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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
The Rest of My Story; My Analysis of the Essay
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
SPECIAL NEW EPISODE DROP! This is Part 2 of 3 (Listening in order is recommended). I am getting very 'up close and personal' as I do something I have not done since I began the podcast in 2020-- tell "the rest of my story." This is part of MY life after the suicide loss of my son Alex Mullins on August 7, 2016
Putting this out there has taken way more 'guts' than I anticipated. Much like Part 1, it took extra days to release this one. Even eight years in (it would seem), I am still learning about my new self. Hard things are hard!
In the 3-part series, you get Part 1, "The Rest of My Story," Part 2 - "My Analysis," and that will be followed by Part 3, "Can Words Kill...What Now?"
Today, I respond to the essay I read in Part 1 as the start of me telling anyone who will listen to what started in August of 2016 at Truman State University with my son Alex's suicide... and what we had no clue about that became a nightmare on top of a nightmare, for many, not just us. "Free will" serves as a center point of this story: free will and a disturbed individual with a death obsession and malice in his heart (IMO). Free will is complicated - just like suicide & mental health - in most suicides, but how does it factor in when another person is right there - influencing or bullying or even reasoning and coaxing...?
So, it's time to tell the story. The world needs to know because I KNOW I am not alone in this, or similar, situations - and that pains me. We need to draw attention to bullies, toxic relationships, and more that lead our kids straight to taking their own life. We need answers, accountability, and more. Let's have conversations! Thank you for listening and supporting the podcast and me!
Find the essay I read in this episode HERE. It's called Talking Suicide Blues by Jeannette Cooperman, published on January 31, 2022. In my opinion, it's the most accurate article written to date. There is still So. Much. More. to the story, but now you know more than you did-- and I hope it gives you something to think about.
From Episode 3 (but I will put here also), Like me these parents know how I feel:
Find Curator of Quotes HERE
Find HicksStrong HERE
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Go to my WEBSITE "The Leftover Pieces; Rebuilding You" is support central.
PS....The FINAL SESSION of the Legacy Writing Project in 2024 has begun BUT you can get on the list for the ONLY group in 2025 (starting Jan.2025 )
Leave a Legacy of your child - GO HERE
If you, or someone you know, is struggling ww suicidal thoughts, reach out:
CALL 988 OR, you can also TEXT the word "HOME" to 741741 in the USA
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Click to Send a Text or Voicemail to Melissa
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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
Support After Suicide Loss
If you are grieving after suicide loss, you do not have to carry this alone.
Visit The Leftover Pieces for podcast episodes, grief support, resources, and ways to connect with Melissa’s work: https://theleftoverpieces.com
or Join Melissa’s email list: https://theleftoverpieces.com/join
If you someone you love is in immediate crisis or may be in danger, please call or text 988 in the United States. You can also text HOME to 741741 to reach the Crisis Text Line