Offering hope, comfort and support for survivors of suicide loss.
Until my dad died, I had never heard the concept of a “new normal.” Ok… I guess I had heard it in my marketing life as a way to describe the way consumer behavior changed after the recession. But, I didn’t expect it would take on an entirely different connotation in my own life. Days after my dad took his life, I began attending Loving Outreach to Survivors of Suicide (LOSS) support group meetings. During those gatherings, I heard many attendees ...
These past two weeks have been mentally draining for me. Last Tuesday, February 11th, would have been my Mom's 60th birthday, and Monday February 17th would have been my Dad's 57th birthday. Since my Dad passed in 2011, February has been a rough month.
Last week, I did not think I was that stressed about their birthdays, but by Friday my face completely broke out, I binged on a ton of sugary food (which is very unlike me) and have felt ...
I recently read a Huffington Post article a friend posted on Facebook titled “The Questions That Will Save Your Relationships”. Here is the link and I’d highly recommend reading it. In the article, the author, a stay-at-home mom of three, discusses the struggle to effectively communicate with her working husband on occasion. They realized that asking each other, "How was your day?" after 12 hours apart was quite a loaded question and left both ...
Time Magazine posted today a video on suicide rates among professionals in the U.S. What caught my attention was the headline, “Lawyers are committing suicide at an alarming rate.” This is because my dad was in the field of law. The two-minute video segment explains that lawyers are 3.6 times more likely to suffer from depression than non-lawyers, partially due to the stress that comes with being in a career surrounded by conflict. They deal with ...
The title of this post is a bit misleading. Any survivor will explain that feeling normal again after a suicide is something that never happens. We often talk about our “new normal” – the way we adapt to live on after being rocked by such a traumatic experience. Emotions, traditions and even the way we move about our day changes. However, the old adage “time heals” does ring true for us, too. By no means am I suggesting that I am “over” my ...
