About the Episode

In this episode - "Surviving Triple Suicide Loss: Part 3" with Danielle, the final part of this 3-part S.P.E.A.K., we get to know more about Danielle, a survivor of three suicides in her family. She shares about being trauma-aware advocates, the power of "storying," and the importance of each and every person's story. We thank Danielle for her honestly, her heart, and her conviction to mental health advocacy.

Catch up on PART 1 ➡️ youtu.be/X0w5BC60w6U and PART 2 of her story ➡️ youtu.be/lgUovTwMesA

ICYMI - In Part 1, Danielle shares about the lived experience of being a suvivor of three suicide losses in her family. She talks impact of these losses, her own mental health journey, and tackles the often-asked questions to survivors of "What should we say? What can we do? What could you have done?" And in part 2, she shares about her coping strategies, how we can be youth mental health advocates, and the importance of seeking out networks of peer support.

Be sure to visit nostigmas.org/unsilent to watch, listen to, and read all of our conversations this season. We are survivors, thrivers, advocates, and Allies. We see you. We love you.

BE UNSILENT 💚

Episode Notes

Thank you for being here. To go beyond the show, consider leaving us a positive review and sharing wherever you listen to podcasts! Follow us and reach out on social media @nostigmas. We'd love to connect with you. To learn more about NoStigmas and how we can team up to fight stigmas, visit nostigmas.org.

Special Thanks To…

Guest: Danielle Donelson danielledonelson.substack.com

Helpful Links and Resources

NoStigmas Website: nostigmas.org

Meet the Team!

John Panicucci | Video Editor

Lance Bordelon | Marketing Coordinator

Maggie Seagraves | Marketing Assistant

Jacob Moore | NoStigmas Founder & Unsilent EP | @jacobmoore

Music

Another Day Of Moon by BatchBug | soundcloud.com/batchbug

Music promoted by free-stock-music.com

Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License

TRANSCRIPT:

[00:00:00] Danielle: I didn't know what to do. And I, I didn't know how to cope. And I am a professor I'm somebody who spent many, many years studying, um, reading. Books and stories. And I did the only thing that I knew how to do, which is I looked for other people's stories of how they would've survived such grave losses. Such huge moments of my life is forever changed. How in the world am I possibly going to heal or go on or ever be okay.

[00:00:32] Lance: Hi, my name is Lance, and this is UNSILENT, a S.P.E.A.K. Series by NoStigmas that champions mental health advocacy, and challenges stigmas that all too often prevent people from getting the help they need. We're so happy you're here. In today's third part of a three part conversation with Danielle. We get to hear from her about the power of what she calls storing and being trauma aware and how all stories really do matter and be sure to check out part one and two of our conversation with Danielle to really dive into her own shared lived experiences. We're so thankful to Danielle for sharing her story with us and being so honest and open and vulnerable. Thank you again for being with us. And remember to break these stigmas, we must be UNSILENT. Let's dive in.

[00:01:12] TRIGGER WARNING: Today's episode contains in depth conversations around suicide, suicidal ideation and suicide loss. It's okay. If you need to skip this one, do what's right for you.

[00:01:28] Danielle: Trauma exists for people in so many different ways. And we talk about the capital T and the lower T, and I think that it's important to yes, to be aware that people have a lot of very, very traumatic experiences now, post COVID things that we don't, we aren't aware of. And I would, I would also say that, um, it's also important to be aware that we.

[00:01:56] We don't get to say whether someone's experiences are, is traumatic or not. , you know, well, I just think that again, in that spirit of, of, of comparing and I hear. I hear a lot of, um, my fellow educators talking about gen Zers who toss that word around. Um, oh, I'm, I'm traumatized. Oh, I'm traumatized that as a rhetorician.

[00:02:19] Somebody who pays attention to word meanings, I get nervous because I see the ways in which that word. um, is used across a myriad of different contexts. And I think it's important to validate all sorts of experiences. And I think it's important to understand that we are not in anybody else's body and we can't necessarily say that that was or was not a traumatic event.

[00:02:44] Um, I've done a lot of reading on PTSD and I, I, the book, the body keeps score with Dr. Van Cole, who. Was the psychiatrist, um, who helped to, to diagnose and to, to provide a classification for PTSD. Part of what he frames in that book is that we can't outside of someone's lived embodied experiences. We can't say that's not trauma because it has to do with how that brain functioned and processed the trauma and continues to process that trauma, whether whether.

[00:03:14] Person is experiencing the heightened cortisol and the actual, you know, differences in how their, their brain is, is acting in cognition. So I think that humility and that, that awareness I is important. Um, whether it's capital T or lowercase T again, we might not, um, have any business to, to say I, I do think though, And that spirit of being nervous about the ways in which that word is tossed around.

[00:03:42] I do think it's important for us to sit with. Hard experiences and trauma, a clinical definition of trauma and an embodied experience of trauma. We need to be very careful about our language use in, in, in that regard, not maybe to, to profess to somebody else that's not trauma, but to be aware of it for, for our own understanding because, um, they do, there are some critical differences.

[00:04:12] I think though, also that. One of the hard things. And I, this is my own experience as well. I needed to learn to understand that though the trauma was not my fault. The healing was. And though. I am. I had been at points, for example, triggered by movies or television shows with gunshot wounds to the head. I still needed to do the healing for that and to address the trauma triggers.

[00:04:45] And that, that is an important part that I would say validating people's experiences and their survivorship. But there also needs to be accountability of our own healing, especially in a time and place where we have, there's so many different experiences of trauma that, um, we really need to call on our own, um, you know, our, our own investment in, in healing and accountability that we can't, we can't necessarily expect that other people are always gonna understand our triggers.

[00:05:17] To tiptoe around them. Our healing is our own, uh, you know, is, is our own work. So I would say that holding space for people's trauma and not diagnosing, or, you know, professing that someone's trauma is traumatic enough or not trauma, but then also being aware that at the same time, um, we are, we are charged with, with the task of, of, of doing the work to try to cope.

[00:05:46] And heal from our trauma. It's both. And so if not, I think also we can end up in a place where everybody is traumatized in some degree, and you can't possibly always be aware of the, all of the things that are going to be, um, triggers or to be aware of all potential social interactions, which might.

[00:06:10] Trauma. That's just, that's not feasible. You can be overwhelming and would cause us maybe to keep our mouths, you know, to be quiet, to keep our mouth shut because we're so fearful. Um, all of the potential trauma of anyone that could arise at any moment in time. No, you know, I, I mean, I do think that those things are, are important and I know we make light of them and some people think we go too far with them, but.

[00:06:36] I think that that acknowledging those as important points, important things that of people's experience that are trauma, that they are coping with. They're doing the work, but it's still hard. It's still, , there's a balance there. I think there's a quote, um, by Thomas King, a native American author who says this stories are, are all that we really are and not to relegate them to a lesser form of communication or sometimes in, in, in Western discourse, we think of them as not as scientific or empirical or objective, but, but a part of, of, of humanity.

[00:07:14] And whether that. History, whether that's movies or television shows or books or journals, or, or just stories you share with, with friends that you meet or partners you share at the end of your day, uh, stories are at the heart of who we are. Um, and, and my, my native American mentors have, have taught me that.

[00:07:32] So from a, from a professional scholarly point of view, I, I believe that personally, um, I will say that when. My after my brother had completed suicide and my mother had just died the previous month. I didn't know what to do. And I, I didn't know how to cope. And I am a professor. I'm somebody who spent many, many years studying, um, reading books and stories.

[00:08:01] And I did the only thing that I knew how to do, which is I looked for other people's stories of how they would've survived such grave losses, such. Huge moments of my life is forever changed. How in the world am I possibly going to heal or go on or ever be okay again? And it was the only relief. It was the only thing that helped me to, to, to cope, to deal, to, to heal.

[00:08:32] If, if. If, if that is an appropriate word, the, the therapeutic, the healthy therapy of how I might approach it, um, was, was through other people's stories and recognizing that they had been such an important part of my journey and feeling convicted to share what had happened to me and how I have cop. For my own healing, my own need to, to get out my stories of what I've endured, but also if it helps somebody else heaven forbid.

[00:09:08] But if anybody were years down the road to find themselves in the similar situation that I was in, they have multiple suicides of people, uh, in their immediate family, multiple losses. And they think, how the hell am I gonna go on? What, what do I do? Where do I start? I, I think that that's the best humanity can offer other people.

[00:09:32] And I think we've always started to, to recognize the power and the potential of that in Western academics, Western discourse. Um, and we could really do a, a, you know, great service to understand that many, many cultures have understood the power of storing for, for many, many, many years. It's I consider it, my, my spirituality and my religion, if there's anything I believe in so strongly, it's the power of storying.

[00:10:00] And I think it rely, it lies in most of our, um, the core of our, of who we are of, of humanity, of religions, of. How other people have have injured in their experiences. I think that the closest we can ever get to understanding another person's lived embodied experiences is a smooth story. We will work to, to create mental advocacy and dest, destigmatize, um, mental illness and the need for, you know, discussion of mental health episodes through people's stories.

[00:10:30] And, and we need a lot of 'em everybody's stories matters. We need to share them and hold space for them. Listen to them. And. Yeah. Tell them they all matter.

[00:10:41] Lance: We say thank you again to Danielle for sharing her story with us and being so open and honest and vulnerable, and to go beyond the show, you can always connect with us @NoStigmas on all social media platforms and at nostigmas.org. Thank you again so much for joining us today and remember be UNSILENT. We'll see you next time.

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