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92. Identity Change After Grief- With Sue Egan
95 Plays3 years ago
Sue Egan lost her brother to suicide six years ago. As she sat in a therapist's office a year later she began to pick up the pieces of her belief system and learned how to live with his suicide.
"I felt no one could possibly understand what it was like. I felt so alone in my grief, and had memories that would flash back of events I never thought would happen in my life.
There had been no warning signs, no suicide note or explanations. I have spent the last six years on my own journey of making meaning of my brother's death and working out how I can live with suicide as a part of my new life story.
Through my own psychotherapy, EMDR therapy and finding the strength to research sucide bereavement within my doctoratal research and hosting a podcast about suicide loss, I have healed as much as I can. By speaking to many others bereaved through suicide, I have found a safe place to talk - to share what seems to be unthinkable thoughts and to hear stories from those who 'just get it.'
I have learnt that we often have to rebuild not only our own lives but how we feel about our lost loved one.
I may never be fully healed or be able to fully accept my brother's suicide, but I am in a stronger position than I ever have been. So although life will never be the same again, it is the best it will ever be - knowing I cannot rewind time and stop my brother doing what he felt he had to."
Sue is a psychotherapist and a final year doctoral psychology student and is devoted to providing a safe therapeutic space for others who need to rebuild their lives after a sucide loss.
Sue is a registered member of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) and the British Psychological Society (BPS).
Contact Sue Egan:
https://www.suicidegriefsupport.com/
https://www.suicidegriefsupport.com/podcasts/the-healing-narratives-of-suicide-loss-2
https://www.facebook.com/suicidegriefsupport
https://www.instagram.com/suicide.grief.support
Contact Kendra Rinaldi to be a guest or for coaching:
http://www.griefgratitudeandthegrayinbetween.com
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Transcript
Introduction to Identity and Loss
00:00:01
Speaker
It's almost as if our identity changes after grief, especially after suicide loss. There's just this kind of sense of, who am I now? Like I said, who am I if my brother couldn't be here anymore? Who am I? And then you have to start piecing that back together again. And I think my research, my own therapy has been a part of that, rebuilding my identity, rebuilding my belief system.
Podcast Introduction by Kendra Rinaldi
00:00:30
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Grief, Gratitude, and the Gray in Between podcast. This podcast is about exploring the grief that occurs at different times in our lives in which we have had major changes and transitions that literally shake us to the core and make us experience grief.
00:00:53
Speaker
I created this podcast for people to feel a little less hopeless and alone in their own grief process as they hear the stories of others who have had similar journeys. I'm Kendra Rinaldi, your host. Now, let's dive right in to today's episode.
Meet Sue Egan, Grief Psychotherapist
00:01:15
Speaker
We have with us today, we have Sue Egan all the way from the UK. I'll find out what part of the UK in just a minute when you share your story. Sue is also a podcast host, recently launched a podcast called The Healing Narratives of Suicide. She is a suicide grief psychotherapist and is now working towards her doctorate in psychology. I'm excited to have you on the podcast, Sue. Welcome.
00:01:46
Speaker
Hi, thank you so much. It's great to be here amongst fellow grief podcasters. And amongst fellow grievers too. It's like not only are you a podcaster, but you're also a greever as I am as well. And so we can relate to people's stories in some way. Not understand, but relate, right? Do you find that
00:02:08
Speaker
Totally, totally. There's a real sense of union, I think. Solidarity, whenever I meet anybody who's been on a similar journey, it's such a complicated one. And often you feel so alone in it and so isolated and just to have the understanding that someone else has been in those shoes and is still standing. That's what it's all about for me. And that's where I am with my journey now, trying to help other people understand that.
00:02:38
Speaker
Oh, wow. Yeah, you're right. It makes you feel less alone. Yes, exactly. It really feels a privilege. It feels part of my healing to do my podcast and to keep speaking to people because if I lock it away, which I did initially, I locked it away and it felt just to survive, just to get through every single day with being a mom and doing my studies, I had to just
Sue's Personal Healing Journey
00:03:08
Speaker
Not pretend it didn't happen, but just get my head down and carry on. And I think now that I've talked to other people, I've done my research. It's not been easy. I've had headaches, migraines. You know, I've had the experience of going there, going back to the event, talking through it, talking through it, talking through it. And I come out the other side of those headaches. A little bit more relieved. Of course, it never disappears.
00:03:35
Speaker
But each time I do that, at the end of the process, I feel a little bit lighter and more. That piece isn't the right word
Family Dynamics and Challenges
00:03:43
Speaker
either. I find it really difficult to find the words because it's such a huge thing to happen. So it's, there's a sense of peace there, more peace than I've ever had each time I do it. So being able to describe it, it gets lighter and lighter each time. And it's never going to disappear. But every time I speak to somebody, I'm so humbled by it, by hearing their stories.
00:04:05
Speaker
Yeah, you learned something from somebody else and you're like, oh wow, I guess I'm not the only one that gets headaches from this process or I'm not the only one that feels certain ways in my grief journey. Others have assimilated their grief in the same way.
00:04:23
Speaker
So, let's kind of rewind since we haven't heard a little bit more about you. So, where in the UK do you live? And you mentioned you're a mom. So, let's talk about that and then we'll talk about your brother and then where you are now. Great. Yeah.
00:04:40
Speaker
So I've got four children, I've got four teenagers now, a single mum, been a single one now for six years, and I think that in itself is a job in itself, absolutely, 100%, and keeping them emotionally happy. As teenagers today, I find one of the biggest challenges in the society we live in, you know, with social media and things, keeping them emotionally well, especially with lockdown and all the things we've been going through. So,
00:05:07
Speaker
Yeah, I feel that's me, really, as a mum. And I think often we say, what more do I need to be? But sometimes just to say I'm a mum is really important. And that's my main kind of thing, especially as a single mum I've been sort of concentrating on for a really long time. And as they're getting older now, my daughter's 19. Your role right now is? I have four children in five years. So, yeah. So it's 14, 15, six, oh, so tell us, 19 is the oldest.
00:05:37
Speaker
Okay. Yeah, 1917. They keep changing age, so I have to remember. 1917, 15, and then 14. I have to work it out. Is it like, is he 16 year old or not? Oh, he's just starting 16th birthday. They go, 1917, 16, 14, got it. Yeah, yeah.
00:06:05
Speaker
I had four and five years. You've never been quiet. Wow. So this was six years ago that you became a single mom. So was that in your, was it a divorce due to divorce separation when you became a single mom?
00:06:22
Speaker
Yes, yes, separation. Yes, yes, still marriage is separated. How is even separated? So even in that aspect of even just that, and we'll talk of course about the death of your brother, but in that aspect of the end of that relationship, did you experience grief in that moment as well, six years ago? Oh gosh. I think when you marry somebody,
00:06:46
Speaker
and you believe it's going to be forever, there's certainly a brief sense of your belief system kind of saying, but I've got to let go of that thing I believed, and I've got to let go of that belief I had that this would be forever. And, you know, when you invest in a relationship for so long and you try and you try and you try and you try and you try, but years and years and years, there's a real letting go at that stage. I've lost my mum as well. My mum died
00:07:14
Speaker
just before I separated actually. And I think my mum dying helped me to finally kind of put myself first and say, do I really want to be here?
Caring for a Parent with PICS Disease
00:07:24
Speaker
So actually that was kind of mixed up with my mum's grief quite a lot. And what I learned from her death was huge, massive, what I learned from my mum's death. And she died from a natural causes, PICS disease. And I nursed her, you know. I had never heard of that PICS you said, PICS disease.
00:07:43
Speaker
Yeah, pix disease. It's not very well known. Usually it's not known until they've passed away, unfortunately, because it's not very easy to be picked up. So it's like an early onset dementia. Basically, it presents as that. So she started showing the signs of dementia at 58, 59 years old, which is very early. And she was given loads of different diagnoses in terms of frontal temporal dementia,
00:08:08
Speaker
she got every disease that diagnosed her and didn't sound to try and work out what was wrong. And it wasn't until she passed away that they went, ah, now we know it's a pix because of the way she died. It's like, okay. But it's a fatal disease, you know, there's nothing anybody could have done. Which is very different to suicide. How long did you care for her? And obviously that's all implicated as well, probably. Oh, yeah, I came back home a year. Your brother,
00:08:35
Speaker
Oh, to take care of her. I'm sorry. And by chance, sorry, there's delay a little bit in our sound. I think partly our connection. I was just telling Sue before we started recording here that there's a big storm here in Texas as we're recording. And she has an incoming storm there in the UK. So it's like we're both kind of in the middle of that. So if I interrupt you, Sue, or if I'm like waiting to then talk to you is because there's a little bit of a delay. So my apologies.
00:09:03
Speaker
And it may not show once I edit, but it's showing now as I'm like pausing to talk to you. So my apologies. So you were saying, you were saying then your, but your, your brother passed away was after your mom passing. So correct.
00:09:21
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, you should probably be clear with that. Yeah, six years ago, my mum passed away. And I separated about a month after that, two months, maybe after that, and then my brother passed two years after that, which was four years ago.
Brother's Suicide and Its Impact
00:09:35
Speaker
So in the last six years, I've gone from a family of six, you know, my mum, my dad, four siblings, me and my three siblings, and four children, I should say, me and three siblings, we
00:09:48
Speaker
We've gone from six to four in six years, which is crazy because I'm only 44 years old. I'm not allowed to lose two people that quickly. And I think I'm the youngest of all that. So for me to look up and see that the family go from four to six, we've always been a big family of six. So to suddenly go to four within that space of time, it just, you learn so much from it about life, death, what's important, what's not. And it's maybe who I am today for sure.
00:10:18
Speaker
Absolutely. Now let's talk then your, your, so your mom died of pix disease and then your brother, um, two years later than, um, with the circumstances around his death, he died by suicide. Correct. Correct. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Um, uh, absolute shock. He was an awesome man. You know, he was
00:10:47
Speaker
everybody's knight in shining armor, you know, he would do anything for anybody. He would, he gave me his car because I didn't have one, you know, just out of the generosity of his heart. He worked hard, he had businesses, he had a family, he had children. And, you know, he had the, if anyone's, looks at my Instagram page, you know, there's a picture of him there with his muscles because on the face of it,
00:11:13
Speaker
he came fifth in a bodybuilder competition, you know, six months before. So he looked amazing. And everyone thought successful businessman. And that's what you saw on the cover of Andrew. But underneath that, who knows, you know, so the shock for me was just immense, the day I found out and immense in terms of picking up the pieces afterwards to work out
00:11:38
Speaker
What just happened there? Because there was no pre-warning that there was with my mom. I had the pre-warning, the anticipated grief with my mom, where I said goodbye. I was able to come to terms with her death before she left. So there was, yeah. So with your brother, there was no signs of depression or anything like that, that neither you or his family, his kids and companion had noticed at all?
00:12:08
Speaker
I mean, we were very close to me, my brother, and he did say to me earlier the year before that he wasn't happy, that things weren't quite right. We talked a lot and he got therapy. He went to, I don't know, a primary or psychotherapist, a normal therapist. He went to the doctors. He got lots of support. And when I then spoke to him every so often, he was getting better. He was improving.
00:12:36
Speaker
So in my eyes, yeah, he was getting better. He was improving. And he was my brother. He looked after me when I was young. My dad was quite ill when I was young. So my mum would go off to hospital to look after my dad. And my brother, the eldest brother of the family would step up and cook his dinner and bring us home from school, do that whole thing.
00:12:57
Speaker
And I always looked up to him, my big brother, you know? And so to me, he was the strongest man in the world. And I always asked for advice, his advice. And suddenly you can't do that anymore. And suddenly you're picking up the pieces from the idea that he was the strongest person I knew. And he was part of my belief system. He's a sibling. He's part of my attachment, which I talk a lot about in terms of psychology. I attached to him as a child. He was part of who I am as a brother.
00:13:26
Speaker
So when he had to do what he did, I do believe from everything I've sort of come to terms with since that he was in a place where he couldn't live anymore and I don't know the exact reasons for that. I'm not in his head, I'll never be able to go back into his head but I have to come to some some peace with knowing that he couldn't be here anymore and
Identity Transformation After Loss
00:13:52
Speaker
him not being here anymore. For me at the time was just a, if he can't be here, how can I be here? Didn't make sense to me because he was such a big strong guy, you know, in my eyes. Well, thank you for sharing that, Sue. Thank you. And I
00:14:10
Speaker
I can only imagine and actually I've experienced the dynamics of a family changing when somebody dies. Just mine was a little bit more spread out. My sister died of a car accident and my mom died of cancer but with 20 years difference there.
00:14:26
Speaker
So, the dynamics, like you mentioned, of going from that family of six, which we were also six, to going to a family of four, that I can relate to. So, how did that shift? And you mentioned you guys didn't live in the same, you didn't live in the same city as a family. Do you have some of your siblings that live in your same city? Because you said you would go off into your mom. So, your mom and your dad?
00:14:52
Speaker
live a little farther from you. How are you all spread out? Yeah, we're all spread out in the southwest of England and there's an hour between all of us separately. And I actually lived on the Isle of Wight, which is a little island off the south coast of the UK. And I came back towards the southwest when I found out my mum was ill to support her and support my dad.
00:15:19
Speaker
And I'm so pleased I did that because looking back that gave me such a place of being able to say goodbye and look after her really because she looked after me all her life and it was my turn to look after her and for me that was so healing to be able to do that with her, spend those moments with her in that last year. I'm so pleased I moved back so we're all
00:15:42
Speaker
Yeah, in the Southwest. And my brother was kind of an hour and a half away from me, so he was probably the furthest. So we couldn't just pop down the road and have a cup of tea. No, we'd have to make the effort to go and see each other. And I think that always takes effort when your family lives an hour or so away. It always takes that extra effort. And once it's kind of too late, you always look back and think, I wish, I wish, I wish, I wish, you know, I wish I maybe popped over or whatever. But we can't, I can't put myself through that over and over again.
00:16:13
Speaker
Because otherwise it's just this vicious thought going through your head. And as a psychologist, you know, I understand that how damaging that can be to that self-talk. That self-talk is so powerful, basically.
00:16:27
Speaker
Yes, yes, it is. Now let let's let me ask you something. Were you already practicing psychology at that moment? I know you I mean, it's been four years or did you become a psychologist? Have you been working towards your psychology degree now? Like what was your what was your studies before? Or were you studying psychology? Just curious.
00:16:49
Speaker
Yeah, so 15 years ago, I started my psychology degree when my children were young. And I was running a business at the time, and I just wanted to do something towards my future that I really believed in. And so I didn't have any qualifications coming out of school. So I was 30 years old, you know, nearly 30. And I said, right, I'm going to do a psychology degree. I did it all online in eight years with my kids young looking after them. And then I thought, what do I do with this now? But psychology degree, I want to help people. So then I did a counselling
00:17:17
Speaker
degree, which took four years on top of all the certificates you've got to do and things to become a counsellor. And I also did some teaching assistant jobs and things around like that around then. And then and then after that, I thought I'm not done yet. I don't feel done with my studies. So then went on to the counselling psychology doctorate, which is a four year course, which I'm in my final my final year. I've finally done my last hand in of my essays this week. I'm like, oh, it's amazing. I've done all my placement of them
00:17:45
Speaker
450 hours of therapy. I've done 450 hours of free therapy in the NHS to get my award. You know, you have to do so much work, so many essays, and I'm doing my research into suicide grief, which is part of my story and my healing, most definitely. And that, so yeah, my brother died four years ago. I started the doctorate four years ago, so it felt natural. I did my research on suicide grief and what it's like for those left behind like me.
00:18:15
Speaker
Wow. So would you say that that has been your biggest tool and your grief journey has been studying suicide grief and talking to people that are grieving after suicide? Absolutely. After Andrew died, I
00:18:36
Speaker
I saw a post, I was counselling, I was a voluntary counsellor in a school at the time and for a charity called Place2Be in the UK, they offer, their charity offers counselling within the high schools and schools in the UK and I was volunteering with them, counselling children at school and they said, oh, anybody want to run the London Marathon for funding? I said, oh, I'll do that in Andrew's name.
00:19:01
Speaker
I, you know, never run an inch before in my life. Well, I probably have run an inch when I was younger. But as an adult, I hadn't run the marathon. And actually, my sister ran the marathon a couple of years before, and I saw her across the line. And I said, I'm never doing that. Why would you do that to your body? Why would you run 26.6 miles out of choice? But but my, but
00:19:23
Speaker
But I had a reason, I wanted something in me wanted to tell everybody because suicide brings with it such a stigma, such a shame, such a lot of shame. I needed a way to tell everybody. And what my research is showing is a lot of us, when we lose someone to suicide, we have to go really convoluted ways to get to sharing our story, because just to nip down the road and tell somebody is really difficult. And it's difficult with any type of grief.
00:19:53
Speaker
But when you're talking about suicide, it brings in with it an extra layer that, you know, people always ask, you know, you say, so and so, my brother died, took his own life. Well, why did he take his own life? You know, you get all the questions. And I think you get that naturally, but you're so, you're holding so much responsibility for that, so much guilt, so much of your own stuff.
00:20:13
Speaker
It's really hard sometimes to explain because you don't even know yourself sometimes. So to try and explain that. So anyway, you can't nip down the road and tell anybody. So we almost have to go on this real journey of exploration. It's almost as if our identity changes after grief, especially after suicide loss. There's just this kind of sense of who am I now? Like I said, who am I if my brother couldn't be here anymore? Who am I?
00:20:41
Speaker
And then you have to start piecing that back together again. And I think my research, my own therapy has been a part of that, rebuilding my identity, rebuilding my belief system, basically.
00:20:52
Speaker
to sum it up. Yeah, no, no, no, that that is that is so huge, because now in just the period of six years, your identity shifted so many times, right in that period of six years. So your identity as the daughter of your mom, you know, that kind of shifted after your mom passed away, you're still her daughter, but yet she's
00:21:15
Speaker
not no longer on this earthly plane, then your identity as a wife shifted, then your identity as the little sister of Andrew and having this, you know, big brother. So, so many shifts in just the identity within that six year period, and even more so than, as you said, to add the layer of the how he died and having to then kind of how do you share that and so forth.
00:21:43
Speaker
So in this piecing together, have you been able to then piece together who you are without some of the labels that we carry sometimes in our life?
00:21:59
Speaker
Does that make sense what I'm saying? I sometimes wonder, if we identify ourselves more with the labels, and being in psychology, I wonder if this is something you think of as well. If we identify more with the labels of what our identity is than with our trueness, who would I be were I not a mom? Who would I be were I not a wife? Who would I be without that title? Totally, yeah.
00:22:28
Speaker
Yeah, and I think we are too, as human beings, we're doers, aren't we? I do the wife thing, I do the mum thing, I do the sister thing, I do the daughter thing, instead of just me, who I am, I'm a human being.
00:22:46
Speaker
Yes. I like how you said it. We do. It's like a role. Yeah. That what you're just saying. We're doing that. It's a period of time that we're doing that role. That's a good point. OK. Now what have been some of the biggest then tools in this journey then in the last
Grieving as a Family
00:23:04
Speaker
I'm going to say six years, truly, because your grief journey has started with your mom's passing. What have been some of these tools, aside from then your research in suicide grief, and what other things have you used in your grief journey? Yeah, the marathon was the turning point for me because I could
00:23:25
Speaker
stand next to somebody who had the same kind of grief as me, and we didn't necessarily have to speak, but we understood without words. And I think words are so, like you say, mum, daughter, they're all words, aren't they? Words. Sometimes there aren't enough words to convey how you're feeling, and to just be present with somebody who understands that words don't quite convey how you're feeling, that's enough, and to be held in that space. But for me, that's been very powerful. And
00:23:55
Speaker
I keep meeting people over and over again in my podcast and just by sharing my story, just being around people, there's just such a connection. And for me, that's huge because you can recognize then that you are that being, you're not a doing, you're a human being, you're standing here now as you are in your true essence of being that.
00:24:21
Speaker
person, we're not doers, you know, we are human beings, we get into be a human being, whether it's a psychologist or counsellor, you know, I've, I'm a counsellor when my brother took his life. I mean, for me, there is an absolute, how can I call myself a counsellor and go on to a doctorate if I couldn't even save my brother, you know, there's a real sense of that when we're professionals.
00:24:45
Speaker
that we hit, that hits our identity. But again, it's picking a part that that's not me, that's not me, that's not my identity. That's kind of what I do and I love what I do. I absolutely love what I do. I take, that is part of my identity, is part of who I am. But underneath it is a more complicated layer of who I am as a counseling psychologist, who I am as a counseling psychologist, which would be different to somebody else as a counseling psychologist, and then a different counseling psychologist. I'm a different mum than somebody else who's a different mum.
00:25:14
Speaker
Absolutely. And you know something was bigger than your relationship with your brother and that dynamic. You were not the psychologist. You were the little sister. You were not the psychologist in that dynamic.
00:25:30
Speaker
So, you know what I mean? Just like you're not a psychologist in the role that you play with your children. You're the mom, you know? So, that is not the role you play in those dynamics and relationships. So, therefore, there shouldn't be this added burden or responsibility in those relationships. Yeah, totally, yeah. Makes sense, yeah. So, yeah. Yeah, yeah, totally, yeah.
00:26:01
Speaker
Now, tell us then, how did you then navigate your grief journey alongside helping your children navigate theirs as well? And what helped them in their journey? Yeah. I mean, the biggest thing was telling my children that
00:26:22
Speaker
Andrew, you know, has suicided and there was no avoiding it because they could see it, you know, they could see on my like, for me, there was no way of getting around it. And certainly now, everything I'm doing with the podcast and do my research, suicide is very much part of our discourse. And I think that helps because it's not hidden away, we still
00:26:44
Speaker
I think what's lovely, there's lovely little things you can do, isn't there? There's lovely little things that help me. Like when we go out for a dinner as a family, we still leave two chairs for mum and Andrew around the table, even though they're not there, because I do believe we can still be connected on a different level. I don't know what that level is. I don't necessarily think I can't give it a label. I can't see what that is, but I do feel very strongly connected to my brother and my mum.
00:27:08
Speaker
And you can honor that in those little ways, can't you like, leaving the chairs for them, or having a quick chat with them when you feel like it and feeling that they answer back, or having the pictures where they need to be.
Unique Aspects of Suicide Grief
00:27:22
Speaker
And that's, that's for me signs of healthy grief in vertical, you know, healthy, I don't like using that word, because I don't know if there's such a thing. But for me, it feels healthy to do that. And respectful, actually respectful, because
00:27:37
Speaker
If I wasn't grieving, I wouldn't have loved them. I have to grieve because I have loved them. I do love them. Yeah, that love doesn't end just because they're not physically here. So therefore, those emotions of missing them are still there. And the grief is there accompanying that.
00:28:04
Speaker
Wow. Now, what other learnings have you had in these, you've just recently launched your podcast, which have been some of the biggest learnings that you've had in talking to other grievers that have lost their loved one by suicide? Yeah, my research has been the same. I've been talking to people through my research and I'm writing up the conclusions and recommendations now for professionals
00:28:33
Speaker
professional cancer psychologists and things to understand suicide grief a bit better because we don't understand it fully, I don't think as professionals and I think what I've learnt from all of that and my podcast is the complexity of it, the enormity of it of any type of grief, the shift in your identity, the responsibility we take, the guilt we have, the whys, the what, the thoughts, the
00:29:02
Speaker
it all gets wrapped up. And what I want to see happen is suicide grief becomes something this is my recommendations for my research, I would like suicide grief to become separate to suicide prevention narrative, which suicide prevention, because we haven't got a necessary discourse around suicide grief in the outside world.
00:29:29
Speaker
we always go in with suicide prevention. So if you try and get support after a suicide loss in the UK, you go through a whole alleyway of suicide prevention. So by the time you get there, for me, it feels a bit, well, I can't prevent it. I haven't prevented it. He's gone. I just want support. So I think we need to, yeah, we need to separate the support from suicide prevention. Of course, the suicide prevention needs to go ahead. We need to try and stop
00:29:57
Speaker
as many lives being lost to suicide as we possibly can. Our loss needs to be separated out so that we can support those people directly without them going through the whole narrative of suicide prevention and the way to get their support. And we need to offer more for those who lose to suicide because what I've realised, worked out, concluded is it takes more than just talking, it takes
00:30:23
Speaker
A lot of people go to running after suicide loss. A lot of people go to writing, writing a book, talking at conferences, yoga, meeting for my marathon, doing research. You know, it's as if we can't do it in silence. We have to do it quite out. Some of us have to do it quite outwardly. We have to find ways of doing it. That's how we possess our grief. So we need to be able to offer that to people, offer them tools to be able to do that.
00:30:53
Speaker
safe tools to be able to do that. As you were talking about the suicide prevention and then with already the suicide grief, I was thinking, gosh, it must be very hard then for somebody, like you said, if that's the way that they get to get their help after their loved one,
00:31:12
Speaker
has passed away to go through the line of finding out where their suicide prevention center is or whatever in their city and having to hear all the ways that something could have been stopped. I'm assuming it adds this other layer of already, like you mentioned, this responsibility that already the grievers already hold, that it's not really theirs, but it's there. You can't deny
00:31:41
Speaker
the emotions, right? The emotions are there, whether somebody wants to validate them or not. They're valid because that's what somebody's feeling. I'm just thinking that I had never thought of it like you just pointed out of how hard that is. So what an amazing
00:32:04
Speaker
of creating this whole other, or wanting to create this whole other arena of straight up just suicide grief support. That is just so wise. Yeah, I'm really passionate about, I'm really passionate about, yeah. I mean, the NHS website, I love the NHS, don't get me wrong, it does a wonderful thing for our country in so many ways.
00:32:33
Speaker
the headline when you go for support says zero suicide and that's their mission. So that's the first thing that hits me when I go for support through the NHS, zero suicide and I go, okay, it's happened to me. And it actually feels like it happens
00:32:48
Speaker
I've spoken to a lot of people about this. It's not just, it isn't just me that feels this, but that it's a sense of I didn't decide. I didn't have to end my life, but it feels like I'm living with the life sentence. It feels like I'm living with the aftereffects of it because we take so much of the responsibility. We take responsibility to telling their story because they're not here to tell it. We take responsibility for other people because we know that as soon as we say suicide, the mood will drop in the room.
00:33:14
Speaker
We take responsibility for the world because the world needs to hear these things and that's why we go on these campaigns and do what we do. So we take responsibility for everything and that's such a heavy burden to do alone and that's why support for me is absolutely crucial to feel that with other people. So you're not holding that huge responsibility alone. And a lot of that responsibility is quadrupled
00:33:43
Speaker
when you hear it was preventable. Of course, suicide is preventable in many, in many instances, but sometimes it's not. And we need to recognise as a whole, suicide has got a whole continuum behind it. It's not just one event, there's always a lead up to it, whether it takes hours, minutes, days, seconds, there's always a lead up to it.
00:34:06
Speaker
And if we understand that a bit more and understand, because I got into a documentary recently and it said, suicide is always preventable. And I was like, no, it's not because we're here and it's happened to us. It's really happened to us. I get a bit passionate about it.
00:34:27
Speaker
No, please do because as you're saying it, it's like it's taking away that stigma also of just leaving then. OK, not only then do the grievers have to already have to deal with the grief of their loved one being God, but then aside from that, have to then feel this like guilt that the society is putting that they could have prevented it. Like that is just so much weight to carry. That is not fair.
00:34:53
Speaker
That is not fair to the grieving family so absolutely should be passionate. It's so different to my mother's to my mother's death. I know every grief is different and every grief is complicated but for me my mother's death was
00:35:13
Speaker
explainable, it was a disease that took her. And as sad as that was, and as horrible, she was way too young to die, way too young to die. As horrible as that is, it's very different to my brother made that decision, whatever word you want to use, I've used that word really carefully, because again, decision isn't helpful necessarily, just like choice isn't helpful when we say someone chose to kill themselves.
00:35:38
Speaker
It's like saying they chose to have a cup of tea or a coffee. It's not that simple. They didn't just choose that day to kill themselves. You know, they there was a whole trajectory towards that day that they went on. And there's lots of stories of suicide attempt survivors explaining the relief they felt when they made that decision because they're in so much pain. Suicide is taking away the pain they're in. You know, it's the only solution left sometimes.
00:36:03
Speaker
You know, I volunteer in a grief support organization. And somebody, when I was doing the training, somebody that had been a participant in that grief support organization was saying how their child, who was a teen, died of suicide. And what she was saying as a mom was like, you know, we all make decisions every day of our lives. Every day we make decisions.
00:36:31
Speaker
Sometimes our decisions are poor ones. And that what she felt was that now her son was being remembered by the last decision that he made. And that that was not okay. There were other decisions that he made in his life that were good ones.
00:36:50
Speaker
You know, this last one was just the last one, you know? I mean, like you said, and it could have been that that was, like you were mentioning with Andrew, that was the only decision he could make at that moment, you know, for himself. And that was the right decision for him, you know, in what you're seeing, at least in his story, because that was his, that was his journey or whatever it was. But, but yeah, that is, that is definitely... Yeah, there's a lot of, there's a lot of...
00:37:22
Speaker
There's a lot of stories of people who felt their loved one became the suicide victim rather than the person they were, you know, the Andrew.
00:37:36
Speaker
that he was, that's who I remember. I don't remember his final act. I don't remember him as the suicide victim. Apart from when I'm talking like this and I'm explaining it was part of his story, but it was only one part of his story. And we're left carrying that weight of the one in the family being the suicide victim. Unfortunately, that leads to a lot of family dynamics and a lot of problems within families because
00:38:02
Speaker
it's such a hard thing to come to terms with in your family because you're not expecting it. You know, you're not expecting it in a million years in your family, many people. Even if you've had suicide attempts before, you know, I've spoke to people who've had partners and things that have attempted suicide before, but actually, when it actually happens, it's such a huge, huge, such a huge shock because you know, it's kind of one of those things, you know, death's a taboo subject.
00:38:27
Speaker
You know, it's, it's, we don't want to talk about humans, you know, we don't know if we're going to die. Um, or suicides really, you know, I didn't think it was going to happen in my family, not for a million years. I didn't think suicide was going to happen in my family, my family.
00:38:46
Speaker
you know it wouldn't it wouldn't happen to my family so when it does you're like whoa hang on a minute what does this say about my family and we take on a lot of that responsibility then again oh our family is the one who's had suicide in it you know what does that say about our families it sucks really
00:39:03
Speaker
Yeah, I can guarantee, they're suicide in my family. They're suicide in mine. My uncle took his life by suicide. So I think that once we take away the taboo, one of talking about death, like you said, death is a taboo. Then grief is a taboo. And then on top of that, then suicide is a taboo.
00:39:25
Speaker
If we start taking away those taboos and start talking more openly about it, we will find out that a lot of people are grieving. A lot of people have family members that have died by suicide, things like that, but because we've taken away the tab, but it won't happen until we have more conversations about it.
00:39:46
Speaker
So yes, now let's talk about how Andrew, the Andrew you remember and the relationship and some of the memories you have of him as you were growing up. You said he was the, so out of the four siblings, you're the youngest, he was the oldest of the four of you? Yeah. Yeah. I was Bobby Sis. He was the only person who ever called me Bobby Sis. Nobody will ever call me that again. I was the Bobby Sis. Yeah. He was awesome.
00:40:17
Speaker
Yeah, just, I remember him carrying me in from the car when I was little, you know what I mean? When I pretended to be asleep, he would be the one to carry me in. And he was always a go-getter. Yeah, you know what you do when you're a kid, you know, you're like, oh, if I pretend to be asleep, somebody will carry me in. Oh, it's him. Yeah.
00:40:41
Speaker
And the mum and tummy were busy, you know, mum and tummy were busy. Oh good, it's not just me. Nope, not just you. Yeah, he went away too.
00:41:04
Speaker
France when he was about 13 or 14, a really young age, he went off and did, you know, a trip to France for six months, stayed with the family. He was always the go-getter. He was the, started his own business, really young, deejaying at the local, like, little clubs we had back then in the 90s, in the 80s, 90s. He, he was always, it was always the next idea, always the next idea. He was actually a medium as well, a spiritual medium, so he would lead groups on
00:41:33
Speaker
talking with the dead. So he was a very diverse man, really. He had businesses, he owned a business where he sold his understanding about nutrition. He was in a nutrition degree because he believed that my mum's PICS disease came from nutrition. So he went on a big thing after my mum died of learning about nutrition and learning about what might have killed her, what the PICS disease, where that might have came from.
00:42:00
Speaker
He then opened a cafe where he sold the best coffee in the world kind of thing, because that's what Andrew did. He always did the best of everything and had a place upstairs where he could advise people on what to eat to build muscles basically. So he was a giver. He gave, he was a giver. He liked helping people. He liked giving solutions to others. Oh my gosh. Yes. Yes.
00:42:30
Speaker
And that's why he would be the one I'd go to if I wanted advice. He would knew everything, just the little things. I'm just going to go for a run. What shall I eat? And that's what I miss most about him initially. I stopped having that person. I could just ask who knew everything. So who do I ask now? I ask Google now. Sadly. And that's what I miss most, I think, and just his understanding with me about. And now it's Google.
00:43:03
Speaker
Yeah, bless his heart. Just a really good guy. Yeah, and the funeral was awesome. Everyone, it was just packed, the church was, you know, just recognition of that in him, the big heart he had. You know, he did the mediumship for free, you know, just going to groups and,
Honoring a Lost Sibling
00:43:25
Speaker
you know, I think he was massively affected by my mum's
00:43:29
Speaker
passing I know he was because he was the golden boy you know he was and I don't think he could make quite sense let alone anything else that was going on and there's lots of other parts of Andrew's story but I don't know the answer I don't know if they were right or not because I've made a lot of them I've just trying to find from all the evidence I've got but I don't know if they're true or not. Some of his stories you mean?
00:43:55
Speaker
Yeah, some of his stories of why he had to do what he did. I think a lot of us, when we lose to suicide, go on a meaning making, I think the grief, we always go on meaning making, but the suicide, we really trying to go through their last steps. What did they do just before? Where were they the day before? What were they listening to in their car? What conversations did they have two days before? What led up to that moment when they decided they couldn't be here anymore?
00:44:21
Speaker
There's a lot of meaning making for me in that with my brother trying to work out where he got to, where he got to, because it's such a shock. And again, you find evidence for some of what that might be, but you don't know it's absolutely 100% true because he's not here to ask. So again, it's not a story you can completely tell, but you just pieced it together the best way you can in your own head.
00:44:44
Speaker
Now, what are some of the ways that you honor him now? You mentioned keeping a seat at the table for him and your mom. What are some of the other ways that you honor him or that you
00:44:59
Speaker
that you remember or that you may be items of his that you kept. I remember it when I talked to Lindsay, who you've already met, Lindsay Meaden, who you've met as well through this journey. She was mentioning about the remembrance bears that I had never heard. And she said it's very common in the UK that they make these little remembrance bears or something like that. Is that what they're called? Remembrance bears? The ones with the t-shirts and things like that? Yeah, I've never heard of it until Lindsay. Any way that you, as a family,
00:45:29
Speaker
Yeah. Isn't that so sweet? I was like, I was like so cute. Perfect for her, you know, for kids to have something to remember their uncle by, but, um, what other, what ways have you found to, um, to stay close to him? And especially I'm so curious with him having been a medium. You talk, do you talk to him as well? You write to him. Do you say you talk to him as well?
00:45:57
Speaker
Yeah, I think, well, first of all, he gave me his car before he passed away. So I kept his car until it literally died. And it was on my drive for probably, I'd say about two years dead, not usable, but I could not get rid of it. I could not sell it, give it away, take it to scrap because it was him. It was him all over because he gave it to me.
00:46:22
Speaker
And it was his car. I could feel him in it, his energy in it. So that was weird. The day I let that go, it was very odd because a jacket, you know, I've actually I've got about 10 of his t-shirts I still wear. I still wear them now.
00:46:40
Speaker
as my everyday t-shirts and the jumpers and things. And I just, they've got certain muscle muscle man things on them, you know, from his weightlifting days, you know, and I, I just get a little smile when I just see those and think, yeah, you know, and I find those really just really comforting and
00:46:57
Speaker
I do talk to him and I talk to mum. I just talk to them. I just literally talk to them as if they're here and I'll get a knowing back of what they're saying back because I knew them so well. Now, whether that's my imagination or whether that's real, I don't know. I don't care because it helps me.
00:47:14
Speaker
You are absolutely right. That's exactly what I say to people. It doesn't matter whether others think that those are messages or the knowing that they're kind of communicating. It doesn't matter what anybody else thinks. As long as it brings comfort to the person that's grieving, that's all that matters. I'm like, I'm the same way. I'm like, it brings me comfort to think that this was a message. I'll just, I'll hold on to that.
00:47:42
Speaker
Yeah, and it's a way of keeping them alive, isn't it? It's a way of still having a relationship with them. They call it continuing bonds, don't they, in psychology? I don't know if you've heard about that. You know, we have to continue our bonds because we were bonded to them when they were alive. We continue our bonds even though they're physically not present. We can continue those bonds through whether it's talking and hearing about what we think they'd say, or you sense you hear them, or you see the signs. I mean, my mom,
00:48:09
Speaker
The week she passed there was butterflies everywhere and I said to her, you know, she, she died, really, over seven day period. And during that period when she was very very ill I said to her, oh mum, you know when you're gone and send me some butterflies and she couldn't speak at this stage. She was completely mute for the last six months of her life so
00:48:27
Speaker
I don't know if she heard me, I don't know, but every time we get the strangest butterflies in the strangest times of years and they hibernate, they come out in December, which is cold, and they sit on my dad's windowsill and I say to dad, that's mum, I'm sorry, that's mum, you wouldn't have a butterfly sit on your windowsill for a whole month. Oh, and the day after she died, oh my gosh, I went to a graduation for my, I was a, I trained as a Steiner teacher trainer as well, a teacher, sorry, and I went to my graduation and I was in the hall,
00:48:57
Speaker
And a peacock butterfly flew in above my dad's head while he watched me and graduated. And this is the day after she died. And a peacock butterfly was just flying around. And I'm sorry. Don't care what anyone says. That was my mom saying, I'm here at your graduation, not in a physical sense above my dad. And it was a peacock butterfly. We don't have peacock butterflies here. They're huge. I just couldn't believe it.
00:49:21
Speaker
I haven't, I haven't heard of a peacock, but I'm going to look it up right now. As I'm talking to you, I'm going to look on my phone. I want to see what a peacock, but I'm assuming it has a lot of the blues and the green butterfly. They're beautiful. I can see, they're massive. You can't imagine how big they are.
00:49:41
Speaker
Oh, wow. Oh my gosh. The colors. So beautiful. I'm looking here at the colors. Yeah, that is so comforting, like you said. Now, what is a way in which you feel Andrew, that you feel Andrew? So your mom butterflies has been something. What's a symbol or something that you see that you can relate to with Andrew? Oh, gosh.
00:50:09
Speaker
Is there anything specific? I think it's everything. I think it's everything, Andrew. It feels like I was so connected to Andrew that he's such a part of who I am. And so is my mum, of course, but I just sense the real
00:50:25
Speaker
deep, deep level of connection that it just takes that conversation for me and I hear back what you would have said and that's my, and I don't actually ask for anything else because for me that's so deep and so enough for what I need. You know, I think... I don't say much from Those Are Their Deaths. I've learnt so much. What has been something that you've learned the most about
00:50:57
Speaker
Oh, so I got a butterfly tattoo just after my mum, well, two years after my mum died, because I learnt from my mum just to be your absolute true self because, you know, I watched her take her last breath, you know, I kissed her on her cheek when she took her last breath and when you've got your breath coming in and out of you every single day, every single moment, now, right now, you can never take that for granted and I'm honouring that breath every time
00:51:27
Speaker
because that can only then now be the true expression of me, because there's nothing else, nothing else really matters, other than the fact that my breath is coming in and out and in and out. So I've learnt to live my life, you know, to the best of my ability, really, and that's it, the best of my ability, and that will not always be
00:51:50
Speaker
right you know but it's the best it's best I've got for me with me right now I always just think well that's the best I can do right now that's the best I can do right now as long as it's the best I can do right now with what I've got what tools I've got then I just feel so lucky to be alive and Andrew I guess I've learned oh gosh
00:52:16
Speaker
I've learnt about money, I've learnt that it doesn't matter how much money you've got, it doesn't matter, because my brother was in some debt which affected his suicide, I know it did, I think it did, so I've learnt that money doesn't really matter, because if I could rewind the
Lessons from Grief and Healing
00:52:35
Speaker
clock and say to Andrew, you know, you're worth more than money, you're worth more than anything, any money I could have,
00:52:45
Speaker
you know, I'd give anything to still have them here. So I've learned that from my brother, but I've also learned that we've all got purpose and this is my purpose right now is continuing this conversation, Andrew's conversation really, that this, we need to keep talking about it, we need to keep sharing our experiences like you're doing on the podcast to enable us to just
00:53:12
Speaker
keep taking those breaths moment by moment, being the best we can be with what we've got right now. And that's what I've got right now. I've got my all my losses in my life. And that makes me who I am. And I can't ignore them. I don't want to ignore them. And I'm going to do the best I can in my lifetime while I'm still breathing. Yeah.
00:53:35
Speaker
Yes, because by ignoring those losses, it's as if we would have ignored the fact that we had them in our life as well. So honoring the loss, knowing that we had it and it's part of who we are now, it's shaped us into who we are now, just like them being alive and them being part of our life shaped us who we are now. So did their death. So it's part of that journey.
00:54:05
Speaker
So you are just such a beautiful soul for sharing and not only your journey, but also a little bit about Andrew's life and your mom. What was your mom's name, by the way? It's your mom's name. Margaret, very classical English name, Margaret. My daughter's 19 and she's got Margaret as a middle name, so that's nice. She lives on in my daughter.
00:54:29
Speaker
Beautiful. Thank you for sharing Margaret and Andrew's story. And how can people, and I'll make sure to add this in the show notes, is there anything else you'd like to say to the listeners before we close off and just make sure to share your information of how they can get a hold of you? Yeah. I just want to say it will be okay. No matter where you are in your brief journey, no matter what your type of grief, it will change.
00:54:59
Speaker
You know, your life will change, the journey will go on. Look after yourself in it. Put yourself first in it as often as you can. Allow yourself to grieve when you need to grieve. Allow it to rise like I've done in my research and fall again on the other side. Let's not be afraid to grieve because grief, someone said to me recently, grief is just the expression of love we can't give to that person anymore. So if we feel upset, we feel the pain.
Conclusion: Community and Gratitude
00:55:29
Speaker
That's our true expression of love. We can allow it to rise and fall. And I'm hoping to develop communities, lots of different layers of communities for Suicide Brief over the next year, to provide the kind of support people need after suicide loss. And you can find me on Instagram, Facebook, and the website, all called suicidebriefsupport.com. Well, that's the website. Instagram is suicide, full stop.
00:56:01
Speaker
I'll link those all the window. Yeah. And your podcast.
00:56:11
Speaker
Ah, my healing narratives of suicide podcasts, which I absolutely love. It's very new, it's very early, but it really is a space for anyone to share their story and lose someone to suicide. So please get in touch if you want to share your story. Or if you want to listen to, you know, it's really a space where you can find somebody who resonates with you and listen to their story. It's a place of hope, really, that we'll all get through it. Because we are, we are all still standing. And we're definitely, one definitely stronger together as my strap line, you know, we're stronger together.
00:56:41
Speaker
That is true. That is true. We are stronger together. Thank you so much once again, Sue. And I look forward to listening to your podcast as well as passing you down some of the guests that I've had that I believe will be able to share in your podcast as well, their journey. So I'll make sure to give you some of those names as well as the, as their grief journeys. Thank you once again.
00:57:09
Speaker
Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you for having me.
00:57:15
Speaker
Thank you again so much for choosing to listen today. I hope that you can take away a few nuggets from today's episode that can bring you comfort in your times of grief. If so, it would mean so much to me if you would rate and comment on this episode. And if you feel inspired in some way to share it with someone who may need to hear this, please do so.
00:57:44
Speaker
Also, if you or someone you know has a story of grief and gratitude that should be shared so that others can be inspired as well, please reach out to me. And thanks once again for tuning into Grief Gratitude and the Gray in Between podcast. Have a beautiful day.