Mourning Johanna: Family turning tragedy into action

The North East Suicide Prevention Network invites friends and family members who have lost loved ones to suicide to honour those people on World Suicide Prevention Day, Sept. 10.

On Aug. 31, 2012, Devin Shyminsky lost his wife Johanna De Longhi to suicide. She was only 26.

De Longhi had been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder three years prior. The severe mental illness is characterized by unstable moods, behaviour and relationships.

“I realized after she died that she was a lot better at hiding her own feelings and moods than I realized,” Shyminsky said.

De Longhi was an inquisitive young woman who loved nature and shared a strong interest in science fiction — especially Star Trek — with her husband.

Shyminsky said she managed to hide her personal struggles in public, but suffered deeply from her mental illness in private.

“She would just hide from the world some days,” he said.

After she died Shyminsky said he started to look back on the warning signs, and was hard on himself in his grief.

He later learned that when a loved one has suicidal thoughts, it's common for their friends and family to either miss them, dismiss them or avoid them entirely.

“I don't think I avoided them, but I definitely missed them,” he said.

While he said he now regrets doing so, after she died, he read her diary to see if he could gain some insight into her thoughts.

“She wrote in her journal (around two years before her death) that she wanted to kill herself, but she owed it to me and her parents to keep on going,” Shyminsky said, unable to hold back his tears.

After De Longhi's death, he began attending monthly meetings with the Waterloo Suicide Prevention Council, where he lived at the time.

The meetings became the highlight of his calendar, he said, and gave him a chance to meet other people who had lost loved ones to suicide, a chance to share his grief with others who understood it.

Shyminsky's parents came down from Sudbury to be with him for the month after Johanna died.

When she returned to Sudbury, his mother, Cindy Shyminsky, said she wasn't able to find a local support group, like the one that helped her son recover in Kitchener-Waterloo.

“There was no support group of any kind for people who have been bereaved by suicide,” she said.

In 2014, Cindy helped organize Sudbury's first World Suicide Prevention Day event.

Participants released butterflies to honour their loved ones.

Every day, around 11 Canadians die by suicide, but some 210 people make the attempt. It is one of the top 10 leading causes of death in Canada, and the rate has risen steadily over the past 60 years.

To continue the fight against suicide, the North East Suicide Prevention Network will host its second World Suicide Prevention Day event at the Katherine Bell Gazebo in Bell Park on Sept. 10.

The event starts at 5 p.m., and attendees can purchase a butterfly ahead of time that they can release that evening to honour a loved one.

Shyminsky said he will share his own story, and now that he is further along his recovery, can help others who have been through the same thing.

His mother said she is working to start a support group in Sudbury for suicide bereavement, and hopes to have it running by the fall.

For more information about the Suicide Prevention Day event, or to purchase a butterfly, email [email protected].