Ep 131: Teaching people to grieve with me (A conversation with Amy Ortloff)

10 Things To Tell You

Laura Tremaine

Society & Culture, Unknown, Personal Journals

4.7 • 930 Ratings

🗓️ 24 August 2021

⏱️ 68 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Content warning: Child loss and suicide This episode is one of the most tender and important I’ve ever shared on this show, and I am just so deeply grateful to Amy Ortloff for having this conversation with me and letting me make it public. In 2017, Amy Ortloff lost her middle child Ryan to suicide. Ryan was just 17 years old. Less than a week after his death, Amy took to her personal Facebook page and starting sharing every single day. She began by sharing stories about Ryan, family memories and examples of the kind of kid he was. She didn't want her child to be forgotten. As the weeks went by, deep in grief, Amy also started sharing her own experiences of this devastating time she was living through. She shared what she was learning in therapy, she set and shared her personal boundaries for interaction for those in her small town Oklahoma community. Amy's sharing was raw and vulnerable. It was heartbreaking and powerful. I made a point to read her posts every day that first year after Ryan. This episode is about the effects of that real-time sharing during the hardest time of her life, the positive and the negative. Amy was teaching us how to grieve with her, and it made an enormous impact on me long before I ever wrote a book about sharing stuff. If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or text TALK to 741741. Read Amy Ortloff's blog Keep Going Follow Amy Ortloff on Facebook here * Thank you for listening to 10 Things To Tell You. Please share this episode with anyone who might need to listen to Amy's story. Follow @10ThingsToTellYou on IG Follow @10ThingsToTellYou on FB Follow @laura.tremaine on IG Follow @mslauratremaine on FB Join the 10 Things To Tell You Connection Group Listen to SECRET STUFF Buy Share Your Stuff. I'll Go First. by Laura Tremaine Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Content warning for this episode includes child loss and suicide.
0:05.0	Please take care while listening. Oh, I'm Laura Tremaine and I have 10 things to tell you and you have 10 things to tell you. And you have 10 things to tell. This show is about connection with each other and with ourselves.
0:40.0	And the hope is that the things we talk about here will be fuel for better conversations and a personal awareness.
0:47.0	This is an interactive podcast.
0:51.0	Each episode has a prompt and a topic that I want you to take to your journal, text to your best friend, or answer on social media using the hashtag 10 things to tell you.
1:02.0	This is a show about digging deeper and sharing our stuff.
1:06.0	I'll go first.
1:10.0	This episode is one of the most tender and important that I've ever shared on this show
1:15.7	and I am just so deeply grateful to my friend Amy Orlof for having this conversation with me
1:22.4	and letting me make it public. I grew up with
1:26.2	Amy's husband Steve in our tiny town in Oklahoma of about 4,000 people. Steve is my sister's age.
1:34.0	He has a younger brother, my brother's age,
1:36.6	and then another younger brother, about my age.
1:39.1	And our parents were very close friends
1:41.4	when we were growing up.
1:42.3	I have known this family my whole life
1:45.7	In 2017 Steve and Amy lost their middle child Ryan Ryan, to suicide.
1:53.7	Ryan was 17, he had just finished his junior year of high school.
1:58.5	It was a devastating heartbreak, of course,
2:01.2	to their family and to the whole community really.
2:05.0	About a week after Ryan died, Amy started posting on her Facebook page every single day.
2:11.0	Little stories about Ryan, memories, what the grief felt like.
	...

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