Tim Lewis: I Lost A Loved One To Suicide and Here Is What You Should Know

An interview with Pirie Jones Grossman

It’s normal to replay events where, in hindsight, you might have intervened. Remember that they didn’t kill themselves because of something you did or didn’t do. If a person is truly determined, they will find a way to kill themselves.

Losing a loved one to suicide is a heart-wrenching experience. It can also be confusing, and it usually comes with a lot of mixed-up feelings, including anger and guilt. What are some things that family members would like other people to know about losing a loved one to suicide? As a part of this interview series, I had the distinct pleasure to interview Tim Lewis, Psy.D..

Tim Lewis, Psy.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist who has been treating people living with complex trauma and PTSD for 14 years. Dr. Lewis earned his master’s and doctoral degrees in clinical psychology from The Wright Institute in Berkeley, CA. He is a member of the San Francisco Psychotherapy Research Group and past board member of the San Francisco Psychological Association. Dr. Lewis is the author of Daddy: A Son’s Reckoning with Personal and Collective Trauma in America. As a trauma survivor and writer, Dr. Lewis brings a unique blend of science, art, philosophy, and personal experience to help his clients heal from old wounds and find joy and fulfillment.

Thank you for your bravery and strength in being so open with us. I personally understand how hard this is. Before we dive in, can you tell our readers a little bit about yourself and what you do professionally?

Thanks for asking me to participate. Suicide is a heart-wrenching topic, and I’m glad that forums like this exist to help bring together the experiences of those who have lived through the loss of someone who has taken their life.

I’m a clinical psychologist specializing in helping people with complex PTSD. Complex PTSD — sometimes called complex trauma — is a diagnosis created to acknowledge the reality that many people who have PTSD do not get better with time. Complex PTSD includes the symptoms of PTSD along with challenges in managing your emotions and relationships. Many people who commit suicide have been severely traumatized, and those left behind often deal with similar symptoms resulting from these tragic losses.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

I have written a book called Daddy: A Son’s Reckoning with Personal and Collective Trauma in America. It’s a memoir about my parents’ murder/suicide and the fallout of that experience. Thankfully, I didn’t directly witness the shootings. My father didn’t leave a note, and we didn’t know exactly why he did it or chose that moment. As a result, I developed what I would only come to later identify as Complex PTSD.

It wasn’t as though I was the picture of mental health when it happened. At the time, I was still casting about in life, trying to find direction. I’d struggled over my sexuality and relied way too much on drugs and alcohol to cope with depression and my father’s emotional abuse. The AIDS crisis was in full bloom, and I was in the process of losing two of my closest friends.

After my parents’ deaths, these issues metastasized into a state of dysfunction that paralyzed me for many years. To make a long story short, I finally got my act together. It would take a great deal of perseverance and luck to achieve the hallmarks of a fulfilling life — a stable, 17 year relationship, a remarkable 11-year-old daughter, and a challenging, satisfying career.

Much of Daddy involves how I got from there to here, but for me, the most surprising part of this project was my work piecing together my father’s motives and life experience. A veteran of some of the fiercest fighting during WWII, my father suffered from PTSD 35 years before it was even given a name — much less effective treatment. As part of my research for the book, I learned everything I could about trauma and PTSD. I also came to appreciate how enduring systems of social oppression generate and perpetuate individual and collective trauma, setting the stage for the roles my parents would play in life and death.

Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. Do you feel comfortable sharing with our readers about your loss?

It’s never easy to talk about, but my hope is to help educate people undergoing similar experiences.

What was the scariest part of it? What did you think was the worst thing that could happen to you?

I was alone in another part of the house with my parents when my father killed my mother and committed suicide. Aside from issues of my own safety, the scariest part was considering what my mother may have experienced in the moments leading up to this tragedy. After calling 911, I was frightened of the way the police would respond to me, being the only person in the house with them when it happened.

In the immediate aftermath, the worst thing that could’ve happened to me — aside from my own death or the deaths of even more family members — had just occurred. Right after it happened, I wrote a letter to be buried with my mother that said I would not let this tragedy destroy my life. Looking back on that statement, it’s clear that I was afraid that these losses might be something that I would never get over — sort of like a cancer that would eat away at my well-being from the inside.

How did you react in the short term?

In the short term, I muddled along. People rallied around in the beginning, but unfortunately, the sympathy of others only got me so far. I fell into a deep depression that lasted for many years. I self-medicated with alcohol and by popping pills. As a result, most people distanced themselves from me, compounding my downward spiral.

After the dust settled, what coping mechanisms did you use?

• Therapy and more therapy!
• I have found mindfulness meditation to be highly effective in helping to manage intense negative thoughts and feelings. There are so many great apps and free videos out there these days that weren’t around when I lost my parents.
• Educating myself about suicide and psychology in general has been a tremendous help over the years. Anyone whose life has been touched by suicide should read Thomas Joiner’s 2007 book Why People Die by Suicide.

Can you share with us how you were eventually able to heal, at least to some degree?

An invaluable tool for managing the complex emotions that accompany the loss of a loved one by suicide is the concept of radical acceptance. Grief is a natural response to such losses, but when grief extends for years, and you remain fixated daily on this person and their suicide, something else is happening. These extended bouts of grief are actually a way to stay connected to the lost loved one by replaying episodes from your time together over and over again — wishing, in fantasy, that things had turned out differently. Naturally, these extended bouts of grief create great suffering. Radical acceptance challenges us to recognize reality as it is, not as we would like it to be.

Although we cannot avoid the psychological pain caused by these suicides, resisting the reality of these situations through regret or fantasizing about the life that could have been only yields additional layers of emotional suffering on top of our initial pain. It can also delay our ability to heal from these injuries and prevent us from decisively moving on with our lives. Instead of being freed up to enjoy life, we become fixated on the loss, replaying emotionally charged incidents and imagining both good and bad outcomes in minute detail. Regrettably, many people spend a lifetime fantasizing about a life where everything would have been better.

In my own grief journey, I found writing to be cathartic. Did you engage in any writing during that time, such as journaling, poetry, or writing letters? If yes, we’d love to hear about any stories or examples.

As I mentioned, I wrote a letter to my mother, but I don’t recall writing about these losses until many years later. When I did, I went all in! The bulk of Daddy was written over three years, and I found the process of creating a book around these experiences helped me to look at many of the societal issues that contributed to the tragedy of their deaths. Writing helped me put my family into a context beyond labels like perpetrators and victims. Although I suspected that my father suffered from untreated PTSD due to his combat experience, writing this book forced me to go beyond the PTSD diagnosis to examine what his trauma — and the trauma that compels most people to commit suicide — really meant.

Aside from letting go, what did you do to create an internal, emotional shift to feel better?

I apply the concept of radical acceptance daily for what occurred. I can’t say I will ever reach a place of forgiveness for my father. However, I have moved beyond my grief by working hard to develop a productive and meaningful life. I find that giving to others — both in my clinical work and personal life — has brought me many of the greatest gifts in life. These gifts do not replace the pain but help reduce the intensity and depth of these challenges.

Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to cope and heal? Can you share a story about that?

I was in therapy with a psychologist named Molly Sullivan for many years. She was almost the same age as my mother if she had lived. She helped me escape the depths of my depression, so I didn’t have to drop out of graduate school. She was infinitely compassionate and helped me restore my trust in myself and others that were lost due to my parents’ murder/suicide.

What did you learn about yourself from this very difficult experience? Can you please explain with a story or example?

I learned that when it comes down to it, no one can do the work of healing from a suicide by a loved one except you. Initially, I thought I needed people to fully understand the depths of my emotions to help me feel better. I’m not saying that empathy is unimportant. I’m saying there is much more to healing than that. You must learn to take good care of your physical and emotional health. You must take opportunities when they arise and push yourself to grow and develop regardless of age and circumstances. The depression commonly associated with the death of a loved one by suicide compels many people to inaction, so you have to find it in yourself to keep chipping away at essential goals.

What did you do to get help and support for yourself?

In the beginning, I talked about it all the time — often with people I barely knew. Usually, I came away feeling these responses fell far short of what I needed. Over time, people withdrew from me. I lost a lot of friends. In truth, I was a handful, and my expectations were out of line with what most people can provide.

I was in therapy when it happened, but for many years, I didn’t feel like I was being helped. That’s partly due to the depth of my distress and more unrealistic expectations. Fortunately, I eventually had a very successful treatment with Dr. Sullivan. I wish I had found a support group for people whose lives had been impacted by suicide. I was also taking psych meds — some of which helped, many of which worsened things.

What signs would you tell parents, friends or loved ones to look for in people they think may need help?

There are the obvious signs everyone talks about — depression, a sense of hopelessness, giving possessions away — found on most lists. However, in my work with people who are actively suicidal, a large percentage are highly secretive about their feelings. They are quite logical in realizing that to maintain control, they must not do anything to let on to their suffering. Many of these might appear stoic, isolated, or disconnected. They might feel secretive or the type of person who you never quite know what’s happening in their lives.

Thank you for sharing all of this. Here is the main question of our interview. Based on your experiences and knowledge, what are five things you want people to know about losing a loved one to suicide?

Please share a story or example for each.

1. It’s normal to replay events where, in hindsight, you might have intervened. Remember that they didn’t kill themselves because of something you did or didn’t do. If a person is truly determined, they will find a way to kill themselves.
2. The decision to commit suicide is most often based on the development of a distorted system of beliefs developed over a lifetime. As a result, suicidal people resist treatment because they have convinced themselves that nothing will help. As a result, suicide becomes the only “rational” response to end their suffering.
3. People who kill themselves feel shut out of the “normal” life they imagine everyone else experiences. Their pathology and distorted thinking tell them they will never have the life they hope to experience. This thinking also leads them to believe that others will be better off without them — or they won’t be missed — because they think they are unlovable and/or a complete failure.
4. Talk to trusted loved ones about your experience, but know many people put up walls around these issues. Loneliness and isolation are prevalent among people who have lost someone to suicide. Don’t fall into the trap that there is something intrinsically wrong with you.
5. Don’t expect recovery from these losses to be like an on/off switch. Feeling better is more like a dimmer switch where things get better incrementally over time. It can be easy to get discouraged by setbacks but try to keep your eye on the big picture.
6. I will add one more because it’s crucial: allow yourself and others — especially someone you’re worried about — to talk about suicide without immediately freaking out. Admittedly, this is one of the scariest topics out there, but almost everyone has thought about the possibility of suicide at one time or another. That doesn’t necessarily mean that we are planning to carry it out. Giving air and space to these natural human emotions helps bring something that most people find deeply shameful into the light. Remember, things left in the shadows can grow in distorted ways that can become dangerous if left unaddressed.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?

We are all subject to an artificial hierarchy of personal value based on superficial characteristics like gender, race, sexuality, social class, and nationality. I would love to see us take a step away from these engrained patriarchal values perpetuating fear and social division. I argue in Daddy that these cultural processes are to blame for much of the trauma being inflicted in the world.

We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them. :-)

I’d love to spend time with a psychiatrist and writer named Judith Herman. She is responsible for bringing the concept of trauma into the mainstream.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

I’m on Instagram at @drtimlewis, I write on Medium at @drtimlewis and I can also be found at my website, https://www.drtimlewis.com/.

Thank you so much for your courage in telling your story. We greatly appreciate your time, and we wish you only continued success and good health.

About The Interviewer: Pirie is a TedX speaker, author and a Life Empowerment Coach. She is a co-host of Own your Throne podcast, inspiring women in the 2nd chapter of their lives. With over 20 years in front of the camera, Pirie Grossman understands the power of storytelling. After success in commercials and acting. She spent 10 years reporting for E! Entertainment Television, Entertainment Tonight, also hosted ABC’s “Every Woman”. Her work off-camera capitalizes on her strength, producing, bringing people together for unique experiences. She produced a Children’s Day of Compassion during the Dalai Lama’s visit here in 2005. 10,000 children attended, sharing ideas about compassion with His Holiness. From 2006–2009, Pirie Co-chaired the Special Olympics World Winter Games, in Idaho, welcoming 3,000 athletes from over 150 countries. She founded Destiny Productions to create Wellness Festivals and is an Advisory Board member of the Sun Valley Wellness Board.In February 2017, Pirie produced, “Love is Louder”, a Brain Health Summit, bringing in Kevin Hines, noted suicide survivor to Sun Valley who spoke to school kids about suicide. Sun Valley is in the top 5% highest suicide rate per capita in the Northwest, prompting a community initiative with St. Luke’s and other stake holders, to begin healing. She lives in Sun Valley with her two children, serves on the Board of Community School. She has her Master’s degree in Spiritual Psychology from the University of Santa Monica and is an Executive Life Empowerment Coach, where she helps people meet their dreams and goals! The difference between a dream and a goal is that a goal is a dream with a date on it!