Reading Time: 4 minutes In the days and weeks after my son Josh took his life, I was faced with several painful predicaments. How do I break the news, to family, friends, coworkers, neighbors? How deeply do I dig for the irrational why, in cellphone, laptop, autopsy report? How do I handle religious aggression and other boundary violations? How […]
secular suicide survivor
Posted inDeath & Dying
Mourning and remembrance without an afterlife safety net
Reading Time: 6 minutes I’m afraid of forgetting. Terrified, even. There’s a reason for my athazagoraphobia. With the unspoken rule of silence surrounding my mother’s death when I was 17, I can no longer remember her voice. The voice of the person who was central to my formative years. That’s tragic. Now that I’m 53, I’m facing the second […]
Posted inPsychology
Stuff they don’t tell you about grieving: The ‘Space Cadet’ stage
Reading Time: 4 minutes During my days as a therapist for combat vets with PTSD, my patients would routinely tell me, “Doc, I’ve got CRS.” As in Can’t Remember Shit. Since my son Josh died, I’ve had a rip-roaring case of it myself. I stand motionless in the kitchen, puzzling over what I was planning to do next. I […]
Posted inHealth
Naomi Judd, guns, and suicide: Public health and the 2nd Amendment
Reading Time: 4 minutes America loves its guns, even though that love affair is killing us. If you own a gun, don’t worry. I’m not coming after them. I know of many nonreligious folks, like Seth Andrews, the popular Thinking Atheist podcaster, who own firearms. But as a secular humanist, don’t you want to live a life guided by […]
Posted inPsychology
How to talk suicide prevention with the mentally ill person in your life
Reading Time: 5 minutes It’s small comfort, but I’m in good company. Most parents of children who suicide had no idea the stakes were fatally high.* In hindsight, I made a number of fatal assumptions. First, I assumed my son Josh was telling the truth when he informed me, his doctors, and his therapists that he never contemplated suicide. […]
Posted inPsychology
Putting the ‘fun’ in ‘after the funeral’
Reading Time: 5 minutes This entire column, not just this entry, contains a content warning. I will be writing about suicide, depression, post-traumatic stress, and other serious topics. If you are having suicidal thoughts, please reach out to someone you trust, establish care with a therapist, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (800-273-8255), or go to your nearest emergency […]
Posted inPsychology
Just get over it: The DSM, Prolonged Grief Disorder, and pathologizing human experience
Reading Time: 5 minutes A knee to the groin: a perfect start to one’s day. A month ago, as I sipped my tea and scanned The New York Times, I learned that a new diagnosis had been added to the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). I knew such an addition to the […]
Posted inPsychology
Should I be mad at my son? Anger and forgiveness after suicide
Reading Time: 5 minutes This entire column, not just this entry, contains a content warning. I will be writing about suicide, depression, post-traumatic stress, and other serious topics. If you are having suicidal thoughts, please reach out to someone you trust, establish care with a therapist, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (800-273-8255), or go to your nearest emergency […]