
Send us a textJason McKenzie shares his heart-wrenching journey through grief after losing his wife to suicide and his daughter to trauma-induced mental health struggles. His story reveals how childhood trauma ripples through generations and how he found healing through sobriety, purposeful grief work, and helping others.• Lost his police officer wife to suicide after years battling mental health issues stemming from childhood trauma• Daughters were just six and five when their mother died, causing deep trauma despite their young age• Developed a four-year drinking problem while trying to appear like he "had it together"• Experienced breakthrough moment when his nine-year-old daughter said "I'm disappointed in you"• Lost his 19-year-old daughter to a car accident related to mental health struggles• Discovered that many mental health issues stem from unprocessed childhood trauma• Creates TikTok videos about grief that have reached 40 million views and helped prevent suicides• Uses somatic experiencing therapy to process grief through body awareness• Writing a book called "Man Down" about grief specifically targeted to men• Emphasizes the power of intentional language in shaping our experience of grief• Practices positive reframing: "I can be grateful for 19 years with her because it's better than zero"• Believes healing comes through facing what seems unfaceable and sitting with difficult emotionsContact Jason through TonyMantor.com if you'd like to share your story on Why Not Me? The World podcast.https://tonymantor.comhttps://Facebook.com/tonymantorhttps://instagram.com/tonymantorhttps://twitter.com/tonymantorhttps://youtube.com/tonymantormusicintro/outro music bed written by T. WildWhy Not Me the World music published by Mantor Music (BMI)
What is Jason McKenzie’s journey with grief?
Well, everyone grieves differently, and there is no right or wrong way. It's just how you deal with it, and then, of course, how you deal with it as a family so that you can move forward in life.
Yeah.
That's right. So now I think you said she's going to college. Is that correct?
Yeah, she's in her first year of college.
So with the pressure that comes with the first year of college, then you add the pressure that she's going through because of the loss of her sister. How is she handling that?
I think she's doing all right. Yeah, I mean, she took a year off of college because there's no way she could have gone back like last year. Like, no way. But yeah, she's doing okay. Like pretty normal college experience, I think.
So now that you've gone through some of the healing that you've processed, what are your plans now moving forward? Do you have any particular ones etched in stone? So what's going through your mind in deciphering what you need to do so that you can move forward in life?
Oh, I haven't come to grips with it. I mean, I don't know how one can... I don't know if I would frame it like that. I mean, I think it's that I'm moving through the experience with as much intention and purpose as I can. But having said that, in this really bizarre way, my...
The experience of losing my wife and the aftermath of that, like I was saying, set my life on a very different path, which actually led to me developing a whole hell of a lot of tools, you know, skills, like a network of people around me, a vocabulary to talk about and navigate this in a way different way than I did with my wife, for sure. So it's not that the...
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