yet the truth is, I had no idea. I had no idea that she was contemplating suicide. That was the last thing on my mind with her. That was the last thought that would have come to my mind at the time, right, um? But the truth is, you know, even if she so again, like if I go back to that conversation, when we were having that conversation and she was sharing with me some of her deeper thoughts and the things that she was thinking about, I remember telling her things that I really thought about her and how I thought she was amazing and I told her, you know, how I cared about her and I was proud of her, and you know, and you know she was pretty open with me with a lot of things that she was talking about. You know of things that she was talking about. You know and you know. But even in that conversation and even with what I said to her, right, if she would have shared with me the pain that she was experiencing, if she would have shared with me that she had thoughts, right, I don't know if I would have done anything different because I didn't know really much any better, but I did tell her that I cared about her, that I loved her, right, and so, you know, I don't think I would have changed that conversation. Okay, is what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 2:And the truth is, even if someone shared that pain okay With us, we couldn't have known every thought or feeling they were experienced. We just couldn't. Okay, you know, I like to equate this to like say, for example, your child comes to you with a broken arm and while you can empathize and you can feel her pain to a degree, you couldn't know exactly every sensation that she was feeling. There was no way for us to know it, because it's her experience with that pain, right? So we can be there for the person, yet we can't take that pain away, nor can we take the burden of the pain from them, right? And we couldn't know all of the things that they were thinking and feeling as they were experiencing the pain. We just don't have the capacity to do it were experiencing the pain, we just don't have the capacity to do it. We could only feel the burden and the pain of breaking our own arm and what that might feel for us, and the truth is that pain probably feels different to us than it feels to our child. Okay, so I think it's really important to keep that in mind.
Speaker 2:Okay, number three, truth, we are not responsible for things we didn't know at the time. Okay, now I've taken a ton of suicide prevention courses for coaching. That's required to keep that active status on my certificate of suicide prevention and again, that's also a phrase they reiterate in those is, you know, that we are not responsible for the things we didn't know at the time, Right, and so it's easy for us to look back and see the signs that seem so obvious now, especially because once we've experienced losing someone to suicide, then we'd study it more. We learn more about it now and you know, but at the time, you know, it wasn't in the forefront of our minds. We were focused on other things and different things. There was no way for us to know, okay, that that is something that we needed to. You know, be more mindful of right. Now it's getting out there more and more. Where we're, you know there's more offerings of suicide prevention and you know there are some degrees and different certificates and stuff that do require people to take a suicide prevention course and that's great and I love that and I love that we're gaining more knowledge.
Speaker 2:But again, we can't take responsibility for what we didn't know in the past. Okay, so just be mindful. We are not responsible for things we didn't know at the time. Okay, we carry just so much guilt, right, because we want to believe we could have done something different. But here's the truth Sometimes, even when we do everything right, the outcome is exactly the same.
Speaker 2:Okay, I think this piece is super important because I'll have people come to me in my coaching or just in general and they'll just tell me you know how bad they feel because their relationship they were on the outs with their brother or with their spouse or something, and they had a big argument, and then you know they just it was hostile. And then they feel so guilty because that person died by suicide shortly after, and then they just take on that blame for themselves, right. But here's the truth that we do know. That is 100% fact. You can have an argument, you can have a hostile interaction. You can have a conflict that's heated okay, and a person isn't going to die because of it, okay. So you can see the flip side that these happen all the time where people will have heated arguments and nobody died by suicide. People have a heated conflict and nobody died by suicide. So we can't correlate the two, right that, even if you had that heated argument, that you had that disagreement, that you had that fight, that you had that screaming match, whatever it was, maybe you threatened to leave, maybe you threatened a divorce or something right, and then they died by suicide. Well, there's a lot of people who threaten divorce and the other person doesn't die by suicide.
Speaker 2:So I think it's really important to note that it's not just that conversation, it's not just that conversation, it's not just that relationship. It's typically a combination of things, right, and that's a reflection of you know, of how deep and complicated someone's pain can be within themselves. All right, it's not because of something we did, it's not because of our behavior, it's not because of something that we said. Now, I'm not saying that we shouldn't reflect on our behaviors and, you know, maybe we can try and do better in the future. But I just want you to be careful to blame a death on a conversation, on an argument or on a harsh word. Okay, I want you to really take that off of your shoulders and off of yourself Because, again, like I said, there's so many of those conflicts and same things that occur that where the outcome turned out to be where nobody died by suicide. So just be mindful of that. Okay.
Speaker 2:Now, with all that said, now that we talked about those three truths, I want to take a minute and talk about what we can take responsibility for, but I want to frame this in a way that's very constructive and not punishing. Okay, cause this podcast episode, I really want to make it about learning and growing and not self-blame. Okay, so the first thing is is we can take responsibility for how we process our grief. Okay. Now I really want to be careful on how I frame this because, again, grief is unique to our own experience with the grief we're experiencing. Right, it's going to be unique to our relationship with the person that we lost. Grief will probably feel different between losing a child as opposed to losing a parent. Our grief will probably feel differently from either losing a spouse to losing a sibling. Okay, there's going to be some uniqueness to that, and on top of that uniqueness, there's also going to be some uniqueness in our own personal relationship with that person, right, and so the grief experience is going to be unique to every single individual that's experiencing grief.
Speaker 2:Okay, so, while I'm talking about this, about how we process our grief, I want to frame it in the sense that sometimes you're going to feel stuck in guilt, or sometimes you're going to feel stuck in anger, and that's okay for a time, okay. But if you find yourself being stuck in this guilt for a prolonged time, or you're feeling really stuck in this anger for a really long time, it might be time to seek help. Okay, it might be time to start to explore where you can find some support. Okay, whether it's through a therapist, a support group, a coach like myself, maybe it's just a good friend. Okay, because you do not have to carry this alone. Do you know how many grievers especially grievers loss, who've experienced loss due to suicide try to carry it on their own? And it really saddens me, because you do not have to. You do not have to carry this grief all on your own. You do not have to carry the weight or the burden with this complex aftermath that you're faced with. There are people that are trained, that have the ability to help you. There are friends that you have that really care about you. There are family members that really want the best for you, right, and so I think it's important and for us to take that responsibility and have the willingness to process our grief, okay.
Speaker 2:Number two thing that we can take responsibility for is building awareness around mental health. I think it all starts with conversation. It all starts with having dialogue around suicide. I think there's such a stigma, there's so much shame in regards to suicide loss that I think so many of us don't talk about it enough. I think some of us are even ashamed to tell people how our loved one died and sometimes we hide it right. But I think that the more we're doing this, we're not doing mental health a service. I think the more people that are aware that this is a problem, that this is an issue, and the more of us that can have good and healthy conversations with people around us about suicide death, the more awareness it's going to create going to create and the more we're going to be able to help come together to find solutions, to find ways that we can also, you know, help prevent right. There's more understanding of the signs of suicide and having these conversations really normalize, you know, people that are having suicidal thoughts to actually reach out for help or to, you know, talk to somebody about it, okay. But also, with all of this said, just remember awareness and action are tools to support others. Not a way to discount for what has already happened, okay, but I think it is really important to take responsibility for building awareness around mental health. Okay, the third area in which I think we can take responsibility for is how we honor the person we lost.
Speaker 2:Often, we focus so much on the manner of someone's death that we lose sight of the beauty of their life. You know, I really think about my sister and some of the fun things we did, you know, together. I think about the time that we took a road trip out to Kansas City. She was young at the time, I was older. I drove and I just remember the laughs that we had and the fun things that we did. And, you know, her with my two of my other siblings were with us at the time. They were all sitting in the back row and we were going through this treacherous storm, you know. But it was just so fun to watch them and, you know, try to make light of the matter and just take selfies and, you know, do that sort of thing.
Speaker 2:But it's the good things, it's the things about them that we do want to remember, right? So I think it's time to remember who they were outside of their struggles and to remember their laugh and their kindness and their quirks and hold on to those memories and let them guide them on how you live your own life. You know, I think about my sister's generosity and how generous she was. She really focused on helping others. She really wanted to, she had a desire to, she was really interested in, you know, helping people, and so her jobs that she chose to take were a reflection of that and I just really admired that about her. So remembering those things is really important and I think we do need to take responsibility on how we honor the person that we lost.
Speaker 2:Okay, so the last thing I want to touch on before I let you go until next week is self-forgiveness and moving forward, because self-forgiveness is one of the hardest parts of grieving a suicide. Um, you know we might feel like forgiving ourselves means letting go of that connection you had with that person you lost, but that's not true. In fact, forgiving yourself is one of the most loving things you can do for you and for them and for your connection with the person that you lost. Once you're able to forgive yourself and just allow yourself to be free, with that you're going to be able to feel so much more connected with your loved one. Okay, you're going to remember all of those great times that you had together. Okay, and I also want you to remember that forgiveness starts with acknowledging this you did the best you could with the knowledge and the tools and the circumstances you had at the time.
Speaker 2:The guilt you feel isn't proof that you felt. It's proof of how much you loved them and that love doesn't disappear, even after they're gone. Okay, I always like to reiterate this, like, your relationship still carries on far after they're gone from this life. Okay, I still have conversations with my sister. I still think about her. Every time I see a sunflower out in the field, I think of my sister because she loved sun, about her. Every time I see a sunflower out in the field, I think of my sister because she loved sunflowers. That's what's on her headstone. She's very much alive in my head and our relationship is very much alive. And so remember that. You know you. This guilt you're feeling isn't proof that you fell. It's proof of how much you love them.
Speaker 2:And also remember, moving forward doesn't mean forgetting. It means learning how to carry their memory with you in a way that doesn't weigh you down, it's okay to feel joy again and it's okay to keep living. Okay, I really want to leave you with this that the loss you've experienced is not your fault. You loved them in the best way that you could and you're still here doing your best to heal. Be gentle with yourself and know that you are not alone. Okay, and just remember, honor your loved one, honor yourself, forgive yourself, let it go, and that's the most important thing you can do. It's the most loving thing you can do, not only for yourself, but for the person that you loved and lost. All right, friends. Thank you so much. I appreciate you taking your time and listening and you know, if you have any thoughts about this podcast episode, please let them know. I love to hear your messages. Thanks again for listening. Until next week, Bye-bye.
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