Show Notes for The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast Episode 145: How to talk to children about death by suicide

In this podcast episode, I am chatting with Caroline Roodhouse who shares her experience of losing her husband to suicide and how she has navigated conversations about it with her children. She discusses the challenges of explaining the situation to her children at different developmental stages and the importance of being honest with them. Caroline emphasises the need for open conversations about death and loss, even if they are difficult. She also talks about her upcoming book, "Daddy Blackbird," which aims to provide hope and support to others who have experienced similar losses.

The Highlights:

• 00:00 - Introduction
• 00:32 - Host Welcome
• 01:12 - Guest Introduction
• 02:18 - Meeting Steve and Building a Life Together
• 03:27 - The Sudden Loss and Its Impact
• 05:43 - Receiving the News and the Lack of Compassion
• 08:49 - Telling the Children About Their Father's Death
• 12:52 - The Journey of Grieving and Supporting Her Children
• 16:06 - The Concept of Daddy Blackbird and Finding Comfort
• 23:37 - Addressing the Complexities of Grieving After Suicide
• 26:41 - Evie's Mental Health Advocacy and Animation Project
• 29:05 - The Importance of Sensitive Language Around Suicide
• 34:55 - Managing Anger and Other Emotions in Grief
• 41:20 - Writing "Daddy Blackbird" and Its Three Sections
• 44:24 - Upcoming Book Launch and Where to Connect

Links:

📲 Connect with Caroline Woodhouse here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caroline-roodhouse-mcipr-a5948622/

📚 Pre-Order Caroline's book Daddy Blackbird here: https://amzn.to/46RxIPp

🖥️ Check out my brand new short courses for aspiring psychologists and mental health professionals here: https://www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk/short-courses

🫶 To support me by donating to help cover my costs for the free resources I provide click here: https://the-aspiring-psychologist.captivate.fm/support

📚 To check out The Clinical Psychologist Collective Book: https://amzn.to/3jOplx0

📖 To check out The Aspiring Psychologist Collective Book: https://amzn.to/3CP2N97

💡 To check out or join the aspiring psychologist membership for just £30 per month head to: https://www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk/membership-interested

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📱Connect socially with Marianne and check out ways to work with her, including the Aspiring Psychologist Book, Clinical Psychologist book and The Aspiring Psychologist Membership on her Link tree: https://linktr.ee/drmariannetrent

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How do we talk to children about death? How do we talk to children about death when the death has arisen as a result of suicide? These are really difficult questions in parenting, but also in mental health. How do we get the tone right? What questions are okay to answer? What questions are okay to ask? How do we phrase things? How do we create a safe space? I am chatting through all of this and more with Caroline Roodhouse in today's episode. I hope you find this so useful.

Hi, welcome along to the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast. I am Dr. Marianne Trent, and I'm a qualified clinical psychologist. Today's episode is part of our special season, talking about suicide and trying to normalise conversations surrounding it. This is episode two in our special series of three. They are all separate episodes, but you might well find it helpful to catch the other two if you do have time. So I know you are here because you have questions about how to do this and what is appropriate. So let's dive straight into the episode and I will catch you on the other side. Hi, just want to welcome along. Our guest for today, Caroline Roodhouse. Hi Caroline.

Hi Marianne.

Thank you so much for your time in speaking with us. Just want to firstly say that I was so sorry to learn of the death of your husband and the father of your children.

Thank you. I appreciate that.

Did you want to tell us a little bit about him?

Yeah, absolutely. So I met Steve in the year 2000. We were set up on a blind date, which I wasn't happy about, but then clearly was in the end and we hit it off straight away. Steve was quite a chilled out character, which helped balance me out because I'm quite highly strung. So we kind of met in the middle very well, but he was full of energy and kindness and warmth and he had friends all over the world, which was very appealing. He was very drawn to speed, sports, motorbikes, those sorts of things. And he introduced me to lots of those sorts of things. And he had a love for travel, as did I. So we had a huge amount in common.

And yeah, as I say, we hit it off very quickly and we spent a good few years together before we got married in 2005, and then started our family life together beyond that. So in work, Steve worked for a field marketing agency and his role was to look after teams of people who would go and train others on mobile phones and how to use and sell them in retail stores. And I think it helps to understand how he was perceived in that industry to understand the sort of person that he was because he was very well known for being an amazing motivational leader and helping a lot of younger people to kind of get onto the career ladder, giving all of his time, coaching them, supporting them, encouraging them, and being very motivational and inspiring. So very much a positive person, which again, I was drawn to on a personal level.

And I guess in later years as we talk about things like spotting signs when somebody's struggling, once we'd started to have children, I could see that energy reducing and that love for life and for work and for people generally, which I put down to just being a knackered parent really, and all the things that go with lack of sleep and parenting and getting older and those sorts of things. So with hindsight, I can look back and maybe think differently about that now. But yeah, that was Steve happy guy for most of the time that I knew him and that we were together.

Thank you. And before we started recording, you told me that this had really come out of the blue. This wasn't a case of someone with an existing diagnosed depression or that had evidence that life didn't seem to be worth living. This was someone who was hustling out the door in the morning telling you that they'd be picking up your child from Cubs like usual, and they'd see you then. That's not what happened.

Absolutely not. No. I had no idea that Steve was struggling at all. As I said that the energy had reduced in him, but there was no suggestion that he had any mental health difficulties or was considering suicide in any way. So it was the 12th of November, 2018, he was starting a new role with a new client through this field marketing agency. On that day, we were running around getting ready for work and I was getting our two young children ready for school and nursery. Ada and Evie were nine and two at the time. Steve was getting ready for work, even just before he left for the day, I had a sore throat, which I mentioned to him, and he went flying up the stairs too at a time to grab me some throat sweetss from the bathroom cabinet. So that just the way he would always be thinking of others and helping. And then off he went, just confirming that he'd pick Evie up from Cubs on his way home as he always did on a Monday evening.

And I didn't give anything a second thought. I had no need to until I had a phone call from his work saying that he hadn't arrived. It was about an hour away. So the assumption was that his car had broken down maybe, and he was somewhere by the side of the road with no signal and that's why he hadn't notified anybody. But as the day went on and there was no sign of him in the end, I had to contact the police and register him as a missing person. And that's when I went into full panic mode and that's when the nightmare really began. The police were not treating it as serious in any way because he had no history of mental health difficulties or no reason to be missing that would suggest he would be coming to any harm. But they came on the Wednesday morning two days later, and that's when I heard those 15 words that I'll never forget, and they said to me, we found him, he's not alive, and it's clear that he's done it to himself. And that's when everything just kind of fell apart and nothing really made sense ever again after that for me.

And even the phrasing of that, that doesn't sound hugely compassionate in terms of thinking about Steve as a person and a human and you as the wife and mother of his children.

Yeah, absolutely. I had my daughter with me at the time. She was two. I had friends around me because we'd been trying to work out how on earth we were going to try and find him. My mum was there, so she broke down and struggled to take on board that news as well. There wasn't a huge amount of compassion in many of the interactions that I had, including things like, like the inquest, for example, where they read out a huge amount of detail about the state of Steve's body when he was found in the back of his car, which I had no idea was coming, I was given no warning. And there's a lot of parts of this story and different parts of the processes that come after a suicide notifying utilities and the kind of cold computer says no responses that you get from people despite the circumstances. So yeah, there've been a huge amount of moments that have been difficult and could have been made easier. But equally, I've experienced unbelievable compassion from people and from communities and groups of people that I wouldn't necessarily have expected to receive that from. And that's where my focus has had to be in the long run.

Yeah, absolutely. I'm just so sorry that that's how you received the news probably at your front door, like no real warning or preparation. That's a lot, and that's a lot for you as a grown woman. I'm a mother to two children myself, and I know just how different developmentally a 2-year-old and 9-year-old are, but how much they need their parents in so many different ways. How did you begin to be able to have those conversations? Probably is a separate question because of the different developmental ages. How did you begin to have that conversation with the eldest or the youngest?

Absolutely, yeah, there's a huge difference between the two, and there still is because they're now 15 and eight and those gaps still exist massively. So it's two different journeys I'm constantly trying to manage for them in those moments, directly after I was told by police that Steve had died, ADA, who was, as I say, only two, I vividly recall seeing her sat at her little white wooden table with her colouring with a police officer, sat with her colouring too, and she seemed kind of self-contained. I don't even know if she was aware that there was anything going on and I didn't have to worry too much about her in that moment. It was Evie, my 9-year-old that I was desperately concerned about and things were happening around me that I just wasn't in control of. Somebody from safeguarding from her school turned up. She was at school at the time, and my best friend Emma contacted the charity Winston's Wish, which was a suggestion from the safeguarding person from school. And they gave her a bit of a script for me to be able to talk to Evie. I had no idea how you deliver news like this, let alone a death, but a death by suicide. She knew that Steve was missing because I'd had to explain it to her after a couple of days, but had no idea what anything like this would be happening. So armed with this kind of script and a few leaflets and pamphlets from this safeguarding person,

I arrived at Evie's school and she was standing out the front with the deputy head and she had a big smile on her face when she saw me coming because that innocence of a child seeing their parent turn up at school. But as we went into the room and she could see my tears stained face, she knew that it was not going to be good news. And from that moment I was very clear that I had to be direct and honest, and that's the main advice that Winston's wish had given me. And I had to say it was something along the lines of Daddy's been found and he's died and we won't be seeing him again. His brain had stopped working properly, and this was the beginning of that journey for me with Evie in particular of kind of drip feeding that information over a period of time. Now for Evie that took probably only a few months from start to finish, I'd say that there's kind of these different stages, which I can talk about in a moment for Ada being two, that journey has taken years and just been drawn out across that period of time. So that first step of saying that Steve had died and he wouldn't be coming back was what I had to explain. And then it's kind of talking in terms that they would understand that it was something that Daddy had done to himself.

Evie had a very good understanding of mental health thanks to conversations at school and learning that they do in PSHE sessions and those sorts of things. The next thing I had to do was talk about kind of why he may have done that. And we talked about mental health issues and people being unhappy and not knowing how to deal with that unhappiness or how to talk to other people about it. It was very early on that Evie asked me how he'd done it, which was the hardest conversation I've ever had to have with her, harder than telling her that he'd died because it felt like such a brutal thing to have to explain. Steve had suffocated himself with a plastic bag in his car, and to have to say that to a 9-year-old was horrific. But again, the advice from Winston's Wish was when they ask, they're ready to know, and it's our responsibility as parents to deliver that news in the most considered and compassionate way and using language that they would understand.

And that's what I was intent on doing whenever I needed to. So that whole kind of process with Evie, as I say, was done over the course of a few months. I'm still working on that process with Ada. We haven't got to the point yet where I've explained to her what he actually did because she hasn't shown any need to know that information yet. What she does know is her own understanding of mental health difficulties and how they can be so great that somebody can choose to take their own life or see that as the only option. At least she has said to me, there was one moment where I was walking her to school one morning and she came out with this really profound statement and she said it was something along the lines of men don't cry and they don't grieve, and they really should because if they don't and they don't let the emotions out, they can die.

And whilst it was a shocking thing to hear on the way to school when it wasn't the normal conversations that we would have, it did give me a really good insight into how she was understanding the conversations that we'd been having, not just between her and I, but also between Evie and her as well, and the three of us. And it was only actually the other day where she'd been hearing, when she hears the word suicide, it does prompt her to ask questions and start to get curious as children do. She's eight years old and she said to me the other day, mommy, I don't want to know today, but at some point soon, will you tell me how daddy died? And I said, absolutely, of course I will. And then she went off back to her swing or her game that she was playing, and that was it.

And I think I'm then left in tears, and as I have been over the course of many years on that day where she came up to me and said, for my birthday, could I have my daddy back? And I dunno what to say, it's overwhelming. And then 10 seconds later she says, actually, no, I want a unicorn. And I am still crying an hour later because of that initial thing that she's asked for that I can't give her. But she's moved on. And again, over the years, I've learned how both my children have received this information in different ways and then processed it in their own different ways. Evie's much more of a deep thinker. She's a teenager, she has a much greater understanding of that permanence of loss and those sorts of things. So yeah, there's a huge difference between the two of them. But there is this process that I've come back to time and time again of the different stages that are involved.

Absolutely such powerful words you've shared with us. And I think I would just echo what you've said really about how quickly children can get full up and they will take away their little nugget that they've got from you. They will go and digest that, maybe even across a few sleeps, a few days, a few weeks, and then they'll come back to you when you're chopping some cucumber or something and come back to it again, ready for the next instalment. And I think it's what you've demonstrated so nicely is always holding that open space of being willing to go where they need to, but stopping where they are at. So you could have said, sure, I'll tell you now, but that's not what she wanted. She very quickly communicated and clearly communicated, I might be ready, I'm intrigued, but I want to know that that's within my control. And that you I guess, can manage that because as they get older, they think about our own looking after us, don't they? And making sure that we are okay and modelling back some of that parenting they've had from us.

That's a really important point. Both of them are empaths, so compassionate, so caring about other people, particularly me. And they will often avoid saying something or asking something because they don't want to upset me. And I'm constantly reminding them that grief is sad. We can't get away from that. It will be upsetting to have these conversations and we will move on afterwards and we will experience joy again and we will do all the things that make us happy. But we have to have these conversations and we have to accept grief and we have to work through it together. And I recall a really key point as well about trust as well, that I've come across so many people from the experiences and conversations I've had where they've lost a parent many decades ago and it was pushed under the carpet and they were told that it was a car accident or cancer or something because of the shame surrounding suicide and the difficult conversations that people would much rather avoid having.

But then sometime later in life, they've discovered the truth and that's completely shattered the trust that they have with those family members that could have been honest with them at the time. And the idea of that truth, that trust being lost between us just terrifies me much more so than having to have honest conversations with them right now that they seem to take on board unbelievably well. And I've had to learn this as a skill. I've had to learn so many different elements of this and know that I can be honest with them and that they will be okay, and they're growing and thriving and becoming more and more resilient with every conversation that we have and every challenge that they face. So I try to see these as opportunities to learn and grow and get stronger even though they're really sad.

And I think with the sadness. So my dad died in 2017 when my, I think our youngest of very similar ages, so he's just turned eight in June. So he was 18 months when my dad died, and my eldest was four years old. So neither of them actually remember my dad, I don't think. But I've always been clear that if they want to talk to me about him and I cry, it isn't them that's made me cry. It's the fact that I really lovely loved him, I cared about him. And when we love someone, we might get upset, but it's always okay to have those conversations even if it makes me cry. Does that make sense?

Absolutely. And yeah, we're exactly the same. I think they would avoid at all costs, anything that would upset me, but I've had to keep on making that point that like you've said, it's not you that's upsetting me. It's a sad thing when someone dies and you'll experience it again and again, unfortunately as life goes on. So we can't avoid these conversations and we can't avoid being sad, but that equally means if we did try and avoid them, we'd never talk about that person. And we can't do that either. So there's never going to be an ideal solution. We can't take the pain away and have these conversations, so we have to work through it in the best way that we can. And I think that's where we've reached between the three of us.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think one of the differences with suicide, so in the Grief collective, somebody talks about suicide as being pouring acid on the wounds of grief because it kind of amplifies everything, and it also takes away the opportunity to do some of the things that I recommend with children. If you have got someone who's very unwell and a death's expected that actually when they're super young, you sit and watch the Bing Bunny butterfly episode, for example, and that you start to, as you're walking along and you see a dead mouse or a dead pigeon or a dead insect, that you start to stop and take a look and actually think about the processes involved with a death and that it's permanent and that we don't come back, that it's not like the cartoons. We are not magically reappearing. And I think what you lose with a suicide as well is so much of that preparation that you're not mentioning, perhaps I didn't mention that grampy was going to die, but I'm making sure that my children have a developmental understanding of death, and I'm not using words like poorly because then when I say, oh, baby, are you feeling poorly?

They then begin to think, gosh, I'm going to die with being, like you said, quite matter of fact with our words and leaving them space to talk and to be curious. And I think that's so important, but it's then trying to retrofit that in a suicide which is so extra challenging.

Absolutely. I think, like you said at the start there, I've heard suicide described as grief with the volume turned up and it is, and the different extra emotions and challenges that it brings. But yeah, you don't have that opportunity to prepare. But I guess that's the same with sudden accidents and those sorts of things as well. And I think perhaps it's a responsibility for us as parents to consider this at some point anyway. I mean, Evie in particular had experienced the loss of several grandparents, so she was conscious of the concept of death and people no longer being around, but nobody as close as her dad. So yeah, it was very much a retrofit. And it's those conversations afterwards that lead more into topics like mental health and self-care and taking care of ourselves so we don't end up in a similar position. I think one of the other complications with suicide is those statistics around people who have lost a loved one to suicide are more susceptible to mental health issues themselves and ultimately taking their own lives or at least considering it.

And so are their children, their studies to suggest that children who've lost a parent to suicide are three times more likely to take their own lives at some point. And these statistics terrify me. So rather than talking about the death quite so much, we talk about the need to take care of ourselves in an age appropriate way, and they do things like this at school as well. But yeah, we're constantly talking about needing to make sure we're being gentle with ourselves and being conscious of our emotions and all of those sorts of things, which I don't think I would've considered had this not happened. And I think if I'm desperately scrabbling around for a silver lining here, it's that fact that both my children are very conscious of the dangers of poor mental health and poor wellbeing, poor physical wellbeing, all those sorts of things. And the absolute paramount need to look after ourselves and look after one another. Evie has since become a mental health ambassador at school, and she goes talking to primary schools and assemblies and things as part of this role to younger children on the subject of mental health and how we should be looking after ourselves. And that I don't think is something that she would've done had this not happened.

So yeah, there's some, you're

So proud of her and what she's creating. I know you shared a little short film with me that she'd been part of making as well, and it was so incredibly powerful. It's shaping these little young lives, but hopefully in a way that feels like it's building them as well.

Absolutely. Yeah. And that resilience, because the world's a tough place at times as we know, and unfortunately it's something they need to know too. But yeah, the animation that Evie was part of creating was came about from some challenges she was having when she first started at senior school when she was 11. And she would hear people kind of laughing and joking about the topic of suicide, saying, I'll kill myself if I've got to sit through another lesson like that. Or kids would use that acronym, KYS when they're messaging each other suggesting they should kill yourself when they've done something embarrassing, which is horrendous and it would be so upsetting for her. So she wrote a story about it and she was really brave, and she approached the head of year at the school, she was at the time, and shared this story with them and they read it out at an assembly.

Unfortunately, it didn't have any impact at all, and I think there were other elements of this school that we weren't too keen on when we first spoke to them about her going there and the extra support that she might need. And they talked about all of the different facilities that they have to safeguard children and all the wellbeing facilities that they have. They didn't seem to pan out. It felt like there was perhaps a little bit of lip service there. So anyway, this story didn't land as Evie had hoped, and I mentioned that to some of my colleagues at work. I work for a creative agency where there's some very clever animators and illustrators, and they took Evie's story and turned it into a beautiful animation with stunning illustration and music, and there was a voiceover recorded for it as well. And while that was being done, Evie was finding this school more and more of a challenge for various reasons, and I moved her to a different school where she immediately began to thrive, and this is where she became a mental health ambassador and started just getting stuck into all of these different roles.

There's an amazing wellbeing centre where she can go at any point during the day and feel that sense of safety around her with people that she knows and trusts, whether that's teachers or fellow students. And I think from the very top, from the senior leadership at the school, from the head down, they take it seriously. The whole subject of emotional wellbeing and mental health, it's built into everything that they do, everything that they teach, and it's certainly not any, there's no lip service there whatsoever. So Evie has now introduced the animation to this school and had an amazing response to it. I've shared it on my social channels, and it's now being shown across the country in schools in assemblies. It's being added to the curriculums of different schools across the country, but there's also other settings and environments that are using it. So the NHS have built it into their nursing inductions in certain hospital trusts, different grief charities are using it. Mental health first aiders are using it in workplaces and line managers are using it with their training and those sorts of things. And it's all around this kind of sensitivity of language on the subject of suicide, whether that's for a child, whether for an adult, and that I am ridiculously proud of. With Evie being the instigator of this and the one that made all that happen,

Words, they can tumble out as quiet as a whisper or as loud as a shout words. They can be mean hurtful comments or messages on a screen, words, they can make us cry, especially when a loved one has died through suicide. Here's a letter full of words written by a girl whose dad is now a blackbird. There was a time when I had two parents. I was young and I was confident that was the way life would be for us. But one day I got pulled out of class and saw my mum walking towards the school with my godmother. I was confused when I saw my mom's tear stained face, she told me that my dad hadn't shown up for work and before anyone realised he was missing, he had died by suicide. This was the biggest shock of our lives. He had seemed pretty happy with life and had never mentioned feeling depressed. So it took months for me to even accept what had happened. It took many more after that for me to stop feeling guilty every time I listen to the songs he liked to sing along to. I've missed out on summer holidays at the beach with him. I've missed out on having him in the audience at school shows. We've all missed out. So has dad.

I'm telling you this because I've heard jokes about suicide and depression at school, and this has really hurt me. Take it from me. Suicide isn't funny. It's not something to laugh and joke about. You may not know it, but your words can really upset people who have been affected by suicide. It's tough to hear people laughing about something that completely turned my world upside down. My dad died a few years ago now, but the memories of what happened are still a huge part of my daily life. Words matter. So think before you speak, please make kindness a promise that you keep.

Oh, amazing. As a mum, a fellow human, it just brings shivers down my spine. It's amazing stuff. And I just wanted to talk to your fear really. So speaking as a qualified clinical psychologist who specialises in complex trauma and grief, I would say that the stats for increased probability of someone ending their own life when it's been in their family is probably going to be in families where it's been shame filled and not spoken about, and where they've not been able to freely express their emotions and ask questions without fear of the reaction, the response, or that they might be in trouble. And I think that what I know about mitigating factors you are doing in abundance and what we know is it's the difference being the difference that makes the difference for children and always knowing that they've got that safe space, it's nonjudgmental, that's compassionate, that they can bring their best selves to, but also their worst selves. And I often think with my children, I will always love you. I don't always like your behaviour, but you can always talk to me whatever you're worried about. And that mitigates so much to the extent where I would say it mitigates it to..... kind of minimal. So I dunno if that's useful at all.

Absolutely. As I said earlier, it's been a huge worry for me that because their own father took his life, it could almost normalise it to a point where it becomes an option for them or they believe that it's an option for me if I'm having a bad day or I'm reacting badly to something that's happened or I'm upset about something, and I've worked very hard and researched a huge amount on how to mitigate that, we can never remove it completely because suicide is something that exists one way or another. But I'm hopeful that through the experience we've had, we can go the other way and we can learn that suicide. Yes, it might be an option, but there are a huge number of other things that we can look into doing that we are much more conscious and aware of as a family now that we otherwise wouldn't have known about. So yeah, I hopeful that ly

It's always okay to ask for help always. Yes,

Absolutely. And I think that there's a lot of people around, well, I wouldn't say there's a lot of people around. There's a few people around me that reinforce that message. My best friend, for example, who is the Girl's godmother, checks in with them regularly and she'll do it in a way that works for them. So she'll send them a WhatsApp or see that they've been on Instagram recently or Evie has at least and sends something funny to her or something that relates to a conversation we might have had. So we are kind of learning to operate on their level as well and have these conversations that they can relate to without turning into embarrassing parent mode and trying to use language that just wouldn't work. Yeah, it's a constant journey that I'm on, and I'm lucky to have support from a few good people with two.

Yeah. I'm so pleased to hear that you're well supported talking about language. Could you tell us about how the concept of Daddy Blackbird came around?

I can. I'm glad you asked about that because it's a very special thing to me. So I'm not particularly religious. I don't believe in reincarnation, but I am open-minded about the whole concept. And shortly after Steve died, there was a little boy Blackbird that would always be in the back garden, and I'd started to notice that he would kind of hop right up to the back door, which was unusual, but I was too busy thinking about other things to think much of that. But there were times when I'd think back to how Steve would talk about his mom and some of the beliefs that she had around kind of an older relative who had died and maybe had come back to visit as a bird or something. And my mum, again, not particularly into things like reincarnation, but when she'd see a butterfly, it would make her think of her mum and bring her some comfort.

So I started to look at this black bird that was hobbling around the garden all the time, and for some reason I started referring to him as Daddy Blackbird. And I'd call the girls over and say, look, daddy Blackbirds come to visit. It almost felt like something nice to just say in amongst all the horror and sorrow, and they'd get quite excited to see him. And there were times when I'd be a bit pissed off when he turned up because I was busy washing up and doing all the millions of jobs that Steve would've been doing had he been there, and instead that's potentially him hopping around and flying around free as a bird. But no, over time I sort of developed this odd relationship where I'd be happy to see him in the backyard and I'd feel a sense of comfort when I did and I was able to bring him into conversation with the girls as well.

And then there were long periods of time where we wouldn't see him, but he always seems to come back. I'm not sure if it's the same black bird, but it doesn't really bother me either way. It's more around what it symbolises. And on Steve's first birthday after he died, we went to a garden centre and we bought a China blackbird to put in the garden to fill those gaps when the real daddy Blackbird isn't around. Meanwhile, I'd been kind of starting to write about my experiences just to get it out of my head and onto a piece of paper because writing is a passion for me. And I realised when I looked at what I'd written, it was almost like a series of chapters. And then I realised that a series of chapters actually sort of represents a book. And all of a sudden when people were saying to me, you should write a book about everything you've been through, I thought, oh, I think I have, or at least I've started to.

So I continued with that, and there seemed to be only one title that I could give this book, and it was Daddy Blackbird, and it's in three sections. It talks about the history of how we first got together and some of the amazing adventures that we had together, as well as some of the challenges that we faced together. It talks about the horror, obviously when Steve died and all the things that came after that. And then the third section is about the hope and all of the lessons that I've learned that I want to share with other people, particularly people in a position like me. And I've broken that down into three different sections, and it's what I call my triangle of recovery. So I talk about the power of me and how I've drawn on the strengths I had already, but also developed new strengths and skills.

Then there's the power of my children, which I've spoken about in depth and taking strength from seeing their resilience grow and thrive and all the amazing things that they're achieving. And then the last part of that is the power of my community and the people around me that have supported me from day one, but also the new connections and relationships I've built in more recent times. And yeah, daddy Blackbird is now a very special thing to me, not just the actual bird that visits every day in the garden, but the book that I've almost completed now.

Well, it sounds like it's a great read. Is that aimed at adults, would you say?

Yes, I would say it is aimed at adults, mainly as I say, for people that have been through what I have. But I've found in sharing all my different experiences and stories and the little anecdotes that help people understand what it's like to lose somebody to suicide, I think I've had so many people contact me to say that it's helped them get through a difficult period where they'd perhaps been considering suicide. And then when they read about the horrific impact on the people left behind, they've perhaps started to think about alternative things that they can do. And that is really powerful. That's another group of people that would greatly benefit from reading my book. But yeah, parents like me who have had to struggle with their own personal loss, but also the loss of their children and how to deal with that and the things I've got wrong that didn't work or the things that I've learned that really have worked and the place we're in now, and just that message that it's hell and you will go through the worst times.

And we had Covid to deal with as well in amongst all of that. But there's hope. And I remember one line in particular that I've included my book from a therapist that I saw once when I first spoke to her, and she recognised that I was lacking in any sense of optimism. And she said to me, I will carry hope for you until you are ready to carry it for yourself. And I will never forget those words. And I hope that my book does something similar for at least one person and carries some hope for them until a time where they can actually feel it themselves.

Absolutely. Such powerful words. And is it available on Amazon?

It will be available on Amazon at the beginning of October. My intention is to it on World Mental Health Day, which is the 10th of October. I do have a website where I've got some free chapters available to have a read of now though, so you can get an idea of whether it's something you want to know more about.

Great. What's your website?

It's Daddy Blackbird www.daddyblackbird.com.

Amazing. Thank you so much for your time and throughout our discussion, there's been lots of different themes, and the one that we've kind of alluded to but not mentioned is anger. And I think that came through quite strongly when you were talking about Daddy Blackbird hopping about the garden and anger is such a normal part of the grief process, but I think with suicide it can really feel amplified as well. And then you can feel very conflicted for feeling anger towards somebody that's died. But anger is a very important human emotion, and it's understandable that we would be feeling that.

Absolutely. Anger is something that I've felt from day one, particularly when I see how sad my children are and when I'm struggling in the middle of the night with a poorly child on my own, or there are moments where Steve should be there and isn't angry because he didn't share with me his issues and challenges that led him to where he was. I'm angry for this sense of abandonment that I feel for me and for my children. There's so many reasons why I'm angry, and the anger has led me to some very dark places over time and some very unhealthy habits as well, which have not worked well for me. And again, I've come out the other side of those and hopefully others can learn from those too. But yeah, anger is still a part of my life, much less so than it was before.

My children don't seem to come across angry in any way, and I'm very grateful for that. So I try to keep my anger away from them as much as possible. I'll let them see it occasionally because I think it's right that they do. And I don't want to hide things and lie about things, but there's certain elements of my anger that they don't need to see. And there's a funny moment where I'd written a lot about my anger. There's a lot in my book about my anger and how that's changed over time. But I wrote about how when I first saw this blackbird and I could see how it was free and it was kind of liberated from any kind of restrictions in life. And that's maybe how I saw Steve. And I think there was a moment where the house was a mess and I was knackered and I was fed up and the girls were having a bad day, and I saw the Blackbird turn off and I had some really dark thoughts about what I wanted to do to this blackbird.

And I wrote that in my book. And when it was being edited by my proofreader, he said, whoa, you can't say that. So he helped me filter that down to more appropriate language around how I felt about the Blackbird. But yeah, it has softened over time. I've learned more about how I need to understand the place Steve was in. I've learned more about suicide and how it changes the way people feel and how mental health can impact people in such different ways, which I didn't know anything about before. So yeah, anger has been massive. And I actually shared the manuscript with somebody just like me who'd lost a husband to suicide when she had two young children not that long ago. And she read my manuscript and gave me some amazing feedback on it recently. And the biggest point other than things like she said, I can share it with my mum and she can now understand where I'm coming from, but the biggest point was that she was nodding all the way through it when I talked about the anger. And she'd never felt that she could show that anger or talk about it because there's so much sympathy for the person that's died and what a sad place they must have been in to get to that point that it feels inappropriate almost to talk about how you are angry with them. And we don't want to blame them, and we don't want to bring about shame, but anger still exists because of the circumstances that we find ourselves in.

It really does. And we think about anger as being a secondary emotion. So something else always comes first. And the fact that you are not seeing that in your girls at the moment, I think again reinforces what a great job you are doing at helping them recognise and discuss their primary emotions. So maybe they are feeling abandoned, maybe they are feeling disappointed, maybe they're feeling sad, maybe they're feeling jealous of their peers who still have both parents. And when we're able to properly tap into those primary emotions, there's less need for the secondary emotions. And again, just shows me what a great job you're doing.

I think that's really helpful though what you've said there. And I think the different emotions that you've listed are really, there's endless emotions that we can talk about, but it's good to have a broader vocabulary of emotions that you can help children to use because for me, it's been sad and angry a lot of the time, and I need to remind myself that there's a lot on that scale in between and they need to know that too. And like you say that kind of maybe resentment towards friends who've got the most amazing dad and they don't have that, and moments in the future when Steve isn't there to walk them down the aisle when they're getting married. And those are moments where anger might appear or any of those other emotions. And we're not out of the woods now and we never will be, but by equipping ourselves with coping mechanisms to deal with all of these different emotions, I'm hopeful that we've got a decent future ahead of us.

I really, I feel so certain of that. It's been an absolute pleasure speaking with you. Keep doing what you're doing both for the community, but for yourself and your girls. I can't wait to read Daddy Blackbird when it's available, and I will share that freely on my networks as well once it's published. But thank you so much for your time, Caroline.

Thank you. I really appreciate the opportunity to talk about all of this and your lovely approach to listening and understanding.

Well, you're so welcome. It's been an absolute pleasure and it's such an important conversation to have, and I'm hopeful that this episode will trickle through where it needs to. It will be listened to and watched by health professionals, but also by people who are interested in learning about this stuff and might be experiencing some of the stuff that you've been through too.

Yes, thank you. I'm hopeful that it can help somebody.

Well, thank you. Just before we finish, could you tell us where people can connect with you on socials, Caroline?

Yes, absolutely. I talk frequently on LinkedIn so I can be found there. I don't think there's many other Caroline Roadhouses around. So yeah, I'd love to connect with people on LinkedIn. And my website again is www.daddyblackbird.com where you can connect with me there too.

Thank you. Oh, what an incredibly powerful episode. What a real privilege it was to speak to Caroline, please, if the conversations we had today and the book, which is going to be published very soon does resonate with you, do go and follow her on LinkedIn. If you have enjoyed this episode, please do rate and review on Apple Podcasts. Please do subscribe on YouTube and follow the show on Spotify. Please also, when thinking about grief, do bear in mind one of my books, the Grief Collective, which gets lovely feedback on Amazon, and if you have read that already, I would be so grateful if you consider rating and reviewing that on Amazon and or Goodreads. If you are an aspiring psychologist or mental health professional, please do check out the Aspiring Psychologist Collective book and the Clinical Psychologist Collective book. And if you are looking for qualified mental health therapy, please do consider talking Heads your guide to finding a qualified therapist in the uk.

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