Anne Moss Rogers - Emotionally Naked

Mike Riekhof (He/Him/His), Survivor of Suicide Loss, Founder of The Peyton Riekhof Foundation, Fishers, Indiana, ThePeytonRiekhofFoundation.com

Leigh Rysko (They/Them/Theirs), Spanish Teacher and World Languages Department Chair, Kansas Public High School

Jonathan B. Singer, PhD, LCSW (He/Him/His), President, American Association of Suicidology, author of Suicide in Schools: A Practitioner's Guide to Multi-level Prevention, Assessment, Intervention, and Postvention

Sean Reilly (He/Him/His), retired teacher, Kansas Attorney General Suicide Coalition Task Force, The One Heart Project

Shelby Rowe (She/Her/Hers), Co-Chair, Indigenous Peoples Committee, American Association of Suicidology (AAS)

Victor Schwartz, MD (He/Him/His), Former CMO of The JED Foundation, Founder of MindStrategies Advisors, Clinical Associate Professor, Dept. of Psychiatry, NYU School of Medicine, MindStrategies.com

Laura Stack, MBA (She/Her/Hers), Suicide loss survivor and Founder of Johnny's Ambassadors and Leadership USA, Inc., JohnnysAmbassadors.org

Dese'Rae L. Stage (She/Her/Hers), Suicide Attempt Survivor, Suicide Loss Survivor, Queer, livethroughthis.org

Aurora Wulff (She/Her/Hers), Young Adult, Founder of Active Minds Student Mental Wellness Club, Graduate of Ithaca High School, student at Binghamton University

Interviewees who asked to remain anonymous

Beauregard, Young Adult, Graduate of all-boys school in eastern US (agreed name change to protect privacy)

Anonymous High School PE Teacher, Virginia

Anonymous High School Counselor, all-boys school in eastern US

Quotes from those underage whose names have been withheld for privacy

Many contributions from principals, teachers, school counselors, and students who asked that their names be withheld

Survivors of Suicide Loss Interviewees (adolescent child)

Kelly Sprecht (She/Her/Hers), Founder of Carl's Cause, Kansas City

Elaine Alpert (She/Her/Hers), CEO of Mindpeace Miracles, Atlanta

Ricky Rash (He/Him/His), Mechanicsville, Virginia

Since web links change, we've created a web page with links to resources mentioned in this book, with downloadable guides and resources for your school and classrooms.

wiley.com/go/emotionallynaked

Password is: 988preventsuicide

Trigger Warning: Suicide method mentioned briefly

It was June 5, 2015, in Virginia—a warm day, but I was cold and shivering as I sat in the back of a police car in a parking lot. My husband was in the front passenger seat. The officer, dressed in a nicely tailored gray suit and yellow tie, made a quarter turn in the driver's seat so he could see both of us. On some other day, I would have thought him handsome.

“I have some sad news to share. Your son Charles has been found dead this morning… .” An electric shock surged though my body and air was siphoned out of my lungs. When my breathing recovered and my lungs remembered what to do, soul-crushing wails of agony and loss erupted. My chest burned, my ears filled with noise, and my mind was watery and unhinged as the unspeakable tragedy that forever changed our lives was delivered in a single sentence.

Moments later, my husband, Randy, paused and asked, “How did he die?” For some reason, this question stunned me. I thought, How do you think he died? He was addicted to heroin, for God's sake . I was prepared to hear “overdose.” But instead the officer said, “He hanged himself,” and my husband banged his fists on his lap and the glove box, wailing in inexplicable emotional pain as I stared at his explosion in shock, unable to move. The statement by the officer dangled in the air outside of my consciousness, trying to get in while confusion and denial obstructed its path. My first instinct was to find the escape route from the agony and slide into another life that was shiny and happy. Rocking back and forth and wailing guttural, inhuman sounds, I had the primal urge to grab the edges of yesterday and bring it back so we could do the day over and achieve a better outcome. We love him. How could he kill himself? I didn't understand why suicide and it would be a long time before I would.

There was an immediate and desperate longing in my soul for one more hug. My irrational disbelief that this couldn't be true curled around the edges of my trauma and the raw, naked pain of losing my son was forever imprinted on my soul. Bits and pieces of information floated about, screaming their importance with no place to land, only to be retrieved later when my mind had the ability to absorb them and put the pieces together.

I am the mother of a child who killed himself.

Struggling to make Charles's life count, I spent five months after his death writing a newspaper article about my family's tragedy that went viral, creating an audience for my newly minted blog, Emotionally Naked ®. This is where I wrote in my public journal to work through my grief. Eighteen months later, my business partner and I sold our successful digital marketing company and I became an author and an emotionally naked speaker on subjects few want to talk about.

Charles was complex, adorable, frustrating, hilarious, effervescent, electric, charming, eccentric, and a creative genius. From the time he came into the world to the time he left, his presence was all-consuming. He pushed boundaries past comfortable, questioned everything, and was relentless and persistent when he wanted something. When Charles waltzed in, the fun had arrived. Faces brightened, bodies turned toward him like he brought the sunshine in his pocket and he was there to hand it out. He was one of those bigger-than-life personalities who exceeded his allotment of space on earth despite his six-foot-two, 130-pound frame. Charles was the younger of my two sons, the funniest, most popular kid in school. Yet this funniest, most popular kid suffered from depression in middle school, and by high school was misusing drugs and alcohol to numb feelings of suicide we never knew about. His substance misuse led to deeper depression and an addiction to heroin, and he took his life while going through withdrawal.

Connection was Charles's gift and he demonstrated it over and over. No child ever entered his school and sat alone at lunch or felt friendless. He was the first to make new kids feel welcome. And given his popularity, that attention was like a social promotion.

It was a teacher who first suggested my child might be suffering from depression. It was a teacher who stars in one of my favorite photos of Charles ( Figure P.1). And it was a teacher who wrote me the kindest, most heartfelt note after he died by suicide. My son's education shaped his writing and encouraged daily journal entries—a habit that evolved into his writing hundreds of hip-hop-style rhyme schemes that offered me a window into his tortured, artistic soul after his death. It was those notebooks he left behind that helped me understand the why behind his suicide. Some of these lyrics were included in my first book, Diary of a Broken Mind: A Mother's Story, a Son's Suicide, and the Haunting Lyrics He Left Behind .

Figure P.1Charles on Homecoming Court, escorted by his favorite teacher, Kerry Fretwell.

While there are precious memories from his school days, there were horror stories, too. Zero-tolerance policies and rigid school administrators who defaulted to punitive measures perpetuated my youngest son's feelings of worthlessness, and unnecessary suspensions caused frustrating setbacks to his fragile progress with depression. Misunderstanding shaped their authoritarian responses when what was needed was empathy and compassion.