Health and Fitness : A Loss and a Plea to care for Yourself

Brian and Lesley in October 2021

Brian in June 2022

Stacie and Shane Marzen and kids along with Lesley and her kids at the installation of Brian’s memorial bench in Sun Prairie, WI in July 2023.

Brian with his children.

My name is Lesley Friedhoff.  I am a Licensed Clinical Psychologist in Madison, WI; I also served as an Active Duty Psychologist in the United States Air Force for 6 years.  I am the sister-in-law of Stacie (Friedhoff) Marzen who resides in Vinton, IA with her family. The following is an essay I wrote and shared publicly on social media on what would have been my husband's 44th Birthday on August 2nd, 2023.  Tragically, Brian died by suicide on January 9th, 2023 and never made it to his 44th birthday.  Upon sharing my writing on social media, I was asked if I'd be willing to share our family's story more widely, and I quickly agreed. 

Brian was a wonderful man.  He was born and raised in NE Iowa.  Anyone who knew him would say he was kind, friendly, and happy. No one knew he was suicidal. No one.  I am a trained mental health professional, and I did not know. This was not because I didn't ever ask about Brian's mental health or encourage him to reach out for help to manage what I thought was mild-to-moderate depressive symptoms. I did not know because he did not share with anyone the extent of his suffering. Brian left behind a wife, two young children, a sister and brother-in-law, nieces and nephews, his parents, and many other friends and family who loved him deeply. 

My writing is my lived experience.  It in no way encompasses the many complexities of the suicidal person or the suicide epidemic and mental health crisis in our country.  However, since Brian's death, I have felt it necessary to share my feelings on the matter in the hopes that I hearing about our experiences could prevent even one family from going through the gut-wrenching trauma we have endured since Brian's suicide.  Thank you for taking the time to read about my story.

Brian should have turned 44 years old today. Brian mattered. Brian was loved. Brian had promise. Brian is intensely missed. 

I used to do a lot with Suicide Prevention while in the military. The perspective I was supposed to teach was a bystander-based approach. It put the onus on other people to identify people at risk, to ask direct questions, and to provide help as needed. Although this method is crucial for saving lives and getting people to the right supports, it also neglects the very real fact that the majority of people who die by suicide never ever communicate their intentions. 

This means that the majority of those who survive the loss of a loved one to suicide could have never known the very real danger lurking under the surface; you can hardly intervene appropriately when you don't know an intervention is needed. 

Furthermore, maybe you do sense something is a little off and that your loved one is depressed. After all, nearly everyone will experience some depression at some point in their lives, so it's something many are familiar with and can identify in others.  Now let's say you do reach out to that person, you lend an ear or a shoulder, you provide resources and encouragement and you check in frequently. But then let's say that person never acts on any of it and never gets help. Maybe they even deny they're struggling or that they need help. In these very frequent situations, the bystander intervention is powerless to the personal suffering and anguish of the person who chooses suicide. No bystander can prevent something they can't see. 

This is why, even well before I'd go on to be directly impacted by suicide, I felt like early help-seeking and personal accountability were major pieces in the complex puzzle of suicide prevention. In military briefings I'd teach the mandatory community intervention piece but then I spent the remaining 90% of my time talking about suicide prevention at the personal level. I talked about knowing your own vulnerabilities. I talked about daily stress management and regular engagement in personally-fulfilling activities, and I urged people to engage in their own self-care daily.  

Now I know "self-care" is a trope many of us are tired of hearing about, or maybe we don't think we need it or even have time for it. But here's the thing: self-care and doing what you need to do for yourself; it is not something you do just so that you can be well enough to care for other people. It's not just to "fill your cup so you can pour into others' cups." Self-care is what you do for yourself because YOU are a human worthy of being taken care of! Care for yourself because you deserve to be cared for. You are valuable, you are important, and you matter. Most importantly, YOU are truly the only one who can take care of YOU. 

If thoughts of suicide swirl in your mind or if you have considered methods or even taken steps toward suicide, you must help yourself… I beg you. Even if you're feeling better in this moment, even if you don't think anything is wrong, even if you tell yourself and others you don't need help… please get help now! Seek help when things aren't so bad, and especially seek help when you can't imagine that things could get any worse. Build supports around you and fight for yourself, because at the end of the day, you are the only one who can save yourself.  You are worthy and deserving of a hard-fought battle that keeps you here. As humans we are hard-wired to survive, so if your mind tells you that's no longer a priority, please recognize that you're being lied to, and there is a way to get back to living a vital life filled with promise.  

The Suicide Prevention hotline is 988.