Debra Mark - Suicide Prevention Month Story Part 2

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
September is National Suicide Prevention and Awareness Month, and as
kfi's Deborah Mark explains, it's okay to admit your loved
one took their own life, even if it was more
than two decades ago. It's been a secret. It's been
a secret that I've held on to for twenty two years.
So the longer you hold on to a secret, right,
the harder it is to share. August twentieth, two thousand

(00:28):
and two, I got up early, as I normally do.
I think it was about six o'clock and the first
thing I always did was check my email, and I
saw there was an email from my mom and it

(00:49):
was a so crazy to say this, but it was
a suicide note. And I'm reading this and I remember
it said, please forgive me. You're better off without me.

(01:10):
So I remember driving like a crazy person to my
mom's house and I'm banging on the door and my
stepfather opens the door and he's say, what are you doing.
It's six fifteen in the morning, and I said, my mom,
my mom, she wrote me a note and I think
she killed herself. And he said, what are you talking about.

(01:31):
Your mom is sleeping, and I said, oh, I remember
I remember this sense of relief when he said that.
I thought, Okay, I knew this was just too crazy.
And then I said, okay, you've seen her. And then
he said, well, we did get into an argument last night,

(01:52):
and we slept in separate bedrooms. And I remember just
barreling past him, running down the hallway to her bedroom,
and there was my mom in her bed. I've never
seen somebody dead before. And I looked at her and

(02:13):
I just knew, and I was shaking her. And I
remember calling nine to one one and they're telling me
to do compressions and mouth to mouth and I did
all that. My stepfather and I they said, you need
to get her off the bed and get her on
to the ground. I was pretty devastated for lots of reasons.

(02:34):
I was angry. I couldn't believe that my mom would
leave me a suicide note in an email. I mean
even now, I still can't believe that. And I thought, Wow,
the rest of my life, I'm going to have to
say that my mom killed herself. I was on this

(03:00):
mission to figure out why my mom would do that,
and I think that literally was driving me crazy. So
I did go to a suicide support group. I think
maybe I've told one or two people since then. You know,
when you fill out those questionnaires and they ask you

(03:22):
are your parents alive and you say yes or no anyway,
so I said, my dad's alive, my mom's deceased, how
old was your mom? Fifty seven? How did your mom die?
And I remember writing complications of diabetes and the doctor
questioned me about that. I couldn't the words that my

(03:44):
mom killed herself, died by suicide. Those words could not
come out of my mouth. I have felt embarrassed to
talk about it. I have felt that there's this stigma.
I have felt the shame. I have felt that I
would be judged. I'm worried that people would think, wow,

(04:09):
if her mom did it, well, would she do that
if something went wrong in her life. I don't think
people really understand that those that are left behind are
left with a really big burden. I hope that people
that are listening are able to talk about it, and

(04:34):
whether you go to a support group where you talk
to family and friends or even a therapist, that you'll
know that you're not alone, and that just because somebody
in your family killed themselves, it doesn't it has nothing
to do with you. As I've started talking about this,

(05:00):
I kind of felt this sense of relief. I feel
more at peace, and I think I'll be able to
I'll be able to share more. This is the first
time I've ever talked about my mom's suicide outside of
my close circle of friends and family. So you might
be asking yourself, why now, Why, after all these years,

(05:24):
did I finally decide to tell the most personal, traumatic
story of my life. Well, it did hit me one
day that my mother was fifty seven when she took
her own life, and this November I turn fifty seven.
It's a reminder of just how precious life really is.

(05:45):
If you were someone you know has suicidal thoughts or
a mental health crisis. Dial nine eight eight