John Brooks
Until my daughter, Casey's, suicide, I had been a senior financial executive in the broadcast and media industry. Since then I've turned to writing, mental health activism, suicide prevention and volunteer work with teenagers in Marin County, California. I also maintain a blog, www.parentingandattachment.com, to share my experience and educate other adoptive families about parenting and therapy techniques unique to children with attachment issues. I've appeared on the Dr. Phil Show, and my opinion pieces have been featured in the San Francisco Chronicle, Marin Independent Journal and on NPR-affiliate, KQED-FM. Casey's story has also appeared in San Francisco Magazine. I have also been featured on various local and regional radio shows throughout the country.
Articles:
Eight Years Later: My Five Stages Of Grief
The Swiss psychiatrist, Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, wrote in her 1969 book, On Death and Dying, about the various stages of grief that the bereaved know all too well. I’m sure many of us have heard this from our shrinks or bereavement groups. As I reflect back on the eight years since my 17-year-old daughter Casey’s suicide, my journey tracks remarkably closely to Kübler-Ross’ own writing working with the terminally ill. It all started one weekend in January, 2008. My wife Erika and I had a big fight with Casey over her mouthiness, rudeness and defiance. Parents fight with their teens, right? […]
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When an Adopted Daughter Takes her Own Life
We had a big fight with our 17-year-old daughter Casey that weekend in January, 2008 – yelling, crying, slamming doors, saying ugly things we didn’t really mean. A typical teenage power struggle. I left her in a puddle of tears in her room cursing me, practically counting the days until she went off to college that fall. She’d been accepted at Bennington College in Vermont and seemed to revel in the notion that she’d be free of us. I didn’t take it personally. Just another teen mouthing off at her parents, trying to get under their skin. We were actually […]
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Open to Hope is an online community offering inspirational stories of loss, hope and recovery. We believe hope is the bridge between loss and recovery.
