One of the amazing connections and opportunities to share Maddy’s life and what we learned came out of the Convening held in July 2024. Dr. Igor Galynker, one of the experts who presented his theory of the Narrative Crisis Model and Suicide Crisis Syndrome, asked if I would consider presenting at the 2025 American Psychiatric Association conference in Los Angeles in May 2025.
He had been developing a proposal for a unique session with fathers in mind and wanted me to join their group. I agreed and, when the proposal was accepted, met the three other fathers he had asked to join. We began to prepare for the conference and started to get to know one another, and shared what happened to each of our children. We all agreed that we wanted to support each other through what might be a very challenging event.
And what we learned was challenging. The conference hosts over 10,000 psychiatrists, psychologists, and other mental health professionals, in addition to media representation. We also learned that bringing people with lived experience to talk to APA members was highly unusual. To add to that, on the day of the event, we learned that our expectations of 20-50 audience members were blown away as our session room had been changed to accommodate up to 500 people!
Fortunately, our small group of fathers and Dr. Galynker were prepared. Dr. Galynker offered to protect us if anything was too hard, and best of all, from my perspective, Jordana was there at every step to help me prepare and to support me on the day of the event. Here are the fathers from left to right: myself, Fred from Chicago, Lorence from Dallas, and Rob from Denver.
And, it turned out, more than 250 people who came to the 90 minute session to learn about “A Father’s Experience: the myth of suicidal ideation.” Dr. Galynker introduced his model, and treatment approach, and discussed his institute at Mt. Sinai for research and training in about 35 minutes. After that, each of us fathers spoke for 10 minutes or so before a Q & A from the audience. The picture below gives you a sense of the audience.
Speaking was an emotional and powerful experience for me. It felt so right to do that for Maddy and to help protect other families. Each of us had a slide of pictures to show our loved one while we spoke.
Finally, the session was over - or almost. Quite a few audience members came up to speak to each of us, including a NY Times reporter that I believe will be following up as well as doctors from the Marines, private practice, and from Stanford University. Lots of impact - including an interview with Psychiatric Times, and magazine that speaks to and for the profession. A reporter and video team interviewed us right after the session and just published this video and story. The video is an interview with all of us.
All of this happened on May 17th, just two days after the day that marks 4 years since Maddy’s death. Perhaps fitting, but also heartbreaking and impactful. We hope that this kind of event and impact on people will create more ripples and help to save others. It feels as if it will.
With love,
Oliver