(calm music) (upbeat music) - [Narrator] WSKG thanks the following for their support of this project.

The Conrad and Virginia Klee Foundation, The Corning Incorporated Foundation, M and T Bank, UHS, and viewers like you.

Thank you.

- Good evening, thanks for joining us.

Recent statistics reveal that suicide was the 10th leading cause of death in the United States last year, on average, 132 Americans die by suicide every day.

More than a million people survive a suicide attempt every year.

It is estimated that the majority of Americans will experience a suicide loss over the course of their lifetime.

Research shows the large majority of people who die by suicide have a mental health condition present at the time of their death.

A first step in changing these statistics is taking care of mental health, just like we take care of our physical health.

My first guest tonight is Karen Heisig who works to help individuals and families cope with issues involving suicide.

Karen is the associate area director for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

She works within the central and South central region of New York.

Karen lives in Rochester with her two children, Max and Gabby.

Thanks so much for joining us tonight, Karen.

- It's my pleasure, Natasha.

- So, you have a very personal story that helped bring you to this work.

Do you mind sharing some of that story with us?

- Of course I don't.

So, I married at a very young age, I was 20.

My husband was an army officer with the 82nd Airborne Division.

We'd met in college and we had an incredible love story.

An incredible marriage.

He was my best friend.

We had two children.

He left the service and was a pharmaceutical rep. And after 911 just some shifts happened with him.

He wanted to go back into the military and serve his country again.

His brother, who is a lawyer with a wife and two young children, had died by suicide.

And I don't know that he ever really knew how to fully grieve that or really wrap his head around that.

You know, it was very hush, hush topic in our family.

Because that was in 1999 when people weren't talking about suicide.

So, when my husband's own mental health started to deteriorate, we knew we needed to get him some help, but unfortunately it wasn't enough.

And in 2006, my husband died by suicide.

So it was absolutely the most unimaginable thing.

I never in a million years, you know, he promised me he'd never do that.

because he knew he saw the devastation that it wreaked on his brother's family and kids.

And so I really believed in my heart, well that can't happen to my husband, but in hindsight, and knowing what I know now I know that there were signs and I wish there were so many things that I could have done.

- I'm so sorry for your loss.

- Thank you.

- So I imagine you bring that experience into your work.

So can you talk a little bit about exactly what you do to help families and individuals who are going through this issue?

- Sure.

When I moved back here to New York, I happened to see a commercial on TV for something called the Out Of The Darkness Walk.

And that began my journey of working with AFSP.

I was a volunteer for 10 years in Western New York State.

And the American Foundation For Suicide Prevention who hosts those walks and chapters throughout the United States every year, they do multiple things.

They do advocacy at the state and then the national level to really advocate for mental health parity.

So any laws that maybe affect mental health or suicide prevention initiatives.

They do research.

It's AFSP is the largest non-profit funder of suicide prevention research in the United States, which is incredible.

We do prevention education.

That's my favorite piece.

I love teaching people what they can do to better take care of their mental health as well as prevent suicide.

So prevention, education and programs and such all across the board.

For parents, for young people, for employers, for hospital personnel, you name it.

We want to talk about it in that space.

And the other piece we do is outreach.

So outreach to people who have lost someone to suicide because connecting with other people who really understand what you're going through is a key component of healing.

And those with lived experience.

Those who have maybe made a suicide attempt and thankfully survived.

So doing that outreach piece and providing opportunities to either whether we're tabling at a health fair or on a school campus or going into a classroom, we want to be able to connect in our communities on a personal level.

I'm the staff person, but we have hundreds of volunteers in our chapter who are busy behind the scenes all year long doing those kinds of things.

- That's incredible.

That's really important work.

We mentioned at the top of the show some tragic numbers about suicide in the United States.

And those were numbers before COVID.

Can you talk to us about any research behind what's driving those numbers in the United States?

- Certainly.

So, suicide is not a new thing and we know that it's a really complex issue.

So, when it comes to research and why numbers are increasing or decreasing, it's really hard to pinpoint any one reason because on an individual basis, there are often intersecting factors going on in somebody's life.

It's their health, it's their environmental stressors, it's their history, which we don't always know what happened in their history.

Do other families have mental health conditions?

Have they lost someone to suicide?

Do they live with a chronic illness?

Did they experience childhood abuse?

So there are so many intersecting factors going on that it's not as simple as, this is what the issue is and this is how we fix it.

So, research has only really been looking at suicide prevention in the last couple of decades.

So we're kind of behind the power curve to start with, but we're finding out new things all the time.

I think the go-to is people want to say, "Well, more young people are dying by suicide because of social media."

And it's not as simple as that.

Social media can be a very powerful tool, a good positive tool, but I think it's multiple factors going on.

And because it is a very individualistic complex issue for somebody it's hard to pinpoint what exactly drives those numbers.

We do know that in 2019, we saw the first drop in numbers in almost two decades.

So that's exciting.

Maybe what we're doing is working.

Maybe talking about mental health and bringing that subject out of the closet making it not so taboo, and talking about suicide.

When I lost my husband, I can't tell you, and that was 15 years ago, so many people when I told them that my husband died by suicide, would almost whisper to me and say, "Oh my gosh, I had a cousin who died by suicide but we don't talk about it."

So, I think that we're more aware of it now, we're talking about it more, we're making it more okay for people to reach out and say, "You know what?

My mental health isn't doing so good right now.

I'm not feeling like myself and I think I need to get some help."

- It sounds like, you know, there's a lot of stigma around this issue and that it can be very isolating if you've experienced it and also if you've contemplated it.

right?

And so that piece that you mentioned earlier about the outreach that you do I would think is important.

Can you talk more about?

- I love as in the one hard thing during this pandemic period has been that we can't table like we normally do and do outreach whether it's at, you know, a farm market, or being on school campuses, and health fair as in, you know, you name it.

We love being in the public.

You know, I'll bring stickers that says, "Seize The Awkward."

seizetheawkward.org is a website that talks all about how to have that awkward conversation when you're concerned about a peer.

Cause we know most people they're going to reach out to a peer before they reach out to professionals.

So, being out in the public and being able to share my story with people as a way of connecting, it is amazing what people will open up and tell me about.

You know, there've been plenty of times that I've been at a fair or some kind of festival going on, where you know, and we have our all of our tabling stuff, and people will come up to the table and they'll share their story.

They'll cry.

And we end up hugging and just, you know, connecting in that personal way because we're bringing that subject out of the dark.

They don't feel like they have to keep it cocooned away and all, and it's okay to talk about if they lost their best friend.

So, that's the one of the things I totally miss during this last year is been able to be out there and be in the public.

- And it sounds like what you are promoting is more of a community response versus an individual response.

Can you talk about that a little bit more?

And what will the ideal community response be?

- I love that you just asked that question because I saw a poster once in a rest area, on the freeway, and it had the... it was the choking hazard signs, right?

And what to do if you think somebody is choking.

And I thought to myself, what if we made suicide prevention and mental health the same as this poster?

What if there were posters everywhere that said, you know, you go into a business and it says, you know, tells you there's an AED.

If somebody's having a heart attack or it shows those signs for choking and what to do.

What if it was the same thing.

It really is a public health issue, so it should be a community approach.

If I struggle with depression it doesn't mean I'm broken and it doesn't mean I'm going to die by suicide, because a quarter of all Americans will have a mental health condition at some point in their life, short-term, long-term, but the vast majority will never think about suicide or go on to die by suicide.

So mental health conditions can't be the only thing, it really is in awareness.

If you see warning signs in somebody, and I know we'll talk about that a little bit, but if you see those warning signs, how do you react?

Just like if you saw somebody having a heart attack you would know.

We've all watched enough TV that we know we probably need to start with check to see if they're breathing, start chest compressions then call nine one one, right?

And it really should be that basic.

It should be a public health initiative, which is thankfully the direction that we're going, to make everybody aware of what warning signs are.

How to reach out to somebody, just like that poster I saw about choking.

- Right.

Right.

Sort of like a stop, drop and roll.

- Yes.

Yes, absolutely.

- Well, thank you Karen for being with us tonight and sharing your story.

And thank you especially for all the work that you do.

- Thank you for everything, Natasha.

- The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention helped create a documentary that looks at suicide and its effect on families titled "Reclaiming Life After Loss."

Here's a clip from that film.

- I marveled how beautiful the sky was and how big the world was.

And I think that made me realize that deep inside of my soul there was a little light.

It kept saying one foot in front of the other.

If you just keep putting a foot down you will get somewhere.

No idea where but there was that hope.

- You're going to be riding waves.

There are good days and bad days, there are good hours and bad hours.

You need to take care of what's important, but what's important is you.

(electric kettle hissing) After Carolyn died, I definitely engaged in probably some less than healthy behaviors.

When I wasn't caring for my daughter, a lot of my time was spent with a bottle.

You look to fill a hole.

You look to fill a void.

I threw money out the window.

I entered into a relationship with a wonderful person but it was just too soon.

It was way too soon.

You're going to screw up along the way.

And you have to forgive yourself for screwing up along the way, but look out for it.

If I'm not paying attention to my own self or my mental health, or my physical health, I'm not going to be much good to the young person who needs me.

(phone ringing) - Work was an avoidance tactic.

It was a way for me to be able to focus on something other than my own grief so I don't have to feel it.

One of the States with the... All of a sudden one day out of the blue, I'm afraid to speak in public.

And I don't want to go to work anymore.

I don't want to get out of the bed.

And so I started going to counseling because I started to feel suicidal.

And my counselor said, "How much of your work is for work and how much of it is for hiding and running away from your grief?"

And I had to learn how to let my grief happen and really face it.

- My brother was very, very bright.

Extremely driven.

He was also very charming and very funny.

He's one of those guys that would walk into a room and just own it.

(gentle music) I spent 43 years being part of a tandem.

(gentle music) As a twin, It's a little different kind of sibling, right?

You've always shared the limelight.

I don't know how to be the only guy.

The something that's left.

(gentle music) - I was so wrapped up in my identity as Maurice's wife that I didn't have my own identity.

- Starring Gabby and Mommy and booboo kitty.

And filmed by Max and daddy.

Right?

- Right.

- Yeah.

- I had a lot of pressure from family and friends asking me, "Karen, what's next?

You should go back to school.

You'd be a great counselor.

You'd be this, you'd be that."

In that year of counseling that I went to I found out that I certainly was enough, and being a good mom to my kids and being there and having those open conversations was more than enough.

That was my job.

(gentle music) - She was my only child.

And when Igo died, I went, "What now?"

You know, I mean, I have failed as a parent.

What am I going to do?

I was in my fifties and I go, "What's the next 20 years going to look like?"

- Over the years I realized that the strongest people I know are the ones who know when they need to go to someone for help.

- On the anniversary of Maurice's death, five years ago, I was laying in bed one night and I was totally convinced a hundred percent that I was having a heart attack.

So, I called 911 and he was very kind.

He kept me on the phone until the EMT arrived.

They said, "Ma'am, you're not having a heart attack.

You're having a panic attack."

And I knew the next day it's time.

I have to pick up that phone.

Somebody had given me the name of a good counselor and she walked me through the next year.

And it was a pivotal point in my grief that I wish I had done much sooner.

(gentle music) - I went to counseling.

I took medication.

I did all of those things, but I think that support from my family was the most important for me.

- And after reading like 10 books on suicide, suicide prevention and everything, I really wanted to attend a group because I had found out that there were such things.

That was the moment that saved me was that group.

So now I run my own group.

(chuckles) - [Female Voice] To find help or to become involved with issues discussed during tonight's episode, please consider reaching out to the following organizations, for more complete list of resources visit wskg.org/dream.

(gentle music) - My next guest is Deborah Duffek, a suicide prevention advocate who volunteers her time here in the Southern tier providing different kinds of resources for survivors of loved ones who've taken their lives.

Deborah also helps counsel family members dealing with this type of loss.

Welcome Deborah and thanks for joining us here tonight.

- Thank you for having me.

- Now Deborah, I know that you were personally impacted by suicide 16 years ago.

Do you mind sharing your story with us?

- Sure.

My husband died of suicide one night when we came home from a party.

It was, you know, a surprise.

There was no warning.

There was note.

He never spoke about it before.

So yeah, it was a shock.

A big one.

- I'm sure.

I'm sure.

I'm so sorry for your loss.

- [Deborah] Thank you.

- Do you mind talking a little bit about how you navigated through your grief?

- Well, (Deborah sighing) my grief started with just shock, I guess.

I was in shock probably for a good two months.

You know, I had trouble just maneuvering through life in general.

You know, he was gone and I had to, you know, playing a funeral instead of a party we were going to the next night.

I had friends and loved ones, you know, bombard my house.

Everyone was giving me opinions.

Everyone was just shocked.

I had to have a cleanup crew coming to my house to clean because he committed suicide in our backyard.

So it was just a lot, a lot.

Good thing I have a close family because they helped me through it a lot and friends.

- Sure.

I'm sure.

I mean, in addition to family and friends what resources did you tap into to kind of help?

- It took me about six months to tap into these resources but I looked for things in the outreach community such as spiritual, I looked for counseling, I spoke to doctors, I looked for grieving groups, I did one-on-one counseling, I took the talk therapy group, unlike some other people who would do do it a different way.

You know, but this was just my journey and how I had to do.

I stopped working for almost two years.

I just couldn't even maneuver my life.

I had no way of maneuvering and I didn't sleep that much either.

That was a problem, you know, cause it was at night when he committed suicide.

So I think I just equated it back, you know, to that.

- So certainly a long journey.

- Very long.

I think I was one of these people who just couldn't wrap my head around it.

- And so having been through what you've been through, what advice would you give someone who is experiencing the loss of a loved one?

I mean, understanding that everyone's different - Right?

I mean, I tell them, I just try to direct them in different ways, you know, of helping them through counseling and do outreach program in the community, whether it's through the hospitals, spiritual counseling, I had a great deal of spiritual counseling.

You know, do what's right for them because sometimes I think they listen and they don't really get the best advice what's good for them, you know, and all.

I kind of tuned out all the noise and I did it very privately because I think a lot of people take advice and then they advertise it and I don't wanna, you know, I didn't want to advertised.

You know, cause I think it's there's just a stereotype, you know, associated with it.

- Say more about that.

- I think people equate suicide with being selfish or being needy or, but I think it's a mental illness.

And I think they've thought about it a long time.

And I think it's a way to end their pain.

And I think they realize the ripple effect it has on family and friends.

I think a lot of people don't reach out.

And when you sit down and somebody has a call for help you really need to think about it.

- In your role as a volunteer, working with other folks who've had these experiences, what kind of local resources do you point them to?

- I usually have them talk to their doctor first because usually a doctor has a plethora of places that you can go to, like a local doctor.

If they're spiritual, the church.

The church can also help direct them and and the community where they live.

- So obviously this was a very painful experience in your life.

And you've made the decision to serve as a volunteer and help others who have gone through this.

Why?

What does that provide you with?

- I give them a resource that I didn't have.

So I never had that resource.

So I could give them that resource and I basically tell them what I did and what, you know, where I reached out and got help.

Of course, I never went into, I never went to a really depression like a real deep place where you know, a real dark place, but I tell them, I didn't go into a dark place.

So if you're in a dark place, you need to talk to a medical provider.

If you're not in a dark place and you just have a racing mind, cause I went through that for three years, then I can tell you what I feel you could do to help that.

Where you get anxious or you, you know, whatever.

I could tell you what I did.

So I think when I help people, I give them resources.

A lot of different resources.

So, that's what I do for them.

I give them the outreach, you know, information that they need to start their journey.

Cause it never really ends.

It's a constant journey.

Just like when you lose someone you love, you always think about them and...

But I think it softens.

The edges soften as you get, go through it.

I mean, you miss them during special events but.

- And how can friends and family of individuals who've gone through that loss best support their loved one, right?

Because I'm sure that that was challenging for you and for the people closest to you.

What do you say?

How do you act?

I think - I think just listening and not assuming.

I think when you listen and you don't judge because you know, people you just cannot judge every situation the same way.

You can help them, and you can listen, and you could give them different resources or point them in directions just being there.

I think a lot of it was for me was just someone being there.

You know, talking me through it.

You know, and saying, "If I had a bad day one day how do I get out of that bad day?"

Cause you have many bad days.

I mean, everyone has good and bad days but with suicide, I don't know when you're in grief you swing all the way to the left or all the way to the right when you're going through it.

So it just gives you another avenue to kind of talk out the cliff.

So I think I'm that avenue and I've gotten calls out of the blue from people I don't even know.

And I'll meet them for coffee and say, "What's going on?"

And then they'll tell me.

I think when you're not that close to somebody and you talk to somebody there, is just face value.

You don't know their history behind, you know, this person can have a bad history or whatever, I don't know.

Or a good history or.

So I sit down with them and I just kind of talk to them.

And, you know, for face value, What's wrong?

What's going on?

What do you need?

You know, how can I help you?

That's really it.

- Those are important things to remember.

Well, thank you so much, Deborah, for joining us and sharing your story and for your courage.

- Thank you for having me.

I hope I helped somebody today.

(gentle upbeat music) - [Narrator] WSKG thanks the following for their support of this project, The Conrad and Virginia Klee Foundation, The Corning Incorporated Foundation, M and T Bank, UHS, and viewers like you.

Thank you.