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
What Am I Watching (aka "Binging"); My Thoughts & Recommendations
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Today, I go "Down the Rabbit Hole" to discuss things I have watched, binged or still want to watch with regards to suicide, loss & grief in general. These are everything from movies to series to documentaries; and can be watched on various platforms. THIS IS NOT A DEFINITIVE LIST of what I have watched NOR all of the subject matter ... just some that I chose to share today. Some of these titles are about suicide loss, but most just about loss and grief and how the characters deal with it in such different ways -- just like we do. I admit my taste runs to dark comedy or very real (head on tackling) subject matter so my list will be heavy that direction. I would love to know what you have watched that has distracted you or kept you company or held your heart as you grieve.
As with everything you hear on my podcasts, please take that which serves you & leave the rest. I hope you will find something of value & I am so sorry that you need to be here, but so honored you are here. Talk soon!
As I say at the end of the episode, there some really great conversations with some dynamic people coming in the next few months. Please reach out to me if you know of someone that I should talk to or if you yourself would like to have a conversation around the suicide loss and grief space. Instagram is probably still the best way to contact me or directly through email.
Here is the list of the films, series or other that I talked about AND as I said, I have listed next to each where I think (hope) you can find it to watch today ... but you, like me, may be relegated to "Google" a title and find out where it is currently since this seems to change often! The first 4 deal with suicide loss specifically
- "A Million Little Things" (ABC series, currently Amazon Prime has past episodes)
- "13 Reasons Why" AND "Beyond the Reasons"
- "Audrie & Daisy" (Netflix)
- "Suicide; The Ripple Effect" look on Facebook at the page of the same name
- "Pieces of a Woman" Martin Scorsese film on Netflix
- "Surviving Death" 6 part docuseries on death on Netflix
- "Lila & Eve" movie on Netflix
- "Dead to Me" - Netflix series
- "Six feet Under" - HULU ( an old HBO series)
- "Afterlife" - movie on Netflix
- "Virgin River" - series on Netflix
- "Memory of Water" - movie
- "Rabbit Hole" - movie
- "I Know This Much is True" -movie
- This one IS a LINK ... I
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📞 Need help now? If you or someone you love is struggling with suicidal thoughts, dial 988 in the U.S. & Canada, or text HOME to 741741.