0:00

This episode deals with sensitive topics of

0:02

suicide and mental health . Although there won't

0:04

be graphic details , please know that the

0:06

discussion will venture into areas that may

0:08

not be suitable for children . Therefore , parental

0:10

discretion is strongly advised . The

0:13

guest today is Ed Paluch . He's the oldest

0:15

of three brothers . Tragically , his

0:17

youngest two brothers , greg , who I've

0:20

been friends with from elementary school through

0:22

college , and the younger brother

0:24

, andrew , both took their own lives

0:26

. September is suicide prevention awareness

0:28

month . Ed has been kind enough and brave

0:30

enough to join me to talk about his brothers

0:32

, their passing and how he is carrying

0:34

on their memories . Ed , thank

0:37

you for joining us .

0:38

Very happy to be here .

0:39

You know you've obviously gone through this more than once

0:41

, unfortunately . Yeah , you start with Greg first

0:43

. Were there any signs of depression for

0:45

either of the guys you know ? Early in life , that

0:47

kind of stand out to you now .

0:49

Yeah , not so much early in life with

0:51

them . I guess we'll start with Greg

0:53

. You know , after he got out of college

0:56

he was a licensed chiropractor

0:58

and he decided he didn't want to practice

1:00

and be in that , you know , trying to collect insurance

1:03

and what not medical insurance . So

1:05

he moved out to California to try

1:07

and be a movie star and he actually had some

1:10

little bit roles in some movies

1:12

. When he was doing that , you know

1:14

, I kind of started to notice that he was

1:16

starting to isolate himself a bit . He

1:18

would come back home and stay with my

1:20

mom every couple of years

1:22

and sometimes he wouldn't

1:25

even tell us that he was coming back . So

1:27

, you know , I would find out later

1:29

that he had come and visited and we hadn't

1:31

gotten to see him . Really , you know

1:33

, that was always a tough thing , you

1:35

know , and talking to a lot of his

1:38

friends afterwards like

1:40

yourself he did , you know they lost touch

1:42

with him . He kind of self isolated

1:45

, you know , just went down a

1:47

path where I guess he couldn't see himself

1:49

coming back from , unfortunately .

1:50

Yeah , I remember you know

1:52

, we had gotten out of college and

1:54

he was in chiropractor school in Chicago

1:57

and all the guys from high school you know five

1:59

or six of them all decided to go out

2:01

and visit him for like three or four days

2:03

and I couldn't

2:05

make the trip because I was driving cross

2:07

country with my dad . We had had this thing planned we

2:10

were coming back from Idaho and we were going cross country and

2:12

that always got to me . I was always bummed about

2:14

that in general , that I missed it . But then after

2:17

I heard you know , heard the news about Greg , we

2:19

were happy that he went out there and tried to become

2:21

a chiropractor and then turn around and try to do the acting

2:23

. You know it was a kooky Greg thing to

2:25

do . Yes , greg was always the kind of guy

2:28

I mean . Some of the fondest memories I have of

2:30

Greg are just doing crazy things , yeah .

2:32

And he was very gregarious , you know . He

2:34

was Absolutely Fun to be around .

2:37

My favorite memory of him is we were

2:39

in like eighth grade . He slept over

2:41

my house . The cool guy sleepovers in junior

2:43

high . And he slept over my house on New

2:45

Year's Eve and my mother

2:47

put out some treats and stuff for us and

2:49

we , you know , popped on MTV because that was pretty much

2:51

the only thing you could do as a cool guy back in eighth grade and

2:54

my mom hopped at the shower and was like you guys be good

2:56

boys . We're like yeah , sure , whatever . And

2:58

he picked up his pillow and smashed me in the

3:00

head with his pillow and it exploded

3:03

and

3:06

every single feather that

3:08

was in that pillow came out . There

3:10

had to be a million birds worth of

3:12

feathers in my living room and it was a

3:14

good four inches on the ground . And he sat

3:17

there and that laugh he's had , that laugh that was just

3:19

amazingly infectious and

3:21

just laughed his head off and I

3:23

was freaking out . I'm like so I grabbed a trash bag

3:25

and I'm trying to scoop these feathers back and

3:27

my mother came out and told her she was like what the

3:30

hell are you freaking out ? And he just laughed

3:32

at her . It was the funniest thing I've ever seen in my life . Never

3:34

forget that as long as I live .

3:36

He was big into physical humor type

3:38

stuff too . Yes , yes

3:40

, he would always kind of love you when you weren't expecting

3:43

it .

3:43

Oh yeah , he would give you the dooper . I'm

3:46

not really sure where that came from , but you'd be walking

3:48

next to him and all of a sudden he would just kick you right in the ass

3:50

for no reason . What

3:53

the hell happened . How old

3:55

was Greg when he passed ?

3:57

He was 40

4:00

, seven years ago , I

4:02

think he was about 45 or so yeah

4:04

, that's crazy .

4:06

I remember Vaughn called me , told

4:08

me and I was just like that's no no

4:10

, right , if you can't believe yeah . And

4:12

that just seems to be the standard answer when anybody

4:15

you hear has done this . I

4:17

can't believe it . No way , not him , not her

4:19

. How'd your family react

4:21

? How was your mom about it ? And obviously just

4:23

destroyed .

4:25

My mom is still destroyed

4:27

over him . Unfortunately

4:30

, he was staying with her and

4:32

she's the one who found him . Oh

4:34

, I guess that just adds

4:36

to the , you know

4:39

, another layer to it . Yeah , you

4:41

know she's . She's always struggled

4:43

over the years with that and you know , obviously

4:45

now with with the Andrew

4:47

, it just kind of brings it all back around for

4:49

her again . Yeah , and

4:51

your mom's such a sweet woman . Yeah , she

4:53

is . She's been through a lot . Yeah

4:56

, unfortunately , with Andrews

4:58

mental illness he really

5:00

wasn't able to work or anything

5:02

. So she was fully supporting him and

5:05

, oh really , um , because of his mental

5:07

illness he became not that

5:09

great to deal with , you know

5:11

. So you know that just adds

5:13

a level of complexity on

5:16

it for her . So , yeah , Andrew

5:18

go to Syracuse . He

5:20

, he went to Syracuse for one year . Okay

5:23

, he got in a bar fight where

5:25

somebody hit him with a beer bottle

5:27

and ripped his face off just about

5:29

. Oh my god . Yeah , I do remember that , Okay after

5:31

that he he went to University

5:34

of Miami and then he , pretty

5:36

much you know he stayed down in Miami

5:38

Beach after that . What's like a club

5:41

promoter at one point or he was trying yeah , he

5:43

was trying to be like a , like a promoter

5:45

, you know , set up party promoter , that

5:47

type of thing . He's in that whole Miami

5:49

scene . Yeah , one of his favorite things to do

5:51

was to bring out his photo album

5:54

and show everybody all the pictures of him

5:56

with the different Celebrities .

5:58

Yeah , I remember seeing the picture with puff

6:00

Daddy .

6:01

Yeah , exactly , yeah , you , you

6:03

pretty much name it . You know Miami's a

6:05

really happening scene for celebrities , so

6:07

he really , you really met a

6:09

lot of people .

6:11

So you said you know that he struggled with mental illness

6:13

. Was that diagnosed later on ?

6:15

So we couldn't even get him to

6:18

go see the general practitioner

6:20

. He would not go see a doctor for anything

6:23

. You know , if we tried , kind

6:25

of like I said before , you know

6:27

, he would turn things on us . Yeah

6:29

, it's always Very difficult

6:32

when you have an adult that

6:34

Refuses to get help . This

6:36

very look . You know there isn't a lot you can do

6:38

, unfortunately .

6:39

Yeah , yeah , you know you'd mentioned that he had

6:41

isolated as well .

6:44

He just stopped coming home to

6:46

stay to Miami and kind of did his own thing yeah

6:48

correct and you

6:51

know , like I said , was really with his

6:53

mental state , was really unable

6:55

to work and , you know , just Just continued

6:57

to further isolate

7:00

and just think that you know people

7:02

were coming to get him in that type of thing .

7:04

Yeah , oh my gosh . So

7:06

he , his passing was relatively

7:09

recent . It was under end of July

7:12

. Yeah , I did July . Okay , yeah

7:14

, and did you get a phone call ? Is anybody

7:16

even in contact ? I mean , how did you find out so

7:18

like ?

7:19

yeah , so that's , that's quite a

7:21

story there . On a Thursday

7:23

night I think it was a Thursday night

7:26

my wife Paula noticed that she

7:28

had a voicemail , so she looked

7:30

at . You know , on Apple you can see the transcription

7:32

of the message and

7:34

it was from the Miami-Dade

7:37

coroner's office . Oh my

7:39

God . So at that point we're like

7:41

oh my God . And

7:44

that night I started calling

7:46

the coroner's office and they run

7:48

24 hours but there's no one there that'll

7:50

talk to you at night . And

7:52

then we were trying to call the police

7:54

department and they gave us a

7:56

name of a couple detectives , but

7:59

they wouldn't tell us anything . So

8:01

finally , later the next day , we finally talked

8:03

to an investigator from the coroner's office

8:05

who gave us a rundown

8:07

of what had happened . So

8:10

that wasn't a fun experience

8:12

by any means .

8:13

No , just the anxiety of waiting . You know

8:15

something's going wrong , but you Exactly yeah

8:18

.

8:18

It wasn't a fun night .

8:19

I can't believe that they . I know they have jobs to

8:21

do and they do great jobs , but

8:23

it's gotta be . They have to understand what

8:25

the family's going through as well too . Right .

8:28

Yeah , I can't imagine what

8:30

you're saying , what it is for those first responders

8:33

, especially in an active community

8:36

like Miami , but I didn't

8:38

get a call back from a detective

8:40

for almost a month . Oh my God

8:42

.

8:43

Yeah , until you found out what happened

8:45

, or until , like you had found out what

8:47

happened and then further information .

8:49

Yeah , so you know , the coroner told

8:52

us some of the details from the police

8:54

report , but I wanted to hear , you

8:56

know , there was other things he couldn't tell me . So

8:58

I , you know , obviously wanted to talk to

9:00

the detectives and , you

9:03

know , get a little bit of closure there .

9:05

Yeah , got it , and

9:07

it took that long to get the information . Oh

9:09

man , I'm sorry .

9:10

I'm actually flying down there next

9:12

week to try and see

9:15

how his condo is , because he had

9:17

started like a small fire . So

9:19

I think things are a mess down there . You

9:22

know , same kind of thing trying to get the property

9:24

manager to talk to me or let

9:27

me know what's going on . They just nobody

9:29

responds .

9:30

Yeah , you know , without obviously getting into details

9:33

, you said that he started a fire . Was that

9:35

method or no ?

9:37

No , okay , no , but

9:39

he just felt like setting a fire and yeah

9:41

, my guess is he thought he

9:43

must have had a break and must

9:46

have thought people were gonna be coming through the door

9:48

Adam or something . So he started

9:50

the fire and then he proceeded

9:52

to die by suicide Gosh

9:54

.

9:54

I'm sorry . Yeah , You've been

9:57

amazingly brave on social

9:59

media , you know posting stuff , Greg's anniversary

10:01

and making sure that people are aware

10:03

of mental illness . And

10:05

how do you feel having those

10:07

two brothers go through such hard times

10:10

and yeah , you know

10:12

, I just feel , you know , awful

10:14

and empty .

10:17

You know it's something that's

10:19

, you know , extremely hard to reconcile

10:21

. But , like you said , I , you know I

10:23

do what I can to try and

10:25

get the message out that mental

10:27

illness is no different than having the

10:29

flu or cancer

10:32

or any other kind of affliction

10:35

or illness . It's not something

10:37

that should be hidden

10:39

or , you know , feel like

10:41

that you're ashamed to talk about . Yeah

10:43

, you know , the brain is just

10:45

one part of the body that

10:47

has to be taken care of , like the rest of it

10:49

, you know .

10:50

Yeah , yeah , you know it's a shame that we

10:52

still , to this day , have that kind of a stigma

10:54

about mental illness . Yes , it's

10:57

nice that you know as many people as possible

10:59

are still trying to help and get over that , and

11:01

that's what we're trying to do , you know . Do here today

11:04

. Yes , in a previous episode

11:06

we discussed about one of my other friends

11:08

who had also taken her own life , and

11:10

I went through a really deep , deep depression

11:12

about four or five years after college

11:14

and she saved my life

11:16

. The only reason why I never moved

11:19

forward with any other plans was

11:21

because I saw the impact that

11:23

this had on everyone . Yeah , I felt

11:25

the impact of the loss and I

11:27

couldn't do that to anybody else . Mm-hmm , you

11:29

know my issues at that time were not . I

11:32

didn't feel that they were as big as hurting all

11:34

these other people and I got lucky . You know

11:36

there were a lot of people out there , your brothers included

11:38

, that weren't .

11:39

Right , I'm guessing that your

11:41

strong relationship with your wife and

11:43

, you know , with your other friends and

11:45

family probably really helped as

11:47

well . You know , yeah , yeah

11:49

, it's all about connection and

11:52

having Having people to talk

11:54

to that you can talk to openly with . Yeah

11:56

, you know people that you trust . Unfortunately

11:59

, not everybody has that .

12:01

Yeah , I think you made a great point

12:03

about the isolation . You know , in both your brother's

12:05

instances , isolation was the key for

12:07

them to . You know , maybe shut that off

12:09

, yeah , and not have to worry about , you

12:11

know , hurting Absolutely , you know , for folks

12:13

listening out there , I think you know , when you start

12:16

to see someone isolating and you know that they are going

12:18

through some rough times , that isolation is a

12:20

huge , huge tell . It's a huge giveaway

12:22

that something's going on , yeah . Then

12:25

comes the challenge of trying to unisolate them

12:27

. You know , trying to find your way to get back into their

12:29

life , forget somebody back into their life , and it's , yeah

12:31

, that's got to be a rough battle .

12:33

Right , because when someone doesn't want

12:35

to be engaged I've gone through

12:37

it twice now , you know I still

12:39

haven't figured out how to , how to get around

12:41

that . Oh , you know , I always try

12:43

and show

12:45

unconditional love to all

12:48

my family and friends and just

12:50

have that door open , but unfortunately

12:52

you can't always go in there with a battering

12:55

ram yourself . Yeah , so I just

12:57

try and be available and let

12:59

people know that they're loved and that I'm

13:01

here to talk . We're here to talk .

13:04

What was Andrew's feelings towards Greg's passing

13:06

?

13:07

He didn't have a good reaction to Greg's passing

13:10

. Yeah , he

13:13

turned the blame on me actually

13:15

. Oh my God , sorry . After that occurred

13:17

we didn't talk for

13:19

a few years . I had to . You know , for

13:22

my own mental health I had to separate a

13:24

little bit . Yeah , yeah .

13:25

Rightfully so yeah .

13:28

And you know he . You know , unfortunately my mom really took the brunt

13:31

of it as well , because you know she kept

13:33

talking to him and you know he would

13:35

blame her as well when not an

13:37

easy thing .

13:38

No , I can't imagine your

13:40

mom . Is she getting help ? How's

13:42

she doing ?

13:44

When Greg had passed , my wife

13:46

and I became very active in

13:48

some suicide prevention

13:50

movements and , like you said

13:52

, you know we've done

13:54

walks and you

13:57

know monthly tabletop

14:00

discussions . I was

14:02

on the board of a great

14:04

group called the Taunton

14:06

Community Services Incorporated

14:10

and Amory Matulaitis

14:12

is like a ground break in

14:15

the industry for suicide prevention

14:17

. One of the folks I met through there

14:19

, steven Palm . He

14:21

lost his daughter , casey

14:24

, to suicide so he and

14:26

his wife started a foundation

14:28

and you know , as part of this whole

14:30

group we commissioned an author and

14:32

we've put you know thousands of emotional

14:35

well-being books in public schools

14:37

and you know things like that because that's really

14:39

where you want to catch . It is when kids

14:41

are young and just build those

14:43

skills in them , you know , to cope

14:46

and to have self-worth

14:48

and to be able to talk about things .

14:50

Yeah , I'll make sure I put all of those folks

14:52

in the show notes too , so that people can check that out .

14:55

Yeah , I forwarded an article to you on Steven

14:57

. I can get you some stuff on Ann

15:00

Marie as well , please do Thank you . So

15:02

back to my mom now . So I used to bring

15:04

her to those monthly tabletop meetings

15:07

and she would typically

15:09

feel worse after going to them

15:11

, but she does have a great

15:13

counselor that she does telehealth

15:16

appointments with . That's a super

15:18

support , you know , and just her getting

15:20

help herself was a huge step

15:22

.

15:23

So yeah , after going

15:25

through the research for these two shows , you

15:27

know , I sat down , I looked at my own daughter

15:29

and you can't imagine being a parent

15:31

and having to watch your kid go through that and

15:34

heartbreak and to your point , we've

15:36

had a child that has had multiple

15:39

suicide attempts and it's just

15:42

something that leaves a hole

15:44

in you that can never be repaired . Yeah

15:46

, yeah , it's interesting

15:48

because I used the word interesting very loosely

15:51

. It's interesting when we were younger

15:53

. I think you're three years old , I mean , I think you were

15:55

when I was a freshman . You were like a senior . You

15:57

know , back when we were kids you

16:00

didn't bring up Suicide

16:02

, exactly because if you brought up suicide

16:04

, people thought you were promoting it as opposed

16:06

to trying to stop it . And it'd be

16:08

nice to see Kids learning about

16:10

the impacts that this has and that there's

16:12

always somebody out there to talk to them . Much sooner

16:15

Then we learn . My

16:17

daughter kind of got traumatized . Poor kid

16:19

on the bus next to her threw up next to her and

16:21

poor kid Got super traumatized . But right

16:23

, you know , she met with the guidance counselor and then there's a resource

16:26

officer and yeah , and we didn't have that grow

16:28

it up , we had one person that was in a room and they just

16:30

stuck a band-aid on you and kicked you back into the class

16:32

.

16:32

So but again , on the flip side , with

16:34

all the kids have , that we didn't have is all

16:36

this social media . It can , while

16:38

social media I like you , I find

16:40

it nice that it connects me with

16:42

People that I went to you know high

16:45

school , with their childhood friends . But

16:47

a lot of the stuff that floats around

16:49

on social media is really detrimental

16:51

to kids and their mental health ?

16:54

Yeah , it , I was looking up some statistics and you know

16:56

you think that over the years , science and medicine

16:58

have gotten better , therapeutical access

17:00

has gotten more prevalent and you'd think

17:02

that that number would come down . But I think you

17:04

know a number I was looking at was like from 1996

17:07

when one of my friends , heather , committed

17:09

suicide . It , I think you know college age students

17:11

. It was like 31,000 had

17:13

lost their lives and then in 2022

17:16

that number went up to like 49,500 . Right

17:18

, that's , that's a 50% jump . I

17:21

mean that's insanity , right , literally and

17:23

figuratively , but right , 50% jump with

17:25

better Technology even

17:27

though there have been gains .

17:29

Unfortunately , our mental health system

17:31

is still just very

17:34

inadequate . You know , having gone

17:36

through it with various family members

17:38

and stuff , it's just yeah , it's tough

17:40

. It's really tough . If

17:43

I could just say really quick , because I've

17:45

done this before and and someone

17:47

was nice enough to correct me but we

17:50

don't say committed suicide because they

17:52

didn't commit a crime , we just say died

17:55

by suicide .

17:56

Okay , thank you . Yes , and that absolutely makes

17:58

way more sense . And you said you've

18:00

gone through it with one of your children . How has

18:02

it changed your parenting ? You obviously

18:04

having a child go through it changed your parenting

18:06

, but you know , with Greg and Andrew probably changes it

18:09

as well . So make you more cautious

18:11

or , you know , overly paranoid .

18:13

It definitely makes us really paranoid

18:15

. Yeah , it's like your

18:17

adrenaline is always Going

18:20

because you're just worried . You know

18:22

it's a hard thing .

18:23

It's got to be tough , you know you kind of walking

18:25

on eggshells , you know right , did I get too mad

18:27

? Did I get say something I shouldn't have ?

18:29

and it definitely changes your

18:32

parenting style .

18:33

Yeah , yeah for us our group

18:35

of friends that were right there in college that

18:37

had gone through it . It definitely changed us

18:39

but it made us grow up so much quicker . We

18:42

to this day Changes

18:44

that I made in my life in 1996

18:47

. I see those and you

18:49

know they come through in my parenting . Now I'm sure

18:51

everybody else kind of sees that . You said

18:53

you've done walks . I have not done a walk

18:55

, have been meaning to , but it's more

18:57

so that I'm just chubby and lazy . But

19:01

I do intend on doing some . What's

19:04

the atmosphere like there ?

19:05

So most of the people

19:07

at these walks have directly

19:09

lost a loved one , so

19:13

they tend to be pretty somber . But

19:16

I would like to think at the same time a little

19:18

bit hopeful of making

19:20

things better for the future and

19:23

hopefully preventing it from happening

19:25

to others .

19:27

I just think of that . There's got to be some sort of

19:29

it's overshadowed by the sadness , but

19:32

some sort of enthusiasm that you have to be

19:34

hopeful for that we're doing the right thing

19:36

. We're doing something , we're getting better , slowly

19:39

but truly . We're going to try to get better at handling

19:41

this . Like myself , I didn't

19:43

go out and do one . I should have done one . It's been

19:45

doing 27 years since I lost my first friend

19:47

. It's for Greg , seven or

19:49

eight years now . Yeah

19:52

, I always felt that I should do

19:54

more and hopefully this will be the start

19:57

of helping to do a little bit more

19:59

.

19:59

But you know what ? Yeah , you're doing . This podcast

20:01

is a great thing .

20:03

So hopefully we can get that message out . Is

20:05

there anything that you want to add about Greg

20:07

or Andrew or your experience ?

20:10

I mean just in general

20:13

, mental health now has its own

20:15

911 . You can dial

20:17

988 or text

20:19

to 988 and get some

20:21

compassionate help . So

20:23

that's a huge thing and there are

20:25

a lot of good resources out there which

20:28

, again , I can forward to you and maybe you can share

20:30

. Yeah , Absolutely .

20:32

Well , and I want to thank you again for your kindness

20:35

and your bravery today and just

20:37

in general in life , dealing with what

20:39

you've gone through , what your family's gone through , and

20:42

being a leader in helping others

20:44

be aware , and hopefully we can put a

20:46

stop to this as much as we can . I really

20:48

appreciate you being here and I wish you

20:50

all the best with everything .

20:51

Yeah , and I really appreciate you

20:54

asking me to join you . This is a really

20:56

cool thing that you're doing and , of course

20:58

, it's really nice to catch up with you as well .

21:02

You were one of the big brothers that didn't really beat us

21:04

up , but you would but occasionally poke

21:06

the bear with Greg and beat Greg up in front of us , just to

21:08

embarrass him a little .

21:10

You know , like you said , we had . We had kind of

21:12

a physical relationship , but not

21:15

, definitely not abusive .

21:16

So what a big brother's supposed to do ?

21:17

Yeah , right , I loved him very much and

21:20

, like back when we were in high school , it was just

21:22

just so awesome Having him

21:24

on the us , being on the tennis

21:27

team together and able to do that

21:29

type of stuff , and yeah great

21:32

times yeah .

21:33

Yeah , he's a good guy and intro us to . Yeah

21:35

, thank you , they're missed every day . Well , thank you again

21:37

, ed . Thanks .