How Digital Data Is Rewriting Suicide Prevention with Kim Burditt Barlett

Grief doesn’t just reshape us, it can redirect the entire course of our lives in ways we never saw coming. 

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Video available here

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For Kim Burditt Barlett, that redirection began the day her brother Jon, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, died by suicide in 2010. What followed was a profound transformation that eventually led her into suicide prevention work and, ultimately, to her role at Stop Soldier Suicide.

In this episode, Kim sits down with Nina to explore the layered reality of suicide loss—the silence, the stigma, the unanswered questions, and the way it can feel both isolating and overwhelming, even in a room full of support. Kim speaks to the particular complexities faced by military families, where grief is often compounded by systemic gaps, cultural expectations, and a lack of adequate support.

They also dive into the Black Box Project, a groundbreaking effort at Stop Soldier Suicide that analyzes digital behavior from voluntarily donated devices to better understand risk and, hopefully, save lives. Kim discusses the powerful act of families choosing to share their loved one's digital footprint, transforming loss into a legacy of prevention and protection for others.

Kim also introduces Sibling Strong Retreats, the adventure-based healing community she co-founded for sibling loss survivors.

Throughout the conversation, Kim reminds us that grief may break us open, but what grows from that fracture can be meaningful, connective, and deeply human. 

And with compassion, courage, and a willingness to stay present to our pain, post-traumatic growth is possible.

Key Takeaways

• Meaning-making is a natural and powerful response to grief.
• Life can redirect entirely after a significant loss, sometimes toward unexpected purpose.
• Peer support is crucial, especially for suicide loss survivors.
• Post-traumatic growth can coexist with grief.
• Being honest with children about loss builds trust and emotional resilience.
• Sibling loss carries unique secondary losses and identity shifts.
• Many mental health professionals lack adequate suicide prevention training.
• Military families often face systemic gaps in grief and mental health support.
• Sharing details of a loss is a personal choice; no one owes their story.
• Community-driven approaches are essential in addressing the suicide crisis.
• Choosing how to respond to grief can be empowering and transformative.

Guest: Kim Burditt-Barlett, MSW

• Sibling loss survivor of USMC veteran Jon D.S. Hoffman
• stopsoldiersuicide.org/BlackBoxProject
• @stopsoldiersuicide
• siblingstrongretreats.com

Hosted by: Nina Rodriguez

• Creator of Grief and Light, Grief Guide
• griefandlight.com
• @griefandlight
• Resting Grief Face on Substack

Grief Support Resources for the Road:

• Grief Tending Toolkit
• Access our online community

Chapters

• 0:00 Preview & Intro Song
• 0:39 Losing an only sibling to suicide
• 6:39 An unexpected career pivot
• 10:29 The grief of sibling loss
• 17:50 Post-traumatic growth after suicide loss
• 32:36 Stop Soldier Suicide
• 35:07 Support Systems for Military Families
• 40:40 Black Box Project
• 54:46 Building Community Through Sibling Loss Retreats
• 1:00:12 Words to My Younger Self

Transcript

We seek meaning and purpose out of the loss and out of the grief pretty pointedly. I need to make this mean something because it just feels so meaningless. It just feels so purposeless. We've got to, you know, seek that meaning and purpose. And that is why I believe, and from what I've seen, suicide loss survivors are kind of poised to find that post-traumatic growth. You just lost your loved one. Now what?

Welcome to the Grief in Life podcast, where we explore this new reality through grief-colored lenses. Openly, authentically, I'm your host, Nina Rodriguez. Let's get started. It happens when grief reshapes not only who we are, but what we are called to do. Today's guest is Kim Burditt-Barlett and her brother John, who was a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, died by suicide in 2010. When that happened, her life changed course, and since then,

She has devoted her life to suicide prevention, postvention, and supporting others living with the inevitable weight of sibling loss. Kim's story is one of post-traumatic growth, making meaning and devotion to care. And I'm so excited to welcome Kim to Grief and Light. Thank you, Nina. I'm so happy to be here. I've listened to many episodes of your podcast and so much of it has resonated with me personally, my story and your story as well.

Yeah, I'm just honored to be here. It's an absolute honor to have you Kim, truly, and you are a wealth of information, both professionally and personally through your experience. Could you give our audience an overarching view of your journey? Yeah, thank you. I'll begin the day that John died in a very foreign but clear sense that day I knew everything changes today. Everything changes. I don't think I had any concept of what that

everything entailed. So this was not my career before. I think there's a very clear demarcation, right? Like there's before the death and after the death. And those are very different lives, right? They feel like a completely different lifetime. This was not my career beforehand. I was working part-time in marketing or graphic design and raising my kiddos. They were little then. And if you told me back then, you gave me a glimpse of today.

Never, never in a million years. It was just not my interest, honestly. It was not my professional background. It was not my educational background. But that day, everything changed. And it might have been about six weeks after John died. I remember I was standing in my kitchen. So I was awake. It wasn't a dream. But I had this almost like a, I can't explain it, almost a vision or a something. I'm gonna do something with this. And the this was suicide. And mind you, I knew nothing about it.

beforehand, right? You know, before my brother died by suicide, I think I peripherally knew some people who either had lost a loved one or in high school, you know, maybe we heard of an attempt, but it just was not something that was in our lives. So for me to have that thought that I'm going to do something with this was, again, another foreign feeling of like, well, what's that going to be like? I'm not equipped. So I live in New England. I was in Massachusetts at the time. I'm in southern New Hampshire now. And

Massachusetts is pretty resource rich for supporting survivors of suicide loss. And my family got plugged into support pretty quickly. And that organization that was providing the support about a year after John died, my dad was getting their email newsletter and he sent me the newsletter and he said, they're looking for a part-time trainer for suicide prevention. You should apply. And I was like, that is not my background. is not my bachelor's who was in communications. And it was a particular.

position that was training at the time in our country and in the state of Massachusetts, older adults were the highest suicide rate. So the state had funded some particular development of trainings to train gatekeepers of older adults. So, for example, folks in nursing homes and assisted living facilities, you know, because they see those folks day in, day out, and so train them in what risk and suicidality looks like.

And that was really my first foray into being able to do something in the field. And it was good because it was in the world of suicide and prevention focus, but it wasn't too close to my story. And I didn't have to tell my story if I wasn't ready to, because at that time, the first couple years, my mom and dad and I were open about what had happened with John. And John's story was not one that we knew of anyway. Years of multiple attempts or...

He was kind of a quiet, shy kind of guy. So, you know, a lot of maybe the typical warning signs were just him, you know, being him. He loved to be a homebody. He loved. The day that my brother died, my mother said, we have to tell the truth about this. It didn't occur to me either way, but in that moment, you know, like, oh, that we would or we wouldn't. But we knew that the truth was the truth and he was profoundly missed and loved.

no matter how he died, right? You know, I mean, we're not defined by how we die. But the difference was that, again, I mentioned my kids were little. I did not know how to tell my children the truth. I know now, if I could go back, I would give myself some words. But when John died, the kids were almost seven and nine and a half. And yeah, I just, I didn't know how to explain it to them. I knew that eventually I would have to because it's part of our family mental history. So.

About a year and a half, two years into losing John, I had that opportunity to tell my kids. was something that had come into their lives and I needed to tell them. And that's when we were able to be fully open as a family. Up until that point, it was really hard because I was volunteering and I was working in the field and we were kind of hush-hush about what exactly mama was doing or we didn't use the word in the house. And that was really, really hard.

that was an additional burden that I could go back and change some things. would focus on that because that just made it all the harder. But once my kids were told age appropriately what had happened and were told that they can ask questions, you know, as they have them, and that's the most amazing thing about kids, I think sometimes adults, think we have to sort of vomit out the whole story to them, and they don't need that. They want to know what they want to know, and, you know, they'll ask more when they want to know more.

That's exactly what my kids did. So that first part-time job led to me meeting someone who really made this a career change for me. A woman that I met was working for an organization called TAPS, which is the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors. And they provide support to families of the military's fallen. Also, her name was Kim. She also happened to live in Massachusetts. And she also lost someone named John, except it was her husband, who was an active duty Marine. And my brother was in that area.

a Marine Corps veteran, and she recruited me to come work at TAPS. I was recruited to provide peer support to siblings who have lost a sibling to suicide and then also other relationships who had experienced suicide loss. I was with TAPS for almost 10 years, and that was transformative for me because for us, it feels like our house is aflame.

Right? Like, you know, our life is completely turned upside down and you don't know how you're going to survive this. How is your family going to endure this? What else is coming? You know, the world just didn't feel safe after John died. And so having the opportunity to support other lost survivors in, you know, in those moments, I don't have a prescription of, you know, here's what you do. And then when you do that, then you do this and then you'll feel better. Right? Grief doesn't work that way. So.

But it was just such a privilege to walk alongside and learn from them, right? There's so many commonalities about grief that it's the great equalizer. We all love and we're all going to lose someone that we love. That is as sure as life and death, right? It was just such privilege to learn all the ways that people emote and grieve and process good, bad, or indifferent, right? We all have

coping skills. Some are maybe not as healthy as others, and we bring ourselves to every experience that we go through. And so, you know, it was just an incredible privilege and was so amazing for me in my own grief because I was working amongst other people who had experienced loss and are supporting grievers, right? So like, wounded healers, right? That was such an incredible example because I don't think that was ever something I had on my radar that

Not only could I help other people, I mean, I think I understood that, but I would be healing alongside them because of that help and because of that sort of reciprocal relationship. And it's the most amazing thing to be a peer to someone. And I'm an expert in my own grief, and that's it. Nobody else is, you know.

to get to know these folks and I count to this day, I count many of them as family. I mean, truly, it's just such a privilege. And all of that, all of that experience, what has led me to my work now and what I get to do now, I feel incredibly fortunate, but it's never lost on me. Why? Right? I mean, the reason is because my brother died. And it's, I keep using the word privilege, but really that's how I feel. I am just so fortunate.

I wouldn't say it's not all luck. I've put some work in. went back to school and got a master's degree, but it's never lost on me. That life not lived, I don't know what it would look like if John was here today. I would give my left arm and I'm a lefty. I don't what that life would have been like, but I don't get that choice. Instead, I have the honor of helping others and it's a living legacy to him. So. you so much, Kevin.

I resonate with so much of what you said. First and foremost, I'm deeply sorry for the loss of John. And I thank you for sharing your story in relation to your relationship with your only sibling and also who he was. This is how we get to remember them and be his sisters. And my bereaved sister heart goes out to yours. Just on a human level, thank you so much for sharing openly and for the work that you do. This episode is going to air on Bereaved Siblings Month. So I invite you to share your perspective.

about losing your only sibling, if you could give words to that experience, what would you say today? Yeah. So John was almost 11 years younger than me. When he was born, my mom was 38. And so she used to joke, you know, they give babies to young people for a reason because she was tired. And she had a very different stamina level, I think, raising him. And so I used to joke, it felt like

weren't, but it felt like we were raised by almost like two different sets of parents because me growing up, I had toast and Cheerios and milk and John had Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cereal and juice boxes and sometimes even Pop Tarts. So, you know, it was very different and because of that age difference, I mean, he was going to kindergarten and I was going to the prom, right? Very different. it's a big life. The life experiences are very different, yeah. And I mean, we

close because we were a close family. But like our life experiences, the things that we could connect around, I would be going on dates in high school and on the night I had to babysit, so I'd bring him. It was kind of a buffer. It was fun. as he got older, that age gap became less and less important, right? And he was 27 when he died. And it was just at the point that he was extremely close with my girls, my kids. But it was getting to the point where we were about to have like a good adult.

relationship. when he died, I felt really, I felt gypped from that. felt a lot of things, obviously, but I just felt like I just got supremely shortchanged. I didn't have the experience of a best friend's sibling growing up, right, because of that age difference. Yet, by nature, a sibling, they are our past, our present, and our future, right? Because in the natural order of things, how things are supposed to be, they are going to be with us.

As we become adults, as we do all the adult things, we get married, we have kids, you know, whatever, we do all those things, we bury our own parents, right? Like, your sibling is there with you, in theory, supposed to be, for all of that. I didn't have that. When John died, that very day, I was working about 40 minutes north of my parents and John died at home. So as I'm driving down there, I remember thinking, it's all on me now. It is all on me. Every bit of it is on me.

And yes, we have extended family. We don't have a big family, but you know, I was like, you know, this is all on me. And lo and behold, my dad died six years later after John, and you know, it was me and my mom. And of course I took the brunt of all of the funeral planning and all that because no, they were together almost 49 years. And then six years after that in 2022, my mom died. I could admit it. I have had moments where I've thrown a big old pity party for myself. I remember.

at my mom's funeral and the front row, now I had cousins behind me, but the front row is, you know, immediate family. It was me and my two, they're adults now, but my two children. That was it. That was it. I had divorced at that point. I'm remarried now. My family has grown again and that's wonderful. But in that moment, it was just us. And I remember thinking like, this is so sad. This is pitiful. Like, it's just us. And I had a couple moments of like, yeah, John, if you were...

If you were here, maybe you would be married, you'd have your own kids, and I wouldn't have to do this completely by myself. I don't know how someone could have prepared me for some of those emotions, but there have been things along the way that I felt like no one told me that it would feel just as difficult as my own grief as watching my parents grieve their son, right? Or it would feel just as heavy that...

You know, all of these things that are coming in my life, the death of both of my parents, both my children are engaged now, know, their weddings, again, we don't have a big family. Their uncle isn't there. You know, his sort of potential family that he would have have isn't there. We don't have that. The long-term ripple of that loss, I think, plays out in our lives for the rest of our lives.

I don't know how I would have prepared for that, but I wasn't prepared for that. Every time it comes, I'm like, ugh, there it is again. There it is again. So I think the most helpful thing for me is when I've realized those things, clinical support and therapy can be phenomenal. And I have absolutely utilized, though I'm a social worker, not licensed, but absolutely at times in my life, I have benefited incredibly from that.

I will be honest though, in my grief, the best thing for me has been peers. When I connect specifically with other siblings and people who have experienced suicide, those two groups of people have been the most helpful for me because they're the ones who understand all of these types of feelings, right? Even if their details are not exactly the same, our grief experience is so common. We just don't know it. I've never done this before.

Even if people have lost multiple siblings, every relationship is different. So every grief experience is going to be different. But the most helpful for me when I'm in those moments is when I connect with other siblings. Even now, you know, 15 and a half years out from John's death, other siblings are the ones that I feel like I can speak most freely about this stuff with, and they're the ones that get it. So, you know, as far as what I could offer,

Another sibling. mean, if you're listening to this podcast, you you've got peers. You have already made that incredible step towards making those connections. And I would say continue to do that, however you're able to in your life, online, in person. There is something magic. There's like special sauce in those peer connections. And again, you know, no answers, right? No one is going to give me, you know, the magic potion that is going to make me feel better because nothing can, right? And I don't have that expectation.

But connecting with other human beings who experience it, who can say, yeah, you know what, I feel that way too, or I had to do that too, or I experienced that too, from the very beginning and continues to this day, has been the most healing and helpful thing for sure. Thank you so much. I am nodding my head the whole time you're talking because I'm like, yes, yes, yes, yes. And I'm so sorry for the version of you that had to experience that in such isolation in a way.

thankful to still have my parents and assuming everything happens in its natural order, I will be in those shoes someday. And the thought of that is something that just feels like a pit in my stomach. So no rush to get there, but I thank you for sharing your story because it is such a real part of losing particularly your only sibling because it's that, like I really am out in the world alone. really, truly. Yep. Thank you for sharing that. And I've heard you say in other conversations that

There's a uniqueness to lost by suicide, right? There's elements that a lot of people won't have to deal with. And also, it offers one of the biggest opportunities for post-traumatic growth. So could you talk about the uniqueness about lost by suicide and its relationship to post-traumatic growth, please? Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. So I would never say that a lost by suicide is worse than any other type of death, sudden or not. is death, right? And we...

we grieve because we love. It's a privilege. Grief is the flip side of the same coin of, you know, it's love on one side and, know, someone on a freeway today sadly is going to die. I'm not going to grieve them if I don't know and love them, right, and if I don't have a connection to them. that's the difference and it's a privilege. But death by suicide, I don't know it to be worse. I don't want to know. But it's more complicated many times. And there are some other layers that

Other types of unique, I hate using that word, but unique deaths in this context have other layers as well. you know, suicide does have some layers that we have to navigate. How do we honor John and his story in telling the truth of what happened? My mentor that hired me into TAPS years ago, and she became a dear, friend, she used to say all the time, we have to make up a story about what happened. And I don't mean a fictional story, but we have to decide for ourselves

how we speak about this, what we say about this, what we say to ourselves, what the story is internally, and then what we say and how and when and to whom publicly. If you're gonna make something up, you get to choose it, right? And again, I don't mean make it up full of fallacies, with suicide, we knew that with John, we wanted who he was and how he lived to be.

the headline, right? Yes, he died by suicide and yes, it was tragic and no, we didn't know. You know, people can say sometimes the stupidest things and I just, you know, I try it in my mind. just think, okay, well, bless them because they have no idea what they're talking about and they are blissfully ignorant and wouldn't I love to be blissfully ignorant again. But there are just some complicators that we sometimes have to muddle through. One of the hardest things with suicide is

Many times with a death, most times I would think, you want someone to blame, right? You can blame cancer or maybe a logical reason. mean, there's a reason, right? There's the cause. A car accident, an illness, even in the case of homicide, right? There's someone to be mad at. The struggle with suicide loss is the person that you're loving and missing is the one that

caused it, right? And so that's a really hard thing to reconcile because where do you go with that? People often talk about, must have been mad at him. I have personally never been mad at John. I have been mad at the situation, right? I was mad that my seven-year-old had to learn about what someone looks like at a wake in an open casket at seven years old. I just felt like their innocence was stripped away. I was mad that my parents had to grieve their son. was mad, you know, but not necessarily mad at John because

I knew he had to be in immense pain, immense pain to make this choice. And there's even debate around even using the word choice with suicide because are they of clear mind? Are they making a clear headed choice? You know, I didn't live in John's brain. I don't know what life was like for him. So I've never, I've never felt that like mad at him, just missed him and wished he was, you know, like I said, mad at the situation that it caused. My dad, on the other hand,

till the day he died, cried every day. And the cemetery where John is buried was close to my parents' house. And he would go two or three times a week and yell at my brother. Like just yell at the ground and yell at the stone. Because, he, you know, he would say, well, he would joke, you know, when I get there, I'm gonna kick his butt. I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna hug him so hard and I'm gonna kick his butt, you know. He didn't harbor sort of that anger, but he, you know, he.

he released it when he went to the cemetery and he would talk about it. So I think there's a lot of complicated emotions that feel like conflicting emotions because we feel like how can I love and miss and honor him and also be mad, right? You know, but I think that those things can and do simultaneously exist. The interesting thing, I think, because it's complicated and because it can be such a roller coaster of emotions,

I think that from what I've seen by just being alongside so many other suicide loss survivors, I think that we seek meaning and purpose out of the loss and out of the grief pretty pointedly. I need to make this mean something because it just feels so meaningless, right? It just feels so purposeless. Like, John, you were 27. You were a baby. And yes, life may have felt...

terrible for you in that moment, but give it a minute. It's going to change, right? Life changes, I mean, you three million times a day. Give it just a minute, you know? So for something that seems so fleeting that caused such a permanent result with ripples to this day, we've got to, you know, seek that meaning and purpose. And that is why I believe, and from what I've seen, suicide loss survivors are

are poised to find that post-traumatic growth. And it's a tough conversation sometimes with loss survivors, especially in very beginning. Like you can't even fathom surviving this and that your family can survive intact, let alone that anything good could come out of it, right? And I, know, people will say, you Kim, you've helped so many people in your career and la la la. Okay, yeah.

all that's fine and good, but by the way, I'm also selfish because one, I do this for myself because I get to talk about him and honor him. But two, by the way, I would unhelp all of you to have him back, right? Like to have him with me burying both my parents. So, yes, there's a little bit altruism there, but also, it can be a little selfish too. I want to, I'm laughing with you because same, like a lot of people say, oh, you're done, this is so great. And I'm like, yes, and I would.

like control alt delete it in a second if I could have it back. So I'm so sorry. Yeah. It's so true. But I mean, I think that, you know, through working when I was at TAPS and again, being surrounded by suicide loss survivors whose lives had been ripped apart just as my family's had, and they were living and grieving and working and helping others and grieving hard.

working on their own journey and still navigating all the crap that comes along and, you know, and all the things, because life is going to keep on life-ing as it does. And, you know, because you think one big bad thing happened, you were supposed to be, you know, exempt from everything else. And it doesn't work that way, right? That was such a powerful example of, okay, so I can survive this. I actually am surviving this. wow. Okay. Maybe some really powerfully

good can come out of this if I choose to work towards that, right? And I think there's a lot of choice involved there. A lot of suicide surviving families, and I'm sure other types of losses too, you know, something horrifically traumatic like this happens and they just crawl under the bed and their life is sort of stopped on that moment. And we get that, like we get it. I understand why the urge to do that because I don't want anything else in life to hurt again as profoundly as this did.

I think about, you know, my brother would have never wanted that for me. My brother would have never wanted that for my parents. You know, they were very active and volunteering me in a lot of ways too. He would have never stood for that. Having an example of people, and again, this is part of the magic of that peer support, right? When I can't fathom that I can survive, I'm watching someone doing it. They are a living, breathing example of hope. And if I don't believe it in the moment, I'm just gonna lean on them, right? Because if they can do it,

Now that I've gotten to know them, yeah, they're pretty awesome, but they're just human too, you know, so if they can do it, then that means that probably I can do it too, or must be possible. So being surrounded by peers like that, I think was incredibly helpful for me to understand. I might be able to even thrive after this. And initially that almost feels, it almost feels like a, like a forbidden thought or like, almost like a curse word, right? Oh.

I'm not supposed to be happy about this. Well, I'm clearly not happy. However, I'm incredibly grateful and fortunate for all of the things I've gotten to do and all the experiences I've had and make a living, by the way, because still there's a mortgage, right? you know, so to be able to do this.

And it's because of the loss that I experienced, right? So having some, some, little bit of guidance there and making the choices to healthily learn to adapt this loss into my life. That doesn't mean that I don't miss him, right? That doesn't mean, like I said, that I love that, that I would control all of it, boop, gone. But I don't get to do that, right? And the reality is I don't get to do that. I do get to choose what I do now.

I didn't choose that this happened, but I get to choose how I respond. having some say in that, some choice in that, feels empowering when we need that because, again, this happened to us. had no, I mean, talk about, you know, feelings of loss of control. Deciding how you're going to address the grief in your life. And I don't mean that everyone needs to change a career and go back to school, you know what I mean? Or start an amazing podcast, right? Like that may not be for everyone, and that's okay. But...

There are ways that you get to choose in your life how you want to walk out where this sits in the rest of your life. And that is post-traumatic growth. It doesn't have to look giant. I'll tell a very quick story. There's someone I met through TAPS. He actually ended up becoming best friends with my dad. He has the same last name as my two children, so they're adopted grandparents now, these two folks. He lost his grandson, who was a Marine, to suicide. His name is Dana.

He was a recluse after Vietnam, and losing his grandson, I mean, he would say this to you, really helped him heal and brought him out of his shell. Again, he would give it all away if he could have Daniel back. But his expression, one of the most profound changes in him from his healing journey after losing Daniel is what he does every single day. He chooses someone in his life to tell them that he loves them.

And it might be your lucky day when you get a text that says, hey, has anyone told you that they love you yet today? I love you. And every single day, he does that for someone. Now, for him, that's a connection to Daniel, right? Because he knows he does that with Daniel in his heart and in his mind. But it is incredibly helpful to him too, because that's an active example of his healing when that wasn't the person he was before. And he's chosen that.

And he still, of course, grieves Daniel. Of course he does. But he gets to love on people so freely. And then what happens? I mean, we just love on him right back, right? That, to me, is just such an incredible example of post-traumatic growth, because that's not who he was. And he wouldn't have become that person if it wasn't for the trauma, right? In my own life, I know, and what I've seen from others, that suicide loss, we just, search for that meaning. We search for that purpose. And...

you experience that growth where the trauma doesn't define you. It has informed your behaviors, right, and your actions, but it doesn't define you, and you define how it's going to express itself in your life. That's the big shift. So it's pretty magical. Thank you for sharing that story. It's made me laugh. It's also beautiful. And if you think about it, in the conversations that I've had with

suicide loss survivors, a lot of it is that connection. There was a deep sense of isolation, regardless of whether they had family, regardless of if they were actually physically isolated. You could be in a crowded room and feel completely alone. And I hear the sentiment of not being seen, not feeling connected. The signs are incredibly hard to read because each person is their own world. Our inner worlds tend to be very rich and a lot of times people don't notice them. So it's very layered, like you said,

the loss by suicide and other stigmatized losses, like in my case with a loss to substance-related causes. So not all grief carries trauma, but definitely all trauma carries grief. navigating those layers of not just the sorrow and bereavement of, goodness, I lost my person, now what? The permanency, how that's the ripple effect that you talked about. And also there are incredibly traumatic elements. And I don't know why this is what I'm about to say, that

the kind of more bizarre or harsh the passing, the weirder the comments that people get. I don't understand why people feel the need to say like just the most bizarre things. It speaks to our inability to sit with it or just even put ourselves in somebody else's shoes. Not that I would want anybody in these shoes, but it's the reality that a lot of people express. And to your point, I speak with people who

especially that first year, they don't say how the person died, myself included. I was like, I think it was a heart attack or I have no idea because you're not ready to own that story or even know how to share it. So I love that you touched on all of these elements because you don't owe anybody anything other than what you're ready to share if you're ready to share it in the manner in which you're ready to share it. And also the post-traumatic growth, I appreciate how it's part of the evolution of the person that I'm talking with today.

and all the wonderful things you do with various organizations that I do want to make sure that we have time to talk about. One of those being the Black Box Project and Stop Soldier Suicide. So if you could just give a high-level explanation of what both of those entail and we'll take it from there. Okay. Thank you for that. I appreciate that. Yeah. I'm just thinking about the...

horrible things that people say because we're just such a grief avoidance society. episode in and of itself. Right. mean and it's so funny because everyone is going to know someone that dies. it's just, anyway, it's just such a such a strange thing. So through my work, and again a majority of my work was with you know that organization TAPS almost 10 years,

working with bereaved military families. But specifically, I was working in what we call the Suicide Postvention Team, which was caring for families who had experienced suicide. That led to where I am now, another nonprofit. It's called Stop Soldier Suicide. And they were founded 15 years ago, actually, the year my brother died, because by three Army vets, actually, who came home from deployments, and they were just sick of losing their buddies to suicide. Here they are surviving.

these horrible deployments in combat and they come home and they're losing their friends. So they wanted to do something. It started almost in a real grassroots kind of way, grew to providing some sort of coaching. And now it is a very different clinical model that we provide clinical treatment, free, confidential, tele-mental health care to active duty and veterans.

And it's suicide specific. our clinicians, and that's the side of the house of Stop Slaughter Suicide that I don't really work on, but our clinicians are specifically trained for folks who are dealing with, you know, suicidal issues. The average mental health counselor, social worker, and I know this because I went through that training, we don't get much in suicide prevention. You'd be surprised. I was shocked. I mean, just from my own experience professionally, I knew way more about

suicide prevention and grief, actually. We don't get a lot of grief training. But I knew way more than my professors did. But our clinicians, like I said, are specifically trained for that. And that whole side of the house, we call it our wellness operation. And that's called Roger. It's branded as Roger. So if folks go to StopSoldierSuicide.org, they would see something called Roger or GoRoger.org. And that's how people can engage with help for that. again, active duty veterans, if you

are wearing or have ever worn a U.S. military uniform, you can engage in our care. I'm going to take a moment here because I found it very serendipitous that when we communicated, you and I, Kim, via email a few weeks ago, I had just finished recording an episode with the surviving spouse of somebody who was in the military who died by suicide. And one thing that we touched on that I want to get your perspective on is she said there is little to

to no support in her opinion and in her experience. So I can't speak to this experience overall, but this is the way the conversation unfolded, that the families are not as involved in the mental health care of their person who is entering civilian life. And I commented, I wish there was some kind of like off ramp into civilian life where the person is guided, the families are guided in that transition, because how do you go from

nervous system that is ready for combat that is in a completely different mindset to, hey, let's go to a barbecue on Sunday and the kids football game or whatever. it's like that shift needs to be managed somehow. And I'm curious about your opinion on that. It's interesting because each branch has, I think, they have maybe their own programs for sort of the, you know, that transitioning and the support that they get. you know, when you are part of the military, and I've never served, but

My dad did, obviously my brother and my ex-husband. But when you are part of the military, you are specifically trained that you are part of a larger whole, right? Military will have phrases like, you're only as strong as your weakest link. You hear about like brotherhood and, but truly like you have a job and it matters and and X, Y, and Z after your job can't happen if you don't do your job right. And in combat, your brothers and sisters on the left and the right, they are depending on you.

depending on you, with their lives, as they are, as you are them, right? So there is this connection that really serves as like a protective factor, right? I'm part of something much larger than me, and it won't work without me. And it won't work without that person and that person and that person and that person. So that serves, like I said, as a really strong protective factor. You get out into the real world, in the civilian world, average employment, it is not like that.

Right? Like out in the world, everyone is replaceable. Depending on your job, there may be four people lined up that would take it right behind you if you weren't there. So it's a shock to a system. It really is. In addition, like you said, to be combat ready and to have to compartmentalize all of the emotions of what you've just seen, and then you have to continue on and be mission ready. The interesting thing is I don't know the latest statistic. I believe it's about 50%.

you might have to fact check me on this. About 50 % or could be more at this point of active duty who die by suicide did not see combat. We have this concept that it's combat, it's PTSD, it's trauma. It doesn't look like that, right? The numbers don't fully support that. but...

the military experience, being a veteran, you are, I believe it's 52 % more likely to die by suicide than a civilian because of your service, regardless of what that service was, right? Whether you were deployed or not deployed or in theater or, you know, it's the overall experience. We talked about we're a grief avoidant society. Well, we're a pretty emotion avoidant society too in culture. And part of that in military culture is because, to your point, they have to be

mission and combat ready. You know, I may give myself a pass if I need a day where I just need to lay in bed and cry or, whatever. But if you're deployed, you don't have that luxury, right? Like, and you can't, because again, people are depending on you. So that transition period can be really, really difficult. And that is, I think it's the first two years that they say is the most dangerous, you know. So, and there isn't a ton of support for families because

I think, you know, the military, it's a machine, it's a business too, right? And so when they're done with you, like they're done, right? You can transition to the VA, but the VA, and the VA is making changes, but the VA exists to care for the veteran. Maybe not necessarily are they funded as they need to be, but to, you know, to provide care for the family. When the family is the one that is providing the most support, sees, you know, the most if there are behavioral changes, or they're the ones that are experiencing all of that.

So there are, you know, there's nonprofits out there that are providing some of that support and helping with that. I, know, anyone with, you know, any veteran family members, I encourage you, you know, find the ones that are providing what, you know, you need. And if it doesn't feel like a fit, don't give up, you know, keep looking for other ones because they're out there. And from what I've learned, you know, with veterans is that peer connection, again, very similar is everything.

because they speak the same language, it's that same culture, and they really feel supported by getting with each other when, again, similar to what I have experienced or a suicide loss survivor would experience, on veterans haven't lived that. They don't know what that's like. So that's, I think, a wonderful model for peer connection too. Thank you for that perspective. And I didn't know that statistic that most hadn't actually not seen combat or at least half. That's very interesting.

And your current work also helps or is trying to find answers and solutions to prevention while also supporting the families and postvention. If you could talk a bit about that. I'd be honored to.

A program of Stop Soldier Suicide is what I get to work on. It's called the Black Box Project. And if you think about in aviation, what a black box is, right? We understand what a black box is. When there is an aircraft accident, that black box will tell us what happened in the moments, the minutes, the hours, the days, months, and even year before that happened. In this context, the black box is smartphones, digital devices, tablets, iPads, and laptops.

And what we are doing in this project is borrowing those devices from families who have lost a loved one to suicide. We borrow their loved one's devices, copy the data that lives on them. We do not connect them to the internet. We don't log into apps. But much like a hard drive or a desktop computer, they do save a fair amount of info. So we copy what lives on them. We immediately depersonalize and de-identify that data.

So anything that would link back to a human being is redacted. Anything that might resemble, I I don't think my social security number is in my phone, but maybe, I don't know. That would be redacted. So then all of that data gets pooled. And that data lake is what we are analyzing, looking for behavioral trends and patterns in digital behavior that can show us, one, can we understand suicide better?

Can we understand what increasing risk and crisis looks like in someone's digital life? And will that reveal places for intervention? When we started this project, so it's about four years old, I have been with Stop Soldier Suicide specifically on this project since March of 2023. When they started the project, there were three things that they felt like we weren't sure, that we really needed to kind of prove of concept. Will families do this?

Will families loan us their loved ones' devices? This is a ginormous ask. We know that, right? It is huge. For me to say, hi, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, will you trust me? And by the way, I'm in New England, but our digital forensics lab is in North Carolina. So will you send your loved ones' devices via FedEx that I'll pay for, but still via FedEx to my lab that you've never seen me in person and you've never met those folks? And then we're gonna...

copy the data and we're gonna send that device back to you. It is a huge ask, we know that. Will families do this? And they will. We are just at about 140 families at this point that have loaned us well over 200 devices. Some folks give us multiple devices. And why do they do it? The meaning and purpose in searching for that after a loss like this. To make it matter, to make it matter a little bit. I can't change what happened in my family. I can't change what happened in someone else's family, but

This data can contribute to something that will perhaps save someone else. And we firmly believe that. We had to find out, will families do this? And they will. The second thing was, can we wrangle the data? As you may imagine, it is a beast to manage this data. If you think about just one example, all of the different ways that we can communicate out on our phone, right? So we immediately think about like texting, email, right? Think about all the different apps that you can message in.

WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat. There's so many of them. Well, they all don't work the same way. They don't even all have the same like to and from field or something like that. So to be able to wrangle all that and synthesize it so they can make sense of it was a ginormous task. Well, we've got some really big brained data scientists on our staff. They've been able to figure that out and we're using machine learning to help with this. And then the third part was, okay, so families will do this. We can wrangle the data. Is there...

actionable insights in there. We had some pretty strong hunches like, can we learn from this? And is it stuff that is going to benefit the field? Is it not just stuff that maybe the field already knows? And we were pleasantly surprised in that, yes, there is actionable stuff in there. Meaning, what this is teaching us, what we're learning is there's going to be clear places where we can build interventions. Digitally, that maybe, you know, if a phone is starting to

show behavior of ABC, then something can be created to happen, right, that can function as an intervention. It doesn't necessarily need to be 911, but I mean, this thing, when I fall down the stairs, it knows and it can get me help. So there's got to be ways that we can build life-saving interventions. If I'm the user, and maybe it becomes standard in our iPhones or whatever, I create what will happen in my phone if my digital behavior is showing

behavior that is known to increase risk. Maybe I create something. Maybe it sends a message to my loved one. Maybe it pops up a picture of my dog. I don't know. You know, like a reminder of why I want to live and why I'm, you know, taking care of myself. And so the sky's the limit with the type of interventions that we can build. But, you know, we're still at the very beginning of this project, believe it or not, because, you know, a research project like this is, it's huge.

It's a very big undertaking. takes a long time, you know, to create the scaffolding of what we've built so far. And we, you know, are just actively collecting data now to, you know, to increase those findings. My role in all of that is not on the tech side. Thank goodness. It's a lot. But the white paper that we recently released with our findings, we are getting the attention of some pretty

you know, pretty well-known folks in the suicide prevention and suicide research world, which is wonderful because we're going to partner with other folks looking at the same things like our digital lives and how that impacts everything else that we do and vice versa. That's really going to explode the project, we hope. But my manager says, I have the hardest job. I don't think so at all. It's a privilege. My role is to engage with families.

and get to share this project and explore it with them. That's really my request is that, know, if anyone is willing to just explore the project with me and to determine if it's something that feels right for their family. Again, some families, it's immediate in that they see it and they're like, yes, I had a mom loan us her son's device a month ago. And she immediately was like, I want his data part of this, because this is gonna matter. This is gonna change things and this is gonna impact

the entire field and I want his name attached to this. want him a part of this. Other families, it's again, we know, like I said, it is a huge ask. The weightiness of this is not lost on us at all. And there's no perfect time. People ask all the time, well, how soon after the loss do you, know, I don't know. There is no perfect time. I haven't found it yet if there is one because some families immediately, yes.

And other families, I had a family that I was talking to for a year and a half, and they were very candid with me. Kim, we're not ready. We fully support this. This is amazing. And we get it. We see it. We're not ready. And then a year and a half in, the mom called me and said, we're ready. I don't know what changed, but we're ready. So it's such a privilege. And like I said, our families share that they do find such

meaning and even maybe a little bit of healing in this. know, again, we can't change the past, but we can certainly work to impact the future and save another family, hopefully, from experiencing what ours did. Many of our families, sort of, we are forming a Black Box Project family community. And, you know, lots of our folks are in their own hometown communities already doing the things. They're hosting support groups. They are speaking out.

you know, at prevention events, you know, one of them is writing a book and another one has been on TV. We want to support that and we want to create a community where, you know, they are connected not only because they share the same loss, but because they have this desire to impact change. And this is a unique way to do it. No one in the field that we know of is looking at data like this. So we want to, you know, we want to continue to grow this.

We want to continue to grow the community of loss survivors because again, there's that peer, that little special sauce that happens in that process too. And make this available to the field because data in suicide prevention, probably like many research topics, is just really siloed. Everyone's kind of doing their own little thing and everyone can benefit so much from learning from each other. So that's our ultimate goal is we're not gonna keep this, we're gonna release it to the world and make sure that it makes an impact and it gets to the folks that...

are affecting change. So this is open to all families who have lost a loved one to suicide, not just military or veteran families, any family who has lost a loved one. And if the devices are newish within the last 10 to 12 years, that's ideal. And if devices are locked, I'm trying to think of all the questions that people typically ask.

If devices are locked, we are usually able to unlock them for you without a court order because you have possession of them and you're allowing, you're loaning them to us. We have a consent form that folks will sign. But in most cases, we're able to unlock a device. And if we do unlock that device, we will return, you know, return the device to you separately. I'll email you, you know, what the digital forensics team found for the PIN or the shape code or, however it is to unlock that device. We don't ever create a report.

of what we have found on any one device for a few reasons. There really wouldn't be any way for us to filter the data and come up with like, oh, here's the why, right? I get that because as a loss survivor myself, if there's a why in there that, you know, or if there's something in there that could answer my question, my why, that would be, you know, that would be incredible. There's no way for us to actually do that in the process of the...

project, but also it would be pretty unethical of us to try to do that because my digital life is just one piece of me, right? Like what I do on my phone would never tell the whole story of my life, would never tell the whole story of how I lived and how I loved and my relationships. So while it is an incredibly important piece and a perspective of this project, and we're going to learn tons from it and we are learning, it's not the whole story, right? So for us to look at digital device and say, this is what happened.

it that just wouldn't, you know, it couldn't be true. this is one piece, but people are there's many, many different sides to them. So, Thank you. And I appreciate your out of the box thinking, because truly there's so much that we're doing collectively to support, you know, people's mental health and postvention and all these things. And it's not, it doesn't feel like enough. Sometimes there has to be more we have to get.

more savvy with how we put patterns together while respecting people's privacy. do appreciate that you, what is it, de-identify the data and a lot of it is redacted and it's very mindfully conducted research because we're not here to accuse or create stories that are not there. It's more like, what's showing up? What patterns are we seeing?

that maybe could indicate something that we could intervene. So we save lives ultimately. So I really appreciate that. And if people wanted to learn more, where could they find more information? So our website is StopSoldierSuicide.org. So all one big word, stop soldier suicide.

You'll see under, I believe it's under our solutions, you'll read about the Black Box project. And then within our blog that you'll find on there, there is a link to that white paper that I referenced that when we released it this past summer. The executive summary is very, very readable and the findings have been, there were clear connections to how this is going to impact the field. And I think that was the best case scenario for us at this, you this was our first chunk of analysis that we released and it's incredible.

It's just the beginning. And my role is to engage with families, and that's my favorite thing. People can connect with me right through our website, through the Black Box Project page. You can schedule time with me, which I would love, because like I said, my request is just explore it.

and learn about it. And even if a family doesn't have their loved one's devices anymore, I would still love to share this with them because birds of a feather, suicide loss survivors in our community, traumatic loss survivors, we do find each other to connect with each other. And the more that people are aware of this, the more it can grow. And I've had a few different responses with folks who aren't able to participate because they don't own the devices, but they'll say, I am so glad this work is being done because these things do know a lot about us.

And to use that for good in positive ways, I'm just so glad that someone is doing this. And we are committed. We're in this and we want to impact this in actionable, tangible ways. The problem of suicide, the needle hasn't really moved in the last 20, 30 years, and we want to change that. So this is one innovative way that we're trying to do that.

Definitely innovative. And if you're watching or listening and this resonated, the information will be in the show notes. Be sure to click on there and connect directly with Kim, schedule that phone call and see where it takes you because this is a very powerful way to affect change, make meaning, foster post-traumatic growth and help others hopefully save lives ultimately. And I do want to give you an opportunity to share about the sibling strong retreats that really piqued my curiosity. So in a few minutes that we have left here, I would love.

to learn a little bit more about it. So first and foremost, I'm a sibling loss survivor. That is my identity and it is who I am for the rest of my life. Someone that I met actually through TAPS years and years ago, who is also a sibling loss survivor, he's lost two of his siblings, one to suicide, one to an overdose, had approached me and said, I want to build a peer community. Would you like to do that with me? And I do have some experience in events management. And I was like, yeah.

Let, you know, I not just, you know, in that sort of family. Okay, so let's include everybody, you know? Can we have, can we build a community of siblings that is united by all the things that we talked about, right? You know, like our various losses and all those experiences, know, siblings who lost their older siblings, siblings who lost the baby, siblings who lost their only sibling, siblings who lost multiple siblings. I mean, all of those experiences, you know, can we,

create a place. So we started out thinking that we would, which is why it's named Sibling Strong Retreats, that we would host retreat events only, right? And that co-founder's name is Ben. What Ben and I know in terms of sibling support that we had experienced, and we really wanted to expand that. So we are in the process of expanding that right now, actually, and we'll launch in 2026, if not before then. But we want to create an online community, a sort of sibling social.

Maybe it's an online social night. Maybe it's an actual support group, which would be a very different function and feature than a social gathering. We want to offer grief experts some educational content about grief, about sibling loss. We want to shine a spotlight on what different sibs are doing, how they are living their lives with their loss. Cause I think it's such a powerful thing to do that, you know, for your own healings benefit, but also like you can learn, hey, like

they're doing that in their community, I can probably do that in mine, right? It's just such a powerful thing. And so we're going to expand this. And, you know, this will be sort of a membership model, but we really want to focus on offering it, hopefully, as a gift to others. I had a friend who tragically her brother was murdered. And knowing what I know about sibling loss and the power of peer connection and the power of specific support around that, I would have loved to have something to

give her. You know, I mean, yes, I sent her a floral arrangement and I've been, you know, available to her, of course, but I don't, you know, it's different. You know, we want to create this model where people can gift a membership to someone and then they can engage in this community as well. You know, it's still in the very beginning stages, but it's happening. And then a piece of that will be those in-person retreats because that's an important piece, you know. An online community is amazing. It's just another level when you get

in person in a room with these people that you've come to know so well online. It's just a magical experience. So we're going to create retreats around the country. We're going to create maybe some one-day events and maybe some fun adventure type events. So stay tuned. And our website for that is just siblingstrongretreats.com. So it's easy. We'll also be linked in the show notes and their early, grieved, bereaved sister in me is smiling because this is exactly what she was looking for back then.

I'm so happy that this exists and will continue to grow and expand in so many ways and it sounds so meaningful. I would love to be a part of that community, contribute to the community, however we can collaborate. would be amazing because this is just making my heart happy and healing just to even hear about this. So thank you so much, Kim.

I want to give you the floor to share anything that maybe we didn't touch on, but you want to include in the conversation. And if there's nothing that's perfectly fine, we'll go ahead and get to the end here. We talked about the gamut. Losing a sibling and, you know, maybe for me, my only sibling, my younger sibling, the manner in which he died, that it was suicide. Each of those things are so defining and impactful in my grief. If I were to leave words of

unsolicited wisdom or unsolicited advice to any sibling, I could not fathom what life would look like without, you know, being a part of a grieving family for the rest of, you know, my life, for the rest of my parents' lives. And we're not supposed to. We're not given a manual when this happens. And I think that connecting with others, podcasts, know, support groups, you know, an online community, right? All of those things. Yes, you have to.

You have to take those steps to do it and it's courageous to do it and it's scary, but it's so worth it. It is so, so worth it. And you get to engage as much or as little as you want in your own timing. But I don't know of anything that has helped me and you know, what I can say for my parents too, more. It's just so, so powerful. I don't know how I would have done anything that I've been able to do or, you know, to the healing that I've experienced without the support of others. Yeah. It takes a village.

It truly does. Yes, takes it. And we're lucky that we live in this age where we can connect digitally. Some of my strongest supporters have been across the world and we've connected digitally and also in person. So final question, Kim, what would Kim today say to the version of Kim that learned about her brother's loss? buckle your seatbelt. No, just...

So much good would be coming if I could speak to that me the week that he died when just everything felt completely out of control and completely scary and nothing felt safe anymore that your world will right itself again. Never okay again, but also it'll be okay. Profoundly forever changed. And I get to live a life to honor him and also honor myself and my family and grow in my own.

you know, in my own life too. It's such a privilege. It really is. And yeah, yeah, hold on is what I would say. Hold on. Good is coming. Good will come. So. certainly is all right. Thank you so much, Kim, for all you do. It has been an absolute honor. Thank you for being you. Thank you. That's it for today's episode. Be sure to subscribe to the Grief and Light podcast. I'd also love to connect with you and hear your thoughts and your stories.

Feel free to share them with me via my Instagram page at griefandlight. Or you can also visit griefandlight.com for more information and updates. Thank you so much for being here, for being you, and always remember, you are not alone.