Untethered: Healing the Pain from a Sudden Death

In today’s podcast I interview Susan Auerbach who shares the struggles her son Noah encountered before his suicide in 2013. Susan discusses the impact of Noah’s death on the different relationships in her life and how she coped with traumatic grief early after his death. Susan also reflects on the 11 years since his death and describes the different milestones that have occurred in her grieving process, and how her grief and her identity in grief has evolved over time.

Key Points:

If you are living with a loss like Susan’s you know time does not heal traumatic grief. But, as she described, time did provide clairity, perspective, and continues to move her towards healing. 

Susan worked hard to process her grief experiences. Her grief work included EMDR, writing, support groups, and learning what worked for her and what did not.

Although every grief experience is unique, I have interviewed many individuals living with long term traumatic grief, who are also able to attest to the continued evolution of their grief and how they have also experienced decreases in the intensity symptoms over time.

If you would like to reach out to Susan, please join our Facebook group Talking About the Podcast Untethered with Dr. Levin. We have included an article about EMDR which stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy. There is also a link to Susan’s book, I Will Write Your Name on Every Beach: A Mother’s Quest for Comfort, Courage, and Clarity After Suicide Loss, and a link to her blog Walking the Mourner’s Path After a Child’s Suicide.

In today’s podcast I interview Scott and Brenda Ulinksi, whose son-in-law’s suicide deeply impacted and forever changed their family. This interview is one of the few times we have explored the impact of sudden death on the different generations of a family. We explore how Scott and Brenda supported their daughter, their grandchildren, and cared for their own grief after the suicide of their son-in-law. They share with us what it was like to interact with their son-in-law’s family, communicate about suicide within their own family, and how they rally around one another during grief.

Key Points:

Scott and Brenda describe how they are able to see identify signs of healing and growth, but the pain remains palable and raw as the family continues to live with Matt’s absence a little over a year from the day he took his life.

Scott and Brenda discuss how their grandchildren children continue to grow and even flourish.

Matt continues to live on in conversations and memories but these are not enough. Unanswered questions remain and the grief continues. His absence will always be felt.

This May, for Mental Health Awareness Month, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention is providing guidance on how to connect someone who is hesistant to receive support. Their campaign, Talk Away The Dark, has educated people across the country on how to spot the warning signs for suicide and begin a conversation to let someone who needs support know about the resources that are available.

To learn more please visit asfp.org.

If you are in a crisis, call 988 or text “Talk” to 741741.

If you would like to see pictures of the Ulinski family, please join our Facebook group Talking About the Podcast Untethered with Dr. Levin.

In today’s podcast I interview Prudence Fenton, who experienced the unexpected death of her partner on Christmas Eve just prior to the beginning of COVID. Like most people who experience a sudden death, Prudence’s loss was a deeply personal, intimate and painful experience. Prudence’s loss was also a very public experience because her partner, Allee Willis, was a well known songwriter and artist. Together we explore Prudence’s grief experiences, her coping mechanisms and how grief has changed her. We talk about how she felt to have the public grieve her partner, what it was like to create her legacy, and where Prudence is in her life right now, four years later.

Key Points:

Prudence discusses how she relied on her creativity, taking a grief timeout when necessary, connecting with Allee, and receiving support from friends or trusted members of her team to get her through the difficult times.

Prudence describes where she is today with a group of new friends and the ability to experience happiness in her life. As she says, “the new Prudence just moves on”, but she always carries Allee with her. Prudence continues to learn and sees life as a constant form of education.

If you are interested in learning more about Prudence and Allee’s documentary, The World According to Allee Willis or the foundation Willis Wonderland please join our Facebook group, Talking about the podcast Unteathered with Dr. Levin.

In today’s podcast I interview Leslee Koritzke, who has been my best friend for over 15 years. Leslee shares with us what happened when her husband suddenly died over 14 years ago after playing basketball. We talk about what it was like for her to raise two young children and how she coped with the unexpected legal and financial stressors after his death. She also describes how her involvement in widow groups, fitness, and pottery helped her develop a long-term relationship with grief. Leslee reflects on what it has been like to watch her children grow, achieve important milestones without their father, and whether she thought her life would take it’s current shape.

It was a unique experience to interview Leslee, and I have been blessed to be part of her story long before Bob’s death.

Key Points:

Leslee discusses how she used her sense of humor to help get her through the hard times, while remaining true and authenic to feeling her emotions.

Like many who become single parents overnight, Leslee’s first priority was the needs of her children even though she had the additional stessors of unexpected circumstances that sometimes do not arise until after a loved has died.

Leslee prioritized the health and well-being of her kids and was committed to keeping family traditions and Bob’s memory alive. Her creativity, love for adventure, and continued love for her husband has been a continued theme throughout her life and contributed to her ability to move towards healing.

If you would like to reach out to Leslee, or if you are interested in learning more about her, please join our Facebook group - Talking about the podcast Untethered with Dr. Levin.

In today’s podcast I talk with Dan Baker, whose wife suddenly died on the day he retired from his career in law enforcement. As with all of my podcast participants, Dan’s experiences were powerful and unique. Having an extensive background in law enforcement, Dan provides us with valuable insight about what happens during the investigative process. He also invites us into to the difficult thoughts and emotions that he struggled with and continues to revisit three years after his wife’s death. I am so grateful he shared his perspective on the ins and outs of spousal grief support groups and the lasting relationships that can develop. The love Dan continues to have for his wife Cathy remains present and palpable.

Key Points:

During our interview we explore Dan’s struggle to cope with two major life stressors; the death of a spouse and retirement at the same time, and the impact it had on his identity.

We examine what it was like for Dan to live with the unanswered questions and uncertainty after his wife died.

Dan shares the experiences he had participating in a spousal grief group to help him cope and process his wife’s death and how he developed strong bonds and intimate friendships with a subgroup of members that he now considers to be part of his family.

If you would like to reach out to Dan, please join our Facebook group – Talking About the Podcast Untethered with Dr. Levin.

In the previous podcast of Untethered, I interviewed Tami Millard, whose husband died suddenly riding his mountain bike the day before their daughter’s 16th birthday. In today’s podcast, I talk with Tami’s daughter, Anya, now 19, about to be 20, almost four years since the day her father died. Anya’s interview not only provides another perspective about what happened after her father’s death, but it’s also insight into the adolescent grief experience after the sudden death of a parent. Together we explore her perception of how grief impacted her mom and how their relationship has evolved through grief and time. Anya shares her thoughts about what she describes as “not being able to have an adult relationship with her dad” and the importance of grace and time in the healing process from traumatic grief.

Key points:

The death of a parent forces adolescents to confront some of the harsh realities and challenges that come with being an adult at an early age. Anya acknowledges her awareness of the gaps that existed after her dad’s death and the way her mom “stepped up and stepped in”, in a manner that her peers who had also lost a parent had not. She shares her mom’s efforts to take on specific roles and responsibilities that belonged to her dad, while at the same time managing her grief, financial stressors, working, and parenting, all of which occurred during COVID.

Anya talks about the feelings she had about performing or acting a certain way to make the grief experience true. In both Tami’s and Anya’s interviews, they share how quickly Kyron’s existence vanished after his death, how difficult it was to feel his presence at home, and how it felt to watch one another in pain and grief after Kyron’s death.

Anya provides valuable insight about how adolescents grieve and how different and often misunderstood their grief can be from the adults around them. She discusses some of the differences she noticed in how adolescents grieve and the expectations she encountered from well-meaning adults around her regarding how she grieved or expressed her emotions at times when she was trying to achieve a sense of normalcy or distance from her grief. It was refreshing to hear her express thoughts such as “can you accept that I am fine and let’s move on?” On the flip side, Anya realized that although these expectations were annoying or that she often felt misunderstood, there are some adolescents without anyone invested in their emotional well-being after the death of a parent.

Perhaps the biggest difference in grief between Tami and Anya is the relationship they were grieving. Tami was his wife; his life partner and they had planned to grow old together as a couple. Anya was his daughter, and early in her life, like all children, she was completely dependent on her parents to anticipate and meet her needs while growing up. As she grew from a child to a teenager, her relationship with her mom and dad changed as her identity, beliefs, life-experiences, friends, interests, and dreams were maturing as well. For many, there comes a time in the parent-child relationship when a shift occurs, and the relationship dynamics change. Anya realized that she was not only grieving the death of her father as a person, but she was also grieving a future loss, the loss of having an adult relationship with her father.

Please join our Facebook group “Talking about the Podcast Untethered with Dr. Levin.” If you would like to leave a message for Anya, we will make sure that she gets it. There is also family pictures of Tami, Anya and Kyron.

In today’s podcast I interview Tami Millard, who shares with us her grief and healing experiences after the sudden death of her husband, Kyron, and what it was like to raise her teenage daughter who was also grieving. Shortly after her husband’s death, Tami returned to the workplace briefly before the COVID lockdown which further complicated how she and her daughter grieved. During our interview, we explore Tami’s efforts to learn about grief, the different ways she processed her feelings, and where she is now in her grief and in her life, almost 4 years after her husband’s sudden death.

Key points:

Tami introduces her personal mission, which is to increase awareness of the whole self, specifically the social emotional aspects of who we are as individuals. She takes a whole self-approach to her grief and describes the multiple efforts she engaged to explore her feelings, connect with her inner thoughts, and monitor the relationship between her grief and the impact it had on her ability to parent, work and meet the other responsibilities in her life. 

After Kyron’s death Tami began to investigate grief; she read about it and wrote about it. She turned to her faith, relied on her support systems and used her internal beliefs to guide her, and help her cope with the most difficult experience of her life.

Tami reflects on her learnings and thought processes in grief.  She shares that she is now stepping deeper into carving out her identity, figuring out who she is as an “I” instead of a “we” and envisioning the next chapters of her life that will include the essence of Kyron and her previous existence.

In my podcast I share an excerpt from Sarah Nannen’s grief manifesto that was meaningful to Tami during her healing process:

“I remain open to learning from my pain. I remain open to experiencing true joy. I remain open to experiencing longing. I remain open to practicing gratitude. I remain open to knowing that gratitude and longing are allowed to walk hand-in-hand. I trust that the depth of my pain is not a reflection of the way I honor you, my life is. I remain open to receiving what comes next on this journey of life, knowing what has been will always be part of my story, and therefore, me.”

Please join our Facebook group “Talking about the Podcast Untethered with Dr. Levin.” I have included a sample of Tami’s writing along with a short video and family pictures in the Facebook group.

To learn more about hope and guidance after sudden or unexpected death please visit therapyheals.com and sign up for my monthly newsletter Guidance in Grief at www.therapyheals.com. Bye for now.

 In today’s podcast I interview Dr. Robert Niemeyer, Professor Emeritus of the Department of Psychology at the University of Memphis. Dr. Niemeyer is a leader in the field of Thanatology, the science or study of death, dying and bereavement. He has published 33 books, including the New Techniques of Grief Therapy: Bereavement and Beyond, and serves as the Editor of the journal of Death Studies. He is the author of over 500 articles and book chapters and a frequent workshop presenter. As a clinician and researcher, he is perhaps best known for his work on meaning making in grief and is currently working to advance a more adequate theory of grieving as a meaning-making process.

Key points:

In our interview we explore the meaning making process of grief after a sudden or unexpected death and the concept of narrative reconstruction used in meaning making.

Dr. Niemeyer also demonstrates three techniques that can be used in therapy to facilitate meaning making after a traumatic loss each of three domains: 1) the story of the event, 2) the backstory, and 3) the creation of the self, or meaning of our lives, going forward.

He used a technique called restorative retelling, developed by Dr. Ted Rynearson, to help find meaning with the story of the event. Dr. Niemeyer demonstrated this technique as an appropriate way to work with someone who is struggling with the details of the circumstances that ended their loved one’s life. For the second domain, he showed us a way to restore connection with a deceased loved one to communicate what needs to be said. And finally, for the third domain he described a technique called composition work. This intervention uses objects such as stones to represent aspects of the self, such as, roles and feelings along with other articles to represent those who are important and loved in an individual’s life. Then the objects and articles are rearranged on a table or sand tray at different life periods of a client’s life including prior and post death, and in the future to help connect with different and emerging parts of the self.

Dr. Niemeyer is also the Director of the Portland Institute for Loss and Transition and shares opportunities available at the institute for clinicians interested in specialized grief training.

I have been fortunate to attend multiple trainings by Dr. Niemeyer over the years in person and online, and I have always left these trainings with greater insight about myself, a deeper understanding of grief and new ways to work with clients who are living with grief. In addition to the opportunities Dr. Niemeyer shared at the Portland Institute for Loss and Transition, he has also just released a Grief Therapy Masterclass entitled: Advanced Skills in Working through Loss. This class covers the meaning-based model he briefly addressed today along with a module on trauma-informed approach to loss, realigning relationships with the deceased and reinventing the self after loss.

Information about this masterclass will be posted in our Facebook group, Talking About the Podcast Untethered with Dr. Levin, along with the books he mentioned. If you are living with traumatic grief, you may find it helpful to begin exploring meaning with your therapist or to begin exploring some of the resources Dr. Niemeyer recommended on your own.

In today’s podcast I interview Dr. Donna Shuurman, the senior director of advocacy and education for the Dougy Center: The National Grief Center for Children and Families. Dr. Shuurman also served as Executive Director of the Dougy center for approximately 25 years and was instrumental in growing and shaping the organization into the amazing resource it is today. The Dougy center is a nonprofit organization based in Portland, Oregon, and their mission is to provide grief support in a safe place where children, teens, young adults, and their families can share their experiences before and after a death. The Dougy center also provides support and training locally, nationally, and internationally to individuals and organizations seeking to assist children who are grieving.

In addition to her work at the Dougy Center, Dr. Schuurman is an international expert on children’s grief, and she has worked extensively with children, teens, and families in grief both after expected and unexpected loss. She has extensive experience working with families and communities after large-scale tragedies and natural disaster including the Oklahoma City bombing, Japan’s Great Hanshin Earthquake, the attacks during 9/11 and the Sandy Hook school shootings. After following Dr. Schuurman and the Dougy Center for so many years, I was excited to have an opportunity to spend time together to understand what led her to specialize in children’s bereavement, learn about her personal experiences, and provide her with the opportunity to share Dougy Center resources with this audience.

Key points:

Many adults and even professionals misunderstand the grieving experiences and needs of children and young adults which can be detrimental to their healing and physical and mental health in later life. The bereavement needs among children has become a national problem that must be understood and addressed. Thankfully, organizations such as the Dougy Center exist to provide services, training, and support for childhood bereavement.

Current estimates indicate that approximately 6 million children in the United States will experience the death of a parent or sibling by the time they are 18 years of age. This means that roughly 1 out of every 12 children will experience a death in their nuclear family of parents and siblings. By age 25, this number more than doubles to 14.7 million children and youth who will experience the death of a parent or sibling. These numbers come from the Childhood Bereavement Estimation Model, a tool that has been developed by Judi’s House and the JAG Institute, in partnership with the New York Life Foundation, that approximates rates of U.S. children and youth who will experience the death of a parent or sibling by the time they reach adulthood. This model can also estimate loss by geographic regions and among different ethnic groups. For more information on this model including downloadable resources please visit www.judishouse.org.

The death of an immediate family member in a young person’s life is one of the most commonly reported difficult childhood experiences. When not addressed, childhood grief and trauma can cause poor performance in school, mental health problems and even early mortality. Grief support and other appropriate services can decrease the risk for future problems and increase healthy adaptation and healing.

Dr. Shuurman’s advice to families with grieving children was to get support. Even if you reside outside the Portland area, the Dougy Center website has a wealth of resources including their searchable World-Wide directory which lists organizations and grief groups including those trained by the Dougy Center. There are also online resources and worksheets for kids, teens, young adults, parents and caregivers, schools, communities, and resources in Spanish. There is information specific to relationship losses including siblings, parents, grandparents as well as information specific to how a loved one died for example death from COVID, suicide, homicide, accidents, and there are support materials for families who have loved ones who are in the process of dying. 

If you want an opportunity to connect with Dr. Donna Shuurman, please join our Facebook group “Talking about the Podcast Untethered with Dr. Levin.” The Facebook group includes a direct link to their podcast, Dr. Shuurman’s biography and the of course information about the Dougy Center.

In today’s podcast, I interview Heather Renfroe, whose son Adam, died by suicide approximately 15 months ago. Heather courageously shares her son’s mental health struggles, criminal background, and her beliefs about receiving support after his death. Heather talks about the conscious decisions she made to change her grieving patterns to be a better role model for her daughter, how she ultimately found her voice, and her plans for helping others in the future.

Key Points:

There were so many important and interconnected themes that were touched on during today’s interview. These themese includes the intensity of trauma symptoms that can occur in the immediate aftermath of a traumatic death, police and media involvement, healthy and unhealthy coping mechanisms, isolation and the power of human connection, how grief evolves over time, and shame.

In the podcast I share several excerpts from a letter that Heather wrote to me in September, during National Suicide Awareness month, to bring some of these themes together and also introduce disenfranchised grief. In this letter Heather shares more about her son’s criminal history and her perceptions that his actions impacted her ability to ask for or receive help. We have Heather’s permission to post her letter in our Facebook Group – Talking About the Podcast Untethered with Dr. Levin.

Heather described her experience of disenfranchised grief, a term coined by Kenneth Doka in the late 1980s. Disenfranchised grief occurs when grieving does not fit into society's acknowledgement of the death because it is not socially acceptable or publicly supported. Disenfranchised grievers like Heather can experience additional negative consequences on top of their already stressful circumstances including increased loneliness, anxiety, depression, or shame. Heather knew that she was not getting the help she needed but the shame, overwhelming pain, and burden associated with disenfranchised grief kept her feeling trapped.

Heather’s experience has ignited the passion and calling for her future that she shared today. Heather found the strength within to make different choices. She started therapy and journaling and stopped watching the video tapes of her son’s death. She took risks and wanted something different for herself and her children. She still continues to struggle, misses her son greatly and experiences grief on a daily basis but is able to utilize healthy coping mechanisms. She has now found her voice and is able to be verbal and ask for support, cultivated an amazing support community, and is committed to helping others.

Heather is resilient. She is a fighter, and she is able to acknowledge that she is going to be okay and even thrive after the sudden death of her son. She is now more willing than ever to step out of her comfort zone and try something new. She admits she sometimes struggles to see her strengths in the moments when she needs them the most but has surrounded herself with people who she loves and trusts. Adam’s death, like all sudden and unexpected deaths, changed Heather’s life forever. But in today’s interview, Heather said it was in a good a way, which was hard for her to admit.

If you or someone you love is feeling suicidal or in need of crisis support - text or call Lifeline 24/7 at 988 to speak with a counselor

If you would like to connect with Heather, please join our Facebook group Talking About the Podcast Untethered with Dr. Levin.