Your browser does not support this video Ashtabula residents Catherine Focht-Phipps (left) and Pauline Jensen are sisters who both died by suicide just a few years apart. [Cheryl Throop] Ashtabula residents Catherine Focht-Phipps (left) and Pauline Jensen are sisters who both died by suicide just a few years apart. [Cheryl Throop]

Ashtabula County resident Cheryl Throop wishes she could go back and have deeper conversations with her two daughters, who both died by suicide.

Pauline Jenson, who suffered from anxiety, died in 2011 at the age of 41. Then five years later, Throop's daughter Cathy Focht-Phipps took her life when she was 43 years old.

Throop talked about how Pauline attempted to take her life before, but the family thought she had moved past thoughts of suicide.

Your browser does not support this video Ashtabula resident Cheryl Throop was devastated by the loss of two daughters by suicide, but initially resisted seeking help with her grief because of the stigma around suicide. Ashtabula resident Cheryl Throop was devastated by the loss of two daughters by suicide, but initially resisted seeking help with her grief because of the stigma around suicide.

Throop's other daughter, Cathy, was outgoing and was often the life of the party, but she had a history of drug addiction and fell into depression because of problems in her marriage, said her mother.

A week before Cathy took her life there were signs that, in retrospect, Throop thinks she may have missed. She described one scene in specific that sticks with her to today.

“She was doing some weeding for me and she just seemed so sad. I asked her and she said, ‘I’m alright I’m just having a bum day.’ I should have just sat and talked to her [but] I went back in the house.”

Although she wishes she could turn back time, Throop says she knows that is not possible. She struggled for many years trying to understand why this happened to her daughters and what she could have done differently.

After her daughters' deaths, Throop said she felt isolated in her grief. Many of her friends didn't quite know what to say and there was an awkwardness to their conversations, she said.

"Nobody mentions the name anymore. It's like they didn't live. It's like you didn't have that child. They just don't say anything. Everybody backs off from you." Cheryl Throop

Initially Throop resisted seeking help with her grief because of the stigma around suicide.

“One time this woman said, ‘I didn't realize you lost a daughter,’ and then she asked how and I didn’t know what to say. Then I said suicide, but not a normal suicide. What is a normal suicide? In my mind I didn't want anyone to think badly of her,” Throop said.

Throop says now she knows better. She has also found help to cope with grief through a local support group, at the Heart Beat Community Counseling Center.

“And I was deep in my sorrow so I kept pushing them off, but they kept calling me. Maybe it was about six months or longer. And it was the best thing I ever did,” she said.

She tried traditional counseling but that didn't work for her. At the counseling center Throop meets regularly with a loss group and this is helping her cope, she said.

"There are moments you cry. And then there are moments you can help some other person get through it. That's what it's about," Throop said.

Ashtabula needs more programs like Heart Beat, she said.

Suicidologist Frank Campbell agrees. Rural communities like Ashtabula need more resources to help survivors of loss and to intervene with people who have alcohol, drug and gambling dependencies.

Cheryl Throop listens as suicidologist Frank Campbell talks about strategies to help people considering suicide. [Mary Fecteau / ideastream] Cheryl Throop listens as suicidologist Frank Campbell talks about strategies to help people considering suicide. [Mary Fecteau / ideastream]

Campbell is a huge advocate of better training for the medical community on how to help people who are considering suicide. Too often people who are taken to a hospital with thoughts of suicide are not immediately connected to mental health services, he said.

"Over 10 million people every year think about suicide. Forty seven thousand die by suicide. That's an enormous gap. And we can help them put a rail around that Grand Canyon called suicide," he said.

In addition to better training for professionals, and more counseling for survivors, rural areas also need to regain something that used to be a hallmark in small communities. Campbell explains that a sense of connectedness has been lost in rural communities.

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Rebuilding that community connectedness would be Campbell's number one prescription for preventing suicides.