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Jason MacKenzie:Healing After Unimaginable Loss

• Tony Mantor

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Jason McKenzie shares his heart-wrenching journey through grief after losing his wife to suicide and his daughter to trauma-induced mental health struggles. His story reveals how childhood trauma ripples through generations and how he found healing through sobriety, purposeful grief work, and helping others.

• Lost his police officer wife to suicide after years battling mental health issues stemming from childhood trauma
• Daughters were just six and five when their mother died, causing deep trauma despite their young age
• Developed a four-year drinking problem while trying to appear like he "had it together"
• Experienced breakthrough moment when his nine-year-old daughter said "I'm disappointed in you"
• Lost his 19-year-old daughter to a car accident related to mental health struggles
• Discovered that many mental health issues stem from unprocessed childhood trauma
• Creates TikTok videos about grief that have reached 40 million views and helped prevent suicides
• Uses somatic experiencing therapy to process grief through body awareness
• Writing a book called "Man Down" about grief specifically targeted to men
• Emphasizes the power of intentional language in shaping our experience of grief
• Practices positive reframing: "I can be grateful for 19 years with her because it's better than zero"
• Believes healing comes through facing what seems unfaceable and sitting with difficult emotions

Contact Jason through TonyMantor.com if you'd like to share your story on Why Not Me? The World podcast.


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intro/outro music bed written by T. Wild
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Speaker 1:

Welcome to why Not Me? The World Podcast, hosted by Tony Mantor, broadcasting from Music City, usa, nashville, tennessee. Join us as our guests tell us their stories. Some will make you laugh, some will make you cry. Their stories Some will make you laugh, some will make you cry. Real life people who will inspire and show that you are not alone in this world. Hopefully, you gain more awareness, acceptance and a better understanding for autism around the world. Hi, I'm Tony Mantor. Welcome to why Not Me? The World Humanity Over Handcuffs the Silent Crisis special event.

Speaker 1:

Joining us today is Jason McKenzie. He's here to share a profound moment of reckoning. After losing his wife to suicide and his daughter to mental health struggles, he faced a turning point four years later. A heavy day of drinking led to a heart-wrenching wake-up call from his nine-year-old daughter, who voiced her disappointment in him. In that moment, he saw a man consumed by fear, doubt and insecurity To become the strong, courageous and wise father his daughter respected. He knew he had to overcome and confront his inner demons. He's here to tell his heart-wrenching story with us and give us insight on his continuous work to overcome his grief. He has tremendous insights and a lot of great information. It's a true pleasure to have him join us today. Thanks for coming on.

Speaker 2:

My pleasure.

Speaker 1:

Yes, mine as well, If you could give us an overview on what you do.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think what got us into contact with each other was. So I own a couple businesses. One is a leadership and management consulting company so we do executive coaching, leadership training et cetera, and the other one is we run a mastermind group for dads who own businesses so we teach them how to be skills, to be better husbands and father and business owners and really fun, uplifting work. Actually, why we're talking is because I lost my wife to suicide and my daughter to a car accident. It was really a result of her mother's suicide. My daughter was just. It just shattered her soul and at the end of her life she was 19, but she was dealing with this the same trauma-induced mental health issues as her mom and ended up dying just over two years ago. Drinking and driving. She almost killed she was driving. She almost killed four other people. Just a freaking disaster. I just been talking a lot about grief and writing a book about grief and yeah, that's me talk a lot about grief and write a book about grief and yeah, that's me.

Speaker 1:

Wow, that must be just so hard to deal with. With that said, needless to say, it affects the family, affects you. How did you deal with it? Can you give us a little bit of insight on what you went through, going through these tragedies?

Speaker 2:

oh yeah, I mean the, the mental health aspect. I mean I think like I feel like a grief, you know, and the issues that drives. I mean I've been like I've been an addict, you know, after my wife's suicide and very little awareness of, you know, the relationship between trauma and mental health. You know, my wife was really interesting, actually she was a police officer. She suffered really bad childhood sexual abuse and the interesting thing is a lot of people who have adverse childhood experiences are called to these helping professions, right. So they sometimes they don't even really realize it, you know, and but that makes them more susceptible to trauma, so, uh. So the five years leading up to my wife's uh death were just unbelievable, like you know psych w psych wards, homeless shelters, rehab, like just crazy stuff. And you know, what was fascinating in a horrifying way was how our medical system pathologized her experience to the point of just basically drugging her into compliance and no one ever said, hey, what happened to you?

Speaker 2:

It was a long time afterwards where I was talking to a therapist friend of mine who has been working the the mental health space forever and I was talking about this experience and she goes. Cindy wasn't bipolar because she had a chemical imbalance. She was having emotionally driven responses to trauma and invalidating experiences, and she explained to me how that all worked and it was like man, that's pretty eye-opening, pretty eye-opening experience. Yeah, I mean so. Anyways, my point to that was you know, I'm not like a mental health expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I used to do a podcast called Mental Health Warriors.

Speaker 2:

I run a community for men dealing with mental health issues. I'm not doing that now, but I've actually been thinking about doing it again. Interestingly, in that community there was a couple hundred guys in there at one point and I would always talk to the guys that came in and every single one had trauma when they were basically a kid. Something terrible happened to them when they were a kid. Now they're in their 40s, 30s, 40s, 50s, so many of them don't see the thread that runs through their whole life because it happened all that time ago. What does that have to do with me being in my 50s and being an alcoholic or being like depressed or being like full on rage? You know? Just fascinating.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean, if you stop and think about it, we, as we grow up, we'll have something happen to us and then we'll completely push it down in the surface where it's not seen. And then five, 10, 15, 20 years later, whatever that timeframe may be, all of a sudden it just resurfaces. It can be from a smell, it can be from a song or anything that opens that trauma up, and then you're back into it again.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, Absolutely right. You know what for me like. So I had a when I, during my wife's you know, I mean trying to like that whole situation was just a frigging nightmare, trying to raise two kids and all this stuff and keep her alive. And so during that time I developed a huge drinking problem. Not even intentionally, but for me, being a typical guy, all I wanted people to see like what was important for me to project to the world was that I had my shit together. No one can have their shit together in a situation like that. It was a complete disaster. Every day I'm not going to talk about all the terrible things that are going on in my head and heart so I drank to make them go away without even thinking about it, Like it wasn't, like that was not an intentional strategy.

Speaker 2:

And then afterwards, after my wife died, I drank every day, a lot every day for four and a half years and I got remarried and everything and you know, and finally had like my you know, quote rock bottom moment or whatever, and about six months later I started to grieve my wife's death. So it was like five years after she died. Now that process. I didn't even know what was happening to me. I thought I was going crazy, actually. And my wife said you're grieving, you freaking idiot? Like, oh god, maybe I am, but what I realized afterwards is it never occurred to me, like not even a single time, that I was drinking to numb the pain for my wife's death, Because I thought I had put it behind me, whatever that even means, Like it never crossed my mind. And I was like afterwards I was like, oh my God, like I'm not a total idiot. You know, like God, there must be so many other people that are in this same situation, you know.

Speaker 1:

So how did you get away from that? What did you use for motivation to change your path? Did you have an idea or a plan to get away from that, so that you could actually finish your grieving and then get into living your life?

Speaker 2:

So what was interesting was, for whatever reason and I am super grateful about this, because I don't really understand the reason but as I was drinking, I was absolutely hating myself for what I was doing, because you're so caught up in this web of you're rationalizing it to yourself to try to make it make sense, but you know, you're bullshitting yourself at the same time and you're like it's just this jumble of terrible thoughts. And so, all the while pretending I got it all under control, and as I was getting close to the day that I quit, like I knew I was lying to myself, becoming more and more obvious. But the problem was I couldn't stop and I realized. So what happened was so my wife was starting, my new wife was starting to give me, like I would say, a hard time about her, like you know she's, like I'm not close to that, but I need you to know that this is not going to be my life. I remember thinking at the time I don't know who I'm going to choose, cause I I can't stop. So like, if she decides she's going to leave me, like I can't stop drinking. I've tried a million times, and which was also a horrible feeling, and then what ended up happening. So the last kind of thing I was clinging onto was that I'm a great dad, you know, because I was super involved with my kids and, like you know, I was like very present. I was never in like a you know, barfing my guts out drunk all around them. But you know, anyways, last sort of branch of rationalization that I was clinging on to with the death grip is I'm a great dad.

Speaker 2:

So on the day I quit, I was supposed to take my daughter to. We didn't do any of the things I promised her and she said afterwards you know, I'm sitting there drunk on the couch. And she said afterwards I'm disappointed in you. It doesn't happen to great parents, right? Like your nine-year-old doesn't tell your drunk ass that they're disappointed in you if you're a great parent. Like that's not how it works. And so, for whatever reason, that just shattered the. I just had this like moment of clarity for some reason, and I've never wanted to have a drink since. So thank God. Now the grief play, you know, manifested in other ways and stuff, but like we don't need to go down that little rabbit hole, but but yeah, so that creating that space, just man, it allowed again, it allowed me to grieve. It allowed me to start exploring like personal, like listening to some podcasts, exploring personal development, and I don't know just went down this and really that whole experience just altered the trajectory of my life, you know, in a pretty significant way.

Speaker 1:

And the bigger question is how did it affect your kids? You were going back and forth with what you was processing, while your kids had to go through that same grief and moving on. So how did that dynamic work?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's a great question. So, you know, for me I think this is something I talk about a lot when my wife killed herself, my kids were six and five, six and just turned five and I actually thought if she had to die, it's better that it happened when they were young. You know, it's the least. Worst option is that it happened when they're young because, dude, I had no idea about the devastating impact of childhood trauma at that age, like I just I thought I could love them to heal. It, honestly, was what I thought. It turns out. Of course, I found out, I don't know. It was basically the worst time, like it could happen, because that's the age where you're forming all your ideas of, like, safe attachment and like all this kind of stuff, right and so, um, you know, so I did not appreciate the impact that it had on them and I don't think they did either. And then with my daughter, that's what played up in her life.

Speaker 2:

Man is just like this, again, emotionally different responses to trauma. You know of her feeling like you know, I'm not good enough or worthy, because I was not worthy, I was not good enough for my mom to stick around and keep fighting for and now for my other daughter who's still with us. I mean, I've had to tell her their mother is dead and their sister is dead. She is doing the work, for sure, but she's just about to turn 20. Like, she can't even like wrap her head around For her. The trauma plays out in her life in a lot of ways, but she's not ready to address it yet. So she's doing great, she's going to school, but she's always in like fight or flight. She's got like she's got some like anxiety and it's obviously related to the horrible trauma she's experienced twice and we talk about that regularly, but right now she's. I'm not opening that can of worms, right now I can't do it, you know. I mean it's her journey man. You know, like she's, she knows we're here.

Speaker 1:

Now, how old were your daughters again? They were six and five. Six and five.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so my daughter who passed away was the older one.

Speaker 1:

So she was six. My younger daughter just turned five. Okay, so now your daughter, the one that unfortunately passed away. How old was she when that happened? She's 19.

Speaker 2:

She's 19. Actually, she's going to turn 20 next month.

Speaker 1:

Wow, so that was another tragedy that you had to go through. Wow, so that was another tragedy that you had to go through. Then add to it that your daughter had to go through it as well. So how did the both of you get through that?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean just with communication and love and compassion. I mean, the thing is, it's such a vastly different experience for both of us. She doesn't even remember her biological mom. The trauma still lives within her, like the loss, but she doesn't actually have any real memories of her mom, which is like traumatic in and of itself. And then with her sister, I think for both of us, like losing my wife was brutal, but it does not even compare, honestly, to losing my daughter.

Speaker 2:

You know, my wife's mental health issues are so bad that for so long that I had sort of like I don't know, like I had mentally prepared myself as much as one can that it might end this way in suicide. Like it was so bad I mean it's still when the cops she was a police officer too, but the cops showed up though you know it's a freaking, huge shock obviously, but in a way it was almost like a relief in some ways because, number one, her pain was over. Her pain was so inconsolable. Like it's just mental anguish. But also it was kind of like a relief for me, or what seemed like a relief at the time, because oh my god, this is what I thought at the time I could have a normal life again, like this is.

Speaker 2:

I'd learned a lot since then, but and then you know, from my daughter I think the pain is way worse. It's just so visceral because she's like of me. I let my daughter I mean. So I try to be very in an age appropriate way, without placing undue burden on my daughter. You know I'm very open and communicative, with intention, I would say, about like my grieving experience and putting words to it and stuff. And you know, and I invite her to talk about it, we have a wonderful relationship, but it's very hard for her too. She's afraid that if she opens the vault everything's going to just blow up. You know, and that's a real fear of a lot of people who have dealt with trauma or grieving. It's like if I give into this like wave of really intense emotions, I'm falling into a pit and I'm never getting out, but sometimes you just have to let it all out.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, sometimes you have to let it all out just so that you can get that opportunity to start over.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and it always the thing is, it always passes right, like, so you don't fall into a pit and never come out, but it feels like you are going to, and when you're barely hanging on, like for me, like, and just to raise an example, like me, I'm the breadwinner in the family, you know, and so I can't fall apart, man, Like you know, I got to keep moving forward somehow, even when I don't care about any of it, and you know, like, and I can barely function. Everybody's experience is super unique, but my point is is that you know you have to face it or else you'll never, ever move through it.

Speaker 1:

Well, everyone grieves differently and there is no right or wrong way. It's just how you deal with it and then, of course, how you deal with it as a family, so that you can move forward in life. Yeah that's right. So now I think you said she's going to college. Is that correct?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, she's in her first year of college.

Speaker 1:

So, with the pressure that comes with the first year of college, then you add the pressure that she's going through because of the loss of her sister. How is she handling that? I think she's doing all right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean she took a year off of college because there's no way she could have gone back like last year, like no way. But yeah, she's doing okay, Like pretty normal college experience, I think.

Speaker 1:

So, now that you've gone through some of the healing that you've processed, what are your plans now? Moving forward? Do you have any particular ones etched in stone? So what's going through your mind in deciphering what you need to do so that you can move forward in life?

Speaker 2:

Oh, I haven't come to grips with it. I mean I don't know how one can. I don't know if I would frame it like that. I mean I think it's that I'm moving through the experience with as much intention and purpose as I can. But having said that, like my, in this really bizarre way, my, the experience of losing my wife and the aftermath of that, like I was saying, set my life on a very different path, which actually led to me developing a whole hell of a lot of tools, skills. A lot of times, the best you can do is just not do things to make it worse, and there's an infinite number of things you can do to make it worse, and they can all seem incredibly tempting right in that moment. But for me, plans wise, I mean, yeah, again, I'm writing a book about grief romance. A couple of years ago I started.

Speaker 2:

I've never been on TikTok before, but I started TikTok because I've been in front of a camera a fair amount, no, but I'm just going to make some videos about grief and stuff. And it's crazy what's happened. I mean they've got like 40 million views. I've had five people actually reach out to me saying I was about to kill myself and I decided to keep fighting because of something I saw, or something that resonated with them in one of the videos I made. So I'm writing a book about grief for men. I'm publishing on Substack as I write, I just want to get it in many people's hands, and so that seems to be being called man down. I want to continue to find ways to make an impact in this space, but at the same time, I want to be cautious about not being surrounded by other people's grief all day long.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, one of the good things that you are doing right now is that you are talking about it. Sometimes, just having that ability to talk about it can relieve some of that stress so that you can cope some. Oh yeah, and then you add to it that you're writing a book to help people. So that's at least getting some of that emotions out for you. There's no instant gratification on writing a book or doing a blog, but the one thing that you can know is that you are helping people in many different ways.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's a good thing you're doing, so you just got to keep, as they say, one foot in front of the other and keep moving forward.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely Absolutely. And yeah, in some days, I think too is like I was talking to somebody about this the other day and they were saying that people have this idea of what moving forward means, you know. And so I was talking to somebody who lost somebody really close and he's like, yeah, some days I take it feels like I take two steps forward, and other days I take three steps back, and I'm like what, if you stop looking at it like that, that's not actually taking a step forward, taking a step back, it's just grief, man, some days are great and some days totally suck, like that's. You know, that doesn't mean you're doing something wrong or that you're regressing.

Speaker 1:

It's the process. They just think that if they don't have a good day every day, they think that they're falling backwards, and they're not. It's just getting through that emotional crisis at that point in time, so that way they can move forward. Some Just have to take it day by day, step by step, so that each day hopefully gets better.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

The main thing is to try and be as positive as we can, because when it comes to mental health, we can talk ourselves into having a very bad day.

Speaker 2:

Yes, absolutely, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

When that happens, you just have to find a way to talk yourself out of that bad day so that you can turn it around, so that at least you're having a better day by digging yourself out of what could have been a whole lot worse. That's right.

Speaker 2:

And yeah, I think you just said that really, really well. I just wrote a chapter in a book just the other day about this, about focusing on what you can control, and one of the things you can control is the words that you use to describe your experience. So the amount of people, man, who have said to me or commented on my TikTok to say things like you know, I lost my kid, I'm permanently broken, okay, well, you're speaking that truth into existence, right so? Or like the other things people say, like a lot well intention, obviously, but I mean like, oh, you know, no parent should have to lose a child, or that's so unfair.

Speaker 2:

Parents lose kids all the time, unfortunately. That's so true, it's a part of the human condition and it's not about fairness. It's about the fact that to live like some semblance of a meaningful and peaceful life, you have to be able to accept that anything can happen to anyone at any time. That's right. But if you start walking around labeling that happens to you like that is unfair, you're not strengthening yourself, you know, fortifying yourself at all.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's so true. Unfortunately, life is sometimes just not fair to us. Yeah, so what we have to do is find a way to justify things so that we can keep moving forward and taking steps to a better path, to feeling better about yourself and the situation that you find yourself in Absolutely.

Speaker 2:

I'll accept, yeah, and yeah, I totally agree. So I think we're like there's, we're immensely powerful, like in in. So the other thing, too, is, you know, one of the things I'm doing right now is somatic experiencing therapy, which is so incredibly helpful and interesting, but it's really about the idea that. So, for example, I'm almost too this is more like I'm not saying this as an arrogant way, it's actually quite the opposite, it's actually a hindrance, but sometimes I feel like I'm too knowledgeable about this for my own good. So when I go to see a therapist or something like they're not telling me anything I don't already know, right? So I got to the point where I was, you know, I stopped seeing a therapist and my, my wife was like you know, I really think you should see a therapist, and I'm like I don't want to talk about this anymore, though Like, like to a therapist, I understand what's happening, but I know I need to continue healing, like I know that for sure, anyways, for sure, anyways.

Speaker 2:

I went down this rabbit hole and I came across a podcast on something called somatic experiencing, which is learning how to developing your capacity to fully experience being human. So the idea is that when you have a, like I said, you get triggered or some kind of trauma response. It starts in your body right, and so somatic experiencing is really about literally being present. But they teach you like they teach you going through this therapy, guide you to how to be fully present and really understand the sensations and what's happening in your body and to be able to describe them, put words to them. It is wild how quickly a massive anxiety attack, for example, can just go away. It's freaking nuts. And then after that, the insights you have are just incredible.

Speaker 2:

I think for me, like I've been really committed to just turning over every stone on the path to healing. So you know, I've experimented with psychedelics, like all kinds of different things. You know, because it's a really curious person and I don't do anything in moderation, I go overboard on everything. So I had to actually like, after Chloe died it was like two months later I'm like I'm going to write a book on grief and blah, blah, blah. And then I started to write it and I realized I'm a wreck and I don't know jack about grief and I need to experience this a lot more to be in a position to be able to actually write about it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's a situation of where sometimes you think you know everything, but you don't yeah, pretty exactly. And then sometimes you don't think you know everything, but you don't.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, pretty exactly.

Speaker 1:

And then sometimes you don't think you know, but you do. Yeah, it's just living, it's just embracing what you can, kicking out the trash that you don't need around you and hopefully building a situation to where it's tolerable and you can keep moving forward. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So in closing, what would you like to tell people that might be going through some similar situations or have been it, but still haven't coped yet? What would you tell them, just so that they can kind of understand that it's not the end of the world. They can still survive and thrive and have a good life.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean, I think what I would tell them is a few things. Like grief is an intensely personal experience there's no playbook or program for it that the only way to heal is to face what seems unfaceable, to just sit with the misery, you know, and knowing that it won't kill you. But it's the only way to heal. And I think too, like I'm really passionate about this idea of like, understanding what's in your control and using words to the incredible power of the words we use, the words, languages, metaphor we use. They don't describe our reality, they define it. So be really intentional about the things that you say. Like, again, I'm permanently broken, I'm this, I'm that, you know, like. So those are some of the things I think are really important to get across to people.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I agree, Because you can talk yourself into being as depressed or as happy as you want to be. You've just got to get that correct mindset. It's like the guy that goes out every day and if he's constantly complaining, he's constantly talking. He's actually just talking himself into worse things, Whereas if he looks at things, realizes that stuff happens in this world, you just deal with it. Then the next day hopefully is a little bit better and you just keep moving upward and just keep building to what you hopefully can be down the road.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely. And you know and I think that's also important, like I always tell people that one of the things that's in our control is how we choose to look at things. So I can I'm very typically quite good at positively reframing things Like I could say, okay, you know what I could feel ripped off for the rest of my life, that I didn't get to spend 70 years on this earth with Chloe. Or I could be grateful that I had 19 years with her, because it's better than zero.

Speaker 2:

I can do that a lot of the time, but when I'm crushed by a wave of grief, I can't do that in that moment. It's too painful, I miss her too badly. The thing is I know that when it passes I will be able to do it again, like to reframe it and feel grateful again. So you know, even the knowledge that it's possible for me to own how I think about it gets me through the moments when I can't. You know, it's almost like an anchor of some sort or a life, like a life buoy to hold on to. You know.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. Great thoughts. Well, this has been great Great conversation, great information. I really appreciate you taking the time to come on today. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely Enjoyed being here, nice, to meet you, and thanks so much.

Speaker 1:

The pleasure's all mine. Thanks again. Thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to listen to our show today. We hope that you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. If you know anyone that would like to tell us their story, send them to TonyMantorcom Contact then they can give us their information so one day they may be a guest on our show. One more thing we ask tell everyone everywhere about why Not Me, the world, the conversations we're having and the inspiration our guests give to everyone everywhere that you are not alone in this world.