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Rachel, hello and welcome to teenagers untangled the audio hug for parents going through the tween and teen years. I'm Rachel Richards parenting coach, journalist, mother of two teenagers and two bonus daughters. Now, when we have a physical trauma, it's relatively easy for people to identify our pain, but mental illness can be just as lethal, anxiety, depression, OCD, all sorts of issues can lead people to feel completely trapped in a place where ending their life can seem like the only way out of the pain. And one of the problems is that the tunnel vision it creates makes it really difficult for the suicidal to imagine the consequences for the people left behind, they may even believe others will be better off without them. I've been wanting to cover this topic ever since a boy in my daughter's year group died by suicide just before they all took their GCSE exams, which are really hard. I haven't really mentioned it on the podcast because it's a highly sensitive topic, and since then, Bernadette contacted me to say a boy in her son's year group went down the same path this time he was in the a level year group.
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She suggested it would be a helpful topic to cover, and she's right. So when I saw that Dr Steven cariskus shared details of an award winning documentary called talking out loud teens and suicide lost I zoned it on him. He's an educator, an emotion scientist and an activist for suicide prevention. After the loss of his partner, David to suicide in 2009 Stephen earned a PhD in Psychology with a focus on positive psychological approaches to suicidal ideation, and now facilitates support groups for teens and others who've lost someone to suicide.
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Welcome to the podcast. Stephen, thank
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you. Rachel, thanks for having me. Well, so happy to
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have you here.
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I'd like to start by talking about some of the factors that lead people to suicide. What because you run all these groups, you see a lot of what's going on. What do you think are the key differences between individuals, maybe who've had suicidal thoughts and those who actually make an attempt?
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Yeah, thank you for that question. I think I want to, before I dive in to answer that, I just want to briefly share that some of the you know, the work comes at two different directions that I do, and what I just want to kind of give a framework to that is that we're talking about, there's suicide prevention and then, which is directly helping individuals who are potentially ideating and things like that.
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And the very proactive work, and some of the other work with the documentary is working with individuals who've had a loss to someone to suicide. And it's very connected, of course, right? And knowing also that people that have had a loss can be more susceptible to thinking about suicide or ideating. So the work is very connected and a little bit different in the way that I approach it. So just wanted to clarify that, in that the work is very similar, but also it's a little little bit different pathways. So coming back to your question, though, I think what I lean into a lot is understanding the research of it, and understand what you just talked about a bit in your introduction, is that there becomes this break in and in kind of understanding about the logical pieces of of our existence in a way and and the research will talk about some theories of suicide. There's a there's a couple different theories of suicide, why? And hear that they're theories, right? So we, even the people who've done work in it for decades, are still theorizing, because it is a very confusing and challenging thing to talk about into research, right? So some of the theories, though, we'll talk about feelings of isolation, feeling like they're a burden. Are pieces and loneliness, right? And the feeling of a burden is one that until I had my loss, I was like, gosh, I didn't understand what that mean. And feeling a burden.
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So the language is perceived burdensomeness. So it isn't necessarily that that myself, that I thought my partner was a burden. It's what he thought. So a lot of this is in their thinking, not in our thinking.
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And the last one is, is this ability for self so this ability for self harm is that critical piece, again, in the theories, in the theories of it that are the challenge to the continued research. And there's, there's still, I mean, many, many people work on this. So when we do this work, sometimes we're floating in theory a bit, and at the same time, we can still do the work, right? We can still deep dive into it. And just to one more reflection around that, is when you enter, when you enter this together, is that talking about the word like it's a scary thing or it's a worrisome thing to talk about, it is so validating that also is like it is, and we can do this work, right? So it's, it's, it's, it's even for me now, after the years of doing this work, I had my moments of like, oh gosh, this is really hard, and the work is really important. I think you've
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hit the nail on the head. And I think that's one of the things that parents and people who are trying to support. Or kids or other people who either have suicide ideation or who are supporting somebody who's having to deal with a fallout from it, you know, such as my daughter and these other kids. It's such a difficult topic that often we shut down and we don't really want to talk about it, because we think, Well, I'm going to get it wrong, and then I'm going to make it worse. Are there so? So let's say taking the scenario with my daughter when this, this happened in her year group. So it wasn't a really close friend, it was a boy who she knew. How would a parent go about trying to help her support a child who'd who'd seen this, because it really rocks their boat, you know, they suddenly say, Wait, so, so they were, they were there, and now they're not there. And I don't understand, how did we not spot this? What, you know, yeah, and, you
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know, I think that's, there's a couple of things there, of course, where, because it's so complex, as you as as part of the reason we don't enter these conversations, because around suicide and around loss, even around grief, is because there's so much complexity, and it can be a hard thing to talk about, but I I think the entry point is a couple of places. Is first around the specific grief and loss work that is around suicide loss, because there's there's feelings that arise that don't typically arise in other types of losses. What I mean by that things like guilt, things like shame, things like the feeling of, I can't talk about this person because of the stigma all and even sometimes, people will talk about, I'm so mad at this person and the person that I lost, and that's a confusing feeling, because I love them.
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How can I be mad at them? Right?
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So all those feelings can be really challenging, complicated to work on, and those are the unique places, or the specific places to really do the deep work around. So it does need, I think a loss does loss of suicide does need some therapeutic support. Many, many times, right? And I'm not, I, you know, of course, that's a family decision and a parental decision and so on. But I think there's deep work to be done around the traumatic impact of it, especially the connection that the teen or the other people have to the loss. The other piece about it that is really important, the research will talk about this a lot too, is that piece is incredibly important, as it always is in loss and grief and so on, especially around suicide, but also connection, connection to others. Because the individuals who have had a loss of suicide, it's almost universal, will say, I feel really alone in this. I feel really and it's not necessary. No one can fix it, right? No one can fix it, but we can connect. And connection also doesn't mean talking. Connection means, I think it means listening, right? So it really goes back to those healthy skills that we use in connecting with people, and especially our teens, about what do they need?
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They want their autonomy to go through this process, but they know it's really hard, and they need their parents, right?
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That's all you know. What do you do with that? Well, listening is one thing you can do, and I when I say listen, I really mean deep, empathetic listening, like just receiving, letting them talk it through, validating their feelings, hearing that I'm mad, I'm confused, and not saying, Well, you don't need to be, but they are. They are feeling that right. So validating, and then, like, processing with them about what they need. So asking, you know, really two questions I ask all the time are, how are you feeling, and what do you need?
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And those are, rather than all these other things, like, we should do this. We should do this backing up a bit, because, as I just said, and you know this, and all the work you do, they're still teens. They're teens that are grieving, so all those other things that sometimes are challenging with parents or are educators around, they want this autonomy, but they need my help, right? And they and sometimes they need space on their own. So really, I think listening comes is at the root of a lot of this and connection. And when I again emphasizing connection, is connection to others who have had a loss to suicide. So that's why sometimes these teen groups or this camp that I also, I also run a camp up in Maine called Camp kita. That is a camp specifically for young people who've had a loss of suicide, and they are able to come together and they can talk freely and openly about it when a lot of other venues they can't, yeah,
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I can imagine that's really helpful. I because I from, from what I can see. I mean, I I've done an episode on grief generally, again, because I have a friend who who died from cancer, and that that it has its own issues. And then on top of that, with suicide, there is that there are other complex emotions that can come up. One of the things that I was curious about because you're saying, you know, be really empathetic.
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What's really tricky often with teens is they don't keep. Know what they're feeling, they really struggle to sort of explain it. And I wonder whether Is there a sort of a group of work or things that we can be using that would be the obvious things that they might be experiencing, like you mentioned, that they might be angry, or they might you know, are there, are there things that you when you're you're when you're running your groups, that you would tend to lean on and say, Could you be feeling good?
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You
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know, I think what I do is I really try to listen and hear, what are the gifts of this young person? And what I mean by that is that, you know, in education, a lot of times we talk about strength based approach, and that's what I do in my grief support also.
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So what I'm sharing there is the fact that sometimes they will not, they'll go, I don't know, right? Or I don't know what I'm feeling. I don't know I'm okay, right? And you're like, wait a minute, you've lost a friend, right? I want to, I know there's probably more there. So thinking about, if you know a child really well, it's thinking about, what are their gifts, and where are they showing where they can't verbally say. Where are they showing their emotions other ways, in their journaling, in their art, at sports, in other places. Are, if they have a job, are they? Are they? Are they asking for extra hours because they they want to get their mind off it, or are they not going to work? Right? So where are the other places? I think you know, you know if they're a theater if they're a theater kid and they decide they're gonna try out for the play or not try out for the play this year. How is that? What is happening for them in that dynamic? So where are they exploring their emotions, maybe not verbally, but in other ways.
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And so for me, sometimes in groups, I may not know the young people as well as like if they were my own child or my nephew or something. But what I tend to dig into right at the beginning is tell me what you who you are, a bit and they'll say, I play the guitar, I write music or and then what I as I'm going through, I say, I don't know how I'm feeling. I said, Have you ever written any lyrics around how you're feeling? And all of a sudden you'll see a kid's eyes light up a bit like because I've just connected with what their gift is, what they enjoy, and they may be exploring it there.
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That's amazing.
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I love that. I love that kind of and that's something generally as parents, is a skill for us to develop anyway, just noticing what they but I wonder some kids I've noticed and people who are struggling will use a different method of coping, which is scrolling on their phone, or, you know, some other means of actually. Because sometimes, you know, if my daughter feels unhappy about anything, really, and I see her stuck on her phone, I'll often say it used to be stuck, darling, you know what? And she has told to me, told me before, that when she is stuck, it's normally, because it's there's something she's trying to get
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away from.
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Yes, and I think that you know some of that, again, is some of that is the I want, I don't say proactive work, but it's some of this is the work that schools are doing, our parents are doing that are that's separate from the struggle they're having, right? That anyone's having, whether it's grief and and and loss to suicide. And what I mean by that is we want to set young people up for success all the time, but it's also about how, how we teach them all the time to navigate their emotions, to process their emotions, to validate their emotions, to acknowledge their emotion, all those pieces that we want to open them up to so that that. So then when they do have a crisis, when they do have a moment, they're accessible to that skill, right? And so again, thinking about how they do that.
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If I know my if I know a child really well, and I can, you know, and I know that they run, or they like going along watch, or they listen to great music, right? And I see them stuck, then I may suggest that, because I already have witnessed that in them, or I've had them document that, here's what I like to do when I'm stuck, or I have a big feeling, or I'm mad and and actually exploring different feelings when I'm mad. I like to do this when I'm mad. I like to go on a run when I'm sad. I like to listen to music or watch funny YouTube videos, right? So documenting those different in different feelings, your reaction is different. So then when they're when they're stuck, and if they're stuck in a grief place, it can be, it can be. So I'm really stuck because I'm sad. I'm scrolling on my phone.
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I can't get out of it. Well, what was something that you shared with me, like, three weeks ago that you said you like to do that helps you when you're sad. And like, I like listen to sad songs because it makes me cry, and then I work my way through it. I'm like, perfect time to do it. So it's cueing them, because when you're stuck, you can't find it. It's cueing them and being really building that relationship with a young person to where they receive that cueing, right? Where they receive it and they hear it right? Yeah.
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So that's amazing. I love that. It's so funny because my daughter went through a heartbreak recently, and so I bought her a very, very sad book, so then she could have a good old and she said, I can't wait to get into it, because I'd heard that. It's really, really, really sad, beautifully written, really sad. Definitely, her wheelhouse. And my kids turn to me and say, Mom, you're really grumpy. I think you need to go for a ride. And they know that's the thing. They'll just wipe away the cobwebs and I'll get, you know, I'll be able to cope with life straight after that.
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So we can hold this ourselves, can't we? If we demonstrate to them that this helps me, then it makes it easier for them to say,
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right? Right?
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And I, when I talk to teens, and I work with teens and support them, whether it's the camp or these groups, I will ask that, like, what are you doing with these emotions? So they'll say, we'll talk about our different emotions. What are you doing with sad? What are you doing with Matt? What are you doing with confusion? And they will share, and because they're still working on it, I die. I write those things down, and then I can be a support, like, kind of mentoring them through it, right? So if they forget, I can help them a bit. I'm not going to do it for them. I can't fix their sad. I can't fix their man, but I can. I can reinforce that it's okay to feel these feelings and sad I say out loud all the time, like when I'm sad about my and specifically around my laws. I have a playlist. I have a playlist I listen to, and it's not all sad songs. It's songs that remind me of the person. So it actually takes me into my grief, because it's you need to go through it to get to the other side of it. And again, like thinking about I've had young people that say, you know, I just get so mad. I'm like, what do you do with that? They say they run, or they I've had young people say I want to break something. And I'm like, Okay, so right, I want to do that. And I said, Well, how can we do that in a healthy way? I understand the desire, but we don't want you to go breaking doors or whatever you're going to do, but what can you do in a healthy way? And all of a sudden, you know, and I'm not telling them what to do. I'll watch a young person grab a random piece of paper on the on the camera, like on and they just crunch it up until the ball of paper so small. And I'm like, how did that feel? That felt great.
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Well, that sounds like a healthy choice, right, to just crunch up some paper, what? What do you need? And then part of this process, which is not really a challenge, it's just it makes it we're all individuals. I just don't want to qualify that too much. We're all individuals that are own human processing the way we we manage our feelings. So a lot of this has to be. We can look at it broadly, but then it has to be individualized and contextualized to their to who they are as a as a young person, which makes the work, obviously, not It's not challenging, because it's actually very fulfilling, but it makes it very a lot. There's a lot of layers to it. I guess I should say, yeah.
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And I imagine the impact on somebody of having a parent die by suicide is going to feel fundamentally different to having a friend in that situation. One
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of the things that I talk a lot with young people about, and there's a, there's a there's a key piece that I want to share also around this, is that, you know, there's this fact of a suicide loss that we don't always openly talk about because we're dealing with the grief, but there's this piece during the grief process where you get to the fact that this changed me, and it actually is changing a piece of my identity. For an example, if you were, if you were a young person, you had one sibling, and that sibling died by suicide.
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You know, I have young people say, Am I an only child? Now, what does this mean? How do I re How do I re write my identity?
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And so we talk a lot about that.
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Or if you now have lost a parent, you know, am I? You know, what does that mean for me and also, you not only lost this human that's your parent, but you've lost the figure of who they are in your life. So young people talk a lot about, I had a young person not too long ago say, you know, I lost my mother, who's this human that I loved and was was, you know, complicating, complex, all those languages we use. And she could, and this young person could say that. But I also lost the mother or the bride. I also lost my grandmother to my children, right? So all those things are part of the expiration. And I think one key item that is is because all that is really it feels really sad and really hard, and it is, I'm not going to lessen that. And when working with teens and supporting teens.
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What we are doing is we want to get in there in a healthy way and do this work, because it's different than they're developmentally and you know, this in a different place than I had my loss when I was in my 30s, and it uprooted my life as a young person. It's uprooting their life, and they're still forming their identity. My identity was already formed. I had to rewrite my identity.
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They're still writing their identity. So how can we help them write their identity? By doing healthy grief work, healthy resiliency work. I know you overuse that word a lot, healthy, strong processing and.
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And strong connections to people. How can we help them to make this a piece of their identity that becomes this, maybe even without over dramatizing, maybe this purpose piece to them. I've had young people who've changed their direction. I you know, I thought I was going to go to medical school, but now I want to be a poet, right? Because my my brother wrote poetry, or I had a young person share that they they never played the cross, and they lost their they lost a sibling, and now they're playing the cross, right? So those, those seem like not really big identity shifts, but they are a bit right. They're they're changing their their thinking of it. So I don't want anyone in the world to ever have to go through a loss like this. It's incredibly hard. And if we do, let's do it in the most healthy way we can and grief in that most healthy way, and help teams to really form a strong identity around it, where they can talk about it, where they can manage it and then it, you know, it's further grief. They're going to have skills, because we all are going to face, we're all going to face, we're all going to face grief in our life. So, yeah,
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this is just No, no. I think that's a brilliant, brilliant message.
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And one thing I'm curious about is, if you have experienced somebody close dying by suicide, what? I don't know what the research is like, but to what extent does it increase the chances? So let's say your father died by suicide, or you know a close friend. What are the what is the likelihood that you're going to Yeah, that option. It's a really
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important question, and I think it's something that I'm glad you brought it up, because it's something I want to make sure that we're not kind of passing by in this conversation. And my positive I don't have the exact numbers here, but I can tell tell you, is what some of the research, and I can share some of the numbers for any other information you're going to share, but I do. But the thing is, is that there are, there's a lot of research to show, just like other things in our system, that there's genetic predispositions and things like depression and things like that, right? So one thing that we know is that without healthy support systems, is that people are more predisposed to thinking about suicide and so on after they've had a loss, right? So we know that, we know that that's happening, which is why the work of diving in and right away doing suicide prevention, which is why the grief work is prevention work, right? We're getting in there we're talking about, you know, it's not necessarily, what did you miss in your person, but what are we seeing in you, right? And so we want to get into that deep work, which is why it's really important. I mentioned earlier, the clinical, therapeutic work, the connection work, the building, building up relationships and things like that, is really critically important. And there's a lot of fantastic best practices and resources out there that I think, as an example, every school should have the information that's after a suicide, documentation that has been built by the American Foundation of suicide in New York. There's, I know there's other documentation there have that because it's giving very specific, very detailed support around this type of a loss, because you do need to do things different from another type of a loss, because you want to make sure that what you're doing in a school as an example, is that you're not elevating the loss.
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You want to remember the person, but not elevating the loss to a place where others who are confused or struggling with their own mental health struggles are not seeing it as something like, gosh, I want to be elevated in that way, also, right? So we want to make sure, which is why, the last couple years, I'm sure you've seen this in your work, or just being a part of our of society, is that the way it's talked about in the media? There's very specific and very detailed ways that the media talks about it now, even about the language we use a loss to suicide, right? And understanding that it's a mental health struggle, all these pieces are really important. So the other piece I'll share about that is part of this is awareness. So if you know, if, as an example, my father passed away a couple years ago from cancer. Cancer is a piece of my family. So I have a higher awareness of what I need to do, and my sisters and all of us need to do to take care of ourselves and to be aware of some of the things that are there. And so there's a piece of this that you learn from having connected to certain types of losses, right? It's very it's the same thing with suicide, is that if this is a part of your of your world, or if depression is in there other other things that this is a part of your family dynamic, then know that and and part of that is why we want to work on stigma and. Is we want to know that. We want you to know that this is, this is true, you know. Or sometimes we hide these things so that we can keep the awareness up, so we can give building the care proactively, so that we can talk about it openly, so that when you're struggling, you know who your helpers are, right, rather than hiding it. And then the then the struggle repeats. So in the same way that a lot of other of our physical diseases and so on, and mental mental struggles are part genetically, a part of us, we want to make this becomes a part of our dynamic in our and our family unit. And so that's why some of the work, working with teens about health, trying to talk about their feelings and talking about this in a healthy way. I hope what it provides for them is awareness about those moments where they may struggle and how they may reach out in a different way, or how the people around them know that, gosh, they're they, maybe they're a little more susceptible, and I'm going to keep a little bit bigger eye or bigger heaters on that, right? So that's
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yes, because I think, I think people in, you know, living through that sort of situation, whether anything terrible has happened yet, or can be incredibly isolating, incredibly stressful. Are they just off the bat? I mean, are there? Let's say you have people in crisis. Do it? Are there other thing, are the pathways, other than drugs, for example, for somebody who's going through a crisis of, you know, depression, or anything like that, you know? Are there other things that you've come across that people can be using to, yeah,
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you know, and I think that that's kind of the nature of it. And with any sort of grief in general, or any sort of traumatic experience in our lives, we look for things to kind of soothe our wounds and and sometimes, of course, that's things that are not as healthy.
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Um, what I try to do with young people again, is I, is I really listen for what their gifts are, and I'm really listening for, like, if they share, I like to play the guitar, and I hear they're not playing the guitar, like I've not even played it in three days, or whatever else.
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And, and sometimes, you know, teens are very open with me, because I, you know, I went out drinking with my friends, and I'm like, you know, how does the guitar make you feel right and, and I know it's probably really hard to play right now because of your loss, and is maybe a connection to your sibling or whatever. But how does that make you feel? And so we and this team may say, you know, gosh, it takes me out of things. It makes me feel, you know, above it all, and I'm creating music, and I really enjoy it, and sometimes I'm sad, sometimes I'm happy doing it, and I say, you know, what is, what does that alcohol make you feel? And they may say, numb. And I said, and I said, what? You know, what? Which one of those feelings do you do you want more of? And they may say numb. And we may talk about that and and I may validate that. I understand that, because when you have a loss to suicide, you may have 30 feelings you're feeling at the same time, and numb is much easier. So I get it, I get it. And let's start working on choosing one of these other feelings, like I feel content playing my guitar, and so it's just helping them to see that, and again, not talking too much through that, because I don't, you don't want to over talk. You know this with a teen, it's not about it's not about lecturing them. It's by giving them the space to hear it, receive it, and then you come back to it like so what happened this next week? Well, I did play my card guitar two more times.
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There's a language that teens gave me in my support, or especially around grief, that teens I had a teen, like, five years ago say to me, you know, this is really hard, and sometimes I make really bad decisions, and I can still feed my cat. And I was like, wow.
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Okay, so can we focus on your cat? Right? And so, yeah, right.
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We focus on your cat. What do you tell me more about this cat?
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And all sudden, you know, talking about the cat and everything else like that. And how lovely is that, though, right? It's hard, and I can do something so teens, for whatever reason, I kind of have that back of my mind if I and I don't want to overuse it, but teens will say that. They'll use that. And statement like, Man, I'm really frustrated right now. I'm really mad, and I could, I could get to school tomorrow. I'm like, oh gosh. So it's yeah, yes,
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I Yeah. I had a really interesting insight when I was looking into self harm.
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And there was a wonderful woman who had been through it all herself, young woman, and she said that what she used to do was, when she was in a crisis situation, she would focus on do the next good thing, just get through this and just focus on one small thing that makes me feel purposeful, or, you know, happy or not miserable, and that that got,
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I think that's a really key piece to that too, is the one small thing. Okay, you know? Because I think a lot of people will say, you know, tomorrow to feel better, I'm going to get up and do and meditate early for 30 minutes, and then the next day they don't, they're like, Oh, the day is all kind of right? Or kids will say a lot of times, you know, I I want to, you know, I want to get an A. You know, I'm study, I'm really grieving and everything else like that. So my grades, I want to get an A on this test. And I'm like, okay, and they'll say, I have a goal to get an A in this test. I said, Well, can we use the language of intentions? You intend to get a on this test?
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Because a goal, yes, we want to have goals in life, but when we're really struggling, a goal can really feel debilitating if we don't achieve it. So I said, Let's intend to get an A. Yeah, and then if you don't, it's not going to knock you down 300 pegs. It may knock you down one or two, and you can go, Well, I intended to, and I'm still grieving, and I'm still sad, and I'm but I'm also but I got a B and I and I was getting a D, right? So it's about perspective in that. And so sometimes I had a young person once share with me that they they had this want to be able to meditate with a candle. And I'm like, Well, that sounds lovely, right? To meditate with a candle. And I said, what? You know, What's your intention there? And they said, Well, this week I'm going to buy a candle. Like, okay, and then we came back next week, I said, How did that go? I bought a candle. And I said, Well, did you light it and meditate?
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They're like, No, I just bought a candle. That's that was my intention. And like, and then the next week, well, I lit it, I lit the candle, and the next week, I meditated, right? So it can be small steps, and those feel when you're grieving. A small step can feel like the biggest leap you've ever taken, because you're so get mired.
00:31:46.720 --> 00:31:56.500
It's like you're in the mud and someone saying, Well, you need to be over here in school for eight hours, six hours a day, or whatever, and doing your sports.
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But I'm in the mud, so I just want to get get my hands out of the mud. Okay, that's one step, and I want to get my body out of the mud, and then I want to take a shot, right? So it's small steps that I think are really important that you reference, yeah,
00:32:09.539 --> 00:32:39.259
yeah. I mean, David Jacob says a similar sort of thing in 10 to 25 his book about motivating kids. And he he talks about how, you know, he had a student who had a bereavement, and he just made sure that the expectation that he didn't just give them all the time off because they need something. So he had expectations in place, but they weren't super high, and he gave them the extra support. And I think it's really important to rather than just going, Oh, you don't have to do anything, giving them something that they can actually do and cling on to, yes,
00:32:39.259 --> 00:32:43.480
and I love that you brought David Yeager, because that I've read the book.
00:32:40.779 --> 00:33:43.059
I enjoy the book much, and I it's it, and it affirmed a lot of the work I've done over years about that mentor mindset he talks about, which is a phenomenal but the other mindsets he talks about, there are certain times the protector mindset is example. And that is a role that as a parent, you want to be in, especially when your child maybe has had a loss, right? You really want to be that protector. And, of course, I understand that urge, and maybe there are times you need to be but also when your child says, I just need space in my room, and you're like, Okay, well, how about if I I'm going to check in with you, then in 20 minutes. Okay, thank you so much. Because some of what they're that's, that's that autonomy piece we talk about then maybe there's some maybe that's what they need to do, and that's not how you as an adult are grieving. Maybe you want to talk about it, but that's how they are developmentally grieving, where they are. And so sometimes it's being a little bit of that mentor mindset where it's like, Yes, I'm going to give you that space, and I'm going to check in with you 20 minutes to see how you're doing.
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Right. That's and that gives it gives them that space to do what they need. And also understanding that the other piece that comes up a lot in my supportive teens is a lot of times parents will say, well, they're not telling me what they're doing right, and especially right around everything right, but especially I don't know if they're doing it. I don't know if they're working on it, because I'm kind of outwardly sharing because I'm trying to model it, and they're not telling me. Well, two things rise up in that I have a young person in the film, the documentary, who actually says out loud, like, you know, my mom bought me, like, eight books around suicide, loss and grief, and I really appreciate the books, but I've not read any of them, but I appreciate she was there for me, right? So it's understanding that, but he still appreciated she was there for him, but so and the other piece about this is that young people, so if you're a family, and let's say you lost a child, and so this young person has lost a sibling, young people will say, I don't talk about at home, because every time I bring Their name up, everyone starts to cry, right? And so here this child is 1415, years old, who's lost a sibling, and they're in protective mode. They're they're trying to care and support for their parents, which is lovely and so caring. And the parents are doing the best they can do.
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But the lack of because of the grief, the lack of commit.
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Communication there is the parents are saying, why aren't they talking about him? And he's saying, Well, I want to, but I don't want you to cry, right? So just understanding where we are, and so then that becomes a tear in the family. It could become a terror in the family, right? And you're like, oh my gosh, what's happening? Everyone is grieving, but we're not understanding that we're all grieving differently, because sometimes this journey, I think, especially around suicide, but any grief, the journey, is a very individual one. I'm 14. I need to talk to my peers. I need some clinical therapeutic support. I need to get back to my routines at school. I need to find I need to understand how this plays a role in my identity and how I form identity and you're a parent, and how you are grieving differently you've lost a child and what that means for you, and all these other pieces. So you may have to do your individual grief as a grief work as a parent, your individual grief work as child and maybe some family grief work, right? So it's, it's lots of
00:36:00.159 --> 00:36:20.480
things, yeah, I think that's such an important point. Yeah, my friend died, and I remember the whole family all having different relationships with it, and it was very difficult for them. So I think that's an amazing point. Are there any other things that you think are really important to get across to parents or people who are doing the kitchen I guess,
00:36:20.599 --> 00:37:43.659
I think, you know, and I it's maybe a reiteration of some things I shared earlier, is that I think one of the, some of the most critical pieces that we can do that again, is, is really based in research, is, and even other podcasters and things like that that I'm referencing someone like Brene Brown, who say, you know, some of the, the Most important thing in the world is connection, right? And there's actually a lot of language by, I'm not gonna have the exact quote like Parker, Palmer and education will say, You know what? What people don't need when they're in crisis, don't need to be fixed, or don't want to be fixed, they need to be heard and seen. So I just, I'm always suggesting to parents, just remember that, because being present with your child and and I talk about educators about this too. So a child may be grieving and sitting next to them, maybe exactly what they need, because they feel now you they know that they're connected, and now they and now they know that they're seen and heard in their moment. And it may not be verbal, right? It may be they're crying or something like that, or asking to go on a walk, and not necessarily going on a walk, because I know we need to talk about this, but going on a walk to be present with your child. And if you do, if you set that up one day, they may go, you know, what can I talk about? You know, my brother we lost. Or, you know, hey, can we talk about this? I think, right, exactly,
00:37:43.840 --> 00:37:45.219
and having those moments,
00:37:45.280 --> 00:37:58.599
because I think a lot of parents will say, Well, I reach out to them, or I gave them all those books, right? Or I reach out to them, and they'll say, but it's not working. I say, but it is probably working, because what you're doing is you're showing them you're there for them.
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You're showing them that you want to connect, and they have their own work to do developmentally, where one day they they may just go, You know what? Thank you for all those books, right? That young person in the in the video, I mean, the loss was a year earlier, and the mother had never heard that before. Thank you for all those books. I kind of don't need them and didn't want them, but it's so amazing that you thought of me and got me those books, right, but that was a year into it that so I met my so my deepest point is that I think listening is such a key piece.
00:38:28.760 --> 00:38:58.119
Listening with your heart, not your words, is a phrase I use a lot, so you don't always have to have words for it. And the last piece I'll share for this. This section here is the idea that also as a parent, we talk about with kids all the time, who are your helpers. I was a kindergarten who are your helpers, right? And we talked to high schoolers about who are the people in your community that you trust, that you can go to parents need helpers too.
00:38:58.119 --> 00:39:23.719
Through this, it's okay to say, I can't do this. This is really hard. I lost someone too, especially if it was a family. I lost someone too. I need my helpers, and your helpers may be a friend. Your helpers may be your own peer support group of mothers who've lost a child, right? And you're doing your own work. Your helpers may be someone you have coffee with that just understands, and your helpers may be your own clinical support, right? Yeah, yeah, I
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love that, and that whole thing about how it's not a one and done. And you know, we've seen instances of kids in schools who become really problem. I mean, my daughters when my bonus daughters, when their mother died. You know that when she was ill, the behavior really became problematic. But it doesn't necessarily happen straight away. It can happen, you know, a few months, even a year down the line. And everyone has to be kind of aware that actually it could be linked to this. There could be something else going on there, rather than going, Oh, that such a bad child, you know.
00:39:55.719 --> 00:39:56.260
So it is
00:39:57.280 --> 00:41:58.539
that's a really important piece to acknowledge, right? And. I think that, you know, lost to lost to suicide. And I'll speak from the I is my loss was in 2009 in many ways, it's it's still impacting my life. It it rearranged my identity. I never thought I'd be doing this work. I thought I'd re I thought I'd retire as an early childhood kindergarten teacher, because that's the field I was in. And so what I mean by that is that this type of loss really changes people in a lot of ways. And we want to help young people to find, to find there's a lot of language around it, purpose or meaning, and I don't always love all that language. I want them to understand it first. Rather than saying, You need to find purpose, let them say, Oh, I'm writing lyrics to music, and that's helping me, right? So, but my point here is that is that it's really important that we understand that, and we recognize that grief is hard, and the suicide loss is that we lost that person, and they're not coming back, right? So this has changed our identity. It's changed our connection to that person I talked about the the teen who said, you know, I not only lost this human that I love, I lost the mother of the bride and the grandmother to my children. So that is something that over years you're going to have. That first year is really hard, all those hurts, but the second year is like, oh my gosh, this is permanent. The third year is like, oh my gosh, the fifth year, the 10th year might be, I'm getting married, and this person can't be there, right? So it continues to be a part of them, which is why we want to be doing this work as soon as it happens, to create healthy skills and healthy scenarios and helping and healthy ways to navigate it so that when it does come back, when it does raise up, the wave comes again. You know how to navigate that wave? Am I going to dive into it? Am I going to run away from it? Am I going to dive over it? What am I going to do when that wave comes because that first wave knocked me down.
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So it's really understanding, building those skills around that, around any sort of a loss.
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But I think the suicide loss work has a certain, certain intensity to it, and a certain need to get in there and do some deeper work. Brilliant.
00:42:13.199 --> 00:42:21.739
Dr, Steven, Chris, cos, thank you so much for all of this. Is there a place where people are really interested in what you've been saying, or they want to contact you, yeah,
00:42:21.739 --> 00:42:34.400
I mean, I actually, I'll just share a couple different directions. I, I do. I have my own consulting business called L piece, E, l, p, i, s, which is Greek for hope, which I do, community building, relationship building.
00:42:35.179 --> 00:42:40.119
And I will get you that link.
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Also, the key to center is the center up in Maine, where I am on the board and do work around creating a creating programming for young people have a loss of suicide, including our camp every summer, which is actually free. So if people have connections to people who've had a loss of suicide, we actually have people coming internationally to it. So it's there as a service. And then the coping actor suicide organization, which, again, I can get to, the link to and so on, is where there's peer groups. Peer group supports. I lead one for teens. I lead one for 20 somethings. But there's also groups that other facilitators lead that are around, like being a mother of a loss or a sibling and other things like that. I think we have about 15 different groups that are ongoing. So those are a couple different avenues of support for families who've had a loss of suicide, as well as impunity building I do in my other work.
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That's amazing.
00:43:33.139 --> 00:43:35.539
Gosh, what incredible resource.
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Thank you so much. We'll put all of that in the podcast notes. If you want to contact me. It's teenagersuntangled@gmail.com if you found this useful, please right now just send it to somebody, the person you think might benefit most from it, or share it on social media. And if you want to come to my website to see anything more, I'll put your profile on the website link as well. It's www.teenagersuntangled.com That's it for this week. I hope you have a good One. Bye, bye for now.
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