What if the story you believed your whole life wasn’t the whole truth?

In this episode of The Life Shift Podcast, writer and mental health advocate Lisa Sugarman shares the moment that changed everything — learning 35 years after her father's death that he had died by suicide. What followed was a second wave of grief, years of silence, and ultimately, a mission to help others feel less alone.

Lisa’s story is about truth, identity, grief, and the unexpected clarity that comes when we finally say the hard things out loud.

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About Lisa Sugarman:

Lisa Sugarman is an author, a nationally syndicated columnist, a 3x survivor of suicide loss, and a mental health advocate. She is a storyteller with the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), a crisis counselor with The Trevor Project, and the founder of The HelpHUB — a free, inclusive platform for mental health tools and crisis resources.

She also cohosts The Survivors Podcast, facilitates grief groups with Samaritans Southcoast in Boston, and contributes to the Mental Health Television Network. Her writing has appeared in Healthline Parenthood, Thrive Global, Psychology Today, The Washington Post, and more. She is the author of "How To Raise Perfectly Imperfect Kids And Be Ok With It," "Untying Parent Anxiety," and "LIFE: It Is What It Is."

Learn more about Lisa and The HelpHUB: https://www.thehelphub.co/

In this episode:

- What happened when Lisa discovered the truth about her father's death
- How grief changed shape when she lost her father a second time
- Reframing suicide as a mental illness
- The emotional impact of silence and secrets
- Lisa’s transformation into a mental health advocate

Chapters:

00:00 Intro
01:27 Lisa’s first experience of loss
14:20 Discovering the hidden truth
25:00 Reframing suicide and mental illness
33:00 Returning to memory with clarity
41:00 Becoming a mental health advocate
59:00 Final reflections

Keywords:

suicide loss survivor, Lisa Sugarman podcast, grief and identity, mental health advocate, hidden family secret, HelpHUB mental health, The Life Shift Podcast, storytelling and healing

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