0:00

This episode deals with the sensitive topics of suicide

0:02

and mental health . Although there won't be graphic

0:05

details , please know that the discussion will

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venture into areas that may not be suitable

0:09

for children . Therefore , parental discretion is strongly

0:11

advised . The

0:14

guest today is Jill Collado . Jill and I

0:16

graduated from the University of Rhode Island together

0:18

an unspecified number of years ago

0:20

. That's a long time . I

0:23

live with my three male roommates , around the corner

0:25

from Jill and her four female roommates

0:27

. The nine of us were extremely close and

0:29

my roommates and I were always at the girls house when we

0:31

were on campus . Before the beginning of last

0:33

semester's senior year , one of those girls

0:35

, our friend Heather Vennewald , took

0:37

her own life . September is National

0:39

Suicide Prevention Month and today Jill and

0:42

I take some time to honor our dear friend

0:44

while discussing the impact her loss had on

0:46

all of us . This is an extremely important

0:48

discussion , sometimes sad , sometimes

0:50

humorous , and we urge you to please

0:52

listen to the episode in its entirety . If

0:55

we can save just one life with our discussion

0:57

today , it will all be worth it . Jill

1:01

, who was to

1:03

you ?

1:04

Heather was my college friend

1:06

, my like fun friend . She

1:08

was a jokester . She

1:10

liked to play pranks . Scott

1:13

, I can remind you of some pranks that we played

1:15

on each other's houses , many

1:18

of which were Heather's doing she had

1:20

this like sinister evil laugh

1:22

that she would do in the background she

1:24

said when I met sophomore junior year

1:26

I can't even remember , but she was a friend of a

1:28

friend and then for senior year we

1:31

were roommates . We lived in a house of five

1:33

girls down the line in

1:35

Narragansett , rhode Island , and

1:37

not only was she my roommate but she was my bathroom-sharing

1:41

roommate , so our rooms were next to each other

1:43

, we shared a bathroom . For , as friendly as

1:45

we were beforehand , we were like thrown into

1:47

this house together and on top of each

1:49

other and became very close very fast

1:51

, and that was September of senior

1:53

year . So yeah , she

1:55

was a fun , loving friend . She was

1:57

laid back , she liked to have a good time , she

2:00

didn't take anything too seriously . She

2:02

was emotional , but I would say not

2:04

anymore than my own self

2:06

. I was in my own angst phase . I

2:08

think every college student is so we

2:11

weren't able to foreshadow is what I'm saying . She

2:13

was a regular college student , regular

2:16

21-year-old who had

2:18

crushes on boys and struggled

2:21

in class , but who didn't and liked to have

2:23

a good time . As we all were sort

2:25

of already mourning the end of our college career

2:28

Because nobody wanted to see it come to an end

2:30

.

2:30

We had talked before and I met

2:32

Heather roughly around the same time

2:35

and I met her because my

2:37

buddies were friends with her brother and

2:39

I would basically see her around campus

2:41

in the center of a flock of people and

2:43

people would just be hanging out and laughing and enjoying

2:45

life and it was just something about this girl that I

2:48

need to meet like I need to meet her and be

2:50

friends with her . I want to be part of this fun that is going

2:52

on around her at all times . You know

2:54

, we ended up hanging out and meeting and she was amazing

2:56

For me . She was just a fun loving

2:58

jokester and definitely , you know , prankaholic

3:01

. But there was also another side of her for me

3:03

that she was a shoulder to cry on

3:05

for me for a lot . I had a girlfriend at the time

3:07

and I wasn't the greatest boyfriend and she was always

3:09

there for me to kind of let me get

3:11

it off my chest and then kind of give me some great advice

3:13

, and it always was just amazing advice . All

3:16

the time we would go down by the rocks

3:18

and air against the University of Rhode Island . Partake

3:20

in some marijuana . This is the first time I think I've ever

3:22

admitted that I've done that . So there goes my political

3:24

career . But you know we would just hang out and just catch

3:27

the waves and enjoy life and just talk

3:29

about stuff . And she was just amazing . And

3:31

you're right , there was no foreshadowing . If you had

3:34

a line , 15 people up and said , you

3:36

know which one do you think is going to do

3:38

something drastic , she would never to bring a million

3:40

years been close to that .

3:41

I'm already getting teary-eyed because we haven't talked

3:43

about who she was just like at her heart

3:46

in so long , so I'm already like

3:48

emotional . The jokester stuff . I

3:50

was just literally telling somebody the story

3:52

about the forks and you got , I think

3:54

you guys placed the forks . No , we placed the

3:56

forks in your lawn . We went on the middle of the night

3:58

and placed the forks like a fork graveyard

4:01

all over your lawn and then you guys tried

4:03

to tie the tree trunk to the front of our

4:05

front door so we couldn't get out of the house

4:07

. But like Heather

4:09

was behind all of that and she was like

4:11

a little schemer , right . Yeah , we were

4:13

having a party at our house and I wanted

4:15

to invite several boys that I had

4:17

crashes on and she encouraged that

4:20

and so we like made invitations

4:22

and dropped them in mailboxes . There's so many

4:24

memories of her playing jokes like she

4:26

liked to have a good time .

4:27

You'd mentioned earlier that laugh that , laugh that little

4:29

giggle was you

4:32

knew bad stuff was going on . Yeah

4:34

, she

4:37

had plans that she was going to go through with them

4:39

and joking around in general . But

4:41

yeah , she was amazing . She was a

4:43

sister , she was a daughter , but

4:45

for us she was just an awesome , awesome friend

4:47

. 27 years later , I think about her constantly

4:50

and I often think what would she be

4:52

like today ? And I think she'd be the same . I

4:54

think she'd be an awesome friend , awesome

4:56

brother or sister . I think she'd be an awesome mom

4:58

too , and unfortunately we didn't

5:00

get to see that . So today we want

5:02

to not only celebrate her , but we want to also

5:05

make sure that folks out there kind

5:07

of look and listen for possible signs

5:09

. You mentioned it . We would never in

5:11

a million years think it was something that she would do . So

5:13

, you know , maybe nowadays , if we can dig

5:16

a little deeper and , you know , maybe see if we can , you

5:18

know , help out one person , that would be great .

5:20

I think about this all the time . I don't know

5:22

, even now , with the , I

5:25

am now in my 40s , I'm a mom

5:27

and if I look back I still don't see the signs

5:29

. So I don't know how easy it is sometimes

5:32

to see the signs .

5:33

Yeah .

5:33

But I think what's important and

5:35

what we can hopefully help even

5:38

just one person do is recognize certain

5:40

things in themselves and spread

5:42

the message of a better day lies

5:44

just around the corner . Or you can get help

5:47

or you can talk to somebody , things like that . There's

5:49

a , there's a campaign or there was this campaign

5:51

for , like LGBTQ plus youth

5:53

, like it gets better , and I thought that was a

5:55

great campaign for everyone , right . Like

5:58

there's so much that awaits you in the future

6:00

that you have no idea about . Right , you're

6:02

stuck in bad days . Now . Bad days don't last

6:05

forever and there is always help

6:07

and there's always hope , and sometimes it's hard

6:09

to get that help . I know for my

6:11

own self , for my family . It's

6:13

not always easy when you're in a shit place

6:15

to pick up the phone and try and find a new therapist

6:18

and new psychiatrist . You're often hit with

6:20

roadblocks , whether they're insurance or people

6:22

don't have time on their schedule , and so that's

6:24

when you reach out to a friend or a family

6:26

member and let them help you navigate that . But

6:28

there is always help out there and

6:31

there are always brighter days ahead , and

6:33

I I wish Heather could have seen the

6:35

future . I think she had temporary problems

6:38

that could have been solved and

6:40

she , I would assume , has had deeper

6:42

issues that Scott we talked about this

6:44

earlier maybe would have been recognized now

6:47

or dealt with in a different way because we know

6:49

so much more about mental health and

6:51

medication to chemical imbalance

6:53

. It's not somebody's fault where we say , like

6:55

if you were diabetic , you would treat your diabetes

6:57

with insulin . Mental illness could be a

6:59

chemical imbalance and people need

7:01

medication to help them and that's okay

7:03

, yeah .

7:04

Sitting down and researching for a chat

7:07

. I did some kind of stats and I

7:09

thought about how , back when we were in

7:11

school you know , we graduated in 1996 , there

7:13

was a stigma about it , about mental health in general

7:15

, but also from a suicide standpoint . That

7:17

was not talked about at all and if you did

7:20

talk about it , it was seen as you promoting

7:22

it . You know , don't even put the idea in someone's head , don't

7:24

mention the word suicide , because that's going to make someone do it and that

7:27

was such a wrong idea for all of us . You

7:29

know , now , over the years we've expanded

7:31

our knowledge of mental health . We've expanded our

7:33

potential chemical imbalance treatments . We've

7:35

done a lot and you think that that would

7:37

diminish these numbers and these

7:39

numbers are growing at astronomical

7:42

rates . You know , one of the numbers I looked at was

7:44

the suicide rate in 1996

7:47

for 15 to 24 year olds I

7:49

was 13% of the deaths

7:51

were suicide . There was 31,000

7:53

people in 1996 . In 2023

7:56

, with better knowledge and

7:58

the stigma being kind of withdrawn and

8:00

you know medicine and all sorts of things

8:03

were designed to really help folks that number

8:05

has climbed to 49,500

8:07

. That's crazy , you know . I know the world's kind of tough

8:09

, but there's so many other options and

8:11

hopefully we can get there and open people's eyes

8:13

. You know , without getting into the

8:15

specifics and the graphic details , you

8:18

unfortunately were the one to

8:20

find Heather . You know , again without

8:22

getting into detail . Would you describe

8:24

that to people listening ?

8:26

Yeah , and I hope you don't mind that I like go

8:28

into the spiritual a little because I don't know

8:30

if you remember this story , but it is a little freaky

8:32

element to it . Yeah , but it was

8:35

Christmas break between our first

8:37

and second semester senior year and

8:39

Heather went back to school early

8:41

I didn't know why and our other friend

8:43

, mike , was up at school . So they were the only two

8:45

up in Rhode Island . The rest of us were

8:48

home with our families and I

8:50

was just sort of growing bored of being at

8:52

home . And so I called Heather from

8:54

my dad's house and said hey , I'm

8:56

coming back early . If I was supposed to come back on

8:58

Saturday , I was coming back Thursday

9:00

. And we got into a little bit of a

9:02

argument and I didn't realize why

9:04

. It wasn't really an argument , but she's like why are you coming back

9:06

early ? Little attitude , I don't know . And

9:09

coming back early , I want to come up

9:11

. So I drove up four hours . It

9:13

was snowing . I was very emotional because

9:15

I was driving up to my last semester of senior

9:18

year and my four years at URI

9:20

had been amazing . I never wanted to leave

9:22

. I'd still go back , happily Same here , and

9:25

I was . I was very emotional about

9:27

going back . And then I remember I got

9:29

off the exit , for you know , to

9:31

go towards our house . I stopped at the Wendy's drive-through

9:34

. I had a car phone . It wasn't a mobile phone

9:36

, I had a car phone . Oh , big time I know

9:38

. Yeah , I had some swagger

9:40

back then called Heather from

9:42

our , called the house , and I left the message

9:45

on the answering machine , on her voicemail

9:47

, the answering machine saying hey

9:49

, do you want anything ? I'm coming home . Anyway , I

9:51

got to our house and I parked

9:53

in the driveway . I took my key . I went up to

9:55

the front door Same key that had been used

9:57

from September through December when we

9:59

left for Christmas break and the key

10:01

didn't work . The key would not go into the door . Now

10:04

I knew that the same key was not used

10:06

for the garage , but I was tired and

10:08

21 . I went to the garage door

10:10

and tried to open it . It didn't work . So I went back up to

10:12

the front door , tried the key again . It did not work

10:14

. I then took out my green

10:16

, fabulous Nokia car phone and

10:19

called Mike

10:21

, who was at his house , you know , and

10:23

they had been together . I called him and I said hey

10:25

, my key is not working . You guys have a spare key

10:28

. I don't know where Heather is . Can you come over

10:30

with your spare key ? He said Sure , I'll be over in a minute

10:32

. He pulls up and he says my spare key

10:34

is gone . Didn't realize why at the

10:36

time , but his spare key was gone . He takes

10:39

my key , he goes right up to my front door

10:41

, puts it in and it works . And

10:44

it hadn't worked five minutes

10:46

earlier to this day . Believe somebody was

10:48

looking after me and was making sure

10:50

I did not go into that house alone . So

10:52

we go into the house and nothing

10:54

seems off and we're like Heather . Heather , we didn't

10:56

know where she was . Her car wasn't out front

10:58

. We go into the kitchen and there's a note

11:00

it says Jill , so sorry

11:02

, put the paraphernalia away . And

11:05

I'm so sorry , and I was like what is going

11:07

on ? We then go into her room looking

11:09

for her and there's cards on her bed , one

11:12

addressed to the four girls and one

11:14

addressed , I think it was Mike . I don't remember

11:16

exact details . A little fuzzy , yeah

11:18

, and we open up the

11:21

card . It didn't say anything other than like I

11:23

love you . I don't remember the specifics

11:25

and Mike , unfortunately , had had a grandfather

11:28

who passed from suicide and we both looked

11:30

at each other and sort of knew he's like

11:32

I'm going into the garage . Oh , I think the note in

11:34

the kitchen said something like Don't go into the

11:36

garage alone . There was a reason . We knew she was

11:38

in the garage . So we kind of knew . He

11:40

said I'm going in the garage . I said I'm not going in the garage

11:43

. I said I'm calling 911 . I

11:45

called 911 and I said I think my

11:47

roommate killed herself . I don't remember

11:49

the conversation much . I do remember , a

11:51

few minutes later , hearing the sirens . Mike

11:53

went into the garage . He couldn't see the light had burnt

11:56

out , so he couldn't see anything . So we

11:58

didn't really see anything . Yeah , I

12:00

heard the sirens coming , the fire , the fire

12:02

truck arrived . There was snow on the ground

12:04

too . So the fire truck arrives

12:06

, firemen go in , they go down into

12:08

the basement . We showed them where , and one comes up

12:11

like a few minutes later and I said is she down

12:13

there ? And they're like yeah . I said , is

12:15

she dead ? And they said yes , from

12:18

that point on you're just numb . Yeah , we waited

12:20

for cops to arrive . We

12:22

had to wait for the medical examiner and his car was

12:24

stuck in the snow somewhere . And so they

12:27

came into our house oh my god . And we sat

12:29

down at the kitchen table You're

12:31

in a fog . And they said we

12:33

have to open all the windows . There was so much carbon

12:35

monoxide in the house Also that if I

12:37

had come in by myself , hadn't figured

12:39

it out and gone to sleep , I probably

12:42

would have been killed myself .

12:43

Yeah .

12:43

That is what they told me . I then had to

12:45

call my other friends , so I

12:47

think I called Marissa first

12:49

. The rest is fuzzy . Who called who

12:52

? It's fuzzy , I know the girls remember

12:54

their individual stories and called my

12:56

parents , my dad three

12:58

, four hours away , and they packed up the car and

13:00

drove up . It was like you were just

13:02

going through the motion . I remember certain things

13:04

, I can visualize certain things , but

13:06

all of it is a fog . I will say there's

13:09

also a funny memory in there . I like

13:11

to try and add humor where we can or remember

13:13

. There's always light in these moments . Heather's

13:15

brother was friends with this guy , carl , who was

13:17

a cop in town , and we called him

13:19

Carl the Cop , ctc .

13:21

I remember Carl the Cop .

13:22

Carl the Cop , CTC . We had his picture hanging

13:24

in our house . I don't know why , but

13:27

it was on the refrigerator and

13:29

the sheriff comes in and

13:31

he looks at me and goes why is Carl

13:33

hanging on your fridge ? I

13:36

was like Heather did that , Like that was back

13:39

to the jokester theme . I was Heather , we

13:41

had a picture of Carl the Cop hanging on a refrigerator

13:43

and so there was a moment of levity

13:45

in all of this . Oh my gosh . I mean

13:47

, yes , I never saw her , thank God

13:50

. But the PTSD that came along

13:52

with that and the anxiety . I

13:54

would have had anxiety and PTSD regardless

13:56

. But I think the added piece of finding

13:59

her in that moment has changed

14:01

my life . The path went in a just totally

14:03

different direction . But also the story

14:05

of knowing somebody was looking after me . I've

14:07

never known . I'm agnostic , I don't know what

14:10

I believe in , I don't know if I believe in God , but I do

14:12

believe there was some sort of force looking

14:14

after me that day . But I was not alone when I

14:16

walked into that house .

14:17

That's so amazing .

14:18

I guess . And then crazy things happened

14:20

after that , even when all the girls got

14:22

together , like there were stories of weird

14:25

things happening that we looked at as

14:27

a sign . I mean , maybe in the time we just needed it

14:29

. We needed a sign because we were just

14:31

421-year-old kids who

14:33

thought we were adults . Looking back now

14:36

, as a mom , I can't imagine

14:38

my child going through something like that

14:40

or the way in which my

14:42

life changed in an instant .

14:43

So I had actually come up earlier

14:45

. I was still working Don't want to brag

14:48

Worked at a video store . People

14:50

were like , what's that old guy

14:52

? I had stayed up at school and I was

14:54

working at the video store and one of

14:56

my friends from home who didn't go to school that's came

14:58

up to visit . We'll go out to some of

15:00

the bars . There's some folks still floating around and

15:02

we ran into Mike and Heather at

15:04

Charlie O's that night . I never knew

15:06

that . Yeah , we ran into them . Heather

15:09

was very emotional . I introduced her to my

15:11

friend and she was kind of sniffling and I was like what's

15:13

the matter ? She was like nothing , nothing , nothing Must be

15:15

allergies . And Mike was like , yeah

15:17

, she just drunken , she's just being emotional . And

15:19

she gave me a hug , goodbye and excuse

15:22

me , my buddy . I went back to my house and

15:24

he was like I don't feel like hanging out here . There's

15:26

no chicks , there's no nothing . I'm going home . I'm like really

15:28

Just going to drive home in the snow and after

15:30

a few drinks , you know , we're all juggernauts and

15:33

we're all immortal . At that point we think and

15:35

he's like yep , I'm just going to leave . And we left . I said

15:37

, well , I'm not ready to go to bed and

15:39

what we do . I got in the car and I drove around to your

15:41

house because that's what we would always do , even

15:44

though we lived like 100 feet away , we

15:46

found it necessary at all times

15:48

Drive , yeah , to get in the car and go around

15:50

the corner . So I actually drove by your

15:52

house and Heather's car was not out front

15:54

, there were no lights on and I

15:57

just kept going .

15:58

I never knew that , Scott , and all these years I never knew that

16:00

you saw her that night . You must have told us

16:02

like 100 years ago , but I didn't know .

16:04

I dealt with it for a good five , six

16:06

years . You know , in my head I was like I would have

16:08

driven through the garage door . I would have done this . There's

16:11

no way . I would have known . There's absolutely no

16:13

way .

16:14

How could you have known ?

16:15

Kind of like a weird survivor's guilt that you deal

16:17

with .

16:18

I determined the date of her death . I

16:20

was supposed to come back later . She had to do

16:22

it early because I came back early

16:24

. Scott , I've lived with that for 100

16:26

years . I have said this 100

16:28

times . I have talked about her suicide millions

16:31

of times over the years . Every

16:33

single person who's going to listen to this has had bad

16:35

days . Every single person has said like I

16:38

just don't want to go on . There is a huge

16:40

difference between feeling

16:42

depressed , feeling anxious and not

16:44

wanting to deal with your life and actually

16:47

taking the steps necessary to

16:49

end it . There is something

16:51

very different in that mind . It

16:53

doesn't mean anything was wrong with her , but

16:56

back to the whole point of not knowing as much

16:58

about chemical imbalances and mental

17:00

health . People can talk about all right , I don't

17:02

want to live , shoot me , whatever . But it takes

17:04

a very different person to go through what

17:06

she went through . She methodically thought

17:09

it out . She took a key from

17:11

Mike's house so that he couldn't come

17:13

save her if he had caught on . She

17:15

wrote letters . She went into

17:17

that car and turned on the ignition and sat there . She

17:19

had time to get out and she did not . She

17:22

really wanted to not be here anymore . That

17:24

is the saddest thing , because we all know

17:26

we could have helped if we had known , but there was no

17:28

way to know .

17:30

Yeah , yeah , I

17:32

ended up coming back and I just went to bed and

17:35

then a couple of my roommates came back that

17:37

next day and I think it was you

17:39

who called . You called us , evan

17:41

picked the phone up . He just went white , just

17:44

gone the color out of his

17:46

face . And then he told us I mean

17:48

, we were all obviously shocked . I was so

17:51

unbelievably shocked because I had literally seen

17:53

her that night . And you

17:56

start putting the pieces together after the fact . It

17:58

was just the tears

18:00

, the hug , the driving around the corner and

18:03

it was just so

18:05

much . And you mentioned the 21

18:07

. We were all 21 . And

18:09

that's such a fuzzy stage

18:12

of life because you're technically

18:14

an adult , you're like legally an adult but you're not really

18:17

an adult . And we literally had to grow up

18:19

. Like that minute , yeah , the minute

18:21

we all found out that Heather had done

18:23

that , we all had to grow up immediately

18:25

. That's a lot for kids to

18:27

do , you know . That's just . It's

18:30

an astronomical amount of time and maturity

18:33

to go through in 25

18:35

seconds .

18:36

We were there like scary , or

18:38

two days later . I can't imagine their grief

18:40

. I do remember speaking to

18:42

Mrs Benelog . We called her Mrs B and

18:45

like she asked , like what you know . She was just

18:47

looking for any answers and we didn't have them

18:49

. I was fortunate that I kept up a relationship

18:51

with Mrs B . She , unfortunately

18:53

, has passed in the last few years

18:55

. You know , 10 years later I saw

18:57

her . 15 years later I saw her . She was

18:59

still looking for answers and there were answers

19:02

I still couldn't have . But yeah , I mean

19:04

immediately after we all gathered

19:06

at the Benelog House , I

19:08

mean it was my first wake . I'm Jewish , you

19:10

know we don't look at bodies . Well

19:13

, this is another crazy story . But

19:15

we get to the wake and we all , like we

19:18

literally held hands and walking together . I mean

19:20

I wouldn't . This is when I like learned to

19:22

lean on my girlfriends . I mean I've always leaned on my

19:24

friends . But we literally held hands

19:26

, walking together , and we walked up to the casket together

19:28

and she was dressed in Marissa's outfit

19:31

. Sorry about that , but

19:34

like her brother and sister had

19:37

gone up and we all shared clothes , so

19:39

Marissa's clothes had been in Heather's room

19:41

and so they took a skirt

19:43

and a shirt and they put it out . You know , that's

19:46

what they buried her in and it was Marissa's . And

19:48

Marissa got up to the coffin . She's like that's

19:50

my outfit , and not in a mean way . She was

19:52

emotional about it that her

19:54

best friend was going to be buried in her outfit

19:56

. And I think I

19:58

said something like I think this is the last

20:00

time we'll all be together and somebody everyone looked

20:03

at me like fuck you , like why

20:05

say that ? It just added fuel

20:07

to the fire ? I know , but then

20:09

in the back of my head I was still a 21 year old I

20:11

remember the boy I was like hooking up with at

20:13

the time had come from Rhode Island or wherever

20:15

he was , and come to the wake and I was like , look

20:18

who's here , like my crush , but

20:21

Heather would have wanted that , of course . And

20:23

then her nails were painted a funny color

20:25

and we're like , oh my God , she would be fucking miserable

20:28

that her nails were like salmon's ink and

20:30

her lipstick was not a color she would wear . You

20:33

know , yeah , the thing I was going to say

20:35

about talking about growing up we I

20:37

think our parents called our landlord , we

20:39

didn't want to move back into that house and

20:41

we had no choice , yeah . And so once

20:43

again , the four of us went

20:45

up together , held hands and walked through that

20:47

front door . The bravery that

20:50

took to do that and the props that I

20:52

give my younger self and all of us to walk

20:54

into that house after what had happened is

20:56

amazing . And , as I

20:58

mentioned , I'm Jewish . In the Jewish religion

21:00

, we sit Shiva , and we decided we didn't want our

21:02

house to be the place that people like

21:05

wouldn't go to . So we decided we were going to have

21:07

like a sit Shiva and we were going to invite people to

21:09

our house , invite everyone to come in and say

21:11

like there's nothing creepy about this house , this is

21:13

our house . And we did that . I

21:15

think it was helpful for us . Once again , like

21:18

I don't know which one of us thought of that we were

21:20

acting older than I expected us to be . But

21:22

then again , a week later , we were all in therapy together

21:24

. We should have kept going , but we

21:26

didn't . And then that last semester

21:28

, I mean , we used to sing the

21:31

go-go song . Do you hear them ? They

21:33

talk about us . People would whisper about

21:36

us because we were the girls who friend had committed

21:38

suicide and I only had one class

21:40

, so I had a lot of free time on my hands , which

21:43

is not good when you're dealing with something

21:45

traumatic , so I was basically

21:47

inebriated 24 seven and

21:49

that was the only way I could get through that last semester of

21:51

college .

21:52

I remember going to the wake and

21:54

looking around and seeing everybody

21:56

cry and I couldn't . I don't

21:58

know why . I remember she wanted to ask

22:01

me if I was okay and I was like , yeah , I'm fine and

22:03

I wasn't fine , you're not fine , you just don't know

22:05

how to process any of it . It didn't

22:07

hit me until I

22:09

was still working . At two or three days later I had to

22:11

go to work . I had broken up with

22:13

my ex-girlfriend at the time and she

22:15

walked through the door and she was like hi

22:17

, I heard , are you okay ? And that

22:19

made it real Like that was . You

22:22

know , we knew . But once you

22:24

know , the campus started to hear and

22:26

you mentioned your bravery and

22:29

I've said this to you girls a hundred

22:31

times , well , maybe one time , but it was

22:33

. I mean , that got me through

22:35

that year , just watching you all take

22:38

it in stride and , you know , just keeping

22:40

a smile on your face as much as you could . And

22:43

you live in your lives and it

22:45

was . It was just really inspirational

22:47

to me because I

22:49

had a lot of cracks and we

22:51

all did .

22:52

We were just hiding it . I mean , yes , we

22:54

had bravery , we got through it . None of us failed

22:56

out . And it's a rumor you don't get all A's

22:59

when your roommate dies in college . That was a

23:01

bad rumor . People always ask

23:03

me that . But I think about all

23:05

of us . I mean to the degree , like my girlfriends

23:08

. I know like the trajectory of our lives

23:10

all changed in that moment and

23:12

I can sit here and do you know

23:14

a masterclass on which direction

23:17

everyone went and how it affected their lives

23:19

in some good ways and bad . I think

23:21

you know we talked about this beforehand , but

23:23

there were plenty of times in my life where I felt

23:25

like at the end of my rope , but like suicide was

23:27

never an option , because I know it gets better

23:29

. I know that . So in some ways

23:31

, heather saved my life . I know a few people

23:33

I'm not going to mention names who are related to

23:36

our friend group . Heather saved their

23:38

lives too , for sure , because

23:40

they knew the impact it would have and

23:42

they realized it wasn't the answer . And so

23:44

there are pros there that she ended up

23:46

saving people's lives , but there are cons too . I

23:48

mean I have two children , one's 15

23:51

now and one is 12 . There

23:53

are no children out there who don't suffer from

23:55

anxiety and depression . But I'm a

23:57

catastrophic thinker now . So if something

23:59

is really bad , I worry that they're going to take

24:01

their lives and that is no way to go through life

24:04

and no way to go through parenting . They

24:06

are aware , they know about Heather . I talked

24:08

about her . I literally last

24:10

month we were up in Rhode Island . I drove past the house

24:12

. They know about her . It has affected

24:15

my parenting 100% and my husband

24:17

and I talk about it . He's like you think every

24:19

problem they're going to commit suicide . It's a real issue

24:21

.

24:21

Yeah , no , I thought I had the same conversation

24:23

. You know , I'm always concerned . You know

24:25

, did we push this person's buttons too much ? Did we

24:27

do ? Did we say something that was too

24:30

mean ? Or you never know , because we

24:32

were in a situation where we didn't know . And

24:34

it's interesting because there are almost textbook

24:36

examples of what depression looks like

24:39

and crisis thinking

24:41

and that sort of thing . Nothing ever happens

24:43

. And then you have somebody that there

24:45

were no signs from our view and

24:47

something did happen .

24:48

You always say you never know what's going on inside

24:50

somebody's mind . I mean , there have been a few

24:52

high profile cases of college suicide

24:55

. There was that one track athlete

24:57

. She was from New Jersey , she had everything

24:59

going for her and she jumped off a building at college

25:02

. I think it's those ones that shock

25:04

you the most , but those are the ones you have to look after , those

25:06

who appear to have everything , appear to have it all

25:08

together . You know they look like

25:10

there's no cracks in their foundation . Those

25:12

are the ones where you should make sure you're checking

25:15

their foundation . But how can you right and

25:17

to be their prying friend and annoying friend

25:19

? I think it's very difficult to really

25:21

then decide these to tell you the signs that people

25:24

are getting their stuff away . Heather didn't give her shit

25:26

away . She didn't give us anything .

25:30

She took more of his clothes . We all have

25:32

each other's clothes .

25:32

But yes , you know , those signs

25:35

weren't there . I

25:37

don't know what the signs are anymore , but

25:39

I do think social media and

25:41

today's world is not helping our youth

25:43

. They look at everyone's lives and think

25:45

everything's perfect and I try and tell

25:47

my kids like it's Instagram versus reality

25:49

. It's not Instagram for them , it's like Snapchat , I guess

25:51

. But I can't imagine the added pressure

25:54

if we had that when we were in college . But I

25:56

think that's adding to it .

25:57

Most definitely so . The wake of the funeral

25:59

or over , you come back to school . Does

26:01

the university contact you or do anything

26:04

specific to help out ?

26:05

No , the president of the Pan-Hellenic

26:07

Foundation because some of us were in sororities

26:09

came to the wake . After that , there was

26:11

nothing , not one phone call , not

26:13

one letter , nothing . I actually wrote

26:16

to the school years ago and made mention

26:18

of it , but there was nothing . They did not reach

26:20

out to see if we were okay and I think that's

26:22

. I mean , look , it wasn't literally

26:24

100 years ago . They should have known better and

26:27

I think they just wanted to brush it under the rug

26:29

.

26:29

I mean , when you think about it , it's a huge PR

26:31

issue for recruiting and our landlord

26:34

, our landlord's like please don't tell anyone .

26:36

He wanted to make sure he could fill his house the next

26:38

year . Really , Nobody wanted to talk about

26:40

it . I mean , now there is this Heather Fund

26:42

. It is started at URI by

26:44

the Venowalves . There is a

26:46

walk every year where they raise money

26:48

for the Heather Fund . It's through the counseling

26:51

center and they offer different services

26:53

. Stuff exists , but I still don't

26:55

know if it goes far enough . We need to continue

26:58

the conversation , continue the dialogue , which is why

27:00

my friends and I are going up October

27:03

15th to URI to do

27:05

the walk . I also happened to be in possession

27:07

of all of the albums that were

27:09

put together for Heather's family at

27:11

the time of the funeral . I have them here . Heather's sister

27:14

sent them to me . Me and my friends have never all

27:16

been together to look at them all together . So we are

27:18

going to do that . We're going to toast to Heather

27:20

and throw some drinks back also

27:22

and celebrate her life and do what

27:24

we can to raise money to help the Heather Fund

27:26

. That's fantastic .

27:28

I had borrowed a CD from Heather

27:30

back when we had CDs after she passed away

27:32

. I still had it and I selfishly kept

27:34

it because I wanted something of hers . I

27:37

used to pull it out all the time and pop it in . Do

27:39

you remember the band Second Step ? No

27:41

, it was a funky reggae band that used to play at the bars

27:43

all the time . Well , maybe it rings a bell , but I ended

27:45

up keeping it and I would pop it in every so often

27:47

. Now I don't have any technology to

27:49

pop it in too .

27:51

No , you do not .

27:53

I'm like what do I do with this thing now ? Yeah , so I have to

27:55

go to the thrift store and see if I could buy a CD player . It

27:57

was something that I didn't think of at first , and then

27:59

I just wanted to keep . Obviously , I think of her all the

28:01

time . I wanted that piece to keep

28:03

for myself .

28:04

It's interesting . She had a ring that I remember

28:06

and I know , karen , her sister had it

28:08

afterwards and I can picture it and

28:10

for the last how many years since we graduated

28:12

I've looked for a ring similar to it and I've

28:15

never found that exact ring . But literally

28:17

every time I go online or in a

28:19

store I look for something similar to that ring and

28:21

I've never found anything that quite matches it

28:23

.

28:24

So one of the other brave things that you all did

28:26

was you had a graduation

28:28

party in the house ?

28:29

Yes , and there was video proof .

28:31

There is . I saw it . It's shocking . I have

28:33

it on YouTube . What was I mean

28:35

? You had obviously had people over . We had gone over

28:37

. It took us a little while to just kind of get settled

28:39

back in , but it was very interesting

28:42

. It was just nice to have that party

28:44

and that was something that people all over were

28:46

having parties , but we wanted to make sure that that was

28:48

what we went to . That was the part that

28:50

we went to . That was where we were going to spend

28:52

our kind of last night as college

28:54

students . What were the emotions like ? Do you remember

28:56

the emotions of that setting that up and actually

28:58

go on without Heather ?

29:00

I feel like it was a conscious decision to

29:02

have it . We I mean talk

29:04

about emotions . Like I said before

29:06

, it was the culmination of four years , the

29:09

best four years of my life , and I can still

29:11

honestly say that , even with this tragedy that

29:13

occurred and leaving the place

29:15

where Heather had been with us and

29:17

she didn't get to graduate , I think

29:19

all of us were trying to be positive

29:21

and , like , honestly , like , celebrate our accomplishments

29:24

, celebrate ourselves I think we

29:26

realized we were brave at the time celebrate

29:28

life and also , like I don't know , pour

29:30

one out and celebrate the amazing

29:32

four years we had and , like sort of

29:34

say goodbye to the end of that

29:37

era . I don't think we had any

29:39

second thoughts about throwing that party

29:41

. That's not the right word . Like we said , we should do

29:43

a party . We made the decision to do it and

29:45

we never looked back . One roommate

29:47

wasn't able to really be there as much

29:50

. It was just too much for her . We

29:52

had to try and go on with life as best we

29:55

could , and maybe we were faking it and we

29:57

were probably just really drunk to just get

29:59

through that . I mean , like I said

30:01

, my whole last semester is sort of a blur

30:03

, but I remember thinking well , life

30:05

is short , we have to do this , we have to

30:07

celebrate and we need to go on . The real depression

30:10

honestly came after leaving school

30:12

. I left my entire support system . I

30:14

moved home to New Jersey Mike was

30:16

nearby and Mike and I were like attached

30:19

at the hip , as we had been since . We have gone

30:21

through this whole thing together . But my entire friend

30:23

group was gone , my entire support system , everyone

30:25

who knew what happened and , like you , leave these four

30:27

amazing years and leaving this tragedy

30:30

and leaving all your best friends . And I have to get a

30:32

job . I mean , it was like all the shitty things

30:34

happening and that's when my

30:36

real depression came in . And

30:38

about a year later , I moved into the city and

30:40

I would say I became like a wild one . You know , within

30:42

reason , but I was like making up for

30:45

something , filling holes in my heart . I

30:47

wasn't in therapy at the time and I

30:49

was partying to fill those voids .

30:51

Yeah , that's probably like the darkest

30:53

time for me too . I was still hurting

30:56

and reeling from Heather and I just

30:58

was not prepared to grow

31:00

up and I remember , you know , having those

31:02

terrible thoughts myself and thinking

31:04

, you know , it's just easier to get rid of the whole

31:06

situation and I thought about

31:08

the impact that the loss of Heather had on us

31:10

and I couldn't do that

31:12

to my friends and my mother and my

31:14

family . I just I couldn't . So

31:17

in that regard it definitely , you know , saved me

31:19

as well . Wish there had been a better way

31:21

to save me .

31:23

Of course , yeah .

31:24

Well , jill , this has been awesome , catching up with you talking

31:27

about our friend and she's

31:29

one of a kind , and I hope that

31:31

if anybody's listening , that there's help out there . There's

31:34

friends , family . I'm

31:36

going to make sure that I put all the numbers

31:38

in the show notes , but the one to

31:40

remember is 988 . That is the

31:42

suicide , financial , suicide prevention

31:44

hotline . There's someone to talk to

31:47

, there's someone to listen . Please give

31:49

that a shot before you make any other decisions

31:51

, because there's

31:53

a lot of pain that goes around with all that

31:55

, but you're definitely not alone

31:57

.

31:58

I feel like I didn't do this topic justice . I

32:00

feel like I can talk about it forever , but I

32:03

feel like we did header justice . But I don't know that

32:05

you could ever do this topic justice . Everything

32:08

in my mind just keeps going back to you

32:10

never know what lies around the corner . Right , you think

32:12

you're at the end of a dead end street , but then there's

32:15

something waiting for you . It might not be tomorrow

32:17

, it might not be the next day , but things always turn

32:19

around . Things can always get better

32:21

. Yeah , it's tough , Life's

32:23

tough , and I think you also have to realize life's

32:25

tough , but there will always be good moments

32:28

too .

32:28

Yeah , well , thanks again , jill for being on . This

32:30

is great . Heather , we love you , we

32:33

miss you .

32:33

I can't say something like that without breaking

32:36

down .

32:37

Yeah , that was a tough one .

32:39

We leave sunflowers for her at Coast

32:41

Guard whenever we go . Yeah .

32:43

It's funny . I plant sunflowers , big

32:45

skyscrapers , sunflowers in my backyard every year For

32:48

her . I can never grow good ones , they always die

32:50

and I always think she's messing with me .

32:52

She's for sure messing with you . Like I said

32:54

, there's a whole like another podcast of all the

32:56

ways she messed with us . After the

32:58

fact , there were so many things

33:00

that were like , oh my god , this had to be her . But

33:02

she's definitely looking down on us now

33:05

, Scott , and honestly laughing at the fact

33:07

that we're both sitting here crying . We're both

33:09

sitting here crying and she is making fun of us .

33:12

Rolling a rise at us , as always . Absolutely

33:14

All right . Well , thank you again and

33:17

again . Everything will be in the show notes and

33:19

we thank you for listening .