May 6, 2025 • 53 mins
When a state trooper arrived at Rachel Zimmerman’s door with devastating news – that her husband, a brilliant MIT professor and loving father, had taken his own life – her world shattered in an instant. With no warning signs, no history of mental illness, and two young daughters now facing an unthinkable reality, Rachel was left with a haunting question: Why?
In this powerful episode of Next Steps Forward, award-winning journalist Rachel Zimmerman shares the deeply personal and investigative journey that followed. Drawing on her years of experience covering health and medicine, Rachel turned her grief into inquiry – interviewing suicide researchers, mental health experts, and even a man who survived a jump from the same bridge. Her search yielded many insights, but never the one definitive answer she longed for.Through her new memoir, Us, After, Rachel reflects on what it means to live with ambiguity, to hold both devastation and resilience, and to find grace in the aftermath of tragedy. Rachel speaks with program host Dr. Chris Meek about the weight of secrets, the work of motherhood, and the quiet strength it takes to keep going when everything falls apart.
About Rachel Zimmerman: Rachel Zimmerman, an award-winning journalist, has written about health and medicine for more than two decades. She’s a contributor to The Washington Post and previously worked as a staff writer for The Wall Street Journal and a health reporter for WBUR, Boston’s public radio station, where she co-founded a popular blog and podcast. Her essays and reporting have been published in The New York Times; Vogue.com; New York Magazine’s The Cut; “O” The Oprah Magazine; The Atlantic, Slate; and The Huffington Post, among others, She received an MS from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and a BA from Sarah Lawrence College. She lives with her family in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
There are few things that make people successful. Taking a step forward to change their lives is one successful trait, but it takes some time to get there. How do you move forward to greet the success that awaits you? Welcome to Next Steps Forward with host Chris Meek. Each week, Chris brings on another guest who has successfully taken the next steps forward.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Now here is Chris Meek. Hello. You've tuned to this week's episode of Next Steps Forward, and I'm your host, Chris Meek. As always, it's a pleasure to have you with us. Our focus is on personal empowerment, a commitment to wellbeing, motivation to achieve more than you ever thought possible, and we have another outstanding guest this week. Melissa Zimmerman is a writer, reporter, and author focused on healthcare, wellbeing, mental health, and equity. For more than 25 years, she's been writing and reporting on a range of health topics from injustice in our healthcare system and women's health, to emerging brain science and the cost of medicines. She's worked as a staff writer for the Wall Street Journal in Seattle, New York, and Boston and a public radio reporter for WBUR, and she's currently a Washington Post contributor on the topic of mental health. Her memoir, Us After, a memoir of love and suicide about rebuilding family life after husband suicide, was named a winner of the 2022 Santa Fe Writers' Project Literary Awards. She also co-wrote The Healing Power of Storytelling, using personal narrative to navigate illness, trauma, and loss. Rachel Zimmerman, welcome to Next Steps Forward.
(01:33):
Speaker3: Thank you so much for having me on.
It's an honor to have you. And Rachel, I can't begin to say how much I admire your courage for sharing such a painful chapter in your life and for giving hope to others who have experienced or will experience the heartache of losing a loved one who took their own life. But let's start by talking about you first. What was life like for you growing up, where did you go to college, and how did you decide to become a writer?
Speaker 3 (01:56):
I grew up in Brooklyn, New York. I went to college in New York at Sarah Lawrence. I was a writer and a dancer. And shortly after that, after graduation, I got a job in publishing and ended up at Chronicle Books, which is the same company owns the San Francisco Chronicle. And I started writing book reviews and thought, oh, this is fun writing for newspapers and just decided I wanted to be a reporter. And I hadn't done journalism in college or in high school. And I got a job at a tiny little newspaper in San Benito County, California, kind of a wild west classic California town. I covered city council meetings where the councilors showed up with their guns and did that for a year. That was eye opening. Then came back to New York, went to Columbia Journalism School, got proper credentials, and then just worked at a bunch of small newspapers. I worked at the Alternative Weekly in Portland, Oregon. I worked for a business journal in Portland. I worked for a daily in Seattle covering politics. And then when the Wall Street Journal reopened their Seattle bureau, I got a job there and started writing for the journal about the Northwest. And then I moved to New York and started, that's when I really started writing about medicine and the pharmaceutical industry and the high cost of medications. And then the subject of this book, much of it is my husband, Seth Teller. And when he got tenure at MIT, I moved from the New York Bureau of the Journal to the Boston Bureau. So that's my trajectory in a nutshell.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
So you've lived in some great cities. Do you have a favorite?
Speaker 3 (03:47):
I mean, I love New York. I go there and I see art and see theater and think, oh my gosh, I can't believe I don't live here anymore. And then after about three days, I'm like, get me out of here. I want quiet and I want nature. But I love the West Coast, California. It's like the promised land, but my family is all on the East Coast mainly. So I was really drawn back here and I love it here too.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
So you're from Brooklyn, but you've been in Boston for a while. My listeners and viewers, I'm a huge sports fan and I'm a huge Yankee fan. I got to ask.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
What's your theme?
Speaker 3 (04:27):
I mean, I grew up with basketball, so we were New York Knicks fans and my dad used to take us to like the heyday of the Knicks in the seventies, but it's pretty painful to be a Knicks fan. Although, you know, hope springs eternal, but yeah, that's kind of where I am.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
My listeners also know I'm a huge Dallas Cowboys fan and we always say, this is our year. This is our year.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Exactly.
Speaker2: It's that time for the draft.
There you go.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
So back to your career, a lot of people work in different fields before reaching their profession. Did you have any other jobs before becoming a writer, whether it was waiting tables in high school or college or anything else? How has experiences helped you in writing?
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Well, as I said, I originally went into publishing and I was editing fiction and poetry in a couple of different publishing companies. That was right after college, but yeah, I've done, I've worked in restaurants. I worked at a bagel shop in Brooklyn. I did a lot of babysitting. I taught yoga, I taught gymnastics and, you know, I think one reason I think I became a journalist is I was kind of a shy kid and being a reporter, it's like you have an excuse to be in the room and ask questions, right? You don't have to, you know, you do have to overcome fear, but you have a legitimate excuse to do that. And so I think every experience, every job I've had really, you know, it opens up worlds and the more worlds you're exposed to, I think the deeper you're thinking, you're reporting, your compassion for the ways in which, you know, other people live is all opened up. So yeah, everything, you know, it's kind of that Nora Ephron, everything is material, right? So every experience fuses into these stories we tell.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
How and when did you meet Seth Teller and would you describe your courtship?
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Well, you can get a lot of detail if you read the book, but basically we had a mutual friend. My best friend, her name also is Rachel. I had known her since I was 15 and she was actually dating Seth right before we met. And we all were on Cape Cod together and we struck up a friendship. And then when there were some complications, but it's a little a patent place, a little a soap opera-y, but eventually, so we met on the Cape and then I was living in Seattle at the time. And then we started writing to each other and about six months after we met, we met again in New York and then I moved back to New York and we were going back and forth from, he was at MIT at the time, we were going back and forth from Cambridge to New York for about a year. And then I was able to move to the Boston Bureau of the Journal. And I moved in with him, got pregnant, got married all in the same year. We were in our later thirties, so we already had our careers established and so it was an interesting moment to get married and start a family.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
You mentioned people can get more details in your book, where can they find your book?
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Anywhere books are sold, I mean, Amazon, Walmart, Barnes and Noble, all the independent bookstores, but you could also go to my website, which is rachelzimmerman.net and you can order it through there.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Perfect, rachelzimmerman.net, we'll be sure to drive some traffic there through social media.
Speaker3: Thank you. I appreciate it.
So how long were you married? I understand Seth was a trailblazer in his profession and where were you two living and where were each of you working? Was it in Cambridge?
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Yes. So we were living in Cambridge and we were together for 15 years and married for 12 of those. Yes, he was a robotics professor at MIT and just for a little background, I mean, he was not your classic university professor in many ways. If you saw him, he often taught his class wearing shorts. He had this kind of laid back air around him. He played ultimate Frisbee. That was his main source of exercise and he was a jokester. He loved kids. He loved playing with kids and there's a story in the book about he kept a bottle of bubble mix in the back of his car and a wand so that anytime he'd run into a group of kids, he could take out his bubble mix and he'd make these tremendous bubbles and they would just, of course, scream with glee. But that's how he was. He was childlike in that way and he had never been diagnosed with any severe mental illness. He obviously was very high functioning, teaching at the best research institute in the world. He was close with his students, deeply, deeply connected with our daughters who were eight and 11 when he died. His parents are still alive and he was very close with his parents, his two brothers. So in other words, he had a very robust social network. He had what he described as his dream job. Our family was very connected. So it wasn't sort of the classic stereotype that people imagine as someone who is suicidal. On the outside, it looked like he had a charmed life. But of course, as one friend of mine said to me after reading the book, it was like Seth had a PhD in hiding. And so I think this is common with many people who have severe depression or consider suicide. It's like they have two personas, right? They have the one that they show the outside world and then they have deep turmoil inside and a hard time reconciling those.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
You learned of his death when a state trooper knocked on your door. How did that trooper break the news to you and what happened from there?
Speaker 3 (10:56):
So basically, he had been involved in this international robotics competition. And they were programming a human-sized robot to be able to go into a disaster zone. For instance, if there was a nuclear power plant that had started to melt down, how could you avoid sending humans in there and just send a robot in? So they were working on that. And for Seth, it was a huge deal to win this competition. He was leading MIT's team. And he would go in every night and come home late. And I was kind of like, you have tenure at MIT. Does it really matter that much if you win? He would explode. Of course, I have to win. He was deeply competitive. And his students had worked so hard. So that was pressure. And that pressure had... And they had recently changed the rules of this competition. So he felt like he was at a disadvantage. He had also just recently turned 50. And I think for many men in particular, that's a moment it's like, what have I accomplished in my life? So there was sort of a lot of soul searching. He had a little bit of chronic pain in his hip. And so he wasn't playing ultimate Frisbee, his main form of exercise. And he had developed recently a ringing in the ear, tinnitus, which was just kind of mild for many years, but it had recently escalated. So he was experiencing some increased anxiety in the days before his death. And I had encouraged him to go to his doctor, who then encouraged him to go see a psychiatrist. He had never seen this woman. They had no relationship. And he basically said to her, look, I just am having a lot of trouble sleeping. I have anxiety. Can you just give me something to sleep? And then the next morning, I was taking my kids to day camp. It was summertime. And so I said he was going to take the day off and stay home. And he said, I'm just going to stay here and read the New York Times till you come back from dropping the kids off at camp. I biked with them to camp. I came home and his car was gone. And we had had a plan and I started getting anxious and hours passed. I called and texted everyone, called and texted him many, many, many, many times. And then about three hours later at about 1130 that morning, a state trooper came to my door and told me that Seth had died. He jumped off a bridge about three miles from our home. And yeah, I mean, you can imagine it was devastating. All I thought about were my kids and how would we ever go on? What would I tell them? I truly believed we were doomed. I just didn't think children could get over such a loss. And I just thought like this is the end of their childhood. And one reason I wrote this book is because so many people have experienced loss or trauma, not necessarily what I went through, but something. It's hard to be an adult without having experienced some kind of deep loss. And when you're in it, in the initial moments, you really don't see how you're going to recover. It's that painful. It's that raw. But over time, most of us do find ways. I hate the word closure or, you know, I mean, you move out of it. It's different. Your life changes, of course. And sometimes I don't even think you ever find closure, but you evolve. And I wanted to write this book to show that, you know, these tragedies occur, but we have a deep drive to keep going and to find pleasure and joy and to continue living life. And so I really wanted to put that out into the world because that was my experience.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
You've written that you had several questions as you struggled to absorb the horrible news. You asked yourself, how could Seth have committed such an act of self-violence? How would you explain his death to your young daughters and could you have stopped him? I mean, those are obviously some agonizingly difficult questions. How were you able to process the news of his death and the answers to those questions? And what answers did you come up with?
Speaker 3 (15:32):
You know, I think suicide is just inherently not understandable, right? Because it so undermines our basic human drive to stay alive, right? And so it's very hard to wrap your brain around it, especially if you're a kid. But I think what I learned after researching and living through all of this, it really, it's an illness. And I think that we really have to start talking about it and thinking of it as a mental illness. And just like cancer, we don't blame people for their cancer. We don't say, you were selfish to get cancer. We don't say, why did you abandon your family with your fatal cancer, right? And even though suicide is more difficult to think of, it's hard to think about it just like cancer, but it's an illness in your brain. And some of the side effects of this illness are this level of self-harm. And so if you think of it that way, it's really, it makes a little more sense that, as I say to my kids, it's not like your dad just woke up one morning and decided he wanted to abandon us. He was in so much psychic pain, and all he could think of was, how do I end the pain? And I've talked to a bunch of psychiatrists and researchers, and some described it to me, there's a kind of tunnel vision that sets in, and they're not thinking about anything else except, how do I end the pain? And someone compared it to a burning building, right? You just need to get out of the building, and how do you do that? So I think over time, I have come to see it, people are like, aren't you angry at him for abandoning you? And honestly, I was angry that I found myself in this situation, but I wasn't angry at him because I mostly just had compassion for the pain he must have been in.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
I can't imagine going through what you went through, let alone talking about it as openly as you are. How long did it take you to get through that process to be able to address it and talk outside of the family in terms of what happened?
Speaker 3 (17:53):
You know, I've been a reporter for a long time, and so I'm used to asking questions that maybe are uncomfortable or difficult. And when I worked at the public radio station, a colleague and I had a health blog where we began to write about our own health situations or our kids, or we were both moms. So we wrote about the ups and downs of motherhood, et cetera. So I had started writing a few first person stories about what had gone on, but mostly those stories ended happily. I wrote about having a mammogram, and I had to come back for a repeat, but in the end, it was all fine. And so it's one thing to write and be in the story when it's a happy ending. When it's not a happy ending, it's a lot more difficult. But I guess I just found that it's better to talk about it. And again, as I said, so many other people have stories. And what I've learned doing book talks and being on tour with this book, people want to connect, and they want to share their traumas, and they want to hear yours. And I think that it makes us all more human to share these stories, even if they're painful. And honestly, a few people came to me and said, there was a suicide in my family, and the response was to take all the pictures down and never talk about the person again. And then you've got this secret that takes on a life of its own, right? And it's almost like the secret is worse than the reality. And so I kind of wanted this book to be a conversation starter and be permission for people to talk honestly about their losses, even if it was hard.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
I've been doing this for over four years, and I've had incredible people like yourself with incredible stories, and I just can't begin to fathom what they've gone through personally with their families, human trafficking, suicide, sexual abuse. So I just want to thank you for having the courage to do this. And so I, again, can't believe how easily you're talking about it. So I just want to thank you for that.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Well, thank you.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
I mean, it doesn't really feel like it's been a long time. Well, thank you. I mean, it doesn't really feel courageous. Honestly, it just, it feels like I'm going to tell you a story. I mean, we are natural storytellers, right? And the process of grief and grieving, I mean, he died 10 years ago. So I've had a long time to process. And I really think part of grieving is coming to a story we can live with. And that's kind of what my writing has been like for me. Not that it's, not that this book is therapy. Like people ask, oh, was it like therapy to write your book? I mean, there's therapy and there's writing, and they're not the same thing. But there is something cathartic about the distance you need to write a book like this, right? Like, this is not my journal entries that I just dumped on the page. Like there have to be characters, and there's got to be a narrative arc, and you have to figure out what details serve the story and what to leave out. And so there's a lot of sort of craft to it. But at the end of the day, it forces you to reframe and rethink what you have lived through. And that gives you a sense of perspective and distance that I think is therapeutic. But, you know, I was inspired by many other writers who have shared their stories. And I think what moves me most as a writer is when someone takes a traumatic or terrible experience and makes art or something beautiful out of it. And I think, again, it's a very human drive to do that.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Many people who survive the loss of a loved one to suicide struggle with guilt. As you said, you asked yourself if you've done something to prevent Seth from taking his life. How do you navigate those feelings of what if or if only?
Speaker 3 (22:20):
Yes. I think anyone who's experienced the suicide of a loved one has asked themselves, what could I have done to stop it? Did I miss a sign? Should I have done this? Should I have given him? I mean, I just think that that's natural. In fact, I remember the day before he died, I arranged for him to get a massage in town. And years later, the massage therapist asked me, was it something I did? Did I do something during the massage that was like, no, it had nothing to do with you. But everybody thinks, you know, you mistakenly think you have some control over other people's actions. But I, you know, as a spouse, I mean, I, you know, slept next to this guy for 12 years, like, and plus, I'm a reporter, I'm supposed to be a professional observer. You know, and so even I missed these signs or, you know, little inclinations that he had that maybe, you know, he was a brilliant, moody guy. And he had his ups and downs, but he was a brilliant, moody guy for 15 years. And none of that was an emergency. And so you get a little complacent, you know, you have your routines. But I think, you know, the first part of this book is me digging and digging for answers. I thought, if I could just figure out why he did this, I will get some relief. And if I just unlock the answer, I can move on. And so that's why there's all this, you know, reporting and talk and interviews. And, you know, I found a man who jumped off the same bridge and survived. And I interviewed him to be like, what were you thinking? What was it like? Why did you? And none of these interviews were revelatory in the sense that they gave me the answer. Like they all, I learned something from everyone I talked to, but I didn't. There was no, aha, this is why he did it. Like, he wasn't having an affair. He didn't gamble away all our money. He didn't, you know, commit some crime that he was hiding. It wasn't any of those sort of Hollywood reasons. And at a certain point, you know, it wasn't a moment. It was over time. I just realized, like, I could spend all this time and energy digging and digging some more and trying to figure this thing out. Or I could pivot and start just living my life and making sure my kids were living theirs and finding joy and pleasure. And that's what happened.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Well, many people often don't know what to say or how to comfort someone in moments of intense grief. What were some of the most helpful or comforting things? And what were the least helpful things people said or did during this time?
Speaker 3 (25:18):
Right. Well, I will say that one reason that we survived and ultimately thrived was we had this tremendous community. And I cannot overstate how important the community is when you're going through something like this. It makes all the difference. For us, my kids had been in the same school since they were four. And so the school community knew our family. They knew Seth. They knew the girls. So, you know, I would have teachers texting me, like, Julia's on top of the monkey bar. She's really happy. She's having a good day. Or, you know, my other kid is, like, hanging out with her best friend. So I had that. And then I had this group of mostly mothers of my kids' friends who just were there for me. And I think your question, what's the most helpful thing? I mean, what really helped was people who, you know, asked for nothing but just gave of themselves. So that meant dropping food off at the door without expecting a long conversation or picking up the phone in the middle of the night to just hear me vent or worry or be anxious about what was going on with my kids. Or, you know, as I told you at the outset, I was in my late 30s when I had kids. And so I thought I was the kind of mom, like, I knew it all. Like, I'm older. I'm wiser. I don't need any help. But I quickly realized after Seth died, I did need help. And it was OK to ask for help. So, yes, you can drive my kid to gymnastics and feed them dinner and drop them off after. And, yes, you can, you know, take them to a movie for the night so I can have a night off. Like, just saying yes to these offers. I think the more difficult interactions were people who really wanted to hear, like, they wanted to talk about the details and like, what was going on? What time? What did you think? Where was he? Why didn't you? Like, I didn't, I just wanted to talk when I wanted to talk and I didn't want to be pressured. And nobody ever said this to me, but I recently read something about the worst things you can say to somebody who lost a loved one. And I think the top of the worst is they're in a better place now, which, again, nobody said that to me. But if they had, I would have lost it because, yeah. So, I mean, it's not profound advice, but I think just knowing that your community is there, just being there, saying I'm here for whatever you need, anytime I'm checking in, I'm thinking about you, like, low impact offerings.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
When and why did you decide to write about us?
Speaker 3 (28:21):
I decided to write this, I mean, again, I've been a journalist. So, you know, the way that I see the world is like, oh, is that a story? Is that a story? So, just even days after his death, I thought this is a terrible story, but it is a story. And I started sort of taking notes, just jotting down thoughts and what we were going through and not thinking it would be anything necessarily, but just wanting to remember moments. And then I started sort of writing longer pieces about different experiences related to his death. I took a couple of classes in essay and memoir writing. And actually, what really convinced me that this was a book was, as you mentioned, I wrote a book with a local doctor, Annie Brewster, who really has pioneered incredible work about the mental health benefits of storytelling in medicine. And this idea that we've really lost a lot of humanity in medicine, because we don't have time with our doctors anymore to tell our stories. And so she has a nonprofit now where she interviews people in the midst of chronic illness and trauma. So, Seth died on July 1st, 2014. And that school year, starting in September, our kids went to the same school. She said, do you want me to just record you? Not for who knows what, but just like so you've got a record of this year. So, I went to her house every once a week for the whole school year, so nine months, and just vented and talked about what was happening. And she asked a few questions, but it was mostly just me like spewing. And then about a year after, I went and listened to those tapes. And what I heard was kind of remarkable because my actual voice sounded different from the beginning when it was like raw and scratchy, and my sentences were incomplete. And I would sort of trail off to the end where I sounded calmer and things felt more coherent. And I thought that is the arc, like you're raw and out of control and incoherent to calm and a place of peace and being settled. And I thought that's a book or that's something. And so at that point, I took a year-long memoir writing class. And transformed my snippets and essays and some of the transcripts into this memoir, Us After. And then I worked on it and revised and revised. And there it is.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
There it is.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
Came out last summer.
Speaker2: And where can we find it again?
You can find it on Amazon at Walmart, Barnes & Noble, any place where you buy books. But I would encourage buying it at your local independent bookstore. Or you can go to my website, rachelzimmerman.net, and you can purchase it through the website.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
Rachel, your memoir is so different and more informative in that it's not just your personal perspective. As you've mentioned, as a longtime journalist, you've interviewed doctors, suicide researchers. You mentioned the man who jumped off the same bridge. What did you learn from those people that helped you personally and have been helpful to others?
Speaker 3 (32:09):
I did learn a lot. There's a suicide researcher at Harvard, Matthew Nock. And incredibly, we're not very good at predicting who will die by suicide among the many, many millions of very depressed people. It's just we're terrible at predicting. In fact, as he said, we're still no better than a coin toss at predicting. And so that sort of made me, you know, it gave me some relief that even the experts are no good at this. So that was one thing. And he told this story of a roommate, a former roommate of his who was coming to visit him who died by suicide right before the visit. And here's this guy. This is what he does for a living. And he had no idea. So, again, there is this sense of hiding and shame that often accompanies, you know, these people. And so, you know, we can't always see it. So I learned that. And then just this idea that it is an illness in your brain. And, you know, that's partly why the whole language around suicide has evolved a little bit. So we talk about, you know, this person died by suicide. We don't say commit suicide. I mean, some people do, but, you know, we think of it as dying by suicide. We don't say someone committed diabetes, right? And yet that's, you know, it's still very stigmatized. And in some countries, suicide is illegal. In many religions, it's still perceived as a sin. So there is a lot of education and there's a lot of misunderstanding around it. And so talking to these people who deal with these kind of illnesses all the time was super helpful. And just the idea that it's not like you wake up and it's a choice, you know, it's this level of psychic pain that is unending. And, you know, the act of suicide is a way to end this oppressive pain that you feel there's nothing you can do. You know, for people who are in, you know, a lot of people suffer from pain daily, chronic, but if you feel like there's a way out or there's something that you can do to make it better or you have hope, that's a different mindset. If you're suicidal, it's like, this is how it is. And this is how it always is. Unless I do something about it.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
How'd your perspective about cesspassing change over time? And do you think writing about it changed that perspective in ways that might not otherwise have changed?
Speaker 3 (35:04):
I mean, the last chapter of the book is kind of addresses that question. I mean, you know, I still have a relationship with him. My kids and I talk about him. I mentioned my daughter's graduating from college this year. My younger daughter just started college in September. And, you know, on these milestone moments, you think about, boy, he is, I wish he was here to see these girls. Like, they're amazing. And he would have been so proud of them. But we talk about, like, we, you know, we'll see a movie and be like, oh, my God, dad would have hated that. Or, you know, also my youngest daughter plays ultimate Frisbee, and she looks exactly like him when she plays. She's super aggressive. She dives for every, like, she's just an insane player. And I just thought, oh, wow, she is just like him. They have parts of him, you know, within them. I mean, that's not surprising. That's their DNA. But I think that, you know, I have an ongoing sadness about what he's missing and how much he would have loved seeing them grow up. But I have a very strong relationship with his parents still. And it was really important for me to keep my kids in his family's life. And so we all, you know, that's also, he's always there at all these family gatherings with his parents and his brothers, you know. And so I think, so the last chapter of the book is about my kids finding bags of Seth's old clothes, which I didn't have the heart to get rid of. And so they wear his old clothes all the time. They've cut them up and made little skirts out of his, you know, shirts and pants and like headbands. And, you know, I'll see these coats of his. And anyway, so he just hangs around in different ways and he takes different forms, but he's still sort of in the shadows of our world.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
People who've gone through a divorce or the death of a spouse often find that friendships they shared as a couple can just fade away. Did that happen to you at the same time? Did you find some bonds were strengthened?
Speaker 3 (37:32):
I mean, I'll, to reframe that, it was not necessarily the people I expected who really showed up for me. And on the other hand, sometimes people who were just sort of acquaintances were the ones who really showed up. I wouldn't say, you know, as a couple, we lost people or, you know, I think that, you know, it was on a case by case basis. We didn't, as I said, like I still am close with some of his colleagues and some of our friends from that time. Obviously some of his MIT people, I've, you know, we, there's been distance, but nobody ever, I mean, as I said, our community was really powerful and they, most of them really like circled around and gave us incredible support.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
You mentioned the beginning of that response that people you expected to show up weren't there. Do you have any sense of why? Was it just that they didn't know what to say or how to react?
Speaker 3 (38:39):
I, I'm thinking I had a work colleague who I was very close to. We'd worked together for five, six years and we were both moms and we talk every day. And a couple of months after he died, I took, I got a short leave of absence from work after he died. And when I came back to work, it was very hard at the beginning to be back in reality. But I was trying and this person basically said to me, you know what? I can't deal with you talking about Seth anymore. I just want a professional relationship. It's like too much pain and I can't deal with it. And that was, I mean, I won't lie. That was excruciating coming from someone who I deeply loved and admired. And, you know, I was really angry in the moment. I think over time, some people just can't take on more pain. And this is a woman who had lost her mother at a young age. And I think it triggered her, you know, and I understand. But it was really surprising. And, and then other people who were just very on the outskirts of my social circle, they were just like there every day. So you just don't know. And weirdly, I think part, you know, part of the misunderstandings that go on with suicide, some people treated it as if it was like an infectious disease. Like, I don't want to even be near your family because something really bad happened. And if I come too close, maybe it'll happen to me. I mean, nobody ever, of course, said that. But that was a, there was a feeling of like, you had a bad thing happen. And something like what happened in your family, people would say to me, like, you must have known something. Didn't you see something like as if they wanted to find the thing that they should stay away from so it didn't happen to them? Which of course, I mean, suicide cuts across economics and race and class and nationality. It's not, you know, it can happen to anyone.
(40:52):
Speaker2: It doesn't discriminate.
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
What advice would you give the parents with children, specifically who are navigating life after loss of losing someone to suicide? And how much does the age of the children decide what the surviving parents should say and do?
Speaker 3 (41:07):
Yeah, that's a great question. So initially, I just thought about my kids as sort of a monolithic block. But I very quickly realized, you know, 8 and 11 are quite different developmentally, intellectually, but also my kids' personalities were just simply different. So my younger daughter, she was the one who wanted all the details. She wanted to know how he died, like when he died, what was going on. Very black and white thinker. And my older daughter didn't want those details. She wanted her memories of him in the way that she wanted her to remember him. So, you know, as I said, I grew up in New York and everyone was in therapy when they were young. And I thought, OK, my kids are immediately going into therapy. And my older daughter is like, wait, you want me to sit in some strange lady's office and talk about my dead father? No, thank you. You know, and I was like, OK, well, when you put it that way, I am not going to force you. So she didn't want to go. And my younger daughter and I went to this really helpful grief group. And I would encourage anyone who has gone through something like this to find a space like this. I mean, so the kids were downstairs and they weren't talking about death. They were playing and doing art projects and jumping on trampolines and just being kids. And then the grownups were upstairs talking. And, you know, my daughter said it was she didn't realize that anyone else had ever lost a parent and it made her feel less alone. So I quickly saw that they needed different stuff. And I started listening carefully about what it was they each needed. And I think that was it was intuitive. You know, it wasn't like I read a book to tell me to do that. I just like I think you really have to listen. And that also meant like, you know, if they wanted to watch movies while we were eating dinner, fine. Like, you know, I just my rules changed. And if they needed to take a day off from school because they were sad, like, fine. You know what I mean? So it's really like this deep listening. And I think because of that, we the three of us became it's like it's like we're in this band together. And I remember when I dropped my older kid at college for the first time and then the younger one and I left, I thought, oh, my gosh, the band is breaking up. You know, but it did make us very attuned to each other. And then they they helped each other, too, as sisters can or, you know, they fought, obviously, but they also came together. And so I think it was a lot of deep listening that helped us get through it.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
You had to navigate family dynamics and societal expectations when you said you're ready to begin dating again. First, you probably had to reconcile some of your own feelings. You know, how did you do that? And then how did you know when you were ready to start dating again?
Speaker 3 (44:18):
Yeah, that was interesting. I didn't really know. I mean, about a year after Seth died, a friend of mine said to me, do you want to meet a guy? And I was like, oh, man, I just can't do this. I don't know how to do this. I'm too old. But then I was like, OK, fine, we can have tea, you know. And so I went on a date and I was it was there was a lot of anxiety. I just I did feel guilty. And I felt like I was betraying Seth in some way, like betraying our vows. I didn't know what to say. I didn't know how much to say. I I just, you know, was this too soon? I didn't really tell anybody because I thought people other people would think it was too soon. I certainly didn't tell my kids at first because I really didn't want them to feel in any way that their father was being replaced. But the date was pretty fun and we kept seeing each other. And we went very slowly because, again, like he had a daughter and my two kids and we just didn't want to rock any boats. And but then eventually the girls met and they got along. And so then, you know, five years after Seth died, we got married and our kids were up there with us. And it was amazing. And so now we've been married since twenty nineteen. And, you know, at first it required some navigating for three teenage girls to live in the house and share a bathroom. But they manage his his kid as much as she's an athlete and very like low maintenance and minor, like dramatic and singers and theater people and high maintenance. But they all figured it out. And now, like they call each other sisters. And it's a it's really lovely and beautiful. But it definitely took some navigating. And yeah, I think, you know, there's no right moment. It's very personal. Some people think a year is too short, too soon. I mean, it's just you've got to go with your gut like there is no rule book.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
He talked about the stigma earlier around mental health, certainly suicide. Things are finally changing, but suicide and mental health struggles are still defined by many old stereotypes and stigmas with a lot of folks. What do you wish people better understood about suicide, mental illness, grief and healing after suicide loss? And what do you hope your book Us After has contributed to the conversation?
Speaker 3 (47:03):
Yeah, I mean, we've touched on some of it. I I wish that people understood that suicide is the result of an illness in your brain, and that it isn't a selfish desire to abandon your family. I wish that people had more access to mental health care. I mean, it's a huge, you know, it's a major failure of our health care system that mental health is so segregated, and it's separate from physical health. I mean, I remember for this book when I called to try to get Seth's health records, and they were like, do you want his mental health records or his physical health records? They're in two different buildings. And I thought, this is a metaphor, right? Like, why is all his body, like, why is one part of his body's records in a different place? And, you know, we all know about the crisis in, you know, kids' mental health right now. And it's, it's bad. And it's still, you know, I think this book, I don't obviously think that only men have this problem. But I do think that men still are told there's something weak about talking about your feelings, and there's something weak about asking for help. And, you know, I hope one of the messages is, and what I tell my kids all the time, it's a sign of strength to ask for help, not a sign of weakness. And I wish that was more pervasive in our culture. You know, Seth was, his father was a judge. He had two brothers. And there was a very, like, pick yourself up by the bootstraps kind of like, deal with it. Like, whatever your challenges are, deal with it. And, you know, that's just in the air. And that's like our social, you know, reality. But I really wish talking about feelings and being vulnerable and, and fears and, you know, I wish, I would wish that those stigmas could really be released. And again, we're in this weird moment because, you know, social media, like everything's exposed on some level, like every part of your body and every little iteration of what you eat and where you were last night. But of course, that is the curated side, right? And so there's this whole other reality that isn't exposed in that way. And I just, I wish we, we had some kind of system where we could be more exposed and, and our internal realities be revealed. So there wasn't so much hiding and shame.
Speaker 2 (50:02):
Last week, I had the policy chief for AARP on the show. And she highlighted, which I didn't know, that 50% of everybody, male and female in the United States in their fifties will be let go from a job without their own wanting to do. Now, the ones that I do know is that the highest demographic suicide rate in the country are men my age in their fifties. And it's typically when they're high performing, high functioning, high earning people who commit suicide because they don't know what to do. And so a big focus, I think, as you know, in this show is focusing on mental health and reducing that stigma, ending that stigma. So I appreciate you sharing all these insights because, like I said to you before, the show is the platform for my guest, but these are very important, very difficult topics to talk about. And so I appreciate you opening up and sharing all this with us. So thank you.
Speaker 3 (50:53):
Well, thank you for doing the show and keeping these conversations going. It's really important.
Speaker 2 (50:58):
Now let's talk about something fun for a minute.
Speaker 3 (51:01):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (51:02):
Before the show, you mentioned your daughter graduating from college, who's living with your mother in Brooklyn.
Speaker 3 (51:06):
Yes.
Speaker2: Give us a little bit more behind that.
I mean, you know, in some way it comes back to, as I said, my kids and I were like this band that we became after Seth died. And so my kid was in Paris for a semester in her junior year, and she came back and she didn't want to deal with housing in New York. So she was going to live with my mother for a few months. And my brother and I took bets. We just, I thought it would last two weeks. He said four or the other way around. And, you know, she ended up staying. They worked it out. I don't know how it happened. My mother's 89 now. My daughter's 22. She's graduating next week. Like, it's crazy. I mean, I actually wrote an essay about it, but, you know, I'll give you one example. So my daughter's like, I really want to cook in the house, but my mother doesn't cook. She hasn't cooked since I moved out. And so her entire oven is like a storage cabinet with pots and pans. My daughter's like, what am I going to do? Anyway, I was like, this is your issue. You deal with it, you know. And so they negotiated and negotiated and they came up with a solution. They moved all the pots and pans out of the oven. And I was like, where did you put them? She's like, now they're in the dishwasher. So, you know, they come up with these solutions. And, you know, when I was growing up, I would have to sneak on my hands and knees because it's like an old New York apartment. The floors are really creaky. But now my mother's hearing has declined. So my daughter comes in at 3 a.m. My mother hears nothing.
Speaker 2 (52:42):
Well, I can't wait to see that as a series on Netflix.
Speaker 3 (52:45):
Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much for talking. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (52:50):
No, thank you. Rachel Zimmerman, author of Us After, a memoir of love and suicide, the healing power of storytelling using personal narrative to navigate illness, trauma and loss, and so many outstanding articles and essays. Thank you for being with us today.
Speaker 3 (53:02):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (53:04):
I'm Chris Meek, run of time. We'll see you next week. Same time, same place. Until then, stay safe and keep taking your next steps forward.
There are few things that make people successful. Taking a step forward to change their lives is one successful trait, but it takes some time to get there. How do you move forward to greet the success that awaits you? Welcome to Next Steps Forward with host Chris Meek. Each week, Chris brings on another guest who has successfully taken the next steps forward.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Now here is Chris Meek. Hello. You've tuned to this week's episode of Next Steps Forward, and I'm your host, Chris Meek. As always, it's a pleasure to have you with us. Our focus is on personal empowerment, a commitment to wellbeing, motivation to achieve more than you ever thought possible, and we have another outstanding guest this week. Melissa Zimmerman is a writer, reporter, and author focused on healthcare, wellbeing, mental health, and equity. For more than 25 years, she's been writing and reporting on a range of health topics from injustice in our healthcare system and women's health, to emerging brain science and the cost of medicines. She's worked as a staff writer for the Wall Street Journal in Seattle, New York, and Boston and a public radio reporter for WBUR, and she's currently a Washington Post contributor on the topic of mental health. Her memoir, Us After, a memoir of love and suicide about rebuilding family life after husband suicide, was named a winner of the 2022 Santa Fe Writers' Project Literary Awards. She also co-wrote The Healing Power of Storytelling, using personal narrative to navigate illness, trauma, and loss. Rachel Zimmerman, welcome to Next Steps Forward.
(01:33):
Speaker3: Thank you so much for having me on.
It's an honor to have you. And Rachel, I can't begin to say how much I admire your courage for sharing such a painful chapter in your life and for giving hope to others who have experienced or will experience the heartache of losing a loved one who took their own life. But let's start by talking about you first. What was life like for you growing up, where did you go to college, and how did you decide to become a writer?
Speaker 3 (01:56):
I grew up in Brooklyn, New York. I went to college in New York at Sarah Lawrence. I was a writer and a dancer. And shortly after that, after graduation, I got a job in publishing and ended up at Chronicle Books, which is the same company owns the San Francisco Chronicle. And I started writing book reviews and thought, oh, this is fun writing for newspapers and just decided I wanted to be a reporter. And I hadn't done journalism in college or in high school. And I got a job at a tiny little newspaper in San Benito County, California, kind of a wild west classic California town. I covered city council meetings where the councilors showed up with their guns and did that for a year. That was eye opening. Then came back to New York, went to Columbia Journalism School, got proper credentials, and then just worked at a bunch of small newspapers. I worked at the Alternative Weekly in Portland, Oregon. I worked for a business journal in Portland. I worked for a daily in Seattle covering politics. And then when the Wall Street Journal reopened their Seattle bureau, I got a job there and started writing for the journal about the Northwest. And then I moved to New York and started, that's when I really started writing about medicine and the pharmaceutical industry and the high cost of medications. And then the subject of this book, much of it is my husband, Seth Teller. And when he got tenure at MIT, I moved from the New York Bureau of the Journal to the Boston Bureau. So that's my trajectory in a nutshell.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
So you've lived in some great cities. Do you have a favorite?
Speaker 3 (03:47):
I mean, I love New York. I go there and I see art and see theater and think, oh my gosh, I can't believe I don't live here anymore. And then after about three days, I'm like, get me out of here. I want quiet and I want nature. But I love the West Coast, California. It's like the promised land, but my family is all on the East Coast mainly. So I was really drawn back here and I love it here too.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
So you're from Brooklyn, but you've been in Boston for a while. My listeners and viewers, I'm a huge sports fan and I'm a huge Yankee fan. I got to ask.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
What's your theme?
Speaker 3 (04:27):
I mean, I grew up with basketball, so we were New York Knicks fans and my dad used to take us to like the heyday of the Knicks in the seventies, but it's pretty painful to be a Knicks fan. Although, you know, hope springs eternal, but yeah, that's kind of where I am.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
My listeners also know I'm a huge Dallas Cowboys fan and we always say, this is our year. This is our year.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Exactly.
Speaker2: It's that time for the draft.
There you go.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
So back to your career, a lot of people work in different fields before reaching their profession. Did you have any other jobs before becoming a writer, whether it was waiting tables in high school or college or anything else? How has experiences helped you in writing?
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Well, as I said, I originally went into publishing and I was editing fiction and poetry in a couple of different publishing companies. That was right after college, but yeah, I've done, I've worked in restaurants. I worked at a bagel shop in Brooklyn. I did a lot of babysitting. I taught yoga, I taught gymnastics and, you know, I think one reason I think I became a journalist is I was kind of a shy kid and being a reporter, it's like you have an excuse to be in the room and ask questions, right? You don't have to, you know, you do have to overcome fear, but you have a legitimate excuse to do that. And so I think every experience, every job I've had really, you know, it opens up worlds and the more worlds you're exposed to, I think the deeper you're thinking, you're reporting, your compassion for the ways in which, you know, other people live is all opened up. So yeah, everything, you know, it's kind of that Nora Ephron, everything is material, right? So every experience fuses into these stories we tell.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
How and when did you meet Seth Teller and would you describe your courtship?
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Well, you can get a lot of detail if you read the book, but basically we had a mutual friend. My best friend, her name also is Rachel. I had known her since I was 15 and she was actually dating Seth right before we met. And we all were on Cape Cod together and we struck up a friendship. And then when there were some complications, but it's a little a patent place, a little a soap opera-y, but eventually, so we met on the Cape and then I was living in Seattle at the time. And then we started writing to each other and about six months after we met, we met again in New York and then I moved back to New York and we were going back and forth from, he was at MIT at the time, we were going back and forth from Cambridge to New York for about a year. And then I was able to move to the Boston Bureau of the Journal. And I moved in with him, got pregnant, got married all in the same year. We were in our later thirties, so we already had our careers established and so it was an interesting moment to get married and start a family.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
You mentioned people can get more details in your book, where can they find your book?
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Anywhere books are sold, I mean, Amazon, Walmart, Barnes and Noble, all the independent bookstores, but you could also go to my website, which is rachelzimmerman.net and you can order it through there.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Perfect, rachelzimmerman.net, we'll be sure to drive some traffic there through social media.
Speaker3: Thank you. I appreciate it.
So how long were you married? I understand Seth was a trailblazer in his profession and where were you two living and where were each of you working? Was it in Cambridge?
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Yes. So we were living in Cambridge and we were together for 15 years and married for 12 of those. Yes, he was a robotics professor at MIT and just for a little background, I mean, he was not your classic university professor in many ways. If you saw him, he often taught his class wearing shorts. He had this kind of laid back air around him. He played ultimate Frisbee. That was his main source of exercise and he was a jokester. He loved kids. He loved playing with kids and there's a story in the book about he kept a bottle of bubble mix in the back of his car and a wand so that anytime he'd run into a group of kids, he could take out his bubble mix and he'd make these tremendous bubbles and they would just, of course, scream with glee. But that's how he was. He was childlike in that way and he had never been diagnosed with any severe mental illness. He obviously was very high functioning, teaching at the best research institute in the world. He was close with his students, deeply, deeply connected with our daughters who were eight and 11 when he died. His parents are still alive and he was very close with his parents, his two brothers. So in other words, he had a very robust social network. He had what he described as his dream job. Our family was very connected. So it wasn't sort of the classic stereotype that people imagine as someone who is suicidal. On the outside, it looked like he had a charmed life. But of course, as one friend of mine said to me after reading the book, it was like Seth had a PhD in hiding. And so I think this is common with many people who have severe depression or consider suicide. It's like they have two personas, right? They have the one that they show the outside world and then they have deep turmoil inside and a hard time reconciling those.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
You learned of his death when a state trooper knocked on your door. How did that trooper break the news to you and what happened from there?
Speaker 3 (10:56):
So basically, he had been involved in this international robotics competition. And they were programming a human-sized robot to be able to go into a disaster zone. For instance, if there was a nuclear power plant that had started to melt down, how could you avoid sending humans in there and just send a robot in? So they were working on that. And for Seth, it was a huge deal to win this competition. He was leading MIT's team. And he would go in every night and come home late. And I was kind of like, you have tenure at MIT. Does it really matter that much if you win? He would explode. Of course, I have to win. He was deeply competitive. And his students had worked so hard. So that was pressure. And that pressure had... And they had recently changed the rules of this competition. So he felt like he was at a disadvantage. He had also just recently turned 50. And I think for many men in particular, that's a moment it's like, what have I accomplished in my life? So there was sort of a lot of soul searching. He had a little bit of chronic pain in his hip. And so he wasn't playing ultimate Frisbee, his main form of exercise. And he had developed recently a ringing in the ear, tinnitus, which was just kind of mild for many years, but it had recently escalated. So he was experiencing some increased anxiety in the days before his death. And I had encouraged him to go to his doctor, who then encouraged him to go see a psychiatrist. He had never seen this woman. They had no relationship. And he basically said to her, look, I just am having a lot of trouble sleeping. I have anxiety. Can you just give me something to sleep? And then the next morning, I was taking my kids to day camp. It was summertime. And so I said he was going to take the day off and stay home. And he said, I'm just going to stay here and read the New York Times till you come back from dropping the kids off at camp. I biked with them to camp. I came home and his car was gone. And we had had a plan and I started getting anxious and hours passed. I called and texted everyone, called and texted him many, many, many, many times. And then about three hours later at about 1130 that morning, a state trooper came to my door and told me that Seth had died. He jumped off a bridge about three miles from our home. And yeah, I mean, you can imagine it was devastating. All I thought about were my kids and how would we ever go on? What would I tell them? I truly believed we were doomed. I just didn't think children could get over such a loss. And I just thought like this is the end of their childhood. And one reason I wrote this book is because so many people have experienced loss or trauma, not necessarily what I went through, but something. It's hard to be an adult without having experienced some kind of deep loss. And when you're in it, in the initial moments, you really don't see how you're going to recover. It's that painful. It's that raw. But over time, most of us do find ways. I hate the word closure or, you know, I mean, you move out of it. It's different. Your life changes, of course. And sometimes I don't even think you ever find closure, but you evolve. And I wanted to write this book to show that, you know, these tragedies occur, but we have a deep drive to keep going and to find pleasure and joy and to continue living life. And so I really wanted to put that out into the world because that was my experience.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
You've written that you had several questions as you struggled to absorb the horrible news. You asked yourself, how could Seth have committed such an act of self-violence? How would you explain his death to your young daughters and could you have stopped him? I mean, those are obviously some agonizingly difficult questions. How were you able to process the news of his death and the answers to those questions? And what answers did you come up with?
Speaker 3 (15:32):
You know, I think suicide is just inherently not understandable, right? Because it so undermines our basic human drive to stay alive, right? And so it's very hard to wrap your brain around it, especially if you're a kid. But I think what I learned after researching and living through all of this, it really, it's an illness. And I think that we really have to start talking about it and thinking of it as a mental illness. And just like cancer, we don't blame people for their cancer. We don't say, you were selfish to get cancer. We don't say, why did you abandon your family with your fatal cancer, right? And even though suicide is more difficult to think of, it's hard to think about it just like cancer, but it's an illness in your brain. And some of the side effects of this illness are this level of self-harm. And so if you think of it that way, it's really, it makes a little more sense that, as I say to my kids, it's not like your dad just woke up one morning and decided he wanted to abandon us. He was in so much psychic pain, and all he could think of was, how do I end the pain? And I've talked to a bunch of psychiatrists and researchers, and some described it to me, there's a kind of tunnel vision that sets in, and they're not thinking about anything else except, how do I end the pain? And someone compared it to a burning building, right? You just need to get out of the building, and how do you do that? So I think over time, I have come to see it, people are like, aren't you angry at him for abandoning you? And honestly, I was angry that I found myself in this situation, but I wasn't angry at him because I mostly just had compassion for the pain he must have been in.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
I can't imagine going through what you went through, let alone talking about it as openly as you are. How long did it take you to get through that process to be able to address it and talk outside of the family in terms of what happened?
Speaker 3 (17:53):
You know, I've been a reporter for a long time, and so I'm used to asking questions that maybe are uncomfortable or difficult. And when I worked at the public radio station, a colleague and I had a health blog where we began to write about our own health situations or our kids, or we were both moms. So we wrote about the ups and downs of motherhood, et cetera. So I had started writing a few first person stories about what had gone on, but mostly those stories ended happily. I wrote about having a mammogram, and I had to come back for a repeat, but in the end, it was all fine. And so it's one thing to write and be in the story when it's a happy ending. When it's not a happy ending, it's a lot more difficult. But I guess I just found that it's better to talk about it. And again, as I said, so many other people have stories. And what I've learned doing book talks and being on tour with this book, people want to connect, and they want to share their traumas, and they want to hear yours. And I think that it makes us all more human to share these stories, even if they're painful. And honestly, a few people came to me and said, there was a suicide in my family, and the response was to take all the pictures down and never talk about the person again. And then you've got this secret that takes on a life of its own, right? And it's almost like the secret is worse than the reality. And so I kind of wanted this book to be a conversation starter and be permission for people to talk honestly about their losses, even if it was hard.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
I've been doing this for over four years, and I've had incredible people like yourself with incredible stories, and I just can't begin to fathom what they've gone through personally with their families, human trafficking, suicide, sexual abuse. So I just want to thank you for having the courage to do this. And so I, again, can't believe how easily you're talking about it. So I just want to thank you for that.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Well, thank you.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
I mean, it doesn't really feel like it's been a long time. Well, thank you. I mean, it doesn't really feel courageous. Honestly, it just, it feels like I'm going to tell you a story. I mean, we are natural storytellers, right? And the process of grief and grieving, I mean, he died 10 years ago. So I've had a long time to process. And I really think part of grieving is coming to a story we can live with. And that's kind of what my writing has been like for me. Not that it's, not that this book is therapy. Like people ask, oh, was it like therapy to write your book? I mean, there's therapy and there's writing, and they're not the same thing. But there is something cathartic about the distance you need to write a book like this, right? Like, this is not my journal entries that I just dumped on the page. Like there have to be characters, and there's got to be a narrative arc, and you have to figure out what details serve the story and what to leave out. And so there's a lot of sort of craft to it. But at the end of the day, it forces you to reframe and rethink what you have lived through. And that gives you a sense of perspective and distance that I think is therapeutic. But, you know, I was inspired by many other writers who have shared their stories. And I think what moves me most as a writer is when someone takes a traumatic or terrible experience and makes art or something beautiful out of it. And I think, again, it's a very human drive to do that.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Many people who survive the loss of a loved one to suicide struggle with guilt. As you said, you asked yourself if you've done something to prevent Seth from taking his life. How do you navigate those feelings of what if or if only?
Speaker 3 (22:20):
Yes. I think anyone who's experienced the suicide of a loved one has asked themselves, what could I have done to stop it? Did I miss a sign? Should I have done this? Should I have given him? I mean, I just think that that's natural. In fact, I remember the day before he died, I arranged for him to get a massage in town. And years later, the massage therapist asked me, was it something I did? Did I do something during the massage that was like, no, it had nothing to do with you. But everybody thinks, you know, you mistakenly think you have some control over other people's actions. But I, you know, as a spouse, I mean, I, you know, slept next to this guy for 12 years, like, and plus, I'm a reporter, I'm supposed to be a professional observer. You know, and so even I missed these signs or, you know, little inclinations that he had that maybe, you know, he was a brilliant, moody guy. And he had his ups and downs, but he was a brilliant, moody guy for 15 years. And none of that was an emergency. And so you get a little complacent, you know, you have your routines. But I think, you know, the first part of this book is me digging and digging for answers. I thought, if I could just figure out why he did this, I will get some relief. And if I just unlock the answer, I can move on. And so that's why there's all this, you know, reporting and talk and interviews. And, you know, I found a man who jumped off the same bridge and survived. And I interviewed him to be like, what were you thinking? What was it like? Why did you? And none of these interviews were revelatory in the sense that they gave me the answer. Like they all, I learned something from everyone I talked to, but I didn't. There was no, aha, this is why he did it. Like, he wasn't having an affair. He didn't gamble away all our money. He didn't, you know, commit some crime that he was hiding. It wasn't any of those sort of Hollywood reasons. And at a certain point, you know, it wasn't a moment. It was over time. I just realized, like, I could spend all this time and energy digging and digging some more and trying to figure this thing out. Or I could pivot and start just living my life and making sure my kids were living theirs and finding joy and pleasure. And that's what happened.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Well, many people often don't know what to say or how to comfort someone in moments of intense grief. What were some of the most helpful or comforting things? And what were the least helpful things people said or did during this time?
Speaker 3 (25:18):
Right. Well, I will say that one reason that we survived and ultimately thrived was we had this tremendous community. And I cannot overstate how important the community is when you're going through something like this. It makes all the difference. For us, my kids had been in the same school since they were four. And so the school community knew our family. They knew Seth. They knew the girls. So, you know, I would have teachers texting me, like, Julia's on top of the monkey bar. She's really happy. She's having a good day. Or, you know, my other kid is, like, hanging out with her best friend. So I had that. And then I had this group of mostly mothers of my kids' friends who just were there for me. And I think your question, what's the most helpful thing? I mean, what really helped was people who, you know, asked for nothing but just gave of themselves. So that meant dropping food off at the door without expecting a long conversation or picking up the phone in the middle of the night to just hear me vent or worry or be anxious about what was going on with my kids. Or, you know, as I told you at the outset, I was in my late 30s when I had kids. And so I thought I was the kind of mom, like, I knew it all. Like, I'm older. I'm wiser. I don't need any help. But I quickly realized after Seth died, I did need help. And it was OK to ask for help. So, yes, you can drive my kid to gymnastics and feed them dinner and drop them off after. And, yes, you can, you know, take them to a movie for the night so I can have a night off. Like, just saying yes to these offers. I think the more difficult interactions were people who really wanted to hear, like, they wanted to talk about the details and like, what was going on? What time? What did you think? Where was he? Why didn't you? Like, I didn't, I just wanted to talk when I wanted to talk and I didn't want to be pressured. And nobody ever said this to me, but I recently read something about the worst things you can say to somebody who lost a loved one. And I think the top of the worst is they're in a better place now, which, again, nobody said that to me. But if they had, I would have lost it because, yeah. So, I mean, it's not profound advice, but I think just knowing that your community is there, just being there, saying I'm here for whatever you need, anytime I'm checking in, I'm thinking about you, like, low impact offerings.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
When and why did you decide to write about us?
Speaker 3 (28:21):
I decided to write this, I mean, again, I've been a journalist. So, you know, the way that I see the world is like, oh, is that a story? Is that a story? So, just even days after his death, I thought this is a terrible story, but it is a story. And I started sort of taking notes, just jotting down thoughts and what we were going through and not thinking it would be anything necessarily, but just wanting to remember moments. And then I started sort of writing longer pieces about different experiences related to his death. I took a couple of classes in essay and memoir writing. And actually, what really convinced me that this was a book was, as you mentioned, I wrote a book with a local doctor, Annie Brewster, who really has pioneered incredible work about the mental health benefits of storytelling in medicine. And this idea that we've really lost a lot of humanity in medicine, because we don't have time with our doctors anymore to tell our stories. And so she has a nonprofit now where she interviews people in the midst of chronic illness and trauma. So, Seth died on July 1st, 2014. And that school year, starting in September, our kids went to the same school. She said, do you want me to just record you? Not for who knows what, but just like so you've got a record of this year. So, I went to her house every once a week for the whole school year, so nine months, and just vented and talked about what was happening. And she asked a few questions, but it was mostly just me like spewing. And then about a year after, I went and listened to those tapes. And what I heard was kind of remarkable because my actual voice sounded different from the beginning when it was like raw and scratchy, and my sentences were incomplete. And I would sort of trail off to the end where I sounded calmer and things felt more coherent. And I thought that is the arc, like you're raw and out of control and incoherent to calm and a place of peace and being settled. And I thought that's a book or that's something. And so at that point, I took a year-long memoir writing class. And transformed my snippets and essays and some of the transcripts into this memoir, Us After. And then I worked on it and revised and revised. And there it is.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
There it is.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
Came out last summer.
Speaker2: And where can we find it again?
You can find it on Amazon at Walmart, Barnes & Noble, any place where you buy books. But I would encourage buying it at your local independent bookstore. Or you can go to my website, rachelzimmerman.net, and you can purchase it through the website.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
Rachel, your memoir is so different and more informative in that it's not just your personal perspective. As you've mentioned, as a longtime journalist, you've interviewed doctors, suicide researchers. You mentioned the man who jumped off the same bridge. What did you learn from those people that helped you personally and have been helpful to others?
Speaker 3 (32:09):
I did learn a lot. There's a suicide researcher at Harvard, Matthew Nock. And incredibly, we're not very good at predicting who will die by suicide among the many, many millions of very depressed people. It's just we're terrible at predicting. In fact, as he said, we're still no better than a coin toss at predicting. And so that sort of made me, you know, it gave me some relief that even the experts are no good at this. So that was one thing. And he told this story of a roommate, a former roommate of his who was coming to visit him who died by suicide right before the visit. And here's this guy. This is what he does for a living. And he had no idea. So, again, there is this sense of hiding and shame that often accompanies, you know, these people. And so, you know, we can't always see it. So I learned that. And then just this idea that it is an illness in your brain. And, you know, that's partly why the whole language around suicide has evolved a little bit. So we talk about, you know, this person died by suicide. We don't say commit suicide. I mean, some people do, but, you know, we think of it as dying by suicide. We don't say someone committed diabetes, right? And yet that's, you know, it's still very stigmatized. And in some countries, suicide is illegal. In many religions, it's still perceived as a sin. So there is a lot of education and there's a lot of misunderstanding around it. And so talking to these people who deal with these kind of illnesses all the time was super helpful. And just the idea that it's not like you wake up and it's a choice, you know, it's this level of psychic pain that is unending. And, you know, the act of suicide is a way to end this oppressive pain that you feel there's nothing you can do. You know, for people who are in, you know, a lot of people suffer from pain daily, chronic, but if you feel like there's a way out or there's something that you can do to make it better or you have hope, that's a different mindset. If you're suicidal, it's like, this is how it is. And this is how it always is. Unless I do something about it.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
How'd your perspective about cesspassing change over time? And do you think writing about it changed that perspective in ways that might not otherwise have changed?
Speaker 3 (35:04):
I mean, the last chapter of the book is kind of addresses that question. I mean, you know, I still have a relationship with him. My kids and I talk about him. I mentioned my daughter's graduating from college this year. My younger daughter just started college in September. And, you know, on these milestone moments, you think about, boy, he is, I wish he was here to see these girls. Like, they're amazing. And he would have been so proud of them. But we talk about, like, we, you know, we'll see a movie and be like, oh, my God, dad would have hated that. Or, you know, also my youngest daughter plays ultimate Frisbee, and she looks exactly like him when she plays. She's super aggressive. She dives for every, like, she's just an insane player. And I just thought, oh, wow, she is just like him. They have parts of him, you know, within them. I mean, that's not surprising. That's their DNA. But I think that, you know, I have an ongoing sadness about what he's missing and how much he would have loved seeing them grow up. But I have a very strong relationship with his parents still. And it was really important for me to keep my kids in his family's life. And so we all, you know, that's also, he's always there at all these family gatherings with his parents and his brothers, you know. And so I think, so the last chapter of the book is about my kids finding bags of Seth's old clothes, which I didn't have the heart to get rid of. And so they wear his old clothes all the time. They've cut them up and made little skirts out of his, you know, shirts and pants and like headbands. And, you know, I'll see these coats of his. And anyway, so he just hangs around in different ways and he takes different forms, but he's still sort of in the shadows of our world.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
People who've gone through a divorce or the death of a spouse often find that friendships they shared as a couple can just fade away. Did that happen to you at the same time? Did you find some bonds were strengthened?
Speaker 3 (37:32):
I mean, I'll, to reframe that, it was not necessarily the people I expected who really showed up for me. And on the other hand, sometimes people who were just sort of acquaintances were the ones who really showed up. I wouldn't say, you know, as a couple, we lost people or, you know, I think that, you know, it was on a case by case basis. We didn't, as I said, like I still am close with some of his colleagues and some of our friends from that time. Obviously some of his MIT people, I've, you know, we, there's been distance, but nobody ever, I mean, as I said, our community was really powerful and they, most of them really like circled around and gave us incredible support.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
You mentioned the beginning of that response that people you expected to show up weren't there. Do you have any sense of why? Was it just that they didn't know what to say or how to react?
Speaker 3 (38:39):
I, I'm thinking I had a work colleague who I was very close to. We'd worked together for five, six years and we were both moms and we talk every day. And a couple of months after he died, I took, I got a short leave of absence from work after he died. And when I came back to work, it was very hard at the beginning to be back in reality. But I was trying and this person basically said to me, you know what? I can't deal with you talking about Seth anymore. I just want a professional relationship. It's like too much pain and I can't deal with it. And that was, I mean, I won't lie. That was excruciating coming from someone who I deeply loved and admired. And, you know, I was really angry in the moment. I think over time, some people just can't take on more pain. And this is a woman who had lost her mother at a young age. And I think it triggered her, you know, and I understand. But it was really surprising. And, and then other people who were just very on the outskirts of my social circle, they were just like there every day. So you just don't know. And weirdly, I think part, you know, part of the misunderstandings that go on with suicide, some people treated it as if it was like an infectious disease. Like, I don't want to even be near your family because something really bad happened. And if I come too close, maybe it'll happen to me. I mean, nobody ever, of course, said that. But that was a, there was a feeling of like, you had a bad thing happen. And something like what happened in your family, people would say to me, like, you must have known something. Didn't you see something like as if they wanted to find the thing that they should stay away from so it didn't happen to them? Which of course, I mean, suicide cuts across economics and race and class and nationality. It's not, you know, it can happen to anyone.
(40:52):
Speaker2: It doesn't discriminate.
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
What advice would you give the parents with children, specifically who are navigating life after loss of losing someone to suicide? And how much does the age of the children decide what the surviving parents should say and do?
Speaker 3 (41:07):
Yeah, that's a great question. So initially, I just thought about my kids as sort of a monolithic block. But I very quickly realized, you know, 8 and 11 are quite different developmentally, intellectually, but also my kids' personalities were just simply different. So my younger daughter, she was the one who wanted all the details. She wanted to know how he died, like when he died, what was going on. Very black and white thinker. And my older daughter didn't want those details. She wanted her memories of him in the way that she wanted her to remember him. So, you know, as I said, I grew up in New York and everyone was in therapy when they were young. And I thought, OK, my kids are immediately going into therapy. And my older daughter is like, wait, you want me to sit in some strange lady's office and talk about my dead father? No, thank you. You know, and I was like, OK, well, when you put it that way, I am not going to force you. So she didn't want to go. And my younger daughter and I went to this really helpful grief group. And I would encourage anyone who has gone through something like this to find a space like this. I mean, so the kids were downstairs and they weren't talking about death. They were playing and doing art projects and jumping on trampolines and just being kids. And then the grownups were upstairs talking. And, you know, my daughter said it was she didn't realize that anyone else had ever lost a parent and it made her feel less alone. So I quickly saw that they needed different stuff. And I started listening carefully about what it was they each needed. And I think that was it was intuitive. You know, it wasn't like I read a book to tell me to do that. I just like I think you really have to listen. And that also meant like, you know, if they wanted to watch movies while we were eating dinner, fine. Like, you know, I just my rules changed. And if they needed to take a day off from school because they were sad, like, fine. You know what I mean? So it's really like this deep listening. And I think because of that, we the three of us became it's like it's like we're in this band together. And I remember when I dropped my older kid at college for the first time and then the younger one and I left, I thought, oh, my gosh, the band is breaking up. You know, but it did make us very attuned to each other. And then they they helped each other, too, as sisters can or, you know, they fought, obviously, but they also came together. And so I think it was a lot of deep listening that helped us get through it.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
You had to navigate family dynamics and societal expectations when you said you're ready to begin dating again. First, you probably had to reconcile some of your own feelings. You know, how did you do that? And then how did you know when you were ready to start dating again?
Speaker 3 (44:18):
Yeah, that was interesting. I didn't really know. I mean, about a year after Seth died, a friend of mine said to me, do you want to meet a guy? And I was like, oh, man, I just can't do this. I don't know how to do this. I'm too old. But then I was like, OK, fine, we can have tea, you know. And so I went on a date and I was it was there was a lot of anxiety. I just I did feel guilty. And I felt like I was betraying Seth in some way, like betraying our vows. I didn't know what to say. I didn't know how much to say. I I just, you know, was this too soon? I didn't really tell anybody because I thought people other people would think it was too soon. I certainly didn't tell my kids at first because I really didn't want them to feel in any way that their father was being replaced. But the date was pretty fun and we kept seeing each other. And we went very slowly because, again, like he had a daughter and my two kids and we just didn't want to rock any boats. And but then eventually the girls met and they got along. And so then, you know, five years after Seth died, we got married and our kids were up there with us. And it was amazing. And so now we've been married since twenty nineteen. And, you know, at first it required some navigating for three teenage girls to live in the house and share a bathroom. But they manage his his kid as much as she's an athlete and very like low maintenance and minor, like dramatic and singers and theater people and high maintenance. But they all figured it out. And now, like they call each other sisters. And it's a it's really lovely and beautiful. But it definitely took some navigating. And yeah, I think, you know, there's no right moment. It's very personal. Some people think a year is too short, too soon. I mean, it's just you've got to go with your gut like there is no rule book.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
He talked about the stigma earlier around mental health, certainly suicide. Things are finally changing, but suicide and mental health struggles are still defined by many old stereotypes and stigmas with a lot of folks. What do you wish people better understood about suicide, mental illness, grief and healing after suicide loss? And what do you hope your book Us After has contributed to the conversation?
Speaker 3 (47:03):
Yeah, I mean, we've touched on some of it. I I wish that people understood that suicide is the result of an illness in your brain, and that it isn't a selfish desire to abandon your family. I wish that people had more access to mental health care. I mean, it's a huge, you know, it's a major failure of our health care system that mental health is so segregated, and it's separate from physical health. I mean, I remember for this book when I called to try to get Seth's health records, and they were like, do you want his mental health records or his physical health records? They're in two different buildings. And I thought, this is a metaphor, right? Like, why is all his body, like, why is one part of his body's records in a different place? And, you know, we all know about the crisis in, you know, kids' mental health right now. And it's, it's bad. And it's still, you know, I think this book, I don't obviously think that only men have this problem. But I do think that men still are told there's something weak about talking about your feelings, and there's something weak about asking for help. And, you know, I hope one of the messages is, and what I tell my kids all the time, it's a sign of strength to ask for help, not a sign of weakness. And I wish that was more pervasive in our culture. You know, Seth was, his father was a judge. He had two brothers. And there was a very, like, pick yourself up by the bootstraps kind of like, deal with it. Like, whatever your challenges are, deal with it. And, you know, that's just in the air. And that's like our social, you know, reality. But I really wish talking about feelings and being vulnerable and, and fears and, you know, I wish, I would wish that those stigmas could really be released. And again, we're in this weird moment because, you know, social media, like everything's exposed on some level, like every part of your body and every little iteration of what you eat and where you were last night. But of course, that is the curated side, right? And so there's this whole other reality that isn't exposed in that way. And I just, I wish we, we had some kind of system where we could be more exposed and, and our internal realities be revealed. So there wasn't so much hiding and shame.
Speaker 2 (50:02):
Last week, I had the policy chief for AARP on the show. And she highlighted, which I didn't know, that 50% of everybody, male and female in the United States in their fifties will be let go from a job without their own wanting to do. Now, the ones that I do know is that the highest demographic suicide rate in the country are men my age in their fifties. And it's typically when they're high performing, high functioning, high earning people who commit suicide because they don't know what to do. And so a big focus, I think, as you know, in this show is focusing on mental health and reducing that stigma, ending that stigma. So I appreciate you sharing all these insights because, like I said to you before, the show is the platform for my guest, but these are very important, very difficult topics to talk about. And so I appreciate you opening up and sharing all this with us. So thank you.
Speaker 3 (50:53):
Well, thank you for doing the show and keeping these conversations going. It's really important.
Speaker 2 (50:58):
Now let's talk about something fun for a minute.
Speaker 3 (51:01):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (51:02):
Before the show, you mentioned your daughter graduating from college, who's living with your mother in Brooklyn.
Speaker 3 (51:06):
Yes.
Speaker2: Give us a little bit more behind that.
I mean, you know, in some way it comes back to, as I said, my kids and I were like this band that we became after Seth died. And so my kid was in Paris for a semester in her junior year, and she came back and she didn't want to deal with housing in New York. So she was going to live with my mother for a few months. And my brother and I took bets. We just, I thought it would last two weeks. He said four or the other way around. And, you know, she ended up staying. They worked it out. I don't know how it happened. My mother's 89 now. My daughter's 22. She's graduating next week. Like, it's crazy. I mean, I actually wrote an essay about it, but, you know, I'll give you one example. So my daughter's like, I really want to cook in the house, but my mother doesn't cook. She hasn't cooked since I moved out. And so her entire oven is like a storage cabinet with pots and pans. My daughter's like, what am I going to do? Anyway, I was like, this is your issue. You deal with it, you know. And so they negotiated and negotiated and they came up with a solution. They moved all the pots and pans out of the oven. And I was like, where did you put them? She's like, now they're in the dishwasher. So, you know, they come up with these solutions. And, you know, when I was growing up, I would have to sneak on my hands and knees because it's like an old New York apartment. The floors are really creaky. But now my mother's hearing has declined. So my daughter comes in at 3 a.m. My mother hears nothing.
Speaker 2 (52:42):
Well, I can't wait to see that as a series on Netflix.
Speaker 3 (52:45):
Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much for talking. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (52:50):
No, thank you. Rachel Zimmerman, author of Us After, a memoir of love and suicide, the healing power of storytelling using personal narrative to navigate illness, trauma and loss, and so many outstanding articles and essays. Thank you for being with us today.
Speaker 3 (53:02):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (53:04):
I'm Chris Meek, run of time. We'll see you next week. Same time, same place. Until then, stay safe and keep taking your next steps forward.
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