TTFA Anthologies: Stories of Suicide & Loss

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Terrible, Thanks for Asking tells the real stories of real people who have lived through the terrible things in life. TTFA Anthologies are a curated collection of some of our best stories; released in seasons that focus on a specific topic. You can find our entire episode catalog ad-free on Apple+ or Patreon.

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

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I’m Nora McInerny.

And I’m Marcel Malekebu.

And this is Terrible Thanks For Asking…

Anthologies.

Anthologies is new and also not new.

We have been making Terrible Thanks For Asking since 2016. Marcel joined our team in 2017? 18?

18.

18, okay.

Well, it’s been a while. And we have made hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of episodes with real stories from real people who have survived the terrible things in life.

And at the beginning, we were making 10 episode seasons twice a year, then 20 episode seasons, and then all of a sudden we’re making a weekly show. I used to say that we could make this show for a hundred years and never tell the same story twice.

Yeah. I mean, a lot of them do have connecting themes though and through lines. And they’re all kind of related to each other.

And so we thought like, how can we get these together in a place where people can find them that’s more easy and streamlined?

Yeah. And also resurface stories that still feel relevant and important. They’re all important.

But because all those past seasons were never themed, this is a way for us to go back and curate them.

Our paid subscribers who are on Patreon or Apple Plus, we spent, not me personally, but everyone else on the team spent hours, days, weeks, cataloging and organizing our back catalog into topics.

And we’ve gotten a lot of great feedback on that, but obviously not everyone is in a place to be a paid subscriber, which I fully understand.

But anthologies is a way that we can bring those themes together in a curated anthology, I guess is what I’m trying to say, and resurface some of those stories from the past nearly decade of terrible thanks for asking.

We’ll be doing it, I think, every quarter. It’s kind of hard for me to conceptualize time, but every anthology should be around 10 episodes. We’ll do a little break between them.

And yeah, so that should end up being a new season every quarter. So about four seasons a year, four anthologies a year. We are starting this month, September 2024.

It is Suicide Awareness Month. And so the topic for our first anthology felt pretty obvious. Suicide has been a topic on Terrible Thanks For Asking since episode one.

One. I did not think a lot about suicide before 2014. I had not really had it touch my life before 2014.

But in 2014, I came home from my job. I found my husband who had brain cancer in our room crying. I figured that something had happened while I was at work.

He had had a seizure or something else bad had happened, but he was actually crying because one of his favorite musicians, Andy Richardson from a Minneapolis band called The Crush, not a band that I was familiar with, but a cool band that I was not

familiar with, Andy had died by suicide. He had gone missing the day before they found his body by the Mississippi River. And Andy was not just someone that Aaron was a fan of, he was in our neighborhood.

He had a son who was a little bit older than our son. He had a wife. We didn’t know them personally, but Aaron had been at so many of Andy’s shows.

And he was really, really affected by it. And I remember looking at the GoFundMe for Moe, who would eventually become my best friend. I remember sharing Moe’s GoFundMe and thinking that’s going to be me soon.

I’m going to need help. I’m going to need a community. And Moe and I were a part of the same community, even though we hadn’t met.

And we went to the same coffee shop, coffee shop Northeast, Johnson Street. Do you know it? Have you been?

I think so.

Where is it on Johnson Street?

Yeah, I think 28th and Johnson.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I’ve been there. That’s a cool little spot.

It’s really, it’s cute.

Kitty Corner from Washburn McGreevey Funeral Home, one of my family’s favorite funeral homes.

Also by Hazel’s.

Across from Hazel’s. God, we went to Hazel’s so much. So Moe and I only met because we went to the coffee shop Northeast and the owners of the coffee shop kept insisting that we meet.

And finally we did just to kind of get them off of our case. I didn’t want a new friend. I definitely didn’t want a widow friend, neither did Moe.

Because neither of us wanted to be widows. We were just sort of like bonded. Not because we lost our husbands in the same way.

We lost them in different ways, but also the same way. They both had something wrong with their brains.

Yeah.

But you know what I noticed right away, Marcel? I noticed how differently people treated our losses. Oh, yeah.

No one ever said to me, oh, Aaron was selfish. No one ever said to me, oh, you must be so mad at him.

Yeah. Yeah. The idea of the decision-making when it comes to suicide, I think throws a lot of people in a loop, and they’re trying to be helpful by comforting you because there’s a semblance or a sense, or knowledge of a decision that was made.

But I can only imagine being put in that position, and you’re just sitting there having to defend your loved one, or your friend who, you both are going through losses, and then of course, Nora is the type to say something about it.

I really will. I’ll say something. If I see something, I say something.

And I remember we had taken our boys out to breakfast. It was, this was in Florida. Okay, the occasion I’m thinking of was in Florida.

First of all, we took our first vacation. We all went together. Everyone got sick.

Everyone got sick. So we’re at just some random time. It’s rained the entire trip.

We’re all sick in the hotel room. We go to breakfast once. The boys are losing their minds.

They’ve been cooped up in a disgusting hotel room. It’s raining. Everyone keeps being like, wow, this is weird.

It never rains this time of year. Yeah, okay, good. Good for us.

So we’re at this diner. There’s some older people. They’re just making conversation and, you know, oh, where are their dads?

And we’re like, oh, they’re dead. And you know, how? And, you know, I say, oh, brain cancer.

And then Mo says, oh, suicide. And it’s just, just immediate. Oh, how could he do this to you?

How could he? And I understand the urge to try to, I don’t know, say something to try to make sense out of something that is very senseless and hard to understand. But I could also see the effect that had on Mo too.

It was just very minimizing. And it put her in this position where she had to defend a person that she really loved. And so even our first episode, number one, episode number one, Mo’s story is in that episode.

Mo’s story is in that because it felt so urgent. It felt so important to me. And we have made so many episodes about suicide.

It was actually kind of a challenge to whittle this down.

Yes.

To ten of them.

Yeah. Well, technically we chose nine.

Nine.

This is the tenth episode. And we ended up choosing nine, as you said, because there’s just this topic has been in so many episodes, in so many different ways, from different angles involving suicide. And so we chose those nine.

The first episode in this first season of Anthologies is actually called Two Letters. And it’s a story about a woman named Annie whose husband Jim died by suicide.

And in the episode, Annie talks about the letter that Jim wrote shortly before his death. And, you know, but she also talks about the letter that she wrote back to him posthumously expressing, you know, her full range of emotions.

And I think what stood out to me is, you know, not unrequited, but like unspoken feelings that, you know, sometimes stick with people.

And I think that’s what really stood out to me about this episode is like the idea of writing a letter to someone or communicating with the dead is something that in my life recently dealing with people who are past, I try to think through like, you

know, what is this feeling that I’m still feeling about the person or the thing I wanted to say to them. So that episode really stood out. So I think it’s a really good episode to start the season.

And you know, this episode is powerful mostly because it deals with creating closure and not necessarily finding it or receiving it, but the act of writing that letter is, you know, Andy’s way of creating closure, where in any other circumstance is

Yeah, I think so too.

I also think that one of the macabre, I don’t know if you say macabre or macabre is one of those words, it’s really better typed out for me. There’s a lot of words like that. If I don’t know how to say it, I probably shouldn’t say it.

But one of those things that people tend to ask, one of the questions they tend to ask when they know someone died by suicide is, did they leave a note? Like, did they explain it?

Wow.

People ask that, I’ve heard people ask that question numerous times. I found myself wondering the same thing. And what we’re really wondering is, but why, why did this happen?

Did they leave some kind of explanation? Even if they do leave you a letter, like Jim left Annie, the answer is not going to be good enough. You know what I mean?

The answer is not going to be enough. It’s not going to give you. I like that you said, it’s not about being given closure.

It’s about creating a closure to something for yourself because you’re not going to get it from any dead person, really.

Yeah, yeah. I think people have a thing within us where we try to figure out why something happened. And I think about like what would be the psychology behind that.

But it feels like we just want to understand what would drive someone to do that from our perspective, like what would make me do that.

And so by asking someone else, I think it’s like a mindless reaction sometimes that you have where you’re like scared at the possibility that it could have been you. And so then you just fire off a question without thinking about people’s feelings.

And as we know at this show, it’s like there’s not necessarily one way to speak to someone about their dead loved one. So listening a lot and trying to just ask how to be helpful could be really good.

Yeah. I always think about why do you ask? Why do you ask?

And asking myself that too. Why am I about to ask this question? Is this something that I could, is this knowledge I could live without?

You know, is there, is there something? Why am I asking?

Yeah. Yeah. And is it like, am I just doing it because it’s part of the social script of what you’re supposed to do?

And like, oh, was, was she in pain? You know what I mean? Like, or do you actually care?

You know? And is it just an interesting story to you that you can, you know, because I find myself sometimes thinking a question and then thinking like, like, wait a minute. Why, why would you ask that?

Why would you ask that?

Yeah. You don’t need to know that. Or like, what am I, what am I doing?

Because one of the other questions that people ask, one of the other questions people ask about suicide is were there signs? Were there signs? And the subtext of that question can sound a lot like, what did you miss?

Right? Like, what did you miss? Or, you know, were there signs?

And, you know, oh, yeah, plenty of signs. I guess we just ignored them all, you know?

It again, it’s like people always want to, you know, you see a crash happen and you’re just like, where’s the slick spot? You know, and I think.

You know, the interesting part about that is often the person who got into the accident is not the person to ask.

Yeah.

You know, so it’s like even with, you know, another one of our seasons, this is a Easter egg for you guys that will relate to breakups and things of that sort. You know, with infidelity, sometimes people are like, you know, did you have a hunch?

You know, did you have an inkling that something could have went wrong? It’s like, well, at this point, something’s already happened and I’m dealing with my reality. I’ve lost my loved one either to death or to, you know, some other circumstance.

And so I think one thing that TTFA has helped me realize and listening to all these stories, you know, particularly about suicide and grief, is that a lot of times, you don’t really need to ask the logistical questions.

You just need to ask how you can help, you know, and even asking how someone is feeling.

Sometimes I feel really stupid just asking someone how they’re feeling, but I feel like that’s better than saying, you know, did you feed them enough blueberries so that they wouldn’t die of cancer, or you know.

Yeah, Aaron died of brain cancer, and people have asked, well, did he smoke? And one, no, he’s the only person I know who never smoked one single thing in his entire life at all.

Right.

And also even if he did, I don’t think that’s linked to brain cancer. But even if it was, he didn’t deserve it. And I used to think of these questions as a sign of somebody’s insensitivity, I have a more generous, I think, view of things now.

But now I think it’s a way of people trying to look for the information that will save them or the people they love from the same fate. So were there any signs?

Because if there were, I want to know what they are so I can look for them, which you can Google, right? Or did they leave a note, right?

Like there has to be some reason, because if I know the reason they did it, I can make sure no one I know and love would do this.

Yeah.

And I think that’s very normal. I think it’s really human. I really don’t think people are out here trying to diabolically concoct the worst thing they can say to another person.

And if they knew that what they said or asked was invasive or hurtful, they probably wouldn’t ask.

But I actually want to talk about a few of the other episodes that are in this anthology that we are bringing back out of the archives and into the light. And we really chose a wide range of them. And one of them that we picked is called If Then.

And this episode is not about somebody that you know and love dying by suicide. It’s about a woman who witnesses the suicide of a stranger and the way that experience shapes and reshapes her life.

And it is the kind of story that truly feels like, I mean, I will remember that interview for the rest of my life because it felt like I was having a movie described to me. That’s something that happens in movies. That is a plot line.

But the thing is, there is a ripple effect to all kinds of loss and all kinds of grief.

And there are people who are affected by suicide who have no relationship with the person who died outside of knowing of their death or maybe being present for their death. So it’s a really, really powerful one.

And a lot of times that’s even, I wouldn’t say more impactful because, you know, we try not to compare, but it’s uniquely impactful because a person who doesn’t know the dead person oftentimes has no one to lean on because there’s no community

surrounding them around this death that they witnessed or were a part of, or, you know, made privy to. So I’m sure it can be isolating, like I felt isolation, a feeling of isolation in that.

And it’s kind of like, what do you, you know, what do you say, you know, when you’re all alone and you witness something horrendous, and, you know, the only person you have to talk about it with is like, you know, your therapist or your significant

other or something like that. Yeah.

Yeah. And if people don’t know what to say when someone close to you dies, they for sure don’t know what to say when you simply witness the death of a stranger, like the traumatic death of a stranger.

So it’s truly one of the most unique episodes that we’ve ever made, and that is probably one of the reasons why I think we could never tell the same story twice, because there is just so many versions of every single human experience.

Yeah. And it’s like, you know, that theme of not knowing what to say, it also came up in the What Do You Say About Suicide series that we did. So we did a two-part series, and it was literally called What Do You Say About Suicide?

And the main theme I got from that in, you know, the entire two episodes was people say a lot of foolish things. And, you know, one of the things people would say a lot is at least they’re not in pain anymore.

And I think the at leasts are another range of phrases, sayings, ideas that they could be true, you know, or it could be helpful for you to learn more about, you know, why someone did, you know, took some action or passed away or got sick.

It could be helpful, but I think, again, it’s just about a time and a place and who you ask about that. And thinking about why you’re asking is what I got from that.

So we heard from our listeners and the listeners shared a lot of these same themes, a lot of these same feelings.

And it came from a range of people who, you know, attempted suicide, experienced someone in their family or inner circle going through with suicide or attempting.

And it was really good to hear that there were multiple, that there’s like way more people going through this than you would think. You know, it’s not like an isolated thing.

I remember the first time it touched me, it was like a friend from, you know, my childhood or whatever.

And it was just kind of strange to see his mother, you know, and to go there and being kind of like not really close to him anymore, but still kind of feeling it and feeling the community of it and the guys who were still friends really close to him.

And so that series really helped with like understanding that a bunch of people and felt the same way.

The language piece too is so interesting. Language is always evolving and I have, I think, learned to be more flexible in my thinking about that too, because who amongst us has not said the wrong thing at the wrong time.

But when I was growing up, people would just say committed suicide. Like that’s how they said it. I was raised Catholic.

I don’t know if it still is, but I was raised to believe it’s a sin. You’re not supposed to do it. And if you do, you might not be able to be buried in the same cemetery as your family.

And I still hear that language, committed suicide. I hear it on TV. I’ve heard it in podcasts.

People are still saying, but I do think that the prevailing nomenclature is…

Yeah, or completed…

. is died by suicide.

Completed.

But I’ve also heard… Yeah, I’ve heard completed. Completed feels very clinical to me.

I’m not going to make us describe every single episode, but there is another one that is kind of a different story that we included, which is also why this first anthology is stories of suicide and survival, because we’re talking to people who have

survived the deaths of their loved ones, or in some cases, their own suicidal ideation or attempts. But there is an episode called The Happiness Equation that we included.

It is with the many, many times bestselling author Neil Pasrija, who’s also a podcaster. He makes a show called Three Books, where he interviews people about the three most influential books in their life.

I think he’s going to do it for 10 years or something. This guy, he’s a project guy. He’s a big picture guy, and he just likes to take on big projects.

I can’t remember how I met him, but I did meet him. We clicked really quickly. He’s very-

He’s high energy.

Yeah.

I’ve done his Two Minute Mornings Journal. My kids do the Two Minute Evenings Journal now. He’s a person who researches happiness, and the impetus for this career change was the suicide of his best friend.

Losing his best friend and entering his own deep depression and becoming really, really committed to his survival and to trying to wire, rewire his brain towards happiness, which is something that’s really difficult. And I’m not a brightsider.

I’m not just telling people everything’s gonna be fine, as you know from the title of this show and also Marcel working with me and knowing me on a personal level.

But I do think that there is something to putting that level of attention and care towards yourself. So that’s why that episode is in this anthology.

Yeah. I really liked that episode. Neil was one of the first interviews where I was like, who is this dude?

You know, he just brought something different. And it was such a, it’s a very different episode.

And it was such a, like, I don’t know if the word is sidelined or I felt side swiped or sides, something blindsided by, just by his, you know, his, his sort of personality and aura.

You know, I got kind of blindsided by his story because I was like, oh, you’re not the typical person I think of when I think of a story about suicide. So that’s a really powerful episode.

Okay. So I don’t think you want us to describe every single episode. Maybe you do.

But this first anthology is not every episode that we’ve made on this topic, but we are excited about bringing anthologies to you, bringing this first anthology to you.

If you follow this show, Terrible Things for Asking, TTFA Anthologies is set up as a separate podcast, separate feed, but you will be able to find it very easily. Just put in TTFA Anthologies. It’ll pop up.

You’ll want to follow the show. Like click the little plus button. If you are an Apple, I don’t know what the button says in Spotify.

I can’t remember. But when you do that, you will get the next season, the next anthology when it launches.

If you want all the episodes that we’ve ever made, all the bonus episodes that we are still making at least twice a month, you can join us on Apple+. You can also join us on Patreon, which is a nice little community.

We’ve got a lot of fun stuff going on, a lot of extras. Obviously, we know not everyone can do that. That is fine.

Yeah, this is just a way that we can provide you something that is helpful to you and also sustains Feelings & Co in a way that makes us be able to continue doing this work.

Okay.

Yeah. This is Anthology Season 1.