Voices for Voices®

How To Navigate Grief After Suicide | Episode 165

• Founder of Voices for Voices®, Justin Alan Hayes • Season 4 • Episode 165

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How To Navigate Grief After Suicide | Episode 165

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Chapter Markers
0:00 Impact of Suicide on Children
26:59 Finding Purpose in Daily Life

How do you help a child understand the unfathomable loss of a parent to suicide? Through the heartbreaking story of Stephen "Twitch" Boss, the talented DJ and beloved TV personality, we confront the profound impact that suicide has on families and, in particular, young minds. As we reflect on the chasm left by Twitch's unexpected death in December 2022, we also share personal stories of grappling with grief, emphasizing that the shadow of loss doesn't easily fade with time. Our conversation aims to break down the barriers of stigma surrounding mental health, opening up a much-needed dialogue about the importance of support and understanding in the face of such tragedies.

Beyond the shadows of loss, we guide you through an exploration of life's greater purpose. What keeps us moving forward, even when the routine seems to weigh us down? As your host of Voices for Voices®, I invite you to join our mission of amplifying voices and making a meaningful impact on billions of lives. Together, we navigate the universal quest for purpose, offering insights and inspiration for those seeking to find meaning amidst the chaos of daily life. This episode is part of a collective journey, and we encourage you to be a part of future discussions as we tackle essential topics that resonate with our shared human experience.

This episode tackles the difficult topic of suicide, focusing on its impact on families and especially children. With personal insights and stories, we discuss how to navigate these crucial conversations, combat stigma, and emphasize the importance of empathy and open dialogue.
• The conversation begins with the topic of suicide and its societal implications
• The story of Stephen Twitch Boss serves as a pivotal touching point
• Children’s understanding and reactions to loss are explored
• Personal anecdotes concerning loss and grief are shared
• The importance of transparent discussions with children is highlighted
• Strategies to combat the stigma around suicide are offered
• Listeners are encouraged to access resources for suicidal prevention

Voices for Voices® is the #1 ranked podcast where people turn to for expert mental health, recovery and career advancement intelligence.

As you can see, the Voices for Voices® podcast publishes episodes that focus on case studies, real life examples, actionable tips and "in the trenches" reports and interviews from subscribers like you.
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Speaker 1:

Welcome to this episode of the Voices for Voices TV Show and Podcast. I am your host, founder and executive director of Voices for Voices, justin Allen Hayes. Thanks for joining us. We are excited to bring some off-cycle episodes to you, and this episode we're going to talk about another, let's say, stigmatized topic and that is, uh, suicide. So not glamorous, but it happens, happens. It happens to people. It happens to people whether they're on the lower end of the socioeconomic side of things or if they are on the higher. So suicide knows no boundaries. It happens and it unfortunately is just a part of society that has really just crept up on us in the last 5, 10, 15 years Very, very difficult. So we're going to touch on a couple of higher profile suicides and then we're going to talk about what impact that could have on children. So we're not just going to read the news, we're going to talk a little bit about how that affects children. And how do we even talk to children about that if heaven forbid that were to occur in any of our lives?

Speaker 1:

So just over a year ago, stephen Twitch Boss very successful at the time. He was a DJ, he was on popular daytime TV shows and, by all accounts, was living a great life, or so we thought so him and his wife, children. They reside in California and the given day that this event really came through we're talking about in December of 2022, so it's a couple years old, but very relevant to our discussion here today. So this day started like many days, I would suppose, if anybody in Steven Twitch Boss' life were to be asked. He took off, wasn't answering his phone at a certain point of the day. His wife said this was very unexpected. Where he would? He just left, and so she began to try to contact him, as we we all would. We would be trying to reach that individual however we could, and so she was trying to reach him on the on the phone was not getting any responses, and so she reached out to the cops and it was really adamant about if this isn't, this isn't like my husband to not answer, not answer the phone. He left without warning and again all that communication stopped. So no telephone, no text, no email, nothing, and so this all happened.

Speaker 1:

The LAPD Los Angeles Police Department reported Stephen missing, and then law enforcement, you know, came back to the house to do just a brief check of the property, if there's any video or clues to where he had gone. His wife again was adamant that this was not like her husband. This was not like her husband and officers were. You know, again, they list them as a missing person, but apparently there's different levels and they were considering listing him as a critical missing, and so his wife, allison, contacted the cops and I guess it was a little bit after that communication that there was a 911 call that came through through and that was saying that her husband, steven Twitch Boss, body had been discovered at a motel which was less than a mile away from the home and that you know this for all intents and purposes on the outside looked like a successful individual.

Speaker 1:

You know however we want to look at that that he had died by suicide, a self-inflicted gunshot wound. So when the staff of the hotel was asked about one of their mother residents and they had mentioned that, you know this, this individual Stephen he checked in on a given day. He just had a small bag with him, no heavy-duty suitcase with wheels, just a small bag, and he had just booked one night, a single night. They, being the staff, said that they didn't seem to think that he was visibly upset or under any stress out of the ordinary, which, you know, we try to understand these types of things, and what led up to these particular events, these particular experiences, and so staffs being questioned, and when he was, there's what prompted the staff to reach out and then prompted them to reach out via 911 and report the body was that Steven didn't check out on time. So then that's what led the staff to look into what's going on. Is there something happening that caused him not to check out on time? So now we know that there was him not to check out on time. So now we know that there was. And so, yeah, that was a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Speaker 1:

Celebrity passed away with a wife, children. And here we are. So we just, you know we're kicking off 2025 and his wife is, you know, being being asked and commenting on because, again, suicide, uh, is a large cause of many deaths. And so the topic comes up and Allison, his wife, widow, now being asked about how do you talk to the kids, how do you share that information? When I get into specifics of how the news was broken to the children, she says that the kids still don't understand. They don't realize that their dad's not coming home. They don't realize that their dad's not coming home. It's not that he's not gonna ring the doorbell, knock on the door, just walk in the door and give them a hug and a kiss and you'll go back to how life had been part to the incident. And so that has to affect, right, the children's mental health, because that's trauma. Right, that was albeit normal.

Speaker 1:

You know mother, father and children's lives, and then lifting one of those pieces out being their father, where is he? He'll come home today or tomorrow or a different day, and it's tough for children, I mean, it's tough for adults. It's tough to talk through situations like this or when anybody passes in a family, regardless of how that is. Share this story, right, we're very transparent with our organization myself as the leader, the founder, you know, we know that my father passed last March and so that was instill. It's tough and I'm 43 years old and it's tough to still go through. You know, wait like I can, really I can be able to reach out to them tomorrow, or what would have you. And so it's hard for me. And so this story was late last year and we, my wife and I, as well as a lot of families, do you know they like, they like to include their grandparents when, when, impossible. And so my dad was. My daughter still is, he's passed. But my mom and dad are grandparents to my wife and I's daughter and so again, again, he passed last March.

Speaker 1:

Time was going on and last year and there was a, there's a day where my, my mom had, you know, asked, we've reached out and said, hey, would you want to come watch? Watch our daughter's ballet class or gymnastics class, can't remember exactly which, which one. She's, she's very active. So my mom comes house, get in the car and my mom's phone rings and before my mom answered the phone, my daughter said oh, is that is Pappy calling? You know that's what we call my dad, alma for my mom and Pappy for my dad.

Speaker 1:

And here she is thinking like, oh, is that, you know, pappy calling? And that just was hard for my mom to be there and that. But then when she shared it with me, I just, you know, kind of like broke my heart again. Like broke my heart again because in her mind, as we are talking about, you know this, the suicide of Steven Twitch boss and his wife and then children, and how the wife, now widow, is trying to share with the children. And children are asking questions of them still not sure, or them still not, them still thinking that someday their dad's gonna, someday their dad's gonna again like walk into the door, show up and now and think about on this on every day. And it's hard Again, I'm 43 years old and it's hard to go through.

Speaker 1:

So to have my daughter being in the car with my mom, my mom's phone rings and for my daughter to say, oh, it's this pappy calling. Uh, talk about levels of understanding that she understands on a certain level, understands on a certain level that he's in heaven, but also thinking that, hey, if all those phones are ringing, maybe, maybe Pappy's calling to say hi and maybe Pappy's calling to say hi. And that was on top of a another story where, when we were sharing the news about my, my dad's passing, my daughter had we're going to my mom and dad's house one day and my daughter said, oh well, what you know, what you know, pappy's in heaven. So you know which door is that We'll just, we'll go to wherever that is, we'll go to where you know what door he's in now, where his room is. And again, that I mean, still still affects me, you know to, to have the knowledge and to have her, just so innocently, you know, asking like, oh well, just okay, pappy's in heaven, what well? What door is that? Where can we, where can we go see him at? Uh, so again now, my father didn't pass by suicide. Uh, where the the story where we kicked off this episode? The father, steven twitch boss, did that by suicide. It very, very parallel paths of his children and then my, my daughter, uh, my wife and I, his daughter, regarding my, my dad, and so so I know that it's affecting my daughter about my dad's passing.

Speaker 1:

I'm not a psychiatrist or caseworker, social worker. I don't know how that manifests itself and how it will continue to manifest itself, but it's. It's affecting. Expecting my mental health of the children on top of the mental health of the widow, is definitely something to just to think about. You know, we go through life. There's so many things, right. We wake up and, okay, I gotta do this task and this task, and then, once I do this, once I do A, then I gotta do B. Once I do B, I gotta do C. Once I do C, I gotta do D and we all C, I do D and we all.

Speaker 1:

Speaking for my experience, at least, for me it's like this rat race we're doing things, we're doing things, we're doing things, but then when we strip it down to the human body, the human nature that's, you know, we talk about we need to eat, we need rest, we would like shelter, security. You know, there's certain, you know certain foundational aspects that we, you know, we talked about with Maslow's hierarchy of needs, just as human beings, there's things that we search for and we yearn for, for us to be able to continue on just living life. So then, when we get to the point of relationships, families, interactions, life my daughter being born in 2018 and my dad with my mom, we're there, and so now, and and so now we're looking at pictures and with my dad and instead of, you know, having him in person and I'm not the only one that has lost a loved one and not not trying to say I am, I'm just trying to share my, my experience and how something that's affecting us as an adult could also be affecting children, even older, older children, right, as we've all been small, we've grown up, at least age wise, right, we have events, experiences that happen, and then we kind of react. You know, we try to control or impact as many things as we can to have a good thought about what the outlook and what the result or the outcome might be. But there are some things we just call accidents or things that just are outside of our control. So as much as we try to do that for our children, protect them outside of our control, so as much as we try to do that for our children, protect them, we do the best we can. And so when there's a shift of their world, our world, family member passes, relationship ends, starts, member passes, relationship and starts those things are very on different levels traumatic, some a lower level, some meta at a higher, higher level. So that's why we brought up this, this story, because I had the parallel with you know those two experiences. You know my mom's phone ringing and my daughter's saying, oh, it's Pappy calling. And then they had their oh well, pappy's in heaven, we'll just, we'll visit him and we'll just go to what. We'll go to the door that he's at now and we'll knock on that door and and Papi will open the door and welcome us in. And so how that has impacted my daughter, myself, my wife, my mom, my sister, my nephews, my brother-in-law. You know people kind of in our inner family, close family, call it. It's impacted us and it's going to continue to impact us. So the goal of this episode is really to show empathy wherever we can, show empathy wherever we can.

Speaker 1:

Mental health suicide still has the stigma, still has the stigma to even talk about. So when I come out and I'm talking about it, I'm so transparent and sharing and very detailed and experiences and the trauma and the event. There are people that are I'm saying against it, but you know we want to sweep that under the rug. We don't. We don't want to want to talk about that, but we all are. We're all working through that at some level, with varying degrees of success. So the stigma is still there, not even just the suicide part. But if you or somebody you know is working through and dealing with struggling and crisis, know that help is available, in the last year or so you have been, we have been and now we are still able to. We are able to call or text the number 988, or we can chat, if that is our choice, at 988lifelineorg. So that's 988lifeline L-I-F-E-L-I-N-E, dot O-R-G. There is help, there are people that want to help and if you think that, hey, I just want to check out. You know that. Just know that there's there's more for all of us to do.

Speaker 1:

There's a reason why we're we're on earth right right now, and it's not it's not just the rat race thing that I was talking about, like, okay, once I do a thousand tasks, then that's my time on earth.

Speaker 1:

Uh, there's gotta be right, there's gotta be a bigger reason.

Speaker 1:

So, whether you believe or don't believe, there is some higher power, some force out there that is using us for the, for the greater good, and it's not just to send another email or fill out a form or go grocery shopping. There's things that we do on a day-to-day basis, but when we take a step back and look at our lives just in general, I mean for me, why am I alive? Why am I still here? There's so many things that I've done and made poor decisions, and I still continue, even though I try to do better still, don't always make the best decisions, so there's got to be a reason why I'm on earth still and why I'm in front of you on over 160 episodes and counting of this Voices for Voices TV film podcast, or if you're listening, whether you're watching or whether you're listening or you've read one of the books I've written the House of you or if you purchase some of our merchandise.

Speaker 1:

We got our new military shirts and military green, which look absolutely awesome. You can find all that at voicesforvoicesorg and then, at the top of the top right of the screen, of the screen, you'll be able to toggle down to our, our shop, and we have a lot, a lot of merchandise. And it's not about us making money, it's. It's about just helping as many people as possible share their voice, because we all have a voice, and I have this again, that huge goal of helping three billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond. And so, whether you see somebody in a supermarket or out at a ball game or an event, just know that we're all in this together. We're all living life together. We don't know what is in store for us, but it's important because we're still here, so join us on our next episode.

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Justin Alan Hayes

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