The Leftover Pieces: Suicide Loss Conversations
Suicide loss changes everything. The Leftover Pieces® Podcast explores life after suicide through honest conversations with survivors, experts, and grieving parents learning to live forward after unimaginable loss. Parents, partners, siblings, and friends share what it means to keep living when the world has been forever changed.
Hosted by Melissa Bottorff-Arey, whose 21-year-old son Alex died by suicide in 2016, the show blends intimate conversations with survivors, healers, and mental health professionals with short solo reflections you can actually use. Together we explore child loss, trauma and nervous-system care, anniversaries and seasons, stigma, faith and meaning, legacy, and the everyday practices that help make life livable again.
At its heart, this podcast is about learning to live forward after loss. We never move on from the people we love, but we can learn to carry the grief differently. This road can feel incredibly lonely—but you are not alone here.
For supporters, educators, and professionals, these conversations also offer insight into the realities of suicide grief and what genuine, non-fixing support can look like.
If you’d like to share your story or expertise, you can request to be a guest through Melissa’s website.
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Content Note
This podcast speaks candidly about grief and suicide loss and may feel activating for some listeners. We avoid graphic descriptions and discussion of suicide methods. Please care for yourself as needed. Melissa is not a doctor or licensed therapist, and nothing shared here should be considered medical or mental-health advice.
The Leftover Pieces: Suicide Loss Conversations
To Watch or Not to Watch; Suicide as Subject Matter on Screen
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
We regularly find suicide as a subject matter on TV and in film these days. But since suicide is such a pervading theme in this life we now live, the question remains - to watch or not? Does the content activate you or help you? Since the reasons these films, or shows, are made can be so diverse - to educate, to cause fear or shock or disgust, or even to provoke or bring about change and awareness - so are our reasons for choosing, or not choosing, to watch them.
Today, I explore and discuss some of the current choices out there (though there are way to many for one episode) AND I will give MY opinion on whether I have watched it and how it affected me, or if I haven't watched it, if I plan to, and why? I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW WHICH ONES YOU HAVE SEEN AND YOUR TAKE!
I will also disclaim this episode as I do all others - take that which serves you and leave the rest. We are all on a very individual journey, and at different spaces inside of each journey, so know that I do understand that completely. I only hope some of what I share will be of help sometimes. My heart and thoughts are always with you.
The shows/movies that I discuss (or mention) are (they are not linked, you will have to search):
- Nine Perfect Strangers (Mini series - one of the themes)
- Evelyn (documentary)
- Audrie & Daisy (documentary)
- 13 Reasons Why; Beyond the Reasons
- A Star is Born (not theme, just in the final scene)
- A Million Little Things (tv series - underlying or initial theme)
- Bird Box
- Archie's Final Project (aka My Suicide)
- Perks of Being a Wallflower
- Girl Interrupted
- The Haunting of Hill House (just some imagery)
- All the Bright Place (theme but also how grief and trauma are handles and change)
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My brand NEW website "The Leftover Pieces; Rebuilding You" is LIVE and that means my 2 x/mo FREE SUPPORT GROUP is available (it begins Oct 2) AND my first coaching options are available. The first (3 month) group is planned to begin NOVEMBER 3 and there will be a new group begin every 10 weeks after. There will be limited spots in each group so let me know if you want on the notify list! These groups will be one part community, one part discovery/growth. I believe these two things are intertwined for us in the earlier stages of grief especially.
Interested? Please DM me on Instagram or email me at anytime melissa@theleftoverpieces.com
The website will be at www.theleftoverpieces.com (naturally, right?)
Please reach out to me if you know of someone that I
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💜 The Leftover Pieces is support for life after suicide loss. Click links below
🎙 Leave me a message: Share a question, your story, or your person’s name for a future episode → theleftoverpieces.com/voicemail
🔗 Stay connected: Join my email community for weekly support, resources, and honest conversations.
🛠 Start here: Explore website for suicide loss resources for early grief, family support, and next steps.
🤝 For moms: One-on-one grief coaching for mothers navigating life after child loss.
📞 Need support right now? If you or someone you love is struggling, call or text 988 (U.S. & Canada), or text HOME to 741741.