Speaker: How can I connect with other people that are in similar situations?

Dr. Ted Feinberg: In almost every community that I m familiar with, there are groups that exist that offer support to families who have gone through these terrible, terrible episodes, and if you contact the school they may know of those ongoing support groups. There are community agencies that run these groups and often times, there are groups like the Samaritans who have as their mission to offer support groups for people of all ages who have gone through a suicide.

So, you get to talk with other families who have experienced these terrible events, and one, find out how they have coped and two, deal with some of the feelings and emotions that you are experiencing which in many instances, I would guess are very similar to what other people have gone through. So, you get to ask questions. You get to develop a network of folks who you can talk to, who you really feel and appreciate, understand, what you re going through and once again in most communities these types of services are offered free to anybody who wants to participate.

A part of the difficulty maybe that, there will be some members of some families who will not see this as something that they want to take advantage of for a variety of reasons, whether it s pride, whether they don t want to air their emotional feelings to strangers. It could be a variety of reasons, why people resist that but by enlarge, having the opportunity to talk with people who ve gone through these terrible, terrible events that can be very comforting and supportive and helping to clarify not only what you re feeling but maybe more importantly where you can be down the road and that can be very helpful for folks. Even, if you re feeling terrible, you re talking to people who have gone through this and there is a light at the end of the tunnel.