A Son's Suicide: A Mom Tells Her Story

Show Transcript

Barbara Legere: Son’s Suicide; Grieving Mom Tells Her Story 

[00:00:00] Bob Gatty: As a single mom to her only child, Barbara Legare journeyed alongside her son through his mental health issues and addiction. She wrote a memoir about her son's suicide called Keven's Choice, a Mother's Journey through Her Son's Mental Illness, Addiction, and Suicide, and she's just written a second book, Talk to Me. I'm Grieving. Supportive Ways to Help Someone Through Grief. We have Barbara with us today to hear her story stay with us. 

[00:00:35] Keven Legere had spent half his life struggling with substance use disorder while Barbara, his single mom battled courts, healthcare companies, rehab facilities, and mental health professionals trying to protect him.

[00:00:52] As their relationship strained, Keven's drug use progressed and Legere was forced to accept and love Keven as he was until he took his own life. In Keven's choice. Legere tells the story of trying to navigate her son's dark world while also addressing her own complicated guilt and regret over how she handled it.

[00:01:16] She shines a light on the hidden anguish of countless parents. Who are taking care of children that society tells them to abandon. For parents who have borne witness to overdoses, arrests, treatment, and incarceration, and even death. Keven's Choice is a raw and intimate memoir that shows it's possible and necessary to go on even amidst the unimaginable.

[00:01:44] Today, Barbara is an advocate for harm reduction for addicts and an active member of groups for parents of addicts and parents surviving the loss of their child through suicide. She hopes to keep her son's memory alive through her writing as a way of helping others who suffer from similar afflictions.

[00:02:06] Barbara, thanks for sharing your story with us today. I really do appreciate that. 

[00:02:11] Barbara Legere: Thank you Bob, for asking me to be on your show. I really appreciate it. 

[00:02:15] Bob Gatty: Barbara, can you begin by sharing with us what happened to Keven and why? 

[00:02:21] Barbara Legere: Sure. As you mentioned, I was a single mom and Keven was my only child.

[00:02:26] Most of his childhood, he was fairly happy. He was a happy kid, but the one thing that bothered him from the time he was very young was that he didn't have a dad. I. That was something that I felt very bad about. 'cause to him it was a big deal. He really felt because he didn't have a dad, there would be something wrong with him.

[00:02:47] As he got older, he realized that was just a fear. It wasn't true, but it was a big part of his depression and anxiety, which started around age nine. I noticed that, and I had him treated for it. He was in counseling and everything seemed to be fine until he got to be in high school. And he started using drugs when he was 15 years old.

[00:03:15] And when he was 17 years old, he used heroin for the first time, and that changed his life forever. That one choice changed everything about his life. He went down a very dark path, which ended in him taking his own life on August 11th, 2020. 

[00:03:36] Bob Gatty: Oh my. Now that's terrible. That must've been really hard for you.

[00:03:40] Especially since you're operating by yourself. You don't have, as you said, you're a single mom, so you didn't have a husband to help you go through all of this. It had to be awfully difficult. I've read that you suffered from guilt on your own. Why and how did that manifest itself? 

[00:04:00] Barbara Legere: When Keven first came to me and told me he was using heroin, he'd been using it for three months.

[00:04:06] I had no idea. And I was very naive at the time. I didn't know heroin was even around, but it was and so at first I thought, okay, he'll go to treatment, he'll get better, and then that's the end of that. We'll carry on. That is so far from what the reality of it is, and I I started out very naive, not knowing what to do.

[00:04:31] So I listened to a lot of other people, tell me what to do, and a lot of them said, turn your back on him. He needs to hit rock bottom. Don't let him live with you. You're enabling him. Then I realized, no. I am gonna follow my own heart. I could see the damage that was being done between Keven and I by doing those things.

[00:04:53] Every person is different. And that does work for some people. I've talked to people who said they were thankful that their parents reacted that way, but for me, I needed to give him unconditional love and support and help him in any way I can. So that's what I chose to do. 

[00:05:09] Bob Gatty: Okay. So what led you to write your first book, Keven's Choice.

[00:05:13] Barbara Legere: I didn't really even wanna write a book. I Kevin and I had talked about writing a book someday about his great recovery story that he was hoping to have. So about three months after he died, I started getting this nagging thought in my mind. That I needed to write a book and it would not leave me alone.

[00:05:36] That thought would not go away. So I took that as a sign from Keven. I joined a writing group, and I just started writing and figured it out as I went along, and that's what happened. And yeah. 

[00:05:52] Bob Gatty: And that's interesting. What kind of a writing group did you join? 

[00:05:55] Barbara Legere: Oh my gosh. I love my writing group. I found them through Legacy Launchpad Publishing.

[00:06:02] It's a writing group. We meet every single day. In fact, I just met with them except Sundays at 10:00 AM my time for one hour. We talk for five minutes, we write for 50, and we talk for five. And you don't have to show up every day, but I do because they've become like, The people, the most important people in my life, pretty much.

[00:06:24] They're like family and I've learned writing from them, but I've also been encouraged and supported and we're such a diverse group. If there's any writers out there, let me know if you wanna join a really amazing writing group. 

[00:06:39] Bob Gatty: Wow. Barbara, is that an online group?

[00:06:43] Barbara Legere: It's an online. We meet on Zoom. And we're all across the US and one person is in Sweden and we meet at, that's wonderful. 10:00 AM p s t. So it's one, 1:00 PM on the East coast. 

[00:06:56] Bob Gatty: That's wonderful. 

[00:06:58] Barbara Legere: Yeah. I love it. 

[00:06:58] Bob Gatty: That really is, that's great. Yeah. Yeah. I might be interested in talking to you about that. 

[00:07:04] Barbara Legere: Oh, that'd be great.

[00:07:06] Bob Gatty: Yeah. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about your latest book, Talk to Me, I'm Grieving. Why did you do that one and what's its focus? 

[00:07:15] Barbara Legere: I wrote that book because I realized after losing Keven, how difficult it is for people to approach someone who's grieving. Not necessarily. Keven's death was a suicide and that was very uncomfortable, but not just uncomfortable deaths, any kind of death, people don't know what to say. Our society is uncomfortable talking about death and grief, and so they either use the cliches we all know, which are usually hurtful and or they just say nothing and that makes the person that's grieving feel completely abandoned and it's so painful. So I decided to write the book to try and show what grief feels like, to give some hope to people that are grieving, and mostly to show others how they can support a family member or friend in grief. 

[00:08:10] Bob Gatty: So talk to me a little bit about what this book includes. 

[00:08:15] Barbara Legere: It includes first of all, I know about child loss and parent loss, but I had other people mostly from my writing group, join me in writing this book, and they each wrote a chapter on sibling loss, pet loss, spouse loss of your health to serious illness, loss of a career loss of a best friend. So there's different perspectives in the book as well as mine. Very interesting. One part of the book talks about what it feels like to be grieving.

[00:08:44] Then the next part talks about what to say and what not to say, and also what to do and not to do. And then the very last part of the book is just two chapters on Keven and Anthony. Anthony was another young man in my life that I lost who was like a son to me. And yeah it's got a lot of resources included and it explains certain things, like one thing people are usually very unaware of is called grief brain.

[00:09:14] And grief brain is a neurological thing. It actually happens in your brain when you're experiencing a deep loss and it makes you forgetful. It makes your head foggy. There's a whole list of things. And I just want people to be aware of that because, for me, I'm constantly apologizing and I just feel stupid because I can't remember things that I should, and if people are aware of that, I think they'd be a little more patient and empathetic and understand that okay, my friend is messed up right now, so I need to be very patient with them.

[00:09:52] Bob Gatty: You said that you lost another, was it a, another son who was this other person? He 

[00:09:58] Barbara Legere: was. He was not my biological son. He was Keven's good friend and this young man, Anthony had lost his mother to a meth lab explosion and his father to a lifetime in prison. And Anthony started using drugs at a very early age.

[00:10:17] His grandparents were raising him. They were elderly, and he and I just really hit it off and I became like his mom. Literally I was there for him as if I was his mom and I loved him as if I was his mom. So when he passed away of a drug overdose in 2015, that's when I really started to understand what it would feel like if I ever lost Kevin and I also found a support group at that time that I had in place, and I lost Kevin, which is I credit them with saving me because one thing I recommend to parents especially is to find a group of other grieving parents that understand your type of loss.

[00:11:04] For me, I go to a overdose suicide loss. It's for both. And they understand. The founder of our group, which is called Solace for Hope, she went to a regular grief group and where the children or young adults died in an accident or if cancer or something. And she was actually treated differently as if her loss was less important because it was a drug overdose. This was 13 years ago when it wasn't as talked about as it is today. And so she started this group and it's it's so critical to have somebody else in your life that knows what you're going through, that knows what it feels like.

[00:11:47] Bob Gatty: Oh man. That's just so sad. So you lost Anthony five years before you lost Keven. 

[00:11:54] Barbara Legere: Yes. 

[00:11:54] Bob Gatty: Is that right? 

[00:11:55] Barbara Legere: Yeah. 

[00:11:55] Bob Gatty: Oh man. And it was an overdose? 

[00:11:59] Barbara Legere: Yeah, he was traveling from here to Colorado and he was very high and someone left him in a car overnight and he died in Las Vegas, so his six year anniversary's coming up in September.

[00:12:17] Bob Gatty: It's just so hard. 

[00:12:18] Barbara Legere: Yeah, it was heartbreaking. 

[00:12:21] Bob Gatty: Sure. It had to be. 

[00:12:23] I just feel stupid asking you this question because it just seems so obvious. I'll ask it anyway. Why is it important for parents to teach our kids about drugs and to watch for warning signs?

[00:12:35] What can they do really? That's really the question. 

[00:12:39] Barbara Legere: That is a very important question, especially in today's world because now we're dealing with fentanyl, and fentanyl is, in my opinion, a hundred times worse than heroin because you can die from it so easily. Kevin used fentanyl on purpose for the last two years of his life because heroin became less and less popular, people were using fentanyl. You get high faster. It's a better high it lasts longer, it's cheaper. So everybody is switching fentanyl. But the other, the problem is, and parents need to explain this to their children, is that people are making fake pills and they're calling them Xanax or. Vicodin or whatever, and kids are taking those from their friends or someone else that offers it.

[00:13:33] And if there's too much fentanyl in that pill, they're gonna die because they're making these pills that have fentanyl in them. And if, if you had a handful of pills, maybe only one of those is lethal, but there's no way of knowing, there's no way of knowing unless you test it. There are test strips.

[00:13:52] Bob Gatty: What are some of the warning signs that parents should be looking out for 

[00:13:56] Barbara Legere: all the typical things that you hear. Isolating is a big one. If when they're high, they can look pretty normal, but sometimes they nod off like they, they're trying to stay awake, but they can't their eyes may be dilated and a little bit glassy.

[00:14:17] But. If they're going about their day to day after the initial high it's hard to tell. That's why I couldn't tell with Keven. I think if I had a teenager today, I would be talking to them constantly about and making them aware every time I heard of a Fentanyl overdose, because it's so prevalent.

[00:14:36] I can't even tell you how many people I know that have lost someone in these groups I belong to. It's. It's horrifying. 

[00:14:44] Bob Gatty: Barbara, is there anything that you can think of that you would do differently if the same situation occurred today with someone in your family, say you had another child?

[00:15:00] Barbara Legere: I honestly think I did everything I knew how to do, I advocated for him trying to get him help. I I paid for treatment. I found him treatment every time he asked, which is not easy. It's not as simple as people think. When someone says, I'm ready to go to rehab and you can't get them in.

[00:15:21] By the time the waiting list is over, they probably don't wanna go anymore. So I think the only thing I would do different is, I don't know. I really don't know. Yeah. I feel like I did a lot. I just, I know what I did that helped most was educating myself. So I really understood, and I write in the book about some of the things I did and how close I became to some of his friends who were using and the things I saw.

[00:15:49] And it breaks your heart, but you realize these kids, these are. Good people that made a bad choice, that changed the whole course of their life. It's heartbreaking. 

[00:16:02] Bob Gatty: What advice would you give to parents who are stuck in the same sort of situation where a kid, 

[00:16:11] Barbara Legere: We have a saying. It says, as long as they're breathing, there is hope.

[00:16:16] So never give up on your child. Let them know that you're there for them, that you're willing to support them in getting treatment, in, getting mental health care, whatever it is that they need. And you make sure that they know how much you love them. Keven understood how much I loved him. He didn't love himself.

[00:16:36] That was the problem. He felt like he was a problem to me, and he thought I'd be better off without him, even though I told him constantly that wasn't true. But just being there for them and helping them not feel alone 'cause people feel so alone and they're very hard on themselves because they know they're doing things to hurt their families and they feel guilty.

[00:17:00] Bob Gatty: What about parents who are suffering, grieving a loss? What would you say to them? 

[00:17:11] Barbara Legere: I would say it's a very lonely place to be unless you do know other people that are in the same situation because your friends don't, your friends will say, talk to me whenever you want, but then you notice how uncomfortable some friends are.

[00:17:26] Some friends are great. They're there for you, but a lot of people, Don't realize how helpful it is for a parent to talk about their child. I wanna hear about Kevin. Talking about him is my favorite thing to do, and my family never brings him up at holidays or anything, and so I just bring him up myself and trying to teach them that.

[00:17:45] I see. It's okay, but having people around you that understand what you're going through is. It helps a lot. It helps for most parents to talk about it, to do little things, to celebrate their child, to keep their memory alive. Those sort of things help a lot. And also to be very gentle with yourself because it's so difficult.

[00:18:08] It does affect your brain. It does affect everything. It's like you become a different person when you lose a child. So just be gentle and patient with yourself. Grief. It never really goes away with child loss. It just changes over time. 

[00:18:23] Bob Gatty: What can other people do to support a parent who's grieving the loss of a child like that?

[00:18:30] Barbara Legere: One thing I recommend is to write down the date, the birthday of the child and the date that they passed away. That way every single year you can acknowledge that loss and hopefully throughout the year you can also ask your friend. The simplest things mean the most to me. Like I'll get a text from a friend that says, Hey, I'm just thinking about you and Kevin today.

[00:18:56] I just wanted to let you know. That means so much to me. It means so muchly. And when his friends send me a picture on their, they find on their phone or just. Telling, don't stop asking your friend that's grieving to go out and do something, go out to dinner or a movie. They may say no for three months, but that last time they may say yes.

[00:19:19] So a lot of people give up on us like they think we're never gonna wanna do anything again. But we do experience joy again. We do get ready at a certain point to continue on with our lives. 

[00:19:31] Bob Gatty: Yeah. So this event, this loss of Keven It took over your whole life. It right? 

[00:19:37] Barbara Legere: Yeah, it did. It just really did. Yeah, it did.

[00:19:41] Bob Gatty: And now you're working through that and one of the ways you're working through that is by writing. I bet the process has been helpful to you. Is that true? 

[00:19:54] Barbara Legere: Oh yes. I've always loved writing. Like I've always had a journal, so it's always helped me. But the thing that helps me the most I think, is I had to find a purpose.

[00:20:06] I could either just get super depressed and not do anything. Or I could find something meaningful. And for me, that's trying to help other people who are going through the same thing or something similar. And trying to help people understand that all of those people you see out there that are using drugs, that have mental illness, they're just like the rest of us, but they have something that's so difficult to deal with and we need to have a little more compassion and kindness towards them because that's part of the problem.

[00:20:41] There's a stigma against it, which makes it even harder for them to ask for help because they're embarrassed and they feel bad about themselves. 

[00:20:48] Bob Gatty: When is your new book going to be published? 

[00:20:52] Barbara Legere: It's going to be out on August 11th, which is the date I lost Kevin. I don't know if I like that idea now.

[00:20:59] At the time, it sounded like a great idea to honor his memory, and now it's like I'm looking forward to the book, but it's the hardest day of the year for me. But I think Kevin is proud of me for it and I definitely feel connected to him still. I talk to him all the time. So yeah, it comes out on the 11th.

[00:21:20] It's available for pre-order now, but I'm really excited because I've heard that it's helpful by all the people that read it so far, the advanced readers. So that just means the world to me. 

[00:21:32] Bob Gatty: Okay. And is it published on what Amazon or where?

[00:21:37] Barbara Legere: It's gonna be available on Amazon or it's also gonna be available through my publisher, which is the Empowered Press.

[00:21:46] And that's through my website, which is my name.com, so it's available both places. 

[00:21:53] Bob Gatty: Okay. So that's Barbara Legere, l e g e r e.com? 

[00:21:57] Barbara Legere: Yes. And on my blog post and podcast, everything's there. 

[00:22:02] Bob Gatty: Okay. Alright. Now you wrote a blog, I guess some time ago called Tapping into Grief. Talk about that a little bit.

[00:22:11] Barbara Legere: That was a blog about how my life had changed so much and how I'm really a different person because before all those years, it was total of 15 years dealing with Keven and Anthony for 10, I was so tied up in that my whole life was revolving around their problems and trying to help them and them in and outta prison, in jail, and the hospital, lots of overdoses, all that.

[00:22:41] So after Keven died, it was like, What do I do now? And I realized I had a whole different focus. I was, I no longer cared what happened to me or what people thought of me because the worst thing had happened. It's okay, yeah, the worst things happen. Nothing worse can ever happen again. So I'm just going to get outta my comfort zone and I'm gonna start talking about things that matter that I'm passionate about.

[00:23:10] And so that's what I did. And everybody has a different thing that helps them in their grief, but for me that's what it is. I never would've done a podcast or spoken in front of a group before, and I've spoken in front of several groups now, so it's still blows my mind that I could do that.

[00:23:29] Bob Gatty: Yeah. Did did you write that before you wrote your book? I guess you probably did, huh? 

[00:23:34] Barbara Legere: The blog post? No, I actually wrote that right after I wrote my first book, because what prompted me to write it was I read aloud from my book for the first time up in this little reading place in LA and I couldn't believe I was standing up in front of these people reading my book.

[00:23:52] Wow. So it was just so outta character for me. 

[00:23:57] Bob Gatty: Sure. Yeah. Yeah. I bet It was exciting though, to do that, huh? 

[00:24:03] Barbara Legere: Yeah, it was, and I've just met the most amazing people through my writing group. They, a lot of them were there, the ones that live local were there to support me through it and it's been a really great experience and I want to help people.

[00:24:18] You mentioned, go ahead. 

[00:24:20] Bob Gatty: I did wanna interrupt you. 

[00:24:21] Barbara Legere: Oh I was just gonna say, I would love to help people figure out how to write a book if they have any questions they can ask me. 

[00:24:27] Bob Gatty: Okay. You mentioned a minute ago you said something about prison. Was he in prison? 

[00:24:33] Barbara Legere: Oh, yes. That was, I have a chapter in my book about Keven, called Prison F'd Him Up, because it did.

[00:24:42] When he got arrested for doing something under the influence of meth. He started using heroin and meth. The meth is still out there and it makes people do the most crazy things. It affects their mental health. He did something when he was in psychosis. He actually shot a shotgun out of his bedroom window, called 9 1 1 and said, there's six men in my backyard shooting at me with guns and I just killed three of 'em. That's what he said to the 9 1 1 officer. So obviously the SWAT team, everything showed up at my house. A neighbor called and told me what was happening. I rushed home and he ended up being in prison for 16 months for that incident. And he He was not cut out for prison.

[00:25:36] Nobody really is. But he got involved with using drugs in there and people made him do things he didn't wanna do, like hurting other people. He got beat up quite a bit. He, he just did things that made him feel terrible. And that really, I, he was never the same three years after he came out is when he took his life.

[00:26:04] Bob Gatty: How old was he when he went to prison? 

[00:26:06] Barbara Legere: He was 26, so he wasn't a kid. He was 26. He'd been in jail multiple times. But jail and prison are very different. People don't, sometimes don't realize that jail is a waiting place. You're waiting to see what's gonna happen if you're gonna get sentenced to prison or not.

[00:26:23] If it's a minor offense, you probably will serve your time in jail, which is a lot different. It's not as severe. Okay. 

[00:26:33] Bob Gatty: So he was in jail on, were these on drug charges or did he do something else, or what? 

[00:26:39] Barbara Legere: All drug charges. All possession. Oh, he, yeah, he did get driving under the influence. He wasn't driving.

[00:26:46] He was passed out behind the wheel of the car. He pulled over. But if you're in the car, you still get, in trouble for being behind the wheel when you're under the influence. Yeah, those were his charges. Anthony had charge different kinds of charges. He , had like theft and things like that.

[00:27:04] Bob Gatty: Oh God. You, that just must have been so hard for you. How did cope while he was in. How did you cope when he was in prison? What did you 

[00:27:15] do? 

[00:27:16] Barbara Legere: It was really hard. The first three months that he was there, he had so much hope. They send you to a reception area so you're alone for three months in a cell, which sounds terrible, but he loved it because no one could bother him.

[00:27:30] He read all these self-help books, and he thought, okay, I've got it. But once he got to the real prison and hardcore guys were, giving him drugs and saying, okay, we gave you drugs, now you have to go slice that guy in the face. Stuff like that. Yeah, I couldn't sleep.

[00:27:48] I felt sick. It was really hard. All of it was hard. I didn't handle it well. I actually lost a job because I was Not able to focus on it. And I've been there 17 years and they had to let me go. She didn't tell me that's why until years later she admitted it to me. But I knew I just couldn't concentrate.

[00:28:07] I was such a mess. 

[00:28:09] Bob Gatty: Yeah. What type of work did you do?

[00:28:12] Barbara Legere: I was an administrative assistant. 

[00:28:15] Bob Gatty: Uhhuh. Okay. Alright. What's ahead for you? Do you have something else planned or what? 

[00:28:22] Barbara Legere: No, I have nothing else planned. I tell everyone I'm not gonna write another book because it's hard and it takes a lot out of you and I really don't want to write another book. Hopefully I don't know. I'm not even really sure I have a volunteer position that is another part of my healing process and it, people don't understand why I do it, but it's very rewarding and I'm gonna be coming more and more involved in that.

[00:28:50] It's volunteering with TIP, it's called Trauma Intervention Program, where we work with first responders and we go out on a scene where someone has died and comfort and give resources to the person that is left behind. But it's very gratifying. 

[00:29:07] Bob Gatty: Good. So do you have any further advice for people who are faced with issues like this faced with the issues of a child, for example, who may be involved with this sort of thing,

[00:29:23] Barbara Legere: Find other people that are going through the same thing. There's Al-Anon groups. I personally went to Al-Anon for a few years and then decided that was not for me. I found that I was very fortunate to have this support group near me because there's not a whole lot of 'em, specifically for parents people who are using drugs or have lost someone to drugs. But that was the biggest help to me. Find someone you can talk to. Don't try to hold it all inside. Don't be ashamed. It is not your fault. It is not your fault. There's nothing you could have done to change things. We all make mistakes as parents, but we make them thinking we're doing the right thing at the time. We don't make them on purpose. So I would just recommend to be as supportive as you can towards your child and patient with yourself. Find someone you can talk to 'cause holding it in is, it will drive you nuts. 

[00:30:22] Bob Gatty: Alright, Barbara, do you have anything else you'd like to add?

[00:30:25] Barbara Legere: Let's see. No, I think you asked such great questions. I don't have anything to add. 

[00:30:33] Bob Gatty: Oh, thank you very much. I appreciate you being with us today on the Lean to the Left Podcast, and I hope that your books are successful. The work you're doing is very important. And I know that families who are going through this kind of thing I, I hope this helps if anybody's listening, who's got that kind of a situation in their life.

[00:30:53] Barbara, can people reach out to you to talk to you? 

[00:30:56] Barbara Legere: Absolutely. I was just gonna say, anyone that's listening to this, if you wanna talk to me, my email is in my, on my website. It's my first and last name at Gmail, so it's pretty easy. Okay. But yes, please reach out to me. I will talk to you and help you any way I can.

[00:31:14] Bob Gatty: Alright. 

[00:31:16] Thanks very much, Barbara. 

[00:31:17] Barbara Legere: Thank you.