March 19, 2025 • 29 mins
In this emotional and eye-opening episode, Lisa shares her story of surviving suicide loss and the shocking truth she uncovered decades later about her father's death. Joined by Gretchen, the two explore how silence around mental health can span generations—and how sharing our truths can break cycles, foster healing, and create powerful change.
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Episode Summary:
In this powerful and deeply personal episode, Lisa shares her journey of surviving suicide loss twice—first, losing her cousin and father as a child, then discovering decades later that her father had died by suicide rather than a heart attack. The revelation shattered her world but ultimately led her to advocacy, support work, and co-founding The Survivors Podcast. Lisa and Gretchen discuss how trauma can shape a person’s path, the importance of open conversations about mental health, and how we can all work to break the stigma surrounding suicide.
Lessons Learned in This Episode:
- The long-lasting impact of suicide loss on survivors.
- The importance of breaking generational cycles of silence around mental health.
- Why sharing your story can be a powerful tool for healing.
- The misconception that suicide is selfish and how that mindset needs to change.
- How community and conversation can help those struggling with loss and grief.
- 00:00 - Introduction & Trigger Warning
- 00:40 - Lisa’s Journey: A Complex Story of Loss
- 02:06 - Losing Her Father Twice: The Shocking Truth
- 07:11 - The Moment of Discovery & Emotional Impact
- 10:07 - The Lack of Mental Health Resources in the Past
- 14:56 - Founding The HelpHUB™: A Mental Health Resource Platform
- 18:05 - Turning Pain Into Purpose
- 22:24 - Changing the Narrative: Suicide is Not Selfish
- 26:23 - Building a Supportive Mental Health Community
- 28:57 - Closing Thoughts: The Journey of Healing
- The Survivors Podcast Website – https://thesurvivors.net/
- The HelpHUB™ – Mental health resources, tools, and support networks: https://www.thehelphub.co/
- Schoser Talent and Wellness Solutions – Mental wellness coaching & support: https://schosersolutions.com/
- Calmerry – Affordable & accessible online therapy: https://calmerry.com/
- Sh!t That Goes On In Our Heads – A raw, award-winning mental health podcast: https://goesoninourheads.net/
- 📷 Instagram: @the_survivors_podcast
- 🔗 LinkedIn: The Survivors Podcast
- 🎥 YouTube: @TheSurvivorsPodcastChannel
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
[Music]
(00:05):
The survivors has brought to you by our friends at Calmary.
This podcast mentions suicide, mental illness, grief and loss, and may be triggering for
some listeners.
So please take care of your mental well-being by pausing or skipping any sections that
feel uncomfortable to you.
And if you or someone you know is struggling, please call 988 for support.
(00:27):
So it's like it's so hard to know where to jump in with my story.
My story is a little bit unusual.
It's a little complicated and it's long, I think.
Would you agree?
It is long.
Kind of good.
But it's kind of good.
It's long and complicated, but it also makes you who you are.
(00:50):
Right, exactly.
Exactly.
Sure, 1,000% would not be here behind this mic with you doing this if I didn't have the
story.
So, I guess like the best place to start is to say that I am a three-time survivor of
suicide loss.
I've lost my cousin when I was nine years old.
(01:14):
The year after my cousin passed away in 1978, I lost my father.
That one's the real kind of unusual kind of loss.
You'll see in a second when I explain.
And then I lost one of our closest childhood friends who we were close all the way up
through our 50s, lived together in college and with each other's weddings and all that.
(01:40):
So that was only about four years ago.
So I had nothing whatsoever to do with the mental health field or community most of my life
until only a handful of years ago.
I was writing parenting books.
I was in the parenting space.
I was on all the parenting platforms talking about raising kids and work-life balance and
(02:03):
all that.
And then everything changed.
Everything just kind of exploded and imploded.
And when the dust settled, I was, you know, somebody very very different.
So for me, I guess the thing that makes the most sense is to explain how I've lost my dad
twice in my life.
I think that makes the most sense.
So I've lost my father twice because I lost him when I was 10 years old.
(02:26):
I was at day camp for the day.
When I came home, my mom came to grab me off the school bus, camp bus, and I didn't walk
with her to my house.
She turned me in the opposite direction and walked me away from our house that had a line of
cars down the street in front of it.
(02:47):
And I thought, I was just crazy things you think of when you're 10 years old.
I was totally sure that that was a surprise party because my birthday, my 10th birthday,
was two weeks before that day.
And I could see like my grandma's car and my uncle Milton's car and my aunt, Harriet's
car.
Like everybody's cars were there and I was so sure that it was a party for me.
(03:09):
And my mom gets me off the bus and she walks me the opposite direction of the house.
And I see my aunt's car parked way down the street in like a weird spot, way down the street.
And I don't know why.
Like it just hit me in that moment.
It was like five o'clock in the afternoon.
My dad would never have been home at that time.
So we lived north of Boston and he worked in the city.
(03:31):
And I would never have had my dad home at that time of day.
He always came home later.
And for some weird reason, I said, where's dad?
Why isn't dad here?
And my mom just like had her arms around me as we're walking over to my aunt's car.
And she said, daddy had a heart attack.
And like my first instinct was we have to go to him.
(03:53):
We have to go to him right now.
And she said, we can't go to him.
And by now we're like sitting in my aunt's car.
And she said, daddy died.
Daddy had a heart attack and died.
And of course, your whole world just explodes in front of your face.
And that was the narrative that I lived with for 35 years in my life.
That happened when I was 10 years old.
(04:16):
Always believed my dad, who was a super fit guy.
He was a mountain climber and he raised cars.
And he was super, super active, outdoorsman.
But he also smoked three packs of Winston's a day.
So it was heart disease in the family.
And all else.
And I had a hard story to believe.
Had no reason to disbelieve it.
So that's the story that I had my entire life growing up all the way through, like high school
(04:38):
college, getting married, having kids.
And then very unexpectedly, 35 years later, when my dad was 45 when he died.
So when I was 45 years old that summer, I accidentally learned that my dad had actually died by
suicide.
And it just like that did me.
(04:59):
It just took me out.
He really did for a long time.
It's funny.
People probably don't know it.
People who are in my life, even my closest friends, didn't know because I was like two very
separate people for a very, very long time.
Like the outward facing part of me was so different than the person who was like in my bedroom
behind closed doors sobbing to Dave for like three years.
(05:23):
So I've lost him twice because when I found out it was a suicide, my mom confirmed that
it was in fact a suicide.
I lost everything in that moment and went right back to square one.
Like I was right back to like day one minute one of losing my dad all over again and grieved
him.
But now I was a suicide lost survivor and what the hell was I going to do with that?
(05:44):
Like what is that even?
You know, I had no real.
I mean, I had experience with it only in the context of like my cousin had died by suicide
but I was nine years old.
Nobody talked about it.
It was not a thing.
So now all of a sudden here I am like a survivor because my own dad took his life.
So that's my why that that just like I shut down for a long time.
(06:07):
I stopped writing, stopped creating content.
Didn't didn't really feel like I was aligned with what I wanted to do and my mom, I mean,
you've you've met my mom.
She's a little fireball.
I love her.
Oh my god.
My mom is like the greatest of the great.
She's the queen of all that matters.
And she said to me like super early on, she was like you absolutely can start talking about
(06:32):
this or writing about this.
Like whatever you need to do with this more or less is what she said, you do go do it.
I support you.
And I was like, no, my god, this is no way.
I'm not going to write about this now.
I'm going to talk about this now.
I can't do that.
No way to painful.
Don't know what I'm dealing with.
Don't even know how I feel.
My kids didn't even know about it.
Only at that time my mom and Dave and I were the only ones who knew about it.
Because as soon as I found out about it from my mother, I of course like, you know, my
(06:55):
mom was staying with us and I brought, we had gone out for lunch and the conversation, it's
just king.
And he went back in the house to kind of get her bearings and Dave, I said to Dave, like
I need to take a drive.
We need to go take a drive.
And he was like, well, he knew immediately knew something was wrong.
He was like, what is going on?
And I told him and I remember him.
So the first thing he said was, well, how do you know?
(07:18):
Like could it have been a mistake?
Like, you know what I mean?
And I said, honey, he left a note and he was like, okay, like now, okay, like we know now
that this is real.
What we're what we're dealing with is real.
But it was just the two of them were the only ones who knew for years before I felt like
I had kind of had my bearings a little bit and could like talk about it.
(07:40):
And why I wanted first and foremost to talk about it with my kids and say, like, look,
you guys, there's inherited trauma and there's inherited DNA.
And we all have it.
And my kids at that time were like junior high in high school.
And I really felt like it was important for them to know, like, okay, there's some serious
(08:01):
mental illness on my dad's side of the family.
And it may not be impacting you now, but it could impact you at some point in your life.
And you need to know about it.
And it's important to be able to talk about it and have that dialogue.
So kind of once I told them, it was like a little slow domino effect.
It was like I told them I told my immediate family and started like, you know, widening the circle
and told friends and whatnot.
(08:22):
And now all of a sudden it was like I went from like one day still sticking with that narrative
of like my dad died of a heart attack.
It's crazy how many people ask how my dad died.
Like it really bugs my kids that people ask so much because it's such a personal question
but so many people do.
So for the longest time, I still kind of reverted back to the old my dad died of a heart attack
(08:45):
narrative.
Then it was like all of a sudden.
Once I kind of reconciled with things in my own head, never looked back.
I was like, nope, my dad died by suicide and never looked back.
I never felt shame.
Never felt any shame.
I was bullshit though at my father, but not probably not for the reasons that you would
(09:06):
think.
I wasn't angry at my dad for leaving me.
I was so upset with my dad for leaving my mom as a single mom with a 10 year old child.
Working a part-time job as a secretary at a nursing home like the hell did she know about
like you know at that time like my dad took care of everything and what did she know about
(09:26):
raising a child alone and you know bookkeeping and finances and house and mortgage and all the
things.
So for a really long time, I was so furious at him for that.
And that was also still at the time when I really believed that suicide was a self-ashacked
which a lot of people, a lot of people believed that.
(09:47):
And that's something I want to talk a lot about.
100% because of a lot of selfish.
No.
And just to interject into your story.
Just remember like when your dad made suicide, the resources that we have today were not
available to him at that time.
Right.
(10:08):
Oh my God.
That right there is why I founded the hell pub which I know we're going to talk about at some
point later on and we kind of you know mention it in each episode but that's why I founded
this whole platform to put people with the resources they need, connect people with the resources
that they need.
That's why I'm on the crisis lifelines with the Trevor project.
(10:29):
That's why you know I work with the National Alliance on Mental Illness to tell stories
about my experience and help mainstream these kinds of experiences with other people.
And yeah it was, I mean so that was my why for kind of diving into one site unloaded it
all on the rest of the world and everybody kind of knew the truth.
(10:53):
Then it was like I couldn't stop.
You know what I mean?
I just like and I know you feel the same way because you're literally doing the same
thing.
I know we're going to talk about your story next week but you know it's you know secret
that you know you're a survivor of an attempt of a few years ago and that whole experience
completely changed the trajectory of your life in the same way that you know learning
(11:17):
that my dad died by suicide changed mine and it's crazy when you think about like the things
that happen to us in our lives that are these like tragic traumatic like world shaking
you know shake your foundation to your core kind of things that happen.
And then you can turn around and and still somehow dig out a nugget of you know of golden
(11:42):
there or something that's you know worth something to other people like that's you know you
went through shit like you went you were like you were in it and now look at you now now
you're like inspiring the world to reach out for help and talk about what's on your mind
and what's in your heart and all those things and and you know I've been through it again
(12:04):
again and again and you know as a survivor of suicide loss and and all I want to do is talk
about it like all I want to do is explain to people that you do not have to use that as
a way of ending your pain like we can fix it there is help.
And you know it's funny but not funny how shit that we start doing right after facing
(12:31):
things like this like that one in our wheelhouse right like five years ago for for me this was
not in the wheelhouse it was not on the vision world okay I don't even know what a vision
world is it's like not my generation but what we're doing is we're changing the world
and I love that you're so open about your journey about everything you do and you're out there
(12:56):
helping people every single day like your story matters.
Yeah I'm so I mean I really hope so and now you know it's funny for people who are listening
you're not going to be able to see me do this but gee I did this to you before we even
started recording this morning I told you what I gifted myself for my birthday last year
(13:20):
it was like a little like a little teeny tiny thing but it has become so powerful for me
in my in my office I realized that something was missing on my desk and so I made for anyone
who's not watching the video of this I'm holding up a picture of me with my dad I was
probably like seven years old and it's right here on my desk it's right there it's staring
(13:40):
me in the face every single time I write an article or I do an interview or we take a
podcast or I write another chapter in a book or whatever it is it's right there and the
freesies thing and I don't even know if I've ever told you this or maybe I have at this point
I really genuinely feel like every single thing that I do whether I'm on a lifeline or you
(14:02):
know talking about my story I'm doing it with my dad like I I have had the most overpowering
sensation lately in the last probably six months that we are absolutely doing all of this
work together.
Like it's up to your mental well-being with Calmary trusted online therapy platform that
supports you through life's challenges connect with licensed therapists and reap the
(14:24):
benefits of traditional therapy enhanced with digital tools whenever you need a visit
calmery.com to get started.
I'm sure he's like shining down on you like every day and like sitting with you right
like he in his own mind wishing that he had the resources that we have today and that's
(14:51):
why podcasts like ours are so incredibly powerful and important.
Yeah that's I mean you know we talked about this in the last episode that you know for both
of us the thing we want most which is why where we totally align you and I I mean you and
my align and like 65,000 different things but the thing that like really brought us together
(15:13):
was I've never met anyone who is as passionate as I believe myself to be about making an impact
in the world about changing the conversation about changing the narrative about about bringing
the hard topics and conversations into the spotlight in the mainstream until I met you
and because they've been taboo for so long right and I think you know for people that are
(15:38):
my age you know that have been told not to talk about it that it's important that we have
these conversations right and you know and have it and not have it be like generational.
I mean this what we're going through what we're talking about and suicide happens in every
single generation every single age group.
(16:00):
Yeah it does but I mean I think about my dad in his case nobody knew nobody had any idea that
my dad was struggling I mean my mom certainly didn't I mean it's my father was in the room now
the way he was then you would have seen the most lovable charming funny grounded present joyful man.
(16:24):
I mean it's that's why sometimes it's when I really think about like what he must have been going
through it you know just kind of makes me want to cry because I realized that he was suffering like
over I mean when you're at that point and you do that thing you are suffering in a way that most
people do not understand you understand it but a lot of other people don't and you know he he just
(16:49):
took that one last step that fortunately you didn't take and there was no I mean he was 1978
like who the hell was he talking to about his feelings he he certainly wasn't talking to his family he
certainly wasn't talking to his friends I mean the ironic thing is that at the very very end of his
life the last I think my mom says it's like the last month or so he did actually say to her that he
(17:13):
was staying a therapist but I think it was just like too little too late or the wrong person and
whatever the reason was it didn't work and I think it was just too late but that's all I want to do now
is when I'm not on the lifelines all I'm thinking about is being on the lifelines to be the person
(17:34):
on the other end of the phone that my dad didn't have you know or to you know I just I just submitted
the manuscript for my next book that I've been working on for like four years that's the story of
losing my dad twice and losing him to suicide and and I think about all these things it's like I can't
do enough like I just want to get and I know you're exactly the same way that's why you were like oh
(17:56):
sure I'll I'll jump from doing this wildly successful other podcast to do let's do a podcast together
I was like so you know I have to do even more no time during the day to do things but it's so
important and I love to love you and I love you to you're so passionate about doing this and about
(18:17):
sharing your love and your your hurt with people especially when you're on the crisis
life right like because by the time you get to that point at least for me like you're fucking that
yeah I know I am really trying not to cast I'm trying to be really good I know you've been
I for anybody who's listening and watching you have to understand something about G G cannot
(18:41):
complete a sentence without the word fuck and the fact that we have gotten how many minutes are we
right now 19 minutes get your belief that you have gotten to the so proud of you so I believe we
it won't last it might but like you know your story is so important because there are probably other
(19:03):
people out there that the same thing happened right and so finding out later in life it had to
have been incredibly painful and hurtful and trying to figure out those emotions of that doll
yeah yeah it was um it was it was a time let me tell you that much it was a time and I you know
(19:28):
and I say this I say this in like the most genuine and heartfelt way that I possibly can
I would probably not be here if it was not for my mother I mean my mother is the most extraordinary
human that I know anyway aside from everything that she's done to protect me from you know all of this
(19:49):
but a lot of people wonder if I ever had any feelings of animosity or or you know if I was angry with
her or felt any resentment toward her for keeping the secret like she she did she kept the secret for 35
years that my dad died by suicide and the answer to that question is oh my god no not a second not
(20:11):
not a single second of time have I ever been anything but just eternally grateful to her for
sparing me because look I mean I kind of alluded to this a little while ago and I never really finished
the thought that I had always believed that suicide was selfish it was just my own little belief system
that probably started when I was 10 after my cousin passed away and and I don't know where it came
(20:35):
from it didn't come from my parents it was just like something that just I I just developed on my own
and I just kind of quietly had that belief system until I found out about my father until I started
like digging into kind of the the wise behind the psychology behind why the why people take their
life why how do people get that desperate what is it really all about and I realized it was just like
(20:58):
and that happened overnight like you and I have had this conversation a million times that I went
from believing it was selfish to completely recognizing that mental illness is an illness just like
any other illness that needs to be treated and respected and managed in the way you would if you
had heart disease or cancer or anything else like that and I didn't realize that until I had to
(21:20):
navigate my own dad's suicide and then I was like what an idiot I was such an idiot how would I ever
think it was selfish there's nothing selfish about it whatsoever and it completely talk about like
mind shift like blowing your mind it literally happened overnight and I was like oh god no it's not
that at all but if I in that moment if I had found out when I was 10 years old that it was a suicide
(21:41):
like it was bad enough to know that he was gone forever my mom just like like instinct took over
and she totally mom-of-aired me in that moment and was like nope my child is going to be hurting
enough for the rest of her life because she just lost her father I am not layering a suicide
on top of that now and then it became like now you're going high school in college and then you're
(22:03):
getting married like what's the point um and then it ended up coming up by accident but um
yeah it's just uh it's been a journey it has definitely been a journey then I think of it like where
I am now and the work that I'm doing now and the connections I've made in the community that I
a part of and like our relationship and and how like absolutely certain I am that I am in the right
(22:28):
place at the right time with the right person doing the right thing like I've never ever felt
more certain about anything than I do about that even though you swear constantly like a fucking
sailor I but you know what sometimes that's like the only word to use I know but I am so thankful for
(22:48):
you and you know trauma brings it can either bring out the worst in the person or the best in the
person and I think that in our cases trauma is bringing bringing out the best in us because we're
we're taking that pain and we turn it into a purpose okay okay you know you and I said at time and
(23:13):
time again we just want to change the world change that change the trajectory and it now more than ever
our message you know is clear and like a lot of people are suffering things are crazy right now so
yeah yeah that's not understood being able to open up and talk about this so to talk about it
freely without any stigma because no I'm not ashamed of my own story which you guys will hear next week
(23:39):
you know I had to go through that to get here yeah and and so did I and and I'm so unbelievably
grateful that I'm in this position that you know obviously do I wish my father was here yeah do I
wish my cousin and my friend was here like of course I do not a day goes by that I don't wish
(24:00):
that they were still here at the same time though and this is this is the interesting thing about why
like how grief and joy can exist at the same time and I'm sure you and I know you and I'll have this
conversation down the line but in my case like I always have this undercurrent of sadness that
my people are gone and that that they they died by suicide and it could have been prevented
(24:23):
but and I hate the word button you know I don't like the word but I'm gonna say it anyway
but at the same time I'm so insanely grateful that what I have gone through is something that I hope
other people can connect with and find some pathway to hope through my story or your story
(24:46):
because you know I've got we have got a lot of lived experience behind us I mean you're like 7,000
years old so you've got like centuries where it's here wow okay let me stop and close our
session there's like six years difference in our so you need to stop I know I'm sorry I had to I won't
ever do it again until the next episode I swear okay for all I won't see this is good we laugh we're
(25:11):
talking about suicide and we're like laughing our answers often and it's not this is not to
disrespect the subject in any way this is to show that grief and loss can coexist they have to
coexist and we have to be able to still recognize what we've been through the traumatic nature of what
we've been through and also still that there is another side of it that there is there is joy to be
(25:35):
found and there is hope to be found you know we're we're out here hopefully kind of like
blazing the trail for that in some ways I hope I kind of see it that way I see it that way too and
like I said you know the upcoming episodes we're just gonna dive into like some really amazing topics
and you know some of them will walk away and just scratch in your head and others it will be like
(26:01):
wow I never realized and you know so part of it is like an education the suicide education and
and give me guys some tips and tricks to like you know kind of just figure it out and let you know
that you are never ever ever ever ever that's the biggest thing that's that's the biggest part of this
(26:22):
because we're not just to and we said this in the last episode we're not just sitting here having
conversations about these topics we're growing a community we're building a community like we want
people to reach out to us we want people to connect with us light into our DMs send us emails connect
with us in every way that you can if you have you know a story or an experience to share a point of
(26:46):
view or a tip or something you know because not everything works for everybody and that's the benefit
of like you and I just talking about what we've been through it helps and the other thing that I
think is really important to mention is that and this is why it makes it so relevant when you talk
about like the statistics of suicide like 700,000 people in the US alone I'm sorry that's a lie
(27:09):
I'm lying it's not it's a liar. Sorry 49,000 people a year will die by suicide in the United States 700,000
people will die around the world every year because of suicide loss now here's the interesting thing
that literally stops me in my tracks every time I hear it for every one person who dies by suicide
(27:29):
135 people are affected by that one loss whether it's like a colleague or it's a family member or
it's a friend or someone in the community 135 so if you do the math it's like
tens of millions of people a year are affected by suicide loss and here's where this podcast
(27:52):
is so important if you are out there and you're watching us or you're listening to us right now
and you by some miracle have not been touched by suicide either in your life yourself with an
attempt or with someone in your life who has made an attempt or has passed away you will be
you will be at some point or another you will be touched by this and so this is our new pandemic
(28:20):
and you and I are right here to be where the Anthony Fauci's of the is that too much? No I'm
in a good way right no we want to be the the voice of you know this conversation to be
you know a place of comfort a place of support a place of strength and hope and
(28:45):
it was a little luck and lots of talking we will be I love this and like I said I'm turning next
week for my story and Lisa thank you so much for sharing yours okay thanks for pulling space I
love you a lot I love you too thanks for joining us on our survivors remember no matter how tough
(29:06):
things feel you are enough and the world needs you just the way you are you're not alone in this
journey there's a community here and every step forward counts we're so grateful you took the time
to listen and we hope they'll take one day at a time just know there's always more light ahead
thanks for being here friends just remember help is out there in so many different places
(29:28):
so if you or someone you know is struggling please call 988 and a trained crisis counselor like me
will be there to help you can also find an inclusive and comprehensive directory of mental health
resources tools and content at the help hub dot c o just remember that help is always just a call
or a click away we'll catch you next week in the meantime keep surviving
[Music]
(00:05):
The survivors has brought to you by our friends at Calmary.
This podcast mentions suicide, mental illness, grief and loss, and may be triggering for
some listeners.
So please take care of your mental well-being by pausing or skipping any sections that
feel uncomfortable to you.
And if you or someone you know is struggling, please call 988 for support.
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So it's like it's so hard to know where to jump in with my story.
My story is a little bit unusual.
It's a little complicated and it's long, I think.
Would you agree?
It is long.
Kind of good.
But it's kind of good.
It's long and complicated, but it also makes you who you are.
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Right, exactly.
Exactly.
Sure, 1,000% would not be here behind this mic with you doing this if I didn't have the
story.
So, I guess like the best place to start is to say that I am a three-time survivor of
suicide loss.
I've lost my cousin when I was nine years old.
(01:14):
The year after my cousin passed away in 1978, I lost my father.
That one's the real kind of unusual kind of loss.
You'll see in a second when I explain.
And then I lost one of our closest childhood friends who we were close all the way up
through our 50s, lived together in college and with each other's weddings and all that.
(01:40):
So that was only about four years ago.
So I had nothing whatsoever to do with the mental health field or community most of my life
until only a handful of years ago.
I was writing parenting books.
I was in the parenting space.
I was on all the parenting platforms talking about raising kids and work-life balance and
(02:03):
all that.
And then everything changed.
Everything just kind of exploded and imploded.
And when the dust settled, I was, you know, somebody very very different.
So for me, I guess the thing that makes the most sense is to explain how I've lost my dad
twice in my life.
I think that makes the most sense.
So I've lost my father twice because I lost him when I was 10 years old.
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I was at day camp for the day.
When I came home, my mom came to grab me off the school bus, camp bus, and I didn't walk
with her to my house.
She turned me in the opposite direction and walked me away from our house that had a line of
cars down the street in front of it.
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And I thought, I was just crazy things you think of when you're 10 years old.
I was totally sure that that was a surprise party because my birthday, my 10th birthday,
was two weeks before that day.
And I could see like my grandma's car and my uncle Milton's car and my aunt, Harriet's
car.
Like everybody's cars were there and I was so sure that it was a party for me.
(03:09):
And my mom gets me off the bus and she walks me the opposite direction of the house.
And I see my aunt's car parked way down the street in like a weird spot, way down the street.
And I don't know why.
Like it just hit me in that moment.
It was like five o'clock in the afternoon.
My dad would never have been home at that time.
So we lived north of Boston and he worked in the city.
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And I would never have had my dad home at that time of day.
He always came home later.
And for some weird reason, I said, where's dad?
Why isn't dad here?
And my mom just like had her arms around me as we're walking over to my aunt's car.
And she said, daddy had a heart attack.
And like my first instinct was we have to go to him.
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We have to go to him right now.
And she said, we can't go to him.
And by now we're like sitting in my aunt's car.
And she said, daddy died.
Daddy had a heart attack and died.
And of course, your whole world just explodes in front of your face.
And that was the narrative that I lived with for 35 years in my life.
That happened when I was 10 years old.
(04:16):
Always believed my dad, who was a super fit guy.
He was a mountain climber and he raised cars.
And he was super, super active, outdoorsman.
But he also smoked three packs of Winston's a day.
So it was heart disease in the family.
And all else.
And I had a hard story to believe.
Had no reason to disbelieve it.
So that's the story that I had my entire life growing up all the way through, like high school
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college, getting married, having kids.
And then very unexpectedly, 35 years later, when my dad was 45 when he died.
So when I was 45 years old that summer, I accidentally learned that my dad had actually died by
suicide.
And it just like that did me.
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It just took me out.
He really did for a long time.
It's funny.
People probably don't know it.
People who are in my life, even my closest friends, didn't know because I was like two very
separate people for a very, very long time.
Like the outward facing part of me was so different than the person who was like in my bedroom
behind closed doors sobbing to Dave for like three years.
(05:23):
So I've lost him twice because when I found out it was a suicide, my mom confirmed that
it was in fact a suicide.
I lost everything in that moment and went right back to square one.
Like I was right back to like day one minute one of losing my dad all over again and grieved
him.
But now I was a suicide lost survivor and what the hell was I going to do with that?
(05:44):
Like what is that even?
You know, I had no real.
I mean, I had experience with it only in the context of like my cousin had died by suicide
but I was nine years old.
Nobody talked about it.
It was not a thing.
So now all of a sudden here I am like a survivor because my own dad took his life.
So that's my why that that just like I shut down for a long time.
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I stopped writing, stopped creating content.
Didn't didn't really feel like I was aligned with what I wanted to do and my mom, I mean,
you've you've met my mom.
She's a little fireball.
I love her.
Oh my god.
My mom is like the greatest of the great.
She's the queen of all that matters.
And she said to me like super early on, she was like you absolutely can start talking about
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this or writing about this.
Like whatever you need to do with this more or less is what she said, you do go do it.
I support you.
And I was like, no, my god, this is no way.
I'm not going to write about this now.
I'm going to talk about this now.
I can't do that.
No way to painful.
Don't know what I'm dealing with.
Don't even know how I feel.
My kids didn't even know about it.
Only at that time my mom and Dave and I were the only ones who knew about it.
Because as soon as I found out about it from my mother, I of course like, you know, my
(06:55):
mom was staying with us and I brought, we had gone out for lunch and the conversation, it's
just king.
And he went back in the house to kind of get her bearings and Dave, I said to Dave, like
I need to take a drive.
We need to go take a drive.
And he was like, well, he knew immediately knew something was wrong.
He was like, what is going on?
And I told him and I remember him.
So the first thing he said was, well, how do you know?
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Like could it have been a mistake?
Like, you know what I mean?
And I said, honey, he left a note and he was like, okay, like now, okay, like we know now
that this is real.
What we're what we're dealing with is real.
But it was just the two of them were the only ones who knew for years before I felt like
I had kind of had my bearings a little bit and could like talk about it.
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And why I wanted first and foremost to talk about it with my kids and say, like, look,
you guys, there's inherited trauma and there's inherited DNA.
And we all have it.
And my kids at that time were like junior high in high school.
And I really felt like it was important for them to know, like, okay, there's some serious
(08:01):
mental illness on my dad's side of the family.
And it may not be impacting you now, but it could impact you at some point in your life.
And you need to know about it.
And it's important to be able to talk about it and have that dialogue.
So kind of once I told them, it was like a little slow domino effect.
It was like I told them I told my immediate family and started like, you know, widening the circle
and told friends and whatnot.
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And now all of a sudden it was like I went from like one day still sticking with that narrative
of like my dad died of a heart attack.
It's crazy how many people ask how my dad died.
Like it really bugs my kids that people ask so much because it's such a personal question
but so many people do.
So for the longest time, I still kind of reverted back to the old my dad died of a heart attack
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narrative.
Then it was like all of a sudden.
Once I kind of reconciled with things in my own head, never looked back.
I was like, nope, my dad died by suicide and never looked back.
I never felt shame.
Never felt any shame.
I was bullshit though at my father, but not probably not for the reasons that you would
(09:06):
think.
I wasn't angry at my dad for leaving me.
I was so upset with my dad for leaving my mom as a single mom with a 10 year old child.
Working a part-time job as a secretary at a nursing home like the hell did she know about
like you know at that time like my dad took care of everything and what did she know about
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raising a child alone and you know bookkeeping and finances and house and mortgage and all the
things.
So for a really long time, I was so furious at him for that.
And that was also still at the time when I really believed that suicide was a self-ashacked
which a lot of people, a lot of people believed that.
(09:47):
And that's something I want to talk a lot about.
100% because of a lot of selfish.
No.
And just to interject into your story.
Just remember like when your dad made suicide, the resources that we have today were not
available to him at that time.
Right.
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Oh my God.
That right there is why I founded the hell pub which I know we're going to talk about at some
point later on and we kind of you know mention it in each episode but that's why I founded
this whole platform to put people with the resources they need, connect people with the resources
that they need.
That's why I'm on the crisis lifelines with the Trevor project.
(10:29):
That's why you know I work with the National Alliance on Mental Illness to tell stories
about my experience and help mainstream these kinds of experiences with other people.
And yeah it was, I mean so that was my why for kind of diving into one site unloaded it
all on the rest of the world and everybody kind of knew the truth.
(10:53):
Then it was like I couldn't stop.
You know what I mean?
I just like and I know you feel the same way because you're literally doing the same
thing.
I know we're going to talk about your story next week but you know it's you know secret
that you know you're a survivor of an attempt of a few years ago and that whole experience
completely changed the trajectory of your life in the same way that you know learning
(11:17):
that my dad died by suicide changed mine and it's crazy when you think about like the things
that happen to us in our lives that are these like tragic traumatic like world shaking
you know shake your foundation to your core kind of things that happen.
And then you can turn around and and still somehow dig out a nugget of you know of golden
(11:42):
there or something that's you know worth something to other people like that's you know you
went through shit like you went you were like you were in it and now look at you now now
you're like inspiring the world to reach out for help and talk about what's on your mind
and what's in your heart and all those things and and you know I've been through it again
(12:04):
again and again and you know as a survivor of suicide loss and and all I want to do is talk
about it like all I want to do is explain to people that you do not have to use that as
a way of ending your pain like we can fix it there is help.
And you know it's funny but not funny how shit that we start doing right after facing
(12:31):
things like this like that one in our wheelhouse right like five years ago for for me this was
not in the wheelhouse it was not on the vision world okay I don't even know what a vision
world is it's like not my generation but what we're doing is we're changing the world
and I love that you're so open about your journey about everything you do and you're out there
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helping people every single day like your story matters.
Yeah I'm so I mean I really hope so and now you know it's funny for people who are listening
you're not going to be able to see me do this but gee I did this to you before we even
started recording this morning I told you what I gifted myself for my birthday last year
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it was like a little like a little teeny tiny thing but it has become so powerful for me
in my in my office I realized that something was missing on my desk and so I made for anyone
who's not watching the video of this I'm holding up a picture of me with my dad I was
probably like seven years old and it's right here on my desk it's right there it's staring
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me in the face every single time I write an article or I do an interview or we take a
podcast or I write another chapter in a book or whatever it is it's right there and the
freesies thing and I don't even know if I've ever told you this or maybe I have at this point
I really genuinely feel like every single thing that I do whether I'm on a lifeline or you
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know talking about my story I'm doing it with my dad like I I have had the most overpowering
sensation lately in the last probably six months that we are absolutely doing all of this
work together.
Like it's up to your mental well-being with Calmary trusted online therapy platform that
supports you through life's challenges connect with licensed therapists and reap the
(14:24):
benefits of traditional therapy enhanced with digital tools whenever you need a visit
calmery.com to get started.
I'm sure he's like shining down on you like every day and like sitting with you right
like he in his own mind wishing that he had the resources that we have today and that's
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why podcasts like ours are so incredibly powerful and important.
Yeah that's I mean you know we talked about this in the last episode that you know for both
of us the thing we want most which is why where we totally align you and I I mean you and
my align and like 65,000 different things but the thing that like really brought us together
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was I've never met anyone who is as passionate as I believe myself to be about making an impact
in the world about changing the conversation about changing the narrative about about bringing
the hard topics and conversations into the spotlight in the mainstream until I met you
and because they've been taboo for so long right and I think you know for people that are
(15:38):
my age you know that have been told not to talk about it that it's important that we have
these conversations right and you know and have it and not have it be like generational.
I mean this what we're going through what we're talking about and suicide happens in every
single generation every single age group.
(16:00):
Yeah it does but I mean I think about my dad in his case nobody knew nobody had any idea that
my dad was struggling I mean my mom certainly didn't I mean it's my father was in the room now
the way he was then you would have seen the most lovable charming funny grounded present joyful man.
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I mean it's that's why sometimes it's when I really think about like what he must have been going
through it you know just kind of makes me want to cry because I realized that he was suffering like
over I mean when you're at that point and you do that thing you are suffering in a way that most
people do not understand you understand it but a lot of other people don't and you know he he just
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took that one last step that fortunately you didn't take and there was no I mean he was 1978
like who the hell was he talking to about his feelings he he certainly wasn't talking to his family he
certainly wasn't talking to his friends I mean the ironic thing is that at the very very end of his
life the last I think my mom says it's like the last month or so he did actually say to her that he
(17:13):
was staying a therapist but I think it was just like too little too late or the wrong person and
whatever the reason was it didn't work and I think it was just too late but that's all I want to do now
is when I'm not on the lifelines all I'm thinking about is being on the lifelines to be the person
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on the other end of the phone that my dad didn't have you know or to you know I just I just submitted
the manuscript for my next book that I've been working on for like four years that's the story of
losing my dad twice and losing him to suicide and and I think about all these things it's like I can't
do enough like I just want to get and I know you're exactly the same way that's why you were like oh
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sure I'll I'll jump from doing this wildly successful other podcast to do let's do a podcast together
I was like so you know I have to do even more no time during the day to do things but it's so
important and I love to love you and I love you to you're so passionate about doing this and about
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sharing your love and your your hurt with people especially when you're on the crisis
life right like because by the time you get to that point at least for me like you're fucking that
yeah I know I am really trying not to cast I'm trying to be really good I know you've been
I for anybody who's listening and watching you have to understand something about G G cannot
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complete a sentence without the word fuck and the fact that we have gotten how many minutes are we
right now 19 minutes get your belief that you have gotten to the so proud of you so I believe we
it won't last it might but like you know your story is so important because there are probably other
(19:03):
people out there that the same thing happened right and so finding out later in life it had to
have been incredibly painful and hurtful and trying to figure out those emotions of that doll
yeah yeah it was um it was it was a time let me tell you that much it was a time and I you know
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and I say this I say this in like the most genuine and heartfelt way that I possibly can
I would probably not be here if it was not for my mother I mean my mother is the most extraordinary
human that I know anyway aside from everything that she's done to protect me from you know all of this
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but a lot of people wonder if I ever had any feelings of animosity or or you know if I was angry with
her or felt any resentment toward her for keeping the secret like she she did she kept the secret for 35
years that my dad died by suicide and the answer to that question is oh my god no not a second not
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not a single second of time have I ever been anything but just eternally grateful to her for
sparing me because look I mean I kind of alluded to this a little while ago and I never really finished
the thought that I had always believed that suicide was selfish it was just my own little belief system
that probably started when I was 10 after my cousin passed away and and I don't know where it came
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from it didn't come from my parents it was just like something that just I I just developed on my own
and I just kind of quietly had that belief system until I found out about my father until I started
like digging into kind of the the wise behind the psychology behind why the why people take their
life why how do people get that desperate what is it really all about and I realized it was just like
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and that happened overnight like you and I have had this conversation a million times that I went
from believing it was selfish to completely recognizing that mental illness is an illness just like
any other illness that needs to be treated and respected and managed in the way you would if you
had heart disease or cancer or anything else like that and I didn't realize that until I had to
(21:20):
navigate my own dad's suicide and then I was like what an idiot I was such an idiot how would I ever
think it was selfish there's nothing selfish about it whatsoever and it completely talk about like
mind shift like blowing your mind it literally happened overnight and I was like oh god no it's not
that at all but if I in that moment if I had found out when I was 10 years old that it was a suicide
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like it was bad enough to know that he was gone forever my mom just like like instinct took over
and she totally mom-of-aired me in that moment and was like nope my child is going to be hurting
enough for the rest of her life because she just lost her father I am not layering a suicide
on top of that now and then it became like now you're going high school in college and then you're
(22:03):
getting married like what's the point um and then it ended up coming up by accident but um
yeah it's just uh it's been a journey it has definitely been a journey then I think of it like where
I am now and the work that I'm doing now and the connections I've made in the community that I
a part of and like our relationship and and how like absolutely certain I am that I am in the right
(22:28):
place at the right time with the right person doing the right thing like I've never ever felt
more certain about anything than I do about that even though you swear constantly like a fucking
sailor I but you know what sometimes that's like the only word to use I know but I am so thankful for
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you and you know trauma brings it can either bring out the worst in the person or the best in the
person and I think that in our cases trauma is bringing bringing out the best in us because we're
we're taking that pain and we turn it into a purpose okay okay you know you and I said at time and
(23:13):
time again we just want to change the world change that change the trajectory and it now more than ever
our message you know is clear and like a lot of people are suffering things are crazy right now so
yeah yeah that's not understood being able to open up and talk about this so to talk about it
freely without any stigma because no I'm not ashamed of my own story which you guys will hear next week
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you know I had to go through that to get here yeah and and so did I and and I'm so unbelievably
grateful that I'm in this position that you know obviously do I wish my father was here yeah do I
wish my cousin and my friend was here like of course I do not a day goes by that I don't wish
(24:00):
that they were still here at the same time though and this is this is the interesting thing about why
like how grief and joy can exist at the same time and I'm sure you and I know you and I'll have this
conversation down the line but in my case like I always have this undercurrent of sadness that
my people are gone and that that they they died by suicide and it could have been prevented
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but and I hate the word button you know I don't like the word but I'm gonna say it anyway
but at the same time I'm so insanely grateful that what I have gone through is something that I hope
other people can connect with and find some pathway to hope through my story or your story
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because you know I've got we have got a lot of lived experience behind us I mean you're like 7,000
years old so you've got like centuries where it's here wow okay let me stop and close our
session there's like six years difference in our so you need to stop I know I'm sorry I had to I won't
ever do it again until the next episode I swear okay for all I won't see this is good we laugh we're
(25:11):
talking about suicide and we're like laughing our answers often and it's not this is not to
disrespect the subject in any way this is to show that grief and loss can coexist they have to
coexist and we have to be able to still recognize what we've been through the traumatic nature of what
we've been through and also still that there is another side of it that there is there is joy to be
(25:35):
found and there is hope to be found you know we're we're out here hopefully kind of like
blazing the trail for that in some ways I hope I kind of see it that way I see it that way too and
like I said you know the upcoming episodes we're just gonna dive into like some really amazing topics
and you know some of them will walk away and just scratch in your head and others it will be like
(26:01):
wow I never realized and you know so part of it is like an education the suicide education and
and give me guys some tips and tricks to like you know kind of just figure it out and let you know
that you are never ever ever ever ever that's the biggest thing that's that's the biggest part of this
(26:22):
because we're not just to and we said this in the last episode we're not just sitting here having
conversations about these topics we're growing a community we're building a community like we want
people to reach out to us we want people to connect with us light into our DMs send us emails connect
with us in every way that you can if you have you know a story or an experience to share a point of
(26:46):
view or a tip or something you know because not everything works for everybody and that's the benefit
of like you and I just talking about what we've been through it helps and the other thing that I
think is really important to mention is that and this is why it makes it so relevant when you talk
about like the statistics of suicide like 700,000 people in the US alone I'm sorry that's a lie
(27:09):
I'm lying it's not it's a liar. Sorry 49,000 people a year will die by suicide in the United States 700,000
people will die around the world every year because of suicide loss now here's the interesting thing
that literally stops me in my tracks every time I hear it for every one person who dies by suicide
(27:29):
135 people are affected by that one loss whether it's like a colleague or it's a family member or
it's a friend or someone in the community 135 so if you do the math it's like
tens of millions of people a year are affected by suicide loss and here's where this podcast
(27:52):
is so important if you are out there and you're watching us or you're listening to us right now
and you by some miracle have not been touched by suicide either in your life yourself with an
attempt or with someone in your life who has made an attempt or has passed away you will be
you will be at some point or another you will be touched by this and so this is our new pandemic
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and you and I are right here to be where the Anthony Fauci's of the is that too much? No I'm
in a good way right no we want to be the the voice of you know this conversation to be
you know a place of comfort a place of support a place of strength and hope and
(28:45):
it was a little luck and lots of talking we will be I love this and like I said I'm turning next
week for my story and Lisa thank you so much for sharing yours okay thanks for pulling space I
love you a lot I love you too thanks for joining us on our survivors remember no matter how tough
(29:06):
things feel you are enough and the world needs you just the way you are you're not alone in this
journey there's a community here and every step forward counts we're so grateful you took the time
to listen and we hope they'll take one day at a time just know there's always more light ahead
thanks for being here friends just remember help is out there in so many different places
(29:28):
so if you or someone you know is struggling please call 988 and a trained crisis counselor like me
will be there to help you can also find an inclusive and comprehensive directory of mental health
resources tools and content at the help hub dot c o just remember that help is always just a call
or a click away we'll catch you next week in the meantime keep surviving
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