Frantic Tamed Navigating Life After Suicide Part 3

In the years following my husband’s death by suicide, I learned a valuable life lesson. Grief cannot be side-stepped. You cannot ignore it, you cannot minimize it, and you cannot fool it. My plan in the beginning was to outthink, out plan, and out maneuver grief. My plan failed. In the end, like anyone who comes out on the other side, I simply had to embrace the grief, feel it, sit with it, and eventually do the work to move through it. I learned to play. Grief won the first round, I won the game.

Missy Palrang, Author of the three-part Frantic Book Series

Frantic Tamed is the final part of the three-part Frantic Book Series in which survivor Missy Palrang shares her personal journal entries. In this series we witness the many waves of grief survivors of suicide often experience. The first several chapters of Missy’s writing are riddled with feelings of abandonment, betrayal and desertion. In those early days, she describes being unable to concentrate on everyday tasks, and being consumed with the “whys?” and the “what nows?” We witness her emotional teeter-totter; some days feeling helpless and other days angry. Missy held blame and regret close and had no trust that life after this loss could provide any type of happy ending. We witness, through Missy’s authentic words, her grief journey morph and change over time. We see her learn to thrive in this new world life has handed her.

Missy’s therapist, Jill McMahon, continues to offer her perspective throughout these passages. Drawing on her 18 years of experience working with survivors, Jill shares her wisdom with survivors, those assisting the survivors, and other therapists who encounter survivors of suicide in their practices.