Susan Burton Quotes

No one could save me from the grief of losing my child or losing my first marriage. I had to do that on my own.

I've done what I could as far as getting physically healthy after my knee injury, and I've done what I could to get mentally healthy after losing my husband.

We know the Victorian way of dealing with death, which was not dealing with it. You'll never get over it but having the support of a counsellor who has been there hundreds of times is so important, to help you develop strategies to cope.

In some cases, some people do get depressed in the middle of their grief, and they really need to be treated for depression.

For anyone going through a divorce or any other painful challenge, the first and most important recommendation I can make is to find some kind of spiritual and emotional support.

The only real experiences I've had with therapists were the ones who were working with me and my family when my mother was ill.

Suicide is not an answer, it's destruction.

Teenagers too often have to deal with loss and death. You had to cope with the untimely death of your brother; how can young people deal with such tragedies?

When we're suffering, we kind of have this notion that we kind of should stop living and we should just focus on his how to 'get over it,' how to just 'get to the other side.'

I know from experience that one of the first things to drop off during great transitions, such as dealing with grief or loss, is taking care of our bodies.

For many people who face anxieties, depression, trauma or grief that dominate their lives, a vital source of support may be a counsellor or psychotherapist.

It would have been great if there were a trauma center located in our community, where you could access grief counseling and be able to address it in a healthy manner.

Suicide carries in its aftermath a level of confusion and devastation that is, for the most part, beyond description.

Hold on ... Say your son or daughter has just gotten killed in a car accident and you're plastered out of your mind at 3 a.m. Are you going to be able to handle that?

I lost my partner [Anselmo Feleppa] to HIV then it took about three years to grieve; then after that I lost my mother. I felt almost like I was cursed.

I simply cannot understand how any parent could kill themselves.

One of my friends committed suicide when I was in high school, and it's the most tragic thing anybody can go through.

Some widowers are bereaved -- others, relieved.

Even a 30-year-old man whose wife dies is eleven times more likely to commit suicide than a 30-year-old man whose wife is living. At age 30, when men can bury themselves in their jobs and are physically and financially attractive to women, the loss of the one woman a man loves is so devastating it is often not softened even by the opportunities for many women... in brief, it is the loss of love that devastates men.

There are psychological repercussions to illness and we need a little more help to get through the effects not only on the afflicted but on the family. And I think there's even a place for humor in that.

I did not realize how broken I was until I saw how broken Mama was.

When you go through a long illness, certainly one of cancer, there's a certain release from it and relief that it has come to an end, because the suffering can be unbearable, as opposed to an abrupt stop to life when they go out the door and there's a loved one who never comes home because of some accident.

In my experience, divorce takes you out for about 10 years, but you hear people talk about it lightly. The same with depression. You only have to have one good breakdown before you realize you need help. It's pretty frightening.

I know some people that have gone through serious struggles. People that were close to me, and I've seen some terrible things about people who lose it. So I think that type of pain is something that's human and that, actually, can help us look at ourselves a little bit.

I have been touched by extreme violence, and I have been robbed of the life I always wanted by someone who chose to do evil.