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October 30, 2023 15 mins
Coping after Suicide. It’s a serious, heavy topic. If you’re someone that’s dealing with this in your life—whatever your age, whenever it happened—you also know it’s kind of always with you. Our guest is Joanne Harpel, a suicide and bereavement specialist who’s been there, and created the organization RETHINK THE CONVERSATION, and her practice Coping After Suicide, to turn her loss into action. With Creative Consultant Geoffrey Cantor, their film "Talking OutLoud" debuts on International Survivors of Suicide Loss Day, November 18, 2023. For more, visit copingaftersuicide.com, and rethinktheconversation.org.
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(00:02):
Welcome to Get Connected with Nina delRio, a weekly conversation about fitness,
health and happenings in our community onone oh six point seven Light FM.
Good morning, and thanks for listeningto Get Connected. Coping after suicide it
is a serious, heavy topic.If you're someone dealing with it, whatever

(00:23):
your age, whenever it happened,you also kind of know it's always with
you. Our guest is Joanne Harpel, a suicide and bereavement specialist who's been
there and from her experience, createdthe organization Rethink the Conversation and her practice
Coping after Suicide to turn her lossinto action. We're also joined by Jeffrey

(00:43):
Kentter, filmmaker and director of TalkingOut Loud Teens and Suicide Loss a Conversation,
a film which premieres November eighteenth.Thank you for being on the show.
Thanks so much for having us ourpleasure. Joanne's practice can be found
at Copingaftersuicide dot com and her nonp it is Rethinkthconversation dot org. So

(01:03):
I thought, Joanne, that weshould start by talking about your brother,
who was he? That's a beautifulway to enter into this conversation. Thank
you so much. For asking that. So, my younger brother, Stephen
was a superstar. He had noprior history of any kind of mental health
issues at all up until the ageof twenty six. He was an honors

(01:29):
graduate of Yale. He was onthe Yale debate team and sang in an
a capella group, and had aserious girlfriend who he went on to marry.
He graduated from Yale with honors andthen went on to Harvard Law School.
And when he got married, hewas so popular that he had eleven
groomsmith at his wedding. But hevery acutely developed bipolar disorder at the age

(01:55):
of twenty six, and although wetried very hard to get him the right
place help, we ran out oftime, and from the time he was
first diagnosed until the time he tookhis own life was less than a year,
and those same eleven groomsmen were thenthe ballbearers at his funeral two years
later. I'm so sorry for yourloss. I would also like to ask

(02:19):
how that impacted you and how didyou see it impact everyone who loved Stephen.
So, when he died, Iwas twenty nine, I had a
brother who was fifteen and a sisterwho was nineteen and what I discovered is
that there was a lot out thereto help support my parents and me,
but there was absolutely nothing out therein the voices of other teens that could

(02:46):
help my brother and sister. Sothey were dealing with the loss of their
brother at an age when absolutely noneof their friends had ever been through anything
like this, couldn't relate to itat all, and there was nowhere to
find resources where they could hear fromother teens about what this experience was like.

(03:06):
So when did you start thinking aboutturning what you were discovering into action,
about forming all the things you know? This is kind of a long
jump, but forming the organizations youformed, and moving from your practice as
a lawyer into something completely different relatedto this. So, my brother died
thirty years ago this year, andabout six weeks after he died, I

(03:29):
went to a conference, a healingconference about surviving suicide loss. I went
with my mother and my younger brother, So this was right after he died,
and I walked into this auditorium thatwas filled with hundreds of people who
had all lost someone to suicide,and I listened to all the speakers at
the front of the room tell theirstories and I thought to myself, I'm

(03:50):
going to do this someday, andI had no idea what that meant or
how to go about getting involved.I just had this deep, visceral sense
that somehow I could use this horrendousexperience that I was going through to make
a difference and to help. Andit took me a few years for the

(04:10):
ground to feel solid under my feetagain and to get some clarity about how
I might get involved. And Iended up deciding to cold call the leading
suicide prevention nonprofit in the country becauseit happened that they were based in New
York City, which is where Ilived and work. And I called them
on the phone and I said,I lost my brother. I'd like to

(04:30):
get involved. How can I help? And so it started with my volunteering
with a large organization. They invitedme first to join the national board and
then to come work for their seniormanagement team to create a whole array of
resources for families who've lost someone tosuicide where previously there had been nothing.

(04:54):
And one of the programs that Ideveloped and expanded was a program on International
Survivors of Suicide Lost Day, whichhappens every year on a Saturday before Thanksgiving,
and I would produce a program everyyear on that day and would bring
a group of survivors of suicide losstogether to talk about that experience, and

(05:15):
we would broadcast that program to theseconference sits in three hundred cities all around
the world. And in those yearswhen we included a teenager in the program,
we would get feedback from all overthe world saying, great program,
I wish we could have heard morefrom the teenager. And in those years
that we didn't include a team,we would get feedback from all over the

(05:35):
world saying, great program, Iwish we could have heard from a team.
And so the feedback that I wasgetting professionally dovetailed with what I had
seen in my own family about howmy brother and sister were craving to hear
from other teens as well. Somove forward to November eighteenth. This year
is the debut of the film TalkingOut Loud Teens and Suicide Loss A Conversation.

(05:59):
So Jeffrey, maybe you can startwith talking about the film who shares
their stories? So basically we havefive young people speaking together with a facilitator
who also happens to work for Joanne'sother organization Coping after Suicide as a facilitator
for this demographic, and he engagesthese kids and they were just I can't

(06:24):
even tell you. I mean,I'm going to get choked up talking about
it. It was so impactful.They're so honest and open. And their
parents are in another room watching itin real time with Joanne, and she's
clocking their behavior. We have acamera in there with them as well,
and they're all like getting tiery,and they're getting very upset, and the
kids are sort of calmly sharing theirstories and taking us through their journey with

(06:48):
this wonderful facilitator. And then Joannethe second half of the film. I
don't know if you've seen it,but the second half of the film is
a debriefing, So it's Joanne speakingto the kids and their family members and
we heard some things. I'm sureJoanne can say this as well, but
heard some things that really surprised us, and so we tried not to stop

(07:13):
anybody at any time so that thefeeling of the film and the experience of
the people well there that day wouldbe uninterrupted. And the kids were just
amazing, and the parents too,you know, they think there may have
been a little trepidation going into it, but you would not have known it
seeing these kids and even seeing theparents with Joanne. So that's what we

(07:33):
captured on film. We're speaking withJeffrey Canter. He's filmmaker and director of
Talking Out Loud Teens and Suicide Lossof Conversation, which premieres on November eighteenth.
It's created with Rethink the Conversation.Joanne Harpel is an international authority on
suicide, bereefment and postvention response.She's certified in panatology, death, dying

(07:56):
and bereavement and has over twenty yearsexperience in addressing the question, emotions and
complexities that arise in the aftermath ofsuicide. You can find out more at
Copingaftersuicide dot com and our nonprofit isRethinkthconversation dot org. Where can we see
the film? The film is goingto be available through our website. It's
also going to be on Vimeo andon YouTube. We're making the film available

(08:20):
free of charge online as a publicservice. So the full length film is
sixty minutes, and then we're alsogoing to be creating shorter versions, a
ten minute version and a twenty minuteversion because we imagine that there will be
a lot of different kinds of audienceswho will be interested in the film,
and we wanted to make it veryeasy for people to access it and to

(08:41):
use it in whatever way felt memeaningful to them. Joanne Jeffrey mentioned some
surprises. What did you learn fromthe film? You've been in this work,
you've lived with us for so manyyears. What did you learn that
was new from these kids in thefilm? As I was sitting in the
room with the parents watch on abig screen, the kids were so poised

(09:05):
and so composed, and so thoughtfuland articulate about what was important to them,
but their affect was very calm.It was not especially emotional. As
they talked about their experience, theparents were all sobbing, as was I.
The intensity of the emotion on thepart of the adults was, at

(09:26):
least the outward facing emotion was muchgreater than with the kids. And I
think one of the things that Ihear so often from the parents that I
work with is that they're absolutely terrifiedthat their grieving children are not okay.
Because their grieving children aren't necessarily grievingin the way that they expect. It
doesn't look like grieving. A lotof these kids talked about that what they

(09:48):
were really feeling was numb, andso one of the things that surprised us
but felt so powerful was to reallyreaffirm that people grieve differently, and just
because it doesn't look like what youexpect grieving to look like, it doesn't
mean the kids aren't processing very intenselywhat they're going through. It's also a

(10:09):
really interesting time. You mentioned HarryReid, the International Survivors of Suicide Lost
Day is because of his father,who committed suicide in nineteen seventy two.
Your brother died in the early nineties. My grandfather committed suicide in the mid
nineties. People didn't talk about itthen. I don't really talk about it

(10:30):
now people are talking about these things. I think, or I wonder how
you've seen sort of the reaction justchange over time and the ability for people
to be able to talk about it. It's very interesting to me. First
of all, I just want totell you that I'm so sorry about your
grandfather and what was his name,Walt? Well, Yeah, I can

(10:50):
hear the emotion in your voice,even justin seeing his name out loud,
that we carry it with us thatthese losses are so transformed and so profound,
but not something that most of ushave an opportunity to talk about very
openly. Suicide is not a topicthat comes up in casual conversation, and

(11:13):
part of my mission in life isto lower the bar so that people can
talk about this topic more openly.And the emotion is just part of being
human. It doesn't mean that it'sa topic that we should avoid. This
film is an unscripted piece with thefive young people who've lost someone to suicide.

(11:35):
What do you think they took awayfrom it? The young people that
actually had that conversation. I thinkthe theme that ran through what the kids
seem to have taken away from itis an opportunity to say to their parents,
trust me, I'm thinking about this, I'm feeling my feelings. I'm

(11:56):
talking about it when I need to. I'm didnting myself from it when I
need to. Trust me. Giveme some space and trust me, and
don't be so afraid that I haveagency and want agency over how I handle
this loss. The number of kidswho said that to their parents, and
the number of parents for whom itreally registered that this mattered to these kids,

(12:22):
that they wanted a sense of controlover whether they talked about it,
when they talked about it, andwho they talked about it with. When
we're in the middle of this space, the kids are saying things that they
may have said to Steve before,but their parents had never heard it,
and we were concerned that maybe they'regoing to center themselves or whatever. They

(12:43):
did not and the parents, toa one to a one were surprised because
they don't The kids don't talk,as Joanna was saying, the kids don't
talk to their parents, and theparents take away one specifically said he found
the experience itself healing, even hadwe not filmed it, even had we

(13:03):
just sat the kids in the roomand let the parents watch and not filmed
it, all of them, includingthe kids and the parents, felt the
day itself was a healing moment forthem. And if we have the opportunity
to model for kids and parents thatthese conversations are okay, that communication with

(13:24):
them between them is okay, thatnot communicating doesn't mean that there's anything wrong.
If we can model for anybody outthere, even talking about things beyond
suicide or sharing the story of suicidelaws with the people who'd forgotten or sublimated
it so much that they didn't evenremember that they'd lost somebody when they were
young. Then we've i think,served the community in the world at large

(13:50):
a great service, and that's onJoanne. So I'm super proud to have
and involved in it. But everytime when we were even editing it,
Joanne and I would watch it,something new would happen here, something new
said. And so I think,as Joan says, these kids have agency,
and they want agency, but theyalso like seeing each other in person,
and like to be together and beingable to talk about it with their

(14:13):
peers, and like the idea thatpeople their age can see that it's okay
that nothing bad happens when you talkabout it with your friends, and you
know, the whole notion of removingthe stigma which is talked about it an
all different plate you here all thetime. If we can participate in that
as well, then we've i think, also done the thing. The film

(14:35):
is Talking Out Loud Teens and suicide. Loss of Conversation, debuting on November
eighteenth. Again, where can peoplesee the film? The easiest place is
to go to the website of Rethinkthe Conversation which is Rethinktheconversation dot org.
We're going to have it available onVimeo after its screens on November eighteenth,
so after November eighteenth is when itwill be available. Our guests are Joanne

(14:58):
Harpel and Cantor. Thank you forbeing on to Get Connected. Thank you
so much for having us. Thishas been Get Connected with Nina del Rio
on one oh six point seven lightFm. The views and opinions of our
guests do not necessarily reflect the viewsof the station. If you missed any
part of our show or want toshare it, visit our website for downloads

(15:18):
and podcasts at one oh six toseven lightfm dot com. Thanks for listening.
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