I'd like to acknowledge and honour all of those with a lived or living experience of suicide.
This includes those who have experienced suicidal thoughts or those who have supported loved ones through suicidal crisis and those who have been bereaved by suicide.
We recognise the courage it takes to share these experiences, the strength it takes to carry them and the love that drives so many to use their pain to bring hope to others.
I acknowledge that this work and these conversations can stir deep emotions, and we hold space for the complexity of grief, hope and healing that walks alongside each person's path.
To those that are here with us today and to those we carry in our hearts we see you, we honour you and we walk beside you.
Nine people a day die by suicide.
They say approximately 135 people are impacted for every single one suicide.
In this episode, we're talking about suicide with lived experience practitioner Carissa Lewis.
Carissa goes into the homes and sits with people directly after someone they know has died by suicide.
One of the most beautiful things that you can say is what is a way I could show up for you?
That would be meaningful.
What do you say to kids?
When they know that I was them and they're like, how old are you?
And I'm like, I'm 50.
I was your age and they're like, and you're alive now.
In my mother's note, she wrote that we were all better off without her.
And I know that people may think that in their tough times, but life is not better off without you.
Well, this is a really, this is a privilege.
I've only spoken to Carissa, our guest lecturer today.
I've only spoken to Carissa once on the phone, but never have I like left a conversation being as blown away as I was when I spoke to you, Carissa.
For so many reasons.
And I remember coming straight into the office and telling everyone we have to get Carissa on The Imperfects.
Wow.
So this is really exciting that it's happening.
Thank you.
Thanks.
I already feel like this is you know, we sometimes do live events or we do.
We'll go and speak at three different things.
And one of the common questions we get asked is- Oh yeah, because aren't there tickets available for our tour at the end of the year?
Yeah, that's true.
That's true.
At theimperfects.com.au?
That's true, but they're not the events I'm talking about when we go and do like- But that was the event I was talking about.
Yeah, yeah.
The tickets are available.
But one of those- More on the subject.
But one of the most commonly asked questions we get or I've just even just chained people about our podcast is who's been one of the most incredible people we've ever met?
I feel like we've known you for half an hour.
I'm pre-empting our answer in the future.
That question will be with absolute full respect to everyone we've ever had on the podcast.
Carissa Lewis is going to be mentioned quite a bit.
That's really sweet.
Thank you.
No worries.
How are you, Carissa?
I'm, I can't believe that I'm sitting at this table with you all.
I'm good.
I'm thrilled.
I love what you all do.
I've been listening from day one and I know it's not just the three of you.
It's everyone here.
You just do amazing work and it's something that needs to be spread.
And yeah, so I'm just so privileged.
I mean, that's nice to say.
What we do is incredible.
What you do is extraordinary.
And I've never met anyone who does what you do.
And so I guess, as a broad, a very broad overarching term, today we'll be talking about suicide, which is something that we haven't really we've touched on it in various episodes before.
Samuel Johnson was one of them, but we haven't really gone into it in depth.
Yeah.
And so I'm just going to.
We've actually written because we thought context of this episode is really important.
It is.
So we've written a little bit of a longer intro just so people understand why we're doing this.
Fabulous.
So I'm just going to read that now.
Yes.
Suicide is incredibly common in Australia and a significant risk factor of your own suicide can be being impacted by the suicide of someone you love, know or care about.
In this episode, we're talking about suicide with lived experience practitioner Carissa Lewis.
Carissa goes into the homes and sits with people directly after someone they know has died by suicide.
This is postvention work and by its nature, it's also important prevention work as well.
Today you'll hear Carissa's story, but this episode is really for the people who are still here and are struggling after someone they know has died by suicide.
It's for anyone in the impact zone of suicide, for the friends and family of those people who want to support them.
We will talk through what practically happens directly after someone dies by suicide the impact on the person who discovers them, how their trauma and grief develop over time, as well as the trauma and grief of those close to the person who has died and who are physically close or involved at the time it happened.
We will talk through the stigmas family and friends face, the impact suicide notes can have on those left behind and how they cope with the question of why.
We will talk through how they grieve, how blame guilt, trauma and grief can intersect, and then how they begin to heal, as well as how to sit with and support someone you know who has been impacted by suicide.
The impact of suicide is wide-reaching, but so often the aftermath isn't spoken about.
When we don't speak, stigma thrives and shame is cultivated.
So we're going to try to break it apart piece by piece.
I remember as an 18-year-old one of my best friends from school.
One of their parents died by suicide.
And it was one of those friendships where I was always at their house or they're always at my house.
And I just found myself...
My memory is a little bit hazy, but it was either the night after or maybe two nights after, sitting in the home with the family.
How old were you?
I would have been 18.
Wow.
And it was my first ever really experience of anything like that.
And I don't remember what was said.
I remember a lot of tears and I remember just sort of sitting there and I was there for quite a long time.
But it's an experience and a moment that will be with me forever.
In a weird way it almost felt like a bit of a privilege to be sitting in that room, to feel comfortable there.
But I don't remember saying anything, but I do remember, I'll never forget that moment.
Now, this is what you do day in, day out.
You go into people's homes.
I know there are so many questions that we have on this, but just before we do that, I mean, would you be able to set the scene for us as far as statistics in Australia right now around suicide, just as further context of this conversation?
Sure.
Nine people a day, nine people in Australia a day die by suicide.
It's the leading cause of death for 15 to 44-year-olds in Australia.
Wow.
And of the nine people that die by suicide, they say approximately 135 people are impacted for every single one suicide.
Wow.
And to state the obvious, that is obviously family friends.
It could be people at a school, workplace sports club.
It's huge.
Witnesses.
Witnesses.
First responders.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's the impact zone that we mentioned in the intro.
That's like the...
Oh, yeah.
Yes.
And it may sound like a lot, but I think in quite a lot of cases it's even more because you don't even think about the people that you know.
There's so many people in people's circles and And because it's the stigma around suicide and people not talking about it as much, some of those people are left wondering whether they even have a right to grieve.
So like if they were close enough to the person or something?
Yeah.
So people who witness a suicide.
And I'm sure that you can imagine the complexity of that.
Yeah.
Where you don't know that person's name.
Also with celebrity suicides, an example of that would be Robin Williams.
A lot of people were grieving suicide.
Because, just because they didn't know him in the flesh, they got to really know him and fall in love with how amazing he was.
And so that's another example of people who are grieving but actually don't feel they have the right to.
And so I'm assuming from just the implication is that, of course, everyone has a right.
Correct.
To grieve.
Yeah.
If you're able to love or like, you are definitely able to grieve.
So can we hear your story?
So what, I mean, you're a fascinating person.
There's a reason you do this work, obviously.
What's your story?
So in 1985, when I was 10 years old, my mother died by suicide.
She was a single mum and had three young children.
So my sister, also my best friend, was 12.
I was 10 and our little brother was 3. and we'd gone on holidays to our dad's.
And my mum had probably three significant mental health episodes prior to her dying.
And we knew that she was getting really sick.
My sister and I knew that she was becoming really unwell.
Not that we had any literacy or anything around that.
If you don't mind me asking what were you noticing and what were you seeing in your mum that made you think that?
She drank a lot.
Mum used alcohol as a coping mechanism and she was drinking a lot and not seeing her family.
So her mother and brother lived in Wollongong as well, and we weren't going there as much and she was drinking more.
And then she wasn't going grocery shopping or anything.
We begged her.
She got really paranoid at times and we begged her to walk down the hill to Westfield and if she could just go to the bank because we had money um, not a lot, but she had money.
But back then you had to go in and sign stuff to get money out in 1985, and so we would have done the shopping, but we couldn't get her to go there.
She was so paranoid and Just not well.
So we got her all the way down because we walked to Westfield a lot in Wollongong and we walked down and as soon as the doors opened you know the big, like Westfield doors she just bolted.
Mm-hmm.
And so we're like, oh, far out.
This is not good.
And David needed to eat and, yeah.
So ultimately she bolted.
She was in – Was not going to go into the shopping centre to get the money out of the bank that we needed in order to feed us.
Right.
So – Because she didn't want –
Just so unwell, just paranoid.
People were looking, people were staring at her.
Were they staring at her or was that her perception?
No, they weren't staring at her.
No, she was just very, very unwell.
She was diagnosed as having manic depression, which is now known as bipolar.
Okay.
So yeah, we thought we'd sort of stretched our time and we knew we were in a bit of trouble because David's stomach started to get bigger, you know.
Yeah.
And then it was one day walking home from school and my little brother was in the creek and he had leeches on his legs and we were like shit, we're in trouble here.
Mm-hmm.
Anyway.
So I got my sister to.
We lived in units, like a set of units, and I got her to knock on the next door neighbour it was a house and I got her to knock on the door and keep them busy while I stole some money out of their house so I could go and buy some fish pieces around the corner and we fed Dave.
Wow.
For a couple of days.
Yeah, so then my uncle came around who was not a nice human either and Was that her brother?
Yeah.
And, you know, they have a story, as we all know.
They were all sent to boarding school at five, things like that.
And then he took her away.
And that was the last time I remember her waving goodbye in the car was the last time I saw her.
Yeah.
And she knew she was so unwell.
Yeah.
As we all did.
Did you know waving goodbye to her that that might be the last time?
Was there a sense of...
I knew there was doom.
There was definitely a darkness.
But that was probably more because we knew that we'd be spending time with her brother, which never meant wonderful things.
Okay.
Yeah, he was very violent and angry and a drinker as well.
So I guess we just sort of thought, where's this going to take us, you know?
You said at the start that you were at your dad's place when it happened.
Was your dad very present in your life or not really?
It was just kind of you happened to be there at that stage?
Well, the reason mum and dad separated and my father is still alive we are estranged is that he was 34 and he left with a girl who was in a school uniform, who I think was 17.
Wow.
Yeah.
So my mum was never allowed to work.
She wasn't allowed to drive.
Complete and utter coercive control.
And all she was allowed to do was drink.
And that's what they both did well.
Yeah.
So she had no support at all.
And he took her away from her family all the time.
You know, we moved a lot.
We went to 11 schools before year seven.
So, yeah.
Do you remember being told that your mum was no longer, that she died?
Yeah.
So, as I said, it was the January school holidays.
So we were with dad.
And at this time it was just my brother and I that went to Dad's and Kanina did not want to leave.
Yes, she has a beautiful name, Kanina.
Kanina.
She didn't want to leave Mum because she was in hospital in a psychiatric ward.
And my sister stayed at my uncle's that we spoke about, and she would visit my mum every day and sit outside while she had shock treatment.
And anyway, my father, who you'll hear through this is not the most incredible man, but he rang my sister and said you need to get up here on holidays because the kids are missing you.
And she said, I want to stay with mum.
And he said, you need to get here and, you know, basically look after these two.
And she did.
And then two days, three days later, mum took her life.
Oh, my God.
Yeah.
And back then you could just sign out of a hospital.
She took herself out of hospital.
We were not informed.
No one was informed.
And then when we hadn't heard from her, the police were called and, yeah, she'd taken a life.
Thanks for sharing that story.
It has to be shared.
People have to see the impact of suicide because sadly, in my mother's note she wrote that we were all better off without her, because that's what she thought.
And so I hope that people who listen to this We're not better off without you.
Yeah.
And I know that people may think that in their tough times.
But yeah, if I can you know, leave a stain on you that lasts.
That says life is not better off without you.
That's important.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
If you have someone in your life that's close to you that is having any sort of suicidal thoughts or mentions those sorts of things, it's really impossible to put yourself in their shoes, because how do you convince someone otherwise from what they're thinking, when the feelings that they're clearly feeling and the thoughts they're having feel so real and true?
That's right.
Because that is how they're feeling in those moments.
But I think that's just so.
With someone with the amount of lived experience you've had, and now all the postvention work that you do with the people who are left behind, to hear you say that is, I think very, very powerful.
Well, it is very, very powerful that, you know, we're not better off without them.
No.
Never.
Never.
Never.
Yeah.
And...
It's just so sad because most of the time, and I am generalising, most of the time they're so loved.
They are so loved.
You just wish you could transplant the feeling that you have for them.
Yes.
Can we speak about your work?
I mean, what is a lived experience practitioner and who can be one?
Okay, great question.
There's a lot of rigour around this.
So when I first started in the role and I was in a non-identified lived experience role I used my lived experience and I probably used it really poorly, because Because lived experience is one thing, but when you become a lived experience peer worker or practitioner, it has to be professionalised.
Now, the way that is done is through a framework of the practice of how you do the work and huge boundaries.
You must have a lived experience of where you're working.
So if it's alcohol and other drugs, you must have a lived experience of alcohol and other drugs misuse or use.
And in suicide postvention, you need a lived experience of suicide, be it suicidal crisis, looking after someone or being bereaved.
So I actually work for Social Futures, a social organisation in the Northern Rivers area.
They have up to 30 programs that they work on and Stand By.
Support After Suicide is the program that I was paid to deliver.
And so believe it or not, standby has been around for over 20 years.
But in 2021, when the government decided to do the zero suicide initiative, they thankfully realised that postvention played a huge role, because postvention done really well is such incredible prevention.
Postvention is still very new, the word.
Well, I'd never heard of it until I spoke to you.
Yes.
And the only reason that it makes sense to me is because it's the word post.
That's the only way I was like okay, so it's after the event where we support people bereaved or impacted by suicide for two years after.
That is incredible.
I know.
But you need to know when to share your story, how to share your story and sharing your story for the person that you're walking beside, not sharing the story as part of your healing.
That's such an important distinction.
Oh, my gosh.
All the fucking mistakes I made.
Mm-hmm.
I came in with a lived experience, yes, and a significant lived experience.
And I literally spewed my lived experience all over everyone.
Like I vomited it everywhere.
Literally?
Yeah.
Was someone holding your hair back?
No, sadly.
So you can imagine.
It's really messy.
Yeah, right.
So you need the group of people that you're working with to know how important intentional sharing is, because it's intentional peer support is what you want, because there's some times where I actually don't have to share my story because Because just the words that I use, the way I support, the way I listen, normalise and things there's no need.
They already know.
They will ask if they need specifics.
However, you might say, and these are the sort of things, like...
Ryan, I'm hearing, I heard what you said and would it be helpful if I shared with you what was helpful for me?
Mm-hmm.
That is where you're at, not, oh, I know, my mum, you know, da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
Not helpful.
Not helpful.
It's almost like you're constantly, like, checking in on boundaries.
Constantly.
Yeah.
So before you go to say your lived experience, in your head you must say why.
Mm-hmm.
Why?
Why am I sharing this?
Why am I sharing it?
Yeah.
Is it for me or is it for them?
Because it's not about you.
And that takes ages and I think you have to fall.
I think you have to break your boundaries.
Like, for example accidentally, I mean I got very very, very impacted by a huge community impact from a suicide in my workplace.
And very impacted and didn't know because quite often the vicarious trauma you don't realise.
And in our work, it's not about will you get vicarious trauma, it's when.
So what we have to do, and that's why we don't talk about means or method. right?
That's why there are guidelines around this, because it is vicarious, trauma is real and it can really, you know, put you out of action for a long time.
So, whilst I would have said that you don't professionalize lived experience, oh yes, you fucking do, because you can cause more harm to the person and to yourself if you don't have boundaries.
Yeah.
Who professionalises it?
Do you go to learn somewhere?
So you can, yeah.
So there is a Cert 4 in peer work now, very great, like 12-month course.
We do a lot of in-house training with ours and got to make sure that people are well enough trained, you know, in their recovery and in their healing.
And it's okay if they're not, because it's lived and living experience, but you need to know where people are at.
Yeah.
And you know I could, you know, sadly get unwell myself again and it needs to be okay and normalised and that's where my wellbeing plan and things like that are so important.
And the lived experience, they say –
It needs to be life-changing or changed your outlook on life.
As a criteria.
Yeah, kind of.
I hate talking about criteria.
I mean, lived experience is lived experience, right?
But what I mean is that it has to have changed your views or changed your life.
And then professionalised via training.
I have external supervision and I also have upline supervision from my work.
And I also have mentors, which I would be nowhere without.
Yeah.
And so what does that actually look like?
Like literally from the moment that you're called to a for want of a better term job or to a family, like what happens.
Yeah, so when someone does find their loved one and you know that's generally around their home.
But I am again like that is a generalisation.
Yeah, there's no words for how that would be being the person to find your loved one.
Yeah.
And so from there they generally call triple O, And the really sad thing is that quite often the operator may guide them through resuscitation steps because there are a chance they could be alive.
And that is so impactful on people's you know, apart from the shock.
And when you go into shock, you lose all cognition, you know.
So that is a really big thing.
And I'm sure I'd have to go into why, imagine how heartbreaking that would be.
And sadly, what happens a lot of the time is that you're not the only one home.
They're saying you need to give them mouth-to-mouth.
You may need to move them.
And then you may have family around while that's happening because it is chaotic.
So kids.
Yep.
Yeah.
Yep.
Watching, listening, you know.
Oh, God.
And yeah, you know, I think you all understand the impact that that would have on anyone, no matter child yeah, adult.
And then from there it is chaos.
That's police.
There's ambulance.
There's family.
There's coroners.
It is like nothing you could imagine.
Mm.
Everyone is aware around the home, the neighbours.
Quite often the neighbours are impacted because when people find their loved one, the noise and stuff that can come from that home is something you really can't ignore.
Yeah.
And quite often neighbours are impacted because sadly, you know, three out of four suicides are male.
So quite often a woman is unable to move their partner or lift, or you know so the impact then might be next door.
It might be someone very close up the road.
Because, of course, like if you're a neighbour and you hear that sort of screaming.
And you know them.
And you know them, you're going to run over and check.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And in some communities, it can be the whole street.
Hmm.
And then the lights and the flashing and, you know, the community is impacted.
You know, it is.
This is 133 people.
Yeah.
135, isn't it?
Yeah, 135.
And, you know, the complexity when you've got children involved as well is just immense.
Immense trying to balance what you're seeing, what you're hearing, what they're doing, but you actually just don't.
You can't think properly.
So in that maelstrom of chaos I'm sure it's different every time, but when you're called in or you get there, what are you aiming to do?
So we generally see people between sort of 48 hours and two weeks, but for two years ongoing.
Yeah.
So you call them...
So we get the referral.
Yeah.
So we would get referrals from police or self-referrals.
But quite often it will be a friend or a family member of someone and they call up and all we need is consent from the family.
We don't need, we don't do forms.
We don't make it clunky.
It's just a verbal consent.
And then we text because they're not going to know any numbers or anything.
Yeah.
And it's very soft and warm and nurturing and just explaining who we are and what we do.
And the referral came from whoever, just saying we are here to support you when you're ready.
Like an angel.
Like I just cannot even imagine the confusion, and like you say chaos, and just like you'd just be like someone, help me.
Someone tell me what to do.
And no one probably can is what you're thinking.
No one can.
And then for someone to get a text message out of the blue of someone saying like I'm here for you, I can support you.
Yeah.
Is it received like that?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, we spend a lot of time on how the message looks, how it reads.
And I used my lived experience all the time to say you know, I don't know exactly what you're going through, but I'm here and I see you and I hear you and we're going to support you.
Wow.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Another situation which I don't know if this is more common than it used to be, but I can only assume that it is is when a suicide affects a school community.
Like that's just heartbreaking.
And I know of a school recently, I think it was maybe just when I spoke to you on the phone.
It was.
If a student dies by suicide.
How the school then communicates that to students, to parents.
How the parents talk to the kids, what the kids say to each other.
How that affects the impact zone of a school.
Will you go into schools as well?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
So I must say that the Department of Education have done such a great job.
They have now a postvention protocol.
And I felt very privileged that myself and one of my colleagues were asked to sit in while they did one.
And they like role played how it would work and it was taken so seriously and it was beautiful because they realised how many children are bereaved.
So, yeah, school impact.
Sadly, we spend far too much time in high schools.
But what we do do is support the teachers and we can talk to them.
We do workshops that are free.
Things like, what do I say?
What do I do?
Because no one knows what to do in those moments.
Yep.
What do I say particularly?
It's that, that is a, that's a big one.
To a loved one or to, if you've got, yeah.
To someone left behind.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, you know, due to stigma, a lot of people say nothing.
Hmm.
Yeah.
People are getting better, definitely getting better.
But I've worked with families, you know, and also friends of mine, who have been bereaved by suicide, who lose friends, long-time friendships, because no one knows what to say.
So then nothing's said.
Yeah.
So then not only were you already isolated by your bereavement, but you're alone.
It's such a lonely place.
I had in my notes here to ask you about talking to children about suicide a little bit later on, but I think now Ryan's brought up schools, I think it might be a good time to talk to you about that.
I mean, how on earth do you, what do you say to kids?
So I'm in a really fortunate position when I'm around children because I was them.
So I am very privileged if they know that it is suicide.
So if in their family that they are talking about suicide, when they know that I was them and they're like how old are you?
And I'm like, I'm 50.
And they're like, your parent died by suicide?
And I'm like, yeah.
And they're like, how long ago was that?
And I'm like, you know, 40 years ago, I was your age.
And they're like, and you're alive now.
Because you, I didn't think I was going to live beyond 34.
Because my mum was 34.
Oh, wow.
So to me, I thought she was really old.
I did.
I thought she was old.
So I think what I like to say is that lived experience brings hope.
And I sort of unplugged my hope petrol bowser and plug it into people and give them some of mine.
Wow.
I was so othered growing up.
There was no one that I knew that had lost a parent to suicide.
And it was so obvious because I was different and I was from the experience.
Dad said, tell everyone mum had a heart attack, you know.
And so that's what you did as a 10-year-old?
To start with, yeah.
And what was so confusing for me was my father was so full on about lying like so full on about lying.
In the fact that he was against lying?
Totally.
Yeah.
You know, that was one of his things.
Right.
But you did not answer my dad back.
And then I realised it was actually about him that we were telling everyone that.
So I think the thing with children is that they hear way more than you know.
They are not silly.
And we need to be, the evidence is that we need to be as honest with children as age appropriate.
So what you don't want is for children to find out from someone who doesn't have their best interest at heart.
And sadly, that happens.
Children can be cruel.
And you don't want your child to find out from someone who is going to bully them or tell them stuff.
Yeah.
And it happens.
I bet.
So I would really love at this moment to plug one of the most incredible.
It's called the National Centre for Childhood Grief, shortened to NCCG.
Hopefully we can add that to the notes.
They are self-funded.
They are the only organisation nationally that look after children and childhood grief.
Whoa.
And they do some of the most incredible work.
They don't just do suicide bereavement.
They do bereavement of any close central person to a child.
So any caregiver, grandmother, you know, sibling.
And I was fortunate enough to do some training with them.
Oh, my gosh.
They know their stuff perfectly.
So a child will go and spend time there?
Yeah, with their mum or dad or whomever.
And they get specialised grief support.
And it is completely child appropriate.
And a lot of stuff is online.
You can look out for telling your children as well.
So they have resources.
Oh, yeah.
Because I was about to say there's a –
To be specific, I totally understand and agree that you have to be honest, but there's a big hole there of like what is appropriate for my child at certain ages.
Yes.
Yeah, so that's a resource for that.
Absolutely.
Also on the Standby Support After Suicide website.
Okay.
And I'm not just plugging it because it's who I work for or work with.
The resources are incredible.
It's got workplace toolkits.
So if in a workplace someone dies by suicide, this is what you do in the first eight hours, the next eight hours, the first week.
Like it's really well done.
So the information is out there and it's free.
We go to workplaces and do group support for people.
It's such an interesting point you made about the age at which it occurs, the parent.
My friend is a surgeon and he said he made a realization a few years into doing it that when he was speaking to someone who was really ill, Their expectation of life was actually dictated by their parents' age of death.
And he said it's now the first question he asks is how old were your parents when they passed away?
Because it guides the whole way.
He'll have the conversation of what comes next.
And I'd never really considered that for a child and how it feels like when the death was a suicide.
It would be emphasised even more for some reason.
And when it's not talked about it would become like a mysterious looming future, as opposed to with so many other And I don't know.
I wanted to put something to you and see if this worked, but it's something I was thinking about earlier today in that we talk about someone might get cancer and we say, or we assume or there's a sort of idea, that for many people with cancer tragically, that culminates in death.
But we don't think of people getting that illness or a disease of depression and that for some people the combination of that is death.
But it seems like it's a very similar process that needs to be discussed openly in those terms, as opposed to this mysterious looming thing that might happen.
Absolutely, yes.
That is exactly another good question, Josh.
Absolutely, because that is the whole point is that, as Australians, we've never taught or talked about grief, yet we are all going to die eventually.
So why have we got no literacy around some of this stuff?
Yeah.
Yeah, so absolutely.
And talking about it and talking about being anxious and being depressed, we need to normalise this.
Mm-hmm.
When we found out that mum had died by suicide, when dad told us the only way I understood what he was saying and looking back, having been neuro, you know, diverse and undiagnosed.
I was not diagnosed till I was 36.
Yeah.
Diagnosed ADHD.
Yeah, yeah.
So we were in the lounge room.
It was holidays and Kanina and I liked to sing and I think we were like doing some Madonna set up and that's when you press record on the recorder, you know, and played it back and stuff.
I'm so old.
Yeah.
And so we heard the dad's car, like he was a bit of a lead foot.
And so when dad came in the door, my sister went, she's gone, isn't she?
She knew because she left my mum and she did not want to leave mum.
And I think that's the only reason that I actually thought she was gone.
But I didn't even know what that meant.
I think I was quite, they say, through my therapy I was quite disassociated from all the trauma and neglect and things.
But my sister, being just that, two years older that two years is so significant 10 to 12 she knew everything.
And so I fed off her and that's how I knew something was really wrong.
Now, I was not two.
I was 10.
Because I wasn't explained what happened, if we don't know, we make the story up.
Yeah.
So what's the first thing do you think children do when they lose someone to suicide?
Blame themselves.
Yeah.
Oh, Jesus.
It's Enite.
You did that?
I didn't know how much I'd done that until I did a lot of work later on.
And I was saying it in my therapy, was it my fault?
And I remember going, where was that?
Like I didn't know I held that.
I honestly didn't.
But that's what happens, right?
So I just remember, after Dad saying that and my sister reacting, and Next thing we're shopping for frocks.
Do I look like a frock person?
Right?
So I'm so confused.
Like I'm taken shopping by my father, who is never nice and never overly happy, and all of a sudden he's all not knowing how to act and I'm being dragged around in a white dress, long-sleeved.
I'm like, you know, no idea.
Then the funeral is in Wollongong, so we drive there.
But I don't have, I do not understand.
But when we get there and all the people are there, I still have not put together that.
So everyone's all over me.
So you didn't understand?
No, I didn't understand at all because no one actually told me.
Yeah, it wasn't said in clear terms.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so, walking down the aisle with flowers behind my sister in front, she turns around to me and says do you know who's in that?
And I go, no.
And she goes, that's mum in there.
And that's when I, everything, because then I got it.
But till then, I can tell you I had not, I had not put it together.
What did you do in that moment?
That's when I cried heaps and both of us held each other and walked up to the coffin and put flowers on there.
And you don't want your kid to find that out in that moment.
It was so confusing.
The whole thing was so confusing.
And I knew my nan, my mum's mum, was being carried in because she couldn't walk.
Her legs were gone from grief.
Oh, right.
So she had men carrying her.
She just couldn't breathe, couldn't talk, couldn't anything because they were quite close.
And I'm guessing she may have been in her 50s or- She would have been about 60, 65 probably.
So yeah, she was being carried in.
So please don't let children work that out themselves.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, for adults and children, stigma around suicide is still such a big thing.
How do you see stigma showing up for the people left behind?
Well, straight up, by having a bit of radio silence around them straight away, because so many people other than family it is that, oh my, I don't know what to say.
Like no matter what I say, nothing's going to make it better or come back.
And so in that, nothing gets said.
So that is all stigma.
It'll be definitely about the isolation because people are just scared.
And we often, you know, we educate the bereaved, sadly, that this is not, it's not personal.
It is not personal.
Like your friend of 20 years. doesn't want you sitting here alone.
They just have not got literacy.
That's one of the biggest problems, I think, with stigma is that no one knows how to talk about these big emotions and how do we name what it is, instead of being able to go.
Carissa's doing okay, but she's grieving, you know, and she'll be okay, but she's grieving.
We need to use grieving more.
Grieving is real and has to happen.
So one of the most beautiful things that you can say, I think, is to someone who is bereaved by suicide, is to say something like you know Ryan, I am so sorry.
I don't know what to say, but what is a way I could show up for you that would be meaningful?
Hmm.
Beautiful.
And just looking at them.
You know, because what happens is that and we all know it is that people really jump on board and cook food and do all that sort of thing.
And then after about six weeks, the casserole stopped coming.
And that's really when things kick in.
Like we survive.
Yeah.
And then we grieve.
So we survive for about six weeks roughly and then the grief really, because it's like oh, they're not coming back through the door.
So asking what's meaningful for someone because everyone needs very different things, you know but just saying that you don't know what to say and you don't have to.
Like just witnessing their grief is what you need to do.
And when someone's really crying, right, don't shove a tissue in their fucking face.
Because that's like, it's too much for me, Ryan.
Yeah.
Stop.
Yeah.
Because crying is so fucking therapeutic.
Yeah.
And people say often after they're bereaved you know I'd have people go at about the six-week mark.
They'd ring up and be like, Carissa, I'm going backwards.
Like I thought I was getting better and I thought this bereavement was better, but I'm going backwards.
And what happens is, and it is proven that this professor studied tears for like six or seven years, right.
And he studied like onion cutting tears and, you know, all these sort of different tears.
And there was one around grieving.
This is so fascinating.
So what happens is when you grieve... like real painful crying, right?
There's one different chemical in the tears from grieving, and it is a chemical that acts like a sedative.
So you know, when you have a massive cry now you all would be going.
Yes, we cry all the time, but massive cries and you feel so much better.
Yeah.
Like you're like, fuck, that feels better.
Well, what happens is when you're in the midst of the grief and you are bawling all the time.
What it does, it's just, it's a sedative as well.
So it sort of settles you, right?
So it gives you a bit of a rest, right?
Right, so you can really cry.
So what happens is, as the time moves on a bit more around the six-week mark, the tears are less and people start to think fuck, I'm getting worse.
But what happens is there's no fucking sedative.
So they're not stoned, so to speak.
So they are now starting to actually feel better.
So that can often be the case.
So you can almost say between sort of five and seven weeks, and quite often that's when people stop giving you casseroles.
Stop checking in, then your fucking tears stop.
So you're not off your face anymore and shit starts to get real.
Yeah.
So don't stop people crying.
It is like, yeah, like the tissues are not good.
Let people choose a tissue if they want, but all that signifies is that you're too much.
Yeah.
Another concept that is brought up after a suicide, I think, is often the selfish, that idea of it being selfish or of the person even being crazy.
Is that something you're confronted with or that you hear often in your work?
So selfish is a lot less now.
It's definitely a lot less now.
But certainly I would have been asked that 90% of the time up until maybe five years ago.
Yeah, okay.
Absolutely.
So, you know, people would say, do you think your mum was really selfish?
Like I can't believe people would even ask that.
That's wild.
But that is just, again, fear.
And lack of knowledge.
But yes, so my mother definitely, like my dad's words for years were, oh, she was MAD.
I've heard so many things that are not okay that are said to people who are bereaved.
You know, some people would ring up and would talk to me about how their best friend would tell them to get over it.
They'd had enough time.
And sadly, I did hear of a survey that was done in Australia many years ago.
And guess what the average was that Australians thought that you should move on?
Like six months?
Two weeks after the funeral.
What?
And the longest at the time was like a year.
Hmm.
I'm like, wow, you know.
So you can imagine people just shut up.
But it's just grieving is forever.
Yeah.
Would there be an element from the bereaved, maybe a fear of like?
I don't want to bring the mood down.
That?
I don't want to like bring this up with people, because I've been talking about this for three weeks now.
So I don't want to like burden other people with the sadness.
All the time.
And so thankfully postvention is around so that we can be that person.
It's amazing.
Because that's what we do.
You know, we take the calls when no one else can you know and we hear it and understand it and can do that for two years.
But yes, we have so many people who say, I can't be around my friends because I'm too much.
Yeah.
And when we talk about language, the reason we don't say which, going back to, we don't say committed language.
At all now.
Like, yeah.
So it's died by suicide or suicided.
Why is that?
Because it sounds like a crime, like they've committed a crime.
Okay.
Yeah.
And once it was a crime.
Yeah.
Really?
Yeah.
I didn't know that.
Yeah.
So that's something that's really big.
If we can get the word committed out of the language would be wonderful.
So it's died by.
Died by.
Died by suicide.
Yeah.
A friend of mine who lost her mother to suicide and then a few years later lost a friend to cancer, had a relative say to her and I've asked her if I can share this story that it must be so hard for you because your friend wanted to live and your mum chose to go.
And she said that really she's done a lot of work and has been forced to do a lot of work to grieve her mother.
And she said, luckily, I was able to just go, you don't get it.
But I think it's complicated, the word choice.
If you're in such dire pain... that the only option at that point to you seems to be suicide.
It doesn't really sound like a choice.
No, no.
They felt it was their only choice.
Yeah, because I think often when we use the word choice, it feels like they've chosen out of two options.
You're right, or more.
Or more.
Yes.
Whereas the reality is that there wasn't any other options on the table in their mind.
No, that's right.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Other than how do I stop this pain now?
Yeah.
I imagine, a big and you can speak to this from your lived experience, but also from the work you've done but I feel like something that would occupy a lot of thought post-suicide would be the question why.
Yeah.
Yeah, so why is the hardest thing?
Because people assume that it's one thing and it's not.
And how they explain what happens for someone who dies by suicide.
Quite often is, let's say, this glass, and it's full of water to the brim.
And it's just sitting there normally, full but not spilling.
And then something happens to someone.
Let's say they lose their job.
That could be that last drip of stress that goes into that cup that spills.
So quite often it is just a culmination of so many things and then something tips over the edge.
I think that cup analogy is really, really helpful and powerful.
In my life, when I had a friend of mine, he died by suicide.
And, of course, because I had seen him in I think it was two weeks or so before he died.
I don't actually think that I'm to blame or anything, but of course I'm racking my brain and my memory about what did I say, what did I miss?
Because there was, like in his case, in Richard's case, there was, from my point of view, zero signs.
In fact, it was the opposite.
And so it was such a shock.
Yes.
And for everyone that knew him, which was a lot more than 135 people, it was shocking, completely shocking, because he had a good job, what everyone would describe as a good job.
He looked like he had all the… He had everything on paper.
And I don't know.
I don't know what that last drop was.
But of course, because I'd seen him like two weeks before, my natural thing is like oh, should I have noticed something?
Like am I a bad friend?
Am I not attentive enough?
And I never blame myself for it, but I'm sure that would be very, very common for people who are close.
And as you just explained, us humans, we like to problem solve.
We like to be able to work out why the fuck something happened in all manner of things, right?
And especially, would you believe in suicide?
So people, they need to blame.
It's not nice not knowing.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
And we need to be able to put it away.
So we've got to blame something.
And sadly, more often than not we blame ourselves, which then just leads into the isolation loneliness coping, bad coping behaviours, et cetera, et cetera.
So the why is the difference between a death and other than suicide and a suicide death.
I am fortunate that I believe that I know the why, and the why was that my mother was in so much pain.
So you either come to a conclusion yourself as to why or Or you live wondering, I accepted it.
I don't know when I did, but I did.
And I think that's where you kind of would be nice to get to, if you could get to the acceptance.
I mean, we're talking 40 years for me, you know.
So that's the hardest bit.
And just remembering that in most cases, the pain was so significant for the person, they just wanted it to stop.
If someone in your life voices to you or says to you that they're thinking about suicide or they're having suicidal ideations, or they've been able and felt safe enough to say to you I'm better off not here, what can we say?
What can we do?
Yeah, is firstly, believe them.
Wow.
Because that is, you should feel very privileged that someone would share that.
And, you know, you don't have to go into straight alarm bells, yeah?
Because there are so many ways to keep people safe when you know that they feel unsafe.
The reason people don't tell people that they're feeling suicidal is because people generally will freak out.
But we can work through that.
And what I would say is, I'm so sorry you feel like that.
Acknowledge that it's real.
Most of the time, people in any kind of stress... want validation for how they're feeling, you know?
So, you know, I'm so sorry that you feel like that.
Would it be okay if we look at just keeping you safe for now?
There's safety planning apps.
Beyond Now is the app.
And that is something anyone can use and it is so easy to do.
So you can actually do a safety plan with someone on the spot.
And I bet none of you really know what a safety plan is.
No.
Okay.
So this is really worth knowing, because I actually now have a psychological safety plan for me and I have it on my fridge.
And you all should have one, because you know, for example, let's just say that Hugh started to seem a bit I don't know less bubbly, for example.
And then you find out he's not running as much.
If on the safety plan what it does, it says when I feel good, this is what it looks like from the outside.
When I'm not feeling so good, these are the sort of things I'm going to show.
These are the signs.
Yep.
So for me, if I'm not looking at new recipes to cook...
Or if I'm not going and having coffee at Slingtown every day, right?
If I'm not in the office making people laugh all the time, then that is something that.
Okay, let's have a chat with Carissa, you know.
It's for everyone to keep everyone safe.
So then on the safety planning, it says, and who should be involved?
To keep you safe.
Like, you don't know these people.
And they tell you.
Could be their best friend.
Could be their grocer.
It could be the butcher.
Anyone.
And by doing all of this, you're actually really probably talking to them about things that no one's spoken to them about.
Right?
Because that's how they've been missed.
Mm-hmm.
And once you put it all out there, they get to see how many people are in their life, how many important people they've spoken about.
Like nothing about us without us.
People know what makes them feel good.
People know what makes them feel not so well.
So when it's all put there in front of them and you tell them to put on their fridge as well and you can say so, how are we going?
I'm not feeling so great today.
So where are we at?
Yeah.
Oh, I'm feeling pretty low at the moment.
Okay, so let's walk over the safety plan, you know, and let's have a look at that.
It's like a reference.
It's a reference.
You know, and I've got to tell you, I don't know if it's my ADHD brain, but when I look at mine and I've got a wellbeing plan at work and I've really worked hard, I'm hoping that all the peer workers will take on a wellbeing plan as well, because it's so powerful.
Because straight away, I mean, and I talk about – oh, God, I could go on for hours.
I talk about the zone of fabulousness.
What a name.
Which is not – it's not from me.
It's from Vicki Reynolds in the States and she talks about –
To work with people in this sort of work, we've got to remain fairly much in the zone of fabulousness.
And if we move too far away, we need others to help us move back in.
None of us can be fabulous all the time without support, no matter what.
In order to be well, you need a community.
And so if your community know what keeps you safe...
So helpful.
So helpful.
Life-saving.
Life-saving.
It is life-saving.
And so the Beyond Now app is amazing.
Yeah.
Amazing.
I wanted to ask you about suicide notes, because that's probably something you have to help people work through.
Sometimes, yeah.
So my mum left a suicide note and in it is mainly like her self-blame.
You know, if it wasn't for me, Pete, you know, make sure the kids don't drink.
There was a lot about drinking.
Make sure they understand.
She said things like I've noticed the kids don't know how to look at me anymore, which I'm not sure if that was true or wasn't.
Maybe maybe we knew she, you know, we probably looked at her very sad at the end.
You know um, and just, it was, just don't let them drink and give them a good life.
So in my case, it was like I understood it and that's okay.
However, I have been around people who've had notes that were not helpful.
That must be an awful thing.
Yeah, that actually just gives more questions than answers.
Yeah.
And there's less notes left than what I probably thought.
But you know so many people who die by suicide in the 12 months leading up to their death I think it's roughly 60 of people have not checked in with any kind of health, like GP or allied health or anything.
Yeah.
They're so solo doing it on their own.
And that's what I don't want.
We need families that are healthy.
We need dads.
We need husbands.
We need men, you know, that are healthy and healthy.
Yeah, I mean, women make attempts on their life far more than men, far more than men.
However, men use more fatal, you know, they really do it.
I mean when I spoke to you on the phone first of all, I felt like I just got out of, like it was like the huddle on a footy ground.
I felt like my coach had just like spoken to me.
I hadn't heard someone swear that much in a long time.
Yeah, I'm being really good.
Yeah, you're really reining it in for that.
Oh, I so am.
Yeah.
But like you said to me at the start of the phone call, Ryan, I apologise in advance.
I swear like a banshee.
Yep.
I'd never met a banshee, but I can only assume banshees swear heaps.
Correct.
That's right.
But it felt like a real wake-up call the way you were talking to me about this, and particularly around the subject of man.
Yeah.
Because obviously the kind of cliche classic thing forever has been like you know men, you know, just get on with it.
That's that thing where it's like bottle it up, you know, don't show weakness.
And certainly not if you're like a boss or if you're a leader.
Don't show weakness you know.
Be strong and lead with strength.
But clearly now we know the bottling up strategy is, Correct.
But that is sort of the general belief and definitely, particularly depending on where you grow up or what your community is or what your work is bottling up, does seem like the best option for a lot of men.
Yeah, and may I also say that the narrative is changing, right?
So you always hear, oh, men don't talk, men don't this, right?
They are getting so much better.
They are talking, but this is where I could get onto a systemic issue.
Is that a male?
And I'm trying not to be gendered here okay, but the fact is this.
If a man is having a mental health episode and they're not feeling safe, They get to an ER.
The triage talks to them like they would talk to anyone.
So I mean, I can't imagine how some men feel when they get there and say look, I'm not feeling great upstairs.
Things are not going.
And then next thing, they're pacing up and down an ER for 16 hours.
So quite often what happens is that they will reach out for help, but where they land is not great.
Mm-hmm.
So you know, the best place for people having a mental health episode is not in an ER and it's not in the back of a police car.
You know, so systemically we have to change that.
And we are slowly, and lived experience is finally getting to have a lens over things so we can say well, that doesn't work.
We've done this.
Mm-hmm.
And that doesn't work.
So for a lot of men, I know it's just that where they land is not safe for them.
And if you don't feel fucking safe, you are not going to share what is so like.
A lot of people are embarrassed by what's going on in their head.
Like, come on, we need better than that.
We can do better.
We need to do better.
Yeah.
Because sadly, some of the people that I sit in lounge rooms with, their husband did ask for help.
You know, he did go to the hospital.
He did rock up at ER.
He did try all those things.
But then, you know, yeah, the waiting lists, the cost for medication, everything.
You know, they don't want to tell their workplace, right?
How am I going to tell them?
Because I've got to provide because apparently that's what we've all done to men.
It's just so tough when they're constantly told to suck it up.
And my dad did it to me suck it up, have some cement, move it, you know, unless there's blood everywhere, Carissa get to school.
Because we don't see it, because you can't see it.
It's just so frustrating.
And so if you can't see it, we need to start talking about it.
And the thing that I think one of the biggest things I've learned and realized since doing therapy, even doing this podcast, is the thing that you think is very fucking weird and unique, that you think no one else is going through.
And it's like your own experience is like, oh, God, I can't talk to anyone.
It's embarrassing.
I'm going to be judged.
I'm going to say awake, whatever the thought is that's blocking you from saying something to someone.
As soon as you say it and someone hears it.
It's pretty quickly in my experience.
You hear from other people or one person that it's like oh, they're also dealing with that thing.
Right.
And it's not as unique as you thought it was.
Correct.
It's actually a very, very common experience.
We're all very, we're a lot more similar than we probably think.
We're imperfect.
Thank you.
But I remember going, I remember like doing therapy in like the first year or so and I realised pretty quickly like I would like gather up the courage to like tell my therapist this thing that I've never told anyone.
Yeah.
And then there's zero shock on her face and I realised pretty quickly that she's heard this about 100 times from different people.
And I remember asking her that.
I was like, is this common?
She's like, yeah, this is very, very common.
Yeah.
Is you know, I'll get a message in you know, on my Instagram, or something like a direct message, and it'll be like this beautiful long, vulnerable message.
And it's from a guy.
And then I go into his profile and he's, you know, on a work site in high vis.
It's such a reminder every time that it's like just because he plays footy and drinks Strawberry Big M doesn't mean he's impervious to really, really hard shit.
Correct.
Yes.
And I think too, this is a great segue into lived and living experience practitioners, because in quite a few of the episodes that you've had on here, without any of you knowing it, peer work is actually really highlighted in quite a lot of your episodes.
Sorry, what did we highlight?
So peer work is – so I am a peer worker.
I'm a lived experience practitioner.
Okay, yeah.
And slowly we're bringing on the peer workforce because –
There is nothing like sitting with someone.
Like, for example, when I got breast cancer, I was 39.
And it was quite confronting.
And I was 39.
I just didn't know anyone around me who had that.
So anyway, a friend said to me Carissa, I have a friend of a friend, of a friend who just had both her breasts off.
Do you want a meter for coffee?
And I went, yep.
Why not?
Sat down.
That coffee meeting changed my whole experience.
Mm-hmm.
Because you know, when you're speaking to someone who is living what you're living, because they use the right language, they say the right shit.
So if men or women could actually, instead of going fuck, I want to go to a psychologist, or you know, and can I say, I see two psychologists a month and without clinicians.
I don't know where I'd be.
So I'm not anti-clinician, but what I am is holistic care, right?
So there is nothing better than breaking the barriers, than meeting someone who has walked the path you are just about to go through.
There is nothing better.
So many of us do not realise that the experiences that we have had in our lives are as bad as they have been, or as good as they have been are so much use for someone else.
So much.
Well, it's the podcast.
Like it's, you know, people sit and listen to someone else tell a story that they can relate to.
That's peer work.
Yeah.
So don't start me.
I could go on about lived experience forever.
I just have one last question.
You walked into our office before we came to the studio and the laughs you created per minute were Ryan Shelton-esque.
I haven't even started.
We haven't even talked about our farts yet.
Carissa and I record our farts and send them to each other.
We don't.
We absolutely don't.
We've never done that.
Never will.
No.
Is laughter a part of what you do, bringing laughter to?
Yeah.
I mean, how do you do that?
Yeah, it's interesting.
I just think that when people are telling their story and I am so privileged to sit and listen of course there's times where you can't.
But quite often, you know, I want to know about their loved one.
So no one asks.
Once they're gone, they're gone.
Whereas I'll ask, you know, tell me about them.
You know, and then they'll have a smile on their face straight away.
So you get them, you know, because they're like, oh, okay.
And then they start telling a story and you know I like to leave people with some laughter and always remember that it's don't just remember your loved one from this moment.
People who die by suicide are just the most wonderful people and, more often than not, are just so loved, and the stories that people talk about them and things.
You know, prior to this I worked with kids with cancer and laughter is the best medicine, and it really is.
So quite often I'd like to end where I can get them to at least smile, you know, and know that they will thrive again.
They've got to have their body and grow around the grief.
It never, never leaves.
But this all of grief will always be there and it will rise and get hot and angry and infected at times.
But you can learn to grow around it and those times do get less and less and the person would not want you there to go down with what happened with them.
They want us to thrive.
And for me I don't know.
I always say to everyone when they go how do you do what you do and with what you've been through?
But for some reason, when anything is bad in my life, there's always.
I always have this glimmer From the corner.
It's just this tiny bit.
I don't know how or why, but it's always enough for me to go.
You know you need to feel to heal Carissa.
So feel it because it will chase you if you don't.
Mm-hmm.
So I say to people that are working on being peer workers, that hope and you, just showing up, that's all it takes and you can change a person's day and in some cases you can change a person's life.
We send – so Dr M listens to the episodes before they come out and I just found myself during that chat just imagining her response to this chat.
It's been really – I mean, I've never heard anything like this before, and I think –
It was able to happen because you were able to share your story so beautifully at the start.
So thank you for doing that and your family story and your mum's story.
But also, I just think, for anyone who has found themselves in the impact zone, this is going to be quite something to listen to.
Thank you.
You are a fucking hero.
Oh.
I'm not a fucking hero.
You fucking are, Carissa.
Well, I fucking hope that I get to do some really cool shit moving forward with lived and living experience, because so many people need support and so many people can support people.
And thank you so much for having me on here.
You're the best.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thanks, Carissa.
Thank you.
Thanks for listening to today's show.
As always, The Imperfects is recorded on the lands of the Wurundjeri people and we pay our respects to elders, past and present.
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The Imperfects is not a licensed mental health service and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice, treatment or assessment.
The advice given in this episode is general in nature, but if you're struggling, please see a healthcare professional or call our client on 13 11, 14.
