I, and many others who write about the widower experience, often speak of loneliness. Paired with the pain of our grieving, loneliness is perhaps the most threatening challenge we face. Why? Because it often builds upon our grief and spreads its seeds of depression, self-doubts, and regrets.

This often leads to something we are hesitant to discuss openly: suicidal thoughts. We are afraid we will say the wrong thing and might cause more harm than good. I admit that I experienced suicidal thoughts after my wife’s passing. While I did not go down that road very far, I realized how easy it might be to do so.

For that reason, I have invited Dennis Gillan (an expert on suicide) to address the topic here.

Dennis became a reluctant warrior on the subject after losing two brothers to suicide. He started to speak on the topic in 2010 and found himself traveling around the country to address groups big and small on all that he had learned about the topic and how to overcome suicidal thoughts.

Question from Fred: Dennis, what can you tell my fellow widowers to help them through those times when suicidal thoughts invade our lives as we struggle through grieving for our wives?

Response from Dennis:

Often, in grief, we think we are alone. Keyword: think.

The fact is, we are not alone, and as I do my work in the suicide prevention field, I have landed on this very simple conclusion: everybody is recovering from something. As the introduction said, my name is Dennis Gillan, and I am the executive director of a nonprofit foundation called the Half a Sorrow Foundation. We get our name from an old proverb that goes like this: A shared joy is a double joy; a shared sorrow is half a sorrow.

My worst sorrows come from the loss of both of my brothers to suicide, eleven years apart. It hurts just to type it, but here we are. There will be other sorrows coming, and I would add that my divorce, which is the loss of a dear relationship, is right up there with the deaths of my brothers.

Now I know my audience, I am writing this essay to help comfort a very complicated form of grief. A widower. First, my heart goes out to you. This is not the script you would have written for your life’s journey, for sure, but here we are. Let’s camp here for a bit. Men are not supposed to show grief, because we are men. I call BS on that one, and here is where our worlds overlap. Did you know that 80% of all suicides in America are completed by men? Read that again, and let’s go upstream and talk about mental health.

One of the risk factors for suicide is the loss of a relationship. Now, this does not mean that if you have lost your relationship, you are going to die by suicide. No, it just means we must be on our A-game to guard against intrusive thoughts like suicide, and most of these occur when we are alone. So, let’s look at loneliness a bit.

Just this week, San Mateo County in California declared loneliness a public health emergency. This declaration is rooted in science. A meta-analysis of over 90 studies came to this conclusion: people who experienced social isolation had a 32% higher risk of dying early from any cause compared with those who weren’t socially isolated. Participants who reported feeling lonely were 14% more likely to die early than those who did not.

Our true enemy is loneliness, which is why groups for men who are widowers are needed! Loneliness is the new smoking, and we must combat the urge to withdraw and isolate as if our lives depended on it because it does! I addressed loneliness in my TEDx talk, which you can see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NES3hSNv6o  and someone asked me, Why did I pick this topic to address? The answer was quite simple: I was suffering from loneliness at the time. After the divorce, I moved from the town I lived in for over a dozen years, got a small apartment, and was lonely. You speak about what you know, and I know loneliness.

I also knew I had to do something about it, and I started to join some clubs to get away from the four walls that were closing in on me. I joined a hiking club, which was great, but it did not stick. I joined a tennis club, and to my credit, I still do that. I started a breakfast group for men in my apartment called the Camo Hat Club™, and we still meet on the first Thursday of every month, going on six years now. I look forward to this breakfast every month. We picked the same restaurant on the same day, and we kept it super simple. We eat, check in with each other, and leave. It’s 12 times a year that I get to hang out with dudes, and I am grateful for that!

In writing this piece, I spared you the horrible numbers for suicide among older men. Just know this: they are worse than the kids. In my world of suicide prevention, the key target group is men over the age of 45, but the real enemy is isolation, or better put, loneliness.

Your call to action after reading this piece is to combat loneliness in any positive way you know how. Fight the good fight because you are worth it, this is going to sound selfish, but you have your life to live. Start living it.

Close from Fred:

Thank you, Dennis, for sharing those very helpful thoughts with us. I hope we can learn more from you in the future. For more information about Dennis Gillan and his work, please go to: https://dennisgillan.com/

© Copyright 2024 Fred Colby

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