Because suicide is such a unique loss, for both the loved one and the suicide survivors, we have decided to break this into several episodes over the next few months In this Part I episode we review some of the many statistics surrounding this type of loss.  Reviewing the numbers helps us set a baseline for understanding the scope and reach of this type of loss, as well as to understand the increasing need for medical intervention and education. In the past 20 years the numbers of suicides increased by 30%! This also means there is an ever-increasing number of suicide survivors that need help in their journeys of grief.  Dissecting topics like “no common component”, the iceberg analogy and reviewing the large number of “famous celebrities committing suicide”.   Marshall and Steve discuss these topics, as well as a few more in this episode of Hope Thru Grief.

We welcome your comments and questions! Send an email to hopethrugrief@gmail.com and please share our show with anyone you know that is struggling with loss and grief. You can find us on the internet to continue the conversation!

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Jordan Smelski Foundation: http://www.jordansmelskifoundation.org

Tune in for new episodes every Thursday morning wherever you listen to podcasts!

Marshall Adler and Steve Smelski, co-hosts of Hope Thru Grief are not medical, or mental health professionals, therefore we cannot and will not give any medical, or mental health advice. If you, or anyone you know needs medical or mental health treatment, please contact a medical or mental health professional immediately. The Suicide Prevention Lifeline number is 1-800-273-8255

Thank you

Marshall Adler

Steve Smelski

Hello everybody.

My name is Steve Smelski.

I'm one of the co-hosts of Hope Thru Grief, and I'm here with my cohost

and good friend, Marshall Adler.

And today's episode is going to cover the topic of suicide.

This is, actually, this is a fairly big topic to cover, and Marshall and

I have talked several times about how best to cover this particular topic.

And we've decided that we're going to break it into several different episodes.

So today we're going to touch on some of the, uh, some of the facts, just so we all

have the correct baseline to start from.

And then we're also going to cover a few things from the

suicide survivor standpoint.

I think the first thing we probably need to do is mention the National

Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

So if you're contemplating or have had thoughts about it, please reach

out that number is +1 800-273-8255.

Now on the topic.

Marshall is much more knowledgeable about this whole subject and how to

deal with this from a grief side.

So today we decided that I would go ahead and cover some of the facts

up front, and then I'm going to pose some of the questions to him.

And we'll just cover some of the items that we've been, um, trying to decide

what will go into the first episode.

So, I do have to say Marshall, when I first looked these up today, I found

them on dosomething.org and they listed the, uh, some suicide facts.

I think we've got 11 to 13 of them as of the year 2017.

And I did not know suicide was the 10th leading cause of death.

That one really surprised me and I know you've researched

as much further than I have.

Yes.

It's interesting because these statistics you're listing there of 2017 are generally

the most recent up to date statistics that are available, because it does take

a while for the medical researchers to quantify the statistics, make sure they're

accurate, but every indication that has been done, since 2017 actually shows that

the suicide epidemic has gotten worse.

And the statistics are actually increasing in almost every demographic category

that these medical researchers use.

So that is not good news.

I was, uh, I was thinking you were probably going

to say that, that they didn't have anything for 2018 yet, so.

As I was going through the list, let's just go right down through

the list and we'll cover these.

And then we've got a basis to start from.

As we move into our discussion.

The first one that hits you is it's more than 47,000 us citizens

died in 2017 to death by suicide.

That's a staggering number, especially in the year of COVID.

When we're dealing with, with death numbers on a daily basis and

rolling number, that's a big number.

The next one hit me just as hard.

There were twice as many suicides as homicides in the U S in the year 2017.

Sometimes that's hard to fathom.

It's also the second leading cause of death for 10 to 34 year olds in the US.

Steve, that's on that I think the audience should really

concentrate on the significance of that, because since Matt passed away from

suicide, I've obviously been forever affected by his death by suicide, but

I've also become my own personal research factory to try to get some understanding

of why suicide is happening in society in general and to my son in particular.

And again, I'm always been a voracious reader of news, and I read the obituaries

every single day and I can tell you that if you actually do read the

obituaries, you'll see these obituaries of young people that have passed away.

And many times I would be able to read the obituary and almost come to a conclusion

that this could have been a suicide.

And I will tell you that I've had the opportunity to have that confirmed because

I've been very involved with the suicide survivor community after Matt's passing.

And I've actually had the opportunity to meet family members who lost their

loved one and when they tell me their story, tell me their loved one's name.

I know that I read about it in the obituary and so...

So, do most of them not give a cause of death?

A lot of the obituaries are very careful how they talk

about their loved one's passing.

I would say that the vast majority do not mention suicide, but I have seen

a increased number of obituaries that will list suicide prevention hotline

at the end of the obituary as a place where charitable contributions are

being requested by the family to be sent to an honor of their lost loved one,

which obviously would be a reason to suspect that this was in fact a suicide.

I'm sure the family knows people are going to assume that, so, I think those

family members are very brave and I think those members of those families should

be commended for having that in writing.

I will tell you that the vast majority of people who have lost loved ones,

to suicide, that I personally talked to decided not to list that in the

obituary, which obviously is a very personal decision for them to make.

And I can just speak personally that in Matt's obituary, which I wrote, we did

not list his cause of death by suicide.

But, we have been very transparent, very vocal about the fact that he died by

suicide and we wanted to make sure at his funeral, we talked to our rabbi and

wanted to use the funeral as a platform to address the issue of death by suicide.

And we've done it ever since man's passing.

So again, everybody's got their own decision to make on

that and for us personally, we didn't put that in the obituary.

But, everything we've done since then has been directed towards addressing

the issue of death by suicide, because we want to try to prevented as much as

we can and also help survivors who've lost loved ones to suicide because I

think Matt would want us to do that.

I've always been amazed that you've been very

forthright and upfront with that.

And I do commend you and Debbie for taking that approach.

Um, the next one on our list is actually a very sobering statistic.

So it says on average, one person dies every 11 minutes by suicide,

which means on average, there could be four people that commit suicide while

we're recording the podcast today.

That's, that's a very sobering number.

Also.

The next one on the list is 50% of the people in the U S they know

someone who has died by suicide.

So, it's not like it's a small population that's affected by this.

At least half of the population knows somebody who has committed suicide.

10.5% of adults in the U S ages 18 to 25 had serious suicide thoughts in the

past year, that's a rather large number.

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and questioning youth are five times

more likely to attempt suicide.

Women are three times more likely to attempt suicide, but men are

3.5 times more likely to have a fatal outcome from suicide.

79% of global suicides occur in low and middle income countries.

Firearms accounted for almost 24,000 suicides or about

half of the total number.

In an international study, 40% of transgender adults attempted suicide

would 92% of them having attempted suicide before the age of 25.

These are just the facts that we came up with off the Dosomething.org site.

And I do want to mention they referred to some different, uh, associations

where they arrived at these numbers.

They were from the statistics from American Association of Suicidology,

, National Institute of Mental Health, from the CDC, the travel report,

WHO, and the William Fidelman Journal of Affective Disorders.

So, they gathered the data for all of those facts that we've

come up with about suicide.

So we kind of wanted to start off with a baseline.

So, we're all thinking and talking about the same thing.

And from there Marshall, the one thing I've always wondered, and

I'm not sure I ever heard a good answer on is everybody at-risk from

suicide or thoughts of suicide?

Do do everybody contemplate it at least once or twice in their lifetime?

Can it touch anybody?

Steve, that's a very good question because I'll just say

personally, I have never had any thoughts of suicide at one time, my entire life

. And because of that, it was always very difficult for me to understand why

anybody would ever contemplate that.

I always would tell my kids that if anybody was ever contemplating suicide,

I would just wonder why they just didn't go off and live in a cave.

And think about their life or do what they wanted to do and see

if they wanted to live in a cave.

And they're like living in a cave, God Bless Them, let them live in a

cave versus ending their life because so much of life is unexpected.

You want to see how things turn out and I think my philosophy of

that sort of goes back to a book I read in high school, which was

Walden Pond by Henry David Thoreau.

And he went to live by himself on Walden Pond, which was very rural rustic area

and he wrote about it and it obviously helped with his mental health and I

always just wondered why everybody, whoever considered suicide didn't do that.

After Matt's passing by suicide I knew that I would be obsessed with trying to

figure out why the suicide happen and I was going to be researching as many

different sources from as many different authoritative journals, articles,

discussions from scholars that I could possibly have to try to get some insight

into it but also try to talk to as many suicide survivors who lost loved ones

to discuss what their experience was with the loss of a loved one by suicide.

And the one thing that I would say is the one constant with

suicide is there are no constants.

By that, I mean, people make assumptions about suicide that, Oh,

they must have been so depressed.

There's research that shows that people that are severely depressed are actually

less likely to attempt suicide then if they're not depressed because they

don't have the energy that they would otherwise need to do something like this.

So that has in the academic journals, been attacked is not a hundred percent correct.

Then somebody was saying, Oh, he must have had so much difficulties

in their lives at that time.

Well, I will tell you during the period before Matt 's suicide and Matt's

suicide anniversary is next week, it'll be two years coming up next week.

The months before Matt passed away, there was a three day period where

Kate Spade who was an incredibly well loved fashion designer, apparently

and incredibly loving, funny, nice caring person died by suicide.

Within the same three day period, Anthony Bordain, who was one of the top chefs in

New York city and became a TV star on CNN.

When he did a series where he traveled around the world, ate

exotic food and talked about his incredible experiences on CNN.

Which to me sounds like the greatest job anybody could ever have any actually

was on a shoot for CNN in France, staying at this beautiful hotel where

he just finished a shoot with one of his best friends, another chef, had

dinner seemed fine and then went to his hotel room and died by suicide.

And after Kate Spade and Anthony Bordain died by suicide.

Matt actually came home because my mother was dying and she was in hospice and

I remember talking to Matt about Kate Spade, but really more, more specifically

Anthony Bordain, because he liked watching Anthony Bourdain on TV and he

just said he didn't understand it at all.

How somebody would do that, especially when everything on the outside

looks like it's going so well.

So the generalization that people make, Oh, well, they must have

had difficulties in their lives.

From the outside, looking in it's your look like Kate Spade had a wonderful life.

It looked like Anthony Bordain had a wonderful life.

And again, we can just go on further down the line.

Robin Williams, one of the great comedians of our generation.

Well loved wonderful family, man, he died by suicide and recently, there is

a story concerning a fraud line medical doctor in New York City called Dr.

Lorna Breen, who was fighting COVID-19 as a hero New York City and was having

difficulty dealing with those stressors of being a frontline medical provider

fighting this horrific pandemic.

And she went home to her family in Charlottesville, Virginia and

she unfortunately died by suicide.

So a lot of the generalizations that exist don't really hold up

when you are talking to people, who've lost loved ones to suicide.

And the one analogy that I've used since Matt's passing, but I think really

resonates and sort of explains what we're talking about when you're talking

to suicide survivors is what I describe as the iceberg analogy, everybody knows

that the Titanic was hit by an iceberg that resulted in horrific loss of life.

If you saw the movie, it was very traumatic the way the lookout saw

the tip of the iceberg and try to get the ship to turn quickly to avoid it.

And an iceberg is sort of like a ice cube in a glass that we've all seen.

The ice cube in the glass, just like the iceberg, only 10% above

the water line, which means that 90% is above is below the water line.

You could only see that 10% of all the water line.

You cannot see the 90% below the waterline.

The Titanic was not sunk by the 10% above the waterline.

It was sunk by the 90% of the iceberg they couldn't see below the water line.

And that is what I think suicide is all about.

As human beings on this planet, we only see the 10% above the water line that

people want us to see the 90% below the water line is the part that we

can't see because for whatever reason, those people don't want us to see it.

Again, I talked to Matt on a daily basis was constantly texting him.

He lived 3000 miles away, but we'd FaceTime him and my last

conversation with Matt was like all my conversation with Matt hilarious,

funny, everything's going great.

My last text with him was everything's wonderful.

He was going to have a girl come over and talk to me tomorrow.

That was the last text I got from him.

Those last conversations were no different than thousands of conversations I had with

him or thousands of text messages I had from him, except those were the last one.

So I had nothing to look at, but the 10% of the iceberg above the

water line and knew nothing about the 90% below the water line.

And that is why to answer your question, suicide doesn't discriminate and it can

and it has touched so many different people at different times where

their loved ones never saw it coming.

That is such a great analogy.

I can see why you use that, that it kind of answers all the stuff

that we want to know and we don't know cause you can't see it.

You had no idea it was there.

Let me ask you, um, so I, I know those who lost loved ones are

considered suicide survivors.

They're the ones who are left here on the surface that's the title we give to them.

Is there an all consuming need to understand why?

And if so, how do you, how do you, how do you deal with that?

Again, as we previously discussed about grief, everybody

has their own journey of grief.

It's not right.

It's not wrong.

It's just personal.

Debbie's journey of grief as a mother is different than my

journey of grief as a father.

And I will tell you that Matt knew me like a book, and I know that he

knew and I would spend the rest of my life trying to figure this out.

And I've said this many times that to me, this is like somebody took a thousand

piece jigsaw puzzle and threw it on my dining room table and said, "okay, you've

got the rest of your life to try to figure out how to put these pieces together."

It's been two years now, since Matt's passing and I would give a rust, a rough

estimate that other thousand piece jigsaw puzzle, I've been able to put maybe a

hundred of those pieces together, which means that there's 900 other pieces

that I can't figure out how they fit.

And what I knew I had to do is to try to see what I could get from

Matt to help me on this journey.

And I was able to get information from Matt on his cell phone, on his

computer that I think were breadcrumbs that he left to help me in particular,

but as I think his family and friends in general, along this journey.

And I think that it's something that I'm going to be spending the rest

of my life, trying to figure out.

But other people wouldn't want to do that.

I can tell you that Debbie, as a mother does not have the desire or

inclination to do the investigation that I have done and doing, and will

continue to do the rest of my life.

She just doesn't want to do that.

I totally understand that.

And respect that it's just a different way of dealing with suicide, just as it's

a different way of dealing with grief.

Again, it's not right.

It's not wrong.

It's just the individual journey that each suicide survivor has to go on.

I completely get that.

Um, I know Jordan dying from the Amoeba Naegleria Fowleri,

I'll read anything about it.

Anything that I didn't know about it, Shelly can take it or leave it.

She's like, well, sum it up.

What are the facts?

And she can live with that.

Me, I've got to dig into it.

So I completely get that, that take on it.

So from what you've said so far, suicide.

First of all, it doesn't discriminate.

It can hit anybody.

It doesn't have to be those downtrodden.

It could be what we would consider superstars.

Robin Williams is one of the funniest guys I ever, ever watched.

And yet,few, we even had any inkling that it was coming.

So any suicide attempt should be treated seriously and not lightly, correct?

Absolutely!

Because again, it is so insidious because it's not the outside looking in.

That is the key factor.

It's the inside looking out again.

I've done some more.

research, as I know you have also since Matt's passing and looking at some of

these people that have died by suicide, since Matt passed, my jaw dropped.

You think that I would be not surprised because I've experienced it firsthand,

but I am, there was a case that really affected me like Alan Krueger served

as a chairman of president Obama's council of economic advisor advisors.

He was not only an economic professor at Princeton university.

He was a key player in developing the economic plan that prevented

the great recession of 2008 from turning into a worldwide depression.

And I read an article about his suicide.

That if I remember correctly, it was written by somebody that

actually interviewed him on TV for his economic expertise.

And they said he was the kindest, gentlest, nicest, warmest person

that you could ever imagine.

And the person ended by basically stating this was the least likely person I would

ever imagine they would die by suicide.

But I will tell you, I've heard that again and again and again

and again, from suicide survivors.

We were actually in New York city shortly after Anthony Bourdain died.

And I was able to go to a restaurant where Anthony Bordain knew the owner

and I asked the owner about his relationship with Anthony Bordain.

They told me the same thing that this person talked about Krueger, Alan Krueger.

Anthony Bordain was this incredibly brilliant, funny, kind, generous,

wonderful person who on the outside looking in was the least likely

person to ever die by suicide.

But again, pick your analogy.

It's not the outside looking in, it's the inside looking out.

It's not the 10% above the waterline.

It's the 90% below the water line that counts.

That's why suicide is so insidious.

And that is why suicide survivors like me.

Who do want to take this journey to try to get as much information as possible.

We'll be dealing with this for the rest of our lives, because

it's so darn complicated.

Thank you for that, that story about the trip to New York city and

talking to somebody that actually knew Anthony Bordain, just for our listeners.

I think we should go ahead and mentioned the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

one more time if you're having any issues or anyone that you'd know are, make

sure they call +1 800-273-8255 for help.

Because as we've said, every attempt should be not treated lightly.

And we just want to make sure that everybody has that number.

So Marshall, obviously as a suicide survivor, you and

Debbie have met other people.

I read one of the facts, uh, from the, um, the website that we had pulled

the statistics Dosomething.Org and it actually caught me off guard because

they estimate that each suicide leaves behind six or more suicide survivors.

And when you think about it, that's, it's actually probably quite more than six

per, but even at six suicide survivors left behind that's 2.5 million people

every year that are affected by this and it very well could go much higher.

Cause we're not even counting friends or it's, that's probably

just from a family perspective.

Yes, the ripple effects of suicide, it's much greater than

throwing a pebble into a pond and seeing the ripples go out, it's like throwing

a Sherman Tank into a lake because it's just not going to be little calm ripples.

It's going to be huge waves of grief, effecting so many people.

I will tell you that the two years since Matt's passed, I am to this

day, still amazed how many people have been affected by Matt's passing

because they were affected by his life.

The morning of Matt's funeral, I was contacted by some of his friends

in California that told me that they were going to have a Memorial

servic format in the San Diego area.

And the one problem that they had was trying to get a venue big

enough, because they had so many people there wanted to give a eulogy

about their relationship with Matt.

And we got a videotape of the ceremony and there was people there that I

never personally met and never heard Matt talk about who were so touched by

Matt's life that it amazed me I and I love when somebody will call me up or

contact me or text me and tell me a Matt's story that I never knew about.

And it makes you realize, again, it's not the pebble in the pond with the

little circles coming out of ripples, how it affects people left behind.

It is a humongous innumerable number of waves that go farther

than you could ever imagine.

I can picture that in my mind, seeing it going in and they just

crisscross and they're the intersect and it it's, it affects so many.

Any type of loss can be overwhelming, especially when it's quick and unexpected.

Now you lost your mother just a couple of days, either before

or right after Matt's passing.

How is the, the shock and the grief as a suicide survivor different then

another loss?Is it more intense?

Is there other things that come with it that aren't always

with some of the other losses?

Steve, that's an interesting point and you and I

just talked to Brian the prior episode and Brian was so brave to

tell us about the passing of his daughter from colon cancer that

although she was incredibly heroic in this fight, it eventually resulted in

her passing and after my sister obviously was very close with Matt heard that

episode she asked me which would be more difficult seeing a child put up this

heroic fight that ultimately results in their passing over an extended period

of time of months or the initial shock of a completely unexpected passing.

And I couldn't answer that question.

I can just tell you that to this day, intellectually, I know that Matt passed

away almost two years ago, but emotionally I still don't feel the finality of it

because he lived through a thousand miles away and we'd seen him a few times a

year and we'd text and talk every day, but it's not like he was five years old

in our house every day where we saw him for breakfast, saw him for lunch, saw him

for dinner, would play music at night and have a day filled with contact because

he was an adult, he was 32 years old.

So we were empty-nesters.

So the way I feel about Matt's passing is sort of the way I

feel about my parents passing.

My father passed away.

September 29th, 2012.

It was almost eight years ago.

I just feel like I haven't seen my dad for a while.

I still think about him every day.

He still makes me laugh every day.

So it's just a different sense that I know he's gone also intellectually, but

emotionally, I still feel connection with him the same with my mother who

passed away two days after Matt did.

So, the shock of the suicide is something that I think he will never forget.

But you realize that it's not how somebody died that counts.

It's how somebody lived.

And Matt made the most of his time on this planet.

And that is the tribute that he gave to us as those who were

lucky enough to know and love him.

And that is the memory of the good work that he did while he was on this

planet that I feel is now my duty to continue through my time on this planet.

Thank you for that answer.

Um, I'm not sure I actually knew the answer to that one.

So as we've all started our journey, which we've already said,

every journey is different, men and women grief differently.

So even though a husband and wife have lost the same person in a child,

the way they grieve is different.

As a reference to suicide, we all know the struggle of our journey

of grief is very difficult.

There's nothing.

In fact, I think it's the hardest thing I've ever attempted to do in my life.

And I'll say right now, I'm not over it.

Jordan, on November, the loss of Jordan, we still have tough

days and tough weeks even now.

And it's been almost six years.

Has.

Has been six years, July 2nd was the sixth anniversary of his passing.

Is there in this struggle with the loss by suicid, is there anything

different in that grief journey that maybe I haven't had to, to

try and deal with or understand?

Again, I think it depends on the individuals'

journey that they go through.

I think there can be issues of PTSD, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

that suici..Suicide survivors can go through cause it's such a

shock that hits so many people.

Again, I've talked to many, many, many suicide survivors and they've

been wonderful being very open about their experience and the vast majority

of people that have been willing to talk to me have mentioned that they

never ever thought this would happen.

They never saw this on the radar screen.

And they know that if they could have done something, they would have,

they didn't because they couldn't.

And that has been told to me so many times by different survivors, those

exact words, and I think as a suicide survivor, I can, everybody's going to

be on their own journey and you have to take that journey on your own to

protect yourself, but also to live your life as a tribute to a lost loved one.

Because again, it's not how they died.

It's how they lived.

And so many of the suicide survivors I've talked to have found some peace

and contentment understanding the importance of remembering how they lived.

And I think that greatly helps them with their journey of grief.

But also, hopefully to avoid any issues they might have with PTSD or other issues

that could be case specific to suicide survivors, which would not be healthy

for them to deal with without some help.

I think that's an interesting comment that you made that

they realized they couldn't have made a difference and they realized and I

know that's probably a question, cause I know I've lived with that one myself

with what we went through with Jordan.

So thank you for sharing that.

I think that's an important point.

So as we mentioned before, this is a very deep and involved, uh, subject and there's

a lot of different things to cover and we're gonna break it into a few different

episodes over the next couple months.

And I think what we're going to try and do is wrap up this first

episode with one last topic.

I've got it here suicide as far as suicide survivors are concerned is that just the

subject or the name of suicide often comes with certainly in the past, it has always

come with a stigma or shame or resulted in isolation afterwards for the survivors.

It's just one way that I think society used to, to

consider suicide or look at it.

And the family had to live with that after.

Do you agree with it?

Yes.

I think that the stigma of suicide is something that historically has been

obviously a big, big, big mistake because suicide is nothing new.

You go back look at history the Greeks, the Romans taking Hemlock.

As you know, we went to Israel last year and we went to Masada, which

was basically a mass suicide where the Jews of Massada decided to take

their own lives as opposed to becoming slaves to the Roman oppressors.

So suicide is nothing new and I think you have to again,

realize that society changes.

Again, looking at history.

Sometimes you look at what man's inhumanity to man has consisted of

with slavery and wars and oppression.

And you know, you look through Spanish Inquisition, The Crusades, The Holocaust.

It's just a lot of death and destruction.

So hopefully as humans, we are progressing where a lot of those atrocities

will be less than in the future.

But if you look at current events, there are still atrocities that

happen throughout the world, still oppression and still examples

of man, man's inhumanity to man.

But I do believe optimistically that we are making progress and with that,

I think that is hopefully going to happen with suicide because I think

people are realizing that, as I said before, it's not how you die.

It's how you live.

And I've said this many times to many suicides surviors who told me the exact

same thing that their loved ones didn't choose suicide, suicide chose them.

And it's a situation where I believe that Matt suicide was due to a brain

disease that is no different than other fatal brain diseases, such as there's

something called a Glioblastoma brain tumor that took the life of Senator

John McCain , took the life of Senator Ted Kennedy and the medical technology

to date does not have an effective cure for Glioblastoma brain tumor.

You get that diagnosis, you have a high propensity of death.

And I think suicide is no different than a Gioblastoma brain tumor because

it's just another brain disease that medical technology does not have an

effective treatment or an answer to cure.

I

interesting.

I wanted to, uh, to share with everybody when I was born, I was

actually named after my dad's father.

I was, I dunno, it was like the fifth or sixth grandchild, but

I got to be named after him.

It wasn't until I turned 21 or 22.

That I found out from talking with one of my cousins that my

grandfather, Steven, who I was named after had committed suicide.

It was like late forties, early fifties.

And I didn't even know.

And, I remember feeling in shock when when they told me and they

were like, Oh, you didn't know that?

It's like, no, my dad never said a word, but never, my mom never did.

But I do remember we used to go to the cemetery all the time to put flowers on

my grandfather and grandmother's grave.

And we drive 20 miles into the town where their grave site was.

And I always remember my grandmother was over next to a lot of these other graves.

Yet, my grandfather's grave was not next to hers.

It was across the drive in the cemetery and it was actually off by itself

by one of the maintenance buildings and not far beyond, it was a pile of

trash where they threw out all the old flowers and trees and bushes.

And I always ask how come they never had the two graves together and mom

and dad never said, but I found out afterwards that they're not together

because suicide back then was actually considered a very bad sin and he wasn't

allowed to be buried next to her.

And they actually put his grave on the other side of the drive in the

cemetery because he died by suicide.

So I actually learned of that part way through my life.

I didn't have any idea, but, um, it just shows that so many

families can be effected by it.

Steve.

That's very interesting because I will tell you that, um, to this one last

story, I had a suicide survivor who told me about her father's passing and

I've read his obituary and it listed cause of death from a heart condition.

And I asked her about that and it was farther enough, farther enough out

where she actually made a joke about it.

She goes, yes.

My family wanted to list my father's death as a heart condition

because we all know when you die by suicide, your heart will stop.

And she sort of laughed, because she knew that it was just what the family

wanted to do to make the obituary less painful or more socially acceptable.

But it wasn't the truth because obviously you can say every cause of death is.

A heart event, cardiac event.

Why?

Because when your heart stops for long enough for all gonna pass away.

So I think what your story illustrates is that what I was trying to, the

point I was trying to make is that I've been amazed, how people that I've

dealt with in the suicide survivor community have been very, um, proactive

talking about how their loved one's lived in how their loved ones died.

You know, like I've said many times today, it's not how they

died, it's how they lived.

But it is important to talk about when somebody does die by suicide,

because you can see what has happened with these statistics.

We went over the first part of this show.

It is an epidemic that is getting worse, and this is not something we can sweep

under the rug, not talk about and just hope that it's going to get better.

Cause it won't, it's getting worse.

And as a suicide survivor, the rest of my life is going to be

dealt with trying to do whatever we can do for the good of society.

To prevent this from happening to others.

Cause we're losing the best and the brightest to death by suicide.

And I know Matt would want me and my family to do everything humanly possible

to avoid this epidemic from hitting other people's and other families.

And I think that is a societal change for the better that I see happening.

So thank you for sharing your family's experience dealing with

suicide, and hopefully this will help other families in the future.

Realizing this is something that I think we can, and we should talk about

openly to help defeat this epidemic.

Marshall.

I want to thank you for your insight, your knowledge about this topic, your

stories, and, um, everything that you're doing in in Matt's name going forward.

I think we'd like to bring today's episode to a close we're, we're going

to have to take several other episodes to try and get through this topic.

It's a rather lengthy one it's more involved.

So we hope you enjoyed today's episode.

Got a little better understanding of.

Suicide in general and what we're all facing as a society today, we'd

like to invite you to check out our webpag at www.Hopethroughgrief.com,

hopethrugrief.com and also Hopethrugrief on our Facebook page.

You'll find many of our sessions there and a link to, to the podcast

that is Hopethrugrief on Facebook.

Thank you for joining us today and stay tuned for next week's episode.

Thanks for joining us.

Hope you have a great.

Thank you for joining us on hope through grief with your cohost

Marshall Adler and Steve Smelski.

We hope our episode today was helpful and informative

since we are not medical or mental health professionals, we cannot

and will not provide any medical, psychological, or mental health advice.

Therefore, if you or anyone you know requires medical or mental health

treatment, please contact a medical or mental health professional immediately.