Surviving the Death by Suicide of a Sibling: Michelle-Linn Gust, M.S.

HEALING THE GRIEVING HEART
Surviving the Death by Suicide of a Sibling
Host: Dr. Gloria Horsley
With guest: Michelle Linn-Gust, M.S.
September 15, 2005

G: Hello. I’m Dr. Gloria Horsley. Welcome to Healing the Grieving Heart. Today my guest and I will take on a most difficult topic, Surviving the Death by Suicide of a Sibling. There are no simple or quick solutions to dealing with the death of a sibling. Each of us is unique and special as are our relationships and our responses to loss and the circumstances surrounding a death. Death of a sibling by suicide is compounded in its difficulty. As siblings left behind are not only having to be good kids for their parents but must also deal with anger, confusion, and guilt as to why their sibling would take their own life. The natural ambivalence and competition between siblings is cut short and unable to be played out. This makes it especially difficult for brothers and sisters who are left behind. The family after the death is singled out. Questions regarding why and how abound in the community. Friends are questioned and suicide support teams are moved into the school and neighborhood, a tension that no family would desire. Our guest today has been in this situation and she and I are here today to tell you that we have made it and so can you. Remember that just getting out of bed, going to school, the office, or working in the home is an accomplishment. The heart will heal. It’s a matter of letting it happen. Healing the Grieving Heart is about nourishing the heart and removing the blocks that slow the miracle of renewal. Please join us on this show today by calling our toll-free number 1-866-369-3742 with questions or comments regarding the losses in your life, or email me about this show, past shows, or future shows at gchorsley@aol.com. The shows are listed on The Compassionate Friends website and on VoiceAmerica. They are archived there so you can listen to them day or night. Today our topic is Surviving the Death by Suicide of a Sibling, and my guest is Michelle Linn-Gust, writer, speaker, teacher, and survivor of her sister, Denise’s, suicide. She is the author of Do They Have Bad Days in Heaven? Surviving the Suicide Loss of a Sibling. Michelle is director of the New Mexico Suicide Survivors and serves as the co-chair of the New Mexico Suicide Prevention Coalition. Michelle, welcome to Healing the Grieving Heart.
M: Thank you, thanks for having me.
G: I really enjoyed reading your book, Do They Have Bad Days in Heaven? Surviving the Suicide Loss of a Sibling. I liked how straightforward you were and honest about your experience as a bereaved sibling. I’ve talked to parents who had children die by suicide but I have never talked to a sibling or really read about it and I found it so interesting because I find that siblings are really out there with the death of their sibling and able to talk about some of the feelings of anger or frustration that has happened to them, and I especially liked your journals.
M: I thought it was really important when I wrote this book because there hadn’t been anything for my siblings and for me, and our relationship with her was different than the relationship that our parents had with her and it’s mostly my story more than my sister’s and my brother’s. The other thing is that I did write the book. The book ended up being published about almost ten years after her death. You can’t really recreate those emotions in the same way. And so that’s why I thought it was important to include the journal because I just remember such a feeling of we had shared so much and suddenly these things were gone but they were things that were important to us. I’d hear songs on the radio and TV shows and those little things, but those are big things that you lose a connection to somebody with.
G: Could you tell us a little bit about your sister, about Denise’s suicide and how it happened, and something around that?
M: She was 17 when she died. She was two weeks from 18 and 2 months from graduating from high school. She had attempted suicide about 5 months before she died and the first attempt was 250 aspirin and it then came out that she was suffering from some depression and she was also bulimic meaning she would consume a large number of calories at once and then purge it. She was then put into a psychiatric hospital and I came home, I was off at college. I came home at Thanksgiving and I remember talking to her and she said, “I’m really trying to get a hold on this whole issue I have with food.” But what happened that most people didn’t know until she died, including the bulk of our family, was that at Christmastime she was date raped by a boy she knew. I really believe that at some point between January and when she died in March, she made up her mind and said, “I can live about 60 more days. I can’t do 60 more years. I’m 17 years old, what else is going to happen to me?” On March 17, 1993, she actually walked out of her high school and waited for a freight train to hit her.
G: Wow. That’s an incredible, incredible shock for you and your family and community.
M: You know, it changed everything. I was 21 at the time and this was the sister I shared a room with for 10 years who I thought would be there forever because I was 3-1/2 years older than her and suddenly she was gone. I’d always heard there’s one year of mourning and so I thought okay, well, after a year, I’ll be fine. I had no idea that it would really take three years before I felt normal and I’ve since found that that’s a very true statement, particularly for suicide survivors. That it’s about three years of grieving because it’s so complicated with the fact that it’s a self-inflicted death.
G: So the three years, you’re thinking as a sibling, what you’re seeing with other siblings?
M: Not even just siblings. Anyone who has survived a suicide. There’s been actually a little bit of research about that.
G: I find that parents tend to grieve sort of endlessly about some of these issues but I think what you’re keying in on is the fact that you do start building your strength again to go on, not that you forget, not that you stop grieving, but then you are able to do other things, maybe concentrate, think about your life, or whatever. Could you talk about going to the site because there are some people who believe that you shouldn’t talk to people or interview people about the site or the suicide note, that it’s almost politically incorrect to do that. But I notice in your book you have it and that you actually read the suicide note to some of the students that you were teaching.
M: I had to go to the site multiple times and the first time I went, and I went with one of Denise’s best friends, I had to see. I had no intention of killing myself, but I had to see the force of a train. I had been around them. They’re right by where my parents live. She died about a mile and a half away but they do come right by the neighborhood where my parents live. But it was one of those things where I just had to be there. I had to see it. I also had to be where she last was alive. So Christie and I had gone once and I remembered. I think a train just happened to come by and we stood and we watched. But I went back two days before the first Christmas without her, and I remember standing on the tracks, and I don’t have the specific spot where she died, but I had to be where she was last alive. I found comfort in that because that was going to be our first Christmas without her and that was huge.
G: Did you see her after she died or was it a closed coffin?
M: No, it was closed. They actually identified her through fingerprints. My mom had had us fingerprinted as children. It was a kidnapping thing. I remember I fought. I didn’t want to go and I thought it was stupid and I was probably 10. And now, it’s like, thank God she did that because nobody had to actually go and identify her.
G: So that was kind of a community – it wasn’t a kidnapping of your family, it was kind of a community thing?
M: They had a thing at one of the schools on a Saturday where you could take your kids and get them all fingerprinted. This is back in the early ‘80s, maybe the late ‘70s and my Mom had hung onto those. I remember the fingerprints sat in the drawer next to the phone in the kitchen where all the coupons were. So I actually wasn’t there when the police came but I’m sure they probably asked my mom if she had anything. I know they asked her what Denise was wearing, but they needed to do a positive ID and my mom probably fortunately remembered that she had these fingerprints for us.
G: Well, it’s time for us to come on break now. When we get back from break, would you read the suicide note to us that Denise left because I know you have shared that with people and I’d like to talk to you about what the meaning of sharing that is for you to. It’s time for break now. Our topic today is Surviving the Death by Suicide of a Sibling, and my guest is Michelle Linn-Gust, writer, speaker, teacher, and survivor of her sister, Denise’s, suicide. She is the author of Do They Have Bad Days in Heaven? Surviving the Suicide Loss of a Sibling. Michelle is director of the New Mexico Suicide Survivors and serves as the co-chair of the New Mexico Suicide Prevention Coalition. These shows are archived on TheCompassionateFriends.com website and on VoiceAmerica. You can email me with questions about this show or upcoming shows or the archived shows at gchorsley@aol.com. Please stay tuned for more from our guest, Michelle Linn-Gust.
Welcome back to Healing the Grieving Heart. I’m your host, Dr. Gloria Horsley, and our topic today is Surviving the Death by Suicide of a Sibling. My guest is Michelle Linn-Gust, writer, speaker, teacher, and survivor of her sister, Denise’s, suicide. She is author of Do They Have Bad Days in Heaven? Surviving the Suicide Loss of a Sibling. Michelle is director of the New Mexico Suicide Survivors and serves as the co-chair of the New Mexico Suicide Prevention Coalition. Welcome back, Michelle. Before we went to break, I was talking to you about reading your sister’s suicide note. I wanted to know what the meaning of that was to you and, as I said, I know you’ve shared it with classes you’ve taught before.
M: Well, I think that there are a lot of myths around suicide notes and one thing is there are very few that are left. There’s only about 20%, I believe, of people who actually leave a note. People have a tendency to think that they are very angry, and they are sometimes. My sister’s note was not dated. It was not hastily written so that’s another reason we believe that she had planned her death. Her note I believe is really about trying to make everyone else feel better. I wasn’t there with Denise. I don’t know what she was thinking. But in some way she probably hoped that this would help ease the pain having no idea what her death would do to our family.
G: Would you like to read it for us?
M: Sure.
“To everyone I love. Well I wasn’t going to write a note, but I figured that was rude. I want you all to know I appreciate the help you gave but I just couldn’t accept it. Something that is wrong with me, no one else. No one could have done anything. Mom, Dad, thank you for 17 years of living. Thank you for all you gave me. Brian, Karen, Michelle, thank you for caring for me and watching out for me. And to all my friends who I turned to, you know who you are, thank you, thank you, thank you. I love you all. Pray for me so hopefully I will go to heaven. And as the song goes, just think of me and I’ll be there. Love, Denise.
And there’s actually a P.S.
P.S. Please do not think you should have said ‘I love you’ one more time. I know you all love me but I don’t love myself. Remember the good times. Think of how happy I will be. I love you all. I’ll miss you.”
I think one thing that’s really interesting and it really says something about my sister because obviously I had 17 years with her, is “I wasn’t going to write a note, but I figured that was rude.” I don’t go back and look at the note very often, but now that I look at it, it just sort of gives me a chuckle. It’s a good chuckle because it’s nice to be able to remember some things, and now, I’m thinking, that just sounds like Denise – “I thought that would be rude if I didn’t leave a note.” But, like I said, she didn’t want anyone to feel guilty. That’s just not possible.
G: Talk about that guilt for us.
M: There’s so much particularly in suicide because we call it the could have, would have, should have. We always look back in hindsight 20/20, and there’s so much that we think, “Oh, well, what if we had done this differently?” As parents think, “What if we had raised our child differently?” or “We made such and such a decision instead of what we actually did.” And with siblings, I think the guilt a lot of time is you think your siblings are going to be there. You think they’re going to be there and you’re growing old together and you’re going to share so much time with them and suddenly that’s ripped away. Like I said before the break, I really thought Denise would always be there.
G: And there’s that natural ambivalence, as I was mentioning when I was talking in the beginning. There’s a natural ambivalence, a natural competition. That’s where you learn how to get along and how to fight. Your sibling is kind of like the opportunity to first learn how to deal with the world.
M: And I really believe that. I didn’t know, I hardly knew anything about sibling relationships until years after her death when I started to look at it. But, we do. We learn so much from our siblings, and we were really raised together because the next oldest in the family is six years older than me and she was ten years older than Denise. And then the oldest, there was only a year between Brian and Karen, the two oldest, and then I was number three. So we were really raised together, Denise and I. We shared a room for ten years. We learned so much about life from each other. You take that for granted.
G: There’s a little saying that goes, “we were really close but we didn’t know it then.”
M: Right. If Denise were here today, I probably wouldn’t even admit that, that I learned so much from her because you don’t realize.
G: Well, tell me about how it is for a family when there is a death by suicide and the suicide S.W.A.T. team moves in to make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else.
M: I think in our country we have traditionally not been very good to our families. In a lot of ways, we still are.
G: Suicide families?
M: Yeah. I’m still getting stories, and I just had one yesterday, about a family that had a suicide over the weekend, a very poor family, and they did not want to clean up what was left behind
. I live in New Mexico, in Albuquerque, and they live in a town a couple of hours outside of Albuquerque, and they were told the only company that could come clean it up was in Albuquerque and they would have to pay for it. The family has already been traumatized by their loss and suddenly it’s like no, either you clean it up or you pay for it. And then they’re becoming more traumatized because they have to clean it up because they can’t afford to pay to have somebody come do it. And it’s those sort of things that we still have TV cameras that show up in front of houses where there’s been suicide. We just have not been good to the families and it’s because there’s so much a stigma that’s built around suicide and about mental illness. I know that we’ve gotten better. I know that since Denise died in 1993 we have come an incredibly long way, but we still have a really long way to go. Our families really need help because it changes everything in a family because suddenly one member is gone and it was a suicide. It’s so difficult because you can’t. I wished for something to blame and at one time we had thought early on after she died someone had suggested it might be the prozac she was taking. Again, this was 1993 when they were really starting to dole out anti-depressants. And we got excited and as strange as that sounds, it was like, “Oh, we can blame something.” Rather than knowing that Denise had been the one to make that choice to end her life. We got excited and how we wished for something, and that’s a huge issue for a family. Whether that person was – many, many times people have been drinking. They’ve been consuming alcohol because that lowers their inhibitions. They may be doing some sort of drugs.
G: You want to find a reason. Didn’t you say something about that you wanted to blame the prozac but then you found that her bottle was full—she hadn’t been taking it?
M: Yes, and when the toxicology came back, they didn’t find anything.
G: So she had no levels of prozac. That is very interesting because there are many people who want to say that they wouldn’t have died had they taken prozac. And then there are people who say that they died because they took prozac or whatever medication. Prozac – not to say anything about prozac.
M: Right. That just happens to be the one that she was on.
G: It happens to be the anti-depressant we’re talking about, but any anti-depressant. If they took an anti-depressant, they wouldn’t kill themselves. If they take it, it’s because of the anti-depressant. So, as you say, you’re trying to find a reason to make sense out of this—a permanent solution to a temporary problem. I wanted to ask you – didn’t you say that they had the kids at school go in on Saturday or something?
M: Yes. She died on Thursday and they had had Friday off and so what they did on Saturday because it was done in the local paper – the town where we grew up is thirty miles outside of Chicago, it’s a suburb. So what they did, it was in the newspaper. They had the counselors and they had the school open so that the students could come in if they needed to talk because there was no telling who knew, who found out, and the funeral, the wake was on Monday and the funeral, I believe, was on Tuesday, and I remember we went by. It was my older sister and me and a friend of mine, I think it was the three of us who had gone. Again, it’s been twelve-and-a-half years and so many of these details get lost when you’re dealing with so much emotion. One thing I remember is I didn’t go to the funeral home to pick out the casket. I remember the high school principal, actually, who I had graduated with the son, and I remember he called and he was so upset, and I just remember hearing his voice. It was a big school at that time. It’s bigger now. I believe it was about 2500 students at that time and he said this is the time we become a small community and Denise’s graduating class, there’s a story and I don’t know if this is still true because we’re talking about the early 90s, this is 2005. Each class would have at least one person die. We’re talking about maybe 500 students in a class, and Denise’s class was almost that first class, I believe, to not have someone die until she died, and she died just a few months before graduation.
G: So it was difficult for the whole school. And you kind of resented it that people had to do that because of her, didn’t you say in your journal at the time?
M: Yeah because, I’m sure, it’s Saturday, we don’t get many Saturdays, and I resented the fact that people were there when they had other things that they probably wanted to do. Here they were just suddenly having to work through something or help other people work through something.
G: I thought it was so interesting in your journal because you wrote a letter to her saying, “I’m mad at you. People have had to go in.” That kind of thing. When we come back from break, I want to talk to you about humor. There was a little humorous thing in your journal about her driver’s license. I want to talk about that when we come back from break. We’re coming up on break now. Please stay tuned with more from Healing the Grieving Heart. I’m your host, Dr. Gloria Horsley, and our topic today is Surviving the Death by Suicide of a Sibling. My guest is Michelle Linn-Gust, writer, speaker, teacher, and survivor of her sister, Denise’s, suicide. She is the author of Do They Have Bad Days in Heaven? I’m your host, Dr. Gloria Horsley. Please stay tuned.
Welcome back to Healing the Grieving Heart. I’m your host, Dr. Gloria Horsley, and my topic today is Surviving the Death by Suicide of a Sibling. My guest is Michelle Linn-Gust, writer, speaker, teacher, and survivor of her sister, Denise’s, suicide. She is author of Do They Have Bad Days in Heaven? Surviving the Suicide Loss of a Sibling. Michelle is director of the New Mexico Suicide Survivors and serves as a co-chair of the New Mexico Suicide Prevention Coalition. Well, Michelle, when we went to break, I said we were going to talk a little bit about a little humorous piece in your journal, but first we have a guest, and it is Heather from Atlanta.
H: Hi Michelle, hi.
G: You’re from Atlanta, Georgia. Did you have a question for Denise or myself? I mean, excuse me, Michelle.
M: You know what. I bet my sister loves the fact that I get called “Denise” because she always got called “Michelle.”
G: Well, we wish Denise could answer if you had a question for her. That would be very good. Do you have a question for Michelle, Heather?
H: I just wanted to call in. I’m a sibling survivor myself. I lost my brother to suicide. I just wanted to call in and thank Michelle because she was kind of the first piece of hope I saw when I read her book a few years ago, and just to know that there’s a lot of support out there. I just wanted to let anybody that is listening know because there is so much support out there and sometimes you just have to search a little bit for it but it’s there.
G: Heather, what did you find in her book that was particularly helpful, do you remember?
H: I had been warned at first when my brother died that the sibling has a very difficult role in all of this. We’re kind of left out and a lot of the compassion and the sympathy goes to other people sometimes.
G: And take care of your parents, right? And be good to them.
H: Right. And when I read Michelle’s book, it was the first time I had seen or read or heard kind of exactly what I was feeling and what I was going through and that was such a huge relief to me that I’m not in this alone and other people, other siblings have done the same thing.
G: Now do you hear a lot from people who are siblings, Michelle?
M: Yes. My website siblingsurvivors.com has a message board and it amazes me. I don’t often get to check it because of my schedule, but when I go in, it’s incredible how many people have written their whole story and say, “If anybody wants to email me,” and you have siblings who end up becoming friends and they find support in each other because a lot of the stories are very similar. Just in terms of relationships. If somebody lost a sister versus somebody lost a brother.
G: Well, Heather, thank you so much for calling. We really appreciate it. And take care of yourself. Yes, the Compassionate Friends also has some sibling groups that are helpful for people to get together and the internet is such a wonderful way to be able to make contact. We were talking about a little humor. I know when my son died, there was some humor in it and some belly laugh occasionally, and then there’s the guilt from laughing, but could you talk a little bit about Denise’s driver’s license? I thought that was sweet.
M: I have to admit that I don’t remember the whole story now, but what I do remember is that Denise got a speeding ticket. She went down to the Illinois State. She went down with some friends. The part I don’t remember is whether my parents knew about the speeding ticket or not, which I don’t know that they did. In the book, I say that my dad had stopped the payment on the speeding ticket because she had died and subsequently they got a letter a month after she died saying her driver’s license had been suspended. We all sort of laughed about that because obviously she wasn’t here any more. But it was those little things that we could still laugh about and say, “Well, she’s not here. What are they going to do? Come and take her away?” Right.
G: I know that you actually wrote to her in your journal in a letter something like, “I just wanted you to know that you don’t have a valid driver’s license any more.”
M: Right, so it’s like you’re not going anywhere.
G: I know the other thing, when I read your book, that you were a bit annoyed with her about was that she would keep her dental appointment cards.
M: Yeah. Well, you know, I was the one who cleaned out her room and, this girl. I remember the day of her funeral, there were so many kids who came, and mom let them all up into her room. Nobody knew what they were doing. We were all just sort of there. They stood in the middle of her room looking around and I remember thinking she had all this laundry. And obviously she had just walked out that one morning and left to not come back. To tell you my sister was not the neatest person in the world – we shared a room for ten years and I was actually the sister who put the tape down the middle, and I actually taped her off a path in. Part of that was because I couldn’t stand the fact that she was not very neat. But she just kept so much stuff, and one of the things that she had kept was all her dental appointment cards which obviously I didn’t know until I started cleaning out her closet and it was like, why did you keep all this stuff? I’ve had twelve-and-a-half years to reflect on a lot of things, and now that I sit here and think about it, I think that may have had something to do with the way she felt, that she was holding on to certain things in her life and that was really important to her.
G: How was it decided that you would be the person who cleaned out the room? That’s one of the things we always talk about – issues about when do you clean out the room, who does it? I know that I let my son’s friends all go up and take something and I know one of my daughters was not happy that I did that. But it’s such a spontaneous thing, and when it’s gone, it’s gone. How was that decided in your family?
M: I don’t know exactly how it was decided. My mom and my sister might have a different version, my older sister, but what I remember was the three of us going through some of her things and the first thing we did was we took back things we’d given her for Christmas. I remember doing that, or birthdays. I remembered that there was a Cubs t-shirt I’d given her and I know my sister, Karen, I’m almost positive she took that. We said, “okay, if you want this.” I had worked at Eddie Bauer and she had bought a ski jacket and I took that and I still have it, actually. I sometimes wear it in the winter. But I think part of it was because my older sister was not living at home and my mom was working and I think it was because I was between going off to – I spent the summer after she died at the Olympic training center in Colorado Springs and I think it was because I was home. And even though we had divvied up some of her stuff already, there was just so much. I remember it took a few times to actually get through all of it, and there was no hurry. We also wanted to give back things to her friends that were their’s. I don’t remember there being any hurry on it other than the fact that I was there and I had the time to do it.
G: So you were training to be an Olympic runner?
M: No. I was doing my internship. I had to have a journalism internship to graduate from Allstate where I went to school and I did it with USA Boxing. I used to have people say, “So you were a sparring partner?” And I used to say, “No. I did things like send faxes and media kinds of things.” And it was interesting that that happened because Denise and I – Mom had worked for the old Midway Airlines out of Midway Airport in Chicago and we used to go on all these trips when I was in high school and Denise was in junior high. And one of the places she’d taken us was Colorado Springs to go to the Olympic training center. I had known somebody who was doing an athletic trainer internship there, and I just loved it out there. Denise knew how important that was to me and it was interesting because I applied for this internship and I got the internship three weeks after she died. I actually did not tell my boss until I got there that I had just lost my sister and he told me at the end of the internship, he said, “You know, if you had told me before you came, I wouldn’t have let you come.” But I knew that that was important for me to go and Denise knew that was important that I go, too.
G: And you felt like she was supporting you on her own.
M: Yeah, and a lot of interesting things that have been really – people who have been important in my life came out of that. One woman is LaRita Archibald who is one of the founders of the suicide survivor movement here in the United States, and she was in Colorado Springs. And I got to meet LaRita and went to her support group and we formed a friendship.
G: So you actually went there and found a support group for yourself?
M: Yeah, I was lucky because they didn’t have one in Muncie, Indiana. That was the only experience until I moved to New Mexico a year and a half later that I had of going to a support group.
G: Could you talk about the fact that a person who has a sibling die by suicide or whatever is kind of a double orphan – they lose their parent and their sibling?
M: What happens is obviously there’s the sibling loss, but then the parents are just so encompassed by their grief of the child that they lost that they forget about their surviving children. I can’t tell how many times where I’ve spoken and done the talk and the parents come up to me and go, “I had no idea that my surviving children were going through this.” Because I remember one woman told me that all she could do was lay in bed, and she had just totally forgotten about her other children and so we call it double orphan, because suddenly they’re without their parental support system.
G: And certainly the support system that they knew has changed. How about you also talk about relationships, that people need to be careful of forming romantic relationships in the first year.
M: This is something that nobody seems to touch on and I think that this is one of the more important things to tell somebody. You are going through so much, and it’s not even ultimately just a year long, it’s a life long journey. And when you’re going through all these emotions and dealing with this loss and having to reconfigure your life and what you believe in because you’re suddenly, there’s a piece of a pie in your family that’s gone, and the family has to figure out how to cut this new pie in a new way, that you don’t need to be involved in a new romantic relationship. It’s already stressful to continue any relationships that were going on before and chances are, the person that you are, you’re going to change. I had people tell me that I would be the same person, and I wasn’t the same person.
G: On that note, let’s take a break now. Please stay tuned for more comments and advice from our guest, Michelle Linn-Gust, bereaved sister of Denise and author of Do They Have Bad Days in Heaven? Surviving the Suicide Loss of a Sibling, and to hear about next week’s very special topic and guest. Michelle, when we come back from our break, I would like to know if there are any areas that you feel we have missed, or comments that you would like to make. This show is archived on www.theCompassionateFriends.org and www.Health.VoiceAmerica.com websites. If you would like to email me, my email is gchorsley@aol.com. Please stay tuned.
Welcome back to Healing the Grieving Heart. I’m your host, Dr. Gloria Horsley. My guest today is Michelle Linn-Gust, bereaved parent of Denise, and author of Do They Have Bad Days in Heaven?
M: Bereaved sister.
G: Pardon, what did I say?
M: Parent, which I know why you said parent. You deal with so many parents.
G: Bereaved sister of Denise. Now see what happens when you do siblings, the forgotten mourners.
M: Well, I would always forget – I do siblings so it would be the other way for me.
G: Michelle’s book is Do They Have Bad Days in Heaven? Surviving the Suicide Loss of a Sibling. First of all, tell us how we can get your book.
M: There’s a lot of ways you can get it. One is my website, www.siblingsurvivors.com. It’s available on Amazon. You can go to any bookstore and there’s no reason why somebody can’t order this. Occasionally I’ll get a story and be told, well, I was told they can’t order it. That’s not true. There’s no reason. We get orders for it all around the world, actually, and someone needs to be helpful to do that. So it’s pretty widely available.
G: Now you were telling me that you’re getting a Ph.D. and what are you doing now with the State of New Mexico?
M: I’m doing a multitude of things. I’m working on a Ph.D. in family studies at the University of New Mexico, and I’m actually working on another book for families because we’ve really neglected the family as a unit and what happens. We’ve talked about the relationships, like I’ve done the sibling, but we haven’t talked about what happens to that unit, that system, when there’s been a loss and how to help families come back together because everybody is going to grieve differently. We have a lot of interest in New Mexico and suicide. We have one of the highest rates in the nation and this last year we had some funding come down and we’re currently doing some survivor training to educate people how to work with survivors. We’re doing assist training which is, I think, one of the best suicide prevention trainings that we have. It’s used by our military and around the world. And we’re doing a lot of training. The University of New Mexico has a crisis line. It’s just really keeping us busy. It’s exciting but it’s also somewhat overwhelming.
G: I bet you never in your life thought you’d be doing this kind of thing.
M: No.
G: It’s amazing where we go, isn’t it?
M: It is amazing, and I even thought that once my book was out, I didn’t think I’d still be here and now I’m going to be writing another book on suicide. I have other books that I intend to write and I don’t know how many suicide books will come after that but I’ve got at least two more that are not suicide related and I just don’t know where life holds. I’ve got enough work right now. I also edit the Surviving Suicide for the American Association of Suicidology.
G: I wanted to ask you a question and I’ve talked to you about before. Tell me about, we all say, “They committed suicide,” but now I understand that that is not politically correct. In fact, I even know, you say it once in your journal, “Denise, you committed” or something. But now that is not politically correct. Could you talk about that?
M: Sure, and I think, and I have to go back and read the book, but I believe the only place where it is is when I was quoting something because I don’t use it and I was never comfortable with it, and I was so glad when I had people tell me that there were other options. And basically, the word “committed” has the connotation of murder and a sin and we could go on and on about all the sorts of things that come with this loss, but then to compound all these stigmas of suicide on top of it. And so what we suggest people use is “died by suicide,” and also using “suicide” as a verb to say “someone suicided.” Some people use “completed suicide.” I prefer not to use that because that makes it sound like, well, they tried a bunch of times before they finally succeeded. I think that’s also very difficult for survivors to hear that, but then again, it’s going to take time to get the language changed.
G: Yes. I hope that you’ll be very patient with we people out there who make the mistake of saying “committed suicide.”
M: I don’t every try to change people. I just try to educate people when I do my talks and so forth.
G: I think the education is important but the problem as I see it is so difficult for people to talk about it anyway, we don’t want to put up another roadblock for them saying, “Could you tell me about your sister’s death?” Because I think you did want to talk about it, right? Do you know what I’m saying?
M: Right. Yeah. Like I said, anything takes time and I don’t ever get mad at people for saying it. I don’t correct people. But when I do workshops, I say, “Well, okay, this is why we do this.” And I have a lot of friends who have actually changed it. They’re like, “You know, I never thought about it.”
G: Oh, I’ve certainly changed and been educated recently on the topic so absolutely. I’ve got to hurry and get to the point and ask you, do you feel like we’ve missed anything before we end the show?
M: The only quick thing I’d like to say is that siblings typically have to carry this off for a long way and it’s really important that siblings and people who are trying to help them find ways to remember that sibling and to tell the funny stories. We talked about the humor. I so appreciate still telling funny stories about Denise, but also little things, whether it be bringing something like sea shells back from somebody who has been back to the grave. But just those little things that people can do because their sibling is still a part of them. They were part of their growing up years which are so important in who we become. People don’t want to forget and they shouldn’t have to forget how important they were to them.
G: Thank you. That was a wonderful thought. How do you want people to talk about yoru sister dying? Do you want them to question? What kind of questions early on did you want them to ask that were okay?
M: I didn’t care what anybody asked. I used to teach high school health and I would say, “You can ask me anything.” The boy who raped her was actually an immigrant from Italy and I actually had one student say, “Do you hate immigrants?” For a 14-year-old, she wanted to know. I tell people, which I don’t hate immigrants, by the way, and I didn’t at that time, either, but I think at that time, ask me anything. And now, I talk about it so much. I’m obviously in a different place, and I just really enjoy telling the stories about her. But I don’t have that need to tell the story about what happened, but if people want to know, I’m more than willing to tell people.
G: Well, I would suggest to everyone that they get Michelle’s book if for no other reason, that picture on the front of your book is incredibly precious.
M: Thank you, and my mom actually likes to tell people that that kitchen floor is still there because it’s taken in the kitchen.
G: It’s Denise and Michelle sitting in a laundry basket. Well, it’s time to close the show now, and I want to thank my guest today, Michelle Linn-Gust, bereaved sister of Denise and author of Do They Have Bad Days in Heaven? Surviving the Suicide Loss of a Sibling. Denise, thank you so much for being on the show. It’s so important to hear the sibling’s voices especially on such a difficult topic as death by suicide, and I want to thank you so much and also tell you how much I appreciate the work you’re doing.
M: Thank you for having me, and I appreciate the work that you’re doing because without shows like this, siblings don’t get to be heard.
G: Thank you. My guest next week is Father Al Johnson, Episcopal priest and Rector of St. Michael’s Church in Barrington, Illinois. Father Johnson will discuss his son, Nicholas’ three-year battle with leukemia and how his faith was tested. He will give hope and healing messages to all those who grieve. This show is archived on www.Health.VoiceAmerica.com as well as www.theCompassionateFriends.org websites. You can email me at gchorsley@aol.com about this show or upcoming or past shows. The show is every Thursday at 9:00 Pacific Standard Time, 12:00 Eastern. For more of Healing the Grieving Heart, a show of hope and renewal and support. Remember, others have been there before and made it. You can, too. You need not walk alone. Thanks for listening. I’m Dr. Gloria Horsley.