Survivor of Suicide Loss A Title I Never Wanted
[Applause]
when i was 23 years old
i stood at our church pulpit and
delivered the eulogy
at the funeral of a man who was
dedicated husband
father farmer and friend
a man who was respected by his community
and beloved by his family
that man was my dad and my dad died by
suicide i remember the day of his
funeral vividly
it was the second day of january the
beginning of a new year
it was bitterly cold like the step
outside and your breath is taken away
type of cold
the type of cold that makes you not want
to be anywhere else but in your home
the type of cold that could leave your
hands and feet numb
and the cold perfectly described how i
was feeling at the time
my dad’s death took not only my breath
but a piece of my heart away
i really didn’t want to leave the house
that day and certainly not for his
funeral
and no matter what anyone said or did i
was numb
and i’m so thankful that i practiced his
eulogy over
and over again because my eyes were so
welled with tears
that i couldn’t even read the paper of
words in front of me
nothing could have prepared me to stand
up in front of my family
our neighbors and our friends and use my
words to beg them
not to let the way my dad died a result
of debilitating depression and anxiety
diminished the legacy of caring and
compassion
he left behind but that’s what the
stigma surrounding mental illnesses has
done
it’s made us uncomfortable it’s made
mental illnesses hard to talk about
it’s made us treat people differently
who we’ve known our entire lives
the stigma has forced us to feel shame
and guilt about an illness caused by
chemical imbalances in the brain
that are beyond our control my dad was a
farmer
he was a farmer for 53 years
he took over our family farm at the age
of 14 because his dad died in a farming
accident
my mom was a teacher and they were
married for 37 years
this past june would have marked their
40th wedding anniversary
the farm that my family lived on and the
house that my parents designed together
was in our family for over 100 years
my parents adopted my three siblings and
me and they truly dedicated their whole
lives to taking care of us
at a young age i fell in love with
basketball
my parents had previously been high
school theater directors so i didn’t
exactly
fit the script per se that they were
familiar with
my dad loved to read and he went and
bought books upon books on the game of
basketball
from the standpoint of a player coach
and ref
he was determined to be one of my fourth
grade basketball coaches
and that he was it’s safe to say that
regardless of the sport
or organization i was part of growing up
my parents supported me
regardless of if i got first place or
last
in high school my house was the place
that my teammates and i went to before
every home game
my mom would cook an amazing meal and my
dad would lead the prayer
my dad’s dedication towards learning the
game of basketball
was mirrored in his commitment to our
farm our church
our community and all of those who
encompassed it
he was a good man who had what most
seemingly desire
a loving spouse and kids a successful
career
and the respect of those around him
and that same man my dad suffered
from mental illnesses
and as a result my mom suffered my
sibling suffered
and i suffered because when someone you
love suffers
you suffer too
i remember the first time my family and
i heard the words depression and anxiety
i didn’t believe it it just didn’t make
sense
i naively thought the circumstances of
my dad’s life
didn’t align with the profile of a
depression or anxiety diagnosis
and it wasn’t until my dad’s first stay
in a behavioral health facility that i
truly realized how severely the
trajectory of our life would be altered
and it was right on the cusp of harvest
that he was admitted into the hospital
for the first time
our community slowly started to notice
his absence
and we knew we’d have to rely on them
for help if he wasn’t out of the
hospital in time
but it was hard how are we supposed to
explain this to everyone
else when we didn’t even understand it
ourselves
we were met with curiosity speculation
care and concern
and this was back in 2013 back when the
stigma was even more prevalent
mental illnesses were often used in the
same sentences as
words and expressions such as crazy the
loony bin
and losing their mind
the stigma perpetuated our fear and
encouraged our silence
but the longer my family and i were
silent about what we were going through
the more questions people started asking
and it wasn’t until three years later in
2016
that my family and i agreed to post a
statement on my facebook page about what
we are going through
a sentence from the post read it’s so
hard to admit
because there’s such a negative stigma
surrounding mental illnesses
and we don’t want anyone to think less
of the incredible
hard-working and strong person that he
is
and just like the day of my dad’s
funeral there was a strong need to
advocate
out against the stigma
and we were initially worried that
transparency would lead to isolation but
in reality it did the opposite
the amount of unity i felt after that
post was equally as reassuring as it was
heartbreaking
for once i didn’t feel alone yet having
this in common with so many people
meant that so many others were hurting
another common reaction we were met with
was it was like you took our situation
and put it into words
it wasn’t uncommon for wives of farmers
in our community to disclose that they
too
were worried about their husbands and
their mental health
farming is an incredibly rewarding
career
but it’s also very isolating
farmers spend much of their day alone
and not only are they alone
they’re pouring their heart and their
soul into their livestock and their crop
which success is
heavily dependent on factors outside of
the farmer’s control
farming is so much more than a career
it’s a lifestyle
it’s a lifestyle that many farmers put
their own self-worth into
between 2013 and 2017 my dad was in and
out of inpatient treatment three
different times
each time was either around planting
season or harvest season
my dad struggled to make the big
financial decisions such as when to sell
his grain
which led to my mom having to
familiarize herself with an occupation
that is
at its best complex
but it never failed that the one thing
my dad always knew how to do
regardless of what his state of mind was
was to get in the tractor
and be in the field it was second nature
to him
after his third stay in inpatient
treatment him and my mom made a
difficult decision
to move off the farm sell our house
and rent out our land
i’ll never forget the day of our farm
sale
the heartbreak the emotion and the
tremendous sense of loss that goes along
with leaving the place you’ve known to
be home
for your entire life
that morning before the sale started i
asked my dad to help me with something
he’d done for me many times before
and he completely snapped at me
he showed more emotion in that situation
than i had seen him show in years
and looking back i know he wasn’t mad at
me
his reaction was a result of deep
internal pain that he failed to put into
words
and my reaction to that situation was to
simply go to another room to cry
for fear of showing my hurt would make
things worse
a response that i’m sure many loved ones
of an individual with a diagnosed mental
illness can probably
relate to
i’ll never forget that day
there’s a difference between living and
existing and it was if that was the day
that my dad stopped living
after our farm sale my dad seemed fine
for lack of a better word he wasn’t
doing exceedingly well but he also
wasn’t in the severe
depths of his depression
he would go through the motions of every
day and he spent lots of time reading
and then five months later my dad was
gone
the last day i saw my dad was christmas
eve
the night before i had gotten engaged to
my now husband kyle
and i was so excited to run in the house
and show him my ring and
tell him that i was going to make him go
wedding dress shopping with me because
he helped me shop for all my prom
dresses before that
and that night was cold too
i was in a hurry to get home i worked
bright and early the next morning at a
psychiatric residential treatment center
for youth
and as kyle and i were packing our car
i didn’t run in to give him a hug
goodbye like i always would
i really truly thought i was going to
see him again
i waved goodbye to him that night just
as i waved goodbye to him
every morning as i took off for school
growing up
two days later i was at work and i
received a text from my mom
call me now
all capital letters and an exclamation
point
and i immediately knew that something
was wrong
and her first words to me through tears
were
i have some very bad news dad has died
and just like the first time my family
and i heard
the words depression and anxiety i
didn’t believe it
how how could this be
my actual life
i often think of that day and how it
affected so many people
i think about how hard it was for my mom
to make that phone call to
all four of her children
i think about the first responders who
saw me run into my parents house and hug
my mom
i think about my co-workers that i had
to tell that could have in no
way been prepared for that situation
i think about the immense anxiety that
loomed over me
every time my mom called me after that
for fear of something bad happening
i get mad i get sad i get depressed
and if there’s one thing i’ve learned
it’s that feelings
whether good or bad are normal and that
what’s not normal
is ignoring our present situation
because society tells us that being
anything but happy is less than
and now your story won’t look exactly
like my story
or my dad’s story but i’m sure there are
pieces of it that many of you can relate
to
how many of you answer good when someone
says
hey how are you even though you’re
really struggling inside
how many of you place your self-worth
into your work
whether it’s your school work or your
career
how many of you have a diagnosed mental
illness and wish so badly
you could explain it to people because
it might help them understand you better
but you don’t because the stigma holds
you back
how many of you have witnessed the
suffering of someone you love
and care about so much
but you feel helpless because nothing
you say or do can make it better
and my point is although our stories may
be different in the sense they are the
same
nobody lives a life of unhurt but
everyone does handle being hurt
differently
whether your self-care is counseling
working out reading
writing yoga or sewing
we must first acknowledge what is
hurting us in order to make progress
and you may not have a mental illness
but you do have mental health
and the sooner we stop the stigma from
polarizing us
the sooner we will see empathy unite us
mental illness is not a reason to judge
someone
it’s a reason to love someone
and now today i am 26 years old
and i am standing in front of all of you
sharing the deepest pain that i’ve
ever felt because i believe strongly
in the idea that we need to stop holding
ourselves to the standard that we’re
mentally strong enough
to handle all of life’s challenges and
start acknowledging
that feelings of vulnerability are okay
thank you
you