The Academy Insider Podcast - Your Guide to The Naval Academy Experience

#086 Healing Out Loud: A Naval Academy Mother's Journey Through Loss, Healing, and Mental Health Advocacy

• GRANT VERMEER • Season 2 • Episode 86

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Warning: Today's episode will discuss very sensitive topics, including death by suicide.

In this powerful episode of the Academy Insider podcast, we tackle a crucial yet often overlooked topic: mental health and suicide awareness within the Naval Academy community. 

Our guest, Tonia Lott, courageously shares her personal journey following the loss of her son, Julian, a Naval Academy graduate and submarine officer, to suicide.

Tonia discusses her mission to "heal out loud" and her book, "My Beautiful Black Son Died by Suicide." Her journey offers valuable lessons for parents, friends, and loved ones of Naval Academy midshipmen and service members.

We highlight the extensive mental health resources available at the Naval Academy, including:

 - Battalion chaplains
 - Midshipman Development Center
 - Emergency services

This episode serves as a crucial reminder to check in on the mental well-being of our loved ones, especially those in high-pressure environments like the Naval Academy. 

Tonia hopes that by sharing her story it will bring awareness to the importance of asking direct questions about mental health and understanding that success doesn't preclude struggles

Join us for this important conversation as we work to create a more supportive and aware community for our midshipmen and service members.

The mission of Academy Insider is to guide, serve, and support Midshipmen, future Midshipmen, and their families.

Grant Vermeer your host is the person who started it all. He is the founder of Academy Insider and the host of The Academy Insider podcast and the USNA Property Network Podcast. He was a recruited athlete which brought him to Annapolis where he was a four year member of the varsity basketball team. He was a cyber operations major and commissioned into the Cryptologic Warfare Community. He was stationed at Fort Meade and supported the Subsurface Direct Support mission.

He separated from the Navy in 2023 and now owns The Vermeer Group, a boutique residential real estate company that specializes in serving the United States Naval Academy community PCSing to California & Texas.

We are here to be your guide through the USNA experience.

Connect with Grant on Linkedin
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If you are interested in sponsoring the podcast, have an idea, question or topic you would like to see covered, reach out: podcast@academyinsider.com.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Season 2 of the Academy Insider Podcast. Academy Insider is a 501c3 nonprofit organization that serves midshipmen, future midshipmen and their families. At its core, this podcast is designed to bring together a community of Naval Academy graduates and those affiliated with the United States Naval Academy in order to tell stories and provide a little bit of insight into what life at the Naval Academy is really like. I hope you enjoy it. Thank you so much for listening and reach out if you ever have any questions. Hey everyone, and welcome back to the Academy Insider Podcast. I want to give a fair warning off the bat that today's episode is going to discuss some very heavy topics, including suicide. I'm joined by Tonya Lott. Tonya's son, julian, was a Naval Academy graduate and a submarine officer. Julian died by suicide. In today's episode we're going to discuss Tonya's son. Julian was a Naval Academy graduate and a submarine officer. Julian died by suicide. In today's episode, we're going to discuss Tonya's creation of a company called Healing Out Loud, as well as the writing of her book my Beautiful Black Son Died by Suicide. We are also going to discuss the resources that exist at the United States Naval Academy for midshipmen who may be struggling with mental health, with any kind of health or just any thoughts that they may be having, because, at the end of the day, we just want to see our midshipmen and our service members healthy and happy, filled with purpose and doing their job. I hope you enjoyed the listen. I know this can be a very sensitive topic, so please feel free to stop at any time, but I just want to highlight that this is an important topic that we need to talk about, which is what Tonea will touch on in this episode as well, as well as highlight the resources that are out there for midshipmen who may be struggling. Have a good listen, thank you very much and have a good day.

Speaker 1:

The Academy Insider Podcast is sponsored by the Vermeer Group, a residential real estate company that serves the United States Naval Academy community and other select clientele in both California and Texas. If I can ever answer a real estate related question for you or connect you with a trusted Academy affiliated agent in the market which you're in, please reach out to me directly at grant at the Vermeer groupcom. You can also reach out to me on my LinkedIn page, graham Vermeer, and I'd be happy to respond to you there. Thank you so much, and now let's get back to the episode. Hey everyone, and welcome back to the Academy Insider Podcast, tania. Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to come talk to us about this topic and, if you don't mind, just giving a quick introduction and background about yourself and your relation to the Naval Academy for our audience.

Speaker 2:

Well, thank you so much, Grant, for having me. My name is Tania Lott and I am connected to the Naval Academy because my son, julian Brown III, is a graduate of the Naval Academy in 2019. And I could not have been more proud of Julian. When he graduated, he immediately went off to Submarine Nuclear Engineering School in Charleston, south Carolina, and he graduated in the top I believe 5% of his class, which was really. I was proud of that.

Speaker 2:

But it was mandatory for that top percentage to go to Norfolk Virginia and we live in Baltimore, maryland, so Norfolk Virginia did not sound very exciting for him. So he wasn't necessarily excited about being so close to home. He wanted to really experience going away, but I thought it was great because he would be closer to me. But, yeah, he was quickly promoted. He got the title of Officer 3, level 3. And he actually was a supervisor over a crew of a recently commissioned sub SSN 796. 9796. So very, very proud of Julian and thought he was achieving wonderful things and he was always just really popular, had a lot of friends, and I found out on August 15th 2023, that I lost him to suicide without ever knowing he was depressed.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's a very difficult topic and I just appreciate you again being willing to do this, and part of this is in your overall mission, which you've articulated, to heal out loud, right, and to share your story in a therapeutic way, but also to help give back, especially in this community, where there are a lot of really high performing individuals right, and this is going to be a conversation that you wrote about in your book, but today as well, is our role as family and support and just science to look at when someone is extremely high performing and they have a lot of friends, and there's a lot of things that can be extremely difficult. In that, and I do just want to ask, before we even jump into some of the topics of today, is, again, for anyone who hasn't seen the book, again, I have it right here and I encourage you to check it out my beautiful black son died by suicide. Do you mind? What sharing that led you to actually write the book right on On this pathway of healing, what led you to actually write this book?

Speaker 2:

So initially I was just so confused Again, not even knowing he was depressed. This was extremely shocking. Not that any parent can ever be like, oh okay, I knew my child was depressed, it's fine. But there is another layer. When you think your child is extremely happy and the joy of everyone's life to lose them in this way, it is a shock to your entire system.

Speaker 2:

So I started to journal for selfish reasons, trying to figure out how I missed this and trying to reconcile was I a bad mom because I missed this? So my journaling were just trying to figure things out. I went through old text messages with Julian, just again trying to figure out how I missed this, and I received a message. One day I woke up and said you need to write a book. A message. One day I woke up and said you need to write a book Because there's a lot of stigma surrounding depression, mental health and definitely suicide. And I fell into that stigma. Or seemingly happy, joking, popular, successful me, thinking that that means they can't suffer from depression is a stigma. It's ignorance and not understanding that someone that is achieving things and is good at certain things and is always popular and is funny does not mean they are struggling and just not sharing it with others 100%.

Speaker 1:

And speaking of that sharing, can you tell us a little bit about your relationship with Julian growing up? Was there ever kind of a lack of sharing growing up, was there ever kind of a lack of sharing, or I think you wrote in that book that you guys' relationship was extremely close and he told you everything. Is that correct? And do you mind explaining just a little bit of your relationship with Julian as he was growing up as a child?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So Julian and I were extremely close. I've always been open as a mom with my kids and talked about all the things that I thought were important. Again, we I myself and Julian as well born and raised in Baltimore City, so as a Black mom of a Black son, one of my biggest concerns for him was always the street violence and making sure that he was safe. So the things that we talked about were things that I deemed important. We talked about keeping a cool head and not getting into fights. We talked about the importance of understanding how to be compliant if you're pulled over by a police officer. We talked about his credit score. We talked about safe sex. We talked about all the things that I thought were extremely important, and Julian was pretty open. He almost overshared when I talked to him.

Speaker 2:

So when I thought it was time to have the sex talk. He was like oh yeah, I bought condoms already, I'm good. So I was like what, what do you mean? You're 13 years old, so he definitely would talk.

Speaker 2:

When I opened that door and I do regret that I never even when he went through traumatic situations I never said wow, julian, this seems really heavy. Have you thought about talking to a therapist? I regret asking him have you ever thought about hurting yourself? Or, you know, have you ever been so sad that you've thought about hurting yourself? Or, you know, have you ever been so sad that you've thought about that? I think these are things, as parents, that we need to be more open about. Just like I wasn't afraid to talk about sex, I didn't think that meant he was going to go out and have sex just because we talked about it. I also think that, as parents, we need to ask our young adults because, again, at the Naval Academy and at the time that I lost Julian, he was 20, 25 years old, so he wasn't a little kid anymore, he's a young adult, but I am still his parent and I do regret never asking him. How was his mental state? How was he really feeling and what was he really thinking?

Speaker 1:

You mentioned kind of not checking in on his potentially on his mental state. Were you able to experience or see anything in a shift during Plebe's summer or during the Naval Academy, or how was his overall demeanor while he was a midshipman at the Naval Academy?

Speaker 2:

So good question. I definitely remember Plebe's summer, his letters. He would say, oh, it's hard. But then he would immediately say, but overall is, but overall it's so easy. He would mention one thing that was hard. I just looked through all of our letters, which I was so grateful that I saved all of them. But he mentioned trying to memorize everything was so hard and so stupid, like he felt it was dumb. But then he follows up and says, but everything else, I'm killing it and tell everyone it's as easy as I thought it would be. So he would say something he struggles with but then kind of makes a joke about overall everything and I think that that was his way of masking that he really may have been struggling.

Speaker 2:

I also remember when he came home because it was towards the end of plebe summer when he was able to come home, for it wasn't even a weekend. He just came home for a family dinner and then he had to go back. His dad took him back. I didn't ride with them and his dad shared with me that he cried on his way back and said he really just wanted to stay home. He didn't want to go back. It was really tough. So he did share that with his dad. Looking back on it, julian did not 100% just openly share with me when he was really struggling.

Speaker 1:

Sure.

Speaker 2:

He shared with other people Like I didn't even know. Julian was stressed. I did notice that he started to kind of distance himself and he seemed busier than usual. And I did ask him. I said, julian, you know what's going on. It doesn't seem like you're replying to my texts like you usually do. And he said, mom, I'm just so busy. And I thought that was, you know, a reasonable answer. He's working on a submarine where he can't necessarily answer text messages Sometimes he was working really long days. So I was just like, oh yeah, he's busy, makes sense, and didn't question it anymore, where I wish I would have said are you sure you're just busy or are you going through something? Are you struggling? Is it? Are you stressed? I wish I would have peeled back the onion just a little bit more and not just assumed that, oh well, he's 25 years old, he's grown, he doesn't need his mommy checking up on him. I wish mommy would have done a little more checking in.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's a really tough situation.

Speaker 1:

It's near impossible to be in that spot for you and as a parent, because he is busy, right, he is extremely busy, and life on a submarine is it's almost never ending, right, like it's just, it's constant. And so I just I think that's it's extremely difficult because you don't want to be overbearing and these are these, these tough situations. And then on top of that, there's another factor kind of mixed into it, which I do want to talk about because it's something you mentioned a lot in your book. Is this idea of the mask of success right? Because, at the end of the day, julian, he was great academically, he was top of his class at the nuclear power school, he had purchased two homes at his different duty stations, like, not only in a work sense but in a life sense, he had all things seemingly very successful. And so, from that perspective, how did you again, how do you start to realize it and retrospectively think back on this again, this mask of success, and not taking everything at just the face value of what it looks like?

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

So hindsight, for me it still isn't 2020. There are still some things where I'm like I just don't understand that. However, there were signs right the last time we FaceTimed, his girlfriend had the phone while he was driving and Julian did not look at me. He never leaned over and said "'Hey Mom". I heard him speaking, but he never looked at me. That was a sign. And I remember feeling Julian didn't even I didn't even see his face and I kind of brushed it off like, well, he's driving, but he wasn't that safe of a driver. He could have leaned over to say hello. That was a sign.

Speaker 2:

I also remember thinking it was strange that he and his girlfriend were. I FaceTimed him, which I normally don't just FaceTime without texting first, but we were at my mom's, we were telling a funny story and I wanted to FaceTime him to see if he would pick up and he did. And I find out he's in Atlanta with his girlfriend going to a Beyoncé concert. And I remember thinking, wait a minute, what you didn't tell me and my husband to come join you. He knows I love Beyonce and I would have gone to Atlanta. We could have gone to the concert together.

Speaker 2:

I remember thinking that's weird. Not only not just that he didn't ask me, just that I didn't know. Like that wasn't. Like Julian, we shared like everything, especially exciting things, like guess what, I'm going to Atlanta to see Beyonce, like that's. So I just remember thinking, wow, he's really growing up, like he's not even telling me when he does stuff. But that wasn't it. He was. This was the week he. I lost him on August 15th, which was a Tuesday. This was the Saturday before the Tuesday. He was trying his best to have a good time with his girlfriend, but he could not face me. I think he was struggling that bad where he couldn't face me.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And then the last time he came home, which was in July July 7th for my granddaughter's birthday party, I remember him always when he came home he would go out with his friends and for whatever reason he was just so tired he took a nap and when he woke up I said so you're going to go hang out? And he said, no, I'm just going to go back home. And I was like what? But I just remember thinking, oh, because he surprised us when he came home. It's almost a four-hour drive, maybe he's just tired, maybe he works so hard.

Speaker 2:

But those were signs he wasn't just tired. His personality had changed a little. He, his personality had changed a little. The text messages were fewer and far in between. His connection to me was off. His connection to his friends not wanting to visit his friends was off. So there were some signs he had shared with everyone else but me that he was so stressed. He was very stressed. He just told me he was busy. He never shared. He was stressed. But if all of us as a family would have sat down to say, hey, what has Julian shared with you? It would have come out that he expressed how stressed he was. He was very short-tempered, more than usual, even with his dogs. He had lost his temper with one of his dogs. That was not Julian. He was really struggling.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and how do you navigate the after of this situation and how do you navigate the after of this situation? Again, you mentioned multiple times that these things and now and telling these stories and journaling and writing a book have been a source of like processing what happened. How have you processed this grief and how do you continue to heal through this process? To heal through this process?

Speaker 2:

That's a good question, grant, because I'm still I'm very new in my grief journey. It's been it was a year in August. I have come up with the term and actually started a company called Healing Out Loud, and the reason for that is because I'm trying so hard to break the stigma surrounding mental health, depression and suicide and in doing so, it's helping me heal, because I recognize now that, even with all the information in the world, I still may not have been able to stop this. Sure, I do believe that having more information, having more understanding, would have been helpful and could have stopped it. But I try not to do the woulda, coulda, shouldas, because I did the best that I could with the information and the knowledge that I had. So I had really tried to.

Speaker 2:

I'm turning my pain from losing the most amazing son I could have ever asked for. I mean truly, julian was a joy. Some people, you know, they love their kids but they don't really like their kids. I really like my kids and I really enjoyed everything about Julian good, bad, ugly, whatever you want to call it. The only thing I would have changed is how I lost them, right.

Speaker 2:

So I'm healing out loud in hopes of sharing my story because if I fell into the stigma that oh, of course he's not depressed, suicide's not even on the table for us to discuss because look at all his accomplishments I know that if I fall into that stigma, other parents and other people fall into that stigma as well. And not knowing that you have to check in on mental health, even if you don't think your person is depressed, it's still something to check in on mental health. Even if you don't think your person is depressed, it's still something to check in on. So my Healing Out Loud journey is hoping that I can help people understand how important it is to check on our loved ones' mental, regardless if we think they're depressed or not.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and in your learning and discovery of this process, what does that look like? Like what questions should be asking? Is it as simple as just quite literally asking a direct question like how is your mental state? Or what things you know in retrospect and conversations you've been having with you? Know your folks in the corner with you kind of going through this process? What questions like were you wishing that maybe you would have asked in those moments?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So I did a panel discussion at a woman's summit on Julian's birthday it would. He would have been 27 on October 22nd and during that panel discussion we did a Q&A at the end and there was a lady in the audience who said her dad was a psychiatrist and it was normal practice growing up in her home for her dad to say well, you're not thinking about hurting yourself, are you? Whenever they discussed problems that they were having as kids, she said it was just normal about hurting yourself, are you". Whenever they discussed problems that they were having as kids, she said it was just normal.

Speaker 2:

And I think that it needs to be normalized to ask the people that we love if we see if they're in a stressful environment, which the Navy, it can be very stressful. I think it's important to say are you sure that you're just busy or is there something deeper going on? Are you really stressed? If they say yes, I am terribly stressed. I think it is so important to just follow up and say you're not thinking about hurting yourself, are you? Or have you thought about hurting yourself? Actually the latter have you thought about hurting yourself? Don't say you're not thinking about hurting yourself, are you, because that kind of implies that they shouldn't be thinking that you just want to just ask have you ever thought about hurting yourself?

Speaker 2:

Are you in? Are you so stressed that you've thought that you just can't go on anymore? Ask the question.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And most people that are in that much pain can't lie about it can't lie about it, sure, sure, no.

Speaker 1:

That makes sense. And from your perspective again, I think this is I, just, I just I feel so sorry for you is again. You've mentioned a couple of times like it was. It was tough because you put your pride and identity in in being, in being a mother and being there for him and you wish you could have changed these things and you even asked yourself the question like did I miss something? Is it my fault? And somehow, how have you gone on your journey of silencing that inner critic and just kind of loving and taking care of yourself after and through this process as well?

Speaker 2:

care of yourself after and through this process as well.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so you really read that book, huh.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, grant. I read it. I read it through and through, through and through, thank you. Thank you, I appreciate that.

Speaker 2:

So I learned I've always considered myself a pretty confident person, but I learned that most of my confidence was based off of my kids' success, which is not true confidence and it's not true happiness to base your happiness based off of your child doing well in life. Because once this happened because that was my entire identity I felt like I wanted to die. How could I go on living when my son was this unhappy for the result to be his death? So I really had to pull myself out of a really dark, dark, dark era in understanding that I am still a good mom In spite of this. Julian was still an amazing person. The fact that he lost his battle and it ended in suicide does not define the man that he was, does not define the mother that I still am.

Speaker 2:

I also realized that we only feel about things based off of the stories we tell ourselves, and there was a point that I was telling myself well, obviously you were a horrible mom because you missed this. Well, I started to realize that my brain was doing the worst case scenario, saying yes, you were a bad mom because you missed this. I started going through text messages and seeing Julian tell me mom, thank you so much. I can always depend on you if he asked a question or needed something. So I was like this doesn't sound like a bad mom. It sounds like I was a pretty good mom.

Speaker 2:

It sounds like my son knew he could depend on me but for whatever reason, he didn't want this burden for me. He felt like he could handle it. So I started telling my stories, telling myself a different story. Rather than going to the worst case scenario, I started painting a more positive picture, because I don't know the 100% truth. So, rather than going to the worst case scenario, I just started telling myself the best case scenario to give myself the will to live, to survive this unimaginable loss. And then I also felt like it was my duty to try to make sure that other parents don't suffer this same type of loss.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, and you've kind of dubbed that as this idea of healing through awareness. And you told stories again about the concert in Atlanta with Beyonce and some of these other factors. What are these signs? More or less that again you've grown to learn and seen in retrospect that parents should be looking out for, whether direct or indirect. You kind of gave examples of how it directly related to Julian, but how would you kind of more broadly describe some of these things that they should be paying attention to as as best they can, as they're figuring this stuff out?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, definitely pay attention to change behavior. If you feel like your child is automatically replies to a text, if they just start saying, okay, if they, you send them a text and you notice they don't even like it. Or if they only like it and don't say anything, and they usually say something. Those are changes in behavior, especially these days and times. You know days and times you know younger people that texting is a lifeline. So if the communication changes through that lifeline, that is a huge sign and you should dig deep to find out why that changed and don't take I'm busy as an answer. Ask more questions to determine if it is it really because they're busy or if it's because something else more, if they have more burdens that are going on that they're not sharing at that moment.

Speaker 2:

No, absolutely on our high-performing kids because they don't want us to feel, if they have a mental struggle, that we wouldn't be proud of them. So it's extremely important to understand, when we're telling our kids how proud we are of them, that we also are a safe space to let them know mentally if it's ever too much All these things that we're proud of with your accomplishments at the Naval Academy or whatever they decide to do after the Naval Academy. Whatever they're doing, we need to let them know If it's too much. You need to let me know. If mentally you can't handle this, it's okay, we're going to figure out your next steps, it will be okay. I wish I would have shared that with Julian that in any branch of the services, if you're having severe mental issues and you say you're, you have thoughts of suicide, you're going to be discharged and that's okay. It's okay.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no one one 100%. And again, just in specific relation to the Naval Academy, I'll kind of again jump in. If you're a parent and you know you're worried in any little way, again, there are so many resources and you're not sure how you would handle a conversation like encourage as well your son or daughter to pursue some of the resources that exist on the Naval Academy campus, because they are extensive. Every single battalion on the yard inside of Bancroft Hall has a chaplain assigned to them who have this grief counseling and counseling training behind them as well. There's the Midshipman Development Center, which is a full staffed, from actual trauma response, psychology, every kind of aspect of mental health, even down to sports performance and nutrition it ranges the whole gamut and they have emergency services. There are so many ways at the Academy for Midshipman to go seek help, right, and so for you as well and on Academy Insider we'll continue to talk about these resources, just so you're aware and utilizing the correct terminology, to potentially again recommend or encourage your son or daughter to seek those If you are noticing some of these signs that are making you again question if everything's okay, right.

Speaker 1:

And so again, I just want to take this time to let the audience who's listening know that there's so many incredible resources at the Naval Academy as well to help when things are starting to trend in that direction or just become extremely difficult, right Become extremely difficult. And so you know you had mentioned to me that it was like this last piece of like I wish I would have. You know, maybe I wish I would have done something different or I wish I would have done this how have you forgiven yourself and kind of what are you continuing to do in this idea of turning lessons into blessings and how has that journey been for you? And continuing, like you mentioned, trying to share the word and spread this information so no one else has to experience this? What is this last phase of this journey been for you in doing that?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so for feeling like I missed this. I think I forgave Julian first and then myself second. And forgiving myself was very hard because, you know, we're hard on ourselves and that's where the journaling came in. There were other people I had to forgive as well, because this blew our families up, like you know. It was just a lot of trauma and a lot of people were just so confused and it caused a lot of trauma. So once I forgave myself, it made it so much easier for me to forgive other people Because, again, it was hard to forgive myself.

Speaker 2:

It easier to recognize the humanity in others and trying to navigate what Julian's loss meant in their lives. And as much as I would love to say as his mother, my pain outweighs everyone else's pain and it really does. But I do know that others loved him immensely Siblings, cousins, aunts, grandparents. Julian was extremely loved. So when you're in pain and dealing with trauma, you don't necessarily you don't always act a hundred percent the way you would like to act. I know I do. I did some things that I'm not too happy about. So, yeah, forgiving myself was easy or was hard, and then forgiving others was a little bit easier and through that forgiveness I showed it came with a lot of gratitude. So gratitude and forgiveness kind of went hand in hand for me.

Speaker 1:

Sure, Absolutely Well. Thank you again for sharing all of these raw emotions and aspects related to the situation. If there's someone listening to this right now and they want to find you or reach out or purchase the book, where would you direct them to go in order to again hear more about the story or reach out to you if they're needing support as well, or guidance, or just want to talk?

Speaker 2:

So I do want to say I do want to explain the name of the book. So you mentioned it earlier my Beautiful Black Son Died by Suicide. I named it such an my beautiful Black son died by suicide. I named it such an in-your-face title because when I first suffered this loss I ran to a bereavement group that dealt specific to suicide. I did several groups and I was always the only parent that lost their child of color and it felt very lonely for whatever reason, and I didn't have anyone that I knew that looked like me that suffered this type of loss.

Speaker 2:

I realize now that in the Black community we do suffer loss from suicide. We just don't talk about it. So I wanted the book to be named a title where another Black parent would know oh my God, somebody else suffered this same type of loss. But it's not just for the Black community. The book can be found right now only on Amazon. And it's not just for someone that has someone that they think is depressed, it is also for someone that thinks they know everything about what depression looks like. It's definitely.

Speaker 2:

I try to be very, very specific on Julian's personality and how wonderful he was, for selfish reasons, again, trying to explain how I missed it right. But I also do go into some very deep details on the signs that Julian did display that myself and others missed, and they are like textbook direct signs or indirect signs of what severely depressed individuals display, characteristics that they display. So if you're interested in buying the book, it shows Julian's picture beautiful picture because he is beautiful and I used to always say when I posted on social media oh my beautiful black son. So the name came kind of natural for me. But I do encourage parents that want to really dig deep, and definitely for parents at the Naval Academy, because it is so stressful and you want to find that balance of making sure your kid is okay but not being too much of a burden, but understanding when there are signs. So for anyone that is interested in purchasing the book, it can be found on Amazon right now.

Speaker 1:

Fantastic. Thank you, and is there anything that you would like to leave the Academy Insider audience with on top of what you've already mentioned?

Speaker 2:

One of the main focuses that I have, or main focus that I have, is making sure that everyone knows we no longer say committed suicide. It's important for me to stress that because committed you commit murder. You don't commit suicide. My son loved life. My son loved me. He would not have intentionally left me with this hole in my heart. He knew how much I loved him. Sometimes he would say, mom, you're obsessed with me. He knew I was obsessed with him. He would not have purposely done this to me.

Speaker 2:

So when you are suffering from a mental illness, your mind plays tricks on you and you can't think of anything else other than ending your pain. So it's not something you commit. We say loss by suicide or died by suicide, but I definitely would love for all of your audience to recognize that and try to change that terminology. It does make a big difference for people that are having those thoughts to feel a little more like it's a safe place to not use that term and it definitely makes the survivors of suicide loss feel a little more accepted that you don't think our loved ones did this to us in a selfish way, because it's not about being selfish.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely Well. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us today and share this story and again, just heal out loud and, you know, just put this in the air for families at the Naval Academy as well, just to be considering this. So thank you so much for your courage, your strength, your kindness to do this and we really, really appreciate you appreciate you no, I appreciate you, grant for recognizing this is such an important topic.

Speaker 2:

It's not a fun topic, but it is an important topic and I thank you so much for recognizing that.

Speaker 1:

Of course, it's my pleasure. We really appreciate it. Thank you so much. And again to the Academy Insider audience, feel free to reach out If there's ever anything that I can do for you and help educating about the resources that exist at the Naval Academy and in the Navy and Marine Corps to help in these situations as well. Please, please, please reach out. That's the goal of this right is to get awareness out as well, just to have these discussions, like you mentioned, it's not fun, it is important. So, thank you so much, I really appreciate it.

Speaker 1:

And to the Academy Insider audience, I hope you have a good day. Thank you so much, I really appreciate it. And to the Academy Insider audience, I hope you have a good day. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Academy Insider podcast. I really hope you liked it, enjoyed it and learned something during this time. If you did, please feel free to like and subscribe or leave a comment about the episode. We really appreciate to hear your feedback about everything and continue to make Academy Insider an amazing service that guides, serves and supports midshipmen, future midshipmen and their families. Thank you.

People on this episode

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Grant Vermeer

Host