Anatomy of an End
Start here: Mark — Giving It All Away (Episode 4).
What happens to people when the pressure in their lives starts becoming too much, and what do the rest of us miss while it’s happening?
Anatomy of an End is a podcast about mental health, crisis, and human behavior under pressure.
Our psychological-autopsy episodes look closely at real lives and the relationships, pressures, and circumstances surrounding suicide. We ask what changed, what people noticed, what was misunderstood, and what remains unknown. Our Field Guides step back from individual cases to explore bigger subjects like stigma, depression, addiction, isolation, and the systems meant to help.
Host and producer Davis Henry joins forensic psychological consultant D. Edward “Dana” Tatum for candid conversations with room for disagreement and some unexpected laughter. Dana brings roughly three decades of experience across behavioral health and criminal justice. Davis brings the questions, connections, and occasional “Hold on, what does that actually mean?”
The cases are real, but the goal is not spectacle. It is understanding. We don’t believe a person can be understood by the way their life ended.
Suicide prevention is at the heart of the show. Our aim is to challenge stigma and help people become better prepared to recognize distress, ask questions, and engage when somebody is struggling.
If you’ve ever looked at somebody’s behavior and thought, “Why would someone do that?” this is where we stay with the question a little longer.
Stay present. Stay engaged. Stay alive.
Anatomy of an End is not a crisis service. If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 in the United States, or visit 988lifeline.org.
Episodes
9 episodes
Psychological Autopsy #6: Sarah - No News Is Not Good News
Sarah was 56. Quiet, meticulous, private, and intensely hard on herself, she spent much of her life struggling with anxiety, isolation, and a relentless fear that she was never doing well enough.When she entered a state psychiatric hospi...
Psychological Autopsy #5: Sam - He Looked Better (The Danger After Detox)
Sam was 28. After years of opioid addiction, his family got him into treatment. He completed medical detox. He was clean, coherent, cooperative, and for the first time in years he looked like himself again. Two days later, he died by suicide.
Psychological Autopsy #4: Mark - Giving It All Away
A 52-year-old man reaches a breaking point within 72 hours of his first arrest. Davis goes in blind as Dana reconstructs the pressure, concealment, and missed signals that came before it.Davis Henry and forensic psychological consultant...
Psychological Autopsy #3: Noor - External Reactions, Internal Realities
We build courts and jails to process what people do. They are much worse at understanding what is happening inside someone.At first glance, Noor’s story looks like a criminal file: a 19-year-old woman, stalking charges, threats against ...
Psychological Autopsy #2: William - Between Two Lives
William was a respected corrections clinician and a father. After his death, a second life surfaced that even the people closest to him had not seen.Davis Henry and D. Edward “Dana” Tatum reconstruct the relationships, secrecy, and comp...
Psychological Autopsy #1 Part 3: Susan – The Final Days
Part 3 of 3. The scene is on the table. The life is on the table. This part looks at the days before Susan’s death: the relationships, decisions, conflicts, and pressure that only become a pattern when you already know how the story ends.
Psychological Autopsy #1 Part 2: Susan – The Person
Part 2 of 3. Who was Susan before she became the subject of an investigation?Davis Henry and D. Edward “Dana” Tatum leave the scene and look at the life: relationships, struggles, behavior patterns, and how the people who knew her exper...