Impacted Survivors: Navigating Grief and Stigma After Murder-Suicide Loss

This episode addresses the complex and sensitive topic of murder-suicide and its profound impact on survivors, which may be activating for some listeners. We aim to approach these topics with care and respect, highlighting the need for community support and open dialogue.

If you or someone you know is experiencing thoughts of suicide or in crisis, help is available:

• Call or text 988, the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (U.S.)
• Visit 988lifeline.org or crisistextline.org for additional resources and support

Please prioritize your well-being, and listen only if you feel ready and supported.

Summary:

Joined by guests Michael Vinton and Tina Chevalier, two of the three co-founders of Impacted Survivors of Murder Suicide, this episode explores the complexities, layers, and stigma surrounding loss related to murder-suicide, the unique challenges faced by survivors, and the role of media in shaping public perception. The discussion emphasizes the importance of community support and the need for sensitive reporting on such tragedies, while also highlighting the healing power of sharing personal stories and experiences. They explore the non-linear nature of grief, the importance of support groups, and the challenges of reconciling emotions after such traumatic events. They discuss the meaning of "living forward" after loss, while also addressing the societal pressures and personal struggles that accompany grief.

Takeaways:

• Grief can encompass multiple truths and experiences.
• Murder-suicide is a complex and stigmatized form of loss.
• Survivors often feel isolated and misunderstood.
• Finding a supportive community can be crucial for healing.
• Media coverage of murder-suicides often lacks sensitivity.
• Survivors are left to navigate a complicated grief process.
• There is a need for better resources for murder-suicide survivors.
• The impact of sensationalized media can be re-traumatizing.
• Support groups can provide a safe space for sharing.
• Naming and discussing grief openly can aid in healing. 
• Grief is not a linear process and varies for everyone.
• Support groups provide essential understanding and shared experiences.
• The societal perception of grief can complicate personal healing.
• Each person's story of loss is unique and layered.
• Creating a framework for specific types of loss is crucial.
• Finding help and community is vital for healing.
• It's important to acknowledge the nuances of grief and loss.
• Reconciling the layers of loss in murder-suicide is a process.

Join THE COMMUNITY | A virtual space to navigate grief, together.

Connect with Impacted Survivors:

• impactedsurvivors.com
• @impactedsurvivorsofms

Connect with Nina Rodriguez:

• @griefandlight
• griefandlight.com
• 1:1 Grief Support

Disclaimer: griefandlight.com/safetyanddisclaimers

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

We just want to be at a place where we're not re-stigmatizing or re-traumatizing rather ourselves with our stories, but in a place that we can try to move forward because we're never going to be a hundred percent. But if we can try to just chip away at the ice just a little bit in a structured way, then we can make some progress.

SPEAKER_02 0:20

You just lost your loved one. Now what? Welcome to the Grief and Life Podcast, where we explore this new reality through grief-colored lenses. Openly, authentically, I'm your host, Nina Rodriguez. Let's get started.

SPEAKER_03 0:35

Hello

Introduction, Meet Impacted Survivors Tina Chevalier and Michael Vinton

SPEAKER_03 0:36

and welcome back to the Grief and Life Podcast. Thank you so much for being here. As you may know, part of my mission here with the podcast is to explore grief in its fullness openly and authentically, even when it's difficult to do so. Today's question to ponder is how can we grieve a loss that is considered taboo or stigmatized? We will explore the deeply layered, painful, and often overlooked topic of murder suicide. This type of loss is not only devastating, but carries with it layers of stigma and complexity that make moving forward even more challenging for those left behind. I'm joined by two incredible guests who have experienced immense grief of losing loved ones this way, Michael Vinson and Tina Chevalier, two of the three co-founders of Impacted Survivors of Murder Suicide, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting families who are navigating this unique form of loss. This is a difficult but crucial conversation, and I am grateful for these brave voices with us today to shed light on an often silenced form of grief. I always say grief is not this or that, it's this and that. And as you watch or listen, I invite you to tap into that inner wisdom that is able to hold multiple truths at once so that we can navigate this conversation that can be a light to someone impacted by this form of loss. With that said, welcome to the Grief and Light Podcast. Thank you for having us.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

Yeah. Hi, Anina. Thanks for having us.

SPEAKER_03 2:03

It's wonderful to have you. And I'm excited for many reasons to meet you one, but also because this is my first time navigating more than one guest at once. So I ask for your grace as this is my first time doing this, and also because this is a very nuanced topic. I'm very fully aware of that. And I want to honor it in the best way that I can. So if I misspeak, please feel free to correct me anytime. I just want to be able to bring awareness and shed a light on this through your personal experience. So, with that said, I believe in addressing the human aspect of it first. So if you would like to introduce yourself, your person, as much or as little as you would like to say about them and how you met. How did you this group come together?

SPEAKER_00 2:45

Sure. Um, I'll go first, Tina, if that's okay. Um so I lost my brother, my older brother, Jimmy, in August of 2020 to a murder suicide. My brother was the perpetrator. He took the life of his mother-in-law. He was 39 years old. I believe she was 69 years old. This happened in a very public place. And gosh, it's been four years now. Gosh, when this happened, there are so many things. I mean, it's it's almost like you're in a movie that you didn't want to be cast in, and it's almost like a a bird's eye view of what's happening. It doesn't feel real. There's a lot of numbness, you know, to it. I searched for quite some time for anything to do with murder, suicide, books, articles, and it took a lot of time uh for me to to find a place. I was lucky enough to get into a suicide support group here in Los Angeles uh through Didi Hirsch, which I'm a big advocate for and have a close relationship with them. But there was a very other real side to what happened, and that was the the um the murder. And it was my my brother's mother-in-law, so we're not directly related, but my brother left behind his wife, and I've I've known her for a long time. We went to high school together, and I knew her family. I wouldn't say we're very close, you know, but um it leaves a lot of mess behind, a lot of mess. Around May of 2021, I came upon an online support group for Murder Suicide, and I joined the group and um I met, I met Tina and some other survivors, and as the year or so went on, the group started to grow exponentially, unfortunately. And um through my grief, I'd been feeling this need to advocate because there wasn't a lot of resources and there wasn't a lot of a connection to be made. So it was really important that uh we take a step in in that direction.

SPEAKER_03 5:01

Thank you very much for your openness. And I can only imagine that even though you've probably said this many times, it's still difficult to process some of these descriptions. And it's not easy as a listener, and it's not easy as somebody going through it, but we didn't ask for this in terms of you know what happened, how our person passed or the circumstances. So I honor that you are using your voice to create awareness. You know, the reality of it is processed through kind of reclaiming the story by telling it in its fullness. So thank you for Michael and um and Tina, share whatever you would like to share.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

So I lost my brother in January of 2021. He was the perpetrator, he was my only sibling. He was 49 at the time. And it's strange to me that, and we we've talked about this before because Michael and I, you know, we we have similar stories. There's so many little things that connect us. But when I turned 50 and I was older than him, it was like just one of those things that just hits you like wow. Um, but he was you know, growing up, we had we were single parent home. So he was kind of the big brother, dad, protector. He was a career nurse, loved concerts, loved rock music. I actually played Motley Crue at his funeral for him. Um but yeah, it's um he he took the life of his girlfriend, and I had never met her. So it's it's a very complicated grieving process, you know. But I found the group that Michael spoke of pretty much immediately started looking to the internet like for anything, just grasping, like, what do I do? Who do I talk to? How did this happen? Um, so I found this group also, and I was, I think just a few weeks out, and I joined that group and was with it for a couple of years, and then uh we we've kind of gone out on our own to you know seek out different ways to serve this community. Thank you for sharing as well.

SPEAKER_03 7:13

And as a sister who lost her only sibling, I can absolutely relate to that aspect of it. So I see you, I see you both, and I thank you again for for sharing so openly. I know this is not not easy. And even in listening, I hear the nuance of it because it's the label, you know, I heard you say, like my person's role was the perpetrator, right? Or the victim, or this or that. There's so many facets to this story that adds the layers. And so I'm hearing that finding a group where people understand this without having to explain it could be such a breath of fresh air. And so I think it's very admirable that you are being that light for unfortunately the others who will experience this, who have and will experience this type of loss. Because unfortunately, I was looking at some of the

Data and Statistics

SPEAKER_03 8:00

statistics and it's actually on the rise in the United States. If there's any statistics that you would like to share, please uh go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 8:06

Absolutely. Thank you for that, Nina. Um it what I connected to right there was the isolation that you feel around this tragedy immediately. Um, the shame. When I went home to North Carolina where I'm from, I fully expected uh film crews and news crews outside of my parents' home. Thankfully there wasn't, but um, because you just you don't know what's gonna happen. So you kind of go into this shell. So finding this online group, you feel seen, you feel heard, and and you see other people that are going through what you're going through. You're discussing that, like, oh gosh, I got the police report. It's been months. Our tragedies happened within a couple months of each other, but I remember how awful this sounds. But I remember I got my police report way before Tina's, and that's so strange, but different states, and talking about going through it with a fine-tooth comb and wanting to find clues for answers because you knew this person not to be a killer, not to be suicidal, never hurt or harmed, had a record, never been arrested, you know. And so you're just Nancy Drewing everything. Um, but to go back to what you originally stated, yes, this is incredibly on the rise. There are about 700 murder suicides that happen every year. That's about one or two a day. They almost always involve family members. The perpetrators are more than likely white men. And we found through research there's no uh specific data because it gets lumped in with domestic violence. Sometimes the person who is the aggressor doesn't die right away. Sometimes it's a day or two and they get disclassified or declassified, I guess is a better way to say it. So we're hoping with our initiative that we can find and fine-tune this data for accurate numbers to help to see the warning signs, is it's just happening far too often.

SPEAKER_03 10:16

Thank you. As I was doing some research on my own, just to get some idea of what we're talking about, I was noticing that there's actually a growing trend. For example, it's I it's almost a thousand per year, and it's estimated to be a little bit more, even because of the reason that you said that sometimes it doesn't happen right away. There's the gap between the act of murder and then the person taking their own life. 81% happen at home, 65% involve in intimate partner relationships. Unfortunately, with these types of losses, the story spills out onto the community, right? It's usually you see it first thing in the evening news. And actually, when I researched it, the vast majority of people covering it is like local news stories and or true crime series. So there's a sensationalist aspect to it of how people are consuming the information, which is what I believe most people are familiar with. For example, Netflix series or true crime series or the evening news, but there are families behind these stories. And there are the people that are left behind, like you said, leaves a mess. So say

The media's responsibility in reporting and discussing murder-suicides

SPEAKER_03 11:25

whatever you feel comfortable with about how the aftermath happened in terms of how the news got out. And it could be quite literally the the news or how you were told about it. And what was that like? Maybe talk talk about that aspect of it.

SPEAKER_01 11:40

The media is one of the biggest um challenges and one of the things we would really like to change how they report on these because they just come out and it's immediately domestic violence, and and that's the end of it. There's no story behind it. There's no, it's just cut and dry. They get names wrong. They're they're reporting, um, they're not even using correct names. They're putting the actual address of where it happened out there in the world. So now you have the added, not only do you have to go to the house afterwards if that's where it happened and you're the one responsible, now you have to worry about all these people coming by. And, you know, they just they're very one-sided. And I think the three of us all had pretty difficult interactions and were really hurt and re-traumatized by what media put out. I mean, they reached out to me. One reporter reached out to me via Facebook, and she said, Oh, I wanted to talk to you about your son. Like, it was my brother. It's very invasive and very difficult because it's one-sided and you know, the keyboard warriors are horrific. You you have to stay away from social media at all costs. There's a quote, a couple quotes when I think about the media that I love that we've actually incorporated into our presentation. Um, and one of them is by Dr. Bart Andrews, who's the chief clinical officer at BHR. He said, it takes a lot of work to do a deep dive into somebody's life and report them as a whole person and not just these salacious facts. And that's a problem. I love that. And another one by Glenn Canning, who was the father of Ratea Parsons, who was 17 years old, and she died by suicide. He said what they're doing online, it's not free speech, it's hate speech. And it's true, it's so true. The media is just really awful. Three years later, I still want to circle back to that reporter and like have a conversation with her all this time later and be like, hey, I want to tell you the reality of this. I know what your job is, but I mean, we even had an episode where they spoke about the murder house. They were talking about somebody on Reddit, he had purchased a home where there was a murder suicide, and he didn't tell his fiance, and she moved in. She found out through town gossip, and she was livid. So the view went on to to talk about it and sensationalize it and laugh about it. So we we took that clip and we used that to show people this is hurtful to us as survivors. I get it, I understand it, but it's, you know, we we didn't do anything wrong. And Michael had something that he said that was really poignant, which is we're left behind, but we're left responsible.

SPEAKER_00 14:55

Thanks, Tina. I appreciate that that callback. The media is a big component. I mean, you really hit the nail on the head. Interestingly enough, uh, my family and I found out through the news. It was 2020, it was COVID. My younger sister was working remotely at home, and a news alert came across that there was a shooting. I had mentioned earlier that they died in a public place. And it was a small town in South Carolina, and um she called me immediately and said there was a shooting in South Carolina, and after further research, we could tell that it was where um my brother's mother-in-law worked. I mean, you're just oh gosh, oof. Um, the anxiety of being 3,000 miles away and not having any control. I kept refreshing the news page that was on the internet because they wouldn't announce names or who or what or why or when until they let the family know. It was a very difficult time. It just felt like the longest. I don't I don't even know how many hours it took. It felt like forever. And I just was uh pacing back and forth and hoping, just like this is all a misunderstanding and uh this is this can't be, you know, until uh my parents called because the police station had called my parents. Then after that, I mentioned before about the police report. They had given the police report to the media. I have Google alerts set up for my name. I'm an actor, and uh it's always good to know when people are researching you for good things. And so I got an alert that somebody had looked me up on Google and I saw there's this article, and my brother had left a note and uh they published this note, and I had never seen it before that moment. And it was it was unfortunate that there were some very private things in that letter that um nobody had the right to look at, you know, and that was really unfortunate. So like Tina said, and like you've mentioned, this idea to want to sensationalize and not realize that there were people behind these stories makes me now view these 48-hour shows and these Netflix shows very differently. These people have families, moms, dads, cousins, sisters, brothers. There should be some limit. Like if they're gonna report on it, fine, then turn off the comments because whoa, those comments, you know, and then you get your friends standing up for you, and you're like so vulnerable, you know, and people are saying the craziest thing, and you're like, listen, um, Balder Dash 12345. I don't even know who you are. I don't care what you're saying, you know. We often say this in our group about murder suicide survivors, especially our loved ones, that they are more than their last act and their final act. And that's one thing I would like the the media to know.

SPEAKER_03 17:58

Thank you both. And I'm deeply sorry that you experience that. I can, I don't like what people say, I cannot imagine because it just takes some effort to imagine. So I can imagine. We have so many questions. There's the shock, there's the pacing back and forth, there's the loss of time, the distortion of time, there's the panic, there's the disbelief. So many things happening at once. I can imagine what it's like to see the letter out in the world before you even had the option to read it yourself. It's just out there in the world. Like that is blatantly disrespectful. And I'm so sorry that that's the way that it happened. And same for you, Tina. So even just getting the facts incorrectly and treating it as like, hurry up, I have to publish this article. There's just an insensitivity to it. We have to remember that every time somebody passes, they have relatives, mother, father, son, siblings, people who love them for whatever reason. We we're a culture that loves to sensationalize things. And we forget about the human aspect and the people that are left to clean up the mess. And we have to do better with how we approach these types of topics and losses as, like you said, the keyboard warriors. You don't know until you're on this side of the story. Therefore, please at least have the common decency to not talk about something that you don't know anything about. And we think we know until we get there. So even just for grief in general, you people losing grandma at the age of 100, you know, peaceful who peacefully died in her sleep, grief is hard because it doesn't matter how old somebody was, they were somebody meaningful in our lives. You know, whether it was grandma dying peacefully in her sleep or a murder, suicide, overdose, or whatever the cause, there's a family left behind to process all of this, and a little sensitivity goes a very long way. This is part of the reason why I wanted to do this episode is to give a voice to this side of the story. Because as I was researching, the most information I found was about true crime series. And it kind of boggled my mind a little bit. I said, really? These are the voices that are dominating the conversation. I said, wow, no, we need to have this side of the conversation told from the family left behind.

Survivors stepping out of the shame

SPEAKER_03 20:22

And so, so thank you for being that. I believe you host a 10-week program, so maybe share a little bit about that. And what is a common theme that you hear in the stories shared in your groups?

SPEAKER_00 20:35

Those are really great questions. If I can take it back just a scoche to hearing our sides of the story, for me, after this happened, I was in high school when Columbine happened and it changed our lives and now everybody's lives since then. But in high school, I was there were some things that happened, and we had to lock down. I remember having some stronger feelings for the two boys of Columbine. And then after this happened, I watched a TED talk with Sue Klebold. Uh, I think Dylan Kleebold was her son. He's one of the Columbine killers. Whoa, my heart broke because now I was relating to her in a very different way. And she's somebody now that I look up to and admire for her openness and her willingness to be vulnerable and step out of the shame. Um so short of that, you know, that's the only thing we've got going on. So that's why it's so important that we're out um raising awareness. So our groups boy, I talk so much, I don't remember the question except to talk about the groups.

SPEAKER_03 21:41

No, that's perfectly fine. It's I care about the human aspect of these things.

Impacted Survivors Support Group & Resources

SPEAKER_03 21:45

So I would love for whoever's listening or watching to really feel that come through. And so um, that's why I like to give these more long winded explanations. But the question was more about you're leading these uh 10 week groups. 10 weeks and what types of themes you see coming through in these groups. Whatever you can say, obviously, if it's too detailed, you don't have to.

SPEAKER_00 22:09

Sure. Well, I think the most important thing is um Christina Faulkner, our other co-founder for Impacted Survivors of Murder Suicide, is unable to be here today. But she is a um a licensed therapist and she talks a lot about our grief model not being the stereotypical grief model. It's very different. Once you get to one level, you're back down. You're just all over the place. And so we thought we could design and create a 10-week course that takes you week by week in a structured way to really dive deep into the different spaces that the this grief may or may not take you. Some people are not ready to go on to the next week. And we fully support and honor that. There's a week about forgiveness. That is a very hard thing. And I mean, as anybody can add up, we're not far out. You know, Tina and I are just at four years. Christina just passed a year. But there are people that we've met in this community of murder, suicide, lost survivors that are far out, 20 some years. So they might be ready for the forgiveness portion. But we just want to be at a place where we're not re-stigmatizing or re-traumatizing rather ourselves with our stories, but in a place that we can try to move forward because we're never going to be a hundred percent. But if we can try to just chip away at the ice just a little bit in a structured way, then we can make some progress. The open support group is really just a place to come, like I was mentioning before, about anything topical that's going on. A lot of stuff on TV. Oh my gosh, almost every show is about suicide. I feel like I can't get away from it. One show, I forget the name of it, it was a superhero show because my husband loves all that kind of stuff. And you know, we have to watch what they watch sometimes.

SPEAKER_03 24:03

Right.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

You know, I'm like, what's wrong with Will and Grace? And the opening scene played by Patrick Schwarzenegger, he plays a superhero and whatever happens, but they labeled it a murder suicide because his powers accidentally kill somebody and then he implodes. And my I just my heart skipped a beat. I was like, they called it, they named it, they said it. If not a moment that you want, but you're really named it. They said it out loud, yeah. They named it. We want to just create a safe haven where people can come pick back up their pieces in their grief, backpack, put it back on their back for the week, and then come back to our group and they can unpack.

SPEAKER_03 24:39

Understandable, and that's very powerful. Being seen and witnessed in our truth as it is, naming it, saying it out loud is healing in and of itself. And I'm not talking about healing as in we're going to go back to normal. I'm saying that there's a part of us that feels acknowledged, and it's like, yes, this is called, you know, fill in the blank, whatever it is experience you're you're experiencing in this case, murder, suicide. Being able to talk about it openly is so powerful. And so when you talk about you don't follow the traditional model, I'm guessing you're talking about the stages of grief, correct? Correct. Okay. Grief is not linear. For those who have heard previous uh episodes, we don't believe in the five stages in terms of following, you know, that they're not prescriptive. If it's helpful to somebody to follow that context, by all means use it. I have yet to meet anybody who finds them helpful because they were not intended for grief. The context was completely different. It was on death and dying, not for grief. And grief is already layered and nuanced. And I could imagine that as you listen and you watch and you hear the stories and you're envisioning this reality, you could see how much more difficult it is to deal with not only your understanding of the loss, but that societal pressure, the opinions, the media. To your point, we are not aware of how desensitized we are until something touches us personally. And then you're trying to relax for the evening, turn on the TV, and you're literally bombarded with violence and death and gore and all these things. We don't realize how much that's happening until we actually go through it. So I can I can imagine how confronting that was in all the ways, right?

SPEAKER_00 26:16

Absolutely. In a jarring way, like there is uh show 13 Reasons Why years ago. And it's about suicide. This is before I was affected so directly, but I knew people that had passed by suicide. So you kind of know what you're getting into. But when it comes so abruptly, it is it is like uh, whoo, thank gosh, we live at home and we can pause and I can not watch this if I don't want to, you know.

SPEAKER_03 26:40

And Christina, being a licensed therapist, I've heard her talk in a different podcast how there was not really a framework for this type of loss, and that some grievers who seek help from a therapist are actually sent to somebody else because the therapist has no idea how to even begin helping this person. Would ask both of you, Teen and Michael, like what has your experience been? And would you say your p your groups fill in that gap?

SPEAKER_01 27:10

I did not seek out a therapist. I got into the group that we previously belonged to, and that was all I needed, just to have that experience in everybody's story is different, and that creates so many more layers. Um, you know, we had done a study, uh, it was like a 62 survivors that we had met, and within that group, there were 41 different relationships, you know, a mom that lost her daughter and roommate, and you know, children that have lost their parents, and vice versa. It's you just don't think about all the different people affected. And it's so different for every single person because Christina lost her parents, completely different than my story, than Michael's story, than somebody else's story. So for us to share, that was so helpful to me. Those people did more for me in those few years than I I think anybody could. Luckily, I do have an amazing support system. My husband and my brother's best friend. I wouldn't have made it through without them. They were absolutely amazing. Um, you know, and a lot of it too was protecting my mom. That was a big thing.

Identity Shifts After Loss

SPEAKER_01 28:30

I was always worried about protecting her. How so say a little bit more about that if you can. Um, so my brother was always the protector, you know, and he lived closer to her. I live about an hour away. And he was the big brother. He was, you know, he'd always stop over and bring her things and check in on her, just as a part of his routine to stop and see mom. I wanted her to be okay, but I know she's never gonna be okay again. But I felt like I had to now step into that role. After this happened, um, my husband and I were the ones that went to my brother's residence to, you know, start the process of cleaning it out to put it um on the market. And my mom didn't go there at all. She did the paperwork, the legal side. It was it was a different experience for her and I um in the aftermath, I think the immediate aftermath. But I still worry so much about her and I just wish that I could do more, you know, but I can't I can't bring them back.

SPEAKER_03 29:42

Thank you for sharing that.

SPEAKER_00 29:44

And if Michael, if you would like to say anything to that end, I was just so taken by your story because um I'm just sitting here thinking we we all lost siblings on here and how unique our grief is. And my brother was the oldest, and he was the protector as well, you know, and that absence that is gone is is felt so greatly, especially by me, because I'm the middle child. I still say that, I'll always say I'm the middle child. You accept things as they are in life. I'm this second or the spare. Um, I'm that good at at the first stuff. So just hearing what Tina had to step into was bringing back some memories, but also getting back to Christina, I think was the question, right? About the grief model.

SPEAKER_03 30:33

She had to figure out how to create a program that for this type of loss because there's really no blueprint. So has the group that you created filled in that gap?

SPEAKER_00 30:45

For me, a hundred percent, because I remember talking to my neighbor who is a therapist, and I was like, I'd love to find a murder suicide therapist, you know, specializes. And she was like, You're not gonna find that, you're just gonna find a grief one. And I went to therapy for a few months and he was great, but I was like, this feels more specific, you know, and it just happened. So I really miss my brother, and I thought that he died by suicide as a result of what he did. But I'm firmly believing now, and in this moment, that my brother suffered from suicidal ideation and he had suicidal thoughts. And Dr. Thomas Joyner believes

The Perversion of Virtue by Thomas Joiner, PhD

SPEAKER_00 31:25

in what he calls a perverted virtue, like um the perverted virtue of mercy. So, for example, a mother is suicidal and she thinks to herself, I want to die by suicide, but my children can't live without me, so I will take them with me. Because they they can't have another mother besides me, so it's it's a mercy thing. Um, there's mercy, glory, thank you, justice. Um glory is kind of like a the what the Colin Bye kids did. Justice and duty for me, they always change. Sometimes I'm like, oh, it was his duty, or what he thought was his duty, rather. But that aside,

Finding healing in community for layered losses

SPEAKER_00 32:06

when I found the group that we were in, and then we created our group, you learn so much from other people's stories and their experiences. Again, talking about the people that have lived it from you know the early 2000s or even the 80s or 90s. You you you understand that there is hope at the end, um, that you are not the only one. There are many people that this happens to. It makes you second guess your own thoughts, I guess. And we concentrate on the lived experience being so much more rewarding. I think therapy is amazing and wonderful, but I don't know how a therapist would juxtapose both of these things. And when you're in a group setting or even in a group course, or grief course, rather, you're able to get more specific.

SPEAKER_03 32:55

So true. They're growing in popularity because of that, because the peop there's people who get it, unfortunately. And and both and they get it, and they make you feel seen and heard and understood in the complexity of the loss. There is an author I interviewed, her name is Annie Sclaver Orenstein, and she wrote Always a Sibling about sibling loss, because noticing that we're we all lost siblings here, sibling loss is already a type of loss that is not talked about enough. So even within the space of grief, we have aspects of it that are a little bit more commonly and openly spoken of. And the more layered the type of loss or traumatic or unexpected, the more shunned it becomes, even within the grief space. So this is why it's so important to shed light on this because it happens, unfortunately. Michael, Tina, and others who have experienced this, you didn't ask for this. Neither did the families of the person who experienced the murder aspect of it, right? Their families are suffering too. So it's just layers and layers and layers. And this was your sibling. So reconciling these realities, it's a process. It's a process to reconcile loss in general, grief in general, and the layers of this loss. So I asked that question to you. Have you found a way to reconcile all these different aspects of it that are very difficult to process? Or are you working on it? Because, like you said, it hasn't been that long in the greater context of loss. Four or five years is really not long. Have you found a space or a nugget of truth or an or a place where you can at least touch peace or come to some kind of equanimity about all of this, or some kind of I'm not sure I'm finding the right word here, but I think you know what I mean. Like a space where you could at least accept or process some of this.

SPEAKER_01 34:54

I

Can we reconcile the shattered parts following a murder-suicide loss?

SPEAKER_01 34:55

don't think I have. I think there might be little flickers of light here and there, but I think one of the things that we hear the most when we speak with survivors is the why. The why is just you can't, it's so hard to to try to get past that. I've gotten a little bit better with quieting the why, but it's just it's so out of character. It's so far from it's just so shocking. And um I I don't think that'll ever be able to accept it. I think doing this work and speaking with survivors helps me, but it's still some days are better than others, but we're working on it.

SPEAKER_00 35:43

Yeah, I think um it's so tough um because I I miss my brother daily. You know, I think about him, I have his picture, I talk to him a lot. But I heard on this podcast recently with another sibling lost survivor. I don't know if you heard of her, Nina Rodriguez. And um, I just want to say I felt may have heard of her. May have. I felt so seen when you said our when we lose our uh uh paraphrasing, not quoting, but when we lose our siblings, a piece or all of our childhood goes with them. And I felt so seen and heard in that moment because I was like, oh my god, a hundred percent. Like my brother and I were two years apart. Our birthdays are a day apart. I miss him the most on my birthday. I miss him a little bit on his birthday, but it was really about me. Um, and it's a really hard time. We shared so much, and I'll never forget after he passed, somebody who had also lost a sibling, but at a young age had asked me, Were you close with your brother? Because I don't really remember you talking about him a lot. And I was like, what kind of question is that? You know, I was so shocked because again, they also lost a sibling, and I thought we would have this like almost new connection because now I know what it feels like. But putting that aside, it was so shocking to me because it wasn't a matter of being close or not close. He's my brother. We shared a lifetime together, it wasn't long enough, but we shared a lifetime and my childhood that I hold so close, and being a gay man, what it was like to have a relationship with the straight brother who listened to Nirvana, and I'd make him listen to my Mariah Carey was like what made us so unique and so special, and now that is gone. Um we never went two weeks without speaking, we'd always talk, it was always deep. It was always, I need your guidance on something, and so I really miss that. But the reconciling, I I think all I can say is I hate what he did. I know he knows that. I have reconciled his decision to want to die by suicide, but not with what he did before that. It's daily, like some days. I'm like, if you're in a better place and you're happy, and ugh, I hate that saying actually. If you feel better now, then that's what's most important. But I want you to know I really miss you, you know.

SPEAKER_03 38:29

Again, it's this and that, it's all the truths at once. And trying to process even one of those truths is already difficult enough. I don't know that I finished my thought from before about the always a sibling book. But when we have these types of losses, sometimes it makes us question is this something that could happen to me? Is this something that I missed? Like how if somebody would have asked you, would your brother ever do this? No, or your sister, you know, like absolutely not. That's not them, right? And and yet this happened. And so reconciling these parts makes us as siblings question so much about what we think we knew. And when we look back on our lives, sometimes it's like, was that even true? Like the ands go on, they're endless. They were our memory keepers. Our siblings are supposed to be our life's witness, voluntary or not. They're supposed, they're the ones that know our childhood, our present, and our future. And that has been robbed from us as well. So I see, I see that aspect in your descriptions and how painful that has to be. That has to be very, very painful and challenging.

'Living Forward' after loss

SPEAKER_03 39:32

I know that you have a phrase called living forward. So, what did living forward mean in this context?

SPEAKER_01 39:38

For me, living forward is living for what I have, living for what I still have. And I still I still live for my brother. He was always my biggest cheerleader and also my biggest critic. But he's always there with me. I live forward for my mom, my husband, my son. It's not easy sometimes, but what's the alternative? Living forward is for me just okay, this is what happened, and this is how I'm personally gonna deal with it. And for me, I can't stay. I have to move past it and live forward and make a change in the world, in this community. That's kind of what I would say about it.

SPEAKER_00 40:25

Yeah, and I think even the small stuff like you know, getting up, taking a shower, going out, oh my gosh, after it happened. I mean, it was still COVID, so you didn't have to see many people, but when we were coming out of that and there were birthday parties again and dinners, I would feel so much anxiety, like, somebody gonna ask me about this. What am I gonna say? Are they gonna say something that upsets me? Every time I saw somebody that I hadn't seen uh until after it happened, I was very nervous. So living forward for me is taking the next step, however that may be. It can be small. Well, we have a phrase in the acting community. Getting up and reading a quote, emailing an acting coach or professor is taking your career in a direction. So living forward and grief is taking your grief in a direction because sometimes it can take a hold of you. Living forward is this creating impacted survivors, a murder suicide, and connecting with other survivors, creating advocacy, raising the awareness. We're speaking at conferences or doing these podcasts. This is us living forward and taking our loved ones with us.

SPEAKER_03 41:42

And thank you for choosing to take that daily step, as difficult as it may be some days, and as light as it could be other days. Thank you for choosing to take each step forward. And to that end, what um how can people find helps if somebody can relate to anything of what we talked about and they want to get in touch? How can they do so? How can they join one of your programs? And also, is there um anything that's upcoming that you would

What's next for Impacted Survivors?

SPEAKER_03 42:06

like to share with our audience today?

SPEAKER_00 42:08

Sure. I think the most important thing to say is if anybody is feeling any kind of suicidal ideation or any questions about it, to call 988. Um, it's a number we need to spread more about. It is a suicide hotline. Somebody will answer right away. There's also crisistextline.org. Um, that's somebody that you can text and somebody will respond in case you have any thoughts, or even if it's a friend or you have any questions and you don't want to really talk to people. Crisisline um is great for that. For us, you can find us at impacted survivors.com. Uh, we're also on Instagram, impacted survivors of MS. We are currently now um submitting two conferences to speak at next year for 2025, and we have a couple leads on that. And um, we're just right now concentrating on the podcast circuit and we're speaking at different podcasts. Uh, we also have our own podcast called Love Losing in Layers: The Complexities of Murder Suicides, and that will come out hopefully by the end of the year. Um, getting people to talk openly is is sometimes difficult. In connection with that, we have our blog on our website that we're open to people guest blogging on and sharing their experience anonymously or or if they want to be named. Yeah, I think that's that's my plug.

SPEAKER_03 43:36

Thank you. And I will link all of that to the to the show notes. Look there if you want to connect. I think that the work that you're doing is important. And it's again, a lot of us don't land here because we woke up one day and we decided this is what we wanted to do. It's because it it touched our lives and it affected and impacted our lives in unexpected ways. Here we are, and I believe that each griever that speaks up shines. A light for the next person that's maybe starting on their journey and helps reclaim these stories because there's so many opinions, there's so many ways that the story could be told. And I encourage anybody who's listening to listen to the person who's actually experiencing it, not just the chitter chatter from people that perhaps haven't experienced it firsthand. Loss is complex, loss is nuanced, and stigmatized losses, even more so. And this is part of how we reclaim our stories and we help other people along the way. So thank you very much for what you're doing, Christina as well, who couldn't join us today, but her presence is here. Thank you, Christine, as well, for the work that you're doing. And before we close, is there something that I didn't ask that you would like to include in this conversation to make it feel a little bit more complete or anything that's in your heart to say in this moment? The floor is yours.

SPEAKER_00 44:57

I'll start by saying uh with much gratitude and thanks for your having us on this podcast. This is a very difficult conversation. When we started the call today, you're like, oh, this is the first time I'm doing more than just one. And I I feel so grateful that you have us on, but then that you're also taking us on and giving us this platform. It's not an easy conversation, means a lot to us. And thank you for that.

SPEAKER_01 45:25

And I just echo all of that. And thank you so much for having us. Really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_03 45:31

Thank you for being willing to speak so openly. And it it does help. You know, it does help when somebody speaks up and and other people can unfortunately see themselves identified, and fortunately, because they don't feel alone. And that's really, really important for those of us navigating such an isolating experience already. As

Advice & Closing Thoughts

SPEAKER_03 45:50

a final question, what would Michael say to Michael when you first got the news and who was facing this reality? And then Tina, what would Tina say when she got the news facing this reality? What would the version today say to the version in the past?

SPEAKER_00 46:06

You know, I see this on TV a lot, and I always have an answer when I see it on a show, and I'm like, oh um, I would tell myself to take a deep breath. And it's gonna be a really long, bumpy road, but you're you're strong, and you can do this. Life is life is full of challenges, but just take a deep breath and remember. There's a really great quote by somebody who I admired. She said in her quote, Grief is the price you pay for love. So just remember you're gonna grieve hard because you loved him so much.

SPEAKER_01 46:58

I don't know that I can answer it, in all honesty. I I don't I don't know if I can answer that yet. And that's perfectly fine.

SPEAKER_03 47:08

That's okay. We honor it as it is. Thank you both for your bravery, thank you for your honesty, thank you for for your work. And I know it's going to help a lot of people. And I hope that if you're listening and you can identify, just know you're not alone. And if any part of you listened and maybe felt a little bit reactive to what we were saying, just go there and see why. Life isn't black and white. This is a very nuanced experience, and sometimes the more we are willing to go there, the better humans we are to ourselves and each other. And ultimately, it's not about getting it perfect, it's about being able to move forward together. So thank you very much.

SPEAKER_00 47:48

Thank you, Anita. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 47:50

That's it for today's episode. Be sure to subscribe to the Grief and Light podcast. I'd also love to connect with you and hear your thoughts and your stories. Feel free to share them with me via my Instagram page at grief and light, or you can also visit griefandlight.com for more information and updates.

SPEAKER_02 48:09

Thank you so much for being here, for being you, and always remember you are not alone.