Life After Suicide audiobook

I felt compelled to write this review in response to some of the negative reviews I've read about this book. As someone who has battle grief over the loss of a loved one, I found Dr. Ashton's book to be a breath of fresh air. She hits the nail on the head about the grieving process, so much so that there is little I could change or add. My loss was not a result of suicide, but cancer at age 38. Left with 2 & 4 year old daughters, I can totally relate to her journey (albeit suicide makes that journey so much harder). If you or someone you know is struggling with the grieving process, especially as a result of suicide, I would highly recommend this book! You're not alone!!And to all those 1 star reviewers...get over the fact the Jennifer Ashton is a celebrity, she a human first. I applaud her for sharing her story.

My friends were a little concerned when I began reading Dr. Jennifer Ashton's book "Life After Suicide" not long before doing an annual awareness event I do around the subject of violence prevention that I had recently announced to be my final event after 30 years. Truthfully, I found it strangely comforting to read a book on a subject that largely initiated my event 30 years ago...the suicide of my wife and subsequent death of our newborn daughter. I didn't finish "Life After Suicide" until the day after my event, a day that marked having ridden 190 by wheelchair in 4 days on behalf of homicide victims. I was tired, emotional, and yet ready to immerse myself in similarly difficult emotions and authentic grief. It was almost inevitable that "Life After Suicide" would get its share of haters, some with legit concerns and others intimidated by Ashton's unique literary voice. My rule of activism? If you're not getting some hate, then you're probably not taking the risks necessary to be a true activist. "Life After Suicide" is one more tool in the toolbox for survivors of suicide, a book that will speak to many survivors and yet will feel a little too "privileged" for other survivors. Ashton continues to fight for "optimism," a personal recognition that the wonderful things in her life are what will define her rather than this one single tragedy in a life that has been otherwise pretty darn close to everything she wanted it to be. I found the first half of "Life After Suicide," in particular, to be brimming with authenticity and honesty and little tidbits that were of immense value for survivors of suicide. Ashton writes with great detail, detail that may grow tiresome for those who've never experienced the death by suicide of a loved one but detail that will resonate for those who've experienced it because it so precisely documents the experiences, triggers, and intimate aspects of dealing with surviving suicide. While the majority of "Life After Suicide" is centered around the experience of Ashton and her family/friends, she weaves into the fabric of her book the experiences of others she's encountered along the way. As a survivor of suicide myself, I can affirm that once you open yourself up to healing you begin to encounter a wider, informal and formal community of sorts of people who've had similar experiences. It seemed like the branching out into additional testimonies may have been an attempt more richly humanize the book given that Ashton's own life experiences are clearly different from that of your ordinary average joe. I'm not sure the effort is entirely successful. While certain of the stories are beneficial, there are times they are so "factual" that they sort of sabotage the book's overall tone. Rather than broadening the perspective, at times they reinforce that Ashton's writing is from a more "privileged" perspective. While there's privilege in Ashton's writing, I think Ashton does a pretty good job of stressing that suicide impacts people across all works of life. She can't, at least not with any honesty, change her perspective. She lives a life many of us don't live as a Chief Medical Correspondent for Good Morning America and ABC and also as a physician. While she projects herself as someone who "needs" to work financially, there's little denying that Ashton's life won't be identifiable for many reading "Life After Suicide." That doesn't change the value of Ashton's story and it doesn't change this material. If anything, I think there are times it enhances it. I do think there are times Ashton could have enhanced her material by broadening the perspective of her advice. For example, it's wonderful to recommend therapy/counseling following suicide, but Ashton can easily afford it and can obviously afford a therapist who will respond after hours. That's not the experience of more working class Americans, for whom affordable mental health support is rare and at times non-existent. Your average mental health center therapist will most certainly NOT be accessible after hours, while several of the coping skills here, like "Soulcycle," are about as privileged as you can get and certainly not accessible to everyone. While it's wonderful Ashton had these and they are viable options for certain people, I think "Life After Suicide" would have been more effective had it taken care to consciously provide options for low and middle-income Americans. Overall, however, I still believe "Life After Suicide" to be a valuable, well written, authentic, and important tool for the toolbox for those who experience suicide. I'd consider it a good but not great book, a book written from a certain perspective by a writer whose life has shifted as a result of her own experience with surviving suicide. I don't believe a 1-star review of this book is in anyway appropriate - there's simply too much valuable information here. However, I certainly agree with opinions that at times it's obvious that Ashton writes from perspective and, maybe more obviously, she writes with her walls still up and her defenses still high from past experience with the "haters." On a personal note, as someone who regularly speaks out about my own life experiences there's simply no question the "haters" are very real. After a while, you simply learn to ignore them and move forward. So, Bravo to Dr. Ashton for writing a difficult but important book. While her own life experiences may not resemble my own, our experiences with loss, grief, and everything that follows are similar and I found myself occasionally tearful, frequently moved, and occasionally getting ideas from "Life After Suicide."

I cried so much! Good message. I love the open conversation about suicide, and the openness of the reality of the impact on suicide survivors. Jennifer Ashton doesn't glorify suicide (like 13 Reasons Why, for instance) but instead discusses it from every angle, with compassion and love. A great read, if you can handle it. It's heavy, and if you are very sensitive to painful suicide stories, you may want to pass. If you CAN handle it, grab the tissues. You'll need them.