Betsy Thibaut Stephenson (Losing a Police Officer Son to Suicide, Ethical Public Relations and Grief) - Episode 1086

Behind The Shield

James Geering

Health & Fitness, Mental Health, Fitness

4.9 • 667 Ratings

🗓️ 20 May 2025

⏱️ 136 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Betsy Thibaut Stephenson lost her law enforcement son Charlie to suicide in 2022. We discuss her work in communications, ethics in public relations, losing her son, her grief journey, writing Blackbird and so much more.

Blackbird: A Mother’s Reflections on Grief, Loss, and Life After Suicide, by Betsy Thibaut Stephenson, is a concise and brutally honest memoir about the emotional, physical, and spiritual impact of deep despair. By unflinchingly pulling back the curtain of fear and shame, Betsy’s story inspires important conversations about mental health, grief resilience, and creating a path toward healing.

Betsy Stephenson wrote Blackbird after her son Charlie’s death. She lives in Alexandria, Virginia with her husband and Labrador retrievers. When she isn’t visiting her grown daughters in North Carolina and South Carolina, she is helping public affairs clients tell their story to policymakers and the mediahe emotional, physical, and interpersonal toll of grief; and the steps I’ve taken to retrain my body and brain to heal and re-emerge. I will also share resources, musings, and inspiration about life and growth.

https://www.blackbirdbetsy.com/

Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode is sponsored by Transcend, a veteran-owned and operated performance optimization company
0:05.9	that I introduced recently as a sponsor on this show.
0:09.5	Well, since then, I have actually been using my products, and I have had incredible success.
0:14.5	There was initial blood work that was extremely detailed, and based on that, they offered supplementation.
0:20.6	So I began taking DHEA, BPC 157 for inflammation
0:25.3	based on the fact that I've been a stuntman, a martial artist and a firefighter in my whole life,
0:29.9	lots of aches and pains, dihexa to help cognition after multiple punches to the head and shift work
0:36.1	and peptides. Four months later they they did a detailed blood work again,
0:40.1	and I was actually able to taper off two of the peptides
0:43.2	because my body had responded so well to just one of them
0:46.3	that it was optimized at that point.
0:48.5	So I cannot speak highly enough of the immense range of supplementation
0:53.4	that they offer, whether it's male health,
0:55.6	female health, peptides to boost your own testosterone, which I would argue is needed by a lot of
1:00.7	the fire service, or whether it's exogenous testosterone needed, especially after TBI's or advanced
1:06.5	age. Now, as I mentioned before, the other side of this company is an altruistic arm called
1:11.9	the Transcend Foundation, which is putting veterans and first responders through some of their
1:17.2	protocols free of charge. Now, Transcend are also offering you the audience 10% off their protocols,
1:24.5	and you can find that on Jamesgearing.com under the products tab.
1:28.8	And if you want to hear more about Transcend and their story, listen to episode 808 with the founder,
1:35.5	Ernie Colling. Or go to transcendcompany.com.
1:41.3	This episode is sponsored by TeamBuilder, yet another company that's doing great things for the first responder community.
	...

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