Understand Suicide

Dr. Srikumar Rao is a speaker, author, former business school professor and the creator of Creativity and Personal Mastery, a course designed to effect personal transformation. Through beautiful stories, Dr. Rao brings awareness to the negative internal talk we many times nourish in ourselves. “It's a self-reinforcing loop: the more you think about it, the deeper it becomes,” he says. The ment...

If you have a friend or loved one who struggles with suicidal thoughts, ideation or previous attempts, click on the link below to find out about my course “How to help suicidal people.” In this course, you will learn about the mental state of a suicidal person, how it impacts the way they view life, how to bring hope into the conversation, how to prepare yourself to listen, how to create a safety...

When Rabbi David-Seth Kirshner was told, twenty five years ago, that he needed to call home, he knew it was bad news, but what he didn’t expect was that later that day, his parents would answer the phone together so that they could tell him that his older brother, Gabriel, who was 36 years old at the time, had died by suicide. What he also didn’t know, because we never do, is that Gabriel’s devast...

Most of us have felt stuck at some point in our lives. This interview with Dave Evans will help you move forward. Together with Bill Burnett, he wrote the book “ Designing your life: how to build a well-lived, joyful life .” They also founded the Stanford Life Design Lab, where they teach one of the most popular classes there. Dave also knows about suicide loss. At the age of nine, he lost his fat...

As you know, I created this podcast to prevent suicide and provide comfort for those who are grieving the loss of a loved one to suicide.  I am planning the next six months of interviews and knowing your needs would help me immensely, so please click on the link below and fill out a quick form which will take you less than a minute to finish. The questions will let me know the topics that are...

As for most of us in Western cultures, dreams used to mean nothing to Dr. Joshua Black, but that completely changed after the death of his father. At the time, he remembers feeling numb, his life’s colors had disappeared. One day, after a peaceful dream with his dad, “the color was back,” he says, and, as if by magic, he could suddenly function again. Even though it was helpful to him then, he sti...

The first time Bill Clemo realized that he needed to look into his mental health was right after he started college. At the time, he thought that his sleep deprivation was temporary, so were the mood swings, but after a suicide attempt, it became clear that he needed help. It has been over thirty years since he started treatment for bipolar disorder but the decision to openly talk about it did not...

Joanna has a history of painful losses, including her brother and two successive suicides of both her mother and father. In this interview, she talks about how each member of her family grieved these losses, her struggle with mental illness and suicidal thoughts, and what has helped her along the way. She also explores the impact of racism in her life. She is part of the Stability Network, an orga...

Jess Fritz had her first mental health diagnosis at the age of twelve, after being sexually abused. Since then, the labels that have been attached to her identity include bipolar affective disorder, borderline personality disorder, complex PTSD, and substance use disorder.   As a young woman, she had no hope of having a normal life. “I was raised to believe that I was sick and recovery w...

Jim Miller was 22 years old when his father took his life, in 1992, and this is the first time he shares his story publicly. At the time, he was the one responsible to fly to Spain in order to have his father’s body be sent back to the United Kingdom. On the same day, after experiencing the trauma of seeing the place where the suicide took place, he started having his first episode of psychosis, w...

Katrina Cable was 14 years old when her mother died by suicide, but her story goes beyond the pain caused by this kind of loss. At a young age, she had to deal with the death of her father, grandmother, and the rocky road that lied ahead. In this interview, she shares with us how all these losses affected her, the many times she thought she was undeserving of love, and her path to healing.  O...

This episode is a continuation of the previous one, so if you didn’t listen to it, please do. Mequell’s husband, Adam Buck talks about his side of their story: how he coped with her suicide attempt and all the changes they had to make so that the family could break free from an unhealthy lifestyle. One of the things he shared was a daily fear he had every time he left home. When driving off to wor...

Before her suicide attempt, Mequell Buck had always been a high achiever. Like so many other women, she juggled work, taking care of her kids, and being a wife, all of it trying to maintain the highest levels of perfection possible. But her life changed drastically when she woke up in the hospital and realized what had happened. From that day on, she knew then that her priorities had to be reset a...

This has been one of the most inspirational stories I’ve come across since I started this podcast. For the first time, I invited two guests to participate: Shari and Jann Simmons. I listened to them a few months ago and decided that having them together would be a powerful experience for my audience. Shari is a therapist who works with trauma and she does a beautiful job in explaining to us how ou...

Kevin Briggs has had a life of service: First in the Army, then as a correctional officer, and finally in the Highway patrol in CA, which included patrolling the Golden Gate Bridge, a hotspot for suicide. His job was precisely to talk to people who were threatening to jump off the bridge. He has a TED Talk called “The bridge between suicide and life,” which has been watched for over 3.5 million pe...

When Jessica contacted me by email, she wrote that her life had been “engulfed by suicide.” First, it was her partner when their kid was a few days from turning two years of age. Then, eight years later, her father took his life and this happened only three months ago. Jessica contacted me because she wanted to share her story, a story that was put on hold because of the grief she couldn’t experie...

Topher Jerome has struggled with suicide ideation most of his life and he has experienced multiple attempts. In this interview, he talks to us about the many times he thought he was done with life, including his life-long battle against substance use disorder. After the most serious of his attempts, when he was hospitalized and almost died, he promised his family it would be the last one. Topher s...

People who struggle with chronic pain have a much higher risk of dying by suicide than the general population, and my guest, David Hall, knows about this personally. In 2007, he was run over by a driver who was talking on the phone. Since then, he has had dozens of surgeries, including spinal cord fusion and stimulator implants to manage the pain. Because of one of the operations, he developed Com...

Suicide disproportionately affects American Indian and Alaska Native populations, especially youth ages 15 to 34, so I wanted to address this topic with someone who has the experience and deep knowledge of indigenous people. Eduardo Duran is precisely that. He is a psychologist and veteran of the US Navy and one of the first professionals to bring attention to soul wounding, also known as historic...

We have reached episode #50, a milestone for all of us and I chose to address youth suicide because the rates have been rising worldwide - today it is the second leading cause of death in the 15-29 age group. I also have received messages from parents who have kids in crisis, some who have attempted suicide so I decided to provide them with practical tools on how to help. My guest is Dr. Mark Goul...

Josephine Hallam is one of those good souls who tries to help others by sharing her story. She contacted me with the wish to give guidance to parents and therapists on how children process trauma. It is the first time she opens up about her pain. At the age of ten, she saw her father take his life, an event that according to her, defined who she was, from the profession she chose - Josephine is a...

We often think of processing trauma through talking but what happens when the trauma occurred before the child developed language? Is it possible to access it? How does it affect development, relationships, and future behavior? These were some of the questions answered by Suzanne Rutti, a therapist in Columbus, Ohio, specialized in pre-verbal trauma. In this interview, she gave us tips on how pre-...

Briana and Michael’s story is an example of how empathy can break the barriers of judgment and fear. The couple had been exchanging messages on a dating app not knowing that both their lives had been touched by suicide: she had recently attempted and he had lost his wife a few years prior. We would think that as soon as they learned about their shared stories, it would be the end of it, but what h...

Tara Lal is an Australian firefighter (British born), mental health speaker, and author of the beautifully written book “Standing on my Brother’s Shoulders,” which traces back the losses she has experienced in her life and the suicide of her brother Adam.  As a child, she had to come to terms with her father's debilitating mental illness and her mother's early death by cancer.  While all...

Malcolm Stern is a British psychotherapist who lost his daughter Melissa to suicide in 2014. He recently published his book "Slay your dragons with compassion: ," which tells the story of her loss and his process through grief. In this interview, he told me that it took him months until he shed his first tears, and only then did he start his healing path. One of the things that helped him was to b...