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Breaking the Silence: Insights Into Preventing Self-Harm
4 Plays1 year ago
In this first episode for Season 4 of The Glam Reaper podcast, Jennifer sits down with Dr. Sara Murphy—a death educator, certified thanatologist, bereavement consultant, and expert in suicide and disenfranchised grief with an unconventional journey into the field.
During the discussion, Jennifer and Dr. Murphy touch on their convention sessions, including the groundbreaking launch of safe zone training and a candid exploration of suicide risk in the death care professions.
The conversation takes an emotional turn as Jennifer delves into the challenges of addressing societal issues in the field of death care.
Tune in to this episode for a human perspective on the intersection of psychology, death care, and the intricate threads that bind them together.
Key Topics:
-Diving into prevention strategies with Dr. Sara Murphy
-Empowering funeral service experts through prevention and education
-Enhancing prevention efforts and cultivating awareness on suicide
-Cultivating mental wellness in the funeral industry
-Dealing with emotional distress, fostering psychological well-being, and tackling the aftermath of violent incidents in an educational setting
Notable Words From The Episode:
And I think because we live in a culture that is both in an epidemic of suicide, but also in an epidemic of interpersonal violence, there is this weird shifting between horror and normalization of living like this
- Dr. Sara Murphy
These school shootings and with everything, there's so many facets to it as the point that it's not just clear cut; it's not black and white.
- Jennifer
Timestamp:
[00:00] Podcast Intro
[01:13] Jennifer and Dr. Sara talk about the involvement with the NFDA (National Funeral Directors Association), their presentations at the convention, including the launch of safe zone training and a session on suicide risk in the death care professions
[03:25] Dr. Sara talks about her unconventional path to becoming a certified thanatologist.
[7:36] Jennifer discusses the emotional challenges involved in dealing with societal issues
[09:46] Dr. Sara emphasizes the significance of language in discussing suicide
[11:46] Dr. Sara describes their 14-week, in-person course on suicide, covering classical theories from Freudian and Durkheimian perspectives before delving into a more integrated theory.
[15:04] Jennifer expresses interest in the fascinating topic of psychology and the human brain
[17:04] Dr. Sara discusses their presentation on suicide risk within death care professions at the NFDA
[22:16] Jennifer shares her thoughts on the complex and multifaceted nature of traumatic events.
[29:47] Dr. Sara delves into the impact of mass death events on communities and individuals.
[38:12] Podcast Outro
Connect with Dr. Sara Murphy
Website - https://www.deathdoc.com/
Connect with Jennifer/The Glam Reaper:
Facebook Page - Memorials
https://www.facebook.com/MuldowneyMemorials/
Facebook Page - Pets
https://www.facebook.com/rainbowbridgememorialsdotcom
Instagram - @muldowneymemorials
Twitter - https://twitter.com/TheGlamReaper
Email us - glamreaperpodcast@gmail.com
Listen to The Glam Reaper Podcast on Apple Podcasts:
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:00:00
Speaker
And I think because we live in a culture that is both in an epidemic of suicide, but also in an epidemic of interpersonal violence,
00:00:20
Speaker
Hi, everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Glam Reaper podcast.
00:00:24
Speaker
I'm your host, Jennifer Muldowney, a.k.a.
00:00:26
Speaker
the Glam Reaper.
00:00:27
Speaker
And on today's episode, I am very, very excited, not just because of the topic, which is a very, very serious one, but because one of my dear friends is here to discuss it with me.
00:00:37
Speaker
I would love and I am honored to welcome Dr. Sarah Murphy, who is an expert in
00:00:42
Speaker
in suicidology so this one's going to be a deep one today and I am it will touch many people in various different ways and so I would ask if you want to talk about it or you want to talk we are always open here the Glam Reaper podcast um genuinely please reach out but without further ado let's take it away hi Sarah
00:01:02
Speaker
Hi Jennifer, how are you?
00:01:04
Speaker
I am great, I'm good and we have seen each other quite a bit recently.
00:01:09
Speaker
We have.
00:01:09
Speaker
We were at Cana and we were at, we were in Vegas, what stays in Vegas or what should stay in Vegas stays in Vegas and we were at the National Funeral Directors Conference where you were lighting up the presenter screen, were you not?
Dr. Murphy's Work and Perspectives on Suicide
00:01:23
Speaker
Well, lighting up.
00:01:24
Speaker
I hope so.
00:01:25
Speaker
I mean, I've been speaking for NFDA for about five years, as well as doing some consulting and some writing for them.
00:01:32
Speaker
And this year, I was blessed to have been asked to do multiple presentations.
00:01:38
Speaker
So I did a pre-convention seminar launching the first ever
00:01:43
Speaker
safe zone training for funeral service professionals, which was a half-day workshop that I am excited to share will continue.
00:01:51
Speaker
And I also did a session on suicide risk within the death care professions, which was a build-out of a suicide workshop I gave last year to NFDA, which you came to and was how we initially met.
00:02:06
Speaker
Yes.
00:02:07
Speaker
full circle here we are that's it and I that believe it or not guys listening to this I have been trying or we have been trying to have Sarah on the podcast for it must be six to nine months now so we have been trying um so I'm delighted that we're finally talking about this because this subject is really and truly um a subject so close to my heart um
00:02:30
Speaker
you know, thank God I've never considered it myself, but I just, I feel like there's so many families that I work with and it's just, it's so prevalent in Ireland where I'm from, especially among young males.
00:02:44
Speaker
And in America, I'm seeing more and more children, I call them, I mean, at 41 years age, I know maybe somebody in their twenties isn't a child anymore, but you know, teenagers and children.
00:02:54
Speaker
And
00:02:55
Speaker
you know, to your point then exactly within this profession, it is such a harrowing profession.
00:03:01
Speaker
You know, it really is.
00:03:03
Speaker
You've got the weight of other people's grief on you and it really touches us in a mentally really difficult way.
00:03:10
Speaker
So I'm delighted to hear that these workshops are continuing on a national scale for funeral directors.
Exploring Disenfranchised Grief
00:03:17
Speaker
And a year ago when I sat in your talk, I was just blown away.
00:03:23
Speaker
the wealth of information.
00:03:24
Speaker
I never even knew there was such a thing as an expert in suicidology.
00:03:28
Speaker
I never knew that was even a thing.
00:03:29
Speaker
So tell us a little bit about how you came to being this, came to being you.
00:03:36
Speaker
Oh gosh.
00:03:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:38
Speaker
It's, it's not a popular field, right?
00:03:42
Speaker
There's not a lot of us.
00:03:44
Speaker
Even my path toward thanatology, I'm a certified thanatologist under the auspices of the association of
00:03:51
Speaker
for death education and counseling.
00:03:53
Speaker
And that was all very circuitous.
00:03:55
Speaker
I had just gone back to college.
00:03:58
Speaker
I was working in national politics here in the U S and I was working in Congress and I sort of hit a ceiling in terms of promotion and
00:04:07
Speaker
I had dropped out of college initially to work in politics.
00:04:10
Speaker
So I just went back to school and stumbled in the right course at the right time, changed my major, changed my life, decided I wanted to teach, did a very fast master's.
00:04:22
Speaker
And by then, when I was applying for doctoral programs, the one I ultimately went with at the University of Rhode Island, where I've never left, I came to because in part they were encouraging me
00:04:35
Speaker
to, while I was working toward my PhD, tailor my PhD into thanatology and then concurrently be working toward my certification in thanatology.
00:04:44
Speaker
So I did a lot in the years that it took to do the doctorate.
00:04:48
Speaker
And suicide really spoke to me, I think, because
00:04:53
Speaker
I've always been drawn to the most disenfranchised populations.
Educating Funeral Professionals on Mental Health
00:04:56
Speaker
And whether that's social justice movements or thinking about, you know, activism in different ways.
00:05:03
Speaker
Then when you turn to something like death and grief and bereavement, all the three lines of my specializations, whether it's disenfranchised grief very broadly,
00:05:13
Speaker
Or HIV AIDS, which I teach entire academic courses on, or overdose losses, or complications due to gender and social status and suicide.
00:05:24
Speaker
All of them really speak to these through lines of disenfranchisement within an already very silenced human experience of death and bereavement.
00:05:32
Speaker
So unlike a lot of people who come to the field for very personal reasons, I did not really come to the field for personal reasons.
00:05:41
Speaker
I came very academically focused, very scholarly focused, very teaching oriented, although I have been personally affected by suicide death loss since having become a suicidologist.
00:05:54
Speaker
So yeah, I've been doing this for about 16 years now while teaching at the University of Rhode Island and at Marion University's graduate program in thanatology.
00:06:05
Speaker
So I teach entire undergrad and graduate courses on suicide and specialized courses even within that suicide in film and culture, history of suicide, you name it.
00:06:17
Speaker
So it was only really in the last couple of years that I began
00:06:23
Speaker
workshopping these for funeral service professionals and other professionals, nurses, doctors, et cetera.
00:06:29
Speaker
Because I think even though I was being sought out as an educator, a professional educator, suicide was a topic even these professions were kind of shying away from.
00:06:40
Speaker
So like when I saw you at Cana in August, that was the first suicide workshop that had ever been offered at Cana.
00:06:48
Speaker
And the one that I did at NFDA last year was the first that had been given in years on suicide at NFDA.
00:06:55
Speaker
And I find it very hopeful that these dialogues are being looked for.
00:07:01
Speaker
And I am very gratified to be able to do this kind of professional education because, again, there's not a lot of us like suicidology.
00:07:10
Speaker
was a term coined over 50 years ago by Dr. Edmund Schneidman, who we consider like the father of suicidology.
00:07:18
Speaker
He spent 50 years of his life researching suicide.
00:07:21
Speaker
But even most of us in thanatology do not specialize in suicides.
00:07:27
Speaker
I can count on one hand the other suicidologists I know worldwide.
00:07:31
Speaker
So we go where the need is.
00:07:34
Speaker
And thankfully the phone keeps ringing because I will be on a plane every other week if it means getting suicide education online.
00:07:44
Speaker
to the public and to helping professionals.
00:07:46
Speaker
Yeah, it's such an important topic.
00:07:48
Speaker
It really, really is.
00:07:50
Speaker
And it's interesting what you say and even what you've talked about, about, you know, marginalized societies and stuff like that.
00:07:57
Speaker
Like I, you, you're almost the academic version of me, which is probably why we get along so well.
00:08:03
Speaker
Like I'm just like a walking ball of smush.
00:08:06
Speaker
And, you know, a friend of mine joked many, many years ago when I sort of started into this profession where they were like,
00:08:12
Speaker
Not that I like to ignore the problems that are going on in the world, but if I can't feel like I can help, I can't know about it because it hurts my heart so much.
00:08:20
Speaker
Like I get, I get so distraught when like I can't watch, it
Language and Advocacy in Suicide Prevention
00:08:25
Speaker
sounds ridiculous, but I can't watch ads on TV for like starving children in Africa or if I physically can't do something to help.
00:08:32
Speaker
And so, and I know that sounds sort of maybe very, I don't know, privileged.
00:08:36
Speaker
I don't know, but I feel like, you know, the funeral profession and just helping the clients that we deal with, you know, through their grief and LGBTQ plus community and all of that, all of these people who just, you know, kind of get ignored and brushed under the carpet and why aren't you over your grief yet?
00:08:52
Speaker
And oh, for God's sake, you know, so what if she saw herself as a man in real life where, you know, she was born a girl or whatever.
00:09:00
Speaker
you know, all of these issues and these problems that are in this space and the environment and everything are just things I feel like I can impact.
00:09:09
Speaker
So it's, but it's just so fascinating.
00:09:12
Speaker
Whenever I talk to you, you know, it's coming from such an academia part of it.
00:09:17
Speaker
And, you know, what you just said there, I mean, suicidology, like, again, who would have even thought that that was a thing?
00:09:23
Speaker
Now, one of the things I want you to, I think it's really important for you to say or to just talk a little bit about is,
00:09:30
Speaker
how we in the profession or indeed Joe Bloggs as I call us on the street so normal person on the streets not in this profession how we should reference suicide died by suicide like how how should that be because that's been a big topic and you know commissioned suicide was what it was known as for years and you said you know you spoke about that really really eloquently I thought last year and I just you know if you'd like to touch on that a bit as well
00:09:57
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:09:57
Speaker
I mean, I typically will start all of my workshops on suicide and all of my courses on suicide talking about the importance of language.
00:10:05
Speaker
The first step being to stop saying committed suicide.
00:10:08
Speaker
I still hear it from random people, of course.
00:10:12
Speaker
And it's so easy in terms of vernacular.
00:10:16
Speaker
I don't think people are usually slowing down to consider that they are criminalizing through language and
00:10:22
Speaker
the pain and suffering that someone did not ask for in becoming suicidal.
00:10:27
Speaker
So yeah, saying that someone died of suicide, saying that someone died by suicide, it takes the weight of the myth of free will off the act of suicide itself.
00:10:40
Speaker
And we do that in a lot of ways with language.
00:10:42
Speaker
People will turn suicide into a verb while they suicided
00:10:47
Speaker
or into an identity.
00:10:49
Speaker
He was a suicide.
00:10:52
Speaker
When we would never say like someone was a heart attack or that they cancered themselves to death.
00:10:58
Speaker
So yeah, making sure the language is parsing and the language is equitable and fair, I think is really important.
00:11:04
Speaker
And along with that, in terms of communication, I will still occasionally hear people joking about suicide, making suicidal gestures, you know, if they've had a bad day or, you know, if I fail, I hear from students sometimes, oh, if I fail this exam, I'm going to throw myself off a cliff.
00:11:21
Speaker
Well, you know.
00:11:22
Speaker
Some of us knew people who threw themselves off cliffs and you don't know who's listening to what you're saying and what that is triggering for them, either in their own mental pain or in their bereavement.
00:11:33
Speaker
So, yeah, I think taking more care with language is at least the very first place for anyone to start in being a more responsible citizen and more informed on suicide.
00:11:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:45
Speaker
And what does one of your your classes or your courses and what you know, can you give us a little rundown or a little synopsis of what the class would look like?
00:11:57
Speaker
Oh, gosh.
00:11:59
Speaker
14 weeks, four hours a week in in person covering everything.
00:12:06
Speaker
from the classical theories about suicide, which mostly came from the Freudian camp, if we look at psychology, and then from Emile Durkheim, if we look at sociology.
00:12:19
Speaker
It was really just in the last 30 years-ish that we've really developed a more holistically integrated theory about suicide.
00:12:28
Speaker
I talk about this in my workshops, David Wendell Mahler's idea of the psychosocial collage or the biopsychosocial collage.
00:12:36
Speaker
This understanding that suicide never comes from or very rarely would come from one stressor, one source of pain, one adverse life event, but that it's coming from all different places.
00:12:48
Speaker
So I usually start the courses with this is what we thought about suicide for 100 years.
00:12:53
Speaker
And we'll do that for a couple of weeks so they know it.
00:12:55
Speaker
And then, well, this is really what we know about suicide now.
00:12:59
Speaker
And then turn to a lot of things like cultural critique, how suicide is represented in film and television, in other forms of media, the ways in which people can develop skills.
00:13:11
Speaker
to become better advocates for suicide prevention and for suicide bereavement care.
00:13:17
Speaker
A lot of these students who come to my courses are survivors of suicide attempts or of suicide loss.
00:13:25
Speaker
So it can be very empowering for them to get real evidence-based knowledge versus what's heard in a PSA or on the street.
00:13:34
Speaker
Yeah, we cover a lot.
00:13:37
Speaker
Literature of suicide.
00:13:39
Speaker
I wrote my entire doctoral dissertation on representations of suicide in the 1990s in American culture.
00:13:46
Speaker
So we'll pull on that.
00:13:48
Speaker
And also deep diving into things like status, social status and privilege status and how that might affect suicidality in ways that are unexpected and others in ways that are expected, which we see
00:14:03
Speaker
Currently in the African-American population, suicide was usually at a much lower rate.
00:14:09
Speaker
And we've seen in the last just two, three years, a really, really alarming climb in Black young men dying of suicide.
00:14:19
Speaker
that did not track previously.
00:14:21
Speaker
So we need to look into that more and the many different social factors of the upheavals of our country in the last few years surrounding race again, and what that impact might look like.
00:14:33
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, and in any course with me, if it's a senior seminar, an honor seminar,
00:14:40
Speaker
The students are also going to track the course a lot too, where they want it to go, what they want to get out of it.
Challenges and Mental Health in the Funeral Profession
00:14:47
Speaker
Many of my kids are nursing students or pre-med or, you know, hoping to become therapists.
00:14:54
Speaker
So there's a lot of professional proxies they want to apply there.
00:14:57
Speaker
And then for my graduate students, they're working in the fields already and they typically will fill a suicide course very fast because none of the helping professions are immune.
00:15:09
Speaker
to needing more of a skill set to working with both the suicidal people and also the bereaved.
00:15:15
Speaker
Sounds incredible.
00:15:16
Speaker
It sounds honestly so interesting.
00:15:20
Speaker
I genuinely, if it was available, part of me is like, I wonder, can I go back to college now?
00:15:25
Speaker
Is it too late?
00:15:26
Speaker
Because it is.
00:15:26
Speaker
It's just something that it breaks my heart and it's just so tragic and it's something I'm fascinated with, though, I'll be honest.
00:15:36
Speaker
I've always been fascinated with sort of psychology and the human brain and just generally what makes us tick and what makes us do certain things and react and
00:15:44
Speaker
you know, all of these, these things.
00:15:46
Speaker
But for me, I am speaking and going back to Ireland, I'm speaking at the Funeral Times trade show.
00:15:55
Speaker
I've been asked to speak.
00:15:56
Speaker
I'm kind of scared in a sense because I've been asked to speak about mental health in the profession.
00:16:02
Speaker
And, you know, for one, I'm I'm not a funeral director.
00:16:06
Speaker
And for two, I'm not a mental, you know, I'm not a therapist or a mental health expert in any way, shape or form.
00:16:11
Speaker
So I find it fascinating.
00:16:13
Speaker
And this has this is one of many that I've been asked to speak about.
00:16:17
Speaker
And yes, am I still in the profession just because I'm not a funeral director?
00:16:21
Speaker
Yes, I am still in this this business and in this industry.
00:16:23
Speaker
But for me, it's, you know, I take the responsibility quite heavily because, you know, I don't want to say anything ahead of turn.
00:16:32
Speaker
And for me, I feel that I think the reason I'm getting asked to maybe do these things is because I'm a good facilitator of just opening the conversation and I'm
00:16:41
Speaker
I kind of I'm diplomatic in sort of I don't weigh heavily on.
00:16:45
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:16:46
Speaker
Commissioned suicide or oh, yeah.
00:16:48
Speaker
You know, I'm like, well, let's hear everybody.
00:16:49
Speaker
I'm curious.
00:16:50
Speaker
I'm I'm interested to see, you know, what people's experiences are.
00:16:54
Speaker
And we all, you know, have these unique experiences.
00:16:57
Speaker
You have spoken at the NFDA just recently about suicide in the profession, in the funeral profession specifically.
00:17:05
Speaker
How did it go?
00:17:06
Speaker
I mean, you know, did five people show up to, you know, how open were people and what sort of, what was the feedback?
00:17:14
Speaker
Yeah, I had told I realized it was really pushing the envelope to propose this topic.
00:17:20
Speaker
And when I was in conversation with the education team sort of hammering out what I would talk about this year, they encouraged me to push the envelope.
00:17:29
Speaker
And this was where I pushed it because I've been wanting to talk about this for several years now.
00:17:35
Speaker
And I said to someone who was traveling with me, if 20 people come, I'll be happy.
00:17:41
Speaker
I would be more than delighted if 20 people show up at eight o'clock in the morning to talk about suicide risk within death care professions.
00:17:48
Speaker
And we had a really full room.
00:17:51
Speaker
It was, it was very well received.
00:17:53
Speaker
I only wish I had had more time.
00:17:55
Speaker
I only had an hour with them.
00:17:57
Speaker
And honestly, we could have done two, we could have done four.
00:17:59
Speaker
Wow.
00:18:01
Speaker
A lot of people came up after with personal stories of losing either colleagues, friends, children, spouses, and, you know, some who have had their own struggles with suicidality and not have had that, not have had a space to be able to own that while working in what is usually a very insular, very closed off.
00:18:26
Speaker
very strict work-life appearance of balance profession.
00:18:33
Speaker
So, you know, a lot of the feedback I've gotten since and the emails I've been getting since
00:18:38
Speaker
We're also just, you know, these beautiful expressions of gratitude that what they go through is being recognized by an educator, by a speaker in ways that they aren't usually encouraged to do for themselves or for each other.
00:18:51
Speaker
And I think that's partly step one is start breaking open these silences.
00:18:56
Speaker
And I call it also the open secrets within the profession, whether it is something like still being encouraged to be closeted if you're part of the queer community.
00:19:06
Speaker
The probable high incidences of alcohol use disorders within the professional community that we're not talking about or taking seriously that can contribute to suicidality and just the weight of working this profession.
00:19:23
Speaker
I'm not a fan of this last responders term or phenomenon, and I hadn't said anything about it.
00:19:31
Speaker
And then I was facilitating one of the funeral professional peer support meetings, and a couple of the attendees also started talking about how they don't love it.
00:19:41
Speaker
And I know it's been used before, but pandemic really gave rise to pushing this narrative.
00:19:46
Speaker
And I knew why it was being done, right?
00:19:48
Speaker
Because we were paying attention to nurses.
00:19:50
Speaker
We were paying attention to EMTs.
00:19:52
Speaker
We were paying attention to respiratory therapists, all of whom were like long overdue for recognition for the work they do all the time.
00:20:02
Speaker
And then finally it was like, oh, and let's pay attention to funeral directors.
00:20:06
Speaker
They are our last responders.
00:20:08
Speaker
And I don't think that language has served them well in being quite literally the last that we pay attention to.
00:20:15
Speaker
But also, I don't think it's translated into more transparency about how weighty and how...
00:20:24
Speaker
draining this profession can be for the people in it.
00:20:28
Speaker
And we don't do that with nurses, you know, we, or at least we shouldn't be, you know, I pushed into a couple of hospitals during COVID and helped them set up, you know, debriefing times for nurses to be able to get together and say this week was too much.
00:20:43
Speaker
Like, let's talk about it.
00:20:45
Speaker
That doesn't happen in funeral homes.
00:20:47
Speaker
And you might be burying the child of your next door neighbor, and you aren't necessarily given time to grieve yourself, let alone to process.
00:20:58
Speaker
There's just this messaging, this very stoic messaging that I think has a lot to do with the very longstanding white male patriarchal ownership in this profession that's like,
00:21:12
Speaker
Nope.
00:21:12
Speaker
You keep it together.
00:21:13
Speaker
You get through your day.
00:21:14
Speaker
Then you go home with your family.
00:21:15
Speaker
You leave work at work.
00:21:17
Speaker
You leave home at home.
00:21:19
Speaker
And it's not reasonable.
00:21:21
Speaker
And I think COVID showed the cracks in that more visibly.
00:21:24
Speaker
And I think funeral professionals are still recovering from that.
00:21:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:29
Speaker
But also are probably thinking like, how did we get left out in all of these dialogues about mental health?
00:21:34
Speaker
I'm speaking in circles a little, Jen, because that's what I do.
00:21:37
Speaker
No, listen.
00:21:39
Speaker
All of which is to say the session went wonderfully and I would love to be bringing it to states and other orgs as well, because I think funeral professionals also need to know that in a way that is not pandering, in a way that is not simplistic or, you know, one more talk about take a mental health day, self-care.
00:22:03
Speaker
That there are people who recognize what they're carrying and there are things we can do to help keep each other safe.
00:22:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:12
Speaker
And that there are steps they can take within their homes, within their funeral homes to contribute to preventing.
00:22:19
Speaker
the suicidality that we know is happening in the profession that people are not wanting to openly talk about.
00:22:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:27
Speaker
And well, thank you for that.
00:22:30
Speaker
I am laughing at you saying you talk in circles.
00:22:33
Speaker
That's what we do here at the Glamour Podcast.
00:22:35
Speaker
anybody knows me it's like shiny penny let's fridge magnet that we'll come back to that in two minutes because we just go down these lovely little rabbit holes so we love that um and and actually I do want to kind of come back a little bit to what you touched on because it we you know it was it was an interesting NFDA for me this year as well I do think mental health was with thanks to you and thanks to other people was coming more to the forefront and and um and as I said you know I myself am getting requests which I kind of can't understand why but
00:23:04
Speaker
I'm happy to facilitate whatever and help in whatever way I can.
00:23:08
Speaker
But, you know, it was interesting talking to a couple of the funeral directors where, just as you said, like with COVID, it was it was a huge thing that was happening.
00:23:17
Speaker
They were a little bit left to the side.
00:23:20
Speaker
I mean, I do remember that, you know, all the nurses got the free Starbucks and all of this kind of, you know, there was all these kind of things.
00:23:25
Speaker
And it was it was very tragic.
00:23:28
Speaker
that, you know, we were just that we were kind of on the periphery of society and it was just don't still don't talk about it.
00:23:35
Speaker
And that really came to the fore when I was chatting to one of the funeral directors whom, you know, and she was sort of saying how, you know, she's been through a school shooting.
00:23:44
Speaker
And not many funeral directors have right now.
00:23:48
Speaker
Sadly, too many have in America.
00:23:51
Speaker
But still not everybody has.
00:23:53
Speaker
And she said, you know, she wished she had somebody to pick up the phone to and be like, what the hell?
00:24:01
Speaker
And she just talked me through the little things like, you know, in this one small town, they had to deal with the funerals of all these small, teeny, tiny little children.
00:24:10
Speaker
And I can only imagine the weight that that must have been on on every physical person that works that.
00:24:14
Speaker
But not only that, they also had to deal with the killer.
00:24:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:18
Speaker
The killer's body.
00:24:19
Speaker
And, you know, and and that brings its its own headaches and its own emotions.
Societal Impact of Violence and Support Needs
00:24:25
Speaker
You know, I mean, it's still a family with a child.
00:24:28
Speaker
It's just a child that did something horrendous to other children.
00:24:32
Speaker
And so how is that, you know, and it's still people who are grieving and, you know, and I've worked in funeral homes where, you know, they have had to have a contentious political figure or somebody brought through and it's all.
00:24:43
Speaker
But I just thought, you know,
00:24:46
Speaker
wow on a whole level of of of also you know you touched on a little bit about funeral directors being there for each other and you know there's funeral peer support and stuff just sharing expertise and sort of you know how picking up the phone and saying listen and just make sure that you're involved in every conversation that you know the medical all these people involve you because you need to be a part of
00:25:10
Speaker
movement of things and I just thought that was really fascinating and then also at the NFDA this year we obviously celebrated oh my god I can't believe I was about to say that word we memorialised like September 11th and so we obviously talked about that with the Remembrance Service and you know I know a lot of the funeral directors who partook in having to deal with the Twin Towers coming down here in New York and stuff like that that
00:25:38
Speaker
Nobody's prepared for that.
00:25:40
Speaker
No, that's like an accountant showing up to his nine to five job and suddenly being given, I don't know, like the books from Mars.
00:25:47
Speaker
You know, I mean, it's just it's not something you walk into.
00:25:50
Speaker
You know, your day to day job, you know, you're rolling the community, your role in society, you know, everything.
00:25:55
Speaker
And all of a sudden you're landed with, you know, so and but nobody thinks of the school shooting and nobody thinks you're sorry, the funeral directors of during a school shooting.
00:26:04
Speaker
Nobody thinks of the funeral directors during the.
00:26:07
Speaker
And I'm not saying that they should, you know, and we're not saying that the nurses shouldn't have gotten the Starbucks or anything like that.
00:26:13
Speaker
But I'll bring it back to a little bit of a personal one for me that just sort of it all kind of came came full circle.
00:26:20
Speaker
is when I was about 12 years old, we were living in a rented house.
00:26:26
Speaker
We were a moving house.
00:26:28
Speaker
We were in the middle and we were living in a rented house.
00:26:31
Speaker
And so my dad had to sort of drive me and my brother into the city, into school every day.
00:26:37
Speaker
And so it was a little bit of a different detour.
00:26:39
Speaker
And we were there for about nine months.
00:26:41
Speaker
And on our way into school, we this there was an accident and there was an articulated truck and there was the man.
00:26:49
Speaker
The driver was standing outside the articulated truck by the time we, you know, we were stuck in the traffic by the time we got past.
00:26:55
Speaker
And there was a piece of body, the torso under a blanket and.
00:27:00
Speaker
That was all that was left.
00:27:01
Speaker
And then there was bits of skin and there was a runner or trainer, you guys call it, all over the road.
00:27:07
Speaker
And I was 12 years old and I was just like, I looked at the driver's face and I looked down and it was just horrific.
00:27:12
Speaker
And I was traumatized.
00:27:14
Speaker
And then later I heard that apparently, so it was suicide.
00:27:21
Speaker
And this gentleman had axed his daughter and his wife in bed that morning.
00:27:28
Speaker
And then had thrown himself under the truck to die.
00:27:33
Speaker
And I just it was just such an interesting time for me in terms of I must be relatively advanced for my 12 years of age.
00:27:41
Speaker
And it's kind of stuck with me since.
00:27:42
Speaker
But I just remember thinking, you know, how much terrible how much sympathy and empathy I had when I first saw it and witnessed the whole thing.
00:27:50
Speaker
And then when I heard about it, he became sort of this murderous character and this horrendous person, you know, and it was absolutely mental health, you know, was just off the charts, you know, and it was anyway.
00:28:04
Speaker
My point, the point of it is that a couple of years later, I was in a car accident myself and I knocked somebody down and I will never forget it.
00:28:13
Speaker
I won't go into it because this podcast will go on too long.
00:28:17
Speaker
But I knocked somebody down and again, stuck with me for life.
00:28:21
Speaker
And I immediately thought back to that scene when I was 12 years old.
00:28:26
Speaker
And I thought to myself, and thankfully, sorry, the girl that I knocked down survived and she only broke a leg and it was fine.
00:28:33
Speaker
She was running for a bus and it was, you know, everything, thank God, was fine.
00:28:37
Speaker
But what I was fascinated with the situation I experienced and then the one for when I was 12 years old is that no one thought of the driver.
00:28:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:45
Speaker
Right.
00:28:45
Speaker
So whenever I hear of an accident now on the radio, I think, yeah, OK, is the person survived?
00:28:50
Speaker
Are they OK?
00:28:51
Speaker
Great.
00:28:51
Speaker
That's what you want to know.
00:28:53
Speaker
But what about the mental health of the person driving?
00:28:56
Speaker
Right.
00:28:56
Speaker
So she was running for her bus.
00:28:59
Speaker
Nobody gave a
00:29:00
Speaker
Crap about me and what, you know, because I looked like the murderous person, right?
00:29:04
Speaker
You know, I ran her over.
00:29:06
Speaker
And so, but I was traumatized for years after that.
00:29:10
Speaker
Could still be, you could say.
00:29:11
Speaker
And the same with the, as a 12 year old, I remember looking at that driver's face.
00:29:15
Speaker
He did nothing other than drive to work that day.
00:29:18
Speaker
And he got involved in a situation that was not his.
00:29:22
Speaker
And then he and he probably never drove again, I'll be honest.
00:29:25
Speaker
Anyway, that's a very long way to personalize story to share insofar as that, you know, with these children, you know, these school shootings and with everything, there's so many facets to it is the point that it's not just clear cut.
00:29:40
Speaker
It's not black and white.
00:29:41
Speaker
It's not just the victims of of 9-11.
00:29:44
Speaker
It's not just, you know, the children who were shot.
00:29:47
Speaker
in the classrooms and the teachers that save them and maybe the one brave child, you know, there's just so many different facets.
00:29:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:53
Speaker
I just, yeah.
00:29:54
Speaker
I don't know.
00:29:54
Speaker
What's your thoughts on that?
00:29:55
Speaker
I guess is.
00:29:57
Speaker
Well, yeah, I mean, actually I teach an entire course on mass death in American culture.
00:30:04
Speaker
And we, we start by going back to like 1978 and Jonestown and, and move from there into units on mass deaths of terrorism and
00:30:13
Speaker
public shootings, school shootings, hate crimes, you name it.
00:30:16
Speaker
Students get very into it.
00:30:19
Speaker
And cult deaths also, which they're all very into.
00:30:24
Speaker
I think that's why half of them sign up for the course.
00:30:26
Speaker
Like we get to study cults.
Evolving Role of Funeral Directors and Mental Health
00:30:28
Speaker
Sounds like me.
00:30:30
Speaker
So yes, they're very excited.
00:30:32
Speaker
But yeah,
00:30:33
Speaker
You know, I think of many things.
00:30:36
Speaker
I mean, many threads to pull on and what you're talking about.
00:30:39
Speaker
But I think to in addition to sort of those people who are involved but not involved when these things are happening, the community impact.
00:30:48
Speaker
And this goes back to funeral directors.
00:30:50
Speaker
Right.
00:30:51
Speaker
The community impact is not generally acknowledged.
00:30:55
Speaker
The mental health of people in the community is not generally acknowledged.
00:30:59
Speaker
that something does shift in you if there is a shooting in your town or a town away, or I'm here in Southern Rhode Island when the shooting happened at Sandy Hook.
00:31:10
Speaker
I mean, that's less than an hour away from us.
00:31:12
Speaker
We all felt it as a very much a neighborhood sort of adjacent situation.
00:31:17
Speaker
phenomenon and little children, right?
00:31:19
Speaker
There was just something palpably horrid about that.
00:31:22
Speaker
And I think because we live in a culture that is both in an epidemic of suicide, but also in an epidemic of interpersonal violence, there is this weird shifting between horror and normativization of living like this.
00:31:39
Speaker
And I see that with my undergrads, you know, they're 18 to 24 years old around there.
00:31:44
Speaker
And when school shootings happen, unlike 10 years ago or 15 years ago, when I started teaching, it's not the first thing they're talking about when I walk into a classroom.
00:31:53
Speaker
It's like, oh, yeah, there was another school shooting somewhere.
00:31:57
Speaker
Like, we're so used to this.
00:31:59
Speaker
And that's something that our generation, yours and mine, we didn't grow up with lockdown drills and how to protect yourself from a shooter.
00:32:09
Speaker
We had like fire drills.
00:32:11
Speaker
That was about it.
00:32:13
Speaker
And I think what that also does to mental health is something that we overlook and how every unique psyche, as we are all unique little biopsychosocial creatures,
00:32:25
Speaker
is going to respond to the culture we're living in differently in terms of interpersonal violence, mass violence, and suicide risk.
00:32:35
Speaker
I mean, I was definitely a club kid.
00:32:39
Speaker
I still am in some ways.
00:32:40
Speaker
We saw each other at the LGBTQ plus an ally meetup that I co-hosted and organized with Tim McClune out in Las Vegas last week.
00:32:49
Speaker
I have students who have never been to a gay establishment who are gay because they're afraid that someone will shoot up the place.
00:32:59
Speaker
And I am in no position to say to them, no, you're fine.
00:33:03
Speaker
I mean, Club Q just last year, Pulse, not long ago.
00:33:09
Speaker
And I have students who won't go to a movie theater.
Future Research and Open Conversations
00:33:12
Speaker
I have, you know, because of different acts of violence and mass violence that happened there.
00:33:17
Speaker
I have students who clock where all the emergency exits are whenever they walk into an academic building.
00:33:23
Speaker
And at some point I started automatically doing that because we thankfully have never had an issue on our campus.
00:33:30
Speaker
But there was a threat years ago that turned out to be false.
00:33:34
Speaker
And from that point on, it was like, we don't know our emergency plan.
00:33:38
Speaker
Maybe we should.
00:33:40
Speaker
Maybe I should know how to get these kids out of my classroom or to lock down my classroom.
00:33:46
Speaker
Those are things I never thought I'd have to think about.
00:33:48
Speaker
And, you know, I'm in my 40s.
00:33:51
Speaker
These students, their brains are still developing.
00:33:54
Speaker
And this has been their entire consciousness.
00:33:57
Speaker
And then if we look again to someone like a funeral director, who is oftentimes not, I think, seen as the civic leader that they would have 50 years ago looked like, or 70 years ago, when funeral directors occupied a very different role in communities than they often do now.
00:34:15
Speaker
They're the people that are going to be turned to when these things happen, but their own pain, their own suffering, their own grief, even within the profession,
00:34:24
Speaker
isn't necessarily going to be validated.
00:34:28
Speaker
I think there is a sea change happening.
00:34:30
Speaker
And I think I see that amongst people our age and younger, pretty much.
00:34:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:34
Speaker
Who are like the time for stoicism is over.
00:34:38
Speaker
The time for hiding our feelings is over.
00:34:41
Speaker
The time for pretending that everything's okay when it's not has got to be over because funeral directors are as susceptible to suicidality and suicide risk as anyone else.
00:34:54
Speaker
And I would argue based on adjacent research, since we have no research on suicide and funeral directors, which I hope to repair at some point,
00:35:05
Speaker
But it is I can easily probably with probability project that funeral directors are at higher risk.
00:35:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:14
Speaker
Just like doctors, med students, nurses, veterinarians, EMTs, military, all at higher risk for all the same sets of reasons that we can observe in funeral service professionals.
00:35:27
Speaker
But the fact that there hasn't even been an IRB approved research study in this country, specifically on suicidality and funeral directors, says it all.
00:35:38
Speaker
Like that there's this perception that somehow they're immune to this.
00:35:42
Speaker
Yeah, it's true.
00:35:44
Speaker
Or that they won't be affected when they are literally dealing with death and grief every single day.
00:35:50
Speaker
I mean, at least doctors...
00:35:52
Speaker
much of the time get to go home and say well I saved a life today even if they lost someone right that was never an option yeah yeah that never happens for a funeral director they're not like oh no grief today well there's the odd person the odd funeral home that has that person who comes back to life
00:36:11
Speaker
I guess.
00:36:12
Speaker
That sounds like an Irish folklore.
00:36:15
Speaker
I'm pretty sure there's some drinking songs about that.
00:36:18
Speaker
There are, actually.
00:36:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:20
Speaker
Oh, my God.
00:36:21
Speaker
We're going to end up doing Finnegan's Wake by the end of this podcast.
00:36:24
Speaker
Oh, stop.
00:36:24
Speaker
That bar is up on the Upper East Side.
00:36:26
Speaker
Every time I pass, I'm like, oh, there you are.
00:36:29
Speaker
And it's actually funny.
00:36:30
Speaker
The first hub I worked in, my first job straight out of school was a bar called The Morgue.
00:36:35
Speaker
So I was always destined for this business.
00:36:39
Speaker
Yeah, it's really, the work you're doing is just so amazing, genuinely.
00:36:44
Speaker
And I could spend all time
00:36:46
Speaker
evening speaking with you about this I'm just so obsessed with this topic and just you know what you bring to the table and I feel like you know you're just the academic version of my brain you know I've gone back to college and sort of instead of studying business and just gotten into all of the the great stuff that you've done like it really is and I'm just it's so important for funeral directors to talk and it is a predominantly male business and
00:37:11
Speaker
typically men are that little bit harder to crack the nut of getting them to talk and I do think it's a little bit more prevalent now you know I think we are opening these conversations and I just think we you just have to keep trying you know and um yeah so thank you for coming on the show um I have no doubt we will have you back again we just have to coordinate our extremely busy our crazy schedules my god yes but in in that interim
00:37:40
Speaker
please check out Sarah Murphy.
00:37:42
Speaker
Tell us your websites and where people can find you.
00:37:44
Speaker
We will include all the links below.
00:37:48
Speaker
But yeah, tell us where people can find out more.
00:37:51
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:37:52
Speaker
Thank you for having me on.
00:37:54
Speaker
My website is probably the easiest way to...
00:37:57
Speaker
to contact me through it's just www.deafdoc.com I chose the domain on a dare from a friend of mine Dr. Death was taken thankfully so yeah www.deafdoc.com and you can contact me to email from there excellent excellent well thank you thank you thank you so much and we will look forward to talking to you again soon Sarah thanks for having me